I Hate My Generation by Shane Rosenthal">
I Hate My Generation
by Shane Rosenthal
© 1996 Modern Reformation Magazine
Shane Rosenthal,
M.A., Historical Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary in
CA, is a freelance audio/video editor and producer. He is currently
one of the creative producers for the national radio program The
White Horse Inn, and webmaster for Reformation Ink.
Shane, along with his wife and three children reside in southern
California.
The rock band known as Cracker recently released a song titled,
"I Hate My Generation." There is something in this song
that I can identify with. A couple of decades ago, most of the
popular songs were overly optimistic: "All you need is love,"
"What the world needs now is love, sweet love," etc.
But today, a refreshing pessimism abounds in popular music; refreshing
not because pessimism is a cherished virtue in and of itself,
but because in some respects this culture is beginning to realize
that it is unraveling. As in the case of Isaiah before the throne
of God, this culture may indeed be realizing that it is coming
apart at the seams. Obviously in our case it is not that our culture
is being confronted with the glory of God which has brought on
this guilt-consciousness, but as I see it, it is our sins that
are finding us out. And many of these sins were sown by our parents,
and our parents' parents.
One of the things I hate most about my generation is the fact
that we don't read. We were not raised on books but on TV. We
prefer images over words, entertainment over serious thought,
the trivial over the eternal. I've had a number of conversations
over the years with friends from my age group about recalling
particular episodes of The Brady Bunch or Gilligan's Island: "Remember
the one where Jan forgets to wear her glasses and crashes into
the family portrait?" "Or how 'bout the one where they
go to the Grand Canyon and accidentally get locked up in the old
jail cell." When you think about it, it is not a coincidence
that Hollywood is turning out many films based on old television
shows (The Addams Family, Casper, The Brady Bunch, Flipper, Mission
Impossible, etc.) It is also to be noted that many films or TV
shows will often make it a point to bring in references from old
TV episodes to be used as punch lines. In particular I think of
the the movie Wayne's World, a film of which it could almost be
said was comprised entirely of such references. There were allusions
to Laverne & Shirley, Lassie, Scooby Doo, Star Trek, Bugs
Bunny, and other such shows. But what was even more interesting
were the many references to televsion commercials within the film.
We were reminded of ads featuring The Chia Pet, The Clapper, Pepsi,
Doritos, Nuprin, and Pizza Hut. And of course there is the classic
scene in which Wayne and Garth pull up to a Rolls Royce to ask
the question, "Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?"
These references were all quite funny. And the reason they were
funny was due to the fact that our minds are simply filled with
this type of garbage.
Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that Americans paid the least
attention to philosophy than any other country in the civilized
world. They "seek by themselves and in themselves for the
only reason for things..." Therefore, he wrote that "Americans
have needed no books to teach them philosophic method, having
found it in themselves."1 Now if this was true in 1848, it
is certainly true today for we are living at a time when classical
and Biblical themes are almost completely effaced from the cultural
memory. In de Tocqueville's day Americans had philosophical opinions,
but not from reading the classic works. Today however, the situation
is worse. As in the words of the popular song by Edie Brickell,
"Philosophy is the talk on the cereal box, and religion is
the smile on a dog."2 For my generation, questions of any
significance or depth are almost completely avoided. Many of us
sing along with Brickell, "I'm not aware of too many things,
I know what I know, if you know what I mean....Shove me in the
shallow water before I get to deep"3 Another profound way
this is illustrated is again from Wayne's World in which Wayne
himself asks this telling but sarcastic question, "Was it
Kierkegaard or Dick Van Patten who said, 'To label me is to negate
me?'"
Sadly, this cultural decline has not been without its effects
in our own Christian communities. In my own impromptu polls that
I have recorded at Christian conventions for The White Horse Inn
radio program, I have asked individuals to see if they can name
the Ten Commandments. Out of probably two hundred interviews over
the years only two individuals that I know of could name all ten.
I also asked folks if they were familiar with the doctrine of
justification, and the majority of Christians said they had never
heard of the doctrine. On one level this is a doctrinal crisis,
but on another level this reveals a much more basic problem; we
are not reading the Scriptures. We are not being saturated with
God's Word, either in our own personal study or in our churches.
Recently I was in Boston attending a conference by sponsored by
the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals (the series of meetings
in which the Cambridge Declaration was drafted). One night I took
a walk through Harvard Square and was approached by a woman who
was passing out witness tracts. After handing me a tract she began
telling me about the abundant life in Jesus. I decided to play
the devil's advocate. "How do you know Jesus exists?"
"Because he lives in my heart" she said with a Boston
accent. "What if I were a Muslim and told you that I had
a personal relationship with Allah, and that my life was very
fulfilled?", I asked. She paused for a moment and then began
spewing forth in cookie-cutter like fashion many evangelistic
texts that didn't relate at all to my question. So I asked, "Again,
what if I told you that I was perfectly fulfilled with the Qur'an,
and didn't need the Bible?" This time she didn't really know
how to respond. Then I asked her to tell me what the main argument
of Peter was in his famous sermon in Acts 2, or Paul on Mars Hill
in Acts 17, or his famous statement in 1Cor. 15; in short, what
was the most central element of apostolic preaching. She said,
"Oh, I know this one." But she didn't really. I had
to tell her. "The Resurrection!" Anyone can claim to
have divine authority, but the Christian claim is that a rabbi
who claimed authority for himself vindicated his claim by being
raised from the dead: "[God] has set a day when he will judge
the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given
proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead" (Acts
17:31). The point of the story is not merely to point out failures
in modern apologetics, but to highlight the fact that many Christians
are ignorant of some of the most basic elements of the Bible's
teachings. They might not officially "deny" the doctrine
of the Resurrection, but they are basically ignorant of the internal
substance of the doctrine and all its related implications on
life, worship and evangelism. Paul's line is worth considering
here, "For I can testify about them that they are zealous
for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge" (Rom 10:2).
What really shocked me that night, however, was not that I found
out how little this woman knew, but rather, how much she thought
I knew. After I had talked with her for just over five minutes
she commented to me that I had "a remarkable knowledge of
the Scriptures." This is what amazed me. When George Lindbeck
wrote that his non-Christian students of the fifties had a better
grasp of Scripture than did the Christians of the eighties, I
felt he was speaking as if I was one of his later students. My
knowledge of the English Bible is pitiful. I have a fairly decent
grasp of systematic theology (in other words I have learned how
to proof-text), but when it comes to a coherent understanding
of the Old and New Testaments (especially the Old) I fear my knowledge
is dismally lacking.
This really hit me recently when this particular section of Scripture
from Isaiah was read from the pulpit one Sunday morning::
On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of
rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine-the best of
meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all
nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD
will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace
of his people from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. In that
day they will say, "Surely this is our God; we trusted in
him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let
us rejoice and be glad in his salvation" (Is 25:6-9).
After hearing this wonderful text read aloud I thought to myself
about the line: "the best of meats and the finest of wines."
My mind was immediately drawn to contemplate the work of Christ
on my behalf, offering up his flesh for my eternal benefit, and
pouring out his blood to cover all of my sins. Then I began thinking
of Communion and how the partaking of the bread and the wine was
but a foretaste of that meal to which this passage in Isaiah was
refering. It was a wonderful and meaningful moment. At least it
was until I thought of the fact that I had no recollection of
reading that particular passage before.
Most likely I had read it before, but just didn't remember that
I had. But that still points out a glaring problem. I am not grounded
in the Scriptures. To a large extent I am a product of my generation.
And what is alarming about this fact is that the contemporary
church is doing little if anything to counter this problem. There
are very few churches where large sections of Scripture are read
on Sunday mornings, even though it was Paul who wrote to Timothy
to remind him to "devote yourself to the public reading of
Scripture..." (1Tim 4:13). This must be recovered in our
time.
The lack of personal discipline among individual Christians (myself
included), and even more importantly, Christian parents, is a
troubling characteristic of the contemporary church. Lamenting
the present crisis, Allan Bloom recalls better days:
It was the home-and the houses of worship related to it-where
religion lived. The holy days and the common language and set
of references that permeated most households constituted a large
part of the family bond and gave it a substantial content. Moses
and the Tables of the Law, Jesus and his preaching of brotherly
love, had an imaginative existence. Passages from the Psalms
and the Gospels echoed in children's heads. Attending church
or synagogue, praying at the table, were a way of life, inseparable
from the moral education that was supposed to be the family's
special responsibility in this democracy....The loss of the gripping
inner life vouchsafed those who were nurtured by the Bible must
be primarily attributed not to our schools or political life,
but to the family, which, with all its rights to privacy, has
proved unable to maintain any content of its own. The dreariness
of the family's spiritual landscape passes belief.4
Now obviously, Bloom is writing from outside the Christian perspective
(which itself is interesting to think about-i.e., the issues involved
concern more than Christians). Nevertheless, it is amazing to
me how similar Bloom's comments are to those made some sixty years
earlier by J. Gresham Machen. "The most important educational
institution," Machen wrote, "is not the pulpit or the
school, important as these institutions are; but it is the Christian
family. And that institution has to a very large extent ceased
to do its work."5 So you can see the seeds of our present
crisis were sown a good many years ago. But again we must counter
these trends. We must again heed the instruction of Paul who wrote,
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have
become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned
it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures,
which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in
Christ Jesus. (2Tim. 3:14-15).
Notice that Paul indicates that Timothy had learned the Scriptures
from infancy. This must be our goal for our own children. We must
not let our children be catechised by television, public school,
or exclusively in our churches. Rather, parents must take the
heaviest responsibility of equipping their own children, and bringing
them up in the fear and knowledge of God. We must raise our children,
as Bloom wrote of a former generation, with "passages from
the Psalms and the Gospels echoing in their heads."
I am the first to admit that it is easier to turn on the tube
than it is to open a book. But our generation must begin to wean
itself from this habit. We are becoming addicted to entertainment,
neglecting our own spiritual growth, the nurturing of our children,
and participation in the larger community. Christians must resist
this trend. In the words of Neil Postman, we are amusing ourselves
to death. In similar fashion, Bloom reminds us of Nietzsche's
disturbing observation that "the newspaper had replaced the
prayer in the life of the modern bourgeois, meaning that the busy,
the cheap, the ephemeral, had usurped all that remained of the
eternal in his daily life." Bloom then adds, "Now television
has replaced the newspaper." Are we going to let the busy,
the cheap, the ephemeral usurp all that remains of the eternal
in our own hearts, minds, and churches? We must not. We must take
up the Scriptures once again, and we must teach them to our children.
Now, in order not to be misunderstood, I want to clarify a few
things. I am not saying that television is completely a waste
of time, nor am I saying that it is wrong to be entertained. It
is just that we are becoming a nation of entertainment addicts.
My generation has grown up on television. We are sort of like
crack babies, who've needed the fix since before we can remember.
We're so addicted to entertainment we hardly noticed that many
of our churches had been turned into fun, happy, exciting places-like
late night TV shows--as Peter Jennings so brilliantly showed us.6
But we are neglecting so many other important responsibilities
in exchange for entertainment, and this at a time when knowledge
of the Scriptures is dismally lacking, even among Christians-even,
dare I say it, among Reformed Christians.
Without being legalistic, we must begin to take our entertainment
in moderation. Our generation has a lot of work to do. The culture
is collapsing and we ourselves are partly to blame. There has
never been a time like the present to swim against the cultural
tide. Many people in this country, having been reared on television's
slick images, long for the sublime, the unseen, the transcendant.
We have that in the eternal Word of God. This is no time to squander
our treasure.
Notes
1. Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy In America,
(Harper & Row, 1988 edition; Lawrence trans.) p. 429-430.
2. Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, Shooting Rubber Bands at
the Stars, "What I Am" (Geffen Records,1988).
3. Ibid
4. Allan Bloom, The Closing of The American Mind, (Simon &
Schuster, 1987) p. 56-57
5. J. Gresham Machen, What Is Faith?, (Banner of Truth, 1925)
p. 21.
6. See Peter Jennings' Special, "In The Name of God,"
(ABC, 1995).
Shane Rosenthal received his
B. A. in liberal studies from Cal-State Fullerton, and is currently
pursuing a masters degree at Westminster Theological Seminary
in CA. He is the producer of The White Horse Inn radio program,
and is the webmaster for Reformation Ink.
This article was made available on the internet
via REFORMATION INK
(www.markers.com/ink). Refer any correspondence
to Shane Rosenthal: ReformationInk at mac.com (connect and write as @mac.com -- when I connect them I get a lot of junk mail).
