Category Archives: generations

Differences

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So, I’m attending the Episcopal Village East (EVE) conference in Baltimore.  I attended the TransFORM East Coast conference in May. I said to a few people as I left Brooklyn that I wanted to see how the two conferences compared with each other.  Here is a first observation: People at TransFORM where tweeting and blogging all through the conference – and it was encouraged by the leadership – while at the first pre-conference session for EVE everyone was writing with pens and pencils on notebook paper.

The people at TransFORM, which describes itself as a “missional community formation network,” seemed to be people of and ensconced in the communities they are trying to reach. The people at this EVE session seem to be those who are trying to learn about the same demographic group of people, but are not of them. Does that make sense?

It is terribly difficult and takes an immense amount of energy to try to understand the constitutional make-up of a different group of people.

On Social Media!

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On Social Media. This is the reality, where are we as the Church in the mix? Do we understand (I mean honesty, really understand) the fundamental shift that is happening and the right and good role the Church can play in both the digital and tactile worlds? For the Cure of Souls? For peace? For an alternative?  How can we be the imago Dei among all of this?

How it’s done!

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stthomas-250.jpgFrom this month’s issue of the Living Church, an article on St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Hollywood, CA.  As the article says, the only Anglo-Catholic parish in Los Angeles.  The article, “Apolitical Inclusion at St. Thomas the Apostle, Hollywood, CA“

In terms of reviving a parish in the Anglo-Catholic tradition (and I simply love the “apolitical inclusion” bit), a couple paragraphs from the article:

“The Rector, The Rev. Elliott Davies, restored the altar to an eastward facing position and celebrates Mass with his back to the congregation in lieu of ‘the bartending position.'”  I love that – “the bartending position.” Continuing, “Ensign recalls UCLA students fascinated by the celebration [Gregorian chant, lots of incenses, etc.]  – as opposed to ‘that old hippy crap our parents like.'”  Out of the mouths of babes. And, continuing, “‘One guy had never seen a pipe organ,’ Ensign said. ‘For us baby boomers what was so meaningful, relevant, and rebellious is so old hat. What’s old is new again.’” [emphasis mine]

“St. Thomas has a tradition of social activism in the surrounding area, including among the homeless in Hollywood and gay and lesbian residents in West Hollywood… But Proposition 8 [California’s marriage amendment] has never been preached about,’ Ensign said. ‘Preaching is always gospel-centered and Scripture-based.  We’re here to worship Almighty God.  If you want to be political, join a political group.'” Did we hear this!  In the Anglo-Catholic tradition of social activism, the parish tends to the needs of those disadvantaged and marginalized, yet they recognize that their focus is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to worship Almighty God, not to be a political action committee or a social service organization.  The Good Works happen because the people are taught to love neighbor as the love themselves, but tend to their relationship with God first.

“‘I got suckered in by Fr. Carroll Barbour,’ Ensign admitted.  ‘Urban legend goes: in the early 1980’s St. Thomas was downgraded to mission status.  The bishop called Fr. Barbour in – then in his late 50s, and serving in Long Beach, with a checkered past, a history of alcoholism – and said, basically, it was make or break for both.’

“‘He took the parish Anglo-Catholic in theology, teaching, and ritual, and threw the doors wide open,’ Ensign said. ‘He held his ground when parishioners left, then went to work.  There was little money, no answering machine, let alone a secretary.  No organ, no choir.  Just a mock English gothic building in a so-so location.’

“‘He was a little guy from North Carolina; a real jackass,’ Ensign said. ‘But he was no-nonsense, and a real priest.  Not a social worker, or politician; always humble by the altar.  The priesthood was most important in his life.’
“‘He was a broken man.  He often said, ‘God loves broken things. We break bread, and broken people are ready to listen,’ Ensign recalled.'”

Mindset of the Class of 2014

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Every year for some time now, a couple professors at Beloit College compile a list of characteristics of the new incoming freshman class.  This list gives insight into the cultural events and social influences that contribute to the way of thinking and the way of seeing the world and their place in it of the Class of 2014.  It is interesting to read – some years the lists are better than others.

Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014

Here is the list:

The Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2014

Most students entering college for the first time this fall–the Class of 2014–were born in 1992.

For these students, Benny Hill, Sam Kinison, Sam Walton, Bert Parks and Tony Perkins have always been dead.

1. Few in the class know how to write in cursive.

2. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.

3. “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”

4. Al Gore has always been animated.

5. Los Angelenos have always been trying to get along.

6. Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High.

7. “Caramel macchiato” and “venti half-caf vanilla latte” have always been street corner lingo.

8. With increasing numbers of ramps, Braille signs, and handicapped parking spaces, the world has always been trying harder to accommodate people with disabilities.

9. Had it remained operational, the villainous computer HAL could be their college classmate this fall, but they have a better chance of running into Miley Cyrus’s folks on Parents’ Weekend.

10. Entering college this fall in a country where a quarter of young people under 18 have at least one immigrant parent, they aren’t afraid of immigration…unless it involves “real” aliens from another planet.

11. John McEnroe has never played professional tennis.

12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.

13. Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.

14. Doctor Kevorkian has never been licensed to practice medicine.

15. Colorful lapel ribbons have always been worn to indicate support for a cause.

16. Korean cars have always been a staple on American highways.

17. Trading Chocolate the Moose for Patti the Platypus helped build their Beanie Baby collection.

18. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.

19. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.

20. DNA fingerprinting and maps of the human genome have always existed.

21. Woody Allen, whose heart has wanted what it wanted, has always been with Soon-Yi Previn.

22. Cross-burning has always been deemed protected speech.

23. Leasing has always allowed the folks to upgrade their tastes in cars.

24. “Cop Killer” by rapper Ice-T has never been available on a recording.

25. Leno and Letterman have always been trading insults on opposing networks.

26. Unless they found one in their grandparents’ closet, they have never seen a carousel of Kodachrome slides.

27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.

28. They’ve never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day.

29. Reggie Jackson has always been enshrined in Cooperstown.

30. “Viewer Discretion” has always been an available warning on TV shows.

31. The first home computer they probably touched was an Apple II or Mac II; they are now in a museum.

32. Czechoslovakia has never existed.

33. Second-hand smoke has always been an official carcinogen.

34. “Assisted Living” has always been replacing nursing homes, while Hospice has always offered an alternative to the hospital.

35. Once they got through security, going to the airport has always resembled going to the mall.

36. Adhesive strips have always been available in varying skin tones.

37. Whatever their parents may have thought about the year they were born, Queen Elizabeth declared it an “Annus Horribilis.”

38. Bud Selig has always been the Commissioner of Major League Baseball.

39. Pizza jockeys from Domino’s have never killed themselves to get your pizza there in under 30 minutes.

40. There have always been HIV positive athletes in the Olympics.

41. American companies have always done business in Vietnam.

42. Potato has always ended in an “e” in New Jersey per vice presidential edict.

43. Russians and Americans have always been living together in space.

44. The dominance of television news by the three networks passed while they were still in their cribs.

45. They have always had a chance to do community service with local and federal programs to earn money for college.

46. Nirvana is on the classic oldies station.

47. Children have always been trying to divorce their parents.

48. Someone has always gotten married in space.

49. While they were babbling in strollers, there was already a female Poet Laureate of the United States.

50. Toothpaste tubes have always stood up on their caps.

51.  Food has always been irradiated.

52. There have always been women priests in the Anglican Church.

53. J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn’t he? 

54. The historic bridge at Mostar in Bosnia has always been a copy.

55. Rock bands have always played at presidential inaugural parties.

56. They may have assumed that parents’ complaints about Black Monday had to do with punk rockers from L.A., not Wall Street.

57. A purple dinosaur has always supplanted Barney Google and Barney Fife. 

58. Beethoven has always been a good name for a dog.

59. By the time their folks might have noticed Coca Cola’s new Tab Clear, it was gone.

60. Walmart has never sold handguns over the counter in the lower 48.

61. Presidential appointees have always been required to be more precise about paying their nannies’ withholding tax, or else.

62. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine. 

63. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as movies.

64. The U.S, Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely.

65. They first met Michelangelo when he was just a computer virus.

66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church.

67. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court.

68. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.

69. It seems the Post Office has always been going broke.

70. The artist formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg has always been rapping.

71. The nation has never approved of the job Congress is doing.

72. One way or another, “It’s the economy, stupid” and always has been.

73. Silicone-gel breast implants have always been regulated.

74. They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi (SYFY) Channel.

75. Honda has always been a major competitor on Memorial Day at Indianapolis.

Millennial Generation (that’s ‘Y’ to you)

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Here is a pertinent paragraph from the Wikipedia entry for “Millennial Generation.”  This observation/assertion is that the Millennial’s generational thinking and attitude and ascetics that run quite counter to the whole counterculture and anti-establishment nature of the Baby Boomers. 

For the Church, this means that those who are still convinced that to save the Church is to get rid of everything that was (standard theology, doctrine, traditional architecture or music or language or liturgies and on and on) are now acting not for the future welfare of the Church, but for the perpetuation of their generational ideology.  My experience with younger people suggests that even things like “inclusive language” is passe – particularly among the women.   When we think about how to form or re-form the emphases or methodologies of the Church for future generations, we must do our best to truly understand emerging generations.  If not, we will once again “miss the boat.”  We’ve missed the boat so often… 

Here is the paragraph:

In some ways, the Millennials have become seen as the ultimate rejection
of the counterculture that began in the 1960s and
persisted in the subsequent decades through the 1990s.[62][63]
This is further documented in Strauss & Howe’s book titled Millennials
Rising: The Next Great Generation, which describes the Millennial
generation as “civic minded,” rejecting the attitudes of the Baby Boomers and Generation X.[64]
Kurt Andersen, the prize-winning contributor to Vanity Fair writes in his book Reset:
How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America that many
among the Millennial Generation view the 2008 election of Barack
Obama as uniquely theirs and describes this generational consensus
building as being more healthy and useful than the counterculture
protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s, going as far to say that if
Millennials can “keep their sense of entitlement in check, they might
just turn out to be the next Greatest Generation.”[65]
However, due to the global
financial crisis of 2008-2009, at least one journalist has
expressed fears of permanently losing a substantial amount of Generation
Y’s earning potential.[66]

The Perils of “Wannabe Cool’ Christianity

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Like most of our culture these days, Christianity in the U.S. is undergoing a great deal of change.  There is a lot of angst around the changes within our culture and society that show that we are no longer a predominately Christian nation (implicitly or explicitly).  In addition, our current church culture caters to a philosophical and theological perspective that proving itself to not be very popular among emerging generations.

This article from the Wall Street Journal, entitled “The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity‘, touches on some of the machinations going on within the Christianity right now in order to try to be “relevant” with changing culture and young people.  As the author concludes, this jump to trendiness and shock value will probably not work for much longer.

From the article:

Statistics like these have created something of a mania in recent years, as baby-boomer evangelical leaders frantically assess what they have done wrong (why didn’t megachurches work to attract youth in the long term?) and scramble to figure out a plan to keep young members engaged in the life of the church.

Increasingly, the “plan” has taken the form of a total image overhaul, where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural, relevant. As a result, in the early 2000s, we got something called “the emerging church”–a sort of postmodern stab at an evangelical reform movement. Perhaps because it was too “let’s rethink everything” radical, it fizzled quickly. But the impulse behind it–to rehabilitate Christianity’s image and make it “cool”–remains.

and the conclusion:

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that “cool Christianity” is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched–and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.

Read the whole article!

The Imago Dei Initiative doesn’t seek to employ trendy artifacts that become so 5-minutes ago in 2 minutes flat, but seek to understand and receive the enduring, ancient Faith experienced in new ways.  We seek to understand and experience the enduring faith and learn how to pass it on.  We seek to find simply ways of living the profound Faith in ways that get to the heart of the longings of emerging generations in every changing contexts.

The Courts, Judges, and California’s Prop. 8

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A lot has been written and the comments continue concerning the overturning of California’s ballot initiative, Proposition 8, overturning the legislature’s establishing equality in marriage for same-sex couples.  A couple points I would like to make concerning what I’ve read and the opinions that are being expressed:

1. The U.S. is NOT a Direct Democracy.  We are a Republic!  “The people” do not have the final say except through their elected officials within our system of checks and balances.  The courts mitigate the “tyranny of the majority” that can result when the majority seeks to deny equal consideration, access, and protection under the law to whole groups of people.  The legislatures mitigate an equal tendency among the courts to engage in the “tyranny of the minority.”

2.  I am astounded that the Religious Right, anti-gay forces use the “will of the people” as their primary argument when fighting against state sanctioned same-sex marriage.  How short-sighted can they be?  They will not uphold this position and the right of the “will of the people” to rule when they are disadvantaged.  We will not find them accepting the “will of the people” if a state referendum passes that demands all crosses be removed from public view. They show themselves to be political hypocrites in taking on this tactic.

What are they going to do when the “will of the people” shifts in favor of same-sex marriage?  It is shifting! It is reckless for any group to base the success of and justification for their social or political agendas on the “will of the people.”  “The people” are fickle!

3. The courts are not siding with the anti-gay marraige forces.  The courts are reflecting the changing attitudes of the American public regarding homosexuality and same-sex marriage – like they did during the Civil Rights era.  So, the Religious Right has to turn people, the voters, against their enemy the courts in order to maintain their victories.  This is so terribly short-sighted.  When the winds of public opinion change to reflect a strong bias and prejudice against Christians, which will happen, the courts will be the only recourse we have.  If the public believes the courts cannot be trusted (which is different than the belief that the judges are corrupt), the Republic as we know it is done for.

4. The anti-same-sex marriage folks are just mean spirited, because their political and social agenda drives them and not the love of Christ, which they claim.  Here is an example from the American Family Association responce to Judge Walker’s decision to overturn Proposition 8:

The American Family Association (AFA) has called for
Judge Walker’s impeachment. Under the Constitution, judges may be
impeached if they violate a standard of “good Behaviour.” According to
the AFA, Walker violated this standard in two ways…

Second, the AFA said, “Judge Walker is an open
homosexual, and should have recused himself from this case due to his
obvious conflict of interest.” AFA’s Bryan Fischer further said, “[Walker] is Exhibit A as to why
homosexuals should be disqualified from public office … A man who
ignores time-honored standards of sexual behavior simply cannot be
trusted with the power of public office.” [emphasis mine]  (Source)

So, homosexuals should not be allowed to hold public offices?  What if homosexuals are elected to public office by the “will of the people”?

  

In the “Inventive Age”

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Here is the quote:

“I think there is something much bigger going on than finding a niche market and asking how should we position this product of the gospel so that those people will appreciate it, and will like it, and will accept it. We’re really asking a deeper question about who we are in a changing cultural environment when it comes to the way think, the values we hold, the tools that we use, and the aesthetics that are meaningful to us.” –Doug Pragitt (describing the concepts behind his new book, “Church in the Inventive Age“)  
Pagitt is the pastor of Salomon’s Porch Church.

This is the melee in which I desire to be and where the Imago Dei Society has a real place within the greater arena of Anglicanism. Well, actually, this whole way of considering and thinking has had a place within Anglicanism, but to understand how we continue to do this thing called Anglicanism (this Christianity) in emerging cultures and with emerging generations are the questions we need to continually ask!

I came across one of the ministries that has as its purpose (or its obsession) the condemning of the “Emergent” side of the Church as being heretical. I don’t know whether it is simply their inability to understand enculturation and that we are all raised within a cultural system that forms us in the ways we collectively think, the way we understand the world around us and our place it in, what we consider to be aesthetically pleasing or appropriate, and even what we consider to be moral and ethical.  I don’t know whether they are simply ignorant of disciplines like anthropology, sociology, etc., or what is really going on within them.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the divine Logos do not change, but we certainly do, our cultures certainly do, and what we consider to be self-evident truth certainly does.  So, groups like this, I suppose, either honestly not to understand, are being willfully ignorant (and as a former teacher, this is an astounding tragedy), or are intransigent in their beliefs – fundamentalists, in other words. 

What is this particular ministry, you might ask?  Apprising Ministries.  I don’t know anything about this, really, and perhaps much of what they do is really good, but with regard to Emergent stuff, they have a thorn in their craw!  So, make up your own mind. 

Our Times

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Thomas Chatterton Williams in his book, Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,00 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture, wrote: “Nietzsche believed the greatest deeds are thoughts. ‘The world revolves around the inventors of new values,’ he wrote.  For more than thirty years the black world has revolved around the inventors of hip-hop values, and this has been a decisive step backward.” (p. 218)

In his book, Williams describes his experiences growing up with increasing allegiance to those inventors and the hip-hop culture, until discovering a much broader world when he went off to college – and more importantly due to his father’s constant influence and love.  Certainly, not all of hip-hop is negative, but much of it is.  For many, many black people, according to their own testimony, the more gangsta forms have had a devastating effect on black culture and those forms are the “new values” taken up decisively by a generation.

Williams goes on to write that his generation, in order to pay the debt they owe their ancestors for all they suffered through in order to make possible in his generation a black President, who is a counter example as a “nuanced thinker” of hip-hop culture, his generation must take up the challenge to do things differently and make things right for the sake of the new generations coming.

I see in Williams’ description of his experience and the “new values” of the hip-hop phenomina a similiar experience of another generation and another racial group – the overwhelmingly white Baby Boomer generation.  The “1960’s” generation proclaimed a new morality with a whole set of “new values.”  In their belief that their generation’s purpose was to usher in a Brave New World, the age of Aquarius, they have been relentless in overturning anything they perceive as getting in their way.   As Nietzsche said, the world has revolved around this new morality and their new values.

Like hip-hop, not all that this generation has done is wrong or bad.  Many aspects of white, 1950’s culture needed to be upended – racism, the “Stepford Wives” expectation of women are examples.  The proverbial baby was thrown out with the bathwater, however, because of an unnuanced rejection of all that came before them.  We are beginning to reap the whirlwind. 

One predominate characteristic of this generation is their rejection of the notion that their ancestors, or even their parents’ generation, have anything worthwhile to say to them or to teach them, and as a result their generation is known as the first one to cast off history and lessons from the past as informants of how things should be. This may be a bit of overstatement, but not by much.  What is even more sad is that the generation in the aggregate does not acknowledge or perhaps even realize the tremendous sacrifice and denial of self past generations have endured for their generation’s existence.

I am hopeful when I read the demographic trends of younger generations.  They will have their own problems, of course, but there seems to be a reclaiming of history and past experience as informants for figuring out how to live life.  As Williams claims it is up to his generation to overturn the very negative influences of hip-hop on African-American culture, so is it up to his generation, including all races, to overturn the negative aspects of the Baby Boomer zeitgeist for all Americans.

What type of service

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Fr. Dan Martins in his blog, Confessions of a Caricoa, posted an entry entitled, Missional Notes.  He is writing about the services of the Church and their connection with people of varying degrees of knowledge about or commitment to Christ.  He is wondering about the growing population of people who are very much in American post-Christendom and what can be understood in these days to draw people into relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the Church.

One thing mentioned is that a service like High Solemn Mass (which we do at St. Paul’s during the regular season) might be over-kill to someone without a church background – the uninitiated or unconverted.  Fr. Dan writes, “Solemn High Mass is solid food, and is likely to induce spiritual
indigestion in those who haven’t been carefully and gradually prepared
for it. Where’s our version of breast milk, strained carrots, and
Cheerios?”

How do we configure and do “Church” in Post-Christendom and in a culture that is becoming far more pre-Constantinian than post? 

We can no longer assume that new people coming in the door of whatever service or activity the Church engages in know anything about the Christian Gospel, Jesus, or the worship of the Church beyond often trite sound-bytes.  Something like a High Solemn Mass can be very intimidating, and if we actually obey our vows to uphold the Canons of this Church we cannot assume they are baptized Christians, so they may not be able to participate in the central act of such a service.  (They can, of course, come up for a blessing, which is exactly what every unbaptized person to whom I have explained the requirement for communion and why has done once they know they can come forward for a blessing.)  Perhaps this kind of service is for the initiated, while something else may be better suited for these post-Christian seekers.  A fine, well done choral Morning Prayer or Evansong may well fit the bill.

And, how do we configure and do “Church” differently in ways that resonate with younger people and still remain faithful to who and what we are as Anglican Christians in the Episcopal Church?  After all, they are looking for that kind of faithfulness.  An interesting thing about the demographic research – the majority of GenY’ers would rather us say up front who and what we are and clearly delineate what we believe.  They are looking for people and groups who are clear and unafraid to stand for what they believe, as long as we can deal with their honest questions, opinions, and doubts forthrightly and graciously.  With many in the younger generations, it comes down to a matter of rebuilding trust before we can earn the right to speak into their lives.

These are the very questions that I envision the Imago Dei Society dealing with – a charism to research and analyze emerging generations and the emerging cultures so we can meet them in authentic ways that resonate with them without jettisoning the Tradition, both in liturgy and in belief.  Then, taking the knowledge and engaging in “experimental” worshiping communities to see what sticks and what doesn’t.