The Chosen - Generation Z Livestream: Reconciling Love and Holiness

In mid-July, the Chosen aired a two hour event in which they invited nine Gen Z’ers to binge-watch the first season episodes and then share their reactions. I don’t really know what the selection criteria were for which 20-something’s were invited. There were some commonalities but the single biggest feature is that none of them had previously watched any of the episodes and none of them shared the basic Christian faith of the producers and cast. 

Some of the life stories quickly emerged in the post-binge-ing discussions. 

• Several had been brought up in various Christian denominations but none was a practicing Christian at this time. Their reasons for leaving the church varied, but none felt connected to the church they had left, except by memory. 
• A few had had mental health issues as teenagers, at least one had contemplated suicide. Does this have common cause with the mental health epidemic in the U.S. that has resulted in young men committing mass shootings at an unprecedented rate?
• A few had experienced some form of abuse as children or teenagers. Several expressed alienation from their parents as part of that. 
• Virtually all felt that their true self was not affirmed by anyone - that everyone told them how bad they were and that they had to change to be validated.
• One revealed that she was a lesbian and that no one would accept her for that reason. 

All expressed that the depiction of Jesus in the Chosen as kind, compassionate, and welcoming appealed to them, and that it was completely different from their experience with religious people. None had apparently ever had a personal relationship with Christ in which they personally experienced His nature and character in their life.

How can the church minister to Gen Z? We cannot abandon the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Perhaps we should examine the presentation of the gospel and our description of the Christian life. 

• God is holy; that cannot change. 
• God is love, and loves us.
• God’s desire is for us to share his holiness, and we don’t measure up. (Romans 3:23)
• Our sins are ultimately self-destructive; we can listen to wisdom or learn from experience.
• God has provided a rescuer for us, Jesus Christ, who came to earth to redeem us, by dying for our sins.
• If we receive Him, Jesus will  rescue us from both the judgment for and the power and consequences of our sin. 

Where do modern churches fail to connect with most 20-Somethings?

• The typical church service consisting of the liturgy and preaching seems irrelevant and simply doesn’t connect to outsiders. The Chosen connects partly because it is so different.

• The concept that in order to be saved, one has to beat unbelievers about the head and shoulders with their sinfulness. The reason is that if a person does not confess his or her sins, God will not forgive them. The practical out-working is that the unbeliever perceives the one browbeating them to have a “holier-than-thou” attitude. Having an internal sense of their own shortcomings, this does not sound like a God of love. They are looking for love.
• The perceived irrelevance of Biblical norms and practices to modern life. Superficially, rules from two to four thousand years ago seem to have been needed in the Iron Age, but modern technology and medical advances have overcome many of the conditions these rules address or mitigate. Unspoken is the unchanging human nature, and what it takes to live together in harmony with fellow humans; the transcendent holiness of God is incomprehensible to people whose  intellectual input has been the Internet their entire lives.
• How God can love us and yet issue all of the threats and warnings in Scripture. The empowerment of the Holy Spirit to overcome all of the issues from our upbringing and intrinsic self-centeredness is seldom presented so that outsiders can understand, let alone desire it. How to receive this empowerment is even more baffling when enshrouded with religious jargon.

The Chosen shows snippets of life in which Jesus reveals Himself in love,  holiness, and power, connecting to the down and out people of the first century. But the Chosen is not a church and cannot function as one. The actors are able to portray Jesus and the Biblical characters, but do not constitute a church. Jesus established the church and He is going to return for as His bride; it is His chosen instrument to minister eternal life on a continuing basis to those who respond to Him. What might the church do?

• Follow up contact could be established, similar to the approach that the Billy Graham crusade used decades ago to establish a connection between those who responded at crusades and local churches. But the producers of The Chosen would have to be willing, and they do not typically (so far as I can tell) ask viewers to respond directly to them with statements of coming to Christ. There is a place on their app for comments, but I have no idea if there is any follow up, or it is just social media.
• Small home gatherings could leverage episodes of the Chosen in a format similar to the Alpha course. To invite “seekers” in a format similar to that of the livestream special. To watch an episode and then get their reactions, and questions, without a preset theological curriculum. To connect them to experience God directly through a medium they can relate to. And then nurture that infant faith through appropriate ministry.
• Frankly, the attitudes that believers in church exhibit need to be scrutinized. Theological depth and Scriptural exposition need to be in the context of ministry to the needs of hurting people. And Gen-Zers hurt, as described above.
• What the church cannot do is compromise on truth. Truth. Because gen-Z-ers typically reject all authority if they feel like it, they must understand that God’s kingdom is those who humbly submit to God, even if we don’t feel like it or like what He says. (We need to be clear about the difference in authority between Scripture itself, and people’s interpretation of it.)

The bottom line is that the Chosen presents an opportunity for the church to minister to Gen-Z, but  challenges must be thoughtfully addressed. Perhaps the deepest challenge is to reconcile (in theology and in practice) perfect love with perfect holiness. 

Lepanto - the under-appreciated valor of 16th century Christendom

Book Review: Lepanto by G. K. Chesterton, Ed by Dale Ahlquist (Ignatius Press, 2004).

Lepanto, penned by Chesterton in 1911, provides a poetic interpretation of a battle that occurred in October, 1571, in 143 lines.  The significance of the battle of Lepanto: if the Turks had won, they would surely have invaded Rome and Venice, and Europe would have been dominated by Islamic rulers. Chesterton depicts various remote players, such as the Sultan, the Pope, the Prophet of Islam, each in their respective chambers, all while the heroic Don John is leading the charge to victory.

I initially found the poem obscure and confusing. Most of the book is devoted to explaining the context and the references that Chesterton made. I had never heard of this particular battle, which perhaps speaks to the narrowness of the world history I was taught in High School. Over the years I have learned about battles of Constantinople, Tours, Vienna,  Granada, and now Lepanto. The full scope of the Islamic Empire - its rapid expansion by military conquest, politicization into kingdoms and bureaucracies, ossification, and decay - all these were seldom or never touched on. They were certainly never presented as a unified story of the centuries-long struggle between Christendom and Islam on the geopolitical stage. [Bernard Lewis is sadly omitted from most history courses.]

The heart of Lepanto is an unlikely hero, Don John, the bastard son of King Philip, and half-brother to Philip II of Spain, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Pope Pius V appointed Don John (at age 24) admiral over the combined European fleet to confront and defeat the larger Turkish fleet being assembled at Lepanto (at the entrance to the Gulf of Corinth) for the Turkish invasion of Europe. 

Essays by Brandon Rogers and Melvin Kriesel summarize the background and the battle itself. A piece by William Cinfici describes the aftermath spanning the centuries from the 16th to the 21st. Dale Ahlquist helps us interpret the poem (imagery, allusions, references) and appreciate the poetic artistry. Finally, two related essays by G.K. Chesterton provide insight into his perspective: a 1911 short essay linking the true story of Don John to legend and faith; and a much longer essay from 1931 on the implications if Don John had married Mary Queen of Scots. That was reportedly his intention, but he died suddenly before they even met in person. The latter essay delves into the intertwined threads of religion, wars, and royalty in 16th century Europe. 

The overall conclusion I drew from the entire book is this: In 16th century Europe, between the splintering of Christendom due to the Reformation and rival political and royal establishments, it was only by the grace of God working through an unlikely vessel that Islamic conquest of Europe was halted. 

Book Review: Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness by Warren H. Carroll

In 1487, the Aztec empire under the dominance of Tlacaellel, dedicated the new pyramid-temple of Huitzilopochtli with human sacrifices of 80,000 men in four days, far surpassing the typical annual total of Aztec sacrifices of approximately 50,000. At the same time, in Europe, Spain was in the final stages of its war with the Muslim invaders, to repel their armies, which was completed in 1492. The completion of this freed the Spanish government to commission and provision Christopher Columbus to sail west to Asia, only to discover the Americas instead. The Spanish unknowingly set out in a conquest similar to that of the Israelites when the iniquity of the Amorites was fully accomplished (Genesis 15:16).

The Bible records multiple judgments of nations and cultures totally given over to evil, besides the Canaanites. The antediluvian world and Sodom and Gomorrah are two examples in which God eschewed human agency. But that is not what Warren Carroll writes about. In 1517, 25 years after Columbus’ arrival in the Caribbean, Mexico was discovered, and first contact occurred between the Spanish and the Aztec Empire, a.k.a. Mexica. Within four years, Cortes and a handful of Spanish soldiers dethroned the Hummingbird Wizard and ruled Mexica. 

What follows this is the equally miraculous transformation of a culture. How can 15 million people who have lived (and been terrorized) by pagan idol worship of evil spirits claiming to be gods and demanding human sacrifice be freed? In a few decades, over half the population of Mexica became Christians. This was due to the efforts of the Spanish Catholic Church in sending and supporting those called to this missionary endeavor. Rather than destroying the nation as the Israelites did Canaan, the Spanish brought life and deliverance to the Aztecs. [The vision of Guadalupe is almost a footnote to this.]

What is the difference between evangelization and cultural imperialism? If there were (hypothetically) no objective standard for good and evil, this would be a difficult question. But since God demonstrated His love for us by sending His Son to rescue us from our sin and its consequences, we have an ultimate standard. The good news of the Gospel is a spiritual truth of a fundamentally different kind than pagan idol worship that demands human sacrifice. When the spiritual war in heavenly places becomes visible on earth, we must choose sides.

What is the lesson for us? The Aztec Empire did an annual human sacrifice of approximately one person for every 300 population. They were judged and saved from evil after military defeat. In our nation there occurs an abortion for approximately one in 40 population. While the stench of this unchecked evil is not the sole evidence, it may serve as a bellwether for the core values of a culture. The Supreme Court opened the door to changing our cultural direction, but … they do not decide the ultimate outcome. [Selah] A rebellious and evil society cannot escape judgment if it rejects all warnings. Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:14) reaped in full measure, the Aztecs were conquered, and six justices pointed it out, but ultimately our society will decide its own fate.