A few days ago on Facebook
and Twitter I made the following observation:
Being a “radical,”
“missional,” Christian is slowly becoming the “new legalism.” We need more
ordinary God and people lovers (Matt 22:36-40).
This observation was the
result of long conversation with a student who was wrestling with what to do
with his life given all of the opportunities he had available to him. To my
surprise, my comment exploded over the internet with dozens and dozens of
people sharing the comment and sending me personal correspondence.
I continue to be amazed by
the number of youth and youth adults who are stressed and burnt out from the
regular shaming and feelings of inadequacy if they happen to not being doing
something unique and special. Today’s Millennial generation is being fed the
message that if they don’t do something extraordinary in this life they are
wasting their gifts and potential. The sad result is that many young adults
feel ashamed if they “settle” into ordinary jobs, get married early and start
families, live in small towns, or as 1 Thess 4:11 says, “aspire to live
quietly, and to mind [their] affairs, and to work with [their] hands.” For too
many Millennials their greatest fear in this life is being an ordinary person
with a non-glamorous job, living in the suburbs, and having nothing spectacular
to boast about.
Here are a few thoughts on
how we got here:
(1) Anti-Suburban
Christianity. In the 1970s and 1980s the children and older grandchildren of
the Builder generation (born 1901 between 1920) sorted themselves and headed to
the suburbs to raise their children in safety, comfort, and material ease. And,
taking a cue from the Baby Boomer parents (born between 1946 and 1964) to
despise the contexts that provided them advantages, Millennials (born between
1977 and 1995) now have a disdain for America’s suburbs. This despising
of suburban life has been inadvertently encouraged by well-intentioned
religious leaders inviting people to move to neglected cities to make a
difference, because, after all, the Apostle Paul did his work primarily in
cities, cities are important, and cities are the final destination of the
Kingdom of God. They were told thatGod loves cities and they should too. The
unfortunate message became that you cannot live a meaningful Christian life in
the suburbs.
(2) Missional Narcissism.
There are many churches that are committed to being what is called missional.
This term is used to describe a church community where people see themselves as
missionaries in local communities. A missional church has been defined, as “a
theologically-formed, Gospel-centered, Spirit-empowered, united community of
believers who seek to faithfully incarnate the purposes of Christ for the glory
of God,” says Scott Thomas on the Acts 29 Network. The problem is that this
push for local missionaries coincided with the narcissism epidemic we are facing
in America,
especially with the Millennial generation. As a result, living out one’s faith
became narrowly celebratory only when done in a unique and special way, a
“missional” way. Getting married and having children early, getting a job,
saving and investing, being a good citizen, loving one’s neighbor, and the
like, no longer qualify as virtuous. One has to be involved in arts and social
justice activities—even if justice is pursued without sound economics or social
teaching. I actually know of a couple who were being so “missional” that they
decided to not procreate for the sake of taking care of orphans.
To make matters worse, some
religious leaders have added a new category to Christianity called “radical
Christianity” in an effort to trade-off suburban Christianity for mission. This
movement is based on a book by David Platt and is fashioned around “an idea
that we were created for far more than a nice, comfortable Christian spin on
the American dream. An idea that we were created to follow One who demands
radical risk and promises radical reward.” Again, this was a well-intentioned
attempt to address lukewarm Christians in the suburbs but because it is
primarily reactionary, and does not provide a positive construction for the
good life from God’s perspective, it misses “radical” ideas in Jesus’ own
teachings like “love.”
The combination of
anti-suburbanism with new categories like “missional” and “radical” has
positioned a generation of youth and young adults to experience an intense
amount of shame for simply being ordinary Christians who desire to love God and
love their neighbors (Matt 22:36-40). In fact, missional, radical Christianity
could easily be called “the new legalism.” A few decades ago, an entire
generation of Baby Boomers walked away from traditional churches to escape the
legalistic moralism of “being good” but what their Millennial children received
in exchange, in an individualistic American Christian culture, was
shamed-driven pressure to be awesome and extraordinary young adults expected to
tangibly make a difference in the world immediately. But this cycle of reaction
and counter-reaction, inaugurated by the Baby Boomers, does not seem to be
producing faithful young adults. Instead, many are simply burning out.
Why is Christ’s command to
love God and neighbor not enough for these leaders? Maybe Christians are simply
to pursue living well and invite others to do so according to how God has
ordered the universe. An emphasis on human flourishing, ours and others,
becomes important because it characterizes by a holistic concern for the
spiritual, moral, physical, economic, material, political, psychological, and
social context necessary for human beings to live according to their design.
What if youth and youth adults were simply encouraged live in pursuit of
wisdom, knowledge, understanding, education, wonder, beauty, glory, creativity,
and worship in a world marred by sin, as Abraham Kuyper encourages in the book Wisdom
and Wonder. No shame, no pressure to be awesome, no expectations of fame
but simply following the call to be men and women of virtue and inviting their
friends and neighbors to do the same in every area of life.
It is unclear how Millennials
will respond to the “new legalism” but it may explain the trend of young Christians
leaving the church after age 15 currently at a rate of 60 percent. Being a
Christian in a shame-driven “missional,” “radical” church does not sound like
rest for the weary. Perhaps the best antidote to these pendulum swings and fads
is simply to recover a mature understanding of vocation so that youth and youth adults understand that they
can make important contributions to human flourishing in any sphere of life
because there are no little people or insignificant callings in the Kingdom.
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