Current Events Monday: Younger Americans Crave Fellowship
You likely heard much more about Tom Brady’s retirement over the weekend than the intriguing news concerning Americans and religion. Pew Research Center revised some figures in December which indicates that around 3 in 10 adults (29%) remain unaffiliated with any sort of religious group. This number increases to around 38% of people living within the zip code of WWBC’s campus, most of whom are between the ages of 18 and 35. The research continues to tell us what we’ve known for some time: younger Americans are rejecting religious affiliations in much larger numbers than the previous three to four generations.
Why are people putting off religion in such large numbers? The reasons are legion. Most current research indicates that younger people perceive Christianity as irrelevant to daily life, too judgmental, politically eschewed, and inflexible to deeper level spiritual conversations. In response to these accusations, many churches force themselves to change in efforts not only to appeal to younger people but also to keep the lights on and the doors open. Yet, the rejection continues. In fact, most of my pastor friends say that they view it a “success” when people under 40 attend a church service just once a month.
Rather than hopelessly lament such rejection or change everything to attract people who won’t come to church anyway, perhaps it is more advantageous for us to remove ourselves from the pit and take a look at the situation from the balcony level. A wider perspective presents a rather telling truth: younger Americans are craving and missing true fellowship. Consider the article linked below that was published this past weekend in Columbus, Ohio: Atheists, nonbelievers forming groups in Columbus to build community (dispatch.com). Atheists, humanists, secularists, unitarians, and others are doing their dead-level best to form a semblance of specialized community and fellowship outside the bonds of religious affiliation.
I applaud our atheist neighbors for relentlessly pursuing community rather settling for isolation. I however would like to pose a question: Can we have true community/fellowship outside of a relationship with Jesus Christ? If not, then among whom would one find true community?
I argue here that true community is an impossibility without Jesus Christ. Consider the following reasons and perspectives that support my thesis.
First, the rejection of what we call “religion” highlights a deep seeded need in many people to make themselves gods. What we do is an expression of our ultimate concerns. Thus, rejecting Christ is equal to believing that we have arrived at some sort of final answer to our spiritual and relational problems. Such thinking is nothing new. We could argue that the rejection of practicing faith in Christ is actually itself a religion which many theologians call “self-deification,” or making oneself the center around which life revolves. The religion of self-deification is deeply rooted in the philosophies of people like Rene Descartes, Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant, and Baruch Spinoza, all of whom have cast long shadows over the American experiment.
Each of these philosophers basically overestimated the power of human nature and reason, essentially proposing that our creativity and capacity for deeper level thinking can carry us to become divinely able to utilize reason for the betterment of ourselves and others. Why would we need a God if we can be our own gods? It is no wonder “irrelevance” is cited as the number one reason that Christianity is rejected today. It could actually be that churches are more relevant than they think. They are simply labeled irrelevant by those who remain more willing to put themselves on the throne of their life rather than God.
It is also no wonder that people are looking for more meaningful relationships on a communal level. Over the years, we’ve seen that our humanity is prone to deeply flawed and hurtful behaviors which Christianity calls “sin.” The above stated philosophers struggled with the human capacity for sin and usually tended to view it as some sort of behavior linked to man’s “animal” nature. Sin could accordingly be conquered through greater reason and rationality. Therefore, community is argued to be an essential service to those who are looking to escape their finite human tendencies and move on to the nirvana of free and clear thinking. Enter the state. Those who believe that they understand best the logic of self-deification unite and attempt to provide a resolution to our conflicts. The collectives of the Right and the Left then assert themselves in order to take the place of the individual. All they need is our buy-in. In this mode of thinking, an individual is to pray to the collective: “Thy kingdom come, and thy will be done.”
Could it be however that the right of the individual from dominance and control of others would give the best chance for fellowship and freedom to flourish? We argue here then that dependence on God is the only place at which we find a proper sense of both our own value and the value of others. T.B. Maston said it like this: “The only way to find satisfaction accordingly in life is to be in fellowship with God.” Reconciliation with God will naturally link itself to reconciliation with others and to the right kind of fellowship which all human beings crave.
Second, the philosophies of self-deification have done little to provide a greater sense of community and progress in our society. One of the main arguments of the above stated philosophies is that they provide for a progressive path to world unity and love. But what is progress? In a sense, it is a betterment of life through creative, educational, and technological development. For instance, we could say that we’ve made tremendous progress in transportation and communication in the past century. But we simply cannot provide examples of a more unified world. The view that human progress will somehow achieve our salvation is not only wrongheaded, but it is one of the most ironically selfish axioms in our history. We essentially shove God to the side in view of our own self-sufficient aims. The dangling carrot of progress without Christ always leads to a trap.
Third, we must look closer at the results of godless fellowships than at their intentions. Consider the burgeoning appeal of socialism/communism in our culture today. Rooted in the philosophy of Hegel and crafted by Marx and Engels, the intention of this group is to institute a classless and racially harmonious society. From a biblical standpoint, the intention of socialism appears sound and wholly viable since we are created in God’s image and are exhorted to give liberally rather than receive. But what are the results? Instead of the state relinquishing power in an increasingly classless society, the government exercises more control! Criticism, or freedom of speech, is relegated instead of being allowed to instigate change and debate for a greater good, religion is eliminated instead of encouraged, and a political party/committee is the Messiah who determines truth. The results tell us much more about the ways and means of the philosophy at work here than the intentions. Put simply the walk doesn’t match the talk.
So, how do we respond as Christians? Let’s talk more about it next Monday.