the Disciple Generation- creating the next generation of theofascists

[n2doc]

Among 'the Disciple Generation,' fervor and diversity
A 'nonbelieving' journalist spends time with the young and evangelical.

By Jane Lampman
In Seattle, a charismatic pastor draws tattooed musicians and other hipster youth to his mushrooming megachurch with a countercultural message that is culturally liberal, yet theologically conservative. At a Bible class in Colorado Springs, Colo., a first lieutenant teaches Army and Air Force servicemen a fundamentalist version of the "End Times" (the end of the world depicted in Revelation), and deems the US military God's missionary tool in Iraq. In Council Bluffs, Iowa, skateboaders on an Extreme Tour put on a half-pipe show for local kids, then tell them about Jesus and a cool kind of church developing in skate parks. Out in Virginia's horse country, Patrick Henry College shapes young people with an intensely "biblical worldview"; then it sends them straight into internships in the White House and Congress.

Welcome to the Evangelical youth movement. Or what Lauren Sandler calls "the Disciple Generation" - an ever-growing population of young Evangelicals, ages 15 to 35, "who are equally obsessed with Christ and with culture as a means to an Evangelical end."

Formerly a reporter for National Public Radio, Ms. Sandler had encountered many Christian groups during her travels. But as Evangelicals became more influential in politics, she set out to scout in depth the evolving youth movement. What she found surprised and disturbed her, an avowed secularist and nonbeliever who was barely 30 herself. Her first book not only presents vivid, spirited sketches of a burgeoning subculture, but also a plea to fellow secularists to wake up and proffer an alternative. In Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement, Sandler explores a movement of astonishing diversity in which "dreadlocks ally with buzz cuts," three-piece suits with punk rockers, Mohawks with computer nerds, all "organizing against anything that challenges the perceived literal perfection of the Bible." The secular world, she admits, "has left a vacuum yawning in modernity's barren atmosphere," and avid Evangelicals have rushed to fill it.

While always forthright about being at odds with the worldview of the young Evangelicals she tracks, the author writes with keen insight and empathy about those involved in a range of youth ministries. Whether camping out at the Cornerstone rock festival or mixing it up at a hip-hop club, she describes how they reach out to confused, rebellious, and vulnerable young people, and offer them both certainty and a sense of belonging. It's a certainty built on a mix of anti-institutionalism and biblical literalism. It markets "outsiderness" and mobilizes resentment against the secular world. Some youths become fervent antiabortionists in the Rock for Life movement. Others sign up for a military-style boot camp to join the army of Teen Mania and its "Battlecry" against pop culture.
more:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0926/p16s01-bogn.html