Lamont’s Comments (group member since Feb 24, 2016)

Lamont’s comments from the The Postmodern Student group.

Greetings!

In Chapter 9, Setran outlined the contours of mentorship by proposing three postures every mentor ought to seek to develop in the lives of those they mentor, and they are: "remembering", "attentiveness", and "envisioning". I'll briefly touch on each mentorship posture.

Remembering involves rooting the emerging adult in the story of God's redemptive history (found in "church history, and one’s own personal history.” (214)) and showing them how their micro-story fits in the broad drama of God's unfolding macro-story. This type of orientation sets the conditions for understanding the Narrative behind the narrative. Mentors should help emerging adults build "spiritual timelines" (217) that show how God has been quietly working throughout their lives. Not only does this posture help forge identity formation, it also fosters the development of virtues such as humility, courage, and passion.

Mentors who help shape the posture of attentiveness in emerging adults are like spiritual interpreters - they help emerging adults "wake up" (217) and see the "experiential continuum of life" (225) with new eyes. I like C.S. Lewis’ quote about finding God. ““To some God is discoverable everywhere: to others, nowhere...Those who do not find Him on earth are unlikely to find Him in space. But send a saint up in a spaceship and he’ll find God in space as he found God on earth.” (220) The mentor’s role is to help the emerging adult de-compartmentalize God so that they see Him everywhere, not just in church. This posture helps the emerging adult become cognizant of God's activity behind the curtain of life.

Finally, mentors should strive to inculcate the posture of envisioning in the emerging adult through promoting a "sanctified imagination". (225) I liked Setran's appeal to the dialectal tension between the present and the future. He suggested that mentors must help their mentees predict their futures based on the present trajectory of their lives, while also helping them develop a kingdom vision for their future to help shape the "thoughts, attitudes, and practices" (225) that will get them there. He calls this the difference between one's default and ideal future. ultimately this posture has everything to do with envisaging an image of adulthood that aligns itself with God's unique plan for the emerging adult.

Some questions:

1. Have you ever been mentored by someone? Did they foster the postures (lol) mentioned by Setran - remembering, attentiveness, and envisioning? If so, how? In your opinion, what is the ideal mentor?

2. Setran mentioned a phenomena in our postmodern culture called "acedia" - "a pervasive lethargy regarding human aspirations.” (225) How do we counteract the lie of mediocrity in our generation and get our students to raise their aspirations commensurate with God's vision for their lives?

3. Setran asserted that mentors should practice not just preach. Do you feel that you model the faith in a way that would inspire an emerging adult to embrace a life marked by radical obedience to Christ? Do you want to be a "crisis man" (227) or woman?

In Chapter 6, David Ketran discusses the factors that influences an emerging adult’s moral formation. He gives a brief overview of how the landscape of morality has changed over the last several centuries within American culture and what it looks like in its present orientation. Ketran outlines how morality was defined prior to the 19th and 20th centuries. He posits that it was "Rooted in a belief in the objective and external moral authority of God and his Word," in which "conformity to his character and purposes represented the pinnacle of morality." (141) In other words, morality was something external to us, something of a higher order that we had to live up to. Over time this sense of objectivity has eroded in favor of a more subjective approach to morality. Ketran describes this shift as moral individualism – the idea that the locus of morality (or that which determines good from bad) lies within the self.

Moral individualism results in three distinct postures, according to Ketran: (1) Moral intuitionism – which makes one’s feelings the arbiter of morality; (2) Moral consequentialism – which reduces ethics to whether or not an action is beneficial or advantageous; and (3) Moral privatization – which makes the individual the creator of one’s personalized moral island. These three postures are all undeniably rooted in self-interest, a prevailing theme in post-modern society, and thus in emerging adulthood. Because this is the moral environment in which we live, Christians leaders must consider what impact it has on one’s psychology of morality, namely, how emerging adults think about right and wrong today. Ultimately, their character development rests on it!

Ketran offers a dialectical argument, pondering two positions on moral formation: "Important here is Smith’s distinction between (1) a subjective embracing of objectively true moral claims, and (2) a belief that moral claims have a status of truth because they are subjectively embraced." (148) The former is called moral realism; the latter is called moral relativism. This is the silver bullet in Ketran’s argument, if you will. His thesis here is that moral truth is found outside of the self, but must be lived out through our subjective experiences in order to become meaningful in the life of the emerging adult.

Here are some questions based on the reading this week:

(1) What is your moral disposition? How have you come to make difficult moral decisions in your spiritual journey?

(2) What constitutes a biblical moral vision? How can we as a college ministry help emerging adults develop a moral vision that is grounded in God’s moral nature, yet sophisticated enough to navigate through the complexity of our current moral landscape?

(3) Do you believe in moral realism - morals are objective realities that must be worked out through ones subjective experiences? Or, in moral relativism – that morals are only real to the degree that they are tenable to our own self-interest?

(4) Ketran offers a model for character development based on a “teleological (the study of purpose) structure” of the world. Because God created all things, creation reaches its fullness when it reflects Him. His model is thus: (1) develop a biblical vision of “human flourishing”; (2) identify biblical virtues that will precipitate fulfillment of the vision; and (3) facilitate application of those virtues to give vigor to their moral character. How can we integrate this model in the college ministry?

Greetings to everyone!

I hope you all are enjoying this book as much as I am. Every chapter has hit home for me thus far...and chapter 5 was no exception.

David Setran presented us with a new perspective on vocation - the term that refers to what we do with our lives and the process we undertake to figure that out. According to Setran, emerging adults struggle with thinking about life outside of an individualistic pursuit of self-discovery and self-fulfillment. This is partly due to the cultural cues that promulgate a skewed vision for adulthood. The mechanics of adulthood have been re-engineered for millennials. Once perceived to be about taking responsibility for others, the postmodern ideal for adulthood is “taking responsibility for oneself” (113). This new concept loudly promotes the freedom associated with adulthood, while quietly dismissing any correlated responsibility. Thus adulthood becomes a vain pursuit to achieve autonomy, to achieve self-actualization.

Clearly the emphasis on the self is problematic for a Christian paradigm of vocation. Against the current of our contemporary culture, Setran offers a renewed vision of vocation which takes the emerging adult out of the driver seat towards the discovery of purpose. Setran posits that we cannot discover our purpose if our starting point is ourselves. He proposes a kingdom vision for vocation centered around the possibility that perhaps our purpose is a part of a larger purpose – specifically the purpose of God. Thus, our purpose is centrifugal to the purpose of God; our vocations, then, are shaped, animated, and driven by his overarching purposes for creation. Setran envisions a much broader vision for vocation.

He notes that the root word for vocation is vocare, which means “to call”. This definition of vocation then, fundamentally defies the modern interpretation – that being the pursuit of autonomous seeking detached from others; a “calling” connotes a relationship at play. Seen this way, our vocation is not something we discover per se, but something that is given to us. Setran writes, “When we help emerging adults move beyond the identity question ‘Who am I?’ to also embrace the larger question ‘Whose am I?,’ the vocational discernment process will shift. Emerging adults do not discover their identity and then pursue a calling consistent with that vision. Instead, they grow in their recognition that the One who has bestowed an identity upon them has also called them to his mission.”

The twin engines that drive Setran’s model of vocation are God’s purpose and God’s providence. He splits purpose up into primary and secondary callings. The former refers to the preeminent call to reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. For it is God’s will that “all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (1 Tim. 2:4) The former refers to how we live in light of this primary calling. We see this in the life of Esther, the Jewish young woman who became Queen of Persia. The climax of her story was at the intersection of God’s purpose and his providence. In Esther’s life, we see the hierarchy of calling: God’s purposes always take precedence over our own personal pursuits.

Some questions:
(1) What has your own vocational journey been like? How have you gone about discerning your vocation?
(2) What is your definition of God’s purpose? Is it doing that one thing you were created to do, or does it encompass a multitude of possibilities and tasks? What impact has the classical dualisms associated with Western philosophical thought had on your understanding of vocation? Do you see vocation as a job/career or do you see it encompassing all of life?
(3) How can we help college students envision, cultivate, and pursue a more holistic understanding of vocation centered around the larger purposes of God for creation?

Hey Kim. You did a remarkable job of summarizing the main points of the chapter! Now, to your questions.

1. Much like Carrie, church attendance for me was very much a part of my embedded theology, growing up in a Christian household. When I got saved, I pretty much considered church attendance a non-negotiable (although I am aware the landscape for emerging adults is much different today; church attendance/involvement is trivial). But I can think of a few significant experiences that helped me internalize my embedded theology and establish an ecclesiological vision for my life. First, I remember having an awareness that God was shaping me into something. This awareness was particularly keen during worship. For example, during praise and worship, I felt like I was making contact with God in a way that was unique to the setting of church. Expressing my allegiance to God with hands raised and heart open counteracted any hubris that I had in my own sense of worth, identity, control, etc. Second, like Derek and Carrie said, it was in the church that I was able to make contact with my spiritual gifts and "redirect" or funnel them into the outlets of ministry opportunities existing within the church.

2. Great question. I think that the college ministry should be a repository of gifts. We can seek to identify, encourage, and mobilize talents, gifts and abilities. One of the most profound contributions the church has had on my life has been in helping understand my gifting. There is something very mystical and mysterious about spiritual gifts. How we discover them; how we use them; how we cultivate them. This, in my opinion, does more for identity formation than perhaps anything else. We have to be intentional about empowering college students to recognize who they are "in Christ". I mention spiritual gifts too because they are a direct link to fostering interpersonal (and intergenerational) relationships, as well as establishing an ecclesiological vision that necessitates church attendance/involvement - the gifts are for edification of the body, not the self!

3. Again wonderful question! This question totally embraces the heart of chapter 4! Ultimately, the college ministry cannot operate autonomously from the local church to which it belongs. An ecclesiological vision for the college ministry must then embody the vision for the "invisible" and "visible" church. It's interesting - Derek and Carrie promulgated the "broken" element of the vision of CRC and I would argue that it is that portion that makes the vision so unique and resonates to the core of humanity. For we are all broken. The faster we come to terms with this the better! And of course there is great comfort in the solidarity of suffering that we all experience. I would submit that each article within the vision statement of CRC can elicit great discussion. "Building", for example, symbolizing process; "Overcoming" framing a battle and delineating the perennial and emerging challenges arched against college students (and the church at large); "Church" being emblematic of the various functions of the church rendered by its members...this is worthy of a more in-depth discussion, which I hope we can have during our weekly meeting!

Blessings,

LM

First off, what a succinct and coherent summation of Chapter 3! It is becoming clearer and clearer that God has blessed this ministry with some truly gifted people and I am honored to serve with you!

So on to Carrie's questions...

1. My observation of college-age people comes mainly from my interactions with them at my job. As I shared with you all before, I'm an engineer at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and thus most of my colleagues are between the ages of 23 to 35. As I read the chapter, one young man I work with kept coming to mind. His name is Thomas. He embodies what Côte calls "developmental individualizations" (60) and what Kiesling and Setran describe as "mastering social environments" (59). Thomas is the most driven person I know. He works harder than anyone in our branch, exudes supreme confidence, and is extremely independent. The only problem is, Thomas thinks he is his own God. No literally! I've spoken with him on two occasions, and each time he has elucidated his self constructed theology...a work in progress by his own admission. Essentially, Thomas believes that his ideal self is God. Thus his actions are governed by the envisage of his perfect self. Any behavior that is not congenial to the realization of this idealistic construct of himself gets jettisoned. It's sad. In my opinion Thomas has taken the idea of individualized identity to its zenith. Please pray for him!

2. I see postmodernism as being one of the biggest impediments to young adults forming their identity in Christ. With its fragmentation of truth claims, postmodern thought promotes a distrust for all forms of authority, including the Bible.

3. Regarding my own life, I'll share that with the group and I'll try to include it on a separate comment. Suffice it to say, I've lived most of my adult life (all of which as a Christian) in "foreclosure" (62). I've only recently become more apt to explore, deliberately reflecting upon my own embedded theology and core convictions.

More to follow.

Blessings,

LM

Whoa! What an insightful post! I am literally blown away by the breadth of knowledge and wisdom God has graced each of you with. Kenay, if I may say, you framed the Chapter beautifully, capturing the essence of the author's argument. And this issue of idolatry is, in my estimation, really the taproot issue for emerging adults. God is indeed animus about the matter: "Do not worship any other gods, for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God." (Ex. 34:14) This imperative is also indicative. As C.S. Lewis noted, "Our hearts are a factory of idols."

Carrie's point about acknowledging God is poignant. It overlaps with Derek's assertion to "keep the focus on God." I believe this idea of acknowledging God is at the heart of the issue. In Romans 1:18-31, Paul gives an exposition on what is referred to theologically as the "depravity" of sin. He paints the most grim picture imaginable to convey the bleakness of the human condition. Because we failed to acknowledge God (v.21), we became foolish in our thinking, and began worshiping the creation instead of the Creator (v.22).

I like what Breyana said concerning the boldness (or lack thereof) in our witness. Our unwillingness as Christians to give expression to our faith in the public square results in a forfeiture of cultural ground - which can lead to the formation of cultural norms that are averse to kingdom values. If we're not careful we'll be swept away by the riptide of such cultural currents.

So, how do we push back against our own depravity? You guys already hit the nail on the head, but I'd like to echo your sentiments. First, spiritual disciplines are prescriptive and serve as a perennial remedy for idolatry. Just for clarity, they do not eradicate our idols; instead, they put us in a position to "taste and see that the Lord is good". (Psalm 34:8)

But why would emerging adults prioritize the Creator over the creation? They must first believe that there is indeed a Creator. The corollary then is obvious. The creation is subsidiary to the Creator. Thus, any pleasure derived from the creation is inferior to pleasure derived from the Creator. There must be a markedly different disposition in the person whose heart is set on the Creator than on the creation, so much so that it beckons others!

-LM

Hey Derek. First, thanks for a wonderfully thought provoking discussion board post!

The "apathy" towards God in general and spiritual formation specifically among emerging adults as described by Setran and Kiesling hit home for me as well. The overarching theme in my mind as I read the chapter was "God is irrelevant" to our age demographic. By irrelevant I mean we (as in emerging adults) find it difficult for our faith to fit in the "real world", if you will. We do not have a hermeneutic that reconciles the world that we live in and experience daily with the one we see in the Bible or hear about at church. The messages, themes, and ideas talked about in religious circles seem uncongenial or incompatible with the world around us. Thus, increasingly we do not know how to make our faith expressive, especially when increasingly one’s public confession is becoming more and more marginalized in American society. I think these are more external forces shaped by the shifts in contemporary culture than internal ones.

Nevertheless, I believe the core issue is who are we ultimately going to put our trust in? We think we know what will bring us happiness, how to live civil and responsible lives. In Lesslie Newbigin's "Proper Confidence" (a book I highly recommend), Newbigin's insightfully points out that liberal theology's biggest flaw is its most attractive feature: the idea that we are "sovereign explorers who formulate the real questions in a search for a yet-to-be-discovered reality." (104) What Newbigin is saying is simply that we are LOST apart from Christ. When WE are the starting point in our "quest" (Setran, 18) to find meaning, we deceive ourselves because "as Calvin said, our hearts are a factory of idols." (Newbigin, 104) Christianity calls for the total abandonment of self-reliance, for we are completely out of touch with reality as sinners. Hence, Christ becomes the new starting point from which to live our lives.

Let me use a practical example from my own life. Many years ago, I discerned God impressing upon me an idea. The idea was that if I gave Him the most formidable years of my life (i.e. twenties), he would bless me in my latter years. This giving up my best years was tenable in so much as it reflected a hermeneutic of sacrifice seen throughout Scripture. It clicked! But it would require a deliberate abstinence from some natural desires. I think for emerging adults, the biggest reason we don't "give God the time of day" is because we see religion as incoherent with the realities we face; we feel we, ourselves, are the captains of our ship, even if that means trial and error. That, combined with the notion that these are the years to explore and be free makes God appear to be an adversary against our quest for self-discovery, and spiritual formation an affront against the new found freedom of adulthood.

I apologize for the size of this response. I will try to do a better job of condensing my thoughts in future discussion posts. Still, I hope you will be as enthusiastic in your responses and I cannot wait to read each one!

Great posts Carrie and Demetria!

Carrie, I like how you've placed God at the forefront of your vision for adulthood - defining adulthood as the ability to complete the tasks God gives you. This makes sense because as teleological beings or beings created with purpose, our maturity, then, would be measured by how completely we fulfill purpose. This issue of purpose leads us naturally to God, our creator. For example, we would not say of an apple tree that didn't produce apples that it had reached maturity. Instead, we would conclude that it needed to mature. This is a sobering thought because it brings into question our pursuits. We must ask ourselves: are we truly seeking to be good stewards over what God has given us, in pursuit of fulfilling purpose (which I would argue is more of a kairos approach), or are we chasing a vision that has been given to us by a secular society (which I would argue is more of a chronos approach)?

Demetria, you sum up your vision for adulthood with the concept of being a "BOSS". If I understand your interpretation of this idea correctly, you believe adulthood is about both the ability and the necessity to take action. And I totally agree. In a very natural sense, as children, there is very little change that we can affect due to physical, intellectual, financial constraints. As adults, we enter into a stage where productivity is implied, almost taken for granted as the expectation. Intuitively, we feel wrong when we are not gainfully employed whether it be working a nine-to-five or pursuing personal endeavors. I often think about what a truly productive life entails. Is it about quantity or quality of time spent? Why is it that the proverbial greats seem to die young? Again, this goes back to the difference between chronos and kairos concepts of time. Is your vision for adulthood to live a long, healthy, and happy life or is it to fulfill the appointed tasks God gave you, no matter how long (or short) or how comfortable your stay here on earth is?

Hey Derek. Great post man!

I like how you describe adulthood - measured not with certain milestones, but instead with maturity. I think we, in American society, tend to equate milestones with maturity, which is not always the case, as you mentioned.

I like how the authors of the book talk about different kingdoms and their respective visions for the "good life" (31). They write:

"As teleological beings, whatever picture of flourishing we embrace beckons us to live into this vision and to 'start to look like citizens who inhabit the world that we picture as the good life.'” (31)

If we're not careful, we'll confuse meeting these milestones with adulthood. Worse, we can embrace a vision for adulthood that is not rooted in Christ in His kingdom. I like what you've said about honoring God with "the milestones He has blessed us with". It gives validity to such age-stage markers recognizing that these things come from God with respect to his timing.

Speaking of the idea of timing. There are two words in the Greek used to describe time. "Chronos" which denotes chronological or sequential time, and "Kairos" which means an appointed time. The argument that I'd make is that we, in America, value chronos more than kairos. In the context of adulthood, we say, by this time you should have such and such, whether you are prepared or not, much less if it is in God's will for you.

Greetings Leaders!

Our first discussion board thread focuses on a central issue associated with millennials - what I'll call "the ambiguity of adulthood" - and the crux of "Spiritual Formation for Emerging Adulthood" by David P. Setran and Chris Kiesling.

Authors David P. Setran and Chris A. Kiesling describe the phenomena emerging adulthood. “In 2000, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett posited a new life stage—‘ emerging adulthood’— to describe the growing chasm between adolescence and the completion of traditional adult milestones.” According to sociologists, these traditional milestones for adulthood include “leaving home, finishing school, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having children.”

1 Corinthians 13:11-12 states: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (ESV) This passage clearly delineates a stage of adulthood as differentiated from childhood. But it also suggests that even in adulthood, there still lies a stage of maturity that transcends our earthly lives. For we only “know in part”.

Ephesians 4:13 states: “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (ESV). This verse implies a lifelong process of maturing in our identity in Christ or becoming more and more like Jesus. So, one could conclude that, generally speaking, the biblical vision for adulthood is the lifelong process of becoming more and more like Jesus.

This week’s thread concerns your vision for adulthood. Do you agree with the traditional milestones offered by psychologists to characterize adulthood? If not, why? And what is your vision for adulthood?