Millenials and Transformation
Millennials and Transformation
If the language of transformation ever would crop up among my peers and me, we likely wouldn’t think of it in the same religious terms as the literature on the topic. Having read a cross-section of that literature, I have learned that transformation, in essence, speaks to a relationship; as with any relationship, this is characterized by two active agents. In other words, God works in us for transformation, but we also “work out” our own transformation through spiritual disciplines.
Therein lies the problem for many people in my generation: where have all the spiritual disciplines gone? Although many disciplines seem more prevalent at Messiah—fasting, prayer, worship, Scripture reading, service—they hardly have a strong hold on my generation as a whole. And even if people at Messiah participate in these disciplines, I wonder how much heart they put into it.
Our lack of a transformation perspective does not entirely blot a stain on our own records as Christians. Dallas Willard points out that churches have tended to focus so much on preaching and developing the knowledge that can allow for transformation, that the actual cultivation of a transformed heart slips to the curb. Willard says, “The result is that we have multitudes of professing Christians who well may be ready to die, but obviously are not ready to live, and can hardly get along with themselves, much less with others.” But I wonder how much my generation would see this as an impediment to transformation—this individualism. According to Ivyjungle.org, most Christians define spiritual transformation as a “born again” experience, which is very individualistic. At Messiah especially, our relationship with God centers on God’s will for our lives, and discerning that will. We have relationships with “others” while thinking of them as “others.” Far from bringing them into our own sphere, we go to them, serve them, and then leave. But the “other” distinction always seems to stay. It seems like true spiritual transformation would compel us to eradicate that distinction, just as God did when God became, or transformed Godself, into human.
On the subject of Jesus, he spent thirty years as a human before starting his ministry. If Jesus truly was fully human, then he, himself, needed transformation. He learned his identity, his mission. Dallas Willard says that we shouldn’t think of transformation as a “lightning strike” event, though it can be; instead, we should think of it in terms of process, something that doesn’t aim to control our actions but to transform our mind and will toward obedience to God. Part of obeying God is concern for social justice. Kathleen Dugan says, “Within the context of the current views of the religious self as member of an ecumenical, world-connected community, the ideal of religious transformation will be seen as not only profoundly personal, but as necessarily social. Thus the narrow path to fullness of life will be seen to lead not away from the world, but into the heart of its action.”
Millennials, as a whole, have a better grasp on social justice than do my peers at Messiah. I suppose postmodernism and pluralism has furthered the disconnect between personal spirituality and social action. With more perspectives being considered for truth, we all have this need to know where we stand, what we believe, and, quite frankly, that takes a tremendous amount of time because our postmodern sensibilities can lead us into greater dissatisfaction with easy answers. I say this for myself; I can’t say that for everyone at Messiah. It actually seems that most of my college peers feel pretty secure in their beliefs. They may have grown up to have a distaste for postmodernism, pluralism, relativism—whatever “ism” you want to use. They need a faith crisis, which is central to transformation. My faith crisis came in a class that examined science and religion, with particular emphasis placed on origins and evolution. No faith crisis feels good in the moment, but I count myself lucky that I had such an experience because it forced me to more desperately seek out a relationship with God. It pushed me to ask more questions and truly attempt to understand God. In some sense, it made God more personal for me, disconnecting God from the rules of a church (which isn’t necessarily a good thing).
In the end, it seems like a chicken-egg proposition: do my spiritual disciplines invite my transformation, or does my budding transformation inspire me to the disciplines? For people who lack in spiritual discipline, it would seem that transformation still exists. In fact, in my own story, my faith crisis ushered in a mature transformational process that inspired me to take on more disciplines, that made me long for some liturgy and tradition. Millennials, from what I can see, don’t lack in spiritual interest, but the traditional church environment, it seems, has grown stale for us. Perhaps that speaks more to the need for spiritual transformation than it does to the need for abandoning the practices of the ancients.
Monday 23 Apr 2007 | efry | Uncategorized