October 4, 2003

Small differences in analysis and in the use of theological sources can make for big differences in conclusions, even among friends like Homer Ashby and me, who share many of the same commitments. My criticism of “Living Faithfully” and of Ashby’s defense of it is that each falls short on social analysis and on the development of relevant Christian themes.

Are mainline churches capturing the imaginations of young people and leading them toward long-term commitments to the church? Or do they serve as revolving doors—leading one way into secularism and the other way into "hotter" forms of religiosity found in evangelicalism or non-Christian faiths? What defines a successful youth ministry?

Johnny Cash is considered a pioneer of “outlaw music,” yet even his secular compositions beat with a moral and religious heart. Cash’s childhood was stamped by country music and his mother’s devotion to the Pentecostal Church of God. When J. R. Cash was 12, several months after he accepted Christ, his older brother Jack—a preacher—was killed in a farming accident.

Youth culture in the U.S. is being reinvented every three years, according to Robert J. McCarty. Keeping up with youth culture is like mapping territory that is constantly changing, he says.

The current cohort of American teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 is lonely, spiritually hungry and intensely aware of the threat of violence. That’s the profile that emerges from a recent Gallup Youth Survey.

The Puritans were earnest folk. They had little patience with those who had no depth, no deep conviction, no profound concern with what God was doing in their lives. They wanted everyone to become a believer, of course—to assent to the reality of God and God’s providence, justice and compassion, and thus find a confidence for living in this precarious world. Those in drift could not do that; they were like a bug on a leaf in a river during a storm. They had no sense of where they were or where they were going.

In his critique of “Living Faithfully with Families in Transition” (June 28), a report submitted to the recent assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)—and sent back to committee for revision—Don Browning argues that the report fails to give practical guidance. He also charges that the report reflects an elitist denial of the negative social impact that uncommitted marriages and nonintact families have on children.

One of the most satisfying films of the year, Niki Caro's Whale Rider, is set in a small Maori village on New Zealand's eastern shore. The film begins with the juxtaposition of life and death, as a mother dies giving birth to twins. The male twin also dies, leaving the infant girl, Pai, as the sole survivor of this sad day. What makes her arrival all the more difficult for her family--especially her stern grandfather, Koro, the aging tribal chief--is that the dead grandson was prophesied to be the heir, the one who would lead the struggling tribe once Koro passed on.

With the premier of The Cordon at the Montreal World Film Festival in August, Serbian director Goran Markovic completed his trilogy on the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. Earlier films in the trilogy are Burlesque Tragedy, which won an award at the 1995 Montreal festival, and Serbia, Year Zero (2001). The Cordon, named best film of the festival by an international jury, tells a story of the impact of Milosevic's years in power.