“This Iniquitous Generation”
The Other Cause of the Church Crisis
So much has been written about the dying church in recent years that it has spawned several new non-fiction genres: deconversion stories, alarmist wake- up calls about the falling and failures of the church, and how-to manuals on how your church can not only halt its decline, but grow and prosper. All of these list the phenomenon as mostly generational. Depending upon what kind of community the churches serve, the young people are staying away because of the internet, Donald Trump, mistakes in Sunday School teaching, rising immorality in America, Satanic attacks in the last days, atheists, scientists, God’s justice on the church for its failures, liberals, phone addiction, the homosexual agenda, and the end of cultural Christianity.
As an agnostic with my own deconversion story, a few of these have a ring of truth. It is largely acknowledged that it is the younger generations who are abandoning the pews and sounding the death knell of cultural Christianity. One oft-cited explanation is that white evangelicals’ demonizing of LGBTQ people and panic at the browning of the nation turned off young people in droves — true! But it’s not just white evangelical churches that are dying. Almost all of them are.
Something bigger is going on here. It’s something the experts, in their books and articles, sometimes tiptoe around but never name.
The Elephant in the Room
My sense is that a major reason young people flee churches, or never enter them in the first place, is a very simple one. They aren’t welcome there.
You would have to have lived under a rock to have missed the vitriol hurled at millennials by their elders over the last decade. They are spoiled, entitled, whining, phone-addicted snow flakes who expect to world to welcome them with open arms! Helicopter parents! Participation trophies! Even to this day, I hear people in my generation spewing bile at this cohort, sometimes right to their faces. They aim it even at their own children and grandchildren.
Their resentment can be all-consuming. I have seen some break into a rant at the very appearance of a young person. I once had to remind a woman that the “troops” she so praised and admired were the very same millennials she was trashing.
She did not appreciate that.
Not being a parent myself, I’m not as close to millennials as the parents and grandparents of this most maligned generation. Perhaps this is why I’m not so blinded by their consuming hatred and resentment. Their contempt spills out everywhere elders are to be found: online, in the workplace, and of course, in the church.
Feeding the Fire
What has the church done in the face of this filicidal frenzy? I would have expected an institution dedicated to spreading the peace and love of Jesus to have intervened to heal the rift, at least among its own congregations. Instead it did the opposite. Churches are already notorious for their ill-treatment of children. And in this case, they seem to have taken up arms and declared open warfare.
I have heard Christian kids lament their membership in the cohort labeled “millennial.” Even as they embrace the values and politics shared by the majority of their contemporaries, they take their age as a badge of shame. I have seen elder Christians trash them in rants and send sarcastic memes about them over social media. And I have seen pastors’ sermons on this evil, iniquitous generation and the wrath of god it’s bringing upon all of our heads.
I have to wonder how many losers and unfortunate souls, who are present in every human cohort, have been featured in stories and sermons that paint them as representatives of their entire millennial generation. How many times have the abominations of this iniquitous generation been cited as heralding or hastening Jesus’ vengeful return? And how many church people have salivated at the prospect of god raining his judgement down upon them with fire and brimstone?
In order to be accepted in a congregation dominated by the elderly, a young person has to be “not like the rest” of their generation. And even then, a slip-up can betray them.
Nothing New Under the Sun
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.— Socrates.
It’s like hazing. Each generation must contend with the contempt heaped upon us by our elders, along with the prognosis that our moral failures are a threat to civilization itself. Then when we become the elders, it’s our turn. But not everyone who is hazed salivates at that prospect. I’m one of those who doesn’t. Because I choose to remember what it was like.
Hussy
It was a rural, southern Virginia community in the mid-1970s. And it was the end times. Hal Lindsey said so. And it was all because of us, this iniquitous generation! Abortion had been legalized. Women were burning their bras and pushing for the ERA. The pill had exploded on the scene and the sexual revolution was ramping up. Teen pregnancy was on the rise. People were even starting to live together outside of marriage! So Jesus was coming back, and boy was he pissed!
It was all our fault.
We even said so ourselves, on the school bus. We parroted back the judgement that dripped so viciously from the lips of our teachers, neighbors, and pastors. It was because we were wearing skirts that showed our knees, we were riding around in cars with boys on these dates, we were swimming in mixed company, we were washing cars for the Beta Club in cut-off shorts and clingy cotton t-shirts, we were going to movies with boys, and we were driving around in cars by ourselves, unsupervised.
We knew Jesus had a case against us. We had a lot to apologize for. Yet we continued to do these things, because that’s just who we were.
I was fortunate in that my family was not religious. We did, however, attend a mainline Presbyterian church in the nearby town. I remember when they started having the kids’ Sunday School classes pass around the collection plates. It was a bit of a confusing task that I didn’t like, because when you screwed it up, it was in front of everybody.
Our chore was short-lived, however. It seems certain ladies of the church complained that we were prancing around the aisles in those short skirts and the men were looking at our legs. I don’t know if the men were looking at our legs or not. But it’s a matter of record that the women were. It was also apparent that not everyone was happy to have us there — we the brazen hussies who were bringing the wrath of god down upon us all.
So there we were — dragged against our will to a church where we were clearly not welcome anyway. The solution here seemed obvious.
Walk-Away Power
Still we, the pissers off of Jesus and bringers of Armageddon, largely stayed in the churches that maligned us in our youth. Less of us stayed than our parents had, but not enough departed to cause the panic that the millennial exit is creating now. It was because we had little choice. Though I migrated to more diverse pastures, most of my cohorts still lived in communities where church was expected. Without it, you may not be considered in good standing. So they stayed, waiting for the day when it would be their turn.
The millennials, however, found a widening crack in that old paradigm. The number of unchurched and ex-churched was reaching critical mass, and they dove right into that space, making “expected” a thing of the past.
Unlike us, the millennials had walk-away power, and they used it.
For the first time in our country’s history, youth and enthusiasm have found an effective weapon against age and resentment. They are actually fleeing an institution that bullies and maligns them. And in doing so, they are starving it into oblivion. I don’t think any of us have yet realized the scope and historical significance of that accomplishment. In the face of the most contemptuous barrage in modern history, the millennials stood up for themselves and struck a mighty blow to their accusers.
Many generations of young people will find inspiration in this moment.
A Way Out?
How does the church survive? There are lots of books and articles on that subject by people who are much better qualified to speak to that issue than I am. I have yet to see one, however, that speaks directly to this elephant:
Stop hating kids. Stop spitting on young people and expecting them to come back for more.
How do you change the spirit in a church from hatred and resentment to repentance and love? That’s a problem for church leaders. Asking that of a congregation could get a pastor fired or push some members out the door.
I don’t envy them.
