The paradox of the 21st century life is that in the following of previous obvious and once reflexive middle-class manners and mores has now become, oddly enough, an act of rugged individualism that is found to be suspicious. This is so true that the extent to which the once previous standard behavior, that was considered obviously adult and mature, is now considered the behavior of the oddball or the maverick. It is now surreal to our current forever adolescent population to behave in way in which our Christian great-grandparents thought to be distressingly obvious.
For example, our great-grandparents would not attend worship services without dressing so as to be in the presence of the King. Our great-grandparents would be shocked with the casualness in which we enter into worship. Today, in many churches, if a young lady were to wear a modest dress into worship with an appropriate hat for a head-covering most folk would see it as an act of “rugged individualism,” or of “being quirky.” Yet, I have boyhood memories of this once standard behavior of all the women in the church.
For example, what passes for worship today in your average church, complete with praise band, 10 – 15 minute self-help talks from the clergy that we are told are “sermons”, coffee baristas serving up hot joe just outside the sanctuary, all point to adolescents being in charge and running the show. Years ago, while on holiday I attended such a church where the young ladies in the praise band were wearing skirts so short that I’m sure young men attended in hopes of seeing the female band members raise their hands high in praise.
For example, some years ago in Farmland, Indiana (population 1300) the Ladies’ Bridge Club bard its 70-90 year old female bods in a pinup calendar in order to save a courthouse that was a wee bit older than they. It’s hard to imagine our great-grandmothers coming up with that idea. It is more likely that anybody who came up with the idea would be shunned by the Ladies’ Bridge Club of Farmland, Indiana.
For example, the phenomenon of middle age crisis (which I’ve seen a great deal of during my years in the ministry) finds middle age and older adult seeking to reach back to be “young again.” The ironic thing here though is that the attempt to remain “forever young,” by adults of all ages has made the idea of “mid-life crisis” passe. I mean, how can an adult reach back to be young again, when they have never grown up to begin with?
For example, can you really imagine your great-grandparents take your grandparents (when your grandparents were children) to Queer-Time story hour at your local community library? Now the rare few who put up a protest are seen as “prudes” and “puritanical.”
For example, a decade or so ago I overheard a couple Mom’s talking about their teenager sons. One of the Mother’s noted, while giggling, that she had discovered a condom in her son’s jeans while doing the laundry. That Mother’s Grandmother’s response to such a incident doubtless would have been to call the girl’s parents her son was dating in order to warn them. This woman was laughing while she was relating the incident to her friend. She thought it humorous. The grown-up was nowhere to be seen.
What we need to keep in mind here is in the attempt to remain forever adolescent we, as a people, have jettisoned the Christian mores and standards that once defined what it meant to be a healthy adult, and, as said earlier, acting in a way that was considered standard Christian behavior by our Christian forebears is now seen as odd, quirky … even surreal.
What we have experienced in our race to the bottom of the drain is the disappearance of the adult, or perhaps better put, the re-definition of what it means to act like an adult. This pursuit has been a long time coming. Perhaps one could trace its beginning to the “burning of your bra” movement. Perhaps one could trace the disappearance of the adult to the presence of the passage of no-fault divorce laws that turned marriage into a matter of children playing grown up. Instead of being the adult, adults played the child and walked away from marriages saying, “well, that was a fun game while it lasted.”
So, we are in the place where we have to put up a note somewhere saying; “Will the last adult leaving please turn out the lights.”
We have come to the point where even Grandpa and Grandma want to be like the adolescent and the adolescent wants to be like whatever manages to become popular among his/her adolescent peers. This has brought us to the place where we have no gravitas as a people. Our literature is of a comic-book quality. Our music hasn’t advanced much beyond “Jailhouse Rock.” Our language to often sounds Orc-like with eloquence having long ago made its way to the grey-havens beyond the sea. Our learned men are too often fools. Our Christian faith reduced to egalitarian platitudes.
The good news is that our Fathers, though being dead, can still speak if only we will take up and read. By accessing the wise and the wisdom of the ages we can once again become adults. We can once again give our children aspirations to once again desire to “grow up and be adults.” We can return to a time when there is a clear line in people’s thinking between being an adolescent and being an adult.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1Cor 13:11)
Rudyard Kipling wrote that primitive pagan idolaters are like “half devil and half child.” That is, they had the element of innocent childishness along with their devilish traits.