Talking to your grown children about faith is a sobering experience. I have three of them—24, 20, and 19. We talk about faith a lot. On trout streams. After movies. At the dinner table. And every time we do, I walk away feeling my world tilt just a little.

Discuss the subject of faith very long, or very deeply, and you discover that your children’s ideas, their view of the world, their sense of priorities, is different . . . other . . . strange. Which may surprise you. Here, all along, you’ve thought that you’ve raised them up “in the way they should go.” Like me, you would like to believe that your love, wisdom, insights, convictions, and example have been the most significant influences in their young lives. Perhaps you have assumed that, apart from a few adolescent quibbles, they’ve adopted your faith and your viewpoints pretty much as a whole.

If that’s what you think, if that’s what you’d like to keep thinking, then limit your discussions with your children to a surface and polite level. Let them tell you what you want to hear. Whatever you do, do not probe or challenge or dig. If you insist, you might find that things are not as you thought.

Our children have grown up in a world that has profoundly influenced the way they see life. Their values have been shaped by that world. Like creatures with semi-permeable skins, they have absorbed lessons about life, categories for thinking, prejudices and preconceptions from all around them and incorporated those viewpoints into the way they perceive reality.

Allow me to make a few assertions about our children. (Perhaps yours are the exceptions to these general trends. If so, forgive me for disturbing your happy delusions.) Our children have a much more flexible attitude about right and wrong. The language they use, the humor they enjoy, the lifestyles they accept, the behaviors they yawn and weep over would give us hives. They do not see absolutes. They view our ethical notions as antiquated, rigid, and simplistic. Their ranking of “sin” is radically different: matters like abortion and homosexuality bother them little; world hunger and poverty are the real “evils.” Don’t believe me? Ask them. Then again . . .

Our children distrust authority. Not that they are rebelling (ala the 1960s). They are simply ignoring. They don’t trust systems, companies, governments, committees, and the people who have influence within them. They don’t acknowledge that such sources have anything of value to teach. They’ve been disappointed too many times. They don’t believe the evening news, they have no confidence in the latest policy, they listen with suspicion to the politician, the expert, the teacher, and preacher.

They are pluralistic. They have embraced the notion of “many paths.” They find the exclusive claims of Christianity embarrassing and judgmental. They are wide open to wisdom from all manner of sources but skeptical that any one source has greater wisdom than another.

Our children have little use for “church.” They are not impressed by our professional assemblies and musical productions and homiletical eloquence. They don’t get why church matters. They have no denominational allegiance and even less patience with church “issues.” They love meeting in small groups and having intimate discussions with others. But they question why they need the overhead of church to enjoy that.

There is more to be said about where our children are in their faith. Perhaps they are just going through a phase. Maybe they will grow out of the viewpoints that so perplex us. We can hope.

But I do believe our children give us a wonderful window onto our culture. You don’t have to wander around, like Diogenes with his lantern, searching for some rare example of “postmodernity.” All the examples we need can be found right at home. That strangeness we encounter in the thinking of our children? That’s the impact of culture on them. That otherness we experience in their values and ethics and viewpoints? That’s the evidence that our children are as much the children of our times as they are our own.

And therein lies a wonderful opportunity for people of faith.

You see, in order to learn how to talk meaningfully to our world about our faith, we need do little more than learn to speak to our own children. As we pursue discussions of faith with them, as we listen to their concerns and try to understand their doubts, as we wrestle with their questions and attempt to find responses that are adequate and compelling, we are learning the language we need to speak to our culture about God. Our children are teaching us how to speak “faith” in today’s world.

And, because we care so much about them, we are motivated to learn a new language we need to speak beyond our children to the world. |L

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells