I have to admit that I have a degree of sympathy for those in my generation who think the church is irrelevant. That’s because, if I’m allowed a moment of criticism, the American “church” has trivialized itself into insignificance. When the church acts like a political pundit or lobbyist organization it becomes irrelevant. When the church offers only self-help moralism it becomes irrelevant. Simply put, the world doesn’t need a church that insists on looking, acting, and sounding like the world.
Sometimes I feel like an anomaly. I was born at the tip of the millennial generation and raised in broad evangelicalism. That puts me into a demographic that has statistically been defined by its disillusionment with organized religion, its discontent with an orthodoxy that lacks orthopraxy, its distrust of objective authority, and its doubtfulness of certainty. If you pair my generational identity with the experiences and influences that nurtured me, one might expect me to have been swept away with the current of those who have disengaged from the Christian faith. Yet, at almost thirty six years old I find myself part of a statistical minority that is committed to historic Protestantism and theological Presbyterianism.
The disparity has often intrigued me as I think about the motivations and reasons that have driven people (a lot like myself) from the Christian faith. If you scan the statistical analyses of the millennial generation and the practical observations of its interpreters a recurring theme is that people my age don’t think the church is relevant. Now, I know there’s a degree of irony in that suggestion. After all, if breaking headlines and Twitter trends are any indication of what my generation finds relevant it’s a sad reality that Lady Gaga and Christian Carino’s breakup should apparently affect my Tuesday morning.
However, putting that aside, I have to admit that I have a degree of sympathy for those in my generation who think the church is irrelevant. That’s because, if I’m allowed a moment of criticism, the American “church” has trivialized itself into insignificance. When the church acts like a political pundit or lobbyist organization it becomes irrelevant. When the church offers only self-help moralism it becomes irrelevant. When the church defines itself as the engineer of novelty or innovation it becomes irrelevant. When the church becomes a venue for entertainment it becomes irrelevant. When the church operates like a social club for the pious and godly it becomes irrelevant. When the church excuses its sins with cover-ups it becomes irrelevant. When the church brands itself with personalities and platforms it becomes irrelevant. When the church is given over to stagnant traditionalism it becomes irrelevant. Simply put, the world doesn’t need a church that insists on looking, acting, and sounding like the world. The world is much better at being the world, and the church has never and will never play that part well. And I dare say, if that’s all the church is then it isn’t worth an hour on Sunday morning.
