Twin crises afflict contemporary America: The Great Dechurching and The End of Men, to identify them by the names of two recent books. Put briefly, churches are failing to bring young people to Christian maturity in the Church; meanwhile, contemporary culture is failing to bring boys into mature manhood. The story of the boy Jesus in the Temple provides resources for combatting these crises — time-honored, transcultural resources, attested in Scripture, manifested in the Church, and affirmed by contemporary sociological research into adolescent formation.
In the lecture reproduced below, I show how Jesus’ youthful Temple visit is normative in one way for boys, and in another way for all Christians. After my talk, Thomas Fickley explains how these principles are manifested in a day in the life of a St. Dunstan’s student.
This recording took place on Friday, March 22nd at All Saints Anglican Church (REC-ACNA) in Raleigh, North Carolina.
