The emerging generation is unusual.
Generational differences have always existed, most visibly as the youth challenges the authority of adults. Yet commonly one finds that most youth eventually grow into their parents. However, the current emerging generation reveals something that I believe is uniquely transforming society. I can only talk in generalities of course, and exceptions will abound. The defining difference of the emerging generation is a deep confidence to be publicly honesty about self, and the expectation is that the older generation should be likewise. This has nothing to do with spirituality or secularization. Again and again I encounter this frank honesty regardless of whether the person is deeply religious, hedonist, ambitious, egotistical, philosophical, or living only for the moment. We live in a post-Christian age where relativism reigns and the adoption of values through a cultural religious upbringing has all but vanished. So it is astounding that the emerging generation values honesty so highly. This is building a society in which a new form of ethics is being elevated. Although the relativism demands that one allows for multiple ethical framings: so long as one is honest about the values one holds, then that is deemed “right”. This is a “toleration of differing values” so long as one is honest about the values. This brutal self-honesty makes demands of society. For example, that LGBTQ+ be accepted alongside the fundamentalist Christian missionary alongside the environmental activist’s passion. The paradox is that this demand is made as long as the agenda of one person is not being imposed on another, and that everyone subscribes to the ethos of relativism. I can hear objections already: what about the corruption and polarization in society, or the violence by one people group visited on another, surely that's the opposite of what I've suggested? But our leaders are not characteristic of the general population’s views. It is dangerous to assume that because democracy votes in its leaders, that the leaders then reflect the values of the emerging generation of voters. In a democracy the elect succeed by playing to, or playing on the vested interests of an engaged population minority -- usually voters with single issue concerns. Nowhere was this more evident than when Trump was elected; those for whom self-honesty was deeply important did one of two things, they gravitated to Bernie Sanders or abstained from participation. As a result honesty lost the election. One may speculate why this change is emerging. A key driver is surely the growing loss of privacy and how the emerging generation is comfortable with that. Snapchat, Facebook, and suchlike have inculcated a comfortableness about the nakedness of the inner individual; what was once hidden or shocking has become acceptable so long as people are honest about it. There is something here that the older generation could learn; own your values and live them. There is a challenge here for the church; own your values and live them. This raises a critical question: what does it then mean to desire that others believe the same? This question is equally important for the vegan, the environmental activist, and the Christian. The world is awash with one value system seeking to influence another, and it is a world of relativism. Hence appealing to an absolute truth carries little weight; few accept there is an absolute truth. Instead the arguments try to build a weight of evidence, play on emotions, and seek to sway perspectives through an appeal to be honest about “doing the right thing”. Yet at the root of it all is a non-negotiable necessity to respect an individual’s right to differ. This is a contemporary cultural paradox; this desire to convert a persons value system ones own lies in tension with the demand that each respect the right to differ. The church does not get this. The church see’s a battle, and in the eternal sense it is a brutal battle that has to be fought. Yet the church does not know how to engage when the battlefield is a post-christian society that demands honest respect for the right to be opposed. How do you engage in a battle of values when those opposing your view ignore you and walk away? The church is pushing its agenda while simultaneously its members fatally undermine it by not understanding the shifting realities that surrounding them. How then does one live a value in this strangely fluid landscape when is contradicted by the values of another? The operative words are knowing “how to live”. Contested values feel threatening when one’s confidence is weak. Many pew-attending Christians have weak confidence because they believe in a system of behavior rather than believing in the person who embodies those underlying values. This means confidence becomes rooted in the institution, rather than the person the institution represents - Jesus. And so my central question. As our generations age and society fundamentally shifts to a technological determined, relativistic and public lifestyle, what is the church’s response to be? Who in the church can teach how to live out a love for the hedonist neighbour, be a true friend to a LGBTQ colleague, and hang out in meaningful relationship with the syncretist vegan activist. Who understands what it means to live the Christian relationship in a world that esteems the value of relativism. I don’t know the answers. I suggest it has to begin with living honestly about what one really believes, living to what I knows to be true. That someone else calls my truth a fiction changes nothing, I need to live to the truth as I know it. And here’s the rub; the vegan, the hedonist, the fluidly sexual, are already doing that better than many Christians! They are effective in living according to what they honestly believe to be true. That I differ on what is truth does not negate the admirable quality that they live by their view of truth. This creates “a bit of a situation”, for in doing so the beliefs that lie at odds with Jesus are being lived in an honesty that is effective in changing others to their point of view. Meanwhile the Church hedges their bets in compromise and with little understanding of what is changing in society under their very noses. We, the members of the global church, have much yet to learn about living our faith in this new age.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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