Spitzer and the New Reality

I'm going to talk today about the trust between generations, and what youths need. Teens are looking for authenticity. They want adults (and a religion) that are real, honest, and down to earth. Tough order to fill? Yeahsureyoubetchya. Granted, television tried to become more authentic with reality shows, prime time game shows, and talk shows. Those worked pretty well, until they too became scripted and hackneyed. And the teens often don't feel they can turn to Christianity, for they've all seen the televangelists and the warped christian viewpoints that the media airs. Example: Yesterday CBS aired a segment on global warming and the evangelical response. On the one hand, they showed a young, twenty something who wrote a referendum about being environmentally conscious that he got signed by all the bigwigs in the Southern Baptist Conference. On the other hand, they showed a middle aged pastor (denomination unknown) saying that by responding to global warming, we're pandering to abortion and gay-right, because everybody knows that they want us to think it's just a population issue. Not exactly a rousing promo for Christianity. Or intellectuals, for that matter.

Where else can teens look for authenticity? Leaders? Politics? The Spitzer debacle proves undeniably that even so-called "moral crusaders" can be inauthentic and hypocritical. What else is left? Our teens are media saturated skeptics, used to looking for the hidden message and the underlying motivation. They see someone and automatically think: I hear what you're saying, but what do you really want from me?

So what can we, as adults and Christians, do to rectify what the world, the media, and what we have done to break the trust of our youth? There is no simple solution. The obvious place to start is to become real to your teens. Be honest. If you screw up, apologize and let them know. Be there for them, not because you want something, but because you want to. As Christians, it is important that we have moral and religious guidelines, but don't forget to have grace and mercy. It is easy to get caught up in the political stances of Christianity, but if we do that, we cannot forget to have more grace than we have judgement: Else we fall into the Spitzer trap and lose the respect of our teens. I'll come back to this idea of grace in a later post.

For now, remember that our teens aren't looking to us for perfection. They're looking for authenticity, stability, and certitude. They need to know that whatever might happen in their life, we will not forsake them. And if they know that we will not forsake them, how much more so then will they know that God will not forsake them. And that is the crux of the issue.