teens

I love the Harry Potter books and films. I’m pretty much smitten with the characters, the detailed map of a magical world both behind and within our own muggle realm, the ways that the mundane struggles of kids in a boarding school become enmeshed with the cosmic struggles of good versus evil…all of it. Man, oh man, do I love Harry Potter.

Beyond my fascination with the story (I’m a super geek, as demonstrated by my passion for science fiction and high fantasy narratives), I’ve also learned something intriguing about myself while following Harry and his comrades through those ever-shifting halls: I most strongly identify with Minerva McGonagall, the no-nonsense yet compassionate professor of transfiguration at Hogwarts.

At first this realization was rather alarming. If I identify with one of the profs, does that mean I’m getting old? Why McGonagall? Why not that lovely Luna Lovegood? Why not smart and perpetually-prepared Hermione Granger? There was certainly a time in my life when I might have identified with either of them – and not one of the teachers.

I suppose that on the surface the answer is pretty obvious. I am getting older and now I’m a teacher of sorts – a figure within the institution whose job is to teach, care for and walk alongside teenagers. Of course I identify with one of the professors!

But why McGonagall? Is it because she’s one of the few women on staff? Perhaps. But after watching the last of the films (HP 7.2) a couple times and experiencing her all-consuming desire to protect those kids with such intense, gut-wrenching determination that during both showings I found myself shaking, teary-eyed in the theater seat – well, after that I’ve begun to think that there might be a bit more to this than my age, profession or gender.

It could be that I’m ridiculous. A grown woman weeping during magical movie battles? Come on now…

I am, admittedly, a little bit on the silly side more often than not. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on either. Instead, I believe something in Rowling’s storytelling has struck a chord deep inside me, rattling loose an instinct that I never really knew I had, or at least never recognized as such: the desire to protect. When I read the Harry Potter books (or watch the films), especially from Order of the Phoenix onward, and I see the way the world is crumbling into chaos around those kids, every fiber of my being screams “They’re only children! Why does it have to be them who must save the world??”. I reckon Minerva McGonagall wonders the same thing.

In similar fashion, when I look at this world of ours and see the way chaos laps at us from every direction, every bit of me starts to howl that same refrain. Why must it be these kids, these precious ones in my care who must solve our problems and stand in the face of so much hatred, violence and destruction? “They’re only children! Why does it have to be them who must save the world??”

So there it is. I want to protect “my” kids. I want to keep them from harm and put a wicked boot in anyone and anything that threatens their well-being. It’s a normal, perhaps maternal/parental instinct – and yet it is also deeply unsettling. Why? Because now that I know it is there, I have to tend it.

A drive to protect can become an act of violence against the very person or thing you are protecting. Hemming someone in, eating away at her freedom of movement or voice or action, perpetually doing for the other instead of letting him do for himself – all of these things ultimately harm more than they help. And yet they are so tempting when you love someone and yearn for their safety.

This is why I both identify with and feel drawn to the character of Professor McGonagall: in spite of her consuming desire to protect the students at Hogwarts, she only does what she is especially able to do and then she gets out of their way. She knows her students. She knows their gifts. And even though it pains her to see them in harm’s way, she recognizes that they are a part of things and must be allowed to help. So she does her bit and helps those students to discern and play out their parts. She’d die for them if it came to that, but she won’t force them to die the slow death that comes from squelched talents, hopes and dreams all in the name of safety.

I want to protect “my” kids, but not at the expense of their potential. It’s terribly risky business, but that’s who I want to be – which is why I’m a Minerva McGonagall.

So, I’ve been reading tons of reports on Kenda Creasy Dean’s Almost Christian (and in the near future, I hope to actually finish reading the book itself) – ministry folks as well as secular news services have picked up the story so it is gaining a fair amount of momentum.

The basic point of the book is this: Dean’s research led her to observe that many church-raised teenagers enter young adulthood with a watered down, no-risk, shiny happy people kind of faith. When pressed, these teens and new young adults cannot speak about their faith in articulate ways and generally have a hard time expressing what it is (and in Whom) they believe.

In other words, they’ve been taught to fake it.

And who did that teaching? In a word: us. The parents did it. The youth ministers did it. The Sunday school teachers and senior pastors and grandparents did it. We all share the blame. It could be fear. It could be ignorance. It could be wishful thinking. But whatever the reason, we’ve given these kids a picture of a god who doesn’t match up with the great I AM of scripture. Kenda Dean and her colleagues call it “therapeutic moral deism” – belief in a great therapist god who doesn’t ask much of us (if anything at all), a god who simply wants us to be happy and be vaguely good.

We don’t demonstrate a passionate love for this god (in part because there is nothing passionate about such a deity), and consequently our kids don’t catch a passion for this god. And then we wonder why they leave the church and never come back.

Unfortunately, so many of us have got it all twisted around. I don’t believe we purposefully present children and teenagers with a false god – that we are living idolatrous lives on purpose. Instead, I believe that most of us start off with the best of intentions – we really do love God and want what’s best for our kids. We just don’t necessarily know what that is, or what it looks like – or we are afraid of what it looks like.

For example, it is an incredibly powerful and sacrificial statement for a parent to say “I want my child to be a Christian” and truly mean it. Because while conventional wisdom says that you should want your child to always be happy, to stay out of trouble and to get into the right college so that they can get a high paying job and be successful… well, the reality is that kids who fall in love with a risky, sacrificial Gospel are going to fall down, get their hearts broken, and make decisions that draw the notice of society’s gate-keepers (and sometimes the church’s gate-keepers). And kids who fall in love with the radical message, life and love of Jesus… well, they might not decide to follow the stable career path, opting instead to live out a life marked by fruitfulness rather than success. They might become activists, artists, care-givers, or even (say it ain’t so) professional ministers of one variety or another. In other words, they might not be financially stable in the traditional understanding of the phrase.

This is not to say that kids can’t choose to be faithful doctors, faithful lawyers, faithful business women… they surely can be. And faithful Christians can achieve high levels of success, earn large salaries and receive public acclaim. A few of us minister-types even become moderately well-known and celebrated. But eventually, a life of lived-out passionate Christian faith and love requires you to make decisions that don’t go with the flow, don’t fit the ways of the world, and don’t make a whole lot of sense to good sensible people. Eventually there will be days and seasons when it’s not all roses and you’re being lambasted for the choices you’ve made out of faith – times when some people (even close friends) will deny you, and you’ll find you’ve got a cross to carry.

The point is that a life spent loving God and following Jesus is so much deeper than the fluff that’s been floating around out there (and in here). It is both risky and worth risking for. It is both challenging and worth challenging the Church for. It is worth living for – and in some places, situations and times, it has been worth dying for. By following the great I AM (not doing good things because of some bland or moralistic sense of right and wrong, but instead living a life of love, compassion and justice because God loves these things), by living out the WAY that Jesus showed us through his life, ministry, death and resurrection… and by believing in the creative and saving power of God – by living this kind of faith, we model and teach something that kids can sink their teeth into. A faith with substance. Something worthy of passion and commitment.

Enough with fluff and fear. Let’s help our kids find a faith worth living.