One of the manifestations of this adolescent culture in the church
today is through the loss of the historical. The adolescent has little sense of
history beyond what is experienced in childhood. Perspective for making
judgments is lacking. The result, Peterson observes, “is that they begin every
problem from scratch.”[2]
This has given rise to what we might call an “adolescent ecclesiology.”
There was a time when I felt compelled to re-invent the liturgical
wheel every week to “keep things fresh” and “help people express themselves.”
But this emphasis on self-expression is an adolescent move and is destructive to
community. It ends up being burdensome to all, resulting in a constant need to
be doing church (the way of the Law) instead of being church
(being nurtured by the Gospel in the Divine Service). Rather than emphasize the
means of grace, a fascination with all things juvenile drives the service.
Worst of all, the younger generations appear to have little interest in these
services. Try as they might, older generations can never authentically
replicate youth culture. The St. Louis Center for Christian Study makes the
following observation:
[Under the influence of Baby Boomers], worship services became upbeat, high-energy, dynamic, contemporary and spontaneous. At least they were carefully engineered by worship teams to look and feel spontaneous. The engineered worship experience became a the hallmark of Boomer worship… What was once called contemporary worship is now being re-named Boomer worship. By contrast, the fastest growing worship style among the younger generations–Generation X (20s & 30s) and the rising Generation Y (today’s college students)–is liturgical worship [emphasis original].[3]
An adolescent ecclesiology also yields a highly individualistic
approach to Christianity. Though we believe in the “communion of saints”, the
wholesale rejection of history and tradition (whether intentional or not) leaves
the Church impoverished. There is little consciousness today of our brothers
and sisters in Christ in the pew right next to us, much less our connection to
the saints throughout the ages. Many see church in terms of “what’s in it for
me” and generally have little concept of how their presence or absence in
church, bible class, Sunday school, etc., affects the faith of their
neighbor.
As our Synod has recently emphasized (following the cue of
Bonhoeffer and others), Christianity is about doing life together.
We– the una sancta, the whole Church on earth– worship
together with angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven. As we
sing in the Te Deum, “the holy Church throughout all the world” praises
God right alongside “the glorious company of the apostles,” “the goodly
fellowship of the prophets”, and “the noble army of martyrs.”[4]
The communion of saints extends all the way back to the Garden of Eden.
Unfortunately, the rejection of history and liturgy in the pursuit of adolescent
ideals obscures any sense of communion with the saints of old.
Liturgy and history remind us that the Church is bigger than
ourselves. They guard against the perpetual adolescent desire for self
expression and remind us that Christianity is about Christ and His gifts for us.
They keep the Church focused on Her Lord rather than Herself. As St. John
said, “I must decrease, but He must increase,” (John 3:30).
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