If you work in youth ministry or education, as I do, you won’t be surprised that we’re facing the largest gap in generational attitudes since the 1960s. According to Jean Twenge’s research, “When you are born has a larger effect on your personality and attitudes than the family who raised you does.” Consider a few statistics about Gen Z (my generation), who are between the ages of 13 and 28:
More than 50 percent believe there are more than two genders; no other generation eclipses 30 percent.
40 percent believe the founders of the United States are “better described as villains” than as “heroes.”
40 percent of millennials and Gen Zers agree the government should be able to prevent people from making offensive statements.
The generational changes evident in this data are fruit blossoming from roots stretching back hundreds of years.
Roots: Identity Formation in a Meaningless World
Modern people don’t understand themselves as inherently connected to a transcendent horizon. Unhitched from this order, individuals are free to discover their own values, identities, and purposes. Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy described it well: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” This view of freedom creates what Charles Taylor calls the “nova effect”: a society where individuals are seeking transcendence for themselves through various outlets within the world.
A society characterized by the nova effect is a society of people exchanging the truth of God for any number of other things—whether college football, devotion to a political party, sexual pleasures, or career climbing. Once an individual defines his “concept of existence” through pursuing fulfillment in one of these areas, he has created his modern identity.
In short, the root of our generational and cultural divide is the belief that the universe is a tabula rasa—a blank canvas on which to paint our own meanings and craft our own identities.
Fertilizer: The Internet
Imagine a well-to-do American family sitting in the living room after a long day. Eighty years ago, they huddled near the radio to hear the local news. Fifty years ago, they sat and watched TV together. Today, what are they doing? Each person has her own phone or tablet, complete with streaming video and earbuds, and each can watch exactly what she wants when she wants.
If modernity offered the pathway to an identity, the internet removed any geographical barriers from the pathway. For the first time in history, people are being formed primarily by forces, ideas, and personalities not close to their physical locations.
The root of our generational and cultural divide is the belief that the universe is a blank canvas on which to paint our own meanings and craft our own identities.
Dad might be on Facebook arguing with someone over pronouns in the workplace while, unbeknownst to him, his daughter five feet away is experimenting with alternative sexualities on Instagram.
Social media is an endless supplier of support for your online identity. Sure, your dad might not approve of your new gender, but all your followers do.
Potential Harvest: Cultural Apologetics with Teamwork and Confidence
How do Christian leaders reach both the father and the daughter in that living room?
The job of the missionary, as Tim Keller often said, is to enter sympathetically into a culture, challenge its pressure points, and then retell the story with its happy ending in Jesus. This is the work of cultural apologetics. The nova effect in tandem with the internet, however, calls for two specific tactics toward that end.
1. Teamwork
During a trip to the U.K., Keller was asked by a London pastor how to simultaneously preach the gospel to the Muslims in his neighborhood who think Christianity is too morally lax and to the secular people who think Christianity is too morally oppressive. The guru of cultural apologetics cleared his throat and replied, “You can’t.”
He’s right. With a plurality of identities comes a plurality of cultural narratives that must be carefully connected with (and confronted by) the Christian message. Therefore, we need to elevate a diverse set of evangelists and apologists. At a local church level, this may include multigenerational pulpit-sharing and an intentional effort to diversify your cultural application points.
2. Confidence
“Christianity is the most racially, culturally, socioeconomically diverse movement in history,” observes Rebecca McLaughlin. “That is true globally, over the last two thousand years, and it’s true in America today.” Since Pentecost, the gospel has shown an unequaled capacity to hold different cultural narratives within its broader story.
The gospel has shown an unequaled capacity to hold different cultural narratives within its broader story.
C. S. Lewis left scientific naturalism for Christianity because Christianity could explain science better than naturalism could explain Christianity. He famously said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
Today, in a world that Lewis would find strange, the gospel remains the only lens through which my fellow Gen Zers will be able to see everything else. It’s where they can discover stable identities in a world of counterfeit “concepts of existence,” and it’s the power of God unto salvation.
The Gospel Coalition