Why Youth Is Uncommitted

TODAY youth comes in for much censure. But it may well be asked if the ways of modern youth are not merely the crop that their parents have sown.

That some youths think this is the case is to be seen from what appeared in The Mirror News, Los Angeles, January 11, 1958. It was a report of a resolution that was passed by some 3,400 youthful Methodists, representing a thousand colleges and universities. In this resolution they replied to the charge that the youth of today belong to an “uncommitted generation.” Said they:

“The church has not called us to her Lord or her mission clearly enough to excite our response. . . . We students have been condemned as the ‘uncommitted generation.’ We admit the truth of the designation, but protest the implication we are uncommitted either through choice or indifference. To the contrary, most of us are deeply concerned over our lack of commitment and many of us are actually searching for that cause to which we can offer unreserved allegiance.”

The students in their resolution went so far as to say that the very church that scolded them for their lack of commitment “proves to be the major block toward commitment . . . and is herself a primary deterrent. We may be silent and withdrawn but we are not easily misled. The church as she stands now is not, we believe, worthy of our lives.”

True, how can youth be inspired to make a commitment for God when it sees its religious leaders following a course of materialism, mixing in politics and being confused and uncertain as to what is the true religion? Even as God’s Word foretold, religious leaders have fallen away from the faith.—Jer. 5:31, AS; 1 Tim. 4:1.

However, today there is a body of Christians that measures up to the Scriptural requirements. It is deserving of commitment on the part of youths if they are but willing to pay the price, ‘sell all they have and follow the example of Christ Jesus.’ If these youths are honestly and with open minds “actually searching for that cause to which [they] can offer unreserved allegiance,” sooner or later they will come in touch with this body of Christians. To help them to do so is one of the reasons why this magazine is published.