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Looking under the Surface of the Millennial Generation
Article ID: JAF1341
By: Mark Sayers
This article first appeared in Christian Research Journal, volume 34, number 01 (2011). For furtherinformation or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
Most of the media discussion around Millennials, or Generation Y, tends to focus on sensationalist trends andtraits. Thus we are given a superficial caricature of a generation that is selfish, narcissistic, sexually permissive, and technologically addicted.
A deeper exploration, however, reveals a generationthat has been raised and therefore shaped by the Baby Boomers. The postwar Boomers were the first Youth Generation. The Baby Boomers represented a radical break with previous models of personhood, andpioneered an attitude to life that was shaped by a mistrust of institutions and traditions, hedonism, a post-covenantal approach to relationships, and rugged, expressive individualism. The Boomersultimately sought to gain a sense of personal freedom in order to define their own lives.
Therefore the Millennial Generation is burdened with the task of creating and defining their own lives.Millennials thus seek to eke out lives of meaning, and try to grasp moments of experiential transcendence from the offerings of consumer culture. By following the culture’s life script, young adults placethemselves at the center of a disenchanted universe, ultimately turning themselves into idols.
Any Christian response must go beyond simply dealing with surface behaviors and instead must encourageyoung adults to reorient themselves around the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Only the cross can offer the individual a sense of transcendence; only the cross can offer a way out of the prison ofself-worship; only the resurrected Christ can give young adults a place in God’s plan to renew the universe.
The Millennials, Generation Y, the Boomerang Generation, the Net Generation, and Echo...