Ending adolescence: what might that mean for the Church?

Newt Gingrich made an interesting proposal recently.

The video focuses on policy, while the article in Business Week talks a little bit more about this history and effects of what Gingrich rightly labels as a “social experiment”. I’m not tremendously interested in social policy, but I would like to ask some questions about what such a proposal would mean for the American (perhaps Western) Church. I’ll quote from the Gingrich article.

In the U.S., this principle of direct transition from the world of childhood play to the world of adult work was clearly established at the time of the Revolutionary War. Benjamin Franklin was an example of this kind of young adulthood. At age 13, Franklin finished school in Boston, was apprenticed to his brother, a printer and publisher, and moved immediately into adulthood.

John Quincy Adams attended Leiden University in Holland at 13 and at 14 was employed as secretary and interpreter by the American Ambassador to Russia. At 16 he was secretary to the U.S. delegation during the negotiations with Britain that ended the Revolution.

Daniel Boone got his first rifle at 12, was an expert hunter at 13, and at 15 made a yearlong trek through the wilderness to begin his career as America’s most famous explorer. The list goes on and on.

We perhaps romanticize these figures too much, but imagine these figures in your youth groups. Bishop Joshua Soule, a great leader of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the early 19th century started preaching at 16, was a presiding elder (read district superintendent) at 23 and wrote the church’s constitution at 27. Imagine him in your campus ministry. Could our youth ministry ever look the same again if society took the abilities of young people seriously?

Adolescence was invented in the 19th century to enable middle-class families to keep their children out of sweatshops. But it has degenerated into a process of enforced boredom and age segregation that has produced one of the most destructive social arrangements in human history: consigning 13-year-old males to learning from 15-year-old males.

Most destructive… probably not. Pretty darn destructive, I think so. What might the consequences of age segregation be in our churches? Is our Sunday School curriculum and confirmation program engaging and challenging? Is there the opportunity for the young to begin to engage in serious theological reflection? Or could it better be described as “enforced boredom”? How would we structure our Christian education if under a social system that Gingrich describes? Could Confirmation take on a new (or renewed) meaning?

The costs of this social experiment have been horrendous. For the poor who most need to make money, learn seriously, and accumulate resources, adolescence has helped crush their future. By trapping poor people in bad schools, with no work opportunities and no culture of responsibility, we have left them in poverty, in gangs, in drugs, and in irresponsible sexual activity. As a result, we have ruined several generations of poor people who might have made it if we had provided a different model of being young.

And for too many middle-class and wealthier young Americans, adolescence has been an excuse to delay work, family, and achievement—and thus contribute less to their own well-being and that of their communities.

While I’ve thought about these ideas for quite some time, the relationship of adolescence and poverty is one that I hadn’t thought about until now. It seems to make sense, but I’ll have to think more about it. Is there a justice issue here tied up inextricably in the social location of young people?

His comment about middle-class and wealthier young Americans makes a lot of sense to me though. Is delaying responsibility really a good thing? Socially, it seems to be viewed as a good thing. How is the Church reinforcing that delay? Are we in the Church doing a good job at conveying the particularity of Christian marriage as a vocation that builds up the body of Christ? Likewise, are we telling and showing people that singleness and holy orders are noble callings as well? Often we seem reflect the society (that we created) and make marriage the default option, but only when it is convenient.

Now, I’ve been framing this discussion of the Church in terms of a change in society, but is that even necessary? Does the Church need to wait for society to change the way it perceives and treats young people in order to change its own practices and perceptions? Are we being good stewards of the gifts of the young in our churches? Are we giving the young meaningful opportunity to contribute to their faith communities? Is ministry something we do with the young or to the young?

Is it even possible for the Church to challenge this social arrangement in its own ranks? Do we think our God is big enough?