published in the Catholic Review, November 7, 2006

On the weekend of November 18 and 19 hundreds of Catholic young people from across the Archdiocese of Baltimore will gather in Ocean City for the Baltimore Youth Catholic Conference. Nationally recognized keynote speaker, Mike Patin of New Orleans, will likely at some moment of the event go to a blackboard and write:

godisnowhere

He identifies that the way one reads that contrived sentence-word is often indicative of one’s attitude regarding faith. If one reads it as “God is no where,” they likely believe God is absent from their daily lives. Patin makes a strong argument that young people should read the statement as “God is now here.” He would suggest that God is a God who is intimately involved in their lives. Why? Because God loves them.

Recently, there have been two studies indicating that today’s young people might be more likely to understand God as ‘no where” or missing. Baylor University conducted a national religion survey of people’s opinions regarding God’s character and behavior. Did they believe that God was actively engaged in worldly and personal affairs? Did they believe that God is angered by sin and tends to judge humanity harshly?

From those dimensions, Baylor split their American survey respondents into four
different styles of believers:

A) Those who believe in an Authoritarian God who is highly involved in their daily lives and world affairs. This God helps them in their decision-making but is capable of punishing the unfaithful or ungodly.

B) Believers in a Benevolent God agree that God is very active in our daily lives but is primarily a force of positive influence in the world.

C) There are those who reverence a Critical God and think that God really does not interact with the world but will, nonetheless, judge them in the next world.

D) Finally, those who believe in a Distant God think that God is neither active nor angry but is more like a cosmic force which set the laws of nature in motion.

The Baylor study suggests that those who ascribe to an Authoritarian or Benevolent God are more likely to attend worship services and/or pray regularly. Regarding the Catholics survey, there were, however, mixed results. American Catholics are more likely to see God as distant (29.2%) or as benevolent (28.2%). Although, as a Church, we have attempted to communicate that “God is Love;” we still have more good news to share
with those Catholics that see God as primarily authoritarian (22.6%) or critical (18.6 %.).

The University of North Carolina has published the results of its own National Study ofYouth and Religion (NSYR) in the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. In it, the authors describe what appears to be a major transformation of faith in the U.S., away from the substance of historical religious
traditions and toward a new and quite different faith the authors call "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." This secular faith professes a general confession to a “whatever” God by individually “doing good” within a relativistic society without specific adhesion to a centuries-old creed or community.

Dr. Christian Smith, lead investigator for the NSYR, has said, "The vast majority of teens who call themselves Christians haven’t been well educated in religious doctrine and therefore don’t really know what they believe. With all the competing demands on their time, religion becomes a low priority, and so they practice their faith in shallow ways."

godisnowhere

As parents and as Church, we must recommit ourselves to our role of communicating to the next generation that our God is now, always has been, and always will be, here. Our God has chosen to intimately love us and seeks to engage us in relationship.

We find this in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ which we remember and celebrate in the Eucharist. We find this in the generosity of the community of faithful disciples committed to transforming the world by working for justice. We find this within our relationship with each other and we come to recognize it in ourselves as members of Christ’s Body.

The depth of our Scriptures and our faith tradition continuously point us to a loving God present in our world. This is the gift and message that we must pass along to future generations. We can not complacently be satisfied with faith practiced in shallow ways.

Godisnowhere

Let us do something about that, shall we?