Question: Dear Sir,

I am a teacher, a religious educator of the Catholic faith and of course, a father of 4 girls, 2 of which are in high school.

Recently I have encountered a problem with the youth minister of my parish. The problem evolves around a T-shirt slogan that she approved for our youth to don at their convention this summer. The shirt says, "body piercing saved my life," on the front and it has a pierced hand of Jesus on the back.

The association of body piercing to the crucifixion to me is sacrilegious to say the least, and a wrong message for our youth. I associate "body modification," as self-mutilation, satanic, and a form of perverted hedonism.

My question is – am I blowing this out of proportion? Am I looking deeper into this than there is? Should I be concerned?

Please respond.

Tim

Answer: Dear Tim,

I do not feel that you are blowing this thing out of proportion – I agree with your "take" on this issue. However, that is not the problem – the problem is –how do we respond to youth culture, its traps and pitfalls?

I agree with you that we should not seemingly agree with deviant or substandard (biblically speaking) behavior with which young people are tempted under the guise of thinking that it will help us "connect" with them. Many youth ministers make that mistake, in my opinion -–as well as many parents, teachers, etc. The solution is not to lower our standards and appear to condone "cool" behaviors/trends/etc. so that we can relate.

The challenge is to reach the youth with a high standard that is compelling, interesting, and relative – that is not self-righteous, condemnatory, hypocritical, etc. That’s the incredibly difficult task in front of those who minister to, parent, and teach our youth.

Our youth are convinced and convicted, as you well know, by body piercing and tattooing modeled by outwardly successful role models provided for them by our media. Our task is to yield ourselves to Jesus so that young people will obviously note that while we are different, and while we have higher standards, we can relate, talk to and with them (not at them), what youth call "being real". I am convinced that Christians do not learn how to do this in teacher training, from social psychology texts, etc., but from the indwelling of Jesus Christ – so that young people do not see or hear us, but they see and hear Jesus through us.

Not a very specific answer – for I have no concrete easy answers about the question you pose, but something to think about.

Thank you for being a concerned teacher, and a loving father. Thank God that we have people like you – don’t ever give up doing what you are doing, for there are many of us who pray for you and the important work you do every day! May God bless you and be with you.

In Christ,

Greg Albrecht