Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Missing Generation, pt. 1

It is the nature of the Church that it is always in crisis. The current crisis for the Methodist church is that it is aging. Members are dying off at a rate higher than new members are joining. People have rightly pointed out that we need to be about the business of evanglizing, not so much to “keep the church from dying,” but because the statistics indicate that we haven’t been spreading the gospel.

So every book you pick up about church renewal mentions that we are missing a whole generation of Christians between the ages of 18 and 35. “Where are the young adults?” they ask. “What have we done wrong?” Most of these books are full of strong opinions. We haven’t evangelized. We’ve focused too much on evangelism. We aren’t missionally-focused. We’re too missionally-focused. We are not relevant to the culture. We are too relevant to the culture and not relevant to the Bible. We are too judmental. We are too soft. We preach cheap grace. We don’t preach grace enough.

There is some good theology that comes out of these books. I think their authors are sincere, and their criticisms of the church are often justified. But I have appreciated reading Robert Wuthnow’s After the Baby Boomers because Wuthnow has more than strong opinions. He has data.

It turns out that the single greatest predictor of whether someone joins a church or not is if they are married and have children. This has been the case for decades. What has happened in recent years, though, is that people get married later. The average age of marriage is now 27 or 28. The average age of having a first child is now the early 30’s. This means that the functional definition of “adulthood” has shifted. Sociologists point out that thanks to longer life spans and a later average age of marriage, someone can be called a “young adult” until they are 40.

Now, I have serious theological and philosophical problems with some of these implications. Are people who are single not adults? Are childless couples not adults? But my theoretical qualms are irrelevant. The fact is people don’t join a church until they “settle down,” and economic and demographic forces mean people settle down later, if they settle down at all. Most adults will change career directions several times before they retire. They marry later and have children later. Of course these factors affect church attendance.

So I find it a bit frustrating when churches beat themselves up about not attracting young people. This isn’t about theology. It’s about demographics.

Ten years ago, people were pointing out that mainline liberal Protestant churches were declining, but conservative Evangelical churches were not. So, they reasoned, it must have something to do with what they preach. The Evangelical gospel must be more compelling, more true, or better-marketed than the Protestant gospel.

Wuthnow points out that the discrepancy is due almost entirely to socioeconomics. Mainline Protestants tended to be better-educated and have higher incomes. Longer education and higher income correlate with a later average age of marriage. So-called Evangelical churches tended to have members with less education and less income, so their members tended to marry earlier and have more children. In recent years, though, the demographic shift has begun to affect Evangelical churches as well. Guess what? I guess “their” gospel wasn’t better than “ours.”

Of course, I don’t think that Wuthnow’s analysis means that everything is okay, and that churches should rest on their laurels. I think his research points to a broader social problem. We are increasingly isolated from authentic community. Our economic and social system discourages people from deep, life-giving relationships.

Here’s an example. In most other cultures, people are plugged into extended families of support. In fact, it is not uncommon for young adults, when they marry, to move back with their parents into a spare room or an addition on the house. If you go to the Middle East, or South America, or nearly anywhere outside of the United States, you will see this same living strategy. Even in the rural U.S., young adults often move into a trailer on property adjoining their parents’ houses. This facilitates the sharing of resources and labor. But in the U.S., the goal is to get out of your parents’ house as soon as possible. If you are thirty years old and living at home, then you have “failed to launch.” You have not moved into adulthood.

Do you see the paradox? Young adults in the United States are the most adolescent adults in the world. We drag adolescence out longer and longer, and make adulthood more and more unobtainable. As the narrator says in Fight Club, “I feel like a 30 year-old boy.”

Unless the Church is going to advocate early (possibly arranged) marriages and bans birth control, we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with a new social reality. One hundred years ago our society invented adolescence by passing child labor laws and requiring public education. Now we are inventing young adulthood for similar economic reasons. Just as the Church took a hard look at youth ministry in the 1940’s and 50’s, we will have to take a hard look at young adulthood and ask some critical questions about how we do church if we really want them to hear and live the Gospel.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Reading and Chocolate

Some writing is like thick, rich cake. I’ve been reading Elaine Scarry’s book On Beauty and Being Just for what - two years now? It has 150 pages. She layers each morsel with deep thoughts and tasty prose. Every 4 pages or so I have to put it down and wash some of that cake down with milk. Some light British humor, maybe, or even Calvin and Hobbes. I can only take so much at a time - but it is so yummy. It is unlike cake in that I can have it and eat it, too - sometimes I’ll go back and re-read a paragraph and wonder “how did she do that?” At times, her descriptions of Matisse get a bit tiring to me, but only because I have a hard time seeing what she sees. I’ve been reading the book on my lap in front of the computer, so that I can google The Artist and His Model or Interior with Egyptian Curtains.

Buechner’s stuff is also tightly packed, but I can seem to swallow it in greater doses. I’ve been reading Beyond Words as a supplement to my daily attempted daily devotional, and today’s mini-essay on The Cross blew my mind. His style lends itself to short, pithy essays. I consume them like therapeutic chocolates. I read Brendan a while back, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, the richness began to give me the shakes. I think I might try Godric soon.

I’ve been on a binge lately, rediscovering this amazing institution called the library. You know, you can request nearly any book you want in Birmingham, and they will bring it to your local branch, you can go pick it up, keep it for weeks at a time, and return it for free? Seriously. You don’t have buy it, or find bookshelf space to store it. If you decide that you can’t live without having your own copy, you can always find a used copy on the internet. And if you don’t like it, you haven’t spent anything but time. Is that not fabulous?

I know pastors who do not read. They say they do not have time. They may be fine preachers - I really don’t know. But I will say this: every preacher I have ever wanted to emulate reads. Voraciously. I don’t know how you would ever be able to preach a sermon that wasn’t simply based on your own experiences and life illustrations without reading. I don’t know how you would learn about language and how it fits together. To me, it’s like eating. I need a well-balanced diet to be healthy and a variety of flavors to make life interesting. In that sense maybe Scarry’s book is less like chocolate and more like roasted Moroccan vegetables - great-tasting and good for you.

Monday, March 26, 2007

The Education of Shelby Knox - Mini-review

One of the books I consider essential reading for anyone interested in saving Western Civilization is Revivng Ophelia, by Mary Pipher. Watching the documentary The Education of Shelby Knox is even more powerful if you have Ophelia in mind.

This is a movie about an adolescent girl’s education into the world of activism and politics when she helps lead a campaign for comprehensive sex education in Lubbock, Texas. Lubbock has an abstinence-only policy, a strong religiously conservative demographic, as well as one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country. It reminds me of Alabama.

It’s a great discussion starter for conversations about religion and public policy. There are several clips that I will probably use in the future in Sunday school classes and discussion settings. At one point, a local preacher makes the point that “Christianity is the most intolerant religion in the world,” - a rhetorical device intended to shift the conversation from tolerance to faithfulness. It’s a pretty stupid statement, actually. If it is true (which it isn’t), what does that have to do with public policy?

Although I think the movie does a pretty decent job of respecting Shelby’s own faith, I think it shouldn’t have been too difficult to find a non-fundamentalist perspective somewhere in Lubbock. It’s telling that the only Christian voices in the movie (besides Shelby’s) are non-denominational and parachurch voices. Are there no Episcopalians in Lubbock? No Disciples of Christ, no Methodists? Or did the directors leave these interactions out of the picture to highlight Shelby’s own struggle with her faith? As if she alone, unique among Christians, struggles between faithfulness to scripture and belief in democratic ideals?

The best part of the documentary, I thought, is that it shows a supportive Christian family. Sure, there are clearly places where her parents are uncomfortable with her activist stance, and they wish she would do something less political. But, by and large, they support their daughter doing something of significance that is meaningful to her. If you’ve read Ophelia, you know what I’m talking about. For some reason, according to Pipher, religiously conservative dads seem to be better at empowering their daughters and easing their transition to womanhood, on average, than others. This is pretty shocking to most liberal folks concerned with empowering young girls to become healthy outspoken women. But in watching this movie, you can see how this works.

I also think it’s important to note that part of her ability to be outspoken on the issue of sex education was the fact that she had taken the True Love Waits pledge. If she had not, her abstinence-only accusers would have been able to use it as ammunition against her. It reminded me of Paul telling the Corinthians that though he had freedom through Christ, he would not exercise it lest it hurt his message. If she had been advocating comprehensive sex ed from a position of sexual freedom, then her accuser in the Family Values Coalition would have had a moral leg to stand on when he tried to shame her for her activism. But when she pointed out that she was able to be an activist precisely because of her pledge to abstinence, because “not every teenager has a strong faith and a supportive family,” he was himself shamed into silence. I think this is part of what Jesus meant when he said, “your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees.”

Liberal activists need to take notes. If you want to persuade conservative fundamentalist Christians to your cause, you will need a stronger faith, you will need to do more than tithe, you will need to know more scripture, you will need to devote yourself more fully to God than they do. You must be able to be more holy than the holier-than-thous. And if this seems unfair, or too much of a burden, you need to ask yourself what you believe in. The vast majority of people believe what they believe because it fits their lifestyle. If you are an activist, you need to be able to show that you are willing to sacrifice your own personal freedom to advance your beliefs. You have to love the cause more than your lifestyle.