Generation Complex
Andy Crouch
April 1, 1999
It may seem unlikely, or at least unwise, for a magazine whose name is re:generation to question the North American obsession with generations. But that's exactly what we do in this issue's cover section, where a couple of the country's most prominent ministers to "Generation X" offer their assessment of young-adult-targeted ministries, increasingly popular in North American churches. Aside from wanting to stir up a good conversation (rq exists in no small part to keep you thinking, not just reacting), this issue gives a chance to clarify what we think it means, and doesn't mean, to be a "generational" magazine.
A bit of perspective can't hurt. Friction between children and parents goes at least as far back as a (possibly apocryphal) Babylonian stone tablet that reads, "The younger generation no longer honors the traditions. They will destroy our culture." But in most societies throughout history and even today, the young see themselves, and are seen by their elders, as representatives of a continuous stream of humanity, not as avatars of a unique generational spirit that will either save or destroy Civilization As We Know It.
One of those societies was Israel, in whose scriptures, with a very few exceptions, the word generation is used in contexts of continuity, not discontinuity. The commandments in the Torah are given along with an instruction (which is repeated roughly forty times) that they are to be kept "throughout your generations." Psalm 48 is typical in its use of the word:
"Walk about Zion, go all around it, count its towers, consider well its ramparts; go through its citadels, that you may tell the next generation that this is our God, our God forever and ever." Far from one generation being separated from the next ...
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