unChristian (sheltered)

Last week I introduced unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, and offered some highlights and observations from the first five chapters. The book is up to #226 on Amazon (not bad). I wrote about three of the six main perceptions of Christianity that emerged from The Barna Group's research into the perceptions of 16 to 29-year olds -- Christians are hypocritical, too focused on getting converts and antihomosexual. Instead of covering the last three in one post, I'm going to divide them up, and then offer some closing thoughts.

Perception #4: Christians are sheltered

Jonathan (age 22) says, "Christians enjoy being in their own community. The more they seclude themselves, the less they can function in the real world. So many Christians are caught in the Christian bubble."

In an afterword to this chapter, John Stott writes:

If we belong to Jesus Christ, we have a double calling in relation to the world. On the one hand, we are to live, serve and witness in the world and not try to escape from it. On the other hand, we are to avoid being contaminated by the world. So we have no liberty either to preserve our holiness by escaping from the world or to sacrifice our holiness by conforming to the world. Escapism and conformism are both forbidden to us. (pp. 150-151)

And therein lies the dilemma. It's nothing new, but Kinnaman and Lyons make the case that today's Christian faces unprecedented challenges in seeking the Biblical path between escapism and conformism. More on that later.

A common complaint heard from outsiders to Christianity is that it's boring and not relevant to their lives. My first reaction is: of course, Christ always seems boring and irrelevant to the unregenerate heart. But I understand their point. Surprisingly, many of them also say Christianity seems disconnected from the supernatural -- surprising, since Christianity uniquely stands or falls based on supernatural events. The authors suggest that part of the problem is we haven't done a good job of conveying the radical, exciting nature of Christian faith and practice. I'd also suggest that the Western church has too often adopted the rationalistic assumptions of the Enlightenment, thus stripping Christianity of it's supernatural element. It's no wonder then that "Christianity is perceived as separated from real spiritual vitality and mystery." Hopefully, churches will appeal to the postmodern yearning for mystery and transcendence by adopting a back to the future approach -- returning to the primacy of Word and Sacrament instead of trying to conjure up mystery with candles and incense.

Kinnaman and Lyons also found that a lot of outsiders view Christianity as anti-intellectual, which further leads to the assumption that it's ill-equipped to deal with a complex, modern world. Of all the criticisms leveled in this chapter, I think this one sticks the most. There are lots of historical reasons one could offer for why this is. A lot of it stems from the fact that evangelical Christians have been playing defense as the culture grows increasingly hostile to our beliefs. 20th-century fundamentalism, while based on a legitimate desire to defend the fundamentals of the faith, unfortunately took on an anti-intellectual, "hunker-down" mentality that made it unable to shape the culture in the way Christians had been able to do for centuries before.

Many outsiders believe Christianity insulates people from thinking. Often young people (including many insiders) doubt that Christianity boosts intellect. We discovered a range of opinions on this, but Christianity is not generally perceived to sanction a thoughtful response to the world. One comment illustrates this image: "Christianity stifles curiosity. People become unwilling to face their doubts and questions. It makes people brain-dead." The vast majority of outsiders reject the idea that Christianity "makes sense" or is "relevant to their life." So part of the sheltered perception is that Christians are not thinkers. (p. 123)

This is surprising and tragic because:

Christianity offers a sophisticated, livable response to the nature of the world and how we "work" as humans. As Christians, we understand that sin is everywhere and attached to everyone. We also know that humans are made in the image of God, capable of creating and doing good. Though a biblical worldview is not simplistic or always easy to understand, it enables us to make sense of creation and ourselves. Mosaics (ages 16-23) and Busters (ages 24-41) inside and outside the church have rarely been exposed to how well this worldview explains life as we know it. (p. 124)

So what are the challenges to getting involved in the lives of young adults and showing them that the gospel is intellectually credible and existentially satisfying?

The authors include a depressing laundry list of indicators which show that "the activities that were on the fringe for Boomers (ages 42-60) now define the lifestyles of Busters." Incidences of violence, casual sex at a young age, drug/alcohol abuse and suicide are dramatically higher in this generation of young adults than previous ones. I was raised in a very sheltered environment, for which I'm thankful. I believe it protected me from most of the things reflected in these statistics. I can sympathize with the desire to shelter ourselves from this cultural onslaught (especially as parents), but the church can't afford to abandon what the authors call these "fractured generations". Not only are families and lives fracturing, but society itself is fragmenting.

America is fragmenting into diverse subcultures. The "mainstream" experience, if there ever was such a thing, has now surrendered virtually all its gravitational pull. These days most Americans take their cues from a unique subculture, deriving meaning, values, heroes, self-expression, identity, and viewpoints from a unique segment of society. When people say that America is a mission field, it would be more accurate to say it is many diverse mission fields. And this phenomenon is particularly true among young people. The world of Mosaics and Busters is splintering into more subcultures than ever before. (p. 134)

The challenges may be new, but the answer isn't. "Missional" is a word used a lot these days. I think a better word is "incarnational". To quote Derek Webb:

Take to the world this love, hope and faith
take to the world this rare, relentless grace
and like the three in one
know you must become what you want to save
‘cause that’s still the way
He takes to the world

The gospel and means of grace mustn't be adapted to fit new circumstances, but the way we as individual Christians engage with the world must adapt. It may involve moving into the "hood" (like my friends Chris and Stephen) so you can minister to inner-city kids from within instead of preaching at them from outside, or it may involve studying at Yale Divinity (like a young woman from our church) even though you're surrounded by people who don't share your evangelical, conservative convictions. As the authors point out, it will mean engaging with people at both ends of the continuum -- the intellectual elites and the overlooked -- and everyone in between. Each of us has a role.