'JESUS' AND GIGGLES

A new study in Australia has discovered that school children are more likely to giggle at the mention of 'Jesus' than show respect:

When the teacher asked her class what came to mind when she mentioned Jesus Christ, she was greeted with smirks - a sign that for many young people, he may be better recognised as a swear word than as the son of God.

Ruth Powell, a researcher for the National Church Life Survey, said such a response was a remnant of major cultural changes in the 1960s, with baby boomers having left the church.

"This generation of school-age children is the first with no residual memory, no image of church that they are rejecting - they have no reference points at all," Dr Powell said.

The experience of the teacher, a religious education teacher at a state school, showed Jesus was "better known by her class as a profanity than a deity".

Although Australia is a more secularized culture than the US (more akin to the UK and Europe), I'm sure one would find similar results here. And as the story indicates, the problem is with the parents of these children, not with the children themselves. They simply don't know any better.

I think it also should help shake us out of common assumptions those of us with a church background often operate under. We are dealing with a more secularized culture, and we can't act as if others operate with the same Biblical background.

As E.M. Blaiklock stated, "Of all the centuries, the twentieth is most like the first." He said that because he hadn't seen the twenty-first yet.