Metamodernism and the New Builders
The last several decades have seen the evangelical church in a struggle with postmodernism for the soul of our culture. While Christianity flourished in the modern age with its enlightenment ideals and emphasis on truth and progress, the twentieth century took a wrecking ball to the notion that any utopian ideals could be realized. The deep cynicism of Postmodernism rejected any claims of universal truths or useful metanarratives. It seeded pluralism deep and wide in our cultural soil. I might even argue that postmodernism ushered in an age of idolatry unlike anything the world has ever witnessed; an idolatry not composed of wood and stone images, but mirrors. “To thine own self be true,” sprouted not a flourishing garden, but a weedpatch of rudderless self worship; a world in which we ourselves are gods, yet with no wisdom, holiness, or providence. A postmodern world fully shaped, is a hopeless and meaningless world.
Enter Gen Z, a generation fed up with the meaninglessness of meaninglessness. Developing alongside their generation is a response to Postmodernism, dubbed by some as Metamodernism. While the postmodernists got their kicks by tearing down the traditional structures of society and deconstructing all truth claims, metamodernists aren’t content to live a life destroying the dreams of their forebears. They’ve inherited a healthy dose of skepticism from postmodernism, but they aren’t willing to dwell in absurdity. They oscillate in embracing both skepticism and optimism, and somehow hold both at the same time. In a figurative sense, as postmodernists rallied to burn down the government, metamodernists are left questioning, “Now who will build the roads? Perhaps we will.” They want to build something they can believe in because they know that they must live in a real broken world, and they desire to find a way forward. They want meaning.
The Democratic party has always done a better job marketing itself to our youth. You may remember a slogan oft repeated during the Biden campaign, promising to “Build Back Better.” While the fulfillment of that promise has been dubious, the sentiment resonated well from a metamodern perspective. GenZ have a desire to put their hand to the plow in making society and the world a better place. They have a renewed but cautious optimism.
In a sad turn, the Neo-Marxists have been far more effective in harnessing the energy of GenZ for their purposes than has the church. If GenZ is lost, or worse, mobilized for nefarious purposes, we need to take an honest look at our culpability. An entire generation is looking for hope and meaning and somehow we’re going to miss that opportunity? Inexcusable.
Part of our collective disconnect with GenZ is that they have retained some elements of postmodernism that we find most irksome. Namely, a lingering cynicism toward broad truth claims and some more progressive social perspectives. However, unlike the purely postmodern, they are willing to embrace truth claims when they are convinced, and will even commit to the ramifications. In effect, they are more willing than some previous generations to actually live out their convictions in the most practical ways of their daily lives. What a tremendous opportunity for discipleship. Imagine a generation of Christians passionate about not just believing the gospel, but living it out in its full implications, a generation willing to sacrifice, to live for something greater than comfort or prosperity, to dream bigger than an individualized faith and success! It’s GenZ.
So how do we reach GenZ? I do think some analysis can lead us in a helpful direction. There are those who might pound the pulpit a little harder and demand that faithful gospel preaching is always the right answer, and while I won’t dare disagree, I might also sprinkle a dash of contextualization which could help us be more effective in our proclamation.
Consider that GenZ are the loneliest generation alive, with 73% reporting feeling alone sometimes or always. While they are the most digitally interconnected generation, studies have demonstrated feelings of loneliness directly correlated to social media use. This loneliness is more than a feeling. There are significant health implications already manifesting an epidemic of mental health diagnoses and complex behavioral disorders. In May of 2023 the Surgeon General released an advisory warning that loneliness has equal effects on your health as smoking 15 cigarettes per day.
Baby Boomers may be able to relate to the struggles of the advance of technology in the workplace and the necessity to become computer literate in order to keep pace. Now the pendulum has swung. Employers are finding GenZ employees lack the basic social skills necessary to cooperate in the workplace, and there is an entire industry dedicated to social skills training, much in the same way computer/technology trainings became necessary for older generations in the recent past.
Does the church have an inroad here? I think so. Broadly, what GenZ is desperately longing for is real community and real personal connection, though they are simultaneously maladroit at producing it. We have a Biblical model for this. While we might jump directly to the fellowship and community inherent in the local church, at an even more rudimentary level what we are talking about is hospitality. GenZ needs real personal relationships, but they need others to reach out to them in their loneliness and fold them into social interaction and community because they struggle to produce it themselves. In equal proportion to its own paradoxes, GenZ needs an overt assertion of care, but with a light touch. It might mean that reaching GenZ will require less preaching from the safety of our pulpits, and more invitations to our tables. It means extending intellectual hospitality and a courageously grace-filled spirit, while we endure some bad manners and guide them away from a milieu of moral chaos and toward Christ. The gospel of Christ continues to be the only hope for meaning in our real broken world full of real broken people. Our responsibility as co-laborers and co-heirs with Christ is to bring them to His table, which may start with ours.
