Parents play key role in faith transmission

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/03/2024 (480 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Is the next generation losing their religion? Dr. Joel Thiessen, a profeessor of sociology from Ambrose University said parental involvement is key in preventing that.

Thiessen spoke at the Steinbach Bible College last weekend as part of their leadership conference.

“Parents are the most important influence,” said Thiessen. “Church is certainly a helpful thing, but a lot of this comes down to what parents actually do within the home. Do they model the very thing they want their children to do? Do they actually go to church with their children or do they actually send their children on their own? Do they instruct about their religious faith in the home so that they’re actually teaching their children about core beliefs and practices.

“Are they talking about Christian faith within the home so that it’s a regular part of their daily life…That’s the number one take away…Parents are actually the most critical piece of what they’re doing within the home and connecting to churches by attending church and plugging into different community settings and such there.”

His presentation focused on four areas: a growing group of young people who say they have no religion and how their parents are raising them outside the Christian faith; millennials and younger demographics and the social world in which they live and how does that connect their approach to religion and spirituality; what happens in the home to pass on the faith; and finally the role of the church in faith transmission.

Young people who say they have no religion are the fastest growing group in Western society. Thiessen said these people been raised without a religion, parents are giving them a choice to participate in religion and they have chosen not to participate, and it’s more socially acceptable today to say you’re not religious than it was 50 years ago.

“Across the country, over a third of Canadians adults say that they have no religion and just over 40 percent of Canadian young people say they have no religion overall. So, it’s a pretty significant number, it has changed quite quickly. But there’s variation. These numbers are much lower in say Steinbach where it’s 21 percent in the Steinbach area versus 37 percent in the Winnipeg area. Your local context also matters for these kinds of things,” said Thiessen.

When it comes to social media and religion, Thiessen said religious people who use social media do so to express their faith and to reinforce that faith. Then you have those who are antagonistic to religion who share their thoughts largely in the comments sections of social media posts that have to do with religion.

And how are churches adapting in the modern world and are those who are adapting getting more parishioners than those that aren’t? Thiessen said there is a lot of variation on the Christian continuum. He said Conservative Protestant churches by and large are adapting by using modern forms of music, communications styles, and with the use of social media. He said some are “progressively adapting their theology to align with changing social and cultural values in society,” such as gender and sexuality. But he also said there are those who stay with traditional music, practices, and beliefs, which can be attractive to young parishioners who find it “refreshing” compared to their technology driven worlds.

“There’s different groups adapting, other groups not, and there’s not a universal right or wrong answer. There’s markers of flourishing in each of those contexts and there’s also distinctive challenges to each of those responses too,” he said.

Those churches that modernize tend to get more parishioners than those that don’t especially in Conservative Protestant churches. There are a few reasons for this: people who are leaving more traditional churches and looking for a more modern church; programming for children and youth especially in youth ministries; and immigration from the Southern hemisphere in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

But through it all, Thiessen said the main way to transmit religion to the next generation is through parents with the help of churches.

“Parents who are talking about religion, Christianity, with their children in an ongoing and natural way as part of their way of life. I would probably underscore that that’s a really important piece that comes alongside the modeling of faith and instructing about it and teaching about it and so forth,” he said.

“That is central and then churches coming along side and partnering with parents in this regard, equipping parents, providing ministry opportunities, leadership development opportunities with young people are some other things that…are important for folks to know…”