Popular culture, with its many attractive and often false messages of salvation, is a powerful challenge to the local church's mission and ministry. Many young persons find sex, drugs and alcohol, risky behavior, and the media to be those places they experience God. One of our student researchers, Sandra Fox, has found her greatest interest in young people who have found themselves in trouble with the law. Other student researchers are looking carefully at the relation of Gansta Rap and the Gospel, the ways young women understand the life of faith, the impact of campus Christian groups on youth, and the experience of violence by youth in publish school settings. The Center for Research in Spirituality is an important resource for students, pastors, and lay leaders at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Student assistants help gather data for research as part of their ongoing seminary studies.
Special thanks is offered to the Griffith family for its wonderful support of the adolescent research project for 1997-98. As the Center develops we will be providing case histories, verbatim interviews, and curricula for the spiritual development of those whom we interview. We will appreciate hearing from you and knowing your particular research concerns with respect to spiritual formation. Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do. By Judith Rich Harris.