Wes Craven, the movie director known for Scream, Nightmare on Elm Street and many other horror movies including a number of x-rated movies died today. He was born in 1939 and grew up in a strict Baptist family. When I heard about it I immediately thought of your issue concerning the youth.
He attended Wheaton College, an Evangelical Christian college in Illinois. He said it was while he was at Wheaton he began to rebel against his Christian upbringing.
He published a love story about a white woman and a black man and another story about a girl who was not married but was pregnant. The college president banned the magazine and denounced him from the pulpit (as you see neither action was effective).
He loved movies despite growing up without them in his life—a byproduct of being raised in a churchgoing family that believed, in his words, "they were the work of the devil."
Your question concerning the the youth is one that Bob Keyser and I have discussed on occasion. When Jimmy Allen was President of Harding University he said between the 7th grade and graduation from college the church loses something like 70% maybe 80% of its youth. Adults are stunned when a good Christian boy or girl leaves the church. I told Bob it didn't surprise me, it was obvious, the church never had them. When the first opportunity came along they got as far away as they could. Bob calls them little atheists. I think he's right.
Wes Craven is an example of an individual who while he was at home, went along with his parents and when he left to attend college, a Christian College at that, his parents and the church patted themselves on their proverbial backs for a great job well done. But alas they were wrong, as are we. Parents can make their children do what they want them to do, they cannot make them think the way they want them to think. That takes relationship and example.
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
http://alumcave.blogspot.com/
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