Monthly Archives: April 2007
Generation gap
The other day I was thinking about pop culture after Douglas Wilson referred to it as an “anti-culture” in his book Future Men. I’ve thought a little bit more about it after reading Adam’s post asking why college students find parachurch organizations more attractive than a local church. To take it further, I’ve been wondering for years why it’s so hard to get our college students and other churchgoers to interact.
I believe the key here is the Western anti-culture — also known as the “generation gap.” As Wilson pointed out, true cultures pass down their heritage from one generation to the next. As a result, young people have built relationships with their elders, respect their authority, and strive to carry on their traditions. However, in the Western world, the opposite is true. It is expected that young people will like different music, different movies, and develop a different mindset than their parents and elders. The result, of course, is the generation gap. Young people and older people just don’t “get” each other. This tendency is ingrained in our culture, and frankly, it’s very ungodly. The Bible is overwhelmingly clear that younger people should respect, learn from, and follow in the footsteps of their elders. Yet the American cultural cancer is made worse in Christian college students because of several factors:
- Parents don’t pass on their spiritual heritage to their children (Deuteronomy 11:19). They expect their children to “figure it out” on their own. Problems contributing to this include a lack of spiritual maturity on the parents’ part, a failure of fathers to properly lead their families, a tendency of parents to hand their kids off to the youth pastor, and an individualist worldview that believes kids should make up their own minds about spiritual issues instead of being taught what’s true. This failure in the home has devastated a whole generation of youth from Christian families. It also means that those who “make their faith their own” in college feel spiritually isolated from their parents.
- Church youth groups isolate junior and senior high students from adults. They rarely feel like they are a part of the church body.
- The “college bubble” further isolates students from adults. Students spend almost all of their time around other people of the same age. The church is across town…though to many college students, it might as well be on the other side of the world. I had one student tell me that he liked the fact that he got to worship at the Purdue Christian Campus House because it allowed him to be around other college students only.
- Lastly, parachurch organizations take over the church’s responsibility to shepherd college students (1 Peter 5:2-5)…and few churches really seem to mind.
As a result, the local church may be viewed as unnecessary or incidental to one’s spiritual development. Students go there on Sundays for the preaching and for the music, but not much else. Their actual spiritual development is overseen by other college students who are not much older or more mature than they are. This is a critique of parachurch organizations and also of Salt and Light itself.
The generation gap is a major problem. Students feel intimidated by older churchgoers who in turn feel intimidated by students. People in our church are more willing to work with international students than American students — partly because of the incredible opportunity for missions, but also because international students aren’t as threatening. You don’t feel like you need to “impress” an international student.
I’d like to think through practical ways we can respond to this unbiblical worldview. Whether it’s the older folks, the college students, the church leadership, or parachurch organizations, we all are at fault in some ways. Praise God that, despite our failures, He still uses churches and parachurch organizations to shepherd college students here at Purdue.
Fat and happy
Nobody escapes God’s wrath in the book of Zephaniah. Kings and royalty, other nations, and the entire earth will come under His judgment. The merchants of Jerusalem are also condemned:
Zephaniah 1:12
At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps,
and I will punish the men
who are complacent,
those who say in their hearts,
‘The LORD will not do good,
nor will he do ill.’
When I read that God will search Jerusalem “with lamps,” it makes me think that God is announcing a search-and-destroy mission against the fat and happy merchants. The word translated “complacent” is actually a Hebrew idiom — the merchants are “thickening on the dregs (of their wine).” The idea is that wine left with the dregs in the bottom of the cup will get sludgy, kind of like the really thick, nasty coffee made by the coffeemaker in the church kitchen that apparently only Marty can get to work properly. This is a pretty interesting figure of speech to describe complacency. I suppose an equivalent idiom in English would be “slow as molasses.”
When we get complacent — content with what the world has to offer — our attitude toward God becomes one of apathy. “The LORD will not do good,” we think deep down inside of us. In my case, I tend to lose sight of Jesus Christ and become discouraged, forgetting that God will act to help me in each trial of life. On the opposite end, we think, “Nor will He do ill.” We believe that God will not mind a little sin — that He would certainly never discipline us by disrupting our lives and allowing pain to come our way. I’ve definitely been on the receiving end of this discipline.
In our rationalistic Western worldview, we tend to forget that God is intimately involved in every detail of the world. We may say that He is active, but the way we think and act tells another story. We cannot afford to become complacent — to have our eyes fixed on the things of this world, which will one day come to a “full and sudden end” (Zephaniah 1:18).
Porcupine China Guy
I’ve found that doodling really helps my concentration. If I’m just listening to the speaker, but my hands and eyes aren’t busy, I get bored quickly and my mind wanders off. However, I’ve found that when I doodle, I keep the rest of my brain occupied while I listen.
This one is called “Porcupine China Guy” because the texture makes me think of porcupines, it’s shaped kinda like China, and the round shape on top makes it look like a beefy guy with a little round head.
It was drawn with a Pilot G-2 07 black gel pen on photocopy paper.
Woo! Another life goal accomplished
This week, I finally finished memorizing Psalm 119. This was a challenge I took up with a few friends at the beginning of summer 2004. I was hoping to finish the chapter by the end of the summer, but then I got a job and was too busy. It’s been on-again, off-again ever since, but finally, with the help of my small group’s accountability, I finished all 176 verses.
Honestly, if you’re looking for a big chunk of scripture to memorize, I wouldn’t recommend this one. It’s very repetitive, there’s little progression of thought, and many verses are so similar that they get all jumbled up in my mind. (“Teach me your statutes” is a very common phrase, unless it’s “teach me your law” or “teach me your rules.”) Frankly, I doubt I’ll be able to remember it all a few months from now — though some sections will definitely stick with me, probably for the rest of my life.
With that said, there is a lot of depth and richness to this Psalm. Almost every verse mentions God’s law and how much the Psalmist loves it and relies on it. It’s a good reminder of the fact that we should love the Bible for the simple reason that it shows us who God is.
I’ll share some of my favorite verses:
Pop culture or anti-culture?
Here’s a quotation from Future Men by Douglas Wilson that has stood out to me and made me think (emphasis his):
Pop culture is a disposable culture for those who agree to consume it. But because cultures are meant to be handed down to subsequent generations, because cultures are meant to be preserved, a consumable culture is really an anti-culture. [...]
The central sin of pop culture is therefore a sin of omission. It displaces true culture, it does not itself adequately perform the functions of a culture, and sinners in a fallen world need to have the functions of a culture performed. Pop culture is a culture which does not enculturate, a culture which does not discipline. It is therefore an oxymoronic culture. In a biblical culture, a man expects his great-grandchildren to read what he has read, sing what he has sung, listen to what he has listened to. In an evanescent culture, like the one that surrounds us, a man expects to have all his “cultural” experiences buried with him. In the year 2525, do you think anyone will have heard of that dumb song? (From the chapter “Contempt for the Cool”)
I never thought of pop culture as an anti-culture before, but it makes sense. The ever-changing face of pop culture demands a generation gap, isolating younger people from the wisdom, guidance, and friendship of their elders. In this sense, pop culture destroys true culture, and it is inherently unbiblical.
This is something that annoys me about “praise and worship” music — it’s all about singing the latest songs (very pop-culture–ish). How many P&W songs from 20 years ago do you sing? I remember Marty once remarking on how the college group used to have hymn-sings at his house…now most students no longer know those hymns. They only know songs that they’ll forget in a few years and their kids wouldn’t like anyway. I wonder how much the musical heritage of the church has been damaged by this concern with fashion.
So…
What do you think? Is Wilson right or is he wrong? Is there more nuance here than he’s letting on? Am I just too lazy to learn new songs? Can I just keep rhyming on and on? And how should we respond to this?
