PROVO, UTAH
The faith-lives of teens are powerfully shaped by the faith-lives of their parents — for better or for worse, said a noted researcher of teens and religion speaking at BYU Feb. 7.
"Strengthening the religious lives of teenagers isn't rocket science. It doesn't require some wild program or some new insightful method. It just requires basic commitment, intentionality, readiness to teach people, efforts to socialize people and adults taking interest in their lives."
Speaking at the fourth annual Marjorie Pay Hinckley Endowed Chair Lecture at BYU, Christian Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame, addressed the topic "Soul Searching: Understanding the Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers — findings from the National Study of Youth & Religion."
Named for President Gordon B. Hinckley's wife, the Marjorie Pay Hinckley Endowed Chair in Social Work and the Social Sciences was established in 2004 to honor Sister Hinckley's service and contributions to the field. The chair seeks to focus on the family through research and education, expand learning through lecture and monitored learning, increase community involvement and provide service to the university.
Hundreds of students and family scholars — as well as family members of Sister Hinckley — gathered for the lecture, held less than a week after funeral services for President Hinckley on Feb. 2. At a dinner before the lecture, Clark Hinckley, President and Sister Hinckley's son, thanked those at the event for making the endowment possible.
"As sons and daughters of Marjorie Pay Hinckley, we are very grateful for the work you are doing with the endowment and for the great memory and tribute it is to our mother," said Brother Hinckley. "I think she would be pleased. Mother loved people. It was her great strength and her great quality and her greatest characteristic. She loved to help people. She loved to be with them. She loved to do anything she could to help them. And we appreciate this great tribute to her which will go on and continue to help people for many, many years to come."
Brother Hinckley said his family is pleased that a dinner before the lecture could be held in the Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center, a building named for his father who celebrated his 96th and 97th birthdays on the BYU campus at the site. The building, he said, "holds a great place in our memories."
He recalled that at the groundbreaking ceremony for the building, held June 23, 2006, his father spoke of the endowed chair in Sister Hinckley's name. "She has on this campus a chair which carries her name, and I now have a building," President Hinckley said then. "Maybe we could move her chair into my building, and we'd be together again."
Brother Hinckley said of "all the sweet experiences we have had in the past two weeks, and the great outpourings and manifestations of love from so many thousands of people for our parents, really the overriding sense of joy in many respects for us has been the knowledge that he and mother are back together again, doing what they did best and what they loved the most, and that was being together and going forward and working.
"I suspect they are working pretty hard at this point. I don't know if they get to sleep on the other side. That has always been a worry of mine. But I suspect they are actively and visibly engaged, together again, doing the things they are good at and like doing. And they certainly loved doing them together."
During his lecture, Dr. Smith expressed condolences for the recent death of President Hinckley. "It is clear to me ... that he and his wife were just immensely special people, just incredible people.... So I stand with you in honoring them.
"Yet, here we are gathered in Marjorie Pay Hinckley's name to honor her, to carry on the work that she began in the world. .... I hope that my lecture does a little bit of justice to her kindness and greatness."
He talked about a study, released in 1995, of American adolescents and the effect of religion on their lives. He has since conducted a second wave of research and is working on a third wave.
The study — which, bucking conventional wisdom, found that 84 percent of U.S. teens believe in God and 59 percent attend a religious service at least once a month — was released in a book, "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers," published by Oxford University Press.
In his April 2005 general conference address, President Hinckley made note of the study — the most extensive study of youth and religion in history.
The data showed that Latter-day Saint teens pray more, engage less in destructive behavior, and can articulate their religious beliefs better than the average American teen, "partly because you all make them get up at 5:30 in the morning and go to seminary. That seems to make a difference," said Dr. Smith.
Ultimately, he added, the best sociological predictor of the religious outcomes of youth's lives is their parents' religious lives. "We get what we are," he said.
For more information on the study, go to www.youthandreligion.org.
E-mail to: sarah@desnews.com
