Millennials, Rachel and Me

Rachel Held Evans is the Maureen Dowd of the  “Evangelical” world. She is an attractive young lady and an incredible writer. Like Maureen Dowd, she is wrong about a lot of things.

Evans recently wrote a blog for the CNN Belief Blog titled “Why Millennials are Leaving the Church.” ** “Millennials” are people born from 1980-present and are right on track to being the most  obnoxious set of young people since their parents (Baby Boomers and Generation X). Here are some quotes from the blog (bold and in italics) and my snark next to it.

“At 32, I barely qualify as a millennial. I wrote my first essay with a pen and paper, but by the time I graduated from college, I owned a cell phone and used Google as a verb.”  Talk about establishing credibility-she wrote an essay with a paper and pen!  She doesn’t mention having write it by candlelight.  So, you see old people, I know what it is like not having to use all of these new fancy gadgets but in a few short years I was open minded enough to use Google as a verb. In the same way, you'll get used to not being Republican and you'll like LGBT people.

“Despite having one foot in Generation X, I tend to identify most strongly with the attitudes and the ethos of the millennial generation, and because of this, I’m often asked to speak to my fellow evangelical leaders about why millennials are leaving the church.” I have one foot in with the Baby Boomers, but I tend to identify with Generation X so how come I have never been asked to speak to  my fellow evangelical leaders?  I've written essays with pen and paper plus I wrote term papers on this machine called a "typewriter". Where does one go to become an “evangelical leader” anyway? Is there an "evangelical leader" farm?

“Armed with the latest surveys, along with personal testimonies from friends and readers, I explain how young adults perceive evangelical Christianity to be too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”  She has surveys and anecdotal evidence! Therefore, Evangelicals should be Democrats, inclusive, hip, socially concerned and not hostile to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders because that's what the survey's and anecdotal evidence show. Just like what Jesus said in The Sermon on The Mount: "Blessed are the peacemakers, because that's what the polls say".


Evans continues in saying “the evangelical obsession with sex can make Christian living seem like little more than sticking to a list of rules.”  I’ll translate this: stop being such a fuddy-duddy and get your groove thing on. We should no longer sing “Have Thine Own Way, Lord”. We should sing  “Whatever Gets You Through The Night.”

“I point to research that shows young evangelicals often feel they have to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith, between science and Christianity, between compassion and holiness.”  Attention millennials: Cry me a river. Part of life is having to “choose”. Sometimes “intellectual integrity” is intellectual bullying. I’m not sure why they feel a need to choose between “compassion” and “holiness”.  You can be compassionate and holy.

“Having been advertised to our whole lives, we millennials have highly sensitive BS meters, and we’re not easily impressed with consumerism or performances.”  “BS meters”-now there’s a term I never heard in Vacation Bible School. But as long as she brings it up I have never met a millennial that has one of these "meters". They seem to be easily impressed to me. (See: Lady Gaga, Toms Shoes, Sleeve Tattoos, and Barack Obama)

“We want an end to the culture wars. We want a truce between science and faith. We want to be known for what we stand for, not what we are against.”  This is simply my opinion. Evans does not want a "truce"-she wants a surrender.

"We want our LGBT friends to feel truly welcome in our faith communities".  I have no idea what she means by feeling “truly welcome”.  There are denominations that make this community feel truly welcomed and those denominations are bleeding membership. Guess what? The membership is not being replaced with millennials.

"Like every generation before ours and every generation after, deep down, we long for Jesus".  This is the only sentence that implies Ms. Evans has any sort of historical insight. With a couple of changes here and there, you could have placed this blog in "The Wayback Machine"  and sent it to 1979. This blog would have been an article in Newsweek magazine and called  “Why Baby Boomers Are Leaving The Church” (‘You gotta wear a tie, man, and I don’t dig it’). This article could have been written twenty-five years ago: "Why Generation X is Leaving The Church" (Surveys show people want to sing hymns that sound like they were written by U2).  The point is every generation thinks it can change the “church”and it simply wants “Jesus”. However, the Jesus they are looking for always ends up looking like themselves and that is the problem.

** Here is a link to Ms. Evans' post: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/         
     Here is a more thoughtful discussion of it than mine: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/frenchrevolution/2013/08/02/why-are-millennials-leaving-the-church-the-narcissism-factor