Abraham and his willingness to offer an incomprehensible sacrifice serves as an important part of the origins of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Torah tells of Abraham painfully offering Hagar and Ishmael to the desert—trusting in God’s care for them. Genesis 22 also reports that Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac upon a mountain.
Often overlooked in the story of the Akedah (or “the binding”) is that Abraham was well over 100 years old while Isaac was a vibrant youth who could have either outrun or overpowered his aged father. Accordingly, this was a sacrifice to be offered by both the father and the son. Isaac was willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice.
What does sacrifice have to do with the youth of today? Scholars have referenced the teens of recent years as “I-Gen” or “generation ME” due to both the inundation of personal and self-focused technology, including a fixation on both self and “selfies.” In fairness, the adolescent focus on self is not novel. The Pulitzer-prize-winning author and psychologist Erik Erikson posited roughly 75 years ago that the teen years involved a “crisis” of Identity versus Identity confusion. This crisis involves finding answers to the question, “Who am I?”
Some teens, reflecting a sacred willingness to sacrifice for others, learn that a vital part of “who they are” involves being a person willing to give of themselves to God and to others. Today’s Akedah, originally expressed as the binding of Isaac, can involve devoted youth “binding” themselves to God by serving Him and by binding themselves to others through serving them. Through such efforts, some youth discover that one’s life expands and becomes bigger than the “self” when one’s life is willingly and purposefully given through kindness and service to others. Religious practices that point to sacrifice are common among Abrahamic faiths.
In Judaism, Akedah includes remaining bound to the Law, the Torah. We have witnessed Orthodox Jews kiss the tassels of their prayer shawls and touch them with emotion and reverence to the Torah scrolls being carried through the congregation. Christians are asked to follow the example of Jesus’ sacrifice (where He was bound to a cross) by making various sacrifices throughout their lives as they yield to the Father’s will. In Islam, the story of Ibrahim (Abraham) is central to the Hajj ritual, which focuses on submission to Allah (God). These ideals of sacrifice in religious history are taught to a significant portion of youth in America through participation in religious practices and rituals. As religious youth learn the importance of sacrifice, one may wonder how they are sacrificing for their faith in their day-to-day lives.
In an article by Dollahite and colleagues, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Research, 77 religious U.S. adolescents from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim families were asked if there were ways they had been invited to sacrifice for their faith. These diverse youth discussed sacrifices, including (1) going against societal expectations, (2) resisting popular culture, (3) giving up comforts and pleasures, (4) allocating time for sacred activities, and (5) adjusting peer relationships. We will share aspects of each of these sacrifices in participants’ own voices, next.
Youth Sacrifice 1: Going Against Societal Expectations
Many of the youth spoke of going against societal expectations as a sacrifice—when their religious beliefs, behaviors, and appearance did not align with society at large. This sacrifice was especially prevalent among youth who were religious minorities. Practices these youth discussed included dietary restrictions, marrying at a relatively young age with significant parental guidance, choosing traditional family roles, wearing distinct religious clothing such as the hijab (headcovering) for Muslim young women or a kippah (aka, yarmulke or skullcap) for Jewish young men), and even feeling endangered due to their religion. Tragically, religious hate crimes targeting Jews and Muslims have increased manifold in recent decades.
For many of the youth we interviewed, however, the reported challenges were more prosaic. A 17-year-old Black Muslim young woman named Zahra expressed forgoing mainstream cultural and holiday celebrations at her parents’ request. She said,
When I was younger, I wanted to go to my friend’s Halloween party, [and] go to … Christmas things. But at that time, for me, it wasn’t giving up anything … for religious reasons, [I was doing it] because [my parents] asked me to. [But as I got older], I felt that, “Oh, these are my friends, you know, I want to do that.”
For Zahra and many other devoted youth we interviewed, the level of religious sacrifice seemed to expand as she moved from childhood to adolescence.
A 17-year-old Hasidic Jewish young woman shared a socially challenging experience of choosing the traditional family role of motherhood. She said,
In this day and age for someone to be like, “Yeah, I want to be a mom”—basically, everyone kind of looks at me funny. I mean, last year, I was a junior at public school, and my English teacher … said, “How many of you girls want to have a career as opposed to be[ing] a mother?” And I didn’t raise my hand. And she was sort of taken aback.
Youth Sacrifice 2: Resisting Popular Culture
Another type of sacrifice the devoted youth referenced was resisting elements of popular culture. The elements included, but were not limited to: alcohol, tobacco, and substance use and abuse; modesty in dress and appearance; and avoiding certain forms of popular entertainment.
A 12-year-old girl named Haley, who belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, explained,
I’m not supposed to smoke; I’m not supposed to drink alcohol. I’m not supposed to do things that are going to hurt my body. I’m not supposed to get tattoos because my body is a temple, and I’m supposed to keep it clean and pure. …[Y]ou don’t go to any temple and see graffiti of a skull or a pink butterfly … on it. You don’t see writing on it. It’s … pure, and I want my body to be that way.
A 16-year-old Presbyterian named Christopher described the sacrifice he makes to live a self-disciplined life. He said,
I think the biggest thing that I’ve had to give up is the temptation of, when you’re my age, just going out and having a good time and not caring what other people think about you and just doing what your impulses tell you to do. … I think that it’s because when all is said and done and when the parties are over and the day after, it feels so right, and I feel so thankful for my decisions [not to party]. And I judge a lot of my decisions in the past by how I felt that day after I made the decision.
With the sacrifices of going against social expectations and resisting popular culture briefly overviewed, we now turn to a third sacrifice that many youth referenced.
Youth Sacrifice 3: Giving up Certain Comforts and Pleasures
Religious sacrifices made by youth also included giving up comforts and pleasures, such as giving up additional sleep, avoiding particular foods, and voluntarily donating money. Several also referenced limiting media time—including giving up media time to make space for sacred activities or missing out on particular popular programs that they avoided due to content that did not harmonize with their religious standards.
Let us first visit the first sacrifice mentioned above, relating to something that growing teens hold particularly dear … sleep. Some of the youth from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mentioned Early Morning Seminary, a scripture study program that involved 6:00 AM meetings Monday through Friday mornings during the nine-month school year.
A 14-year-old Catholic girl named Mary described giving up sleep and social opportunities to attend church with her family each week. She said,
Going to church every Sunday, my friends … not a lot of them do that. And so they’re like, “How do you get up so early?” Or Saturday night, they’ll ask if I want to spend the night or something like that. I’ll just have to say, “No, because I have to go to church in the morning.” And they’ll just be like, “Can’t you just miss one week?” … And, nope.
A 15-year-old Modern Orthodox Jew named Joshua explained the sacrifice he makes in giving up the viewing of sports in order to observe holidays and Shabbat. He said,
[For me, a sacrifice is] not being able to watch TV on holidays and Shabbat, [where] if I wasn’t Jewish, I would. Like the sports games that are on Friday nights, Celtics games I don’t watch, if they’re on Friday night. But because I’m Jewish and I’m observant, I didn’t, even though I wanted to.
Devoted youth sacrifice sleep, comforts, and pleasures—including viewing sports. As we see in our next theme, some also sacrifice not only viewing but playing sports (and engaging in some of their other favorite recreational activities) due to their religious faith.
Youth Sacrifice 4: Allocating Time for Sacred Activities
Many adolescents of various denominations mentioned allocating time for praying, reading religious texts, and attending religious meetings. Many also discussed forgoing activities that conflicted with religious worship or holy days or sacred activities.
One high-frequency, sacred activity that is highly structured in Islam is salat (daily prayers). A 19-year-old Muslim female named Aaliyah shared the sacrifice of time she makes in order to pray several times a day. She said,
Well, basically, we pray five times a day. And usually two of those prayers [at least during] the wintertime; two of them are during school hours. And so, what I would do is, during lunchtime or whenever I didn’t have a class, I had already talked to the principal … and they gave me a room where I could go pray. And so, I would just go do that.
A 13-year-old Latter-day Saint named Larry described forgoing participation in team sports on Sunday in order to honor the Sabbath day. He shared,
I’m on a basketball team right now, and they have tournaments almost every weekend on Saturday and Sunday. So, I go to the games on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, I don’t go to them because I’m trying to keep the Sabbath day holy. [On Sunday], I go to church with my family.
Sacrifices like Aaliyah giving up lunchtime at school to pray or Larry refusing to play in Sunday games with his basketball team involve a sacrifice beyond just “allocating time for sacred activities.” Such sacrifices can also impact a devoted youth’s relationships with those peers who are eating lunch or playing ball while the devoted youth is spending time worshipping their God. We turn to this in our final theme.
Youth Sacrifice 5: Adjusting Peer Relationships
Some specific sacrifices many youth mentioned included not being socially accepted, losing friendships, and having some aspects of their social life limited because their friends participated in activities that were prohibited by their religion. Youth also occasionally mentioned experiencing some isolation, some dating restrictions and limitations, and parental/faith community expectations that they would date and marry within their faith.
When a 13-year-old Latter-day Saint male was asked what he had been asked to sacrifice, he answered, “Watching PG-13 movies and rated R. Our parents asked us not to do that.” The interviewer then asked how his friends respond when they want him to come with them [to watch an R-rated movie]. He said, “Well, they kind of make fun of me sometimes … but then I just say, ‘Well, I don’t really care because there’s better stuff to do, like play basketball.’”
An 18-year-old Baptist young woman named Gracie explained that she has sacrificed some aspects of an active social life in order to glorify God. She said,
Well, I guess [my sacrifices would be] the whole way of living in this community. I feel like I’ve really just not had a very active social life because almost everything that most of my friends at school are doing is something that I don’t feel would be glorifying God.
Conclusion
Within the Abrahamic faiths, the religious history and practice of sacrifice are taught to diverse but religiously devoted youth. A focus on the “self” and egocentric perspective is normal for teens and youth, but many religiously devoted adolescents are reportedly receiving these teachings and practices involving sacrifice and applying them to their own lives.
Some youth are sacrificing for their God and for others—and are doing so in myriad ways, including going against societal expectations, resisting popular culture, giving up certain comforts and pleasures, allocating time for sacred activities, and adjusting peer relationships.
The word cost is often used as a synonym for sacrifice. Religiously diverse American youth can recognize, identify, and discuss costs but are still willing to sacrifice for their religion. Such youth may serve as living examples of the late religious leader Gordon B. Hinckley’s promise to youth, “You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.”
In recent years, scholars have documented unprecedented numbers of youth and young adults experiencing loneliness, anxiety, depression, despair, lack of meaning and purpose, and thoughts of suicide. These existential challenges currently facing young people prompt questions about cause and effect.
The culprit seems to be a perfect storm of factors, including increasing separation from others because of high levels of media use, relational instabilities among parents and other family members, and decreasing levels of religious belief, involvement, and commitment.
Kenda Creasy Dean, an ordained United Methodist pastor and the Mary D. Synott Professor of Youth, Church, and Culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote a book titled Almost Christian: What the Faith of our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (which we highly recommend).
Dean summarized her findings by suggesting that teens with what she called “consequential faith” tend to have the following four things:
1. A “creed to believe” including the ability to articulate their beliefs about a God who was both personal and powerful
2. A “community to belong to” wherein they find identity and support.
3. A “call to live out” meaning a sense of divine purpose, mission, or vocation that is directed toward others rather than themselves and includes sacrifices for others.
4. A “hope to hold onto” or a sense that their lives are part of a larger purpose, something bigger than themselves and a future that is guided by God.
Based on evidence from social science research, including our own, we believe one of the best things that parents and religious leaders can do for the youth and young adults in their lives is to model and teach through example the importance of giving to God, to a faith community, and to others around them through sacred service and sacrifice.
We think this pattern of sacrifice will help youth and young adults to develop a strong sense of identity, meaning, purpose, and resilience. They will therefore be less likely to experience the things that plague younger generations and instead grow in faith, hope, and charity and thereby be better prepared for the challenges of marriage, parenting, and being contributing members of their communities.
