The Effect of Postmodernism (4)

This is the last past of the survey……..

Who Is Their Real Family?

We recorded an overall 76% of the participants indicating that their real family is their school friends or friends in the youth group. 67% marked parents. Their youth pastor received 30% of the vote. 89% and 84% of the girls considered friends and parents their real family respectively whereas the average of 57% of the boys said so. Online friends registered a 21% among the boys as their real family whereas 21% of the girls took their pet as their real family.

When it comes to questions relating to their personal life and struggle an average of 24% said they don’t like what is going on at home; more so with boys than with girls – 36% of the boys as compared to 16% of the girls. The same percentage, that is 24%, said they cannot confide with their parents their fears and problems. Here we registered 21% for girls and 29% for boys. There were 7 youth out of 33, which is 21%, indicating that they are constantly angry with people. Well, at least there is one positive sign; no one has indicated that they are disappointed with God. Two honest guys indicated that they are struggling with pornography and masturbation, and one said that he didn’t really care much about what the bible teaches. He came to the youth basically for friendship. Four people said that they are in a relationship right now.

The Effects of Postmodernism (3)

This is my 3rd installment…….

What Is Their Media Diet?

In terms of music Hip-hop tops the list followed by Gospel Music, Jazz and Rock Music. A very high percentage enjoyed comedy followed by Reality Shows. It is worthwhile to note that 21% goes for violent movies and 30% like shows that has witches, warlords and the dark side! 21% goes for horror movies, 39% for Anime and Cartoon and 39% for fantasy movies.

Computer and internet are fast becoming so much a part of their world. The survey showed that 64% of them spend a significant amount of time on MSN chatting and net surfing. Blogging and computer games registered 39%. Just a little note here, the boys are into computer games more that the girls – 57% to 26% and the girls do blogging more than the boys – 53% to 21%.

We have recorded 79% of the girls hanging out with friends in the Mall more regularly than the boys which is only 43%. Overall 64% regularly go to the Mall to hang out with friends. Well the girls top in window shopping (58% compared to 29% for boys) and will go for branded goods (32% compared to 14% for boys).

Next, I wanted to gauge what were considered as very important that they cannot live without. That would give me some understanding about their preferences and what they hold dear. I intentionally included gadgets, entertainment as well as non-material things like relationship, parents and youth group.

Below is the table to show the results:

I can’t live without:
Computer Games – 15%
Hand-Phone – 55%
Online Chatting – 18%
Relationship – 30%
Firebrands – 52%
Music – 61%
Movies – 27%
TV Shows – 27%
My Parents – 67%

The Effects of Postmodernism (2)

Let me post another section of my analysis of my survey with the Firebrands.

What Best Describe What They Want?

The first thing I noticed is that 81% get inspired by stories whether it is done verbally or virtually because they can feel it better. 57% said that they are fine if what they need to hear is not in the form of story-telling, in fact, they don’t find it boring when they have to work with numbers, equations, laws, and formulas. Still it is interesting that almost half of the people finds it boring with numbers and formulas and prefer to learn through stories. It would be pivotal to take note how youth today learn. It seems that they are inspired by real life stories so maybe the idea of heroism; that which shows forth courage, bravery and character would inspire the younger generation a lot more. While a fairly large percentage of Christian teens still would go along with the straight-forward type of learning – formulas, concepts, and logic – the shift had taken place from just understanding in the mind to feeling it in the heart too! What does that say about our discipling and nurturing of our young today?

54% of the participants don’t particularly like to think too much and they prefer to experience the event. When I look at the percentage between the boys and the girls I found that the girls have lower percentage when it comes to thinking. The boys scored higher when it comes to thinking. The high percentage, which is 75% overall that preferred Reality Shows come from the majority of the female clan. The boys were 50-50 when it comes to Reality Shows. Again, it showed in the survey that a higher percentage of the girls don’t like educational talks on theories, reasons, logics, testing and observations. They endured it for the sake of examination and not as fun or pleasure.

The high percentage of Christian teens taking to Reality Shows gave us some indication that they prefer interactive rather than lecturing, and to be able to connect with what they are called to be involve in. Reality Shows has a way of engaging the audience personally. It is much more powerful than a drama which in some sense is able to touch the emotions. In Reality Shows, for example, American Idols, the audience is involved through voting for the contestants. Much of what we see in Reality Shows is emotionally charged. It has the ability to bring the Media to life.

Regarding spirituality I intentionally phrased the statement that had loving Jesus as well as other spiritual stuff like enjoying the mystical and the unknown. The result I get was that 74% of the girls said that they love Jesus as well as the mystical and the unknown whereas only 36% of the guys agreed. Overall we have a worrying 57% of Christian teens who loves the mystical and the unknown. My assumption would be that either they love stories like Lord of the Rings, Harry Porter, the X-files, and horror movies or they have a worldview that somehow do include the belief of the mystical and unknown. The Media has churned out computer games, animated shows and movies with spiritual theme, dualistic ideology of good versus evil, dark forces and occult theme that there are no more surprises. Our teenagers are totally exposed to the idea of the smorgasbord of truth and spirituality. In the part of the survey where I wanted to understand their worldview, 43% of the participants don’t believe in absolute truth. They said that truth is what we believe strongly about. 70% believes that they should make their own decision, that parents, adults or the school should not dictate how or who they choose as their friends, their lifestyle, and their preferences unless consulted or when they want their opinion. While the majority answered affirmatively about contemporary ethical issues like gay rights, abortion and assisted-killing as “unchristian” yet judging by the results they have a strong bend towards moral relativism. I will touch on this again when I come to discussing the result of the survey about their worldview.

Next, let me unpack their view regarding freedom; exploring this whole concept of freedom without the do’s and don’ts, expression of it without rules and boundaries, and randomness in thoughts, expression and actions. About 85% of the youths believed that there is a need for rules and boundaries. Some of them think otherwise. That’s a good sign that the youth in FGA Centre do understand that there can be no true freedom without restraint whatsoever. However, the next statement revealed something else. The statement: “If I love Jesus that’s important but that does not stop me from expressing myself in whatever way I choose to do.” The statement was to establish that the priority and importance of loving Jesus and freedom to do whatever one chooses are mutually exclusive. Here we saw that 40% of the youth said that it can be both!! The concern is that while the majority of them believed that freedom has some boundaries yet almost half of them thought that they can be devoted to Jesus and still do their own thing!!

The survey showed that more than 80% of the youths like being random – without definite aim, purpose, method, or adherence to a prior arrangement; in a haphazard way. I liken it to a person who loves complete freedom to think, feel, and speak without having to be rational, to be sequential in thoughts or to have any purpose or aim at all. This could account for the fact that they love to multi-task; listening to music, chatting on the internet, and trying to study at the same time. There is no definite plan to try to accomplish anything one at a time. Maybe that’s their understanding of freedom; no so much as without rules and regulations but without the cares and the stress of having to think through before speaking and expressing oneself. What does that tell us – youth pastors, educators, and parents? Doesn’t that sort of idea of randomness spring from relativism? Doesn’t that come from the emotional more than the mind?

Lastly, let us analyze the powerful medium, music, and its role in the lives of these youths. 73% of them believes that music helps them to get in touch with their feelings; can make them feel sad or happy, and can determine their emotional state. Only 37% thought that they didn’t need to rationally know how the visuals in the Music Video relate to the song. Now that is very interesting. I can see the interplay of rationalism on one side and randomness on the other. These 37% of the youths said they don’t really care about the lyrics and the visual as long as they can feel the song. So we have a situation of the majority of the youths believing that music is powerful and a fairly large percentage believing in the relationship between the lyrics, the visual and the music and that it must generally make sense to them.

Further in the survey I asked for the type of music genre they preferred and most of them said hip-hop and Gospel music. Hip-hop tops the list and is very much associated with the youth culture of rebellion, free expressive movements, and rap style of lyrics. When asked to list the top three favorite songs the survey showed that 95% of it is not church-based gospel or worship songs but songs from popular secular bands even though 70% said that they like gospel music.

The question that should be uppermost in our minds would be: How much is the message from the secular music world shaping and influencing the way our youth view life, church, faith, and reality?

The Effects of Postmodernism (1)

Well…I have finally finished my first draft of my major research project – “A Study of the Effect of Postmodernism on the Christian Teenagers age Between 13 – 19 in FGA Centre.” I want to give a big shout!! Finally. So looks like I will be able to graduate come November 13 – haha

Tell me what you think…just a little excerpts:

What Best Describe Their Worldview?

What was their idea of truth? The survey shows a rather worrying percentage of youths, to be exact 43%, believing that there is no absolute truth. To these people truth is what you believe strongly about. This is worrying because many of these teenagers would be going into tertiary education overseas in a few years time and they have no foundation for objective truths. Their faith is on shaky ground because without a firm belief in absolute truth there would be room for different shades of truth. When truth is relative then it follows that morality is what is espoused by the majority and not what ought to be.

In trying to extract some ideas about what they hold ethically and morally or in other words, to try to see how much of Christian truth is embedded into their worldview I asked them to tell me whether this statement is true or false. I gave them a rather tricky quiz. Basically the statement is “I believe Jesus is my Savior and I love Him but I also hold to the view that we are free to choose what we want to believe like gay rights, assisted killing, free sex and abortion.” More than 90% said that the statement is false. What that translates for us is that there is an agreement that being a Christian means holding onto a prescribed ethical law rather than the law of the jungle. The other thing to consider would be that loving Jesus and freedom to choose what we want to believe are mutually exclusive. There is a certain ethical stand required for a believer or for one who professed to love Jesus.

The question is: What signal are we getting from the answers given where 90% believed that some form of ethics is required as a Christian and yet there is a high percentage who don’t subscribed to the idea that there is absolute truth.? Are they related or are they separated?

Of all the survey statement the ones relating to authority is the most interesting yet the most important ones to seriously ponder as Christian educator, youth pastors, and parents. While 46% believed that Christian teenagers need to follow a set of rules that will guide their lifestyle in order to be genuine Christians, 70% said that it is ridiculous for the school authority to set rules on length of hair and uniform, 67% said we should question parents and church leaders about setting the standard of dressing, and 54% are not in favor of the limit set by those in authority to internet usage, movie and music, hanging out with friends and even the time to sleep. A high percentage of 70% believed that everyone has a right as an individual. Their individuality gives them the right to make their own decision in everything that comes their way. Ironically 61% said that parents should set the rules and teenager should listen and obey, of course with the freedom to question it. 70% said that parents, adults or the school should not dictate to how they choose their friends, interfere in their lifestyle and taste unless consulted or they want their opinion. Now that is telling!

Postmodernism is a reaction towards modernity. Modernity equals rationality, logics and reasoning, translated to rules, forms and conformity. Postmodernism is also a reaction towards status quo and therefore towards authority. Postmodern teens liked to believe that what is true for you may not be true for him. Inadvertently, they project that to also mean that they can choose and decide for themselves and that there is really no right or wrong way of doing things. With that we could see the tendency to want to decide, to go against the grain of authority that is seen to hinder, to block, or to curb their freedom of expression.

The whole notion that everything must be questioned; doubt being the essential element of truth, and uncertainty is an integral part of faith, we have slightly more than 50% of the youths agreeing to it. This idea of questioning and skepticism and the notion of no truth with a capital “T” formed the basic tenets of postmodernist idealism. So we do have a situation here at hand because quite a high percentage doubt that there is such a thing as objective truths and their assumption is that we need to question everything! So how do we help in shaping the believing teenager into having a biblical worldview that includes a belief in objective, absolute truth in Jesus Christ and that without faith it is impossible to please God?

I gave a couple of statements to probe their view regarding the meaning of life and faith. Well, a high 97% responded that there is meaning to life. How deep they understood the ramifications of it all is not solicited but at least they were all saying that there is life more than birth, study, work, death, and heaven. Perhaps that could be an indication of a certain measure of openness in wanting life to mean something, to do something that is worthwhile and significant. Perhaps life in the youth group does teach them that there is a plan and purpose of God for each individual within the community. I am assuming that this is true because 91% said that the church, which I take it to mean the youth group they are connected with, does meet their needs and does understand them. In fact, they also agreed that the sermons were relevant. While I had the intention to define church as the people who gathered each Sunday I am afraid the participants most probably take it to mean their youth meeting. So I am going on the assumption that they meant their youth meeting on Saturdays. 97% of the youths believed that Christians should be real and not fake their spirituality. They were saying that authenticity and honest faith must be seen within and without the church.

Get This Off My Chest

Well…here I am again thinking aloud. I will be finally graduating from Seminary this November. I still have a number of assignments to complete and some presentations over the next three weeks. I am happy that after 6 years of working and studying it is finally coming to an end. Some of my friends are happy that I made it. My son said that he’s happy too because whenever people asked him about my study he is kind of embarrased to say that he’s still haven’t graduated yet. Ha Ha

That aside, let me come to what I wanted to write. It’s 1.30 am now and I couldn’t sleep. I need to get to the train station before 7 am to go to Segamat for my weekend ministry. Here I am reflecting my journey for the last 6 years with seminary studies. This is what is going through my mind……

1. I found that after 6 years of study, reflecting deeply and critically on Theology, missions, and pastoral issues I found that I have had a major shift in my theological outlook of life, the church, and the world. I no longer could go along with many of the things that charismatic-pentecostal evangelical stands for. It is not that I have stop believing in the miraculous, speaking in tongues, and faith but I think I have moved on. Some things I have take time to reflect and go back to the very roots of christianity and found that it is rich but no longer hold dear in present day evangelical anymore.

2. My intense love for literature – christian literature, philosophy, and history has altered my worldview substantially and I find so much superficiality in our church today. People are not willing to go deep and explore. People are afraid of difficult questions. I have come to a place where I would do critical thinking and analysis on every sermon I hear and every book I read.

3. The 6 years of study caused me to get more frustrated with the church than I ever was before. I came to a conclusion that we have come to a point in our church history where we are “holding the fort for Jesus is coming back” and we are a need-oriented church. The credibility gap of the church and the world at large is so deep and wide. No matter what we say or how we say it we are irrelevant to the world today because we can never put our house in order. We are stuck in our worldview. We must not offend, we must be apolitical, we must be tolerant, accommodative and the worse is that we must BE SIMPLE because all those who come to church are simple people. Hello!! People are fed with information at a faster speed that 20 years ago. If the church don’t come up with any affirmative answer (without the spiritual dressing) our people are being “brainwash” through the tons of information coming through the internet!!

4. I found myself, after 6 years of study in the seminary and the numerous books on theology, philosophy, worldview study, missions, history, and pastoral studies, I have actually drifted away from the emotional, feel good, encounter God tradition that I came from to pursue the life of the mind – to develop a habit of the mind to think clearly and rationally on issues that affects me, the church, and the world.

Well….that’s me again thinking aloud. I could not longer take any good evangelical / pentecostal / charismatic spiritual or positive pronouncements without challenging their assumptions, their definition, and the ramifications of it all. For example, if you tell me that we are on a threshold of a breakthrough which is one of the favorite of all time in the charismatic brand of churches you will have to qualify it, explain it, and I need to know how you come to such a conclusion and what its ramifications would be to me.

Okay, okay…I am rumbling on now……