Differences in Generations Lead to Spiritual Crises and Awakenings

Concerns from young and old

In You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church ... and Rethinking Faith (Baker Books, 2011), author David Kinnaman explains why the church is losing many 16-to-29-year-olds. Kinnaman is president of The Barna Group, which does church-related research. In an earlier book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity (Baker Books, 2007), he and co-author Gabe Lyons reported Barna’s findings about why young non-Christians—outsiders in relation to the church—reject the Christian faith. But You Lost Me is about young insiders—young adults who once thought of themselves as Christians but have left the church or even left the Christian faith.

Churches need a different response

When I read in these books about the church features that are keeping young generations away, I recognized one of those as a feature that also turns off many older churchgoers. It’s that churches don’t seem like safe or hospitable places to express doubts, ask questions, get reliable information, or have real dialogue. Many young adults feel, David Kinnaman finds, that the churches in which they were raised have offered them only dogmatic, unconvincing answers to their serious questions. These young adults want to work with others to find answers that are more credible.

So do many older churchgoers. They have not left the church in numbers as large as younger churchgoers, but many have left and others have become minimal, reluctant participants instead of the full and enthusiastic participants they previously were. To me, this means that churches need to change their way of responding to honest questions and to the desire for reliable information and real dialogue.

Pointing the finger at the establishment

David Kinnaman is especially struck by the fact that so many young adults describe their faith journeys in startlingly similar language. He emphasizes that every person goes on a unique journey related to his or her faith and spirituality, and that every story matters. Yet he sees patterns in what Barna interviewers have heard from hundreds of thousands of young adults. They feel that the institutional church has failed them.

“I hung in for a long while, thinking that fighting from within was the way to go,” says one young adult whom Kinnaman quotes, “but I ultimately realized that it was damaging my relationship with God and my relationship with myself and I felt no choice but to leave.”

“It’s not just dropping out that [young adults] have in common,”  Kinnaman emphasizes. “They point the finger, fairly or not, at the establishment: you lost me.” They see the church as having caused them to leave it.

Older churchgoers with similar feelings

Despite being a lot older than the Christians Kinnaman is writing about, I have some of the same feelings that he has found young adults describing, and I hear from many other longtime churchgoers who also have such feelings.

Here’s what I heard just last week from a pastor who throughout his life has taught many adult Sunday School classes and other adult church groups and still does that now, in his nineties. “I find many seniors—elders—who are seekers,” he wrote. “Progressives, asking questions, still hooked on Jesus, but wondering ‘Did the corpse get up and walk?’ ‘What reality does Christological language rest on?’ ‘In the Ascension, where did Jesus go? Up? What’s up there?’ ‘Pre-existing Christ? Gonna return when? Where?’ And so on and on.”

Discouraging many, losing some

Some of us have dared to ask such questions openly in our congregations. Some have risked expressing doubts and unorthodox views. Some have tried to stir up real dialogue or have taken the initiative to get up-to-date information and to hear a wider range of views on our own, outside of our home congregations. Sometimes we get shocked looks in response. Occasionally we’ve even been shunned. But the overwhelming response from many congregations has been apathetic silence, rather than the appreciation and help that we’ve felt our efforts deserved. Such responses give us the impression that the church actually wants to keep people from learning, thinking, and maturing in faith.

Mosaics, Busters, Boomers, Elders

When a church discourages inquiry and dialogue, young adults quickly conclude that staying in it is pointless. Yet Kinnaman also finds other characteristics of their generation influencing their decision.

He writes mainly about the generation that he calls Mosaics and other writers call Millennials or Generation Y. Members of this generation were born from 1984 through 2002. He distinguishes the Mosaics from three older generations: Busters, born between 1965 and 1983 and often called Generation X; Boomers, the Baby Boom generation that followed World War II, born from 1946 through 1964; and Elders, born before 1946.

The Barna Group’s research shows that Busters and Mosaics share some characteristics. For both, friendships with peers are the driving force, and loyalty to friends has high value. Also, both groups want to discuss, debate, and question everything, and are therefore turned off by Christians’ unwillingness to engage in genuine dialogue.

An eclectic group

Kinnaman calls today’s youngest generation of adults Mosaics, he says, because a mosaic is made up of many different pieces and to him this reflects the eclectic relationships, thinking styles, and learning formats of these young adults. He observes that they feel disdain for the passive, one-sided communication they see as characteristic of churches and individual Christians. Mosaics also feel disconnected from what they see as the formulaic faith that the church presents. To many Mosaics, its apologetics—the reasons it claims for its official beliefs—seem disconnected from the real world.

Research from The Barna Group has shown that the Mosaics see individual Christians and the church as hypocritical—saying one thing and doing another. They see us as having a morally superior attitude that our behavior doesn’t justify. They see the church as too focused on getting converts, making outsiders feel like targets instead of people that Christians really care about. They see the church as antihomosexual for no valid reason, as sheltered and out of touch with reality, as too political (especially conservative Christians), and as too quick to judge others. Many describe the church as boring. But the reaction of many Mosaics, The Barna Group has found, is simply indifference, “blowing us off.”

Living in a new reality

Feelings about the church, however, are far from the only cause of the big gap that exists between Mosaics and adults of older generations. The Mosaics, David Kinnaman emphasizes, are immersed in a new technological, social, and spiritual reality that is very different from where most older churchgoers see themselves living. Science, especially recent years’ findings in physics and astronomy, is familiar ground for the Mosaics, but not for many adults who finished school in earlier years. In addition, Mosaics have regular contact with a much wider variety of people than older generations typically have or ever have had. Mosaics are likely to go to school every day with people of varied races, religions, sexual orientations, and family arrangements, or to work with a similar variety of people. Their work and leisure travel are likely to take them outside the U.S. It’s no wonder that to this generation, rejecting people because of such differences seems ridiculous, even cruel, and that working for social justice is very important.

Above all, digital technology is a huge part of Mosaics’ life. Easy and immediate access to gigantic amounts of information and contacts with other people through digital technologies is a constant, taken-for-granted part of Mosaics’ lives. And unlike older Christians, they want their information and conversation only in quick, short bits, not in articles, books, or speeches.

I was reminded of this by a recent TV interview of Nick D’Aloisio, the 17-year-old whose mobile-phone app (created when he was 15!) has been bought by Yahoo for just under thirty million dollars. “Do you ever read newspapers?” the interviewer asked. “No,” said D’Aloisio. “Magazines? Books?” “No.” “Watch television?” “No.” He got news only from digital media, he said, thus he got it mostly in two-sentence packages.

Time for change

Older Christians may see this way of getting information as having undesirable results, but merely criticizing it won’t help. Kinnaman reminds us that young adults want to take action rather than to read or listen to “talking heads,” and they want to act in ways they can see as helping others or leading to visible change, so we need to offer more of that.

To older generations, Mosaics and Busters often seem irreverent, too candid, or even brazen, but they’re making observations that we need to pay attention to. “The way we have been teaching [the Mosaics] to engage the world as disciples of Christ,” Kinnaman observes, “is inadequate for the issues, concerns, and sensibilities of the world we ask them to change for God.”

In fact, much of what the church has presented and continues to present to people of all ages—not just to young adults—is being revealed as inadequate for today’s world. From our churches, too many of us have never even gotten the message that we’re called to change the world, much less gotten information about what specific aspects of it might need changing, or gotten support for our efforts to change it. Instead, from too many churches we’ve gotten only the doctrines that the Mosaics recognize as “formulaic faith,” based on long-outdated understandings of the universe and communicated in outdated words and styles. As a result, the church has lost not just most of the Mosaics but also many older Christians.

Change is therefore urgently needed now. It includes getting to know members of other generations personally, and hearing each others’ stories. And it includes openly addressing real questions and tough issues, not just pussyfooting around them.

 “Whatever our age or spiritual state,” David Kinnaman warns, “we must all respond to our new and uncertain cultural context.”

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Lost by versions that misrepresent Christianity

Another author who writes about what is causing the church to lose young people and some older people is United Methodist pastor Roger Wolsey. Wolsey, a member of Generation X, sees a discouraging number of his peers who were raised in the church shifting away from Christianity to other religions or to no religion. And in his view, what often drives them off is not real Christianity but rather a misrepresentation of it.

He is concerned, as I am, about the need to present an understanding of Christianity that differs from conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism. He sees these as the versions most prominently presented in the American news media, all but monopolizing the Christian faith yet misrepresenting it.

What’s conservative and what’s not?

In Roger Wolsey’s view, conservative evangelicalism and fundamentalism have largely and mistakenly reduced sin to what happens in people’s bedrooms. They seek to influence our political process with agendas that bolster our march toward wars and corporate imperialism. They shun the insights of contemporary science, and many show little concern for protecting our natural environment.

Wolsey’s book Kissing Fish: Christianity for People Who Don’t Like Christianity (XLibris, 2011)  presents what he and others call progressive Christianity and consider a more faithful interpretation. His book, written in a conversational style that combines personal memoir with theology, is free from the Internet at www.progressivechristianitybook.com.

“In many ways,” he says of progressive Christianity, “it’s a reformation of the church to its earlier pre-modernist and pre-Constantinian roots.” And ironically, he points out, this means that in reality, progressive Christianity is conservative and what goes by the name of “conservative Christianity” isn’t.

Whatever generation you’re part of, I think you’ll find Kissing Fish entertaining and thought-provoking.

 JANUARY 1997

Today's generation gaps

In recent years we’ve heard a lot about the generation gap. However, a lot of what is said about this subject isn’t new. Children and teenagers have been seeing things differently from their parents and grandparents for a long time. Writings from very early centuries include adults’ complaints about how wild and irresponsible the youth have become.

The gap between adults and their parents isn’t new, either. It may be more noticeable now than in earlier years, because more people live to older ages now than in earlier years, but otherwise it’s a familiar problem.

A different kind of gap

In recent years, however, many observers of contemporary society have begun talking about another kind of generation gap.

The most influential differences between generations, these observers say, come from differences in the life experiences of generations.

An especially influential description of this kind of generational differences was published in 1991 in a book named Generations, by William Strauss and Neil Howe (William Morrow and Co., NY). When Strauss and Howe look at U.S. history, they see a recurring pattern. It consists of distinctive types of personalities and moods that develop in response to powerful historical events.

Secular crises and spiritual awakenings

According to Strauss and Howe, these influential events are of two kinds. Each of them radically changes the social environment. Some are secular crises, such as wars. They make society focus on changing the outer world of institutions and public behavior. Other crises are spiritual awakenings, in which the society’s main focus is on changing the inner world of values and private behavior.

A generation that comes of age during one of these crucial times becomes dominant in the society, Strauss and Howe find, and stays dominant throughout its members’ lifetime. However, the generation whose youth occurs during the crisis becomes and remains a recessive generation. It has relatively little influence on the society at large.

Four kinds of generations

Strauss and Howe see four kinds of generations recurring regularly throughout U.S. history. Because of individual differences in personality and experience, not every member of a generation has all of its characteristics, but in Strauss and Howe’s view that doesn’t keep general descriptions of the generations from being useful.

§  Civic

A civic generation is a dominant generation that focuses mainly on the outer world. Its typical members grow up as protected youths after a spiritual awakening. They come of age overcoming a secular crisis, and they become a heroic group of achievers. At midlife they have power and build institutions. They become busy elders who are attacked by the next spiritual awakening.

§  Adaptive

An adaptive generation is recessive. Its typical members grow up as overprotected, suffocated youths during a secular crisis. As they mature they become conformists who aren’t inclined to take risks. At midlife they’re what Strauss and Howe call “arbitrator-leaders” during a spiritual awakening. As sensitive elders they still have influence, but they often get less respect than other generations. 

§  Idealist

Typical members of an idealist generation grow up as indulged youths after a secular crisis, and they come of age during a spiritual awakening. At midlife they tend to emphasize principle, and they may become moralistic. As elders, they are the visionaries in the next secular crisis. An idealist generation is a dominant one that focuses mainly on the inner world.

§  Reactive

Many members of reactive generations grow up as underprotected and criticized youths during a spiritual awakening. They are likely to be alienated risktakers as they come of age, and pragmatic leaders during a secular crisis at mid-life. As elders they tend to be respected but reclusive.

Four generations of today’s adults

Applying these observations, here’s how Strauss and Howe label the four generations that include nearly all of today’s adults.

§  The G.I. generation

Its members were born between about 1901 and 1924, so today their ages range from about 72 to 95. World War II, a major secular crisis, had life-shaping influence that made this a civic generation. All seven U.S. Presidents from John F. Kennedy through George Bush have been members of this dominant generation.

§  The Silent generation

This adaptive group’s members were born between about 1925 and 1942, mostly during depression and war, and they grew up during World War II. No member of this recessive generation has been president of the U.S.

This generation has sometimes been called the sandwich generation. Many of its members have felt caught between dominant, high-achieving, G.I. Generation parents and institutional leaders who have held onto their power, and the Baby Boomers who have claimed power early. Silent Generation members are left feeling that they’ve never gotten their chance to shine. They’ve often felt spread thin, too, by having to be caretakers of their parents and their children at the same time.

Also, members of this generation are young enough to realize the need for some recent societal changes, such as women’s entry into more public leadership roles, but they’re no longer young enough to reap full benefit from these changes. One prominent member of the Silent Generation has said, “We were born 20 years too soon, or too late.”

§  The Baby Boom generation

This generation’s members were born between about 1943 and the early 1960’s. Most came of age in the rebellious 60’s. President Clinton is a Baby Boomer, as are many others of today’s political and business leaders. Because members of this generation are so numerous com-pared to the generations before and after them, their needs and wants get an unusual amount of attention. Because the Baby Boomers are now approaching retirement age, for example, we’re currently seeing great concern about whether Social Security will be able to support all of them.

As a dominant, idealist generation, the Baby Boomers have been instrumental in changing many customs and standards that earlier generations considered permanent. With ‘the Baby Boomers came an increase in divorce, for example, and in couples living together without being married. Our churches have been severely affected not only by this kind of changes but also by this generation’s failure to continue the pattern of automatic churchgoing and denominational loyalty that earlier generations of Christians tended to follow.

§  Generation X

This reactive, recessive generation has also been called the Thirteeners, because in Strauss and Howe’s scheme it is the 13th generation since the U.S. began. Its members, also called the Baby Busters, were born between the early 60’s and the early 80’s, so are currently young adults. They’re the first generation to have had television during their entire lifetime. They’ve also grown up with computers and the information revolution, the threat of nuclear war and destruction of the environment, rapid technological change, and many other features of contemporary society that members of today’s older generations didn’t encounter until later in life.

Why does any of this matter?

Knowing about these generational differences and responding appropriately to their effects is apparently going to be vital for our churches’ future effectiveness. In fact, the mere survival of some traditional mainline denominations and congregations may depend on whether or not they respond appropriately to the ways in which today’s generations react differently to the church.

Most mainline Christian denominations today include a disproportionate number of members from the G.I. and Silent generations. We’re short on Baby Boomers and very short on members of Generation X. Yet to keep doing what God calls the church to do, we’ll have to keep attracting younger generations as committed Christians. We can’t do that by continuing to communicate, worship, minister, teach or evangelize only in the ways that have attracted the older generations that are now in the majority in our membership.

Xers—unknowns, or Christian leaders?

One of our churches’ greatest needs right now is to learn about Generation X and to pay attention to what its members are saying. To many of us older church members, they’re mostly unknown. We’ve tended to write them off because their music is louder than we like, their clothes aren’t always what we consider attractive or proper, and some of their behaviors are different from what we like and are used to.

“I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”

—2 Timothy 1:5

The people who are looking more deeply at Generation X, however, and especially at Xers’ reactions to traditional Christian churches, are seeing some interests and concerns of Generation X that go much deeper than music and clothing preferences.

In the next issue of Connections I’ll write about some of those concerns. They include the desire for true community, for true intimacy, for authenticity, and for doing one-to-one ministries that deal directly with the suffering people that surround us in our everyday lives. Those features seem familiar, don’t they? It seems to me that they’re essentially what God has been asking us to provide all along as Christians.

“I was hungry and you gave me food ... Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

—Matthew 25:35-40

Connected by a place in time

Gary L. McIntosh, a church consultant and former pastor, describes a generation as “a group of people who are connected by their place in time with common boundaries and a common character.” In his book Three Generations: Riding the Waves of Change in Your Church (Fleming H. Revell, 1995), McIntosh says most of today’s Americans fit into three broad groups. 

Builders—loyal, industrious, frugal, private

McIntosh calls those in their late forties and older the Builders. They’re in the majority in traditional churches. They’re a “get-it-done” generation whose members tend to be loyal, faithful, and committed. As a group, they are hard workers and cautious, frugal savers. They tend to be patriotic and to respect their elders and people in positions of authority. In McIntosh’s view, they tend to see things as black and white rather than gray, and they do things because they believe doing them is right. They tend to value self-discipline and sacrifice. Many Builders had parents who told them, “We don’t air our dirty laundry in public,” so they resist sharing deep hurts or needs that would help them really know and be known by the people around them. The Builders are strongly motivated by duty, McIntosh reminds us, and unlike many younger people they see church participation and financial support as part of their duty.

The church of tomorrow

McIntosh considers the Boomers (born in the Baby Boom) to be those whose ages now range from the early thirties to the late forties, who make up about a third of the U.S. population today. They are the most educated generation in U.S. history, McIntosh points out, and they’re very different from the Builders.

The Busters (born in the Baby Bust) are today’s teenagers and young adults, and they’re quite different from both the Builders and the Boomers. We’re dependent on them to be the church of tomorrow.

Differences in these three groups’ views of the church are already having a big effect on our churches. Our willingness to pay attention to these differences when we design our worship and ministries will have a big influence on our churches’ continuing effectiveness.