Unnoticed Influences

It would be an understatement to say that there are cultural influences affecting my life that I rarely take time to notice. I recognized some of these influences when I recently spoke with a friend of mine living on the west coast. He said he was moving to a new city, taking a new job and perhaps going back to school. His reason for these big changes was essentially a shrug accompanied by a vague desire to have a "change of scenery" and "experience something new". A new city would be "a place to think", the specific job was a matter of convenience, and the possibility of grad school was a goal that provided some hopeful connection with the future. He admitted that the decisions came--not out of a sense of direction--but out of confusion.

The conversation struck me as a clear expression of the situation in which most people my age find themselves, regardless of whether they are Christian or not. It is abundantly clear that my generation is one of utter confusion, what Nouwen calls the "rootless generation". We are deeply concerned with personal independence yet unclear on what to do with it; we insist on the importance of self expression, yet we're unsure of what to say (is updating our facebook categories--favorite music, books, movies, quotes--enough? Those change every week). This confusion is something I can find within myself and everyone around me, sometimes expressed through anxiety but more often in apathy and boredom.

It seems to me that Christian youth in America are not much better off. We rely on Christ for our profession of faith, yet in our concrete life decisions we rely on secular priorities--material accumulation or worldly achievement. Our faith does not bind us together. It does not place us in the midst of the body of Christ in an unfolding eternal kingdom. Rather it acts as a threadbare connection to a distant vague promise. As for the here and now, faith is at most used to spur the individual toward good behavior, a prick in one's personal conscience. Disconnected from an understanding of the body of Christ and all on our own, the self made western Christian tries to tough it out on a long hard slog through life. It is no wonder we can feel our personal faith become limp and ineffective: precisely because we think of it as simply personal and individual without recognizing the big story. As a friend once told me, an ember separated from the fire slowly burns out. Faith without fellowship fades.