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I'm a Religious Teen
"I spend my Sundays completely filled with church related activities."
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to this Commentary!
By Emily Greenwell
Moses said to the people… (on tape)
EMILY
This is how I spend my Sundays, completely filled with church related activities.
My friends have come to understand, and are used to my excuse, “Sorry, I have
church stuff to do.” You can imagine, lots of people think I’m kind of weird.
My classmate Andrew Barr would never say that, but he does have preconceptions
about Christian teens.
ANDREW (on tape)
I don’t know, I guess stereotypically…I guess a stereotypical religious teen
listens to Christian rock, like POD or something, and they definitely would
dress non-descriptly, like a normal teen, but maybe just a bit too normal?
EMILY
Maybe one stereotype is that we’re all too normal. But of course there’s more.
17-year-old Robert Reynolds doesn’t see Christians as very logical.
ROBERT (on tape)
I know a lot of Christians that don’t practice Christianity the way they should.
They say turn the other cheek, yet they support war. They say love thy neighbor,
and they bomb Afghanistan. They use God as an excuse, they say, “God is on our
side in America.”
EMILY
I’m not sure if I fit into any of these stereotypes. But I identify myself as
a religious teen, raised in the Episcopal Church. I spent many Sunday mornings
of my childhood sitting in church services and Sunday school classes. I was
baptized and confirmed, and when I was 14, my mom was ordained an Episcopal
Priest.
MOM (on tape)
This past week or so has been a most interesting time to be an Episcopalian.
I don’t think I can ever recall, as a life long Episcopalian, ever recall a
time when our relatively tiny, 2.5 million member denomination has made front-page
news several days in a row, all across the country….
EMILY
That’s my mom preaching during a Sunday morning service this summer, at the
height of the controversy around Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopalian
bishop. My mom is the Assistant Rector at St. Stephen’s in Belvedere, California.
She has to do a balancing act between her personal views and the way she responds
to our congregation. My mom says she’s actually in favor of gays and lesbians
serving in the church.
MOM (on tape)
But I also know that this is causing trouble for a lot of people, so for me
this is also a pastoral issue in terms of my own congregation. (4:40) As a priest
it is always my job to be sensitive to where other people are, and to put that
into conversation with my own feelings and hope that I am not bringing an agenda
to my ministry.
EMILY
Maybe my mom’s used to controversy, but you’d think the latest scandal might
give a teenager like me one more reason to stray from religion.
Andrew says that would be typical.
ANDREW (on tape)
I think most teenagers that I know who were brought up religious are now questioning
their faith or whatever when they are teenagers.
EMILY
I already went through all that. When I was twelve, I thought there must not
be a God, because I was really unhappy and religion wasn’t helping. Then I went
to a church retreat, and seeing all those people who believed in God made me
want to believe too.
It still helps to have those kinds of friends, even if they don’t agree with
all my views.
Having a priest for a mother and a supportive church community has definitely
given me confidence to be honest about my beliefs. I’ve already left my faith
once. This controversy won’t make me give it up again.
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