Smells Like Teen Spirit
Smells Like Teen Spirit
Popular culture anymore is especially youth culture. By this we don't mean that it is culture for youth; it's pretty much an equal opportunity institution. We mean that it is culture defined by that which is youthful or we could even say childish. We are all supposed to be a bunch of Toys 'R Us kids who never want to grow up. We do no honor the gray-headed unless they get on stage and sing Rapper's Delight or compete in the Ironman triathlon. Popular fashion, music, cinema, and jive isn't so much immature or premature as much as it is probably anti-mature. Youth is truthfully and naturally temporary.
When we say that children rule the culture, what we mean is that it is the things which are youthful that are highly valued. So the culture embraces all that is childish, that would be appealing especially to a child, and that which looks and sounds young and new and cute. Here parents try to be hip in order to get their kids to do what they want or to avoid conflict. Grandma and Grandpa have Botox injected into their leathery faces. And shirttails are hanging out all over.
children and youth are especially afflicted with impatience. In fact, I've heard it speculated that patience is one of the most telling signs of true maturity. Patience is necessary for seeing all sorts of beauties and truths. It is necessary for the gain of knowledge and wisdom. But the dominating culture around doesn't have time for that. It wants knock-knock jokes and one-liners and soundbites. It cherishes teenage rebellion and angst. It wants its unearned allowance. Now. And so we "buy" houses and cars we can't possibly afford. Then we declare bankruptcy for our mistakes. We demand to be forgiven and our grounding forgotten.
Children and youth also tend to be fickle. They don't really know what they want. Or maybe they do. The world can't decide either. It doesn't know if it wants to be perceived as cute and innocent or promiscuous and dirty. Tattoos or sunscreen, bellybutton rings or stars upon thars. By the time anyone could get the hang of counting calories, we were told it was fat grams. Just as soon, the jive changed again and it was carbs. It seems so long ago now, but cholesterol was bad. Then there was good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Now it's transfats we need to avoid. It is neither health nor science which is the real issue here, it's really about style and fashion. And it doesn't know what it wants.
It wouldn't be telling the truth here if I didn't also point out how adolescent-like the world is when it constantly encourages us to buck authority. Authorities of all kinds. Not that adolescents should act this way. The worldly culture claims that true freedom is independence and autonomy. It wants to break all the rules. It wants to throw all the rules away. It wants to be its own person or culture.
At the Highlands Study Center we purpose to teach Christians to live more simple, separate, and deliberate lives for the glory of God and the building of His kingdom. What this means is we want the church to grow. We want the church to grow both out and up. We tend to believe that, generally, the church at this point in time and space is not particularly marked by maturity. The gospel of Jesus Christ may be spread father around the globe than it ever has before, but it probably is not as thick.
It would not surprise many that the culture idolizes youth. The part that we don't want to hear is that this same culture has seeped into and often permeated the church. Is the culture within the church one which seeks or cherishes wisdom? Does it generally honor the elderly save for Grandparents Sunday? Instead it wants experience. And that's what we love about those whose heads are grayer than ours, right? Gray hair is a crown of splendor "If it be found in the way of righteousness." The beauty of old men is the gray head because it represents wisdom not experience.
If children rule the culture, their youthful desires also rule in the worldly church. The church wants volume. Not just for hair; I mean, crank it up. It wants preachers who are more like shock-jocks. It wants to shake it all up. It wants one more verse. It does not want to be perceived as her father's church. She wants to be herself, just like all the other ones. She wants her own identity. She wants to show off all the ways she is new and different. She is non-denominational and non-congregational. She is fickle rather than faithful.
The world knows that youth are especially commercially gullible. And the church is too often the same way. I don't just mean this 7-step or that 40-day program; I mean that the market tells us we need another study bible or which new translation we can't do without. If it is not Coke and potato chips for communion, it might be prepackaged individual servings with the crust already cut off and Juicy Juice. Of course it is not served, it is just there for when you're ready for it. Churches need more space, or padded pews, or sofas and coffee, and gymnasia. Teenage church leaders appeal to the wants and desires of the market they want to capture rather than the need of all people everywhere as sinners.
Saint Peter Church loves her covenant children. No one can doubt that. But we shouldn't expect our children to always be young. We want them to be children when they are children and grow and grow. We want to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We want them to grow up in wisdom to do the same for their children. We want our children to honor their parents and obey those in authority over them, so we do the same for our parents and authorities.
The church right now doesn't need to grow up in a hurry as much as it probably needs to act her own age. We need to listen to our bridegroom and be sanctified. We need to obey all that he has commanded, instead of locking ourselves in our rooms. The church fathers also have taught us much good and beautiful truth. And we need to obey our gray-headed church fathers (and bald ones, too) who are here with us in our own day.