It's a church's nightmare: discipleship programs, VBS weeks, 'evangelism Sundays', Bible studies, stadium rock, altar calls, all for the Busters and Mosaics... and they're leaving the church.
Correction: we're leaving the church.
Recently, I picked up David Kinnaman's 2007 work unChristian and grappled with why outsiders perceive insiders to be judgmental, hypocritical, antigay, boring, and resentful. While I wrestled with Kinnaman's beginning perspective which, obviously, affected his conclusions regarding his outcomes, I actually discovered that I, as a more liberal believer, agreed with his findings.
Yet his tone, I perceived, still contained that air of hubris endemic to many evangelical voices, including my own, where we "just know" we're right, "how do we make the world see we're right?" in better ways, etc. Still, he also asked some tough, straight forward questions many evangelicals have already asked and have been condemned for it, or have quietly gone to sit in the corner knowing condemnation is not far off.
First off... I highly recommend you read both books back-to-back. Begin with the earlier work (unChristian), and continue to You Lost Me. If you're like me, you will discover something quite profound: Kinnaman's tone has changed. His message has not, and his research methods are sound, but there certainly has been... maturity... openness... depth. While there still are points I disagree with, I found myself actually engaging with the author more in this work than in the first! I found it to be more honest, authentic, and truly a more respectful forum to ask those scary questions.
Let's begin by reviewing some of Kinnaman's definitions, and adding a couple of new ones just so we're all clear about where/how the author is coming from:
Outsiders: those claiming to be looking at the Christian faith from the outside in
Insiders: those claiming to be of the Christian faith looking at it from the inside out
Busters: those born between 1965-1983
Mosaics: those born between 1984-2002
Drop Outs:
Nomads: categorical group described as having left the church, but not the Christian faith
Prodigals: categorical group described as having left both the church and the Christian faith
Exiles: categorical group described as having struggles, doubts, & isolation, often wanting to leave the church or the faith, but sensing the need to stay; often feel abandoned by traditional forms of church and seek to express new forms of church
In his research, Kinnaman sets forth some broad characterizations of each group based on his findings. I appreciate his honesty when he firmly posits (often) that he does not always agree with the rationale of nomads, prodigals, or exiles; yet he is equally firm with the church that it take the rationale seriously. Here is a quick summary of the aforementioned characterizations (bear in mind these are broad and dwell on a continuum, rather than stand each alone in a black/white stance; drop outs also tend to be fluid in their own characterizations of themselves, going through phases of their faith journeys).
Nomads (p.64):
~ still describe themselves as Christan
~ involvement in a Christian community = optional
~ importance of faith has faded
~ most are NOT angry/hostile towards Christianity
~ many are spiritual experimentalists
Two questions I wish Kinnaman would have delved into more is: "what do you mean 'The importance of faith has faded' ?"... the faith of the traditional church? Christianity? Faith searching overall?
And...
Kinnmann sounded to me to be a bit ambiguous about what it means to be spiritually experimental. He vaguely referenced Nomads trying out other religious experiences (p.65), but is this to mean Nomads are turning to Buddhism? Or are Nomads trying out Tibetan singing bowls? To me, they are vastly different things and this point needed some clarification.
Prodigals (p.68):
~ varying levels of resentment towards Christianity and Christians
~ disavowed returning to church
~ moved on from Christianity
~ regrets (if any) often centre around parents
~ feel as if they have broken constraints
Kinnaman is quick to point out that Nomads are for more common than Prodigals (p.69). Page 70 finds the author stating that we see a 1:9 chance a young person will become a total prodigal. While there are concerns for both Nomads and Prodigals, Kinnaman rightly establishes a tenor of hope in that most youth are seeking new expressions of church and faith, and are struggling with the institutionalized church. All things considered, this is a good and positive trend in my opinion.
Exiles (p.77):
~ not inclined to be 'separate from the world'
~ are skeptical of institutions, but not wholly disengaged from them
~ sense God moving outside the walls of the church
~ not disillusioned with tradition; but are frustrated with slick, shallow expressions of religion
~ mix of concern/optimism for peers
~ have not found faith to be instructive to their calling or gifts
~ struggle when other Christians question their motives
Here is where I will input my bias: categorically speaking using Kinnaman's terms, I am an exile. It's a struggle when other Christians question my motives as a believer; I am seeing the institutional church not as church, but rather a staunch arena that demands adherence rather than relationship; I am more inclined to find wisdom in the early Church/desert mothers/fathers than I am in the writings of fundamentalism in the past 100 years; I believe God is moving in brothels and bars as much as He is in 'the church'.
What I find interesting is Kinnaman's use of the story of Daniel in the OT. A story often used in conservative churches to show how people should NEVER compromise, Kinnaman uses the narrative to show how Daniel and his three friends actually needed to learn to bend here and there in order to survive and to bear witness to YHWH. Forced to take on new names (of idols, no less), learn new languages, act differently in and out court, what was worth taking a stand on and what required acceptance? Kinnaman compares Babylon to America (and Canada can be included here too, I have no doubt), and the literal exiles of Daniel&Co., with the church exiles of today. We are navigating a technological super age where the institutional church has fallen into disrepute, has not offered valid or viable answers to current issues, has not extended relationships where needed or desired, and has insisted on re-hashing the same forms of the message over and over to a generation that is lost in translation.
So why are the dropouts dropping out? What are the disconnects? Kinnaman goes into 6 broad categories he found in the responses participants gave. I found it interesting that many of the responses dove-tailed the ones found in unChristian. Patterns are emerging, and it is crucial people within and without the institutionalized church pay attention. They are as follows: overprotective, shallow, antiscience, repressive, exclusive, and doubtless.
Overprotective
With the church answering every question, having a program for every niche, and acting like helicopter parents, kids are going to burst. What I appreciated in this chapter is the mention this is especially difficult for creative kids (like me and my siblings) -- stifle us too long and make sure each and every little sin is insulated against, and we die. I can't find a better word for it. Yes, parents need to be discerning (Kinnaman's answer to overprotection), yet I hope my kids have tonnes of gay friends, friends who cut, friends who steal, and friends who question God. I hope my kids are the ones to question God, question me, have solid friends if they ever struggle with cutting or addictions, and are presented with that supportive community church is meant to be.
As a youth leader, I respect parental authority deeply. However it must be said: Parents... get out of the way. Sometimes it is impossible to have a relationship with your kid because you need to be in such massive control of everything. Yet then when things go wrong, the youth leaders aren't doing their 'job'. Sometimes, parents, you need to step aside and support other supportive adults who love your kids deeply.
Shallow
We come in. We sit. We stand. We sing. We pray. The guy speaks. We leave.
That's church?
Don't think so.
Kinnaman (p.122) describes a Bat Mitvah he was invited to, and sees the void many flavours of Christianity have created: we have no rituals.
Rituals? That's legalism! There's no salvation in rituals!
There's that reductionist dogma again, making church a heaven/hell, "repent or perish" issue. If it's not commanded in the Bible, it's not needed! Yet... nomads, prodigals, and exiles alike are seeking cultural, traditional, and new expressions of ritual that expresses a profound faith that the Sunday preacher simply can't encompass on a weekly basis. (oh yeah, legalism can be found everywhere... so if anyone is thinking for a second that our version of church has overcome legalism, think again)
Antiscience
Young people struggle when they cannot reconcile faith and science, or when the church poo-poos science, or science proudly demonstrates humanity's ability to overcome 'god'. I have to admit, if I hear the creation/evolution debate one more time, I might just have to pull out of my hair to get rid of the wood bores burrowing into my brain. Christians still often believe that apologetics are THE WAY to persuade people that we're correct.
Ummmm... no offence, but please be quiet now.
I have been just as guilty as making massive arguments out of useless scientific debate, and I have also been a bystander watching Christians derail those with differing opinions, and being proud of trouncing the opposition. Might there still be a place for healthy debate? Perhaps. Note I said: healthy. Are we healthy right now to be debating? Are Mosaics and Busters really being persuaded through the art of debate?
I don't think so.
All those viral emails of how students prove to their atheist professors that God exists... wow... didn't know chalk, glasses of water, or talk about being unable to see one's brain with our physical eyes 'proved God'. If the church truly has faith in a Creator God, why be afraid of the science He's created? If we have questions about how faith and science can co-exist, why are we afraid to ask them? We're human... we don't have power to debunk God, and science is constantly changing (just like we are) enough that questions are required. Think about it.
Repressive
Did someone say "sex"? Yes. Yes I did. Youth leave the church because of various reasons relating to sexuality. I must hand credit here to Kinnaman. He handled a hot subject with grace, finesse, and challenge. The distinction he made between tradition and traditionalists (p.154) was well spotted. Older generations perhaps are not exemplifying a healthy sexuality any more than individualistic Mosaics are, thinking that sex is "just sex". Neither paradigm is working, nor do they fully explore God's vision of sexuality.
I agree that more transparency is needed (p.162), that we share our struggles with sex, and our questions. For example, when a colleague of mine was called to the ER to help calm a female rape victim, she found a woman in complete disarray. Why? Not initially because of the rape, but rather because the first person the woman had called was her pastor. What did he say: "Well dressed like that, you asked for it!"
Epic fail.
When we talk about doctrines of "purity" and lay it on the shoulders of our kids, we aren't really thinking through what we are asking of them. Celibacy is a calling of God, and for some it is a life long call. Yet we don't communciate that to the Mosaics (or the Busters, I must say). It's just "until you get married". Or we say "Sex is dirty, dirty, dirty! But then when you marry THAT ONE PERSON, it's great!"
Personally, the "sex is dirty" message coupled with "it's beautiful in marriage" confused me. How can a dirty thing make marriage beautiful? But we still communicate this to our kids.
So... if people are waiting longer before getting married, temptation for sex outside of marriage lasts longer. It can be harder to deal with. Our churches aren't set up for this sociological pattern. We still assume our kids will marry in their early twenties.
We rarely talk about persistent thoughts of lust as being "as bad" as premarital sex.
We create the illusion that sex is just fab in relationships. My marrierd friends tell me: "Sometimes, Erin, it ain't that great. In fact, I wish I could just sleep right through it."
Now again, Kinnaman and I butt heads a bit. Refer back to my review on UnChristian and my concerns with his assumption about the LGBTQ lifestyle being all wrong all of the time. The author does not seem to see any difference in orientation v. behaviour, or relationship v. hook ups here. However he appreciates that Mosaics are far more accepting of the LGBTQ lifestyle.
Kinnaman also goes on to posit that perhaps we need to discuss sex from God's perspective and not as traditionalism would (p.64), or as individualists. Sex is about us -- we in community and relationship with one another. When old time preachers screech out on YouTube about masturbation being a sin, it's hard to connect with a young male who maybe had a wet dream the night before, or a young woman who orgasmed during her sleep. Everyone's touched themselves, even in surprise. As one pastor friend told me (and I agree with him): masturbation alone isn't wrong! If it leads to lust/needs lust, porn or violence to occur, THEN we're dealing with something entirely different. As Dr.Tony Campolo once said to us in what I have come to affectionately refer to as The Campolo Method: "In talking about transparency, ask your pastor if he or she masturbates. If s/he cannot answer or won't, it's probably safe to assume other issues won't be allowed out on the table either."
When abuse victims are told they are no longer "pure", or when young people perhaps "go to far" and lose their virginity and are told "that's it. You damaged your goods", I get pissed off (a truly academic term). Do I advocate for loose sex and hooking up? NO! My work in the abolition arena supports that. However, a 14 year old boy who has an erection and "works it", or a girl who lets a boy touch her between her legs are suddenly not impure. Little flaps of skin does not purity make. Yet does the church have open and honest places where we can talk about this stuff?
Speaking from many experiences... no. We don't. Furthermore, we often surpress well meaning pastors who try and address sexual issues forthrightly and in a relational manner.
We are our own worst enemies.
Exclusive
Here again, Kinnaman and I disagree. He sees evangelism as a verbal sharing of one's faith (p.177). I do not. So his assertion that Mosaics not verbally evangelising is of grave concern is not as concerning to me. Evangelism isn't what fundys define it to be... or Catholics... or libs. In fact, our lifestyles often speak more volumes than our words, as expressed in Kinnaman's 2007 study of how oustiders see us. Is it wrong to verbally share? No! But I don't believe we ought to be oppressing ourselves so severely if we haven't shared "The Gospel" with at least 10 people by the end of today.
Query... what IS the Gospel?
For me, there is a holistic and beautiful vision to it. For others, it's about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. For others, again, it's a "REPENT OR PERISH!" force of coercion. If we aren't told repeatedly about our sins and just how sinful we are from Day 1, we cannot truly know the Grace of God. Eeesh... (personal bias, true, but I am glad I can thoughtfully declare them and not simply accept all of Kinnaman's conclusions at face value).
Mosaics are less likely to desire denominations, and I would count myself among them. I don't have to be an evangelical to go to heaven, as it were. I'd rather hang out with people on their turf and talk God, than show up at a glitzy building where the preacher is the main show.
Doubtless
Often Mosaics and Busters express their frustration that they were never given the chance to share their doubts about the Christian faith. Doubt is seen as rejection of God, or a lack of conviction (p.187). Here is where I found Kinnaman's largest expression of maturity since 2007 to be. Even his subtitle "Shades of Doubt" caused me to smile a little. Doubt not only is inherent to faith, but there are different kinds of doubt that need to be addressed in different ways.
As I read through his definition of institutional doubt (pp.190-191), I immediately sensed an affinty. Accordingly, he said that exiles were more likely to express their doubts here: that being traditional forms of church that suppress life, and oppress exiles in their newer expressions of church (The Simple Way being used as an example here - bravo!). Preaching/teaching have taken over as THE way to expound upon the Bible. Yet... there's so much more.
Personally, doubts are like issues surrounding sex. We simply do not know how to respond. So we react. And we think we're reacting Biblically, but we're reacting in a morally uptight way that destroys the human spirit. We take the easy answers and plaster them over festering wounds... or go so far as to suggest those wounds don't even exist. So why are we doubting? When pastors preach that going to counselors or therapists are silly because they simply tell people what they want to hear, I cringe. Wounded... I needed just such a therapist for a while, and she certainly didn't tell me all of what I wanted to hear. Nor is any pastor immune to that itch to just preach what people want to hear.
What's Old Is New
One of the most profound ideas Kinnaman presents to deal with this incredible disconnect between older generations and Mosaics is to redefine intergenerational relationships (p.202). We have modeled church programs based on an outdated public school system that generates mass converts, unrooted in faith, but insist this is the right and true way. So we separate off: kids with kids, youth with youth, marrieds with marrieds, singles with singles (although I can attest that these groups are usually the church's attempt to create a holy dating scene... really not cool, to be honest), elders with elders.
Instead of digging ourselves into the grave, can we not redefine what it means for older women to mentor the younger? As Kinnaman proposes:
Original assumption: The church exists to prepare the next generation to fulfill God's purposes
New Thinking: The church is a partnership of generations fulfilling God's purposes in their time.
Yes, elders need to be listened to and learned from, but here is where I struggle: it is the elder groups who continue to spit out doctrine after doctrine that makes no sense to me, that is not biblical, that is condescending, and creates divisions. Who am I supposed to look up to? I suppose the elder groups feel very much the same about us younger folk. It's true: how can we have a real talk when you young things always have your heads bent down texting or some such thing.
Noted.
Mosaics are born into technology. We cannot change that. Yet we can influence how they use that technology, and how face-to-face relationships flourish when we put distractions aside. This is a valid and vital point, I believe, for Mosaics. They (and us Busters too) need to put the phones down... log off... power down... unplug. Right or wrong, agree or disagree, none of us can hope to truly mentor one another together when we are always relying on technology to make our friends for us.
Kinnaman ends the book with 50 ways we can consider that might help us reach out to one another better. Again, he precedes the list with the disclaimer that he does not agree with all the views here, but his deliberate inclusion of diverse viewpoints showed me that he is more open than he was even four years ago. He is as intentional about his honesty in disagreeing as he is about inviting diversity -- that spoke volumes to me. And it was much appreciated.
Summary... At Long Last!
I definitely connected with this book far more than I did the first, although unChristian certainly expressed many of my personal feelings and thoughts about the modern church. When all is said and done, many of our issues are communication issues. That might be easy to say when we are dealing with a generation of Mosaics glued to their cell phones, yet that is not quite what I am trying to say.
When someone expresses a different doctrine, a doubt, a question, or something that appears to usurp the status quo in the church, we are largely reactionary. We ask close ended questions (yes/no, right/wrong, black/white), rather than open ended (what I hear you saying... when you use that word, are saying...). We make sure the person knows all of their sins (or at some point confesses all real or perceived sins), understands our statements of faith, declare them ungodly, self-righteous, proud, or some other name intended to hurt rather than to heal. By and large, we do not how to listen deeply. In fact, many of us do not wish to listen at all. We already know what's right, so why bother hearing out all of what this person has to say because we already know our answers?
Dehumanizing.
Sometimes... we don't want answers. We just want YOU.
If we could lay down the guns we have aimed at people, not just in the name of doctrine, but to also keep ourselves protected, we are going to discover a world of hurt in broken people. But we might just be stupefyingly surprised that perhaps that correct answer/doctrine/zinger was not what we needed to give in the first place; but rather we needed the presence of the other person too.
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