The Jesus Gap – What Teens Believe About Jesus

One of the books I wanted to read as 2017 started was The Jesus Gap. I started reading it months ago, but somewhere along the way got off track. So, I decided to get back on track and set aside some time to really dig into it.

After reading it, I went back through the things I highlighted and marked.  Once I typed it up, it filled almost four pages in a Word doc.  Needless to say, there is a lot of useful information in the book.

Bradbury shares the motivation behind writing the book.  She was taking a class on Christological foundations.  The final project was to conduct a small research study on your own ministry to determine what teens believed about Jesus.  She was surprised by the results from her group.

As she continued to study this topic, she decided to find out if what was true of the teens in her youth ministry was true of others teens.  That brought about her survey and this book, The Jesus Gap.

For those who work with students, the question that will linger in your mind as you read this book is this:  “Is this true of the teens in my church?”  I asked that question a number of times as I read the results of her research.

While there is too much information in the book to boil down to one post, a couple of things kind of rose to the top in my thinking.

One is how students look at Jesus as both God and as being sinless.

According to Bradbury’s research, when students were asked the question, “Is Jesus God?”  44 percent of students answered “Yes,” 44 percent said “No,” and 12 percent confessed, “I don’t know.”

There are a number of conclusions a person could draw, but the numbers are a little startling.  Consider that the teens from the survey had a church background, were active in their congregations, and yet under 50% of them agreed that Jesus is God.

When asked if Jesus was perfect (or sinless), 34 percent of teens affirmed Jesus was perfect. 57 percent said Jesus was not perfect.  9 percent said, “I don’t know if Jesus was perfect.”

So even a smaller percentage agreed that Jesus was perfect.

Along with sharing the statistics and results of interviews, Bradbury also shared some practical steps youth workers can take to strengthen the Christology of the teens in their churches.

One area where I think The Jesus Gap is helpful is that it removes the blinders from our eyes.  We have to assume that what is true of Bradbury’s original research study in her group and then the following larger study she did, is also true on some level for the students in our sphere of influence.  One of the take-a-ways I have from this book is to find out where our students are and what particular truths about Jesus we might need to address in the future.

Another interesting thing Bradbury brought out is why students question that Jesus was perfect.  Early in the book she referenced some research done by Scott McKnight in Christianity Today where he concluded this:  “We all think Jesus is like us.  Introverts think Jesus is introverted, for example, and extroverts think Jesus is extroverted.  To one degree or another, we all conform Jesus to our own image.”

Students seemed to carry this idea when they viewed Jesus.  Here are a couple of quotes from students in Bradbury’s book talking about why Jesus wasn’t sinless:

“Jesus was God’s Son, after all He was human.  It’s really hard to know.  You’d think he would be perfect.  But humans – it’s impossible to be perfect.”

“Jesus sinned because he was a human being like the rest of us.
Even the best people in the world sin.”

One challenge to students seeing Jesus as perfect is wrestling with His divine nature.  If He was human like us, the conclusion many of them draw is that He sinned, because all people sin.

Bradbury also revealed a distrust for Scripture.  She shared responses from students that shared the opinion that the Biblical writers left our Jesus’ sin intentionally, in an effort to make Him appear more godly.

After sharing results of her research, she offered this conclusion:  Don’t assume teenagers view Scripture the same way you do.  Perhaps we operate under the assumption that because we have talked about the Bible and have a certain set of beliefs, our students hold those as well.  The Jesus Gap reveals that for a large number of teens, it’s not true.

The challenge is to not only read the results of Bradbury’s research, but then apply it to your particular context.  This is a good read for those who work with students and could create some good discussion.

Conforming Jesus to our Own Image, Part 2

Earlier today I posted some thoughts on how some recent surveys indicate that students (and adults, too) conform Jesus to our own image. The prompting came from a book I started reading called The Jesus Gap. The book takes a look at what teens believe about Jesus.

A few hours after writing it, a Facebook friend shared a link to an article that was written somewhat in response to a video posted by BuzzFeed called “I’m a Christian, but I’m not.” I had not yet seen the video (I have watched it since) and there was a link in that article to another blog post talking directly about the video. One particular point in the article echos what was shared in The Jesus Gap.

Mollie Hemingway shared five observations regarding the BuzzFeed video, but her first one was dead on. While the BuzzFeed video may have had some good intentions and helped communicate a message to a particular group of people, it left out one thing – Jesus.

Here’s what Mollie Hemingway wrote:

When you build your faith around what type of Christian you’re not, your faith is not built around Christ. Below is the text and transcription of the viral video. Note the absence of any mention of Jesus.

Text: “BuzzFeed presents, I’m Christian but I’m not…”

I’m Christian but I’m not homophobic;
I’m Christian and I’m definitely not perfect;
I’m Christian but I’m not close-minded;
but I’m not unaccepting;
but I’m not uneducated;
but I am not judgmental;
but I’m not conservative;
I’m not ignorant;
but I don’t place myself on a pedestal;
I’m Christian but I don’t have all the answers.

Text: “What are you?”

but I am accepting;
but I am queer;
I am gay;
but I am a feminist;
I’m a feminist;
definitely am a feminist;
but I do believe in science, in fact I think science makes God look really cool;
I’m not afraid to talk about sex;
I love me some Beyonce;
but I love wine;
I do believe in monogamy before sex but I will give you sex advice if you need it;
but I do go to church on Sundays;
I was a YoungLife camp counselor;
I do listen to Christian music, Christian rock, Christian rap, T-Mac, all the cool kids;
I have friends from all walks of life and different religions, and I love them all.

Text: What do you want people to know about Christianity?

I guess what I’d like people to know about Christianity today is that we’re all kind of not crazy;
We shouldn’t be judged on just the people that you see in the media, or just the people that you’ve met in everyday life. every Christian is different, and we deserve a chance to explain ourselves;
A lot of people think Christianity ruins people, but to me I think it’s people that are ruining Christianity, you never really see the good that happens, you only see the hypocrites, and the people who put themselves on a higher pedestal;
But at its core it’s really about love and acceptance and being a good neighbor;
Just because we prescribe [sic] to a faith that has some really terrible people in it doesn’t make all of us terrible;
I don’t think that Christians should judge people for who they are or what they do, I think everybody is in different part of life on their own path to wherever they’re trying to go. we’re all people and love is the most important thing.
Not a single mention of Jesus, the author and finisher of the Christian faith. In fact, you could easily switch out all references to “Christian” with any other religion or belief system and it would have the same amount of meaning.

I don’t question the intent of the people making the video or their desire to communicate what Christianity is to people, but it is somewhat disturbing that within all of what was said, there was no reference to Jesus. I think this is one example of many that seems to indicate that we can be guilty of conforming Jesus to our own image. Jesus is this or isn’t that based on the fact that I am (or am not) certain things.

In the opening pages of The Jesus Gap, Jen Bradbury shares a story told by Donald Miller in his book, Searching for God Knows What. Miller is teaching a class at a Bible College. He shares the Gospel with his class, but leaves out one element. The class has to determine what he leaves out. He talks for quite a while about sin, repentance, the promise of forgiveness and heaven. After a rather lengthy explanation, he asks the class what was missing. They have no response. The missing element: Jesus.

Miller doesn’t berate the class, but makes the observation that sometimes we get caught up in our own approach to Christianity, that we miss Jesus.

I found it interesting that this the video and subsequent articles came across my news feed on the same day I started to digest the information in The Jesus Gap. Perhaps God is gently nudging me (and obviously others) to make sure Jesus is the center of my faith, life and teaching.

Theology Matters – Dug Down Deep

Jesus tells a story that many church-goers are familiar with – the Wise and the Foolish Builders.  Two men are doing the same thing – building a house.  They both hear the same things – the words of Jesus.  And they both experience the same circumstances – the rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on each house.  The thing that was different was their foundation.  One built on the rock and the other built on sand.

Josh Harris’ book Dug Down Deep is written to help people examine on what foundation they are building.  He points out that what we believe about God – our theology – has a huge impact on how we build our lives.

On page 10 of his book he writes these words: “Theology isn’t for a certain group of people.  In fact, it’s impossible for anyone to escape theology.  It’s everywhere.  All of us are constantly “doing” theology.  In other words, all of us have some idea or opinion about what God is like.  Oprah does theology.  The person who says, “I can’t believe in a God who send people to hell” is doing theology.  We all have some level of knowledge.  This knowledge can be much or little, informed or uninformed, true or false, but we all have some concept of God (even if it’s that he doesn’t exist.)  And we all base our lives on what we think God is like.

With that thought in mind Harris talks about our theology and what we believe about God.  He uses words like doctrine, inerrancy, atonement and justification, yet puts them into a practical context to highlight what they mean and why they are important to our understanding of who God is.

I think he really nailed the value of how we see God on page 39.  Harris is explaining the importance of how our view of God affects how we live and how we react to the things that happen in.  He writes this:  “What makes it difficult for us to see the truth about God, I think, isn’t his overwhelming immensity but our overwhelming self-centeredness…instead of looking through the window of God’s self-revelation and seeing Him, we find it easier to admire our own reflection or to place on Him the constraints of our own existence.  We judge Him by our standards of justice, fairness, power and mercy.”

Harris does a good job in his book of explaining these different aspects of God through the use of scripture, other writers thoughts and personal illustrations.  In the opening chapters he talks about his own theology growing up and how he needed to grow in his own understanding of God.  His book would be a useful tool for individuals to read or for group study.

Harris has released a video curriculum to use with students to study Dug Down Deep.

Read Dug Down Deep to grow in your understanding of who God is and how you look at Him.  You can click here to see more information about Dug Down Deep and to read a sample.

(I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.)

Overcome Unbelief

There’s been a couple of things I have been praying about and have been trying to determine God’s direction. As I was reading in my YouVersion reading plan a few days ago, I came across an interesting passage in Mark 9.

A man brought his son to Jesus. The problem – the boy was possessed by an evil spirit. A bigger problem – the disciples tried to get rid of the spirit, but couldn’t.

The father is brought to Jesus and He asks the father how long the spirit has tormented the boy. The father answers the question and then says, “If you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

Jesus responds, “If you can? Everything is possible for him who believes.”

Then the father makes a great request of Jesus: “I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.”

I think all of us have those “if” moments. In our head we know that God is bigger than whatever it is we are facing. He sees more, He knows more, He can look beyond the current situation and can see what is yet to come. We know it in our head; but we don’t always feel it.  Our current circumstances and the emotions they stir up can over shadow the truth we know in our head.  It is in those moments we may need to repeat the words of this distraught dad – “help me overcome my unbelief.”

After Jesus heals the boy, the disciples come to Him privately and ask why they couldn’t get rid of the spirit.  Jesus said, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

Perhaps we need to recognize our continued need to keep our struggles before God in prayer so that He can do what only He can do and we can get the help we need to overcome unbelief.