The Rise of the Youth Culture

PART II (Priorities)
Most people hold the view that the things they find most valuable and worth shaping one's life around are also worth handing down from generation to generation. Think about it, if someone comes up to you and says in all seriousness that the Earth is flat, you'd probably be a little bewildered and correct them. Now imagine if they held a view on a moral area such as cheating that you felt was clearly false and wrong in its very essence. You would probably try to persuade the other person to see the issue as you see it because "good" and "right" are always better than "bad" and "wrong." So we can say, then, that there are "secular" ideas and beliefs that most people would agree should be handed down.

Why do we hand things down? We value what is being handed down and want to see whatever is being handed down continue on through the future. Now, we certainly can correct false beliefs, like the example of the person that thinks the world is flat. It's more efficient to teach the correct or important beliefs at an earlier age, from the start, so to speak. When we accept this logic and this intuitive notion, the next step in our thoughts and actions become making education and formation of young people a priority; young people are still forming beliefs and gaining knowledge that they will decided to be true or false.

Society's focus shifts to youth, then. Everyone is trying to compete for young peoples' attention and loyalty to ideas. Consumerism tries to develop marketing strategies just for young people, television provides programming just to appeal to younger viewers, schools compete for students, sports teams use prestige to compete for youth. The list could go on because everyone wants buy in from young people because they want to secure their own future legacies.

The Church also "competes" for young people. We compete for their hearts and minds out of a belief that the prize is leading them to Christ (see my previous post for details about why evangelization is important). The Catholic Church (as does any other organized system of beliefs) feels strongly about sharing and handing on our faith and like I said above, it's easier to do when people are at an age that they're still in the early stages of forming their world view, rather than when they're already pretty set in their framework of looking at life. As a Church, we should and actually do continue to review our efforts to form young people in the ways of growing a relationship with Christ.

So where are we at with the end of Part II? The Church, if she really believes in Her number one priority, has to make youth a top priority, specifically faith formation for youth. What's the best way? We'll begin to address that one next round. Until then...

Wednesday, April 29, 2009