Purgatory for Adolescents

Or, The Celebration of Eternal Youth

By Jessica Greer

An article on abc.com reported on the growing popularity of “cougars.”

Cougars are described as “women usually their in 30s and 40s, financially stable and mentally independent, and looking for a younger man to have fun with.”

The key word here would be fun.

The article, written in 2005, is still relevant today.

In fact a primetime sitcom, Cougar Town, depicts a divorcee seeking to regain her youth by chasing younger men. Because as every TV fan knows, promiscuity and spreading sexually transmitted diseases are the greatest youthful pleasures.

The same abc.com article cited the show Sex and the City as instrumental in reflecting how thrilling life can be when middle-aged-women act like slutty pre-teens.

Magazines tell us “30 is the new 20,” or “50 is the new 30,” or shouts, “Jennifer Aniston hits 40 and looks better than ever.”

With all this media noise it’s easy to become consumed with the search for the fountain of youth. Or at least the fountain of youthful pleasures.

We live in an age where fitness and beauty are priorities over morality and responsibility, and people truly believe they can stay young forever. 

However controversial the idea, and however uncomfortable cougars make you feel – that same flag should go up when you see a 30-year-old man neglecting his family to play video games, or neglecting making a family at all.

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses he refers to a boy god as puer aeternus, which means “eternal boy.” The term coined within the discipline of psychology is Peter Pan Syndrome, referring to men who refuse adult responsibilities while continuing to depend on their mother and enjoy childish gratifications.

While cougars and their male counterparts go through mid-life crises, perhaps those handicapped the most are the actual youth.

In I Corinthians 13:11 Paul writes: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”

This may be the most famous scripture in the Bible referring to the issue of adolescence.

Paul says he went from a child to a man – which means he never had to grow his hair over his eyes or mumble when speaking to adults – because he passed over his adolescence so that he could become a young man.

In the Gospel of Luke 1:80, referring to John the Baptist, the Bible states: “And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel.”

From Luke 1:67-79, his father Zachariah expresses God’s will for John, which is to preach the coming of Jesus. Then it says that John grew strong in the spirit and lived in the desert.

Thus, John the Baptist also chose to forego his rebellious teen years and opted for preparation.

The culture at hand aggressively promotes adolescence as the supreme years of pleasure and exploration. But why should teens spend these important years giving themselves to endless degrading romances and worrying about getting pregnant and/or contracting a sexually transmitted disease?

The problem is that American adolescence goes from bad to wicked.

In public junior high schools preteens walk around pretending to understand relationships. By the time they reach college these same people are hooking up so frequently that they are morally bankrupt at 25.

People today have stopped getting married and producing families because they are constantly chasing their youthful lusts.

Vanity alone could describe our adolescent-obsessed culture.

But it is not only the youth who are wasting their years on youthful lusts. The older generations are, as well!

Botox and excessive surgery can slow down the aging process, but God still holds each one responsible for who they are.

Snoop Dogg can rap to 15-year-olds, but he’s still 41.

51-year-old Madonna can still jump around in leather hot-pants, but she will only attain eternal youth by making heaven her eternity.

Ecclesiastes 11:9-10 says: “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these God will bring you into judgment. Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh, for childhood and youth are vanity.”

These scriptures do not deny that adolescence is enticing and seductive, but they do warn that if young people take their vanity too seriously they will be held accountable.

Look at the life of Josiah who became king of Israel at eight years old, and who reigned for thirty one years.

Throughout his reign he honored God and stood against his idolatrous generation, and even against the sins of the generation before him.
II Kings chapter 22 describes Josiah as a man. He did not waste his youth on self-indulgences but instead he became a great Biblical reference point for godly leadership.

As a youth you should not be ensnared by the deception of our culture, which advocates juvenile rebellion and eternal adolescence.

This is a lie that will keep you trapped in a cycle of immaturity and arrested development. Ultimately it will rob you of your destiny in Christ.

Be a child of God and not a juvenile of this world.