Dear Millennials: I Don’t Care If You Come to Church

Hey, Millennials. Listen. I no longer care if you come to church or not. I know we’ve been sweating you for a decade–ever since we realized that you really were so over the moral posturing, the monotonous praise tunes, and the coffee in unsustainable styrofoam cups. I know we’ve begged you to come back, tried to lure you with pizza and edgy panel discussions; we’ve stayed up nights wondering WHY you don’t love us anymore; we’ve conducted expensive studies trying to win you back.

But that’s all behind us now. I don’t care if you ever come to church again. Seriously, do not give AF. 

As long as you vote. Just please, for the love of all that is… vote. Only you can save us now.

We can talk about Jesus later. But for right now, we need you to vote to make sure there will BE a later.

We need your vote–your young, intelligent, forward-thinking vote. We need your acknowledgement of climate change and your adventurous take on simple, sustainable living; we need your creative approach to problem solving; we need your sensitivity to race issues and women’s rights; your global awareness, your tech savvy, and your related willingness to engage people of other cultures; I hate to admit it, but we kind of need your heathen-ass, unchurched selves to lead us in important interfaith dialogue that JUST MIGHT keep us from waging a nuclear meltdown on the world, at large. Clearly, the generations that totally immersed themselves in church culture are dropping the ball in this regard, so y’all are gonna have to come bail us out.

I know it is ugly up there. I know that billionaires spewing racist, sexist bile and Christian fundamentalists ranting about “values” is not the sort of thing you rush to participate in. And I further know that the options on the other side are maybe not as exciting as they were 8 years ago. But here’s the thing–you know why it’s all so ugly and heinous and terrifying right now? You know why the far right has rallied and turned our political system into a hateful dispute about gay people, Muslims and women’s utereses? (Uteri? Pls advise…) Because they see you coming. They see you coming, and they are nervous as hell.

They know they can’t win with you, campaigning in all the old ways. They know that you are too smart; you are common core global thinkers and post-911 co-existers. Their toxic rhetoric is the last death knell of their brand of conservatism. They know that it cannot survive your coming-of-age entirely, so they are hoping for one last good run before you take over the world. One more season of  gun-loving, hetero-normative, unchecked capital gains and xenophobic rage–before you and your zero b.s. world views move into the front seat.

But listen.  There are enough of you NOW. If you will just please vote. Organize, talk amongst yourselves, get your shit together and vote.

We know we’ve been slackers. We, your Gen X older siblings, adjunct professors, and bosses-at-your-first-crappy-jobs. We’ve haven’t been super engaged, politically speaking. We’ve been kind of whatever about paying off our student loans; we over-borrowed for our first mortgages; we assumed we had 50 years before the ozone completely crapped out on us, and we’ve been carrying our disposable plastic water bottles to the gym like its our job. We’ve been lazy assholes, and we know it. We’ve been hoping that our boomer parents will bail us out but HHHhahahaha you see what they’ve come up with to salvage our future. A billionaire narcissist with anger issues, and a some religious fanatics who would like to take us back to “the good old days” of slavery. Or, at the very least, Jim Crow. You know, Make America Great Again.

Save us, please?

We’re sorry. We’ll do anything. We’ll leave you alone about church. We’ll buy you a beer. We’ll stop making fun of your selfies. We’ll stop pretending that we are cool enough to understand your music. Just please, vote. Fix this. Save us from ourselves…

Love, 

Your Desperate Gen X Older Siblings

Who are finally ready admit

that you are better than us

If you would please

just

promise

to vote.