Apparently No One Cares That We Exist

I've been reading a lot lately. Thinking more and more on how to do the whole honor God with my mind thing a bit better, I've found myself drawn to exploring the various material which people have actually taken the time to write down. It's refreshing to see that there is still a drive to construct a well crafted point and then commit it to paper, going through all the work that comes along with that, in a day and age where I can just rant on a forum about how the Verizon iPhone is sooooooo much better than the ATT iPhone btw lololololololololol.

I feel dirty for typing that.

As I was saying reading, not unlike a rainbow, is a beautiful and enriching thing which I think we should all have more of in our lives. There was one thing in particular which I read recently, however, that was pretty much the opposite of a rainbow. It was dark, it was depressing, and it made me want to cry (and no, I'm not kidding).

In a recent article entitled "The Leavers", found in the November issue of Christianity Today, the problem of large amounts of 20-30 somethings leaving the Church was addressed. I was just fine with most of this article. It made some very insightful points. Then I came to the section headed "Won't They Just Come Back?" It is apparently a belief amongst some researchers that if people are losing their faith, are being wounded by the Church to the point that they feel like they have to leave, that if people see Christianity as so contrary to Jesus Christ that they just can't remain a part of the institution anymore, it doesn't really matter. They'll come to their senses eventually. This is just a phase.

Hear me, those who would believe this. My generation is not a phase. We are not a fad. You can't write us off just because we're inconvenient.

If I sound angry about this it's because I am. The fact that it is seen as OK by anyone within the Christian Church to simply stop engaging a group of people for a period of time because they tend not to mesh well with what is seen as the established Church structure is a fundamental insult to what Jesus did on the cross. There is so much wrong with this view that I honestly can't articulate very well in this setting.

Some of you may be wondering why I waited so long to talk about this article (it did, after all, come out in November). I've waited because I don't like ranting about things without having some measure of hope to bring to the table. So I've been digging for a while. Looking at both what people have been writing and what people around me have been doing, I'm excited to say that I've found a heaping helping of hope in the face of this, the abandonment of an entire generation. There are plenty of people who are following Jesus well, recognizing that just because younger people have questions and problems with Christianity and the Church doesn't mean they should be forgotten. A recent book, unChristian, does a phenomenal job of showing just how much time is being taken by some to go out and examine why so many younger people have serious problems with Christianity (side note; a very, very small portion of this people have a problem with Jesus. Why do we think that is?).

I have been blessed to not live in a Christian community where I feel as though I have been forgotten, or that my generation has been forgotten. I hope that these sorts of communities are in the minority. I want to say this to those generations who have come before us. My generation is asking a lot of tough, very important questions, that are often extremely intimidating. I would argue that we are questioning ideas of faith more than any Western generation which has come before us. This means we can be much harder to engage with. It also means that we need to be engaged more urgently than ever before. Please, don't forget about us.

With His love and hopefully His grace,

Taylor