Trevor writes: > "This generation of school-age children is the first with no residual > memory, no image of church that they are rejecting - they have no > reference > points at all," Dr Powell said. > > IMO, it goes beyond the current generation of school-age children. The > children of the baby-boomers (the present 20 and early 30 > somethings), and > possibly the younger end of the Baby-Boomer age spectrum (the 40 and late > 30 somethings), do not have residual memories of church or of the > Christian > religion. The older Baby Boomers may have some residual memories, > put there > during their short periods of attendance at Sunday School in the > 1960s and > 1970s and/or attendance at school religious education sessions > (even though > the period of Sunday School attendance often was not complemented by a > corresponding family engagement in church life).
Certainly ten years ago when I was doing a guest lecture on Christian responses to family violence and said as an aside that 'of course, Christians don't believe in sex before marriage' I had to stop for about ten minutes to explain to the younger members of the class what I meant - it was total news to many of them. OTOH, there are many schools in Australia where volunteers still teach CRE and most schools try to work on an opt out rather than an opt in model, so a significant number of school aged children even now have a passing acquaintance with the basic teachings of Christianity. This is very different to having a residual image of church and actually rejecting it, but I suspect that what Ruth is talking about may have happened in the previous generation of school children, not this one. Judy -- "One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette." - Professor Charles P. Issawi Rev Judy Redman Uniting Church Chaplain University of New England Armidale 2351 ph: +61 2 6773 3739 fax: +61 2 6773 3749 web: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/ action for peace: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/links/peace.html email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
