Irrelevant God?

In October, one national newspaper headline declared: ‘Generation Y has no use for God’. The piece said that religion is irrelevant to most young people. Quoting a study published by the Church of England, it explained that youngsters rely on themselves, their family and friends rather than God to give meaning to their lives.

Presumably the church is meant to be worried, to wring its hands and to question how it can become more relevant to those born after 1982. But if the apostle Paul saw that headline would he react in quite that way? I think not. In fact I can imagine him smiling and asking, ‘So what’s new?’ He not only taught us that the world by its wisdom does not know God, but that to the person without the Spirit the gospel is foolishness.

Christians increasing

Before proceeding it is worth reminding ourselves of God’s work more broadly across the world. It’s a very different picture from that implied by the headline. According to the current issue of Future First, a newssheet majoring on church statistics, in the last 20 years the number of Christians in the developing world increased from 940 million to 1,400 million. This is an increase of 50% or the equivalent of 64,000 extra Christians a day.

In the same period the number of Christians in the developed world increased from 810 million to 860 million, just 6%, or the equivalent of 7,000 Christians a day (some of these will be migrants).

Maybe a fairly broad definition of ‘Christian’ is being used here. But these statistics take on new significance as the Future First article explains that evangelicals and Muslims are the only two religious groups significantly growing worldwide. In terms of the world’s population 7% were evangelical in 1970, but that percentage is increasing and is set to double to 15% by 2050.

Missing the Spirit

That leaves us with the question as to why the gospel seems to be making great headway elsewhere but not in the West. Going back to St. Paul, he is quite clear that human cleverness will not win souls for Christ, in fact to preach that way will empty the cross of its power (1 Corinthians 1.7). It is the Holy Spirit who makes the difference and brings the gospel home powerfully to people’s hearts (1 Corinthians 2.4,5). The problem in the West, to put it bluntly, is that somehow the Spirit is missing. We often seem out of step with him. Why is that? Lots could be said, but three things occur.

First, when Paul preached in Corinth, a status-seeking consumer society rather like our own which prided itself in its wisdom, he seemed to go out of his way to show his weakness (1 Corinthians 2.1-3). Paul was such that when God’s Spirit worked it was obvious. Speaking loosely, Paul’s weakness gave the living God room to work. Are we Western Christians frightened of looking weak? Trying to come across as impressive may hinder God’s work.

Second, if God uses the weak he also chooses the weak (1 Corinthians 1.27). Do we neglect taking the gospel to the poor of our society? Are we a bit too focussed on the middle-classes?

Third, the Holy Spirit comes in answer to prayer (Luke 11.13). But by and large the prayer meeting has little priority in the churches today. Are we too busy?

We ought to be concerned for Generation Y. But let’s direct our concerns properly, so that faith might not rest on men’s wisdom but on the power of God.