Yes! A few years back, I ended up spending a month with Gen Zers while walking the Camino de Santiago. Given the context, religion was on the table for discussion. I found that overall Gen Zer's, because they grew up without religion, they never had a bad experience with religion. So, they were curious about Christianity - not judgmental (like a lot of secular Gen X and older millennials). They were like "Yeah, but what do you "do" at church each week?" or "What's the deal with Jesus? Why is he significant?" I guess I was expecting hostility towards religion because I'm so used to talking to Gen X/millennials so I was surprised to get such a different reaction from Gen Z.
Alissa, I think most people assume the exact same thing: that Zoomers will obviously reject all faith expressions, and Christianity in particular, for a whole host of reasons. That's why I think there's so much opportunity in giving them an honest chance to hear the unfettered Gospel rather than assuming they're not interested. Thanks for reading!
Freya is only 24? She’s not a Christian?! You’re blowing my mind here. I’ve been reading her thinking she probably had theological background. She is wise beyond her years and has a prophetic edge.
Great essay here. Gen Z is not far at all. …And they also are stuck. We need to talk about the pseudo-virtues that keep kids just on the borderlands of kingdom life.
Thank you Grace! Totally agreed about the prophetic edge to her voice. Very glad I came across it, and hope to hear others expand on it as well.
Also, would love to hear what you mean by "pseudo-virtues" here, I'm intrigued. Could you say more about that and how they contribute to Gen Z feeling stuck?
I think Curiosity is a pseudo virtue with a grip on modern humanity, especially young people. We honor it as if it were a moral quality, regardless of its direction or quality. It’s not a virtue- it’s an appetite, which means it has value when it is honed and shaped toward the good, but also that it has potential to drive us in soul-harming directions. It needs to be governed and subdued by true virtues. Just as an example- I’ve heard people say that curiosity is the cure to xenophobia. But curiosity is self-serving. It scratches an intellectual itch. It doesn’t necessarily honor other people, and in fact it often consumes them—their information and stories and private lives—as objects.
But people get so riled up when I dare to question curiosity’s place among top cultural values.
I was recently running this by my friend Rebecca DeYoung who wrote Glittering Vices because I feel like a nut going on about it and wanted some back up 😂 She said Aquinas would agree so I feel more confident putting it out there …
Anyway, I have been writing some about that and pondering it.
Another one is risk-taking—which they love to talk about on After Babel that Freya contributes to. Sure, I get what they mean, but pursuing risk as if it were a virtue—and without the guidance of true virtue— is just going to lead to a bunch of adrenaline junkies who will do anything to “feel alive”. You can’t advocate risk taking without developing character to choose risks that are appropriate and geared toward some valuable end rather than strictly about selfish thrill seeking.
Brillant. I had many of the same thoughts when I first read Freya's article. Thank you for putting the swirling thoughts & hopes in my head into its own post. I've been writing to the Christian parent who is raising a Gen Z or Gen Alpha sons & daughters. IF we can train them in the ways of the Lord, the fruit they will have to harvest will be plentiful. https://dearchristianparent.substack.com/p/hey-christians-smartphones-arent
You wrote something on Bill Maher to christian parents? That would be interesting. I watched his conversation with Parent Bet David, where he said he doesn't like kids. I've also him taking on his liberal commentators lately. Could you share a link to your post here?
Excellent stuff Dom, there is a lot here to chew on. We cannot escape our design, or our Maker, and being able to articulate these parallels between therapy culture and gospel culture, where one falls short and the other is whole, is such a critical skill. Thank you for this!
Thanks for reading Jason! Yeah, I run into the trauma thing pretty much every day. I sometimes worry that we are re-catechizing the kids and families who come to our hospital. They want answers to weighty, existential questions, but trauma therapy only moves the ball so far down the field.
I notice this a lot among the younger generation, they yearn for purpose in a godless world, and so replace it with astrology, psychotherapy and other types of supernatural beliefs.
Many consider having a religion as retrograde, but act as people who desperately seek it with similar behavior’s.
I strongly believe the previous generations were heavily influenced by what Max Weber describes in “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”
So true! This makes me think of CS Lewis’s “materialist magician” even in a materialist frame we still find things like astrology to satisfy these deep spiritual longings.
I believe Gen Z is ripe for a mass return to God. My experience has been that people (including me) and organizations and societies do not change until there is a crisis. At that point they become ready to accept and deal with reality. We have an entire generation that is literally going crazy and we have the answer - the love of Jesus Christ and his church, and meaning purpose and identity found in following Him.
That said, as an evangelical Protestant, I believe our religion is very weak sauce and has little to offer. I am now on the path to Orthodoxy, tentative, early, but I believe the depth and richness and way of life there will satisfy.
The "weak sauce" you mention is a topic unto itself. I've written about that in previous articles here, though admittedly they read as super based and not everyone's cup of tea. Thanks for taking the time to read, much appreciated.
(from the article) "Therapeutic culture tries to answer those questions” It could be said that all worldviews seek to answer those questions. The questions refer to Origins, Purpose, Morality, and Destiny. We all need those laid in the foundation of our thinking.
One problem I often see is the utter lack of thinking as if these do not need to be answered. Then, in a quiet and honest moment... we see.
Jesus Christ is Lord of the universe and every word of the Bible is literal and infallible truth. Jesus Christ died brutally for your sins and you can repent and turn to Him today, cry out to Him and pray. Hallelujah thank you Jesus.
Many societies thrived and prospered before even the birth of Christ so the question isn’t whether we can live without a Christian God but if we can without a God and I don’t think most people can. I think most people need an explanation and endorsement of their existence by a higher power. A higher purpose to commit to. Luckily we have a whole menu of religions and spiritual practices to choose from. It’s just a matter of finding one.
Freyas post is on point and lovely. Coming from a super religious family I was a believer as a child and lost faith and started hating it as I grew older(in context of islam). Some time ago we were discussing with friends that having a religion would ease our life as it decides for us and we don’t have to get stuck in every decision in life. But, belief is not as easy as choosing to have it. I wish I could but at this state I can’t make myself to believe in something I don’t believe in even though I know it would solve many of my frustrations.
I think mental health crisis has more causes such as the society's pressure and expectations and the fast pace of everything than lack of a belief in a god which would still be a coping mechanism for those. Belief shapes naturally from your observation of environment. So in my opinion, being excited for return of god in form of a religion like Christianity is a kind of optimistic or naive. Many social trends are in a cycle and come back for sure, like being more religious or spiritual, but the chance of the new trend being Christianity again, and youth paying to a church instead of a mediation app to realize meaning in their life is not that high.
We left these people without the kingdom... meaning the absence of the power of God and the kingdom of God at hand. There is much more to say, but that is the gist of it.
spengler says life is religious. he is a famous philosopher, last century. I dont think religion is a monopoly of traditional religions. especially when they no longer accord with our lives. I read the bible and its a bunch of ancients wrestling with life and the mythic and the primitive and the discovery of monotheism as a totality, bleck. Truth is, bible no longer represents our lives no longer functions as its totality, however the christian nationalists try to go back.
I still engage with metaphors coming out of religion, as a deeply laid poetic encumbrance, but I dont believe in it as representative of my daily life, rather it is the force of an old mythic device -- that still holds some power over me in its beauty and sense of horror.
I am glad they are pulling away from old religious totalitarianisms, sex isnt a sin, religion isnt absolute truth. And it doesnt really align as a thing relevant to our time, our modern realities.
I agree with you a the most part. I would, however, suggest there IS an objective reality beyond religious thinking. There is a Deity that is involved in the lives of those who have sought Him out. I believe that is the inference from the evidence to the best explanation.
I certainly agree with you on that. It may be you were influenced by anti-God sentiments early on. Many people are in our “enlightened” world of secular humanism. The reality that I found was so much deeper that I could imagine. The Christian worldview is an objective truth claim and fits with the evidence when looked at honestly (and perhaps courageously)
Choice. I had freedom of religion. I could meet up with them all. And did. I read them all. I didnt like the bible. Brutal. Didnt really like the Aztecs either. Brutal. And yet there is stuff coming out of all of them that I have gained from. They all still exist but only as gods. Who I think of as Grk/Rome horny bastards too. Mother Nature; Brutal and beautiful. Jesus for me has sacrificial and love sides. I have St. Mary fairy in my novel.... who is a sacrificial mine sweeper... dont envelop myself in any singular manifestation of religion. I suppose Jospeh Campbell had a lot to do with it. Secular to me is about government. Religion to me is something else entirely. Is free from paving the roads. Is a matter of a personal reckoning with the nature of existence, charity, meaning, the wonders of math even. No one god covers all that for me. thats all...
Religion to me is very different from what I have found to be objectively true. If the truth is subjective, don’t bother. Opinions are a dime a dozen on the internet. Religion tends to be subjective.
yes people are brazenly tyrannical and use their gods to do it. I am not in any way saying I dont interact with gods as bods of faith and so on. A personal god, is one of faith. I rejected Lord Diety coming out of monotheism. And read all around and discovered variations in what were (and still are) a plethora of gods, as a sacred manifestation of existence, that comes to "terms" in the mythic.
I like to engage people because it's an opportunity to learn and test the limits of my understanding, but that is granted that the other would be honest in their claims, at least. But I don't think you're being honest here.
You've already drifted from the topic without context, and you're making bold claims without clarification.
But before I leave you, your first sentence that people use their God's to perpetrate evil is hastily generic. First, not all evil people have gods. Second, not all gods or deities and their accompanying religions have a distinction between good and evil.
the extent that climate change is taking its toll on our precious planet, is relatively new. to me anyways. I tend to keep it simple, think of goodness as finding a balance between the many forces of life and death.
climate change will require us finding a balance. tho scientists believe its too late. yeah there's always scam artists. same thing happened during the pandemic. New york post fox news. I dont take them at their word after having to pay out 800 million for lying. Its not really the point. thats just political comedy. All you have to do is look around you and see whats happening. Its everywhere. Mother nature rules... always has.
Yes! A few years back, I ended up spending a month with Gen Zers while walking the Camino de Santiago. Given the context, religion was on the table for discussion. I found that overall Gen Zer's, because they grew up without religion, they never had a bad experience with religion. So, they were curious about Christianity - not judgmental (like a lot of secular Gen X and older millennials). They were like "Yeah, but what do you "do" at church each week?" or "What's the deal with Jesus? Why is he significant?" I guess I was expecting hostility towards religion because I'm so used to talking to Gen X/millennials so I was surprised to get such a different reaction from Gen Z.
Alissa, I think most people assume the exact same thing: that Zoomers will obviously reject all faith expressions, and Christianity in particular, for a whole host of reasons. That's why I think there's so much opportunity in giving them an honest chance to hear the unfettered Gospel rather than assuming they're not interested. Thanks for reading!
Freya is only 24? She’s not a Christian?! You’re blowing my mind here. I’ve been reading her thinking she probably had theological background. She is wise beyond her years and has a prophetic edge.
Great essay here. Gen Z is not far at all. …And they also are stuck. We need to talk about the pseudo-virtues that keep kids just on the borderlands of kingdom life.
Thank you Grace! Totally agreed about the prophetic edge to her voice. Very glad I came across it, and hope to hear others expand on it as well.
Also, would love to hear what you mean by "pseudo-virtues" here, I'm intrigued. Could you say more about that and how they contribute to Gen Z feeling stuck?
I think Curiosity is a pseudo virtue with a grip on modern humanity, especially young people. We honor it as if it were a moral quality, regardless of its direction or quality. It’s not a virtue- it’s an appetite, which means it has value when it is honed and shaped toward the good, but also that it has potential to drive us in soul-harming directions. It needs to be governed and subdued by true virtues. Just as an example- I’ve heard people say that curiosity is the cure to xenophobia. But curiosity is self-serving. It scratches an intellectual itch. It doesn’t necessarily honor other people, and in fact it often consumes them—their information and stories and private lives—as objects.
But people get so riled up when I dare to question curiosity’s place among top cultural values.
I was recently running this by my friend Rebecca DeYoung who wrote Glittering Vices because I feel like a nut going on about it and wanted some back up 😂 She said Aquinas would agree so I feel more confident putting it out there …
Anyway, I have been writing some about that and pondering it.
Another one is risk-taking—which they love to talk about on After Babel that Freya contributes to. Sure, I get what they mean, but pursuing risk as if it were a virtue—and without the guidance of true virtue— is just going to lead to a bunch of adrenaline junkies who will do anything to “feel alive”. You can’t advocate risk taking without developing character to choose risks that are appropriate and geared toward some valuable end rather than strictly about selfish thrill seeking.
I think Freya leans towards traditional values and it what makes her work shocking. Like she is against the tide.
Grace, your vocabulary is catchy. 💥
Brillant. I had many of the same thoughts when I first read Freya's article. Thank you for putting the swirling thoughts & hopes in my head into its own post. I've been writing to the Christian parent who is raising a Gen Z or Gen Alpha sons & daughters. IF we can train them in the ways of the Lord, the fruit they will have to harvest will be plentiful. https://dearchristianparent.substack.com/p/hey-christians-smartphones-arent
Thanks for reading Emily! As a Christian parent myself, I'll be sure to check out your substack today!
Thanks! I think you’ll enjoy my article on Russell Moore & Bill Maher too!
You wrote something on Bill Maher to christian parents? That would be interesting. I watched his conversation with Parent Bet David, where he said he doesn't like kids. I've also him taking on his liberal commentators lately. Could you share a link to your post here?
Of course! Here you go: https://dearchristianparent.substack.com/p/russell-moore-and-bill-maher
Excellent stuff Dom, there is a lot here to chew on. We cannot escape our design, or our Maker, and being able to articulate these parallels between therapy culture and gospel culture, where one falls short and the other is whole, is such a critical skill. Thank you for this!
I was blown away by Freya's article, too. I excerpts from it in a post about the limitations of secular trauma therapy. Thanks for your take on it. I subscribed immediately. Sounds like we may similar background in psychology. This is the article where I addressed quoted her post. https://open.substack.com/pub/jasonjonker/p/this-is-heresy?r=tx1h9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thanks for reading Jason! Yeah, I run into the trauma thing pretty much every day. I sometimes worry that we are re-catechizing the kids and families who come to our hospital. They want answers to weighty, existential questions, but trauma therapy only moves the ball so far down the field.
I wish they would just take up a book like "The Purpose Driven Life" for a start.
Great essay and totally worth reading.
Thanks for reading Melva!
I notice this a lot among the younger generation, they yearn for purpose in a godless world, and so replace it with astrology, psychotherapy and other types of supernatural beliefs.
Many consider having a religion as retrograde, but act as people who desperately seek it with similar behavior’s.
I strongly believe the previous generations were heavily influenced by what Max Weber describes in “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”
So true! This makes me think of CS Lewis’s “materialist magician” even in a materialist frame we still find things like astrology to satisfy these deep spiritual longings.
I believe Gen Z is ripe for a mass return to God. My experience has been that people (including me) and organizations and societies do not change until there is a crisis. At that point they become ready to accept and deal with reality. We have an entire generation that is literally going crazy and we have the answer - the love of Jesus Christ and his church, and meaning purpose and identity found in following Him.
That said, as an evangelical Protestant, I believe our religion is very weak sauce and has little to offer. I am now on the path to Orthodoxy, tentative, early, but I believe the depth and richness and way of life there will satisfy.
The "weak sauce" you mention is a topic unto itself. I've written about that in previous articles here, though admittedly they read as super based and not everyone's cup of tea. Thanks for taking the time to read, much appreciated.
(from the article) "Therapeutic culture tries to answer those questions” It could be said that all worldviews seek to answer those questions. The questions refer to Origins, Purpose, Morality, and Destiny. We all need those laid in the foundation of our thinking.
One problem I often see is the utter lack of thinking as if these do not need to be answered. Then, in a quiet and honest moment... we see.
Jesus Christ is Lord of the universe and every word of the Bible is literal and infallible truth. Jesus Christ died brutally for your sins and you can repent and turn to Him today, cry out to Him and pray. Hallelujah thank you Jesus.
Many societies thrived and prospered before even the birth of Christ so the question isn’t whether we can live without a Christian God but if we can without a God and I don’t think most people can. I think most people need an explanation and endorsement of their existence by a higher power. A higher purpose to commit to. Luckily we have a whole menu of religions and spiritual practices to choose from. It’s just a matter of finding one.
Freyas post is on point and lovely. Coming from a super religious family I was a believer as a child and lost faith and started hating it as I grew older(in context of islam). Some time ago we were discussing with friends that having a religion would ease our life as it decides for us and we don’t have to get stuck in every decision in life. But, belief is not as easy as choosing to have it. I wish I could but at this state I can’t make myself to believe in something I don’t believe in even though I know it would solve many of my frustrations.
I think mental health crisis has more causes such as the society's pressure and expectations and the fast pace of everything than lack of a belief in a god which would still be a coping mechanism for those. Belief shapes naturally from your observation of environment. So in my opinion, being excited for return of god in form of a religion like Christianity is a kind of optimistic or naive. Many social trends are in a cycle and come back for sure, like being more religious or spiritual, but the chance of the new trend being Christianity again, and youth paying to a church instead of a mediation app to realize meaning in their life is not that high.
We left these people without the kingdom... meaning the absence of the power of God and the kingdom of God at hand. There is much more to say, but that is the gist of it.
is that el greco!
spengler says life is religious. he is a famous philosopher, last century. I dont think religion is a monopoly of traditional religions. especially when they no longer accord with our lives. I read the bible and its a bunch of ancients wrestling with life and the mythic and the primitive and the discovery of monotheism as a totality, bleck. Truth is, bible no longer represents our lives no longer functions as its totality, however the christian nationalists try to go back.
I still engage with metaphors coming out of religion, as a deeply laid poetic encumbrance, but I dont believe in it as representative of my daily life, rather it is the force of an old mythic device -- that still holds some power over me in its beauty and sense of horror.
I am glad they are pulling away from old religious totalitarianisms, sex isnt a sin, religion isnt absolute truth. And it doesnt really align as a thing relevant to our time, our modern realities.
I agree with you a the most part. I would, however, suggest there IS an objective reality beyond religious thinking. There is a Deity that is involved in the lives of those who have sought Him out. I believe that is the inference from the evidence to the best explanation.
If it works for you I am glad. I tend to think of deities as tyrants, as many are. so it doesnt really work for me.
Okay, but what works for you, though? Since humans have proven to be brazenly tyrannical throughout human history.
I certainly agree with you on that. It may be you were influenced by anti-God sentiments early on. Many people are in our “enlightened” world of secular humanism. The reality that I found was so much deeper that I could imagine. The Christian worldview is an objective truth claim and fits with the evidence when looked at honestly (and perhaps courageously)
Choice. I had freedom of religion. I could meet up with them all. And did. I read them all. I didnt like the bible. Brutal. Didnt really like the Aztecs either. Brutal. And yet there is stuff coming out of all of them that I have gained from. They all still exist but only as gods. Who I think of as Grk/Rome horny bastards too. Mother Nature; Brutal and beautiful. Jesus for me has sacrificial and love sides. I have St. Mary fairy in my novel.... who is a sacrificial mine sweeper... dont envelop myself in any singular manifestation of religion. I suppose Jospeh Campbell had a lot to do with it. Secular to me is about government. Religion to me is something else entirely. Is free from paving the roads. Is a matter of a personal reckoning with the nature of existence, charity, meaning, the wonders of math even. No one god covers all that for me. thats all...
Religion to me is very different from what I have found to be objectively true. If the truth is subjective, don’t bother. Opinions are a dime a dozen on the internet. Religion tends to be subjective.
yes people are brazenly tyrannical and use their gods to do it. I am not in any way saying I dont interact with gods as bods of faith and so on. A personal god, is one of faith. I rejected Lord Diety coming out of monotheism. And read all around and discovered variations in what were (and still are) a plethora of gods, as a sacred manifestation of existence, that comes to "terms" in the mythic.
I like to engage people because it's an opportunity to learn and test the limits of my understanding, but that is granted that the other would be honest in their claims, at least. But I don't think you're being honest here.
You've already drifted from the topic without context, and you're making bold claims without clarification.
But before I leave you, your first sentence that people use their God's to perpetrate evil is hastily generic. First, not all evil people have gods. Second, not all gods or deities and their accompanying religions have a distinction between good and evil.
God bless you.
scared you off did I. Godspeed.
Dusty, nothing is new under the sun.
the extent that climate change is taking its toll on our precious planet, is relatively new. to me anyways. I tend to keep it simple, think of goodness as finding a balance between the many forces of life and death.
I don't understand the context of the second part of your statement.
But since you mentioned climate change, let me share this with you. You might find it interesting https://nypost.com/2024/01/24/opinion/world-groups-steal-money-from-poor-hungry-in-climate-crusade/?mc_cid=f6fb7c9603&mc_eid=42616071d7
Also, check this out. There's such a thing as "weather porn." https://nypost.com/2024/02/15/opinion/unspoken-truth-fewer-people-are-dying-of-climate-related-disasters-than-ever/?mc_cid=f6fb7c9603&mc_eid=42616071d7
climate change will require us finding a balance. tho scientists believe its too late. yeah there's always scam artists. same thing happened during the pandemic. New york post fox news. I dont take them at their word after having to pay out 800 million for lying. Its not really the point. thats just political comedy. All you have to do is look around you and see whats happening. Its everywhere. Mother nature rules... always has.
Okay. You've shifted the goal post far away from this topic...