What Is Inverse?

In 1992 George H. Gallup International Institute published a compendium of surveys on the spiritual beliefs and practices of teenagers and young adults called The Religious Life of Young Americans. The publication begins with the six basic needs...

• The need to believe that life is meaningful and has a purpose. During a time when sociologists observe a self-obsessive sense in a person in America, most Americans believe it is very important that life be meaningful and have purpose.
• The need for a sense of community and deeper relationships. Many factors conspire to create separateness in our society -- high mobility, divorce with the break up of families, and other factors. One of the poignant consequences to this separateness is loneliness. We discover from surveys that Americans are among the loneliest people in the entire world.
• The need to be appreciated and loved. This is certainly a basic and fundamental need, yet as many as one third of American people have a low sense of self-worth or self-esteem, arising in considerable measure from not being loved or appreciated. Significantly, we have discovered that the closer people feel to God, the better they feel about themselves.
• The need to be listened to-to be heard.
• The need to feel that one is growing in faith. Seven persons in ten say they have experienced a change in faith during their lifetimes.
• The need for practical help in developing a mature faith. We pray and believe in the power of prayer, but our prayer life sometimes tends to be a hit or miss affair. We believe in the ten commandments to be valid rules of life, but are unable to name them. We would be hard pressed to defend our faith and are uncertain about what we believe, let alone why we believe.