Jesus For A New Generation
By Kevin Ford
Hodder & Stoughton. 273 pages
£8.99.
ISBN 0 340 66911 X
Generation X is the label given to youngsters born somewhere between 1961 and 1981. They are different.
They are not just an updated version of 1960s rebels or 70s punks. They think, feel and relate to the world differently and if the church is going to reach them it has to wake up and understand them.
Jesus for a New Generation, a book from America, written by Xer nephew of Billy Graham, Kevin Ford, seems the most accessible and incisive treatment around.
The book intertwines two strands. There is an ongoing story which unfolds the lives of typical Xers which runs through every chapter. Cut into this are didactic sections, related to the story, exploring and explaining the experiences of and attitudes towards life, family, sex, image and everything which has shaped this new generation of information technology kids. All pastors and youth leaders should read it. It is so good it makes you cringe with embarrassment at our lack of understanding!
Mostly descriptive in content, the book closes with three provocative chapters on 'How to reach us.'
With permission of publishers Hodder & Stoughton, here is an extract . . .
From somewhere in front of him came the laughter and bantering voices of people in the lunchroom. But as Peter walked into the room, the laughter and voices died down. From a corner table by the Pepsi machine, a group of people - all in their 20s - looked him up and down, then looked away. An uncomfortable silence settled over the lunchroom.
'Hey, don't stop talking on my account,' said Peter.
'That's all right, man,' answered Trev. 'We were just leaving.'
'Hey, take it easy!' said Peter, smiling. 'Lunch break's not over till one o'clock. I want to talk to you lot. We're getting some people together at our place for a party, and I wanted you all to come.'
'Is this another one of your church things, Peter?' asked Jodie. The question was practically a sneer, but then almost everything Jodie said sounded like a sneer. Peter didn't know her very well - she was hard to get to know - but someone once told him she had been extremely bitter since her brother's suicide three years earlier.
'Well, no, not exactly,' Peter responded hesitantly. 'I mean, there'll be some friends there from my church, of course. There'll be a lot of kids - I mean, you know, people of your own age. We're planning a barbecue and music and games.'
'When is this party?' asked Lindsey, the dark-haired woman he always thought of as the 'nice girl' of the bunch.
'Tonight,' Peter replied. 'Six o'clock. I know it's short notice, but I thought maybe you wouldn't have anything planned for a Tuesday night. Maybe -'
'We got other plans, man,' Trev interrupted.
'Oh?'
'Yeah,' added Lindsey, almost apologetically. 'We were going to take Michael out for a pizza tonight. Sort of a farewell thing.'
Peter turned to Michael, who was leaning over the lunch table, his chin resting on his folded arms. 'A farewell, you say? Michael, are you leaving us?'
Michael glanced up at Peter, shrugged and looked away.
'Mr. Hooper sacked him,' said Trev.
'He didn't sack me,' Michael rasped. 'I'm leaving. Old man Hoop told me he would sack me if I didn't cut off the ponytail and take the gold ring out of my nose. I won't do that for anyone - especially not to keep this lousy job.'
Peter winced inwardly at the 'old man Hoop' remark. Tom Hooper, the owner of the company and Peter's boss, was 45 years old - just two years older than Peter himself.
'What will you do if you leave here?' he asked.
Michael stared up at Peter, his eyes half-lidded. 'The sky's the limit, isn't it?' he said with thick sarcasm. 'There are all kinds of McJobs out there for a graduate like me. I hear there's more money in tips doing pizza deliveries than Donald Trump ever dreamed of. And my last boss said my shelf-stocking job at the supermarket was always there if I wanted it. Then again, I may just go into business for myself. Like, maybe I'll start a bicycle messenger service. I'm just sorting through my options.' He settled his chin on to his folded arms.
There was a long, awkward silence - mercifully broken when a bell rang, signalling the end of the lunch hour.
As they all filed out of the lunchroom, Peter dug in his pocket for some change and bought a can of Diet Pepsi from the drinks machine. He took the can and popped the top.
'Peter,' said a voice behind him.
Peter turned. It was Lindsey.
'I know you mean well, Peter,' she continued. 'Trying to be a friend to us and stuff. It's not that we don't appreciate your invitation. I can tell you really care - inviting us to your church, giving us those tracts to read, even if they were kind of stupid.'
'We've heard it all before'
Peter grimaced. 'Were they that bad?'
'Yeah, Peter,' she replied, tossing her head and grinning. 'They were pretty lame. Look, Peter, you have your religion and that's fine for you. But going to church and living by a bunch of rules in a big black book doesn't mean much to people like us.'
Peter started to protest. 'But that's not what Christianity is . . .'.
'It's okay, Peter. Really. But we've heard it all before, you know. 'God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.' Well, I have wonderful plans for my own life. My weekends are the only time I have to go snowboarding or mountain biking. I'm not going to give that up just to hear a load of sermons about what a sinner I am.'
'Lindsey -'
'Hey, must get back to work.' A smile and a wave, and she was gone.
Peter took a sip of Diet Pepsi, thinking black thoughts. Why don't I relate to these people? Since when did I end up on the wrong side of the generation gap? It was only yesterday that 'Baby Boomer' was synonymous with 'youth'. What happened to those summers when I lived on the beach and hitchhiked to Grateful Dead concerts? When did I become 'old'?
An emerging culture
Many Christians are like Peter - people who want to share their faith, who want to reach out to the people around them, but who don't understand that the new generation is not just a younger version of themselves. My 'Generation X' peers are not just a new crop of Baby Boomers. They are a new and emerging culture with their own values, their own perception of reality, their own approach to truth and faith.
When I interviewed James Davison Hunter, author of Culture Wars, he offered one reason there is such a cultural difference between Baby Boomers and Generation X. Boomers, he said, could be viewed as a separate sociological category because they had so many defining events in their formative history: the John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations, the Vietnam War, Woodstock and the Watergate scandal. Boomers actually felt themselves to be part of a generation with a common heritage. People born during the 60s and 70s don't seem to have the same affinity for their generation that the Boomers did. It may well be that our lack of a collective consciousness is one of the unifying themes of my generation.
Following are some other identifying cultural features: We are less gender-specific than past generations. Young 20-something businessmen go to work in three-piece suits, carrying briefcases and wearing earrings and ponytails. Young 20-something women are competing aggressively for the top careers. They're also playing contact sports and doing their own car and motorcycle repairs.
My generation is an emotional basket case. As a class, our self-esteem is low. The prevalence of body art (tattoos) on both young men and young women suggests a lack of self-respect and self-esteem. To Xers the body is no longer a temple. It is just another bare wall upon which to scrawl our graffiti.
Fear and anger are a large part of our emotional makeup. We are fearful of our increasingly violent society. We are distrustful of big business marketing interests that seek to exploit us and manipulate our buying habits. We are resentful towards older generations and what we see as their economic oppression of us, their racist and homophobic attitudes, their yuppie greed and their rape of the environment.
Obsessive compulsives
We are organised to death - an entire culture of obsessive-compulsives. It's not uncommon to see teenagers on college and even school campuses carrying electronic organisers. Teenagers spend less time relaxing or even sharing meals with their families. These tendencies produce increasing emotional fragmentation and relational dysfunction - and they make it hard for today's younger generation to be evangelised and mentored by Christian youth workers.
It may seem paradoxical that this generation is obsessed with leisure and yet timetabled to death. But overscheduling and workaholism are forms of escapism; so is an obsession with entertainment. Xers hate to be alone with time to reflect. Loneliness scares us more than anything else, so we go flat-out.
Whereas Baby Boomers were, on balance, a comparatively serious, contemplative, philosophical generation, Xers tend to be entertainment-conscious, playful, emotional and irreverent. There is no core of absolute truth - no 'true truth', as Francis Schaeffer used to say. Xers pick and choose whatever philosophies they want to believe in, selecting from a smorgasbord of religions and worldviews that all seem equally valid to them.
My generation is so inundated with information that we don't know the truth any more. We suffer from information overload. We see the politicians on TV and we are confused. We will vote for the one who projects the most trustworthy or caring image, or the one with whom we most identify. We vote out of feelings, not convictions. We don't know who is lying and who is telling the truth. So we vote for the one with the most attractive image. Issues are complex. Image is simple. Xers like it simple.
My generation demands a modern lifestyle, a dismantling of tired and outmoded rules and structures. And yet at the same time there is a wistful longing for a simpler time (before we were born) when rules and values and family life seemed to make sense - which explains why many of my peers are addicted to reruns of old TV shows. For Generation X, the past is for ever beyond reach, the present is black and bleak, and the future is a brick wall.
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