Tessa Landrum, KentuckyToday.com, 2019
Our society is in the midst of a massive cultural shift. According to the Barna Group, “rates of church attendance, religious affiliation, belief in God, prayer and Bible-reading have been dropping for decades. Americans’ beliefs are becoming more post-Christian and, concurrently, religious identity is changing.”
This is the environment in which Generation Z is growing up.
This conglomeration of young people – born anywhere between 1995 and 2015 depending on which study you read – has several defining characteristics. They are “the most ethnically diverse generation in American history.” They are individualistic, lonely, and social justice oriented. They were raised on technology and their lives are often built around the online world. They are activists and volunteers who want to make an impact on the world. They were raised during the Great Recession and value financial stability. They are sexually fluid. And they account for 25.9% of the American population.
The oldest members of Generation Z are entering their twenties and stepping into either the workforce or the world of higher education. And they will change the landscape of our society with their ideas and values – many of which omit the idea of Christian faith and the prospect of church membership.
A POST-CHRISTIAN GENERATION
James White, in his groundbreaking book Meet Generation Z, notes “the most defining mark of members of Generation Z, in terms of their spiritual lives, is their spiritual illiteracy…They do not know what the Bible says. They do not know the basics of Christian belief or theology. They do not what the cross is all about. They do not know what it means to worship.”
This knowledge gap is the result of a massive cultural value shift from the sacred to the secular, and it has led to increasing numbers of students abandoning their faith and losing interest in the church.
According to Jean Twenge, this secularizing of society has manifested itself in Gen Z as “disconnecting completely from religion, spirituality, and the larger questions of life” (iGen). In fact, the Barna Group characterizes Gen Z as the “first truly ‘post Christian’ generation,” with only 4% adhering to a Biblical worldview.
As a result, scriptural authority has come under fire and fewer teenagers are trusting what the Bible has to say about contemporary issues. Sean McDowell and J. Warner Wallace, both prolific apologists, observe that “young people today have grown up in a culture that places the individual as the highest authority…and individual feelings often trump facts” (So the Next Generation Will Know). Moral relativism has been noted as one of the defining trademarks of Gen Z as they move away from traditional values that fail to account for their everyday experiences. Thus, it is the general consensus that sincere belief equals absolute truth.
BARRIERS TO FAITH
As Christian values decline in their cultural context and a desire for tolerance surges, Gen Z articulates several barriers to faith and church membership. First, the problem of evil and the existence of suffering is the largest deterrent to a belief in the existence of God (29%), which one third of non-Christian teens believe cannot be ultimately known. Second, while Gen Z is less likely than previous generations to claim church hypocrisy as a reason for avoiding faith, 23% still articulate concern. Lastly, the history of injustices within the church bothers 15% of surveyed teens.
But it isn’t just the unchurched who are exhibiting less interest in traditional spiritual ideas and institutions. These trends also impact Christian teens. Of churchgoing Gen Z members, 82% consider church to be “a place to find answers to live a meaningful life” that is “relevant to my life.”
However, half of students believe that the Bible has exhibited incompatibilities with science (49%) and that churchgoers are hypocritical in their practice (36%). These statistics indicate that the new generational trajectory, aimed toward post-Christian ideas, spiritual illiteracy, and moral relativism, is not merely manifesting itself in unchurched, unbelieving teens. Those who have grown up in church are also at risk.
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I think that that the “defining characteristics” mentioned above are not that definitive but rather too broad. For example , how can they be both individualistic and social justice oriented (which means socialist identity warfare) at the same time? Social justice activists are not individualists, they’re cultural Marxists engaged in class warfare. We see that in legal lawfare today.
Mention must be made about the academic environment that made them that way, wherein nearly every subject is bent toward social(ist) injustice which suppresses all other ideas. If and when that academic environment cancels its social(ist) injustice meme and returns to its original mission objective, then true learning can take place.
There’s an article at today’s American Thinker which indicates that academe is no longer attracting students with their social(ist) injustice meme. It’s entitled “DEI on Campus…”. When that Marxist baloney dries up and blows away, then we can continue with the American experiment of liberty and (true) justice for all.
Let me add that they’re not individualistic at all; they’re just rebelling against the status quo in the same way Obama spoke of. Their rebellion is a feature of cultural Marxist brainwashing just like Obama’s was.