Intersect Community
The Intersect Community provides training for church leaders. Recently, on their blog, Steve Argue wrote about the drinking age and how it relates to youth ministry in the United States.
Here’s an excerpt in which he writes about how the current drinking age has made a new way for people to transition between childhood and adulthood:
Historically, adolescences has shifted from a time of “transition” from child to adult, to a significant life stage that some experience well into one’s mid-twenties. There are many developmental and sociological reasons for this phenomenon.
It has been perpetuated, not the least, by youth ministry that has (on plus side) responded to the needs of this population but may also be (on the negative side) perpeduated a delayed entry into adulthood.
More broadly, it might be said that the road from childhood to adulthood has lost its way as adolescence is desired, worshiped, and longed to be preserved.
The lack of “signposts” toward adulthood have left gaps for other rites to be adapted. I wonder if the 21 year-old drinking age has become one of these rites. Maybe this rite has had to take on a flood of meaning that, on the surface, shows itself as binge drinking, but underneath calls for something more.
Hop on over to enter into the discussion on this topic.
