Growing Up and Into Faith
The Youth Theological Initiative provides the space and the forum for teens to explore and develop their spiritual lives
THE YOUTH THEOLOGICAL Initiative at Candler School of Theology at Emory—or “YTI,” as it’s casually known—hosts workshops, trips, and residential programs on theology and biblical studies for high school students.
As former YTI director Beth Corrie explains it, the program was born out of a dream to offer high-level academic and spiritual experiences to young people, who don’t often have opportunities for in-depth dialogue in their schools and churches.
Scholars and Candler School faculty walk across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Ala., during a YTI pilgrimage focused on the civil rights movement.
“All of this was about, ‘What if we get a bunch of young people together on a college campus, treat them like the near adults they really are, introduce them to the richness of the Christian tradition, theological concepts and biblical exegesis, and put them at the center pedagogically?’” Corrie said. “In other words, not lecturing at them for three hours and having them memorize things but actually getting them to connect concepts with what really matters in their lives.”
Through grant funding from Lilly Endowment Inc., Candler pioneered a summer theology academy model that is now emulated by universities across the country. When YTI was founded in 1993, the idea of providing a platform for teenagers to explore faith and God or what it means to be a good person, and to give them theological vocabulary to articulate their experiences, was completely novel.
Corrie first dipped her toe into the program in 1996, when she was a Ph.D. candidate at Candler. She worked with youth off and on during her summers, eventually returning full time in 2007 as YTI’s director.
The program exposes young people from a wide range of backgrounds and Christian denominations to different ideas and puts them in close proximity with other youth they might not otherwise meet, for an intense few weeks over the summer. Call it a kind of religion and philosophy boot camp.
“The frequent refrain we hear from participants is, ‘No adult has ever asked me these questions before. No adult has actually sat and just talked to me for any length of time before,’” Corrie said.
Why is all of this so important? “Social change has always been driven by young people,” said Candler staff member Jill Weaver, who transitioned into the YTI director role as Corrie moved into a new career phase. “Young people are the ones who haven’t yet gotten kind of numb to the way things are... They’re still asking, ‘But why is it that way?’ They still have energy; they still want to change things.”
Alumna Sara Toering attended YTI in 1996 when she was 17, drawn to the prospect of “being a part of a community that wasn’t afraid to ask questions about faith.” She was a consummate seeker, yearning to meet other like-minded young people who were asking the same kinds of big questions about life and faith and what it all means.
“I don’t think I’ve yet had a worship experience that resonated with me as much as the YTI chapels. Every night was different. We all planned them in groups, and it was such a profound space for creativity and diversity in worship,” she said. She remembers incorporating a variety of elements, like jazz and improv comedy, into worship.
Toering also made weekly visits to a health/support group for HIV-positive men and women in Atlanta called Common Ground. Visiting with people there had a “profound impact on me,” she said. “I learned a great deal, had a lived experience of God, and a lot of my long-term life activism was in some ways born in that place.”
The program approaches engagement with teens from all different angles, which is part of the secret to its inclusivity and impactfulness, Corrie said. The kids range in their different levels and goals of spirituality, from atheist or agnostic to those who are considering entering seminary some day.
“YTI is dramatically diverse, and that has a profound impact on the students,” Weaver said. “They have this mountaintop experience. People are really transformed and then sent home.”
“Young people are the ones who haven’t yet gotten kind of numb to the way things are... They’re still asking, ‘but why is it that way?’ They still have energy, they still want to change things.”
JILL WEAVER
The “reentry” period can be jarring for some young people, fresh off of the exhilarating, eye-opening experience of YTI. This was certainly the case for alumnus Alex Revelle, who got back to his hometown of Durham, N.C., after participating in 2009 at age 16, and plunged into a kind of existential crisis.
It “was a complete shock to me, but a good shock,” he said. “How could I have such a vivid and vibrant experience and be exposed to so many new ideas and thoughts, and then just come back to, for me, a box? I felt like I was spiritually trapped.”
While the American Baptist tradition he grew up in wasn’t fire and brimstone by any means, Revelle said it was one steeped in “reverence” and adherence to one firm conception of God. Wanting to keep his mind open, he stopped going to his family’s church for a while because “it just wasn’t sitting with me.”
During that “difficult and arduous time” spiritually, Revelle stayed in touch with some of the friends he had made at YTI, which helped, but still, “it was like the farther I ran, it just came back around in a circle. I would go to different churches, but I still would just feel boxed in,” he said.
Like Revelle, alumna Sara Toering also held tightly on to the bonds she had forged at YTI with scholars and faculty as she, too, grappled with what came next. So much so that she has “boxes of letters” from the friends she made, and, in fact, 11 people at her wedding in 2011 were friends who attended YTI way back in 1996.
Eventually, the existential crisis led Revelle to a brand-new spiritual path and the decision to enter seminary. He knew right away where he wanted to apply. Now in his second year of the Master of Divinity degree program at Candler, Revelle said he’s still constantly asking “those hard, critical questions” as he forges a theological career path.
The curriculum is largely dependent on young people’s current interests, Corrie said, which entails applying a theological framework to talk about issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community, racism and antiracism, and immigration. YTI also programs some timely cultural courses, like classes focused on zombies, eco-apocalypse and climate change, hip-hop music and theology, and the “cursing Psalms.”
“We try to tap into the expertise of the people I’ve got around me and match that with what I think is going to actually come close to the existential realities of these young people,” Corrie said.
They’ve made field trips to places like the Hindu Temple in Lilburn and the Center for Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta. They go to synagogues and mosques. Sometimes they volunteer at an urban farm or a refugee youth center. Once, Corrie said, the scholars were challenged to travel on public transportation, eat, and explore downtown Atlanta with just $6 each. Another time, they held a spa night focused on disrupting gender norms. Every activity is a specific exercise aimed at a teachable moment.
Over the years, they have also incorporated more committed pilgrimages, like a civil rights-focused journey to Alabama, where they visit the Montgomery Legacy Museum, the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, and the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, which students and faculty cross on foot together.
Weaver also leads recently graduated high school seniors and recent alumni of YTI on a 10-day trip to Northern Ireland, primarily Belfast, which she said offers a poignant comparison for students of the entrenched identity conflicts in the United States with other parts of the world.
Now in its 26th year, the program has continued to evolve and adapt—at first to accommodate for the competition caused by the “summer camp renaissance” of the late 1990s/early 2000s, when young people were presented with far more opportunities to go to camps concentrating on every subject under the sun.
More recently, YTI has pivoted to accommodate the increasingly occupied schedules of young people and their ever-shorter summer vacations. Originally set at four weeks every year, YTI is now just two weeks in the summer, with an optional yearlong public theology internship for camp graduates and the option to come back for another two weeks of more advanced scholarship the following summer. Weaver said she hopes these new options will help youth integrate their “mountaintop experience” into their everyday lives.
But no matter the outward, structural changes, the goals of YTI remain the same: to empower young people to apply a theological lens to the world around them, and to instill empathy and curiosity about the world’s vastness and diversity.
“Sometimes the most transformative thing about YTI is just treating these teenagers like whole human beings and interacting with them as equals,” Weaver said.
