The Millennial generation does not imagine they are accepting or rejecting the Christian Faith–they imagine they are entering into formation for a new way of life, and they expect the Church to initiate, guide, teach, equip, and send them. 

What follows delves into how this may play out when considering the practice of “communion without baptism.”

——————————————————————————————————–

The Lord GOD has given me

the tongue of a teacher,

that I may know how to sustain

the weary with a word.

Morning by morning he wakens–

wakens my ear

to listen as those who are
taught. (Isaiah 50:4-9a)

Isaiah’s words ring loudly if we take up the challenge to understand our times forthrightly and consider candidly the looming debates within the Church. I humbly pray that we as a Church may be as one who knows how to “sustain the weary with a word.” I pray that we all are awakened daily by the Lord with ears “to listen as those who are taught.”

We should recognize, even if unable at present to understand, that within Western culture and particularly American culture, we are undergoing a profound, long-term change.   This is absolutely true for the Church and Christianity in general, also. One advantage we have in the enduring Christian Church is that we’ve been around for a very long time and have seen this all before. The question is whether we will learn from the past or whether we will simply repeat the past mistakes and be subsumed by the present, temporary, and thin zeitgeist. Change is inevitable, and can be very good, but we have to question and examine the reasons and means for change – why, why now, how, to what degree, what might be the unforeseen consequences?, and so forth.

One of the current travails within the Church is how to stem the tide of decline so that we might again thrive. One of the aspects of change we are examining for the Church (and here I am speaking specifically of the Episcopal Church, the institutional expression of Anglicanism in the United States) is how to engage younger generations (really, for too many people it revolves are how to “appeal to”) younger generations.  One way proposed to appeal to younger folks is to remove all assumed “barriers,” including the need for baptism before the reception of Holy Communion, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who are we, after all, to deny them something that doesn’t belong to us, anyway, right? The problem is – that plays well with Baby Boomer sentimental thinking, but not particularly well with younger generations in the aggregate.

So, what follows are some thoughts I have about “communion without baptism” as the issue plays out in the upcoming General Convention of
the Episcopal Church USA this summer.

Introduction:

The focus of this commentary deals with how the debate within the Episcopal Church over “communion without baptism” may be conceived of within the cultural melee experienced by “emerging generations”[i] and the place, needs, and hopes of younger people. The demographic we are primarily considering is the generation known as the “Millennials” or “Generation Y” – those who are roughly 11-29 years-of-age. This is a complex generation, and even while we are all still figuring out what makes them a coherent generation, there are reliable generational characteristics that can be generalized.

When dealing with the many theological, sociological, and pedagogical considerations concerning communion of the unbaptized, within the context of Millennials there are additional considerations that need to be taken into account: 1.) The influences of previous generations on the upbringing of this group of people; 2.) The general cultural context that this generation now inhabits and how they function within it; and 3.) The foundation upon which this generation builds its understanding of life, humanity, personhood, and the world and their engagement with it – their default “faith” or worldview. Each of these will be briefly dealt with below.

These additional considerations are couched within the overarching goals of being present with young people within their constantly changing contexts so to be a witness of God’s reconciling and regenerative presence and love, to learn how to translate the enduring,[ii]
living Christian Faith in ways that will resonate with them, and to discover the best means for bringing the emerging generation into the mystical Body of Christ and ultimately the parish community.

Finally, over the last ten years, I have repeatedly heard and read from young people that the older “leadership of the Church does not listen to us!” We are continually trying to reconfigure the Church and its worship attempting to be relevant and accessible in ways we presume younger people will like. Yet, they are not impressed, literally. We recognize this by their growing absence. What they are seeking is something worthwhile to live for – something that proves to them that it is important enough, big enough, and hopeful enough for their consideration and devotion.[iii] Many are finding this in other expressions of Christianity, even as studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that the hope and life of historic Anglicanism is primed to take advantage of the spiritual disposition of Millennials.

“The mind of a person with understanding gets knowledge; the wise person listens to learn more.” (Proverbs 18:15)

Influence of Previous Generations:

It has been said of Baby-Boomers (born between 1946 to around 1960[iv]) that they are the first generation to reject lessons learned from the past. There was and continues to be a generational suspicion of, if not outright rejection of, established institutions, convention, and what came before them. The generation untethered itself from the past in order to create a new world. A continuing example of this can be seen in TV commercials extolling how the Baby-Boomers are overthrowing traditional thinking and remaking retirement for themselves. Yet, Baby-Boomers were enculturated and formed as children within a society that still valued the sense of continuity and understanding that rests
with tradition and elder-wisdom. There was a collective rejection of how they were raised.

It has been said of Generation X (those born around 1961 through 1981) that they are the first generation to draw meaning from popular culture. They are the “MTV” generation. This seems to be a natural progression from the Baby-Boomer rejection of lessons learned from past generations and their values. Where else are GenX’ers to find meaning, if the past is moot and untrustworthy – even dangerous? They find meaning from what is – now. Of course, the “now” is constantly morphing, particularly when considering the advent of the Internet and the continual re-framing of what is and can be known as true or final or valid – all ideas, all theories, and all concepts are equal on the Internet. Generation X is the first generation to be raised with the growing sense of being unconnected to anything sure and trustworthy.

Research reveals that the Millennial Generation (those born after around 1982 until somewhere from 2001through 2004) is the first generation where social networking and technology predominate in their everyday lives. They have access to more information and the ability for connectivity than any other generation. Members express a strong sense of abandonment by adults. As a result, Millennials have created for themselves a hidden subculture that
most adults do not see or understand.[vi] Their lives revolve around fast changing, capricious, and often-manipulative fads perpetuated through a pervasive media. Underneath all the hype and hoopla, our young people are weary and wary even as they express hope for the future.

Consider that in the aggregate, the parents of Millennials
(generally Baby-Boomers) are not raising their children in any particular kind
of faith.  Many parents do not want their
kids to be unduly influenced by what they consider to be antiquated and
confining past religious expectations. This generational sensibility continues
to compel adults to want young people to develop their own personal religious
faith in their own time, if any religious belief at all. Yet, parents do not
give much guidance or instruction to their children with respect to spiritual
development generally or Christian formation specifically. A consequence is
that adolescents without any formal religious education or experience arrive on
college campuses or into the adult world without an understanding for making
sound judgments of what is a legitimate faith expression or what is cultic,
spiritually manipulative, or emotionally harmful. Thus, it is reasonable that a
default, culturally generated faith such as “Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism”[vii]
has developed to fill the void.

Consider that even for the Millennials who are being raised
within institutional religious settings, particularly Mainline Protestantism,
the general zeitgeist compels parents and adults to attempt to be more like
coordinators who want to help young people discover their own beliefs rather
than teachers of an enduring, consistent Christian faith. For their own good,
we make our children take music lessons or attend athletic practices, but we do
not make them be a part of the church. Thus, the example set by Baby-Boomer
parents and adults generally does not convey to young people that this
Christian Faith is important enough to teach and pass-on to the next
generation. They believe Christian life is, therefore, not worthy enough for
their consideration and involvement.

Consider that Millennials report having very good and
important relationships with their parents. They believe in a positive future
and have a sense of confidence in their abilities. They believe that the
existence of the institutional Church is good and important, yet they do not
believe that the Church has any relevance for their own lives. Ironically, part
of the reason for this is that young people do not believe that most of those
who go to church are in fact particularly Christian.[viii]

Adults rarely perceive their engagement with young people in
these ways, but this is what younger people generally report experiencing.

Questions that might be helpful to ponder: Have parents
abandoned their responsibility to be engaged as the primary movers in the
spiritual formation of their children? Has the institutional Church relinquished
its obligation to teach the enduring Christian Faith handed down from
generation to generation? Has the institutional Church itself been overwhelmed
and usurped by prevailing culture?  Why
do we find ourselves in a situation where fewer people among the emerging
generations find any relevance or alternative within the Church to what they
experience in the world? 

The Cultural Dynamic:

The cultural environment within which Millennials have and
are growing up is substantially different than any other generation in the
history of the U.S. Family dynamics, the ubiquitous use of technology that
enables instantaneous access to entertainment and communication, relationships
that are not bound by geography or tactile presence, and the omnipresence of
information and opinion are but a few significant considerations. There is the
extension of the “latch-key” phenomenon of the 1980’s and 90’s where parents
exert less and less formal oversight of and casual engagement with their
children. For many Millennials, the parental project of raising their children
and instilling an ethical system has been turned over to the schools. This same
dynamic is occurring as parents turn over the Christian formation of their
children to the institutional Church, if they engage any religious practice at
all. Children are less likely to have family traditions, generational wisdom,
or religious beliefs passed on to them by their parents. Finally, constant
change has bred a sense of being disconnected to anything sure and a chaos that
seems to rule their lives.

We are all enculturated from birth into ways of thinking and
being within our social environs and within common culture. Enculturation
normally occurs unconsciously as the prevailing social norms and expectations
are conveyed through media, educational systems, family influence, and peer
relationships. Religious institutions are playing far less of a positive role
than in the past. Enculturation can “form” us positively and negatively. We are
“formed” unknowingly, but for the Christian a process of intentional
“re-formation” is important in order to identify and heal those aspects of
enculturation that are negative and harmful to our individual and social good.

The reality we face as Christians living in the second
decade of 21^st Century America is that young people are “formed” by
aspects of popular culture that work contrary to their spiritual health – the
way of life we are called to by Jesus Christ that enables a sustainable society
full of beauty and at peace. This is most significant because they lack basic
understandings of Christian truths formerly communicated through the common
culture of Christendom that mitigated aspects of negative enculturation.

Taking into account the coming and going of various
Christian movements over the past sixty-odd years, we have seen great change in
American Christianity. We are now reaping the results of Mainline Protestantism
of the ’60’s through 70’s and American-Evangelicalism of the 1980’s with the
resulting politicization and polarization of religion coupled with the ending
of Christendom.[ix]  Church practice has developed into a kind of “therapy” church – within the churches it has become more important to try to
make people feel good about themselves (and the Church) than to teach the enduring
Faith tradition or challenge people to strive for the amendment of life through
Christ. This kind of “church” has resulted in little Christian growth and
maturation.[x]

We are well past the “Seeker/Church Growth Movement” of the
1990’s as a phenomenon primarily among Baby-Boomers with its reaction against
institutional Christianity and tradition. We are now beyond the “Emergent
Movement” coming into its own during the 2000’s, which was and continues to be
a phenomenon among primarily GenX ‘ers engaged in figuring out how to be the
Church within Postmodernism, which among other things opens again an acceptance
of mystery. 

Among Millennials, we are realizing the phenomenon of the
end of the “Constantinian-Era” of Western Christianity – a “Post-Constantinianism.”
Aside from changes in technology and some social structures, we have entered
into a social construct that has much in common with the way early Christians
experienced life within prevailing cultures that were at best indifferent and
at worst hostile to Christian faith and life.

The questions to ponder within current cultural contexts are
these: How does the Church respond within a culture that no longer supports
Christian notions of the human being, of ethics, of our world, and of our place
in the world?  How does the Church
respond to a generation of which the majority of members have no formal
religious education and very little meaningful religious experience? How should
the Church respond to younger people who seek a kind of “spirituality,” but
have little notion of what that means or how to attain it outside of cultural
trend, whim, or fickle personal feelings?

The Default Faith of
the Millennials:

The “National Study of Youth and Religion”[xi]
reveals that younger people have developed a sense of spirituality that the
authors define as “Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism.” This is not just another
variant of the Christian Faith, the authors stress. It is an uncritical
something-else that has developed among younger people as a result of their enculturation.
They are usually not able to coherently articulate this as a spiritual
belief-system, yet it well describes their sense of a supreme-being and how
they engage with such a supreme-being and how that supreme-being engages them,
including how they are to behave. This god is out there somewhere, doesn’t
really have concern for human affairs, but is expected to hopefully bail us out
of trouble when we need it, and the highest moral ideal is to be nice (which is
not the same as loving your neighbor as yourself).

Regrettably, the authors write that this default “faith” of
younger people is not a result of churches teaching the Christian Faith badly.
This is, in fact, the “faith” that primarily Mainline Protestantism is now
teaching by example to its young people.[xii]
As a priest recently said, “My church is full of unconverted people.” It is
very difficult for those who do not effectively know the Christian Faith and
the life resulting from such a Faith to instill in the emerging generation a
meaningful and consequential Christian understanding and experience. We are
collectively living a deficient form of Christianity, and young people know it.

Consider that with respect to religious or spiritual
beliefs, an understanding of the self, and knowledge of Christian faith and
praxis among emerging generations, research reveals the dire need for clear and
consistent teaching from the Church. We need to reengage our teaching ministry
– the process of catechetical formation among people who know little about the
Faith. In these days, an institution that cannot clearly articulate its
beliefs, its purpose, and its uniqueness will quickly lose the interest of
younger people. Too many other things are gaming for their attention.

Questions to ponder as we think about faith development
among younger people: If the culturally inspired, default spiritual
understanding of a growing majority of Millennials is no longer built upon a
foundation of historic Christian thought and practice, how must the Church
respond? What is the teaching responsibility of the Church when approached by
those who know little or nothing about the Christian understanding of humanity,
the world, and God’s call to us? How do we live in ways that bear witness to a
God who is personal and comes among us, who is engaged with us through history,
and who desires us to come into the fullness of Christ?

Final Considerations:

Consider that there is a difference between respectful
listening so to learn how to better engage and teach emerging generations and,
alternately, a kind of listening that ends up relinquishing the obligation to
teach so to avoid controversy or perceived affront. It is always easier and
less controversial to be an impassive spiritual guild rather than a forthright
teacher.  We tend to think that being
less demanding and more vague will mean more interest and participation. This
way of thinking is continually shown to be false.

Consider, too, that there is a difference between giving the
consecrated elements of Holy Communion to unbaptized people for pastoral
reasons and the giving of the elements to unbaptized people as a matter of
course for reasons surrounding hospitality or inclusivity. As is evident in the
aggregate, that emerging generations are not responding to an increased focus
on “hospitality” and “inclusivity.” There is a desire for community,
fellowship, and diverse environments assuredly, but these things are not
understood by Millennials within the same concept of “hospitality” or
“inclusivity” that is proffered by many leaders within the Church at this time.

Consider that notions that emerging generations are not
interested in their spiritual lives, in church attendance, or learning about
the enduring Christian Faith are all simply myth, often used by leadership to
make excuses for the absence of young people from the Church. There are a
plethora of churches and Christian groups that are growing and thriving among
Millennials. The problem is that our Church, along with many, have all lost the
collective ability to not only experience the fullness of the Life in Christ
among present members, but have relinquished the project of learning how to
translate and pass on the enduring Christian Faith and practice to the next
generation in ways that resonate with them.

Could it be that we no longer listen to learn, effectively?
Could it be that we no longer are able to give comfort with a word in ways that
emerging generations can receive?

Conclusion: Bringing
it all together –

The churches in which I grew up considered both baptism and
the Lord’s Supper to be only symbolic. We were baptized at an age of
accountability only as an outward sign of a decision already made. We received
communion crackers and grape juice only as a remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice
and resurrection. There was no sacramental understanding and no “means of
grace” held within the elements. The church in which I spent eight years as a
lay campus pastor before becoming an Episcopalian is growing with over a
million more members in the U.S. than the Episcopal Church (with probably two
million more showing up on Sundays) and approximately 70 million members
worldwide – nearly as large as the entire Anglican Communion. Yet I can say
authoritatively that the continued growth in these kinds of churches is not
because people have a warm feeling of welcome as a result of being allowed to
take communion regardless of where they are in their personal or spiritual
lives. And, these are not churches where the members leave their brains at the
door.

Most all indicators among younger people point in a
direction where clear teaching, rigorous yet fair expectation, and deeply held
beliefs-proven-over-time are what they are seeking. They do not want to be told
what to believe out-of-hand. This can help explain their declining interest in
Evangelical and Roman churches. Yet, they seek something efficacious by which
to be challenged – not just the same, old thing they experience in a wearying
common culture.

We know that there is an increasing sense of loneliness and
narcissism among emerging generations.[xiii]
Technology is passé. Moving forward, an important ministry of the Church will
be to re-teach in word and by example how to have and maintain low-tech,
tactile, supportive, and multigenerational relationships.

Millennials are seeking something that is not bound by the
chaos of constant change. Those who are truly trying to find God and develop a
spiritual understanding of life are seeking examples of real alternatives to
the morass of prevailing culture among people who claim this enduring Faith.
They are seeking something that is not trite or superficial and something that
proves to be profoundly consequential.

Changing the Canons and teaching of this Church to provide
as normative communion without baptism will have profound consequence concerning
what this Church has taught and lived for centuries as part of the One Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church and for our ecumenical relationships, but such
change will not cause a re-engagement of Millennials with this Church. It will
not provide for younger people collectively an example of vibrant and
significant belief. It will have little consequence for the Church as it tries
to attract a new generation of faithful Christians.

By providing an open invitation to come and explore this radical
Christian reality, we give young people who have little real knowledge of
Christian belief and practice the freedom to seek and question and wrestle with
the implications of this Faith. When they believe themselves ready to heed the
call of Jesus to enter into more formal relationships with God and other
parishioners in the context of the mystical Body of Christ, we make available
to them baptism – the initiation into the Church. Finally, when they believe
that they are ready to take upon themselves the profound significance of
Christ’s death and resurrection through the reception of the consecrated
elements of Holy Communion, they have a good understanding of what they are getting
themselves into. They have then determined for themselves that this life in
Christ is truly what they seek.  This is
not an effort to usher them into an exclusive club, but to meet them where they
are as they seek that which remains sure and true over time and demonstrates a
way of being that is life altering, with immense and eternal consequences. Centered
on Christ, this is a word that sustains the weary.

(Special thanks to The Rev. Amy Coultas for the beginning summation!)

Respectfully submitted for consideration by:
The Rev. Robert Griffith, SCP
Imago Dei Initiative
Brooklyn, NY