The Youth…

Beginning a few years back during my research into Sabbatarianism I noticed a deep and alarming issue within a lot of churches in the circles I frequented. Those issues being the growing disenfranchised feeling held by young people and their resulting exodus from their churches. This was also connected to the ever rising tide of anti-intellectualism, especially in the black churches. I talked to young people who felt stifled and couldn’t talk about the realities they face while adults stumbled fourth blindly at times to uphold “church traditions and Dogma”, usually centered around extrapolations from the teachings of the Christian Identity Movement and British Israelism. Uninspired with questions unanswered and no voice, they felt the church WAS NOT NOR IS NOT “THE PLACE OF SAFETY” it is supposed to be. Adults and clergy are then left dumbfounded when their young people left….and never came back. My questions are can you listen? Do you have the capacity to listen and give young people a safe place to talk without judgement? Do our young people know that before Europeans had any form of Christianity there was a vast Christian network in the East that stretched from East Africa through the Middle East and India into China? That for the 1800 years before the Seventh Day Adventist Church formed that this same network was largely Sabbath keeping? Based on the theology of “imitating God” through practicing love, compassion, social justice and loving your neighbor above yourself, I feel that if our young people AND OUR ADULTS really knew what our forefathers looked like they might have a better grasp of what their true purpose is and what realistic practices and expectations we should be striving for in our churches.

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