This Younger Generation…
--- plain talk to PARENTS about YOUTH
Page 1:
You may as well know right from the beginning that this is coming straight from the shoulder…no soft-pedaling…no pulling of punches. This is something you parents ought to know. If it’s not too bad, stick with it all the way to the bottom of page seven. After that --- well, then it’s time for you to go into action.
(Picture of an angry man (I assume a father) in a business suit with his index finger pointing up with the expression of anger (he is yelling). No eyes, no nose. Just eyes and ears)
Page 2:
(Picture of Two people holding hands, a woman and a man. Both happy. No eyes, mouth, or nose, just ears.)
This is about he younger generation, the “teen-agers – your sons and daughters. Being a perfectly normal parent, you’re interested in them and you know that they are having rough times these days. The whole ‘teen-ager’s world is dizzy. It’s a crazy set-up and youth itself had nothing to do with making it that way.
If you want to be specific --- there is the current trend to load a lot of responsibility on youth’s undeveloped shoulders. Man-sized jobs…bringing up brother while mom gets herself a job for the sake of the mortgage…helping to carry the family load financially ---all of which makes the adolescents another generation of premature old men and women.
Add the frequenting of night clubs, the definite trend toward immorality and belittling of the sixth commandment, the intoxication of too much money and liquor, the short-cutting of education, the devil-may-care and anything-goes philosophies, and parents who are “too busy” to be bothered, and you have a wide-open world for adolescents.
Are you saying, “Tsk, tsk, isn’t that dreadful? But I’m not worried. My Mary and my John are perfectly safe!”
Maybe so! But are you sure? What are you doing to counteract all these phobias and
Page 3:
upsets? What can you do? Who has the answer?
God has.
The youth who is centered in Christ can weather even the roughest storm without getting drenched or thrown overboard. He has an anchor…something to keep him on an even keel, so that he doesn’t get tossed about with every wave or crazy that comes along. All the abnormalities of these days make a lot of haze in the ‘teener’s life, and it takes more than parental “thou-shalt-nots” to steer a straight course through it all. It takes the love and protection of the Heavenly Father, the strength against temptation that only He can give, and the positive advice and guidance that are in His Holy Word.
And here’s where the Luther League comes in.
You may not have known it, but the Luther League is one of your strongest allies in keeping youth clean and pure, clear-eyed champions of Christian faith and practice. Its well-balanced program of worshipping, studying, playing and working together gives the Leaguer everything he needs for a fully-developed personality. There’s action, there’s fun, there’s work, there’s devotion to God. This being true, there’s only one logical conclusion: every ‘teener should be a Leaguer.
(Picture of four teens in a convertible, two men two women, man and woman in the front, man and woman in the back. The man has the arm around the woman in the front seat (he is driving), and the man in the back is on the opposite side with the woman’s arm around him).
Page 4:
(Picture of 5 people sitting at a table in work clothing, one man standing up at the head of the table in a suit very visibly different form the others. He is leading the meeting. Everyone is attentive, no one has a mouth, nose, or eyes.)
You know, this business of being a mother or a dad is a serious one. It’s a large order. Not the least of your responsibilities is guiding the adolescent into adulthood. The Luther League stands by, read for action. And, Mister, (or Madam!) it’s up to you!
What the Luther League Does
It teaches real devotion to Christ Jesus, not long-faced pietism or rank modernism.
It cultivates spiritual zeal. It fires youth to go all out for the Lord instead of remaining silent and smug, ignoring the spiritual peril of others.
It develops leaders…gives them a job to do – a job that captivates their zest and imagination and trains them for intelligent church leadership.
It encourages Bible study, regular church attendance – discourages spiritual laziness and delinquency.
It teaches Americanism…100% Amer
(Four people playing shuffleboard, two men and two women, on opposite sides of the court. One of them has a nose and a mouth, none of the others do.)
Page 5:
(Two ‘teens in churchgoing uniforms, holding a book (I assume the bible or some form of it) together. They have mouths and ears, but no noses or eyes.)
icanism…the king that follows through with actual service to the community, with Christ and for Christ, instead of merely waving a flag and shouting, “Rah, rah, America!”
It puts good reading into the hands of youth and takes gutter tripe out.
It is one of those places where boy meets girl – and she’s A number 1.
It encourages the proper stewardship of time, money and life…returning to God His fair share before budgeting for self, not after.
It gives youth a good time – without hangovers.
It puts Christ first, others second, and self last, in contrast to the popular me, myself, and I Policy.
O.K…parents! Now it’s up to you. Are you with us? Remember, you can’t give to others what you do not have yourself.
(Picture of 12 people, 6 men 6 women (couples), walking into a church with a glowing cross inside of it. The cross is literally radiating, it is the only light inside the very small piece of the church we can see through the open door.)
Page 6:
The Luther League Of America
825 Muhlenberg Building
1228 Spruce Street
Philadelphia 7, Pennsylvania
Printed in U.S.A.
My Comments:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elcaarchives/sets/72157621760720258/
This piece left quite the impression on me when I first read it; mostly comically because of the abrupt change in voice at the mention of God, but also from it's "I know something that you don't know" style of speaking to the parents of these 'teenagers (I liked the quote mark infront of that too). Page 2 reads like a commercial from Saturday Night Live in a 60's household when a housewife is acting out the instructions of a narrator to her children. (Aside from the "night clubs" reference, which probably had more of a sinister connotation in those days)
The piece reeks an Industrialist aura of hot pink flamingo's and tin lunchboxes, and with the mentions of "my Mary and my John" I began to suspect that this pamphlet was going to tell me something interesting about how lives should be lived. I expected a radical point of view, but at the same time I figured it would be a point of view that I might be able to empathize with.
The line "God has." shocked me. I didn't see it coming at all. It was so abrupt that it was comical; and after I read that line it was clear what the rest of the pamphlet was going to be about: Religious propaganda bullshit. But I had to keep reading to be sure.
Page three is my favorite page. It is composed of different metaphors of what your child is and what he or she could be with the help of the League, but it doesn't say anything about the League at all. After explaining nothing with any logic, it tries to use logic to say that with "This being true, there’s only one logical conclusion: every ‘teener should be a Leaguer." The only way a parent could believe this is if they were caught up on the lines "there's only one logical conclusion." Someone would have to be brainwashed to accept that line as a fact. It's easy to see a blond Woman with curlers in her hair yelling at her son Jimmy with this pamphlet held high in her hand that the only logical thing for him to do is join the league. Very scary.
Page four is where the pamphlet starts to use words and expressions that aren't real to attain a positive image. Speaking of things such as "pietism or rank modernism," and "Americanism," the pamphlet is attempting to confuse the reader into inferiority. Americanism doesn't mean anything; it is literally anything particular to America. To the reader in this context though, it could mean a four person family dinner with pleases and thank you's, or even an A+ on that Geometry final. Americanism is the best; simply put. This sort of nationalism exists on a more subtle level now in Modern advertising, people can feel "Americanism" and have a desire for something because it contains it, but the entire feeling isn't conscious. This pamphlet is unbelievably cliche in matching our perception of the early 60's family by using words such as "Americanism" and phrases such as "rank modernism" (A term which also doesn't mean anything, it's simply negative actions in the present, leaving the reader to decide whatever that may be.)
The whole concept of "Americanism" is reinforced on the next page with the mention of "A number 1." When I heard this description all I could think of is a jock in a varsity jacket, sliding over the hood of his car as he runs through his screen door, excited to describe to his mother the girl he just dropped at home from their date at the drive-in movie theater.
"She's A number 1 Ma!"
After reinforcing the benefits of joining the Luther League of America (which are factually none according to the pamphlet) while using "American" based words, the pamphlet poses a question: "Are you with us?" Us is the division between the teenagers and the adults, the good and the evil, the "pietism" and the "rank modernism." This sort of separation is contradictory to what the pamphlet is trying to convince the reader of, the harmony between teenagers and adults. By creating an "us and them" instance, the reader is scared into sending their kids to such an institution. After all, they have no choice.
"you can’t give to others what you do not have yourself."
-FR
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