Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

Why I apologized to my son 

 

Today, I did something I never thought I would need to do. I said sorry to my son for the false understanding of Christianity we have been presenting to him.

 

No, I didn’t confess a terrible personal sin, nor was I showing remorse for some offense against him, though I am far from perfect in my Christian walk and need continued repentance. But as we talked about issues in the news on the short drive to his school this morning, I felt compelled to apologize to my 18-year-old on behalf of a generation of Christians who have left him (and others in his age group) perplexed and confused about what following Jesus means. And because I teach young people in a Christian university, I know he is not alone in this befuddlement.

 

With our youth and young adults spending so much time learning about the world through social media, the images of Christianity they have seen everyday on their news feeds over the last few years have rarely been stories of believers caring for their neighbours, or sharing the gospel, or working towards peace, or loving the unloveable in society. They don’t read about joyful Christians, humble Christians, serving Christians, sacrificial Christians, patient Christians, or self-controlled Christians, as they spend time online.

 

In all the places our youth and young adults look, the dominant and recurring images they see has to do with politically disaffected Christians fighting for this or that, arguing over this or that, fuming over this or that, raging over this or that, protesting against this or that. Recently, there have been people claiming to be Christian leaders posting messages that are vulgar (including profanity and use of the F-word), violent, and filled with abuse. Opponents we disagree with (especially on the left) are ruthlessly and cruelly vilified and crudely mocked in apparent holy and righteousness indignation. True or not, these images and stories all over media paint us as insatiably hungry for power, always angry, hostile to all authority, impervious to reason, concerned only for our self interests, fearful of the outsider, and generally very unattractive to anyone outside of our evangelical circles. This is not the Christianity that turns the other cheek, or one that displays long-suffering in persecution, or that seeks a kingdom that is not of this world, in the words of Christ, or one that drew even the worst of sinners to Jesus during his ministry.

 

I spend a lot of time following media and studying its impact as part of my teaching work and I know that for our young people, what they “know” most about the church and evangelical Christianity does not come from the wonderful Christ-centred sermons preached on Sundays, great as these may be. The PRIMARY way our young people are gaining an understanding of what Christianity is and is not is through the version presented in popular media, including right-wing political outlets. This is the new “catechism by media” and it is creating significant cognitive (and theological) dissonance between the values of Scripture and secular political, western cultural values, some of which are diametrically opposed to Christlikeness.

In light of the inconsistency between Christian behaviour on media and what we claim as our Biblical yardstick, any wonder that we are losing our youth? Where do they see publicly modeled in the media (whether left or right) the Jesus described in the Bible, the loving Saviour that we are asking them to follow? Is the true model for behaving like Jesus the one they see on CNN or FOX News, or what they read in the Bible? Is our great and mighty God the meek and humble servant preached about in the pulpit on Sundays, or more like the take-no-prisoners, power-thirsty, right-wing political activist he appears to be in the sermonizing of conservative media personalities?

 

Our youth and young adults already face significant challenges when it comes to accepting and following the message of the gospel in a post-Christian culture. But we ourselves are making this even more difficult by failing to recognize the powerful media messages we are sending them that contradict the very truth we are inviting them to receive and live. And let’s be clear, these un-Christlike images of what it means to be a Jesus follower are abundant on conservative media, so we cannot just blame the liberal left or Hollywood for leading young people away from the faith.

 

After my apology to my son, I was impressed by his response to me when I told him not to turn from his Christian beliefs because of all the negativity, but to work with his generation to change it.

 

“We don’t even need to change it,” he sagely said. “We just need to go back to what it was in the New Testament.”

 

Wise and hopeful words for us all to follow.

 

Yours faithfully,

Div