I have also not read the book, but does he have a problem with the way that youth ministry works, or is it that the youth-style is permeating other aspects of church life? If this is the way that youth ministry works, that doesn't bother me, but I think the problem is more complicated.

I heard a speaker who said that as a kid in a Christian home, when he "gave his life to Christ" he was really "giving what I knew of myself to what I understood about God." That stuck with me as a good reminder of the non-binary nature of faith (faith as opposed to salvation). There is nothing necessarily wrong--in my opinion--with adolescent faith when it is present during adolescence. I'm assuming that the author's point is that adolescent faith does not survive trials and questions well. I agree; neither do adolescents. Kids have emotional responses, and I think growing up is partially about learning which emotions are valid in a given situations.

I think that "the juvenilization of American Christianity" is a special case of "the juvenilization of America." The sentence "Adolescent Christians see the faith as incomplete unless it is affecting them emotionally" best sums this up. I would argue that my generation can replace the words "the faith" with "their job", "their marriage", "their family", etc. What's interesting about this to me isn't that people have a desire to be emotionally fed by their jobs, marriages, and families, because marriage, family and even job choices all have emotion at their core. The problem is that we want to be emotionally fed on our own terms, which IS a juvenile behavior. Dan Allender, in 'How Children Raise Parents,' gives two fundamental questions every child is asking all the time: "Am I loved? Can I get my own way?" Each of these questions can be answered with “Yes” or “No” by parents in words and actions. Allender asserts (and I agree) that there is only one pair of answers (yes and no, respectively) that lead to a well-developed child. I would assert that it is answering these two questions "yes" and "yes" that leads to the problem discussed here.

Mature faith requires a maturation process, and I think the real problem is that we are maturing at a slower pace than we used to. Most of what little personal "maturing" I have done since leaving home has been facilitated through marriage and children, and, to a lesser extent, schooling and work. These are the areas that have forced me to address, honestly and intentionally, what I truly believe about life and therefore God.

I will, by construction, have shallow faith if my life is shallow and I give "all" of it to God. My point is that adolescents have shallow lives, and the problem isn't how adolescents are presented with a doctrine about God, but rather that adolescents are all, by definition, "rocky soil" (in the Matthew 13 sense). I would assert that the real problem is that we allow adolescence to be a period that spans decades now, when it should be short. To me, how I would feel about the author's message would probably be a function of whether he saw the failure of the (capital-C) Church family to drive the maturation process of its children overall. In re-reading the quote again, maybe what I am thinking is actually part of his point, though I'm not sure.

Mathew 18:3. A "mature" faith can often be that of a child.

Anonymous:
Jesus commends child-like faith not because it is juvenile and resists maturing, but because children know how to exercise trust in humility (verse 4).
Denis

Have you read it yet? I'd be interested in your reaction and whether you feel it's a worthy addition to my library.

Anonymous:
Am reading it now, about 1/3 into the book, and finding it thoughtful and worth reading. The historical research, which takes up the central half of the book, is probably more than the average person needs to know, but I am finding it fascinating. Will review it in Critique when I am finished.
Denis