The Younger Evangelicals

I posted a passage from this book earlier, but further reading has determined it deserves its own post.

If you are from the ages of 18-34 or know someone who falls into that bracket, you need to read this book. You owe it to yourself or to the young adult that you know. It is that good.

Why? Robert Webber nails what it means to be a “younger evangelical,” the generation (read: Gen X & Millenials) that will seize the reigns of leadership from the “pragmatic evangelicals” (read: Boomers) in the next 5-25 years. Webber, being 68 at the time he wrote the book and clearly not a “younger evangelical” chronologically, takes some serious swipes at the past 15-20 years of church leadership in the American church. He offers firm (and correct) criticism, but he also provides a solution to let the next generation “breathe” and lead the church “back to the future.”

Here’s a few gems to whet your whistle:

• Webber quotes Sociologist Francis Fukuyama on the period between 1960 and 1990 as an “aberration in American history.” Webber further states of this period of intense “turmoil and change” that is was marked by: “The rise of crime, the inhabitability of the inner cities, the disruption of social institutions, the decline of marriages, the rise of divorce, out-of-wedlock births, the breakdown of values, the suspicion of institutions, the intensification of individualism, the demise of authority, and in general the collapse of modern society as we knew it.” ((pg. 33))
• “The West is undergoing a massive cultural change in which ‘discoveries in quantum physics and astronomy lead scientists to back away from Newtonian notions of a deterministic universe and to speak of awe, holism and even of an observer created universe.’” ((pgs. 44-45))
• “Millenials are considerably more conservative than their predecessors. The twenty-somethings desire a stable society, a return to tradition.” ((pg. 46))
• All of Chapter 10.
• “The Contemporary Church, having been built and enmeshed in the generational values of the baby boomer, is alienating a generation of adolescents.” ((pg. 156))
• “Boomers are into large church buildings that look like corporate headquarters–slick, plain, powerful. Twenty-somethings look on these buildings as symbols of corporate America. They want smaller, more intimate places of worship with lots of symbolism–the more the better. Success for the boomer is tangible and usually described in terms of numbers, big buildings, big budgets, and strong individual “hero” leaders. Younger evangelicals detest these symbols of power and prefer smaller to bigger and authentic to slick.” ((pg. 157))

I’ll stop there.

I could literally give you hundreds more just like that. But I won’t. Instead I’ll just give you a link to go and get this book ASAP. It will be well worth it as it gives us what I believe is a prophetic picture into what the American church will look like soon, and very soon.

Young or old, how do these passages register with you?