Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

afternoon activity), whereas the developmental goal of young adulthood is eventual ability to choose significant beliefs and commitments. Sharon Parks describes the process of maturation for twenty-somethings as journey and finding home, differentiation, and belonging. This process moves from unexamined trust in the teen years, through disillusionment and relativism, to the realisation that some options are apparently better than others. This is the stage of ‘probing commitment’ in which options are weighed, vigorously debated, and held tentatively and inconsistently . 36 This stage ‘allows one a standpoint from which conflicting expectations can be adjudicated and one's own inner authorization can be strengthened ’. 37 It can be a difficult time for a mentor or pastor; seemingly endless challenges to authority and inconsistent behaviour wear on more mature adults who have gone through the angst and arrived at settled convictions. Still, emerging adults in the exploratory stage of probing commitment are to be commended for their desire to search, take risks, and discover. The process of decision-making is to be intentionally and heartily engaged; not rushed, but guided, lest it become an endless search for a non-existent ideal . 38 34 The term ‘convicted civility’ was coined and used throughout his book by Richard Mouw, Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World, rev. edn (Downers Grove: 1VP, 2010). 35 Arne Rasmusson, The Church as Polis: From Political Theology to Theological Politics as Exemplified by Jurgen Moltmann and Stanley Hauen\>as (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), p. 284. He alludes to Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 35-49. 36 Sharon Daloz Parks, Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith , rev. edn (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011), pp. 88-93. 37 James W. Fowler, Faithful Change: The Personal and Public Challenges of Postmodern Life (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996) p. 63. 38 James E. Marcia, ‘Development and Validation of Ego Identity Status’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’ 3 (1966) 551-558, offers a matrix of potential outcomes involving strong and weak commitment and crisis in young adults’ psycho-social development. 52 Journal of European Baptist Studies 17:1 (2017) While learning to differentiate from family and social structures of youth, the emerging adult is to be urged not only to sense but to articulate with reason what and why beliefs and commitments are held. As Christian Smith et al. noted, the moral relativism that seems to be increasing among young adults stems in part from a passive acquiescence to cultural forces (such as consumerism) without a proactive commitment toward developing inner strength, values, and virtues . 39 Churches which as a community do not enc