Christianity twice removed

From an American academic Lynn Schofield Clark, who visited Melbourne this month for a conference on media, religion and spirituality at RMIT University:

"Young people I spoke to did believe in good and evil, and the necessity of fighting evil, and a surprising number did seem to think of evil along the lines depicted in Buffy and other supernatural horror films - demons who encouraged bad behaviour that was punished by an everlasting stay in hell."

This is Christianity twice removed, she says. It is filtered first through Christian institutions, then popular culture picks up some stories and imagery. Stories of the Apocalypse are highly entertaining, ideal for films and video games.

"There is definitely a shallowness to some young people's beliefs," Clark says, "mostly because they have little interest in thinking about religion. It's not that the media have become more influential but that the stories of religion have become less so. Young people don't know the stories of their religious traditions. They know the basic outlines: that religion is something good people do, religion helps you to be a moral person etc."

From The Age (may have to log in)