Last fall, an article called “The Gospel for iGens” was published on Christianity Today’s website about “the next generation’s” need to hear Good News that can break through their defenses. Scot McKnight asserts that emerging adults (those between 18 and 30) form a generation that is largely insensitive to the potency of God’s holiness, the magnificence of his grace, and the shocking nature of his love — all gratitude that forms the core of the Christian life.
Whether you are amongst the iGens yourself or not, we, like both Peter and Paul, have to be sensitive to our audience when sharing the Good News. What are we up against? Scot sees the typical emerging adult as a product of the self-esteem movement (e.g. Mr. Rogers (self-acceptance) and Sesame Street (universal acceptance)). Though not necessarily selfish or spoiled, iGens have simply been raised with the focused singularity on self-esteem as the entitlement of each and every person for nothing more than being alive. The emerging adult is a “self in a castle,” in tune with and protective of one’s self; the self has always come first and feeling good about ourselves has always been a primary virtue. Frighteningly, “iGens have a robust enough self-image to think Jesus is just like them.” Yikes?
Jeffrey Arnett, a respected scholar on “emerging adulthood” identifies five major characteristics of iGens:
1) They are exploring their own identities in love and work.
2) They are all in an age of instability.
3) They are in a self-focused period of life.
4) They feel in between adolescence and adulthood, neither one nor the other.
5) They are driven by endless possibilities and are actively exploring them–jobs, travel, love, sex, identity, and location.
With this in mind, Scot McKnight points out that older models of evangelism aim at leading people to a reception of God’s grace in Christ by making them aware of their utter sinfulness by nature. But for most iGens, a different model might be in order. The intent of evangelism that focuses on preaching the law and God’s holiness, coinciding with God’s wrath and hell, is to stimulate a cry for salvation out of a sense of guilt over who we are and what we have done. Alan Mann, who wrote Atonement for a Sinless Society, questions whether iGens actually feel guilt. To feel guilt, one needs a sense of morality, what is right and wrong and true and false. Contemporary culture does not provide this, apart from the conviction that assaulting the self is clearly wrong.
Thus, Scot maintains that the place to begin with iGens is Jesus, not the Jesus revealed by institutional religion, but the one lived out by credible witnesses of genuine compassion and commitment to something that transcends the superficiality of modern and postmodern culture. He finds that focusing on the Gospels, the life of Jesus, gives iGens the “kingdom vision of Jesus” and vividly sketching a community marked by justice, love, peace, and holiness lures iGens from their self-castles. Their sensitivity and shame about systemic sin like AIDS, poverty, and racism leads inevitably to recognizing the sin in each person, the personal sin in themselves. In addition, some iGens are awakened to faith by the discipleship demands of Jesus, a la the Sermon on the Mount. The demand of Jesus for a life that matters and a morality that exceeds what they have experienced are radically attractive, a challenge to their core. Scot concludes that what finally leads these young people “to embrace the gospel is being brought into the story of Jesus. Our task in gospeling iGens is following the example of Peter and Paul and helping them find their place–and themselves–in that remarkable story.”
What are your thoughts?
McKnight, Scott. “The Gospel for iGens.” Christianity Today. 2009.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/communitylife/evangelism/thegospelforigens.html
