What do young Christian girls in Western Norway think of joy, happiness, and leading a good life, and how do they relate it to faith and church?

Abstract

In this thesis I have investigated the concepts of joy, happiness, and a good life as well as their relationship to faith, church and Christian youth work. Working among youth, the question of relevance of faith and church have motivated me to strive to understand more of what the youth think and how they process what the church tries to pass on to them. Using the lenses of the field of Practical Theology, I have interviewed two groups of girls in Western Norway with the following research question in mind: what do young Christian girls in Western Norway think of joy, happiness, and leading a good life, and how do they relate it to faith and church? To bring the biblical and theological understanding of joy, happiness, and a good life to the work, I have drawn on the work of biblical scholars (Volf, 2015) and theologians (Moltamann, 1973), building a theorical framework to discuss the results. The research uses the qualitative method (Swinton & Mowat, 2006) and group interviews to collect data. In order to get a thick description (Ward, 2017), which is characteristic of qualitative studies, I used meaning condensation (Brinkmann&Kvale, 2009) to analyze the transcript of the data and get distinct meaning units from the material. These units were then grouped in terms of the specific purpose of the study, which were then reported in the results chapter. Having Richar Osmer’s (2008) four tasks of Practical Theology as an arching frame, the results are discussed within the theory showing that, for these girls, happiness is not a moral horizon (Root, 2020), but a bonus that may or may not happen in life. A good life is a life containing fellowship, meaning, contentment and the feeling of being safe. They view church community and Christian youth work as a space where they can connect to God, feel free from pressures to achieve, and perform; a second family. Jesus and God are viewed as safe persons and models on how to lead a meaningful life. Although they do not directly connect their understanding of joy, happiness and a good life with a biblical and theological view, their articulation of these topics show that their experiences within the church community mark deeply their definitions of them. They are aware that life brings challenges, and they point to examples of people from their faith community that have shown resilience and joy amidst difficulties. Nevertheless, the analysis has showed that there is a lack of articulation on the biblical and theological understanding of joy and a good life, among the interviewees. In conclusion, this research found out that the youth interviewed possess a Christian understanding of joy, happiness, and good life, but struggle to place it in interaction with the Christian metanarrative. In other words, they understand the circumstances of the Christian faith’s joy, but do not see it within their own circumstances.