What would cause a young adult who was raised in the church and professed Christ as Savior walk away from his faith? Increasingly, polling indicates young adults, at the least, are compartmentalizing life to such a degree that faith and day-to-day life do not intersect.

Collegiate ministers and others studied in the realities of spiritual life at home and on the university campus lay the responsibility squarely at the feet of the parents and, by extension, the church.

“I get asked this question all the time,” responded Vicki Courtney of Austin, a best-selling author and speaker whose ministry reaches preteen and teenage girls and their mothers across the country. What she has come to find in her conversations with moms is a profound lack of scriptural instruction in the home and efforts to put God’s directives into terms a teenager can assimilate.

Lance Crowell, SBTC church ministries associate, said that lack of spiritual guidance in the home is evident. “Students are not prepared for the next step,” he said.

Parents of teenagers and young adults, he added, have been parenting their children in spiritual matters much in the same way as their parents and their parents before them. He said for the past few generations’ parents often abdicated their role as spiritual leaders in their homes and left that task to “the experts”—the Sunday School teachers and youth pastors.

A generation or two ago, he said, that still produced teens and young adults who were grounded in biblical morality and good citizenship but not necessarily regenerate faith. Sixty years ago and earlier, American society was largely homogeneous—most people went to church, professed a belief in God, and held to a common moral code within society.

Essentially, Crowell said, what was taught in the church was upheld in society. If the neighbors, teachers and other authority figures could be counted on to keep little Johnny in line, there was no sense of urgency in the home to undergird the teachings of the church and Bible; it was Sunday School’s task to do the latter.

But Crowell and his peers in youth and collegiate ministry say such attitudes have created a profound spiritual lethargy and, in some instances, antipathy toward religion and, specifically, Christianity in young adults. As the role of spiritual training has remained practically unchanged in American homes, American society has been convulsing with fundamental social and spiritual shifts that have left a generation of young people with no firm ground on which to stand.

A college freshman may (or may not) be able to recite the story of Jonah. But can he explain to a secular humanist or a relativist why the story matters?

WHERE RUBBER MEETS ROAD

University of Texas at Austin professor J. Budziszewski said most cannot. He said it is all well and good that young children be taught the stories of the Bible, but if they are never taught the deeper spiritual significance of those stories, then they enter adulthood and an ever-increasingly skeptical world armed with little more than the ability to spin a good yarn.

Budziszewski, professor of philosophy and government, has written extensively on the tradition of natural law (“Written on the Heart: The Case for Natural Law”) and books like “How to Stay Christian in College,” a primer Courtney and her husband have studied with two of their children before they left home for college. Their lone high school student, Hayden, will soon begin the study, Courtney said.

Budziszewski said the atmosphere on university campuses is profoundly anti-Christian but with the exception of a few outspoken professors, not confrontational.

“It is usually much, much more subtle.”

He said what new students will find on the college campus is practical atheism as opposed to theoretical atheism. The reasoning goes like this: Because the existence of God cannot be theoretically proved or disproved, God is irrelevant and has nothing to do with the day-to-day lives of people. Students and professors steeped in such thought are then free to compartmentalize their lives, developing a moral code that does not hold them accountable to anything or anyone beyond themselves.

Christians not grounded in their faith, connected with a church, and meeting regularly with fellow believers on campus can fall into the same trap.

The story of Abby Johnson is such an example. Not yet grounded in these areas as a freshman at Texas A&M University and somewhat naive with regard to the full scope of Planned Parenthood’s pro-abortion agenda, Johnson ultimately committed eight years of her life to the work of that organization until a life-changing experience drew her out and closer to God.

MENTORS, FRIENDS MATTER

“There is no such thing as a solitary Christian,” Budziszewski said. Christian youths leave home and instead of finding a new church, they think they can study God’s Word and worship him on their own. Such thinking, he said, is spiritually fatal.

Courtney said although she believed her children were raised in the way they should go before leaving for college out of state, they still needed to be held accountable to their faith. Before they left home, her two oldest children, Ryan and Paige, signed a contract drawn up by their parents. The agreement held the students to finding a church, maintaining a specified GPA, being involved in a weekly Bible study and establishing a close-knit group of friends who would hold them accountable in their new home.

“Spiritual growth is always in the context of a relationship,” said George Jacobus, pastor of collegiate ministries at Central Baptist Church in the Bryan-College Station area.

“One of the reasons students struggle is because they never find a place that feels like home to them.”

Adding to their list of excuses for not attending church, Jacobus said students are bombarded with so many things to do outside of class that the choices often take the place of church. Some will justify skipping Sunday services by becoming involved in a small group Bible study during the week.

That is not enough, contends Jacobus, Crowell, and Budziszewski. The importance of fellowship within the context of a church cannot be understated. Young adults’ spiritual development can even be retarded if they only spend time with their peers and forsake interaction with older, more mature believers, Jacobus argued, citing Ephesians 4 and Paul’s lauding of diverse gifts in the church as a means of individual maturity.

But the impetus for seeking Christian counsel and fellowship on campus begins at home, they contend.

As in previous generations, parents who don’t demonstrate their faith to their children in word and deed will ultimately produce young adults who question the relevance of God and Christianity. He said a buzzword among teens is “authenticity.” Students have not been taught a biblical ecclesiology; they don’t grasp the biblical mandate for the local church and its vital calling.

Students want to make a difference, Crowell added, but there are some moral inconsistencies. They speak out on the atrocities in Darfur. They raise money for mosquito netting in Africa to stop the spread of malaria. But they often silence themselves for the sake of the unborn.

Johnson’s choice to volunteer for Planned Parenthood exemplifies such thinking. Here was a compassionate young woman, he said, who wanted to make a difference and help people.

“Here’s the disconnect. The church is not making a difference in the world in their minds. The kids are disengaged,” Crowell said.

A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

It is the students’ worldview that is paramount is determining whether they will stand firm in their faith once they are on their own.

Crowell said scriptural literacy among students is atrocious. He said the problem is so severe many teens are unable or unwilling to take a stand on the exclusivity of Christ, the center point of a biblical worldview. To do so in a multicultural society is to say, directly or indirectly, that there is something wrong with the beliefs of their friends whose parents come from India, Pakistan, China, and Vietnam. Crowell said young adults balk at such a presumption.

Courtney, who did not become a Christian until she was a 21-year-old student at the University of Texas, said she sees such reasoning all the time. Even though she was not raised in the church, Courtney said she had a basic understanding of right and wrong. She was a self-described pro-choice feminist when she had an abortion at age 17 all the while feeling the conviction that there was something fundamentally immoral with the act.

She said she has heard students who claim to be Christians defend homosexuality and a woman’s “right to choose.” Even when she was an unbeliever, Courtney said, she knew such thinking was wrong.

“Parents need to get their bravery back and start engaging our kids with confidence.” Too many parents, Courtney added, shrink at the first sign of rolled eyes and disinterested sighs from their teens. But they must be taught not just to believe but “give them the ‘Why’ behind God’s standards.”

Budziszewski said parents shouldn’t be afraid to talk to their children. Even when it seems little more than a one-way conversation, he asserted, “They are listening.”

Children from an early age need to be taught to think critically and develop a biblical worldview. But the reality, Crowell said, is kids live in a world that is completely compartmentalized. That life is contradictory to biblical teaching. Christian faith should permeate every aspect of a believer’s life.

Courtney added that kids are often kept so busy with school and extracurricular activities that they are being taught “they can love Jesus on the side and still conform.”

Crowell said studies measuring the well-being of American families show the significance of everything from divorce to sitting down together at dinner on a regular basis. How much more so then would the influence be on families who have regular spiritual conversations and Bible study, he asked?

The kids, he said, need to see their parents being “authentic” with their faith.

“We need to teach our kids why we believe,” Crowell emphasized.

Courtney said parents can share their past mistakes with their children, within reason, and the impact those mistakes had on their spiritual lives. She has shared her experience with abortion and its emotional aftermath in an effort to emphasize to her children that actions have lifelong consequences.

But even parents who do all the right things can have kids who go astray, Jacobus warned.

“There is a lack of discipleship in church as a whole,” Jacobus said. “We are supposed to be investing in other people. There is a lack of that…. What type of people are we producing? What kind of people are we sending out?”

Teachers in the church need to be keenly aware of the spiritual preparedness of the students. A strong faith and biblical worldview will serve them well in the interim of getting connected to a body of believers in their new home.

Jacobus and Budziszewski emphasized the significant role a mentor can play in the life of a believer in the midst of monumental transitions. Such a person can encourage spiritual reflection and hold the student accountable to biblical truths. Budziszewski added that mentors sometimes tell us things we don’t want to hear but godly counsel won’t support bad habits and wrong decisions.

“We think saying ‘You’re fine’ is support,” he said. But truth, spoken in patience and love, can direct a person to a commitment to their true good.

And it is never too late for parents to engage their teenage children. For some though, Courtney said, it may need to begin with an apology.

Parents who feel convicted they have not lived up to the biblical mandate to train up their children should make that effort before their child leaves home. Courtney suggested taking the teen out for a special meal or cup of coffee and begin the conversation by saying, “I owe you a huge apology and I need your forgiveness for something.”

The parents can then admit their shortcomings in teaching and discipling their children. They can then commit to making that a part of their lives from that time forward.

“Sometimes just the humility of the parents touches the kids,” she said. “I guarantee you, deep down that kid is feeling cared for.”