Archive: Tarzan Christianity

By Duffy Robbins

When I was a young boy, one of my favorite television heroes was Tarzan, “King of the Jungle.” I can still see him flying through forests, his bronzed muscles framed by that classic leopard-skin outfit, the whole jungle coming alive with the sound of his trademark scream.

The most amazing part of Tarzan’s whole show was the way he could swing from tree to tree. There was always a vine right where he needed it, always the right length, and always loose enough to release from the tree with the slightest tug.

I used to wonder about that. I roamed in the woods behind our house looking up at the tree tops, suspicious that it would take more than a quick pull to launch these vines. I worried about what might happen if Tarzan’s vine were ever too long or too short. I imagined how sad it would be to see my leopard-clad hero swing down into the jungle floor with a thud, and how gruesome it might be if the vine were ever too short to allow my hero to make it to the next “vine station.” These were frightening thoughts for a young boy.

I think my greatest fear, though, was that Tarzan would someday come to the edge of the jungle and simply run out of trees. Imagine Tarzan screaming his way through the jungle … first to one tree … then to another … then to another … then to another . .. when all of a sudden … Tarzan comes to a clearing. No tree. No vine. Just a blur of flesh and leopard skin flying through the air. Not a pretty thought.

And yet, it is precisely that image that comes to my mind sometimes when I think about the students we work with in our youth ministries. I can see them in my mind’s eye, swinging from Sunday night to Sunday night, youth meeting to youth meeting, retreat to festival, summer camp to mission trip.

But what will happen to them when they come to the clearing? What will happen when they leave our youth groups and no longer have the luxury of swinging from one tree-top experience to the next? What will happen when they find themselves out there in the jungle of everyday life with all of its risks and dangers?

My great concern is that what we are seeing in the lives of so many of our students is a classic case of “crash and burn”—a plunging, groping blur of leopard skin and Bible cover. In short, we are witnessing “Faith Failure.”

Is There Life After Tree Tops?

For those of us in youth ministry the critical question is how we can prevent this kind of fall. How can we nurture our students in such a way that they can survive in the jungle without experiencing the pain of “faith failure”? To be sure, it is God who begins the “good work,” and it is God who can see it through to “completion” (Philippians 1:6). But, as youth workers we dare not overlook the fact that our task is not completed just by getting teenage Tarzans to jump into the jungle; we must help them to land, to stand, and to keep walking with Christ on a daily basis.

Some of you reading these words have only recently returned from summer camps and retreats with your youth groups. Many of you have seen God work mightily in the lives of your students. That’s wonderful! It’s always a joy to think back about summer nights, work camps, prayer times, and camp fires. If you’ve been out with a group of teenagers this summer, you deserve a little reminiscence (and a purple heart!).

But, let us be warned that “a crisis not followed by a process becomes an abscess.” We must be careful to avoid breeding in our students a Tarzan Christianity that swings from one tree top experience to the next. The job of youth ministry is not in getting kids to swing from the trees; it is in helping them cling to the Vine.

There are any number of factors that short-circuit this important work. Ultimately, however, the key to preventing a nasty fall is restoring a consistent balance in the way we do youth ministry. In the next several issues of Good News we will examine some of the most common errors of imbalance in our youth ministries.