The Burden of Youth Culture

The adverse effects of teen culture’s rising influence in Western society.
 

With about 35 million in America already, teenagers make up our fastest-growing demographic. In a godly society, we would be applauding and encouraged by that statistic. God has always intended for children to be a blessing to their parents—like “olive plants” around the table (Psalms 128:3)—and to society (Proverbs 20:29; 1 Timothy 4:12).

In these latter days, however, prophecy points to our youth as being a burden on society. Instead of helping to build it up, our own offspring are tearing it down. Isaiah 3:12 describes our children as being “oppressors”—a word that means to tax, harass and tyrannize.

This prophecy in Isaiah 3 is being fulfilled in two ways, primarily. One is in the more literal sense of youth oppressing society by their rebellious disregard for adult authority. Look at verse 5: “… the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.” The pervasive attitude young people have toward their elders in Western society is one of rebellious disrespect. In the most extreme cases, it can become violent. Teens commit three times as many crimes as adults. Our prisons are filled with young people. This is not encouraging.

The other fulfillment of this prophecy is even deadlier than the most violent youth killer. It’s described in verse 4: “And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. God isn’t talking about children with respect to age necessarily, but rather the way adults are ruling: like children! Read the first three verses of Isaiah 3 and you will see all the qualities of leadership that have vanished from our society: vision, prudence, judgment, wisdom, honor and eloquence. God said these kinds of qualities would be practically extinct today. And it’s because, in far too many cases, our leaders—whether in the home, within education, or business, or in government—have degenerated to a child’s level of understanding. Instead of preparing our children for the responsibilities of adulthood, we, as adults, are acting like children.

Time magazine recently reported on a new phenomenon among youths—about how long it is taking them to transition into adulthood (January 24). “They’re not kids anymore,” the subtitle to the article says, “but they’re not adults either.” So what are they? According to Time, they’re twixters—men and women (or boys and girls?) between the ages of 18 and 25 who don’t want adult responsibility. Social scientists have noticed an increase in the number of young “adults” who still live with their parents and who have no clear goal or ambition in life. The number of 26-year-olds who live with their parents has nearly doubled since 1970 from 11 percent to 20.

A couple years ago, the American Psychiatric Association even went so far as to define the stage of adolescence as a period that extends from puberty to age 34—the time they believe most youths enter the independent stage of adulthood. What that means, as Tony Atherton brought out in the Ottawa Citizen, is that adolescence for today’s youth lasts about three times longer than it did in previous generations (March 19).

Granted, marrying at 18 is too young. But a 34-year-oldadolescent? Jesus Christ—the greatest teacher who ever lived—sacrificed His life for the world at age 33. What would He have thought about our immature, teen-dominated, sexually perverse, gross-out culture?

Even religion, the last place you would expect teens to dominate, is dumbing its message down to attract younger crowds. Here in Edmond, Okla. (where the Trumpet is headquartered), one evangelical minister surveyed the area and found potential church-goers fed up with how boring religious services had become. “So he designed Life Church to counter those preconceptions, with lively, multimedia-filled services in a setting that’s something between a rock concert and a coffee shop” (Business Week, May 23). According to the article, even as Protestant and Catholic denominations are seeing their congregants leave—especially young ones—evangelical megachurches are booming because they are adapting to “contemporary culture.” “Kids are often a prime target audience for megachurches. The main campus of [Craig] Groeschel’s Life Church in Edmond, Okla., includes a ‘Toon Town’ of 3d buildings, a 16-foot-high slide, and an animatronic police chief who recites rules. All the razzmatazz has helped Life Church quadruple its Sunday school attendance to more than 2,500 a week. ‘The kids are bringing their parents to church,’ says children’s pastor Scott Werner.”

Jesus Christ is not encouraged by this trend. Neither is He encouraged by the same trend extant in education, business and government.

In 1 Corinthians 13:11, the Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Today, instead of putting away childish things and preparing our own children for adulthood, we are letting youth culture educate us.

“It’s the commercial media entertainment economy at work,” wrote Danesi in Forever Young. “Age is now considered a disease. Youth sells. There’s a big emphasis on having it all: good living, keeping your youth, having as much fun as you can. It’s empty because there is no wisdom behind it.” Worse still, he goes on to explain, “It’s a cultural disease. And now we’re into the final silly stages.”