The Failure of Traditional Religion Spirituality
Spirituality in the world is taking on a deeper rationality. As a younger group matures, they are showing a growing tendency to reject organized religion. They are claiming to still desire some kind of attachment to a higher power, but albeit on their terms. The so-called millennial generation are feeling an increasing disconnect between their personal values and the teachings of organized religion.
Of course, we are very aware of this phenomenon as we have lived through versions of this within the Church. Many people today want their chosen religious affiliation to embrace with approval, their pursuit of individual autonomy and social justice. This often includes issues of gender and sexuality.
There is certainly something about the spirit in man which craves a connection to a higher power – a spiritual experience. But of itself, it does not have the capacity to make the right connections. It is a mind driven by self and this world reflects a self-driven society.
The degree to which western thought has been modified is extensive. Man now comfortably defines for himself what is right and what is wrong, and of course, right is whatever pleases self.
If an organization is rigid in its application of religious values, it is seen as out of touch with reality. So the result is people turning away from organized religion to find their own version of spirituality.
We know that the world’s religions are not faultless. Not all the values they uphold are of God, but rather what man reasons God’s truth to be. An additional factor is when a religion teaches one thing, but then does another, young people see the hypocrisy and reject it.
We can identify with that too. Many young (and older) people saw hypocrisy within the Church and turned away.
So, what is the answer to these generational differences? It is clear from God’s word that there are not to be generational differences within the body. Each generation is to pass down the same truths revealed to the Church by God.
The mechanics for achieving this is simply put – the act of repentance. Repentance is a standard that never changes. It requires from each of us exactly the same thing.
We must come to see ourselves, regardless of age, as God sees us. Human nature is consistent, even though Satan adjusts how it is expressed so that everyone thinks they are better than those who have gone before.
But God forcefully tells us that human nature is enmity (hatred) against God and cannot be subject to the law of God. This rejection of any standard from a higher source allows man to decide morality for himself. That is the bottom line, no matter how it is generationally expressed. And it has been so since the Garden of Eden.
So when we come to the point as Job did – that he abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes, we experience the leveler. Surrender of self to the will of God from generation to generation.
“We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done. For He established a testimony* in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children; that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born, that they may arise and declare them to their children, that they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments” (Psalm 78:4-7).
*Note: testimony: “The word testimony is used for the ark, and for the law, written on tables of stone, put within the ark, and covered with the mercy seat. This testified the Lord’s gracious presence with his people, and seemed to point out to them both the way of access and acceptance, and the standard or rule of their duty.” Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.
That standard of rule is the connector between the generations. Repentant, converted minds embrace that standard.
Brian Orchard
