Comments on: The Christian & the Business World #5: The Industrial Church Revolution, Part 2

By: The House of Degenhart » Its Fun To Stay At The…

The House of Degenhart » Its Fun To Stay At The… — Fri, 05 May 2006 01:14:16 +0000

[...] This is just a small snippet from a post by Dan Edelen on the rise of Youth Ministry as one of the Church’s responses to the disastrous effects of the Industrial Revolution on children: Youth ministry’s long-term effect has been to take a family already fractured by societal changes caused by business practices coined during the Industrial Revolution and fracture it even further. While there is no doubt that on a granular level youth ministry has been effective in the lives of individuals (I include myself here), studies by researchers like George Barna have shown that, on the whole, the net effect of youth ministry today has been negligible on the spiritual and emotional welfare of youth. Christian youth are so much like their peers who don’t aspire to any Christian leanings as to be virtually indistinguishable. This is further proven by the horrendous attrition rate among Christian young people once they hit college. The majority come out of college completely stripped of whatever Christian faith and practice they possessed going in. Obviously, one must ask why this is if youth ministry were truly equipping youth to withstand the barrages of our cultural death-throes. We must consider whether the youth ministry model that was initially developed more than a hundred and sixty years ago is still valid. [...]

By: Oengus Moonbones

Oengus Moonbones — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:48:00 +0000

Dan: ��no one in the Church in America is asking if the Industrial Revolution has a fundementally evil component that the Church swallowed without thinking.�

I guess it would be like what happened when the early 4th Century took the bait of an increasing alliance with the imperial Roman government�it seemed a good idea at the time, but, wow, what the consequences ended up being!

Ah, Yes, the YWCA. I should have known.

Your series is looking very interesting. You may have the starting material for a book. Of course, none of the big time Xtian publishers will touch it�not uplifting enough, no market for it.

By: Rick Creech

Rick Creech — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 22:48:00 +0000

This is an absolute great series of posts, I am beyond enjoying them. Thanks Dan, for the time you have put into writing and posting them.

By: Diane

Diane — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:27:00 +0000

Thanks for saying what I’ve also seen for the past 35 years as church youth minsitries have gotten more “program-centered” instead of Bible-centered. Also, you correctly defined the main problem—too much segregtion of age groups so teens are really being influenced and learning from other teens.
Have you perhaps read the book by Ann Douglas, “The Feminization of American Culture?” It is the watershed book on what happened to the church after the Industrial Revolution hit. YOu actually are saying many of the things Ms. Douglas says in her book.

By: Travis

Travis — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:23:00 +0000

Dan, this is really good stuff! Thanks for this series.

Out of curiosity, are you familiar with Patriarch Magazine? They’ve had similar “effects of the industrial revolution” articles in the past.