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Religions
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Faith and Youth Today
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Faith and Youth Today

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2022) | Viewed by 5537

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Gustavo Cavagnari

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Theology, Salesian Pontifical University, 00139 Roma, Italy
Interests: pastoral and practical theology; youth and family ministry; biblical apostolate
Dr. Antony Christy Lourdunathan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Catechetics, Faculty of Sciences of Education, Salesian Pontifical University, 00139 Roma, Italy
Interests: catechetics; youth ministry; interculturality; faith formation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

To delve into the complex relationship between youth—older teenagers (15–17 years), emerging adults (18–24 years) and young adults (25–30 years)—and faith, demands a nuanced enquiry. According to various recent researches reported from different contexts (Bullivant, 2018; Barna, 2018, 2021; Pew Research Centre, 2018), youth affiliation to traditional faith structures is drastically fading in most societies. Physical and digital migration, deterritorialization, secularization, and spiritual marketplaces, amongst a variety of other factors, challenge faith identity and lead to a widespread institutional degeneration. Can we therefore conclude that youth would have nothing to do with faith in these times? That would certainly be naïve and simplistic! The situation, however, gives rise to some questions of vital importance. On the one hand, what is the meaning of faith in the world of youth today? By what means do young people connect to faith? What are the typical characteristics of the faith of the young? How does faith shape and influence the lives of the young? To what extent does faith inform, motivate, and activate the youth in their engagement within their societies? How do youth assume, keep and live a faith-identity in a multicultural and multireligious society? What are those spiritual or religious expressions that have become central for the young people living their faith today? On the other hand, the situation demands an increased concern as to, how could faith be made plausible in a secular culture? What are the opportunities and challenges of faith development among youth within a rapidly changing culture? How do faith communities and leaders deal with the difficulties of the youth today in believing and belonging? What opportunities do exist in offering accompaniment and support to young people? What are the effective practices in faith formation today? How do these practices facilitate interfaith dialogue, cooperation and universal solidarity? 

This Special Edition aims to address the above questions and more, calling researchers and scholars working on related issues to explore the interaction between youth and faith and to engage this project by means of theoretical and/or research-based (qualitative or qualitative) papers from interdisciplinary perspectives.

We solicit a variety of articles that capture a wide range of angles of the prescribed theme. Approaching the issue from the point of view of Sociology, Psychology, Pedagogy, Philosophy, Theology, and more, would help readers better comprehend how youth understand and live faith from their adolescence into young adulthood. It would certainly promote a sustained reflection about the role and influence of faith in the lives of the young. Moreover, it would encourage a more effective praxis with regard to the formation of the youth and accompaniment in their faith.

Authors who are interested in submitting an article for this Special Issue are invited to send a 300-word abstract to the guest editors at [email protected] and [email protected], latest by January 31, 2022. Final manuscripts could be submitted any time before August 31, 2022.  All articles shall be peer reviewed.

References:

Arweck, E., & Shipley, H. (Eds.). (2019). Young People and the Diversity of (Non)Religious Identities in International Perspective. Springer.

Barna & Impact 360 Institute. (2018). Gen Z. Vol. 1: The Culture, Beliefs, and Motivations Sharing the Next Generation. Barna Group.

Barna & Impact 360 Institute. (2021). Gen Z. Vol. 2: Caring for Young Souls and Cultivating Resilience. Barna Group.

Bullivant, S. (2018). Europe’s Young Adults and Religion. Findings from the European Social Survey (2014-16) to inform the 2018 Synod of Bishops. Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society. Retrieved from https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/research/centres/benedict-xvi/docs/2018-mar-europe-young-people-report-eng.pdf

Kinnaman, D. & M. Matlock (2019). Faith for Exiles: 5 Ways for a New Generation to Follow Jesus in Digital Babylon. Baker Books.

Kinnaman, D. (with Hawkins, A.). (2011). You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church… and Rethinking Faith. Baker Books.

Pew Research Center. (2018). The Age Gap in Religion around the World [Report]. Retrieved from https://www.pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2018/06/ReligiousCommitment-FULL-WEB.pdf

White, J. E. (2017). Meet Generation Z: Understanding And Reaching The New Post-Christian World. Baker Books.

Prof. Dr. Gustavo Cavagnari
Dr. Antony Christy Lourdunathan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • youth
  • faith
  • believing
  • belonging
  • interculturality
  • interreligiosity

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 246 KiB  
Article
Secularisation and Spirituality among Lapsed-Christian Young Adults in Nairobi: An Exploratory Study of the Antecedents, Triggers, and Response
by Sahaya G. Selvam and Ngure Githinji
Religions 2022, 13(10), 968; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100968 - 13 Oct 2022
Viewed by 2263
Abstract
African scholars have claimed that African peoples are “notoriously religious”. Is this still the case? Empirical literature on the subject is meagre. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the antecedents, triggers and response of secularisation and spirituality among lapsed-Christian young [...] Read more.
African scholars have claimed that African peoples are “notoriously religious”. Is this still the case? Empirical literature on the subject is meagre. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the antecedents, triggers and response of secularisation and spirituality among lapsed-Christian young adults in Nairobi, Kenya, the participants were aged between 18 and 35, who were baptised but have abandoned Christian faith in favour of secularisation or non-affiliated spirituality. Qualitative data, from semi-structured in-depth interviews among the 14 participants, sampled through a snowball process, was recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed by the two authors. Eleven emerging themes were identified from 10 h of data. The first two themes suggest that mixed faith backgrounds of parents and discordant relationship within the family act as antecedents in adopting a secular perspective. The next two themes relate to the role of Christianity itself in terms of lack of faith formation and exaggeration of religiosity. The fifth and sixth themes revolve around trauma in Africa/Kenya, historical and contemporary. There were two themes pertaining to ill-treatment meted out by Christianity. The rest of the themes relate to how these individuals maintain meaning, value and spiritual systems. The findings are likely to generate an evidence-based discussion among religious leaders in Africa/Kenya. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Faith and Youth Today)
18 pages, 308 KiB  
Article
Faith, Authenticity, and Pro-Social Values in the Lives of Young People in Germany
by Christel Gärtner and Linda Hennig
Religions 2022, 13(10), 962; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13100962 - 12 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1839
Abstract
Increasing secularization, pluralization, and individualization have done much to weaken denominational identities and traditional religiosity in most Western countries since the 1960s, with the effect that—to echo Niklas Luhmann—being religious requires purely religious reasons. This also applies to young people, for whom religion [...] Read more.
Increasing secularization, pluralization, and individualization have done much to weaken denominational identities and traditional religiosity in most Western countries since the 1960s, with the effect that—to echo Niklas Luhmann—being religious requires purely religious reasons. This also applies to young people, for whom religion is still an option, but precisely one option among others, and according to Charles Taylor quite a challenging one. In our article, we want to focus on young people who actively engage with faith and religion, and who take up a different position with regard to religion than their peers during their adolescence. The data are in-depth interviews with families with three generations present. We will explore the ways in which teenagers (aged 12–19) and young adults (aged 22–25) are confronted with religious issues, as well as how they decide upon these issues and justify their decisions. We will argue that both the societal context and the life phase of adolescence or young adulthood make it likely that a person will base decisions regarding religion upon the criterion of authenticity. Our findings demonstrate that especially positioning towards the question of belief can be a lengthy and conflictual process. We identified two main forms of religiosity that are socially accepted in contemporary society: deriving a sense of social responsibility from faith and transforming and translating belief and religious experience into secular contexts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Faith and Youth Today)
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