Posted on 10/11/2006 4:12:09 AM PDT by Alouette
Parents, community leaders share a joint responsibility in steering youth away from robotic commitment, to a life of meaningful choices
Kathryn Joyce Published: 10.11.06, 12:02
“This is war,” declared Ron Luce, author of the evangelical youth manifesto Battle Cry for a Generation and founder of the Teen Mania movement.
He was speaking to a stadium audience of young Christian activists who’d gathered for one of Luce’s high-gloss faith events, held across the country: Part rock concert, part altar-call confession and part anti-gay marriage rally - topped off with a large and unsettling militant call to arms.
“Jesus invites us to get into the action, telling us that the violent – the ‘forceful ones’ – will lay hold of the kingdom…You don’t have to know much about Jesus, just enough to surrender your whole life…Welcome to the reign of total submission to the Lord.”
Submission
Couched between pyrotechnics and war stories was the deeper message administered to the teens: That real rebellion was not to be found in acting out or independent thinking, but in full submission and obedience to Christ and his authorities on earth.
This is a counter-intuitive truism about radical obedience that has become a staple of fundamentalist Christian restoration movements whose strategy is to challenge the remnants of 60s-era individualism and self-determination.
Luce’s message has a blunter counterpart in the writing of Mary Pride, a self-described former feminist turned fundamentalist Christian who became one of the leading grassroots advocates for the conservative home-schooling movement in the mid-1980s with her book, The Way Home: Away from Feminism, Back to Reality.
The book is an anti-feminist instruction manual for restoring biblical, patriarchal, self-contained families which helped direct the energies of a ground-level Christian restoration movement.
And unlike earlier cultural revolutions which emphasized individualism and independence as the keys to social change, Pride promotes obedience to authority and tradition, and an utter submission to God that was displayed by knowing one’s place and keeping to it with the diligence of a soldier.
“Submission”, she writes, “has a military air.” Describing the proper biblical roles for husband and father, wife and mother, she explains the martial analogy.
“For the greater good, the soldier is subject to his commanding officer, even if he disagrees with him…This generation is in danger of forgetting that the Christian life is still a war…When the private is committed to the war, and is willing to subject his personal desires to the goal of winning, and is willing to follow the leader his Commander has put over him, that army stands a good chance of winning.”
Ranks of command
In this metaphor, and in the theology of the pro-natalist, large family movements which flourish within the home-schooling community, the rankings are as follows: God as Commander, the husband as God’s designated authority on earth and leader of the family, and his wife as a soldier beneath him.
The children, spoken of in scriptural metaphors as arrows filling their father’s quiver, are to be employed against the enemies of their parents - a sacrifice, but one made willingly by an army mobilized against a common enemy, raised and taught to place obedience to a higher goal above its own interests.
It’s this fervor of submission, obedience and self-sacrifice taken to the level of self-annihilation that informs youth fundamentalist movements across the religious spectrum, from the young Christian warriors of Ron Luce’s Battle Cry generation, to the Muslim adolescents recruited to serve as human weapons for a different system’s holy war.
Holy war
In his book, The Use and Abuse of Holy War, scholar of Islam James Turner Johnson suggests that historical differences between the Western and Muslim worlds have led to contrasting cultural positions on “holy war.”
The secularized West viewed wars fought on religious grounds as disheartening, while in Muslim countries, religious warfare is unifying for the culture, overriding secular differences between people now joined in submission to their God.
But among more constructive youth movements, service programs like Habitat for Humanity, activist organizations like Teen Peace and the Sierra Student Coalition, or inner-city outreaches like Homies Unidos, obedience as a virtue takes a second place to the development of individual consciences, informed activism and dedication to a goal.
Similarly, stadium rock shows for God are bypassed for the quieter, more adult lesson that social change takes time and work, not frenzied enthusiasm. And the focus on war as a cause that can bind youth together is traded in for a more thoughtful commitment to peace.
Parents and community leaders share a joint responsibility in steering our youth away from robotic commitment, to a life of more meaningful choices.
Kathryn Joyce is a writer living in New York City. Courtesy of the Common Ground News Service
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
I don't quite get the theme of the article, but I think Christians are a little more independent than "submission to Christ".
Talking about the youths of America, I remember a point made last week by a caller to Rush: that these wars against Islamofascists have - by their choice because they are volunteers - spawned a new generation of patriots. Which is a very good thing.
United Homies? LOL!
There is a Christian movement going on today where I have seen the submission to Christ attitude being taught in a couple churches. I haven't found anything not Biblical, but the fervor the members have is unusual to say the least.
The members must attend "cell meetings" each week as well as regular services at church. If you are acting up, or doing something considered non-Christian you are pulled aside and set straight by your cell leader.
I'm of a mind that I'd rather see these kids in that church, than smoking dope and committing crimes. But the other side is that they kind of appear cultish as well. I think it's just the unusual "taking under the wing" mindset of the members towards each other that more closely controls each others actions that is a bit spooky to many.
But yes they do "submit themselves to Christ".
I don't see Christian youths behaving like mindless, slogan-chanting leftist zombies, or as rampaging, seething Muslim beheaders.
Thanks for that info.
I guess in any human culture there will be the situations like you described.
Not optimal, but they aren't chopping off heads yet. Maybe they could get radical though and roll some pig heads into a mosque or have sex in a mosque... aw, to be young again :-)
Of course, liberals are hardly alone in their confusion on this topic. Conservatives attack the "atomistic individualism" of the enlightenment yet turn right around and attack "collectivism" in economics, calling for social Darwinism. Meanwhile actual fascists (contrary to the lefties at the IMDB board on Fountainhead and to American conservatives) attack Marxism for its "individualism" and call instead for an "organic," hierarchical, "vertical" collectivism.
And finally, anarchists on the Left prefer Mao and Stalin to their "brethren" on the Right, while Rightwing anarchists prefer Franco and Pinochet to Leftist anarchism.
There doesn't seem to be any consistency from anyone on the subject of "individualism."
How many people have these militant Christians blown up? Cut the heads off? Raped? Shot? Aborted? Stabbed? ...
I went to a Woman's Club meeting today at noon. This is National Domestic Violence Month and the speakers represented the local hospital, police dept., women's shelter, etc. I was really disgusted at the anti-male tone the speakers took. I am sorry that they have had a bad experience with men, but that is not a reason to paint all men with the ugly male brush. It was so bad I finally called them on it from the floor.
Oppression by males, oppression by whites...I doubt many people in the USA know what real oppression is.
And while I am on this subject...
I walked out of church recently when the Bishop's Pastoral Letter on Racism was read. I stood up and told the priest reading it that it was a POLITICAL STATEMENT and I would not be held hostage to that from the pulpit. I then bowed to the altar and left. Enough already. I never owned a slave and whatever my family may or may not have done 150 years ago is NOT my responsibility.
Kalee off her soapbox now.
As a matter of fact neither do I.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.