Saturday, July 12, 2008

Soul Searching

Frankly, I wish this summer held a bit more of that for me, but things have been nuts. But that's not what this post is about anyway. It's about the 2007 documentary from the folks who are conducting the National Study of Youth and Religion (see link at right). They're the ones who brought us the landmark book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton (Oxford). [Incidentally, Christian Smith wrote a fine endorsement of my book, The God-Hungry Imagination: see the post "Endorsements for the GHI"] I've just ordered the DVD, and I'm wondering if there's anyone else out there who has seen it? What are your thoughts? Comments? Concerns? It's the kind of thing I look forward to watching, but not really, if you know what I mean. I can only stand so much bad news about today's teenagers before I need to call up one of them and take them out for icecream, just to remind myself that they are, in fact, human beings like the rest of us.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Postscript from Sarah: I watched the video before I left for SOULfeast, and found it to be quite powerful. It expresses just the right amount of concern without leaving you hopeless--in fact, I found the hopeful message to be even stronger in the film than in the book. I showed a clip for my workshop on The God-Hungry Imagination, and it seemd to deliver the punch I was hoping for. Good stuff.