In the current lead entry on the website of the Trinity Forum, Cherie Harder cites a couple of recent high profile corporate resignations and argues that organizations suffer when their leaders fail to profess a clear sense of calling. “The question: why do we work? is essential, and the answer is defining. If we work only for a salary (or bonus), we are vulnerable to being blown about by shifting financial winds. Without a sense of calling—a vision for the common good, for the good life, even the most talented will be unable to lead wisely or well.

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One of most important and exhaustive studies of the spiritual lives of contemporary American youth was published in 2005. The result of a research project funded by the Lilly Endowment, the findings are reported and explained in the book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Authored by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, this resource should be required reading for every youth minister, as well as for Christian parents of teenagers. The essential conclusion of this major study: American youth largely get their notions of God and religion from parents and adults, and the effect does not much look like vital and classical Christianity. The dominant framework that youth employ to think about God is “personally feeling good” and “being happy.” In one of the most incisive and culturally perceptive critiques I have read in a long time, Smith and Denton develop a name for the new “triune” god of much contemporary youth culture: “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” Go get the book or more easily read a summary essay by Christian Smith available here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/7699752/Moralistic-Therapudic-Deism-by-Christian-Smith

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The late Neil Postman’s influential 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, is often referenced by today’s cultural observers of mass communication. I have come only lately to the book and have been reading recently. As many others have observed before me, Postman’s analysis has proven deeply prescient. It is fascinating to read a 25 year-old book that feels so utterly relevant to today’s electronic and internet culture.

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