Soul Searching: The Religious And Spiritual Lives Of American Teenagers
Christian Smith, Melinda Lundquist Denton
$25.00, Oxford University Press

When hearing about Jeff Wiese, the high school student who two weeks ago went on the most deadly shooting spree since Columbine, our instinct is to wonder what goes on in the minds of teenagers. We assume that they are a species apart -- balls of raging hormones ready to explode at the slightest provocation or none at all.

But as sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton show in their new book, Soul Searching, American teenagers are hardly so foreign. In fact, they're pretty good at imitating their parents. Usually this doesn't come in the form of mass violence, but Smith and Denton offer much evidence that teens' religious practices, moral foundations and theological views closely resemble the ones they were raised with.

Instead of it being a time of rebellion, the National Survey of Youth and Religion, which was conducted in 2002 and 2003, shows the vast majority of teens practice the same religion as their parents. This is true of 86 percent of conservative Protestants, for instance, and 75 percent of Jews.

Forty percent of teens, it turns out, report attending religious services once a week or more, which is about the same as adults. We assume perhaps that those teens who do are generally forced to by their parents. Not so. Smith and Denton explain that "teens as a whole report that they would like to attend religious services even more than they currently do."

On the other hand, when asked if they held any specific religious beliefs, many of the teens, even those who affiliate themselves with a religious tradition, couldn't think of one. "Uh, I haven't really thought about that," said one interviewee. Others were just vague. "Like, you, you live better, like you, um, you have like a standard for yourself that's higher than other people."

Smith and Denton sum up most teen theology as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, the key tenets of which seem to include that "good people go to heaven," "the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself" and God "wants people to be nice and fair to each other."

The authors note that these kids were not dumb, but "many teenagers could not articulate matters of faith because they have not been effectively educated in [it]," they write.

In fact, it seems like more teenagers have been reading up on their pop psychology than going to Sunday school. Many of those interviewed said they thought that religion helps them not to drink or do drugs or have premarital sex, and that it gives them a positive attitude, confidence and the ability to keep problems in perspective.

And, indeed, the NSYR shows that religion can do all of those things for young people. The youth groups, role models, service activities and cultural rituals of religious institutions all seem to help youth lead more healthy, moral and happy lives. This book goes a long way toward explaining the extent of this phenomenon and which religions seem to be accomplishing these benefits most.

—Naomi Schaefer Riley is an adjunct fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the author of God on the Quad: How Religious Colleges and the Missionary Generation Are Changing America.