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.
