Adults and (the lack of) a Christian Worldview

Wow - a new survey recently released by George Barna indicates that only 5% of adults possess a Christian worldview. The article tells how he defines a Christian worldview. He states that only "one out of six adults claim that they make their moral choices based on the Bible."

"When asked whether they believe moral truth is based on absolute standards or is relative to the circumstances, Americans are divided into roughly equal segments. About one-third (35%) contends that moral truth is absolute – that is, it is not dependent upon the circumstances. Another one-third (32%) says that morality is always determined by the situation. The remaining one-third (33%) indicates that they do not know if moral truth is absolute or relative."

When does worldview develop? We know from historical wisdom and recent research that it is fairly well formed by age 13 or 14, even though it may not be able to be articulated well by a young person until late high school or college. What are the implications of this for educating children?

Faith Development of Children

Over the past two years, I have been developing language and materials around this subject within the context of educating students in a Christian school setting. If you are interested in viewing these resources you can access them at my website - www.hollandchristian.org/dbeerens. I have given multiple presentations and have enjoyed working with various schools as they consider how best to nurture the faith of their students. I would enjoy further dialogue on this topic.

Kids Today

Two recently released studies that were done on a large scale have been helpful to me in better understanding today's kids and how they are engaging in media and spirituality: one by the Kaiser Foundation of kids 8-18 and their use of media http://www.kff.org/entmedia/7250.cfm and the study of 13-17 year olds reported in the book Soul Searching by Smith and Denton (see previous entry). Their ongoing website is: http://www.youthandreligion.org/news. I recommend them to you!