NEWS

Reaching Gen Xers requires a fresh look at theology, Hein-Fry lecturer suggests

(February 2001)--Theological resources are scarce to help modern church leaders "rethink mission" to post-boomer generations, according to this year's Hein-Fry lecturer at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. So Thomas More Beaudoin presented two lectures February 20 to help current and future church leaders think theologically about the critical challenge to reach "Gen-Xers."

Beaudoin, an author and Ph.D. candidate at Boston College, was both animated and challenging in delivering a thought-provoking perspective while addressing the Hein-Fry theme for 2001: "Spiritual but not Religious: Reaching 'Lost' Generations -- Understanding Mission Among 18 to 30 Year Olds."

The 31-year-old Beaudoin, a native of Kansas City, has a Roman Catholic background with insights gleaned in recent years from the Southern Baptist and Jewish traditions. He noted in an interview that his father, a former Jesuit who is Director of Formation for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Kansas City, had brought him up close to the Church "and not to hate the Church," but before returning to the fold of his roots, Beaudoin had needed as a young adult to "get away" from the "suburban captivity" of the Church for a while. These days as a practicing Catholic (with some time to perform as a rock musician too) he regularly consults with youth, young adults and youth leaders. He told his Seminary audiences he was especially concerned these days "to see that the right questions are asked" about mission to post-boomers. "I'm not attempting to deliver a 'how-to' of ministry to Gen-Xers," he said at one point. He described his lectures as the "beginning stage" of a project to generate a theology that appropriately addresses the current culture and the Church.

Beaudoin in his first remarks discussed a concern to make sure the Church affords youth and young adults an appropriate freedom to define the "subjectivity" of their individual personalities. His address, "Bonhoeffer and Foucault: On the Way to a Postmodern Christian Self," explored Bonhoeffer's World War II Letters from Prison and the philosophical explorations of French Philosopher Michel Foucault. His goal was to analyze the reflections of the pair in order to discern "what we might see for today" from their works. He defined a struggle, as described by Foucault with echoes from Bonhoeffer, to "ferret out the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us."

"The Church will serve young adults as no other institution in the United States does when it skills young adults to undertake practices of self-examination," Beaudoin said. Such practice will encourage young adults "to take up a critical distance from technologies of power (in the culture) and re-establish technologies of self. This means the Church will have to confront its own technologies of power that attempt to control (an individual's) subjectivity through a certain moralizing, a certain pietism....there is no other institution in our culture that can perform this liberating service against the fascisms of our inner life the way the Church can...."

He urged the Church also not to become overeager when it is pressed to define truth. "In John 18:38, Jesus is silent in the face of Pilate's question, 'What is truth?'," Beaudoin said. "Perhaps we have not fully entered in to Jesus' silence. It is a magnetic force toward which all of our theological claims are drawn -- they must strive again and again to face his silence, which in a practical way means radical and unending critique." Beaudoin described the "irresolvable tension between the examination of truth as a practice and the seeking of God's freedom for us."

In an afternoon address entitled, "The Church: Defender of Theocapitalism?" Beaudoin defined the current culture of consumer media capitalism which immerses many. The fusion of media and culture has profoundly shaped personal values, leading to liberal consumerism, Beaudoin noted. In such a climate consumer media capitalism becomes a kind of theocapitalism, which he described as "an economic strategy attempting to secure its ends in and through religio-spiritual terms and practices." He said that in his own work with young adults he has noted "a striking conformity" about the images of the good, material life, "not just in terms of specific goods but specific brands of those goods...Americans in general manifest a common imagination oriented to specific consumer fantasies." The Church may inadvertently find itself absorbed into the spirit of cultural conformity, he said. Theology today needs to be accountable in the way it analyzes cultural influences in order to minister effectively to young adults immersed in the culture, he suggested.

In an interview, Beaudoin said, "We need to heal the rift between theology and practice. The Church is fulfilling its mission most when it is willing to put its future at risk." He warned that when the Church tries to "free" young people it may inadvertently be controlling them. "We need to invite young adults to think anew what the Christian self is. The Church needs today to be more self-critical of the way it can, despite good intentions, control the self-identity of young people." He especially cautioned against a certain tendency for churches to make young adults "passive consumers" of church instruction in administering Catechetics and other forms of teaching. "There is a danger in borrowing into the Church a corporate strategy that makes us passive consumers of advertising and goods," he said.

Regarding the consumer media capitalism climate, he warned churches against a certain "veneration of numbers" and how it may define "success." "We tend to think of those with the biggest numbers as being the most successful," he said, "but I see no evidence in scripture for this exclusive model of success."

He voiced a concern that a small, struggling ministry may not be considered a model for success in a consumer capitalist mindset. In terms of evangelism, he said, "It is more important to keep a salvation-oriented conversation going with people than it is to be obsessed with numbers. We need to be more concerned about the quality of the relationships we develop than about the number of those relationships."