Thousands of people, young in spirit, are turning away from the anti-intellectuality of separatist fundamentalism and from mainstream ecumenical liberalism … [and to] … a vital, open, and truly revolutionary answer to Christ’s call to ‘go and teach all nations.’”
Such words of hope! Such excitement about the new vitality arising within the church and busting out of its norms and forms!
Just one problem with these words — timing. They do not come from the newest report regarding the Emergent Church Movement or from the Red-Letter-Christian movement. You won’t find them in an evaluation of the Purpose-Driven churches nor the Open-and-Affirming churches. They come from the book, The Young Evangelicals: Evolution in Orthodoxy, penned by Richard Quebedeaux in 1974 (H&R). That’s 35 years ago.
Just four years later, he penned a less cheery sequel, The Worldly Evangelicals (H&R). Already he saw that the movement was not going to live up to its hopeful beginnings.
What went wrong?
The young evangelicals grew older.
Just as their secular counterparts, the hippies, morphed into yuppies (young urban professionals), the idealistic and visionary Jesus People joined the middle class. They married, had babies, bought homes, took on mortgages, set up educational savings accounts for their children, and, well, they joined the very establishment whose failings they had resolved to reform.
Enthusiastic hopes run through churches these days, most often among and because of the newest young generation — the millennials — and around such buzzwords as “emergent,” “missional,” and “multicultural.” Energy pulsates in gatherings of mainline millennial Christians who actually love their church, who refuse to accept old prejudices, and who are determined to carry the torch of authentic witness, social outreach, and missional service to the uttermost parts of the earth. That enthusiasm is shared by many of the older folks, especially by those who remember how their own youthful enthusiasm got squeezed out by their middle-aged world.
But will it last? Or, will it get absorbed into the vast middle class?
It won’t last. At least, it won’t last in its present form. Some of today’s pioneers will settle into frontier homesteads. The persistent prophets will lose heart, as their proclamations get patronized. And the status quo’s inherent change resistance will suck the energy out of this reform movement. Unless …
Yes, there remains a big unless. Failure is not unavoidable. This new momentum needn’t dissipate, mediocrity need not triumph over innovation and reformation.
What might we do to keep such hopes alive? How can we fan into flames God’s work of reform among us? How can we participate in God’s work of reinventing our congregations, our denomination, the western church, and the church catholic?
For one thing, we cannot allow the spirit of innovation to be cordoned off into one generation. The eyes of the young often can see through the fog of institutional mustiness. We all do well to listen to their critiques. But when it comes to the actual work of innovation and reformation, we cannot require one generation to carry that torch alone. The task of shaking off hypocrisy and cultural baggage is writ large on all our job descriptions. And we all need to shake off the cynicism that says things will not, cannot, or should not change.
More than that, we all do well to re-read the gospels’ stories. The clarity of Jesus’ vision, the strength of his resolve, the power of his appeal, the cost of his summons to follow … such words and actions have stood the test of time. Through the church’s centuries, every powerful movement, every visionary generation has found its impetus not in its own youthfulness but ultimately in the witness of its Savior. Let us all catch that vision together, and refuse to let it fade. And, as in the case of the valley of dry bones, and in the case of that Pentecost morning, and in the case of the young evangelicals 35 years ago, let the wind blow again.
— JHH
