Students Dive Into Theology

May 31, 2006

Close to 60 high school students from 25 states will arrive at Duke Divinity School in July for two weeks of immersion in Christian life and community.

The annual Duke Youth Academy for Christian Formation, which runs this year from July 9-22, offers gifted students an opportunity to study theology with Duke Divinity School faculty, worship through word and sacrament, reflect on scripture, and participate in various community service projects.

Faculty Director Fred Edie says the program is both rewarding and demanding for the students, who are typically rising high school juniors and seniors.

“The bar is raised pretty significantly in terms of our expectations of them,” he said. “Intellectually we take them out of their comfort zones in terms of servant ministry in the community. We expose them to a great many practices of the Christian faith that they have not yet encountered, such as early morning prayer and evening prayer daily.”

A central effort is to challenge the way students think about the world and how they want to live, Edie added.

“We ask them to think about their unfolding futures with God,” he said. “Is the American dream the same as Christian vocation? Or does Christian vocation point to a good life that is authentic, yet different?”

Emily Dueitt of Monroeville, Ala., head residence advisor for the program this summer, said the youth academy succeeds in pulling students out of typical vacation routines – such as watching television and playing video games – and immersing them in a monastic pattern of life.

“We can focus on different things,” said Dueitt, who attended the program in 2001 and who will become a master of divinity student at Duke Divinity School in the fall semester. “From the beginning, the students are talking about what it means to be a Christian, about their vocation. They’re learning about what we are called to as Christians through our baptism.”

Students also form lasting friendships through the youth academy and share what they have learned with others when they return home.

“One of the reasons it’s such an amazing experience is that you meet other students from all over the United States in this context, and then you can keep up with these people after you go home,” Dueitt said. “You also share what you learned in your home community, so the learning perpetuates itself. You have this deepening of spiritual formation starting with youth.”

For more information about the academy, call (919) 660-3542, email DuYouth@div.duke.edu, or visit the Duke Youth Academy Web site. See another version of this story on the Duke University News and Communications Web site.