Ignorant Historian

One trend about my generation, the Millennials,  is that we’re not terribly brand loyal. Perhaps we’re not loyal to much outside of our families, as we won’t work for the same employer for life nor are we patriotic as former generations. Though there is obviously a down side to that, there is some good, too.

One reason why I’m excited about our brand disloyalty is how it affects our religious affiliations. Less people my age hold tightly to their denominational labels than in previous times. I go to a Baptist church, but I don’t call myself a Baptist, though my beliefs best align with historical Baptist tenets. It’s just not a label I choose to use to describe myself.

The reason why I’m excited about this change is that I think that it’s all too easy hide behind these labels and traditions and forget to seek the truth. We should be discerning no mater the source, and we should be willing to seek truth outside of our small traditions. We have things to learn from each other.

Also, it’s important that like-minded Christians work together, not against each other. A house divided…

Of course, the downside to this denomination disloyalty is that part of the reason we want to dispense with labels is that we don’t know what they mean. We don’t know the specific tenets of our denomination and what distinguishes it from others. If you can’t taste the difference, would you prefer Coke to Pepsi? More importantly, would I prefer Diet Dr Pepper?

The problem is that theological beliefs aren’t as obvious as taste. To suss out how the Bible applies to our lives isn’t a simple task, a task that I’m still a beginner in.

Photo by DeusXFlorida

I’ve already mentioned it a couple of times, but I was listening to The Millennials by Thom Rainer and Jess Rainer over the last couple of weeks.  It’s been having me think a lot about my generation.  I’ve already shared my thoughts about how I felt like September 11th was the most influential event to my generation.

The research in The Millennials supports that idea.  We’re impatient because we know life is short.  We’re family-oriented because we understand what it’s like to lose them.  We believe in respect to all ideas and those who espouse them, because we see what happens when you’re intolerant.  We hate the “us” vs. “them” mentality.

While my generation (born 1980-2000) is now the largest ever in American history, we’re still coming into our own.  The youngest are still only 10 years old, and the oldest are only 30.  So while I believe our foundation is set, time will tell what our legacy will be.

There are many things I find positive about my generation–our desire to help others and our distaste for polarizing rhetoric–but other things I find concerning, like our desire to have everything now and our disinterest in religion altogether.

How will we be remembered?

I’ve been thinking for a while about my step back from party politics.  I think that giving up their heart to the Republican Party en masse was one major downfall of the older generation of Evangelical Christianity.

While I do believe that our spiritual views should influence how we vote and what political candidates we support, I think we’re foolish if we think any party (unless it’s explicitly based on the Bible…then maybe) is going to have the same beliefs and priorities that we do.

I know I’m not the only one who has recognized this, and I’m glad that more and more people in my generation are picking up on this.  I can’t wait until we can say together, “We are followers of Christ, not of the Republican Party.  We are not them.”

I don’t intend to bash the GOP (they’re not better or worse than the Democrats), but there is a reason why politics get a bad name.  And by saying that to be a Christian is to be a Republican, we’re dragging Christ’s name through the mud, too.

While I’d love us to get beyond the 2-party system, I’m not a fool.  It’s almost as old as our country.  We love to fall into an “us” vs. “them” mindset.  But that doesn’t mean that I have to identify with either party.  Instead, I want to evaluate each candidate individually.  I’ll never fill in the “vote straight Democrat” or “vote straight Republican” bubbles…even if all of my candidates I’m choosing to vote for are of the same party.

So why I think that we’re on the right path by separating ourselves from the Republican Party, I know that there must be something else that my generation of Christians is missing.  Each generation in the past had a flaw so obvious to other generations but that they were blind to.

What is ours?  Could it be our greediness in holding on to our great wealth?  Could it be our reliance on programs?  Could it be the idea that we can be followers of Christ apart from being a part of His body?

Whatever our blind spot is, the thought that we have one (and that I, individually, do too) humbles me.  May we always be teachable.

A few weeks ago when I talked about the end of this decade, I mentioned how it didn’t have a name.  That got us talking about not only the name for the decade, but for my generation.  Names like “The Digital Generation,” “The Entitled Generation,” and “Generation Y” were thrown out.  While I had to agree with some of the things you were saying, they also hurt.  They were true, but not the whole truth.

One thing that I have always felt has defined my generation in part is the tragic cruelty of September 11.  Yes, this has affected all Americans, but for the younger generation, it defined our childhood, our teenage years, our early adulthood.  For me, the greatest act of terrorism on American soil happened three weeks after I went to college, moved out from my parents’ home, and started thinking seriously about what career I’d pursue.  If something that huge didn’t affect me and those of my generation, it’d be shocking.

And though the influence of that tragic day 8 years ago can’t be measured (after all, who’s can say what we might have been like otherwise?), I know that the influence is there.

I remember.  More importantly, we remember.

Photo by NJ Scott

One thing I’ve noticed lately as I’ve been cruising the 20-something blogosphere is how many bloggers my age have shut down their blog or quit blogging.  Now, I suppose this is pretty common throughout the blogosphere, but it seems to me that this points to a greater problem that my generation (whatever you want to call us) has: by and large we lack sticktoitiveness.

Is it something that we’ll grow out of?  Perhaps.  Maybe this same problem has been seen in previous generations when they were our age, but I think even if that was so, there’s something different about our situation.  We now live in a day and age where most people are moving around multiple times, changing jobs, changing friends, changing belief systems, and changing spouses.

It even has gotten to the point where people who stick to their marriages, career paths, and hometowns are often viewed as sheltered and in need of “living a little.”  Since when has living been defined by change for change’s sake?

I don’t know how this trend can be reversed, or even if that needs to happen completely.  Since I moved to North Carolina (see, I am a product of my generation), I’ve realized the value of sticking in one place.  I’m sure my family would have appreciated me realizing that before I left Kansas, but here I am, and I know it’s exactly where God wants me.

Now that I’m here, I don’t plan to leave, unless God makes it clear I’m to go.  I don’t want to leave the church and go somewhere else; if I go, it’ll be because I’m being send out.  I may not be able to reverse the trend, but I can choose not to go along with it.  Here’s to sticktoitiveness.  (If you say it enough times, does that make it a word?)

Photo by batega