{"id":34536,"date":"2013-05-20T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T14:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?p=34536"},"modified":"2013-05-20T07:35:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T13:35:23","slug":"millenials-and-their-radical-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2013\/05\/millenials-and-their-radical-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Millenials and Their “Radical” Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/p>\n

Over the last few months, I\u2019ve been half-following this conversation in the Christian blogosphere about what it means to be \u201cradical,\u201d<\/a> whether faith can be radical in the suburbs<\/a>, and whether calls to radical faith are helpful <\/a>or harmful <\/a>for those trying to follow Jesus. \u00a0Last week Anthony Bradley, a professor at King\u2019s College in New York City, wrote a piece that\u2019s been bothering me. \u00a0After a long conversation with an undergraduate wrestling with the idea of vocation, Dr. Bradley wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I continue to be amazed by the number of youth and young adults who are stressed and burnt out from the regular shaming and feelings of inadequacy if they happen to not be doing something unique and special. Today\u2019s Millennial generation is being fed the message that if they don\u2019t do something extraordinary in this life they are wasting their gifts and potential. The sad result is that many young adults feel ashamed if they \u201csettle\u201d into ordinary jobs, get married early and start families, live in small towns, or as 1 Thess 4:11 says, \u201caspire to live quietly, and to mind [their] affairs, and to work with [their] hands.\u201d For too many Millennials their greatest fear in this life is being an ordinary person with a non-glamorous job, living in the suburbs, and having nothing spectacular to boast about.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I am 32, so I was born with one foot (and my soul) in Generation X and the other foot (and my technological little hands) in the Millennial Generation, but I know what Dr. Bradley is talking about. \u00a0We are also the Passion generation<\/a>, marked by John Piper\u2019s stories of elderly women flying into eternity off a cliff in Africa<\/a>, marked by youth leaders who asked us to bow our heads and raise our hands to promise that we\u2019d give at least a year to foreign missions, marked by an unprecedented awareness of global needs and growing wealth disparity. \u00a0And now that we\u2019re growing up, we\u2019re struggling with what it means to change the world<\/a> while we\u2019re busy changing diapers.<\/p>\n

While I think Dr. Bradley is right in naming this struggle, and in encouraging young people to take 1 Thessalonians 4:11 to heart, I do take issue with his description of us as simply afraid of \u00a0\u201cbeing an ordinary person with a non-glamorous job, living in the suburbs, and having nothing spectacular to boast about.\u201d Millennial Christians are not wrestling with the idea of vocation because we want to be spectacular; we wrestle with vocation because we want Christ to be magnified, and because we want to be faithful to the very real, very radical call of Christ in our lives. My friends who have chosen to live with the poor didn\u2019t do it because they thought it would be more \u201cawesome\u201d than living in the suburbs; they did it out of obedience to God. I realize that Dr. Bradley means to criticize leaders, not millennials, in this piece, but in doing so he paints us as passive consumers of a message, driven by fear rather than by love, and I don\u2019t think that\u2019s accurate.<\/p>\n

To be honest, though, I have grown weary of this conversation. I want to say that it\u2019s simpler, and more personal than all this. I want to say that it is radical, because \u2014 go read the New Testament. \u00a0It just is. \u00a0But I also want to say that some of the most radical words you\u2019ll find from Jesus are these: Love one another as I have loved you<\/em>. \u00a0To be clear, that might be a radical call to move to Africa, but it also might be a radical call to move in with your aging grandmother in the city. \u00a0It might mean taking a vow of simplicity and living on the margins, or it might mean getting a medical degree to provide the best possible care for the sick and dying in a small town that needs a doctor. \u00a0It might mean working in an orphanage in East Asia, or it might mean raising your own babies in the suburbs. \u00a0Love can mean any of these sacrificial tasks.<\/p>\n

What following Jesus most certainly does not mean, however, \u00a0is finding a spiritual way to justify American values like power, fame, wealth, safety, security, and consumerism \u00a0\u2014 which is what I sometimes fear these critiques (and my own critiques) of \u201cradical\u201d faith secretly want to do. I\u2019m suspicious of any call to stop struggling with how to to follow Christ.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, though I take issue with the way he gets there, I do agree with Bradley\u2019s conclusion that a strong understanding of how vocation\u00a0contributes\u00a0to human flourishing is essential. \u00a0If Dr. Bradley\u2019s undergraduate came to me, I\u2019d probably tell him this. \u00a0I\u2019d say: Keep struggling with the Scripture. Lean into the heart of God for the poor and marginalized. Don\u2019t neglect the challenge of loving your neighbor, of forsaking all for the kingdom, and of living at peace with all men. \u00a0Recognize that following Christ has less to do with whether you live in city, suburbs, or countryside, and more to do with what you value. \u00a0It has less to do with what kind of work you do and more to do with how you do that work. \u00a0Following the call of Christ means allowing your heart to be shaped and your values transformed by the Holy Spirit. \u00a0It will likely mean giving up all your dreams and it will likely mean realizing the desires of your heart. Whatever it is, wherever it is, it will be hard and rarely glamorous, but as your heart is transformed, your face will shine with the glory of God<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s radical.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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