Generation Y, God and Peter Pan
October 6, 2010
According to the front page of Tuesday's Daily Telegraph 'Generation Y has no use for God.'
'Religion is largely irrelevant to most young people, who rely instead on a 'secular trinity' of themselves, their family and friends to give meaning to their lives.... people born after 1982 have only a ''faded cultural memory'' of Christianity.....Fewer than one in five young people believes in a God ''who created the world and hears by prayers'' and teenagers were more likely to believe in the ''nicer'' parts of religious doctrine than those about the devil and punishment.'
Admittedly it was a slow news day yesterday, a 95 year old comedian had died, Europe won the Ryder Cup plus the usual staple diet of the Telegraph, stay at home mums hit by benefit cuts and Prisoners to earn the minimum wage.
What the article does show shouldn't surprise us in the slightest, neither is it new to those born after 1982. The faded cultural memory of Christianity is a double edged sword but there are advantages to it. It does provide an opportunity to present Christ to a generation who have no preconceived ideas of him from tedious school assemblies and religious education.
As for Generation Y having no use for God, In Peter Pan every time every time someone says 'I don't believe in Fairies' a fairy dies but Generation Y or any other generation can't treat God like that, he's not like Tinkerbell. It can scream loudly I don't believe in God or I've no use for God but that doesn't make him disappear because the reality is 'This earth belongs to God and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.' Psalm 24:1
