The future of the rising generation is filled with anticipation and excitement, but it’s also filled with some disturbing youth culture trends that, as parents, we should be aware of if we are going to create Jesus-centered homes.
If you’re over 30, then you know the world our kids are growing up in isn’t the same world we grew up in. In fact, it’s so different that you can hardly recognize it. And for some of us, that reality is sometimes painful.
In more than twenty years of youth ministry in one capacity or another, one growing trend bothered me more than anything else I saw. And trust me, I saw it all. It was this incredible infatuation with Jesus with almost no desire to follow him.
What does that even mean?
They sincerely believed that being a Christian only meant they had to like or appreciate Jesus and some things he said. Despite the heartfelt worship, verse memorization, and genuine interest in theology, Jesus was only a model citizen, and loving like him meant accepting people for who they were and affirming them in whatever lifestyle they chose.
To do otherwise amounted to a heinous act of hatred. In my academic circles, we called this ideology Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which is just a fancy way of saying that what matters is being a good person. While that sounds nice and simple to a young mind, it is perhaps the best of all possible options. For many students, it served as the easiest reconciliation to their hard questions about faith that no one seemed to be answering. They missed that this pursuit of being a good person meant a complete distortion or even negation of truth.
These Disturbing Trends are Moving Our Kids Away From Truth
Truth presupposes exclusivity. But for their ideas to work, exclusivity is deemed wrong, hateful, and hurtful.
From college to elementary school, students are taught that all ideologies are equal and should be embraced simultaneously. You may have heard the term post-truth. It’s the understanding that with so many competing views, it’s impossible for one idea to reign supreme over another. Now, simple logic would reveal that this can’t be true. In terms of worldviews, two opposing ideologies cannot both be true. Either you are both wrong, or one is right and the other wrong. You can’t believe Jesus to be the only way to the Father but also believe in reincarnation. They don’t fit—it’s an apparent contradiction.
This kind of thinking leads us to believe that the Western world is officially post-Christian—actively rejecting Jesus and the gospel because it is far too exclusive and forcing churches to face some new challenges. Nowhere is this challenge more prevalent in Christendom than in our families. Parents, we work tirelessly to ensure that our kids are discipled and given every opportunity to own their faith so they might walk in faith boldly as they enter adulthood.
That’s the goal, right?
But here is the problem: I am seeing more and more that our efforts are falling short. We simply can’t keep up with the pace of progress and technology; our kids are experiencing a life we never imagined was possible, and in many ways, their faith is suffering. Over the last few years, I have seen a continued and even growing trend that has moved from youth culture into our churches and homes. We don’t mean for them to, but in our efforts to fill buildings in hopes people will hear the gospel. We are showing signs of compromise in our efforts to connect with a fast-changing culture—with every other organization outpacing the church in its ability to connect.
I want to offer three of these youth culture trends here:
The Trend Away From The Bible
As a Bible teacher, I always told parents that our primary focus was to teach students to have a biblical worldview—to see the world through the lens of Jesus. Sounds great, right? There’s only one problem. It’s a bit circular. How can I teach students to see the world through a Jesus lens when it takes that very same biblical worldview to understand the Bible properly? Never mind their already tainted post-truth way of seeing the world. Good luck teaching them the concrete truth of God’s Word.
Several years ago, I read a book called Hope of Nations by John S. Dickerson. In it, he commented that “any ministry or family that abandons the authority of Scripture is one generation away from abandoning Christianity entirely.” It should come as no surprise when we hear atheists, agnostics, or other opposing worldviews discount the Bible’s authority over our lives. However, twenty years ago, that opinion was still considered the minority. Today, this is no longer the case.
In our post-truth, post-Christian culture, the Western world has gone so far as to demand the removal, influence, and relevancy of the Bible. To do otherwise is to actively promote a hate-hate-filed agenda—creating a perceived need for the church to compromise. In our pursuit to appease culture, to be relevant, liked, retweeted, and shared, the church is dangerously flirting with putting her needs over God’s desires.
The Trend of Escape
Anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and suicide have all increased among youth. In fact, it’s higher than any generation before it. Some have blamed uncertainty, others social media, and even the lasting effects of the pandemic. All of these are factors for sure. But there is more.
Our kid’s addiction to their phones, the economic uncertainty, global political strife, fears of a dying planet, and so much more are all factors contributing to a generation that is strikingly pessimistic and depressed. But they are also a generation dealing with pain improperly. So they are seeking an escape.
When the pain comes, they escape through drugs, social media, food, or gaming. This escape creates a chemical rush of dopamine to the brain over time, triggering an addiction. Before long, the pain is no longer external, caused by the world around them. The pain is caused by the addiction they created–locked in a vicious, unbreakable cycle.
Youth suicide rates have increased by 62% from 2007 to 2021. Nearly 20% of high school students have reported serious thoughts of suicide, and it continues to be the second leading cause of death among students. At the same time, teens continue to leave the church at an alarming rate. 70% of high school students are still leaving the church post-graduation. If we are lucky, about half are coming back.
Coincidence? Doubtful. Students are losing hope because they are losing Jesus.
The Trend Away From Sin
We desperately want to believe in the goodness of humanity. We want nothing more than to hold on to some kind of delusional hope that people are inherently good, resulting in an increasing need to excuse many of the world’s sins. And it’s our kids leading the way.
But just take a hot second and consider what you see online, in movies, and on television. What was unthinkable to show on network television or in a PG-13 movie is normal and almost expected today. Think about what was appropriate in I Love Lucy versus Friends.
The line between what is moral and immoral is a constant moving target—the times when we sought after biblical family values are becoming a distant memory. Students have replaced the doctrine of total depravity with a new doctrine of acceptance and affirmation of nearly any kind of behavior. After all, who are we to judge? The result? There is no need for Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, or resurrection, or even Jesus at all. If sin is marginalized then what do we need saving from?
What now?
As we seek to disciple our kids, it is essential to recognize the cultural trends of the Western world. As students hang out at home or walk through the church halls, it is far too easy to forget about the difficult world our students navigate daily. Pastors, parents, youth leaders, and coaches; we must show our students what it means to submit to scriptural authority, our depraved state, and the need for Jesus and to be bold proclaimers of the gospel.
I firmly believe that the only thing that can truly defeat this post-truth ideology is the hope of Christ in the heart of a student. But what does that look like? That will be the topic of my next post.
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