This past summer, The Barna Group conducted a global survey that included over 24,000 teenagers from 26 different countries. These teenagers were asked about how they view Jesus, the Bible, and justice. The reports were evaluated and published by Barna with webinars over each overarching topic in October 2022. Webinar replays and survey details are available on The Open Generation website.
These studies brought some impactful discoveries that ministry leaders would benefit from. This is a brief reflection on Barna’s first two reports in the Open Generation study, with a few major themes for youth workers and parents to consider.
Teenagers Call Themselves Christians but Don’t Know the Gospel
One of the most striking discoveries of Open Generation, vol. 1, was that an overwhelming majority of teenagers call themselves Christians. 52% of teenagers identify as Christians, but this study also noted that “only 50 percent among teens who identify as Christians say Jesus was resurrected; not even half (44%) say Jesus was God in human form.”
This shows us that teenagers are claiming a Christian identity without understanding foundational truths of the Gospel. Globally, the forefront of our teaching should focus on the Gospel. As we have shared before, this does not always mean the explicit gospel invitation but the truths of our Triune God in creation, redemption, and restoration, and the reality of the fall of humanity should be weaved throughout our short and long-term discipleship strategies.
The language we use for the Christian identity should be reconsidered as well because Barna found that “there is a considerable 30-point gap between the percentage of teens who call themselves Christian (52%) and the percentage who say they have made a personal commitment to follow Jesus (22%).”
Throughout the study, those who have made a commitment to follow Jesus respond far more favorably to the truths of the Gospel, open God’s Word more regularly, and are motivated to help do something about injustice in the world. As youth leaders, we need to take the first step in understanding what our students mean when calling themselves Christians, leading them to a life committed to following Christ and reading his word.
Teenagers Own a Bible But Aren’t Opening It
“Three-fifths of teens around the world (59%) say there is a Christian Bible in their home, making it the most common religious text young people have access to.” Not only do teenagers own a Bible and have more access to it than ever before, but 44% also responded they believe the Bible is holy. This statistic was not just those who called themselves Christian, it was every teenager surveyed.

“Educator sexual abuse is a major problem that largely gets ignored because it’s so uncomfortable to talk about. While a very small fraction of educators and school employees prey on the children in their care, one bad actor can do damage to many students.”

(LifeSiteNews) – There has been quite a bit of debate on the Right over the past few months about the use of the term “groomer.” A “groomer” is defined as someone who develops a relationship with a child for the purposes of sexual exploitation, and the term has been used by those fighting against the sexualization of children and sexual indoctrination in schools.
In response to LGBT activists dubbing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill — which prohibits teaching kids in the third grade and younger about sexuality — the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, parental rights advocates coined the phrase: “Ok, groomer.”
During one of their Backstage events, Daily Wire hosts Andrew Klavan, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, and Jeremy Boering discussed the use of the term, with Walsh noting that he thinks the term applies literally to many of those pushing sexual ideologies in schools, while Shapiro stated that it is a rhetorically brilliant quip that should not be used literally.
Columnist (and gay rights activist) Andrew Sullivan and Douglas Murray also discussed the term during a conversation on Murray’s new book The War on the West, with Sullivan strongly objecting to its use.
Sullivan in particular has excoriated conservative activist Christopher Rufo on Twitter for mainstreaming the term, accusing him of smearing educators. Rufo has pushed back by posting a growing list of news stories exposing sexual abuse in public schools by teachers (although no specific evidence that these assaults are connected to the sexual indoctrination in question.)
Rufo recently told Fox News that the lack of research is appalling: “The public school system has a serious child sex abuse problem.” The last significant federal study on this topic, which was conducted by the Department of Education in 2004, suggested that millions of American schoolchildren are victims of teacher sexual misconduct in each generation of K-12 students—and there hasn’t been any significant research since then.

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A true biblical “feminist” embraces the ontological reality of male and female, submits to the authority of Scripture, and the authority of her father or husband, and adheres to the biblically outlined roles of men, women, and children in the marriage, family, church, and society. This is a feminism that builds up rather than tears down. It is time for women to reclaim their power of femininity, venerate motherhood, and permit men to be masculine again.  

The feminist movement has for decades propagated the myth that historically, and almost universally, women have been uniquely oppressed and confined to the domestic sphere, leaving the power, wealth and public life for the men.
Over the past 170 years, the feminist movement has undergone multiple waves of change, however, a consistent thread within this ideology has been the suppression of traditionally feminine traits with the promotion of masculine traits within women. The movement which originally pledged to fight for equality between men and women bestowed upon them by their Creator (Seneca Falls Declaration 1848) has progressively abandoned the biblical distinctions between male and female genders and roles for the fictitious idea of sameness.
Within any ideological “-ism” a grain of good can be found, but within feminism, the grain of truth has mutated into a vulgar and abusive ideology. The feminist movement has been hurting and enslaving many women for decades all the while purporting to be liberating them from the alleged evils of patriarchy. Now many women are waking up to the reality that the promises of liberation and equality from the feminist movement come at a great personal cost.
God has given women the keys to the future of any society—motherhood—and if we are going to pass on a good legacy to our children true feminine feminists must take the lead within our personal spheres of influence by adhering to the authority of the Scriptures in our understanding of male and female identity and roles within the marriage, family, church, and society.
Anti-Femininity
Classical feminism advocated for the recognition of the basic equal humanity, dignity, intelligence, and competence of the female sex (e.g. Olympus de Gourge, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Jane Austen). However this is not a new or revolutionary concept, it was embedded within the creation account of mankind by their Creator, “So God created man [humankind] in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27)
In this verse, both males and females are included under the heading of “man” and are granted equal status as sharing in God’s image. The Bible has provided clear teaching regarding gender roles and distinctions while upholding an inalienable equality between men and women. A woman who embraces her femininity and biblical gender role is no less than a man–they are distinct yet equal.
However, the feminist movement has consistently sought to undermine gender distinctions of any kind and subsequently proven to be quite disingenuous in its claim of being advocates for women’s rights. They have not been advocates for the many women who uphold the binary definitions of gender and the God-given roles within the marriage, family, and the church. On the contrary, they have promoted women adorning masculinity and viewed femininity as a facilitator of oppression.
The feminist movement has been significantly influenced, if not highjacked, by Marxism, another -“ism” with a grain of truth, which focused on the power struggle between business owners and the working class. As the feminist movement intersected with Marxism the practical result was women being demoted from wife, mother, and matriarch to join the ranks of the labour force for the marketplace.
The feminist movement pressured women to enter the workforce in order to gain economic equality with men. However, if these women were going to compete with men within a male-dominated workplace they were called upon to shed any stereotypical femininity and female gender roles.
No longer was it acceptable for a woman to find her value in being, “created in the image of God,” now it was calculated by her ability to dominate within her life and work spheres like a man. Biblical femininity and female gender roles were typecast as weak and a relic of the oppressive patriarchal system.
The feminist movement subsequently crafted a toxic caricature of male masculinity that vilified strong and successful men. Therefore if true equality were to be attained the feminist movement required both genders to become neutered. Herein lies the real rub, the feminist movement is not pro-women it is pro-masculine women. The modern feminist, in practice, disdains feminine-women and despises masculine-men.
Embracing Transgenderism
It should not be surprising to anyone that a feminist movement that is so anti-feminine would evolve into a quagmire of perversions. The new 21st-century feminist is defined as such, “Quite simply, feminism is about all genders having equal rights and opportunities.” (International Women’s Development Agency)
The feminist movement does not exclusively promote women’s rights but includes “all genders,” and ironically transgender-women. Quite absurdly, the feminist movement has trumpeted the valour of men winning women’s athletic competitions, beauty pageants, and laughably Woman of the Year awards.
For a female to speak out against such perversions and inequalities is considered a transgression against the feminist ideology and is met with incensed anger and disapproval. An article from the ACLU titled “Banning Trans Girls from School Sports Is Neither Feminist nor Legal” by Shayna Medley and Galen Sherwin makes the argument that, “The politicians who introduce these anti-trans bills are not concerned with the integrity of girls’ athletics, any more than proponents of bathroom bans are concerned about preventing gender-based violence. We must see these efforts for what they are: fear-mongering intended to push transgender and non-binary people out of public spaces.”
In turn, the men and women who do speak up to protect the equal rights and opportunities for these girls are vilified as transphobic oppressors of women. The response to such crusaders for female rights is met by a disproportionate level of anger and cancellation from the very people claiming to advocate for women’s rights–witness the backlash JK Rowling is receiving for having the audacity to stand up for women’s (female) rights.
This begs the question: why are feminists embracing transgender women? For decades the feminist movement has tirelessly worked to undermine gender distinctions and transgenders personify the ultimate degradation of gender. Perhaps transgender women are the logical end of the modern feminist movement. Where does this leave the female girls on the college swim team? They have become losers dominated by men in lipstick and high heels. The feminist movement is replete with people who refuse to address the real assaults on female rights and equality, like transgenderism and Islam, while also minimising the real-world success of countless women in the public sphere. This leaves many women (and men) feeling unable to relate to or work with the loud angry mob of feminists in the west.
Angry Women
The feminists display disproportionate levels of anger about perceived inequalities and reproduction laws which they allege are oppressing women, while they pay little regard to the reality that they are living in societies brimming with successful, wealthy, and powerful women (many of whom are also mothers). A disconnect with reality is exemplified in this quote from Martha Rampton, professor of history and director of the Center for Gender Equality at Pacific University, “the realisation that gains in female representation in politics and business, for example, are very slight.” Compare this assessment of “very slight” with the following facts:
In 1965 2.3% of the US House of Representatives were women compared to 2021 at 27.3%; In 1971 4.5% of the state legislators were women compared to 2021 at 30.8%; In 1995 0% of Fortune 500 CEO’s in the USA were women compared to 2020 at 7.4%; in 1995 9.6% of Fortune 500 board members were women compared to 2019 at 27%; In 1986 9.5% of University and College presidents were women compared to 2016 at 30.1%.
For feminists to make the claim that women have had very slight gains in representation is confounding and disingenuous. Individuals will always face challenges and need to sacrifice in order to gain success in politics and business, but the grievances of the relatively few angry feminists are not shared by the majority of females. Most women are content to rely upon men, in varying degrees, financially, socially, emotionally, and sexually and do not consider themselves oppressed and enslaved.
Many women do not feel the need to have a 50/50 representation within all areas of the public sphere. In our Western world women have equal status, rights, and opportunities as men, so why aren’t the feminists heralding their success? Though the feminist movement has for decades actively marginalised and vilified gender-based distinctions they have been unable to change the ontological realities of gender. Thus, those women who legitimise gender-based divisions of labour, appreciate the value of masculine men and feminine women, oppose abortion, and find personal worth and value in their role as wives and mothers are not considered success stories.
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