Younger Generations and the Opportunity to Listen and Learn

Younger generations are wondering what the future holds for them. They’ve experienced global warming, the death of George Floyd, Covid, and the election and presidency of Donald Trump. In the face of current national and global challenges, the story of God’s profound love for all people is one of hope and possibility. Scripture is full of stories of what Madeleine L’Engle calls “the glorious impossible,” new life emerging from what seemed to be death, a God who can make a highway out of no way to liberate God’s people from slavery and exile. It also contains stories of faithful resistance.

While I repeatedly hear Episcopalians grieving the fact that younger generations are largely not coming to church, most of us have younger people in our lives. They are our children, our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren, our neighbors, and our co-workers. What are their hopes, losses, and spiritual longings? Can we make time to listen to and learn from them? Can we find simple ways to love them? What ways of learning about and connecting with God do they find meaningful? When asked, are we able to share our faith in accessible ways, and how it has transformed us? I hope so. We need the wisdom and friendship of younger generations, and they need ours.

In Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America, Notre Dame sociologist and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society Christian Smith shares his in-depth research as to why the institutional church is completely at odds with what he calls the cultural “zeitgeist” or spirit of the age.

In the book he provides a long list of reasons why people outside the institutional church, especially Millennials and Gen Z, are not interested. The list includes:

• Suspicion of institutions/church scandals/church harm
• Individualism: “I’m spiritual but not religious, it’s just me and God”
• Technology: a plethora of religious ideas and resources on the internet; social
  media takes up a lot of peoples’ time
• Belief you can live a good life without God
• Mass consumerism: the “goods life”
• Multiple job relocations & long work hours
• Expressive individualism & relativism (focus on developing and expressing our
  “true selves” and the self as the ultimate source of authority; belief that all
  religions are the same)
• The rise of intensive parenting
• Media attention given to violence in the name of religion since Sept 11
• Decreasing numbers of people growing up going to church

But don’t lose heart! Smith argues that the scholars who claimed American is becoming more secular are wrong. Younger generations are spiritually curious, and humans need to make spiritual meaning. When trustworthy followers of Jesus show up in the lives of younger friends, neighbors, relatives, and co-workers in a posture of humility to listen, learn, and love, their witness can make a huge difference.

Additionally, younger generations interviewed by Smith and more recently by Episcopal priest and writer Stephanie Spellers expressed deep loneliness. It has been hard for them to find community worth of the name, community that’s not conditional or fluid.

Let us commit ourselves to listen to our younger friends, family members, neighbors, and co-workers. What is God up to in their lives? What do we need to learn? How might we and our faith communities need to change to speak to their deepest hopes and hungers?