alexis in the city

“Young ‘outsiders’ and Christians alike do not want a cheap, ordinary or insignificant life but their vision of present-day Christianity is just that - superficial, antagonistic, depressing. … [They] deserve better than the unChristian faith and won’t put up with anything less. And, unlike any previous generation, they will not give us time to get our act together. If we do not deal with unChristian faith, we will have missed our chance to bring spiritual awakening to a new generation.”

~Dave Kinnaman, President of Barna Institute and author of unChristian

unChristian (whose author, Dave Kinnaman, is an alum of my alma mater, Biola University) focuses primarily on the perceptions of “Christianity” from those outside the faith but also spends a fair amount of time in the first couple chapters discussing reactions from young people within The Church as well. The bottom line? These perceptions and reactions are pretty similar. Whether from inside or outside, it’s clear The Church is failing miserably in being relevant to the “conversation generation.”

This is no surprise. But what makes this book and its conclusions so powerful is that they’re based on three years of extensive study conducted by one of the most prestigious and respected research institutions. Based on these years of study, Kinnaman points to six major skepticisms and objections to Christianity in America in the 21st century that come from young people both within and outside of the church:

1. Hypocritical

2. Too focused on getting converts

3. Anti-homosexual

4. Sheltered

5. Too political

6. Judgmental

I could’ve written this list myself (and have, in many more words, over the course of my blogging career). If I - as a member of The Church (for better or worse) - have experienced pain and frustration from these above objections, how much more so would it affect someone outside of this religion? A lot of people, churches and faith communities are starting to understand what a big deal this is - but a lot aren’t, thinking that the answer to the preferences of Gen X / Gen Y / The Millenials et al is to buckle down, yell louder and point the finger harder.

While much of this blog is about my struggle with the Christianity of modern America, and while this book is written with data I could’ve given myself, I am by no means exempt from the issues. I think those who yell louder and point fingers in an effort to build a dam around the necessary evolution of faith are wrong. But I know I don’t always handle my opinions in the best way possible, often focusing on division and anger rather than unification and love.

There is, perhaps, nothing I want more than to be part of a faith that’s relevant and active in my community on a fundamental, actionable, day-to-day level. I hope the people within my religion who disagree with my implementation can at least see my motives. And I hope the people outside my religion can see beyond the unChristianity that often surrounds it.

(As for the book, HIGHLY recommended, especially if you’d like to crawl inside the head of someone who struggles with The Church.)

What’s gotten me into trouble though is my suspicion that a person can be a follower of the way of Jesus without affiliating with the Christian religion, and my simultaneous lament that a person can be accepted and even celebrated as a card-carrying member of the Christian club but not actually be a follower of the way of Jesus. And even worse, I’ve proposed that I would rather be a follower of the way of Jesus and not be affiliated with the Christian religion than the reverse.

-Brian McLaren

Finding our Way Again

I thought I’d be a different person by now. When I think about myself as a kid and what I expected my life to be like as an adult, I guess I thought things would be … different. I didn’t have any sort of tangible, explainable idea of the exact life I would live, I never had 2.5-kids-white-picket-fence delusions of grandeur. And overall I think if my teenage self could’ve seen me now, she’d be pretty happy with where I’ve ended up so far.

And yet in the last few months I’ve been thinking a lot about how I just expect that one day I’ll wake up and be someone different - someone more adult, more mature. I still look at my friends who are a few years older than me and think - when I get to that point, I’ll totally have it all together. But I’ve been thinking that for years now and I have not managed to accumulate any sense of said “togetherness.” At lest I don’t feel like I have.

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As Ryan reminded me the other day, this week marks the third anniversary of us quitting the last jobs we held and going into business for ourselves. For those of you who didn’t know us during that phase of our lives, I was a producer with Current TV and Ryan was a product manager for the gaming division of CNet.

I find myself admonishing people not to do a lot of the things we’ve done - get married so young, move to a new city with no jobs and no place to live, get two dogs at the same time - and this is no exception. Quitting our stable, relatively well-paying jobs for no “good” reason, within days of eachother has been one of our bolder, crazier decisions. Yet as with most of these types of decisions we’ve made, it continues to work out in ways I don’t expect, ways that are happily surprising (and not-so-happily surprising, to be fair).  I’m not sure I’d do anything differently. … Well, other than give ourselves a bit of a safety net by staggering our timing by more than a few days.

So what the hell were we thinking?

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Most people probably don’t know this because I never really talk about it: I want to work at JPL someday and I have for a really, really long time. I think it’s due to my space brat upbringing and the knowledge that this is a place where, although I’m not aeronautically or scientifically or mathematically inclined, I could still contribute and - as an added bonus - let my uber space dorkiness run free.

So how come someone like me - who splatters her personal, intimate, mundane life all over the internet via a myriad of social channels - has never let this be known? I was afraid. Superstitious. Unsure.

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