We got something of a slap in the chops during the Epiphany Exploration conference, and it came on the first afternoon. The Prophet of Doom is actually a very pleasant sociologist who is unusual in that you might actually know his name. Reg Bibby has received the Order of Canada and has been featured on the cover of Maclean's magazine. He observed, wryly, that people don't notice sociologists or make jokes about them because no one is really sure what they do.Bibby filled us in on the latest research which shows that Canadians aren't really going to church anymore, and that the most significant drop is amongst teens. As he looks back over the past fifty years of research, to the early sixties he has concluded that this isn't a "kids these days" scenario. It was the Baby Boomers who dropped out of church and their children simply aren't connected because they were never exposed. He says that the three signficant shifts during the past fifty years are from:
Obligation to Gratification (a consumer or market model)
Deference to Discernment (more questioning, more demanding)
Homes to Careers (the biggest social change in the past half century is women in the workplace -- no time!)
The result is a New Polarization with the ambivalent "middle ground" shrinking -- we tend to be in or out when it comes to church.
Nothing really surprised me in this, but we were presented with the cold, hard facts. What is your reaction?
3 comments:
Blame the boomers, indeed.
I'm 32, and as teen in the 90s I certainly took notice of the fact that I was one of a minority of kids my age who were church-bound on Sundays. The kids in my class look at me like I'm crazy when I speak about anything I ever did in or at church. "Why would you get up early on Sunday?!" is just scrawled all over their faces.
As an adult, the times where I am in church are somewhat disconcerting for when I scan the crowd it's a sea of grey and white crowns that look back at me. This inevitably leads me to wonder "when I'm that age, who will be in here with me?" and then, sadly,"will there be a here to be in when I'm that age?" Call it a Prufrockian moment! At any rate, with the increase in socialized secularization, these questions are unavoidable, I fear.
These thoughts spun in a different direction when my aunt and I discussed the issue a week ago. We arrived at the conclusion that churches in the 1940s and 1950s were more than just places of worship, they were a form of glue for communities. People gathered, expressed a common bond, socialized, and celebrated all the milestones of life together. With church populations dwindling, so too has our concept of community.
Individualism has become rampant, and we spend more and more time parked in front of computer screens indulging ourselves than meeting as we used to. The idea that we are accountable to each other has been replaced by the assertion that we all have "rights" that trump all other considerations.
Is this the price we have paid for the wave of liberalism crashing forth from the 1960s? Are we dissolving the things that built the country - hard work, a sense of tightly knit community, etc. and replacing them with a rampant sense of entitlement?
If we are, then the days where my crown IS white is are looking more and more terrifying.
Now I run out in the cold to take our middle daughter over to her JYP Youth Group at the church. I had even hinted that perhaps after a daylong volleyball tournament she might need to just rest tonight...but "nope" was her reply She's going to "hang",play games and be surrounded by the comfort of her church family. Sunday night will bring the same journey, with our older daughter to HI-C. And as I shiver through the night air, I couldn't be happier for what the girls have found.
I just missed being a boomer, and I am finding so many of my friends without a church connection grasping for meaning as marriages crumble, parents age,kids disappoint,.. the world lets them down...and they can't seem to get back up. And maybe it's a coincidence, but I don't believe so, that those connected to a faith family find alot less to complain about, and alot more to be thankful for despite the trials.
Like Ian, I do worry that I may be lonely in a decade or two at Bible Study but I trust that the stirring in our collective souls will sustain faith families, in one form or another, and the world will be a better place for it. We just have to be open to the Spirit.
Two respondents, two people who are post-Boomers. I was at the church for a wedding rehearsal last evening and saw your daughter, Laura, as part of a happy gang of kids that included the children of other readers. Thanks to Rev Cathy's position we are defying the trend. Bibby pointed out that evangelica churches do this well, while mainline/oldline churches don't.
I think of your daughters, Ian, and hope that there is still a faith community around to nurture them as they grow. There is plenty of room for bright, thoughtful post-boomers in our church, in every aspect. Without you we don't have a future.
Post a Comment