Future Bard

I am a member of Generation Y, the Millennials, or whatever we are supposed to be called. For my entire life, fundamentalists and the far right have dominated the political landscape. My presidents have been the following, uninspiring lot: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. During 12 years of public schooling, I never had sex education except for a single day in sixth grade. I never was taught about evolution. I never had a civics class.

We are the first generation reared on a never-ending stream of high-stakes standardized tests. Our entire lives we have been told how important grades, test scores, and a college degree are for our future livelihood. We are now graduating to find these “good” jobs being sent overseas.

We have grown up as latchkey kids; our most significant relationship has been with our babysitters: cable television, video games, and the Internet. We look out at the world we are to inherit and see global warming, global terrorism, the re-segregation of American society, and an escalating, bankrupting national debt. We know that we will not have the same standard of living as our parents.

We are looking for answers to our complex, scary, and confusing world. Fundamentalists reach out with open arms - embracing our technology, our music, our mass media culture - and offer ready-made answers. God is great. God is powerful. God bless America! God will bless his faithful flock. Just look at Sam Walton!

And Moderates?

In our eyes, mainline churches sleepwalk through services: sitting stolidly in hard-backed pews, mumbling through five hymns, enduring wishy-washy sermons, and then go home. The reasons for our estrangement with mainline churches runs deeper than their lack of technological prowess.

We are looking for ways to change the world. Fundamentalists provide a platform: support our president, oppose abortion, return prayer to schools, and protect the sanctity of marriage from homosexuals.

And Moderates? The silence is more than deafening, it’s indicting.

If you engage, we will come. Speak out against the low minimum wage. Question why America spends more on prisons than education. Protest that over 40 million Americans lack health insurance. Condemn school districts that coerce students into mandatory prayer. Challenge the ever-expanding War on Terrorism.

Moderates cannot and should not offer absolute answers. However, moderates can provide a godly model of how to engage and wrestle with the world through a mature, questioning, evolving faith. Technology needs to be harnessed in order to reach my generation, but the gospel is needed more.



This entry is cross posted from the Mainstream Baptists blog.