• Valson Thampu

CHURCH AND GEN Z: Why We Should Care – Part 2

Ministering relevantly to any individual or group requires that we be vigilant to the context in which we serve. The Gen Z dwells in a world radically different to ours. The Christian faith was far more of an undistracted shaping influence on us. The main reason for this needs to be understood.
In practical terms, how we understand our life-world is influenced substantially by the ‘collective representations’ that from the framework of our cognition. Each religion involves a framework of collective representations unique to it. Change the nature and scope of these representations, the very foundation of that particular religious mode of life will become shaky. For example, in the Christian worldview, human beings are represented as in a creational relationship with God; God being the Creator. To live is to be related to God. Or, as Paul puts it quoting the Athenians, ‘In Him, we live and move and have our being.’ This representation, or this article of belief, influenced my generation deeply and profoundly. But we cannot assume that it will have the same influence on Christian Gen Z, especially when we do very little to nurture them in the core religious representations of the biblical faith. The ‘collective representations’ they imbibe and harbour may well be quite different to ours.
To understand this better, consider the affirmation of the Creed as part of the Sunday liturgy. Would the articles of belief that comprise the Creed mean the same to Christian Gen Z, to the same emotive extent, as it did to my generation? Rather, unlikely. It is high time we realized that we take a lot for granted; and we do so because we are wanting in spiritual vigilance. ‘Wach and pray,’ said Jesus. To him, vigilance vis-à-vis the ambiance of life is basic to spiritual life, lest our worship declines into a mindless exercise, or a shot of holy escapism.
Consider now the metaphor of the Mother Church. In theory, we assume that there is a deep, inviolable emotional affinity between a believer and his church. But, can this emotional affinity be felt by our youths if we do not nurture them in the nursery of shared spiritual awareness? We do next-to-nothing to enable them to internalize this spiritual worldview. As a result, they fail do develop what Levy-Bruhl calls ‘participation mystique,’ – the ability to participate spontaneously in the universe of faith that we take for granted. To have a set of articles of belief without the participation mystique that must go with it is to drain the exercise of its spiritual force. Don’t blame our Gen Z, if they do not look very excited about it. This does not mean that the articles of faith have failed. It only means that we have failed the creed in relation to the youth.
How many of our churches are equipped, in their pastoral ministries, to address the perplexities that the Christian youth of today may have relative to the articles of faith that they are required to endorse? Or, regarding the diverse aspects of church life? Do we mind the fact that the world-out-there has its own dogmatically asserted, widely endorsed collective representations? That our young people are more exposed to them than to the spiritual ‘representations’ of the biblical faith?
So, what happens? The sense of belong to the church lukewarm. Ideally, the inner life of the youth and the spiritual soul of the church must beat in sync. This requires eager sensitivity in nurturing the youth spiritually, understanding each one them as unique persons, like Jesus did. Jesus related to everyone, without exception, in their ultimate, person depth. He knew this to be the necessary basis for ‘serving’ in a spiritual sense. To ‘serve’ is also so say, ‘Abide in me, and I in you’. Transformation is the outcome of service of this kind.
The youth of today live intensely in the present. We call this ‘generation gap’. The gap of inter-generational discontinuity is widening. It has peaked in relation to our Gen Z. They won’t have their attention deflected to the past (‘those were the days, my friend’) or to the future of a pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die. The youth today -across all religions- have lost the sort of metaphysical certainties that we assumed made sense to us; though, truth to tell, without bothering too much how exactly all that happened. The youth of today are not to blame for this. They are what we have nurtured them to be.
Now, consider for a moment how political India has reacted to the challenge posed by Gen Z. Suddenly, the high and mighty of this country has begun to scramble up to create new equations. Even geriatric political specimens have begun to lips the Gen Z lingo. Gen Z is on the Instagram. So, the redoubtable PM will do a midnight selfie video, addressing his audience not with his customary, “Bhaiyooh, behanooh”, but with his newly learned, ‘Friends!” Cabinet ministers are ordered to reach out to Gen Z. Words like ‘delulu’, ‘mojo’, ‘clocked it’ begin to resound in the Parliament!
This, however, denotes a knee-jerk, cosmetic adjustment; not a genuine change of heart. Rather, it means that no change of heart is admissible. Only when you are resolutely unwilling to change your heart that you feel the acute need to change your appearance. This cosmetic approach will not do for us. The church of the future will be a church that ministers with discernment and sensitivity to individuals in the particularity of their personal needs and conditions. It will be a church that heeds the timeless dictum of Jesus: ‘The Sabbath is made for man; not man for the Sabbath.’ For this to be real, the Church must become, once again the spiritual movement that it was envisaged to be; and not stay as a repository of institutional authority. Lives are impacted, changed, and new energies liberated by movements, not by monuments.
The present generation is under far greater external pressures than we can even imagine. And pressures of this kind will only continue to increase in the days ahead. Surely, it is not too early to ask: “What would it mean for the Christian youth to be living in the Hindu Rashtra, with all that it implies?”