The Age Of Youthfulness

Last updated on: April 19, 2018 at 12:10 am by Scot McKnight

The Age Of Youthfulness 2018-04-15T17:03:23-05:00 Scot McKnight

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The age of authenticity (yesterday’s post) is the age of youthfulness. So Andrew Root, in his new splendid book Faith Formation in a Secular Age. How so?

To tell the story of the dawn of the age of authenticity is to show how the flows of our cultural history have moved the majority of us to see the point of life as following not an external authority but the inner search for our own individual meaning and purpose. The age of authenticity asserts that we should be directed by nothing outside us but only by what we find meaningful within us. Youthfulness becomes the late twentieth century’s core strategy for denying external authority (even divine action) to follow the new purpose of “what speaks to me.” Youthfulness promises particular social practices—like sex, drugs, and consumerism—as ways to achieve authenticity.

WW1 and then WW2, the wars that did not end war but become the Cold War, and the USA developing Keynesian economics of consumerism as how the economy is propped up. Our economy boomed as Americans became spenders.

The operative words of our society after WW2 were duty, obligation, and authority.

A draft was in place during World War II, but it is little talked about because it was duty and responsibility, not the draft, that sent men east and west to fight and die. To wait to be asked (in other words, to be obligated) to risk life and limb for country would have been considered outrageous before the age of authenticity. Yet the draft was the core staple of revolt and protest of Vietnam, as the youth burned draft cards and bras. … v’hat ignited the flames of rebellion in the 1960s, as much as matches, was the arrival of authenticity—the idea that your own path, your own desires and wishes, must lead you before any duty or obligation. … Bras went up in flames with draft cards as a way to mutually protest obligation and duty that had no correlation with the authenticity of individual desires. It made sense to protest sexual mores at the same time as war, for both instances the protest was against the authorities that oppose my authenticity.

The men and women of World War II are considered the greatest generation, and their greatness is legitimated by the historical moments they rose to face, but this greatness is also bound simply in our perception. We see these u i men and women through the prism of the age of authenticity, as the last generation before the age of authenticity dawned. They are great to us because they did something we cannot imagine: they followed duty and obligation over the desires of the self.

The generation gap in the 1960s was between duty/obligation and authenticity; today’s society is made up mostly of a generation of authenticity.

How did this happen? The generation of duty decided their duty, after fulfilling their duty to society, was to have a duty to buy. To move to the suburbs, to buy a house, to get education, to carry on. The age of duty gives way to the age of authenticity, which becomes the age of consumerism. The duty was to participate in a mass society by sustaining its economy.

The age of authenticity enters the scene through the act of consumer duty. Yet once a generation comes of age in the womb of a consumer society (i.e. the boomers), the cords that precariously connect consumption and duty are cut, and authenticity becomes our new social imaginary.

The 1950s were the last days of duty: “Duty shows itself fervent when there is conformity in action, attitude, and dress; these are the marks that duty is highly operational” (22). This duty operated outside transcendence; it was immanent and natural. WW2 was connected to freedom, and freedom was connected to the gift and revelation of God. The Cold War had a theological connection because it was anti godless atheism, but deeper down it was the protection of consumerism.

The affluence of the post WW2 society choked out duty and opened the door to expressivistic authenticity. The large middle class became the age of authenticity. The youth of the middle class lived in suburbs and played on plush green lawns surrounded by other middle class children who didn’t have to work to grind out a life. Youth became adolescence. The rural population lived with duty; the suburbanites and city folks not so much. Their job was to play. Toys became big business.

Segmentation and advertising were connected. One’s segment in society — youth — became the silo in which one lived and consumed. This segmentation separated adults from children, and each conformed to each.

It was the mass society and its extensive invasion into the middle class (for mostly white people), creating for their children a duty-free space, that turned this ancient concern for the young into a new social imaginary of youthfulness.

HS graduation became the norm for the first time. [This is mostly a description of white culture, folks.] Children went to college not to return to the family farm or business but to explore their own career.

Enter the James Dean rebel against conformity.

The rebel revealed that the middle-class affluence of the mass society was no free ride, that while the young were given space and freedom, a hidden reciprocity was in place—the young take the freedom, becoming teenagers, free from direct duty and obligation to focus on the music, cars, and clothes of their segmentation. But in return, they accept conformity, following the rules and taking the path marked from letter jacket to gray flannel suit and starched plaid dress.

Enter Christian resistance.

The call to conformity of the mass society and the hidden but nascent conditions of an expressive individualism made it a perfect time for conservative Christians to reengage society. And part of the mission of their reengagement was directed toward the segmented group called teenagers. Organizations like Youth for Christ and Young Life turned their attention to the middle-class high school as their new mission field. Young Life, for instance, believed that if it could convince the most successful high school students, the models of conformity—say, the captain of the football team and the homecoming queen—to come to its weekly club, then others would in turn conform and follow. The mass society and its magnetic pull of conformity could draw many, if you could simply get the right magnet to participate.

Segmentation: to the young, by the young, for the young. Youthfulness abounds. Would the church’s youth’s conformity age into adult church conformity.

Participation in youth groups was a choice, a kind of consumerism in a segmented group. Measurement was by way of participation. That is, by conformity to a group. Transcendence is not the focus.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 18, 2018

The Death Of The Church 2: The ACF

Next Post

April 19, 2018 An Ancient Document (RJS)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Acts of the Apostles Adam Advent Anabaptism Angels Anglican Apologetics Atonement Baptism BCP Prayers Bible Biblical Studies Birds Blogging Bloglossary Bonhoeffer Books Calvinism Christianity Church Church History Coffee Colossians Commentary Recs Conversion Creation Creeds Culture Death Ecclesiastes Economics Education Embracing Grace Emergent Emerging Movement Eschatology Essays Ethics Eucharist Evangelicalism Family Fasting Fathers Fellowship of Differents Footsteps Tour Fun and Whimsical Gospel Grace Happiness Heaven Hell Holy Spirit Irenaeus James Jesus Jesus Creed Job Justification Kingdom of God Law Lectures Lent Liberalism Love and Marriage Mabanteneni Manhood Mary Miracles Missio Alliance MissioLife Missional Missional Jesus Movies and Film New Perspective Northern Seminary OneLife Origins Project Orthodox Parables Pastor's Spouse Pastoring and Leading Pastoring and Preaching Patristics Paul Paul-John Tour Pharisees Pietism Political Theology Prayer and Formation Preaching Problems for Faith Psalm 119 Psalms Public Issues Purgatory Religions Resurrection Revelation Romans Rule of JCreed Science and Faith Sermon on the Mount Sports Ten Commandments Theology Third Way Top Ten Lists Translations Uncategorized Universalism University Ministry Way Out Weekly Meanderings Wisdom Women and Ministry Work Worship Writing & Blogging Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2021 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the king that the angel of the Lord struck because he did not give God glory, but received the worship of the people, and who was eaten by worms?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Haddam Herod Saul Hezekiah