Modern day missionaries, those leaving home to share their faith with others, typically go through years of training on cultural sensitivity, language aquisition and self-awareness. I think this is so important. How many times in history have we messed this up...confusing western culture with the essentials of a faith first formed in a culture that looked nothing like our own. So, when we had to pick a topic to write on for my class, I kept thinking about how even in our own country, state, school, workplace and home, we sometimes fail at these same skills when it comes to working together between generations. Some things really fascinate me about this. Maybe it's because growing up, my parents were always a little older than my friends' parents and I noticed some of the ways they differed. Or because I'm a children's pastor, ministering to GenZ in the midst of a multi-generational church. In the book,
Generational I.Q., Haydn Shaw explains that in the past, only three generations did life together. But now we live amongst up to five generations. Obviously, things can get a little crowded when we all bring our different values and worldviews to the table. Shaw categorizes these generations as the Traditionalists, Baby-Boomers, GenX, Millennials, and GenZ (and beyond).
I love people in all five of these generations. People who miss hymnals and people who watch tick tock videos. And so I decided to learn the language, and the manerisms, and write my paper on how a knowledge of these different "cultures" in our own neighborhood informs the way in which we can best share our stories of faith with eachother.
PREFACE:
I want to start by saying, no two people are exactly alike. No one fits perfectly into a box. We must be careful not to pre-judge or stereotype people and to recognize that a million variables, not just the year they were born, went into making them exactly who they are. For example, I know some millennials who do not eat avocado toast, and will still make a phone call that could have been a text. But understanding where someone's coming from or the shared experiences and values of their age group can often help us love, empathize and give grace better. We can begin recognizing that different is not always wrong, and an emphasis on other values does not mean the absence of other values.
ALSO, it may seem like I'm hard on one generation or another. But I find great value in each as well. And, hopefully by the end I'll have fairly covered the peaks and pitfalls of each of them equally.
With that said, I'd like to share some of what I learned and wrote about, starting with the Traditionalists, and Baby Boomers.
TRADITIONALISTS AND BEYOND:
Shaw puts the Traditionalists into a time span of those born between 1900-1945. Both my parents fit into this category, as did Queen Elizabeth. Many Traditionists were “protected” from modernist ideology by a lack of contact with it. This makes me think of the sweet stories of my dad and his brothers working on their dad's farm or hanging out at their aunt's restaurant in their tiny town in Kansas. The Traditionalists were shaped by the Great Depression (Shaw 27), World War II (28) and the massive movement from farm to city (29). What a culture shock many of them experienced! One of my favorite stories of my dad's older brother, Virgil is from when he was serving in the military. Every night a menu board announced what they'd be eating for dinner in the mess hall. One night he quickly read what he thought said, "Peach Pie." "Peach Pie!" he'd brihtened up. He missed my grandma's perfect peach pie. "I haven't had that since I've been home!" But he told us what they served was disgusting. It wasn't peach...it was a pie filled with tomatoes of all things! Was this a joke?! Nope. This was my Uncle Virgil's first slice of...pizza pie.
Strengths in this generation include their tendency to “cooperate, serve with lower expectations, and give generously” (34). My husband works at a hospital and he often says the older patients are much more easy to help. But, Shaw says, their weaknesses include a tendency to lecture and a clinging to the past. Traditions are viewed positively while progress is viewed skeptically. In the past, sharing faith with this generation included emphasizing knowledge and authority. "Because the Bible says so" satisfied many more questions than it does today.
Modernism began before the turn of the century but continued weaving its way through the 1960’s, therefore overlapping with traditionalism and even some post-modernism. In Thorsen’s book An Exploration of Christian Theology, he says, “Individuality, confidence in reason, objective truth, and claims of universality” (Thorsen 404) characterize the Modernists. While not a Christian idea, modernism found its way into Christianity. Thorsen says in Christians Modernism took the form of “foundationalism" or proclaiming, “their own confidence in certain fundamentals thought to provide rational and empirical foundations of religious knowledge" (Thorsen 32). This view often values debate, has explanations for the “mysteries” of our faith, and may have a disproportionate concern of the more mystic Christians out there. The cold hard facts they see in Christianity over-ride personal experience. I've seen even sweet, sincere Ann Voskamp called out as a heritic by modernist Christians due to her very experiential faith. I often wonder what they would have thought of Abraham or Jacob in the book of Genesis. So tightly woven into Christianity has Modernism become that in the lecture, “Postmodernity and Evangelical Christianity” Stanley J. Grenz says, the branches of Christianity commonly refered to as part of the evangelical movement "with its focus on scientific thinking, the empirical approach, and common sense – is a child of early modernity.”
Once again, different doesn't necessarily mean wrong. God meets us where we are, and knows how we are capable of hearing and seeing him best. I'm thankful that the same God who sent Phillip to chat about theology with the Enoch on the road, also let Thomas feel the holes in his hand, or called a grieving Mary by name. There are many valid ways awakening to faith in Jesus. But, it's important to have the self-awareness to know where some of our thinking comes from and I believe the overlap of modern thinking and Christianity might be an important example of this.
The Boomers generation overlaps with this modernism, including those born between 1946-1964. The historical “Baby Boom,” affluence, television, and the shift from valuing sacrifice to valuing self, shaped this generation (Shaw 45). Many of their strengths also serve as their weaknesses, such as the shift to hyper individualism as well as from theology to psychology (49). This changed how they read the Bible, from “learning the Bible and doctrine” to emphasizing personal application (52). Perhaps this shift many of them refer to as “heart knowledge” not just “head knowledge” needed to happen. But the privatization of faith has had many pitfalls too. For one, the loyalty and willingness to be “longsuffering” with our brothers and sisters in Christ shifted to a more consumeristic “church shopping,” and doctrinal lines grew fuzzy. In the article “Evangelism and GenZ” by Carey Nieuwhof, Tim Keller shares that in his many years of ministry he observed that “baby boomers often needed to see that only Jesus Christ could effectively handle the guilt they felt for not being good enough.” So, a message of forgiveness touched a chord for them. What an example of how with prevenient grace the Spirit nudges us in different ways, knowing the questions deep in our hearts.
As a whole, Baby Boomers value excellence and achievement. I believe this may be the single most common cause of misunderstandings between this and other generations. Their emphasis on these things may be interpreted as de-valuing relationships. Lack of achievement and excellence in other generations may be misinterpreted by them as laziness. This is why we have to value eachother enough to get past the surface and start asking "why?"
Tomorrow I'll share a little of what I learned in this research about the next three generations, shaped by post-modern thinking. I hope that I can get across the immense love I have for each of these categories as well as the pits we more easily fall into, including my own.
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