Teenagers, mental health and the gospel

If you ask any teenager today to summarise in a word what they think of the state of the world, I doubt you would get one positive answer in a thousand.

Recently, in my sixth form PSHCE class, the teacher started the lesson off with that question, and sure enough the answers were immensely depressing. ‘Racist’, ‘Sexist’, ‘Classist’, ‘Empty’, ‘Dying’, ‘Pointless’ – by the end, the teacher seemed slightly taken aback at the dark direction his ‘think about the world’ exercise had taken!

Disillusioned generation

That lesson underlined for me an attitude towards life that runs deeply in my generation: disillusionment. Disillusionment with oneself, in a world where you have to be attractive, and thin, and get good grades, but never lose your sense of humour, and vote for the right people and campaign for the right issues, but always watching out in case that politician or campaign falls foul of the majority consensus. Disillusionment with the world, plagued by climate change that no one seems to be doing enough about, and politics where everyone spends so much time hating each other and yet people are still murdered by their own police, and now a pandemic that is simultaneously killing thousands and shutting you off from seeing your friends.

You only have to look at the extraordinary rise in mental health issues to see how this sense of dissatisfaction has had real implications in our lives. Again, ask any teenager today and the prevalence amongst them and their peers of anxiety, depression, self-harming, eating disorders, etc. may surprise you. Like many of my friends, I have had a devastating amount of direct and indirect experience with these issues, and the hurt to all involved that comes as a result of them cannot be overstated. It is a truly heartbreaking symptom of a generation that is fundamentally without hope; and given everything listed above, can we be blamed for being so?

Solid, unchanging hope

As Christians, however, we have a hope that is not based on the latest political sensation or climate-change agreement, but in a God that cannot compromise on His principles, and cannot break His promises, and will not change. This is where I believe that we can have real optimism for the gospel in the coming years. To a despairing and disillusioned generation, acutely aware of their own and the world’s darkness, the light of the gospel can only shine brighter. This is not at all to say that mass conversion to Christianity will eradicate mental health issues; many Christians of all generations suffer just as atheists do with debilitating illnesses, and will continue to do so until the new creation. However, the despair that is intrinsically linked with the prevalence of mental illnesses, and which so many teenagers rightly feel about our broken world, is a problem to which the gospel has – and always has had, and will continue to have – the answer.

Am I being overly optimistic in my hope for my generation here? Maybe so. But if we cannot be optimistic in the power of God to bring the gospel in the most unlikely seeming situations, then what can we be optimistic for?

Paul’s evangelistic experience in Athens as recorded in Acts 17 seems to me to be a great testament to what God can do through any group, however sceptical. Just as the current generation of teenagers are searching for meaning and purpose in a world that has none, the philosophers of Athens were worshipping and building altars to ‘An Unknown God’. The scepticism and intelligent arguments that the philosophers were no doubt able to give to Paul did not stop him preaching to them, and ultimately did not stop the gospel either: we are told that although ‘some of them sneered, others said: “We want to hear you again on the subject.” At that, Paul left the Council. Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed’ (Acts 17: 32-34).

Trusting God

For everyone reading this who has been justifiably worried and concerned for the state of the gospel in an increasingly antagonistic world, I wanted to use this as some form of encouragement. The world may seem to be moving further from the gospel, but ultimately it has always been opposed, and we are told to expect its hate. Our God is an almighty God who can and does work through all things, and in Him there is just as much hope for the gospel today as there was 50 years ago, just as there was in the time of Paul. Please do pray for the current generation of teenagers: that God can use the justified despair and anger at the brokenness of the current world to turn people towards the hope the gospel offers everyone. And especially also for those of us who are Christians, that God will give us the strength and trust in Him to be able to present that hope to our friends and peers.

As Paul prayed in his letter to the Ephesians: ‘I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe’ (Eph. 1:18-19).