Each year, Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, publishes a list that is amusing and wildly popular. This year’s describes the background in which those entering college as first year students this fall grew up with. You can read the entire list at ww.beloit.edu/mindset/2016
While I have a serious reason I’ll get to in a minute, here are a couple of items from the list that are just fun.
No. 12 For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department.
No. 20 Exposed bra straps have always been a fashion statement, not a wardrobe malfunction to be corrected quietly by well-meaning friends.
No. 27 Outdated icons with images of floppy discs for “save,” a telephone for “phone,” and a snail mail envelope for “mail” have oddly decorated their tablets and smart phone screens.
No. 75 The Sistine Chapel ceiling has always been brighter and cleaner.
A sidebar in the Tuesday’s addition of the Commercial Appeal highlighted two I think are of particular importance for Christians. The first is a comment about Number 12 above. When they were born, Madeline Albright was the first female US Secretary of State. Women have held that position for most of the first year college students’ lives. That is contrasted with the long time Hollywood depiction of blondes as stupid, the Judy Holliday kind of character. That image, to some degree, has given way to men as the dumb ones. One of the exercises I give students when I teach a human sexuality class is to notice how many men in TV commercials are depicted as inept and less than the sharpest knife in the drawer. I get that “dumb and dumber” are meant to be funny, but what are we teaching the kids who watch these commercials about gender roles and adulthood? Hardly seems to be the message we as Christians would want to teach.
However, the far more troublesome thing mentioned in the sidebar was a comment by one of the people who compiles the list. Tom McBride is an English professor at Beloit. He points out that incoming first year students are much less likely than in the past to identify with a specific religion. “When I teach Shakespeare or Milton there are a lot of Biblical allusions, and I have to explain them all.” Where has this generation gone? Not to “Sunday School.”
According to the Barna Group, a group that studies religion in the US, the average number of adults in Protestant churches per Sunday is about 90. In the South, it’s closer to 100. With only about 20% of the US population in church each week, it’s easy to see why the level of Biblical knowledge is low. While good numbers are hard to come by, let’s be generous and say 20% of the people who attend church also attend Christian formation. That means in an average southern church, 20 are present, while 80 are not. Theoretically, Christian formation is the best place to learn about the Bible, our Faith, and more. How likely is it for a child to attend if the parents don’t. Not very. Not much of surprise then, that incoming college students are biblically ignorant.
Me? I find all this worrisome.
Peace, Jerry
It is worrisome because unless you consider several viewpoints, how can you make an intelligent choice about anything? I think it goes with an ever-shrinking attention span, an unwillingness to be still and ponder anything more than 30 seconds, and no desire to read anymore. I truly wonder how new generations will ever communicate with one another. but perhaps I am just showing my age!
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