"We live in a world where Loyalty is a tattoo, Love is just a word, and Lying is the new truth."
~ AnonymousIn a few days, a new President of the United States will take office; to the joy of some and to the chagrin of others.
Neither side can understand the other, name-calling and accusations remain as the rift politically threatens to widen and deepen - with the help of those who seek to keep the American people divided.Millions looked to each candidate as 'the answer' to America's problems
I have finally settled on who fits that bill - nobody.
Well, not anybody on earth anyway.
Please allow me the latitude to delve into political science just for a moment.
I promise I will weave everything together in the end.
I am a political junkie, I admit it.
And as I researched the Presidential election, I found tracking data on everybody and everything; genders, races, economic bracket and by generation.
Every generation, that is, except one: Generation X.
And this does not surprise me in the least.
Nor did it surprise me when I began to look at those who were born between 1962-1979, whom they voted for in the election.
Across gender, religious faith, and race - Generation X mostly voted for the winner of the Presidential election.
In the areas of the country where they sided with Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump still held a respectable, if not sizeable, minority.
That's when it occurred to me, Generation X swung this election in favor of Donald J. Trump.
And that is the first time Gen. X has held that type of influence over the nation.
Then something amazing occurred to me shortly after this revelation - this totally makes sense.
The question ought to be: Why wouldn't Gen. X vote for Trump?
In my doctoral research years ago, I dug into the evangelism and church outreach it would take to reach Gen X.
One thing that became very clear was that most of society, including the church, never really cared about Generation X, opting to first focus on what was called 'the Greatest Generation' and their children 'The Baby Boomers.'
One had money and the other would sustain the church in the long run, or at least they hoped the children of the greatest generation would sustain the church; and bent over backwards trying to appease a generation of people who thumbed their noses in the face of faith, society and government organization.
As the Boomers rejected the church and would not conform to tradition, they left.
The church then spent years trying to get them back; as Generation X was being born and raised, churches seemed to focus on their parents giving little but lip service to those of my generation.
By the mid-1990s, many churches/denominations had realized how they dropped the ball and decided they needed to focus on the youth; so, the church went after them.
That's great and all, but the problem was by this time, Gen X were in the mid-20's to late 30's. Nobody really sought to win them for the Lord or try to understand them.
As of today, the Church as a whole has yet to make any type of solid effort in reaching Generation X for Jesus Christ.
One must wonder, as Gen Xers are in their late-30s to mid-50s, if anybody in the Church will EVER seek for them.
But I momentarily digress.
It only makes sense that Gen X would vote for Trump, and here's why:
- We were the Latch-Key Kids - That means we were abandoned by our mothers who were told it wasn't enough for them to be mothers; so, they gave us an empty house to come home to from school while they chose to work.
-- This is where the term 'couch potato' originated for my generation.
-- Oh, and by the way, when this happened, divorces sky-rocketed; not that there could be ANY correlation between millions of women flooding the workplace.
- We were the first generation to face death before we were even born.
-- Talk about something that can really make you ego take a hit!
Millions of my generation weren't even given the opportunity to take a breath in the world.
-- Oh, and it did occur to many of us later in the 1990's, when we were hit with the largest tax ever levied on Americans in their 20's and 30's, that the tax burden would not have nearly been as high IF the other 40 million of us could have lived.
They would have been working and paying taxes we would have not to make for; but they weren't given that chance.
-- And it is ironic, nearly 25 years after that happened, the same justification was used in the most recent election, 'everybody has to pay their fair share,' even though we were promised the United States would be debt free by 2013.
- We remember some of our 'feminist' parents mourning the death of Valerie Solanas.
-- Now, you may not know who this is, but I remember; I remember one of my teachers in high school mourning this woman.
-- One of my favorite Solanas quotes:
"The male gene is a biological accident; the Y gene is an incomplete X, female gene, that has an incomplete set of chromosomes."
-- It doesn't matter that this woman was totally and biologically wrong; millions of people bought into it and then began to teach us in SCHOOL that men were a mistake.
-- So much for all people being equal and all genders being on the same playing field.
- We were called 'Slackers.'
-- You know why?
-- It's simple. We had the good sense not to stage a school walk-out or protest anything because life was fairly good.
-- Due to how we were treated early on, we appreciated what we DID have. So, I guess, we were slackers because who in their right mind protests a good thing?
- My personal favorite: We are the Generation that Killed Superman.
-- Dr. John Dever first wrote those words of Generation X; and I sat in his class seething when I read his book.
-- I cannot explain how appropriate it was for the first Gen X comic gurus to take control of
Superman, to kill him and later bring him back to life because he was never really dead. It spoke of imagination, of art, of tricking the knowledge in the mind.
But that's not how the hippie generation took it; they saw it as a personal insult.
It's amazing, really.
After all these years, they still don't understand their own children.
You see, Generation X watched the adults when they were children and saw a virtual Sodom & Gomorrah playing out in the 1980's in many of our homes.
We remember the greed of that time period; punctuated by the S&L Scandal that ruined millions of lives.
We remember the hypocrisy of our parents, who slept with everybody and advanced Sexually Transmitted Diseases, and then told us not to sleep with anybody because it wasn't appropriate.
And today, Generation X is watching Social Security being drained because it has been raided so many times due to the pet projects of the Baby Boomers and politicians trying to keep their vote.
We are watching health care balloon out of control because the Boomers were not responsible enough to plan head and Generation Y & Millennials don't understand simple economic theory and personal responsibility.
We have been watching 40 years of politicians get elected and reelected without doing much of anything but becoming experts at lip service.
So, then a man walks across the American Stage, a flawed man to be sure but a fighter in his heart, whom we have seen our entire lives.
And this guy says the things we're thinking; he is crisscrossing the country giving the middle finger to the mainstream media.
He blows off silly accusations.
He doesn't trust the norm because he's been stabbed in the back by the 'norm' before, with the scars to show for it.
He reflected the kids of the 1980's, even though he isn't one of us, and had the money to back up and follow through on what he said without being in debt to an outside influence; and he refused to be ignored as Gen X has been ignored.
Millions saw in him a reflection of what had been done to them for years; but he could fight back.
That's why Generation X voted for Donald Trump.
Why wouldn't they?
But for Gen X, the hope of the future does not lie in any president, nor any man, nor a political party.
It's understandable why my generation would favor a man who is as unpredictable as Gen X itself; it's understandable, but it isn't a solution to the basic problem which lies in the heart of man.
The truth of the matter is that the American culture and our society is 'post-Christian.'
We might see flashes of our roots on occasion, but 'Christian' certainly does not describe America any more.
Maybe that was one of the driving factors in the election; things aren't like they once was and we want them to become stable again.
With the church's neglect of my generation, the witness has truly failed us; but God never has, not once.
We live in a time when it is almost as if God haunts society, like an ever-present but little spoken of ghost who lives in the attic.
But I know, as do many others my age, God is greater and His presence is stronger, than any "ghost."
And we have known of the results and seen some of them in our life time; or rather, the absence of the societal sin.
Due to the presence of true Christians in America, slavery ended; women's rights have advanced; segregation is gone; most discriminations have become a thing of the past.
Now, it may have taken Christians a little while to wake up at times; in my lifetime the Southern Baptist Convention followed by the Assembly of God denomination, publicly apologized for their role in slavery, discrimination and segregation.
We may take a while to wake up, but we did awake from our slumber.
Generation X is waiting for someone to awaken the from their slumber to something greater; something they have only heard of but not known how to achieve it.
You know, something like, 'Make America Great Again.'
Perhaps we've entered a new Dark Age, where nobody really knows how to lead any more; mutual fear of the unknown stagnating each side from reaching out to the other and just being content with the status quo spiritually is what has seemingly replaced the Great Commission.
And on the societal level of our nation, Christians are seen mostly as the moral police; by my generation, many Christians have appeared as hypocrites trying to force rules down our throats without ever following the rules themselves.
As to the older generation, many of the Christians in these groups see themselves as the last of a persecuted minority. Being hunted down isn't far away because there is nobody taking their place in the Church pew.
To many, in their minds an Orwellian destiny awaits, a country with thought police and a people who is hostile to religion in general.
But Gen X has never really been opposed to religion; they're just opposed to hypocritical religion.
Where did this come from? Simple.
It originated from television ministers and the public failures in the mid-1980s and then it was kept alive by watching seemingly 'Christian' adults carry forward with two lives.
One for church and another at home.
Honestly, I have heard more than once, from believers and non-believers alike from my generation, a deep-seated anger toward faith, parents, society, media, government and the church.
Maybe, the Boomers and Gen X and the Millennials need to learn how to respond to one another in an adversarial environment.
In other words, maybe we need to respond to one another with more grace than the others deserve; hence, grace.
The Christians of Generation X, some of whom are reading this right now, some voted for both political candidates; but we do not hate each other typically. No, we tend to respect one another though our political views are greatly different.
There are people who attend church that are reading this right now who are straight, gay and bisexual; and although with faith, we may disagree, by and large, we respect one another and listen to one another.
There are people who have never been to church and never plan to go to church or maybe even ever go again that are reading this blog; they too have felt the sting and hurt of when a body of believers reject them and are mean-spirited instead of grace-filled.
I could go on and on about the Gen Xers who are reading this who are vastly different; but that would eventually get extremely boring because it all points to one thing in particular.
The challenge for the Christians of Generation X is to reach those of our generation so they don't get left behind, while there is still time.
You see, with all the animosity that has built up in my generation, there is still only one solution for it; the redemption and renewal found within Christ alone.
And for the Christian, we must remember, Jesus sent people out; He did not gather them and hunker down in a first-century bunker and hide them.
No, He sent them out; as they went out, so must we - even to those who by whom we were wronged.
Equally bad to 'hunkering down' and waiting for Jesus to come is the tendency for Christians to, historically, appeal to secular power attempting to achieve the Gospel mandate.
Throughout my life I have heard of Christians wanting to, 'get our country back.'
My question: 'Back from what?'
If they mean from where it is now, well, whose fault is that again?
But I digress.
Forget about this notion, fictitious might add, of returning the country to historical Christianity. The founders of this nation were by and large Christians, but they certainly weren't uniform in their faith.
They desired a place where all could worship God as the individual saw fit according to conscious; however, I must concede they did have the Christian God in mind and heart at the time.
It must also be conceded that the Constitution was the first document creating a government in the Western World which did not cite God as it's founder/author.
The truth is that the Christian ought to want Christian people running the country; but this does not alleviate the personal responsibility each Christian has to 'make disciples' as Christ commanded.
We must never expect the government to embrace our faith and enforce it; that would simply be wrong of Christianity or any religion.
Historically, may I remind you, when Christians have attempted to enforce spiritual truths through secular laws, they have always fell to the temptation of governmental power which has ALWAYS resulted in anti-gospel practices.
- Charlemagne ordered the death penalty for all Saxons who would not convert.
- Spain, 1492, the Jews were ordered to convert or be expelled.
- On this continent, Salem in the late 1600's; how many 'witches' were executed? None. But there were many hanged under false accusations and according to a judicial order led by the Church.
When Christians are aligned with the government, bad things usually result; mostly an abuse of power.
Afterwards, the backlash is predictable; we're seeing this in Europe at the present and soon it will cross the Atlantic.
The point of this entire essay is this - Christianity only works from the bottom up and never from the top down.
To Gen X, they largely went for Donald Trump in the election; but a sizeable minority voted for Hillary Clinton.
But before you judge one or the other, I can guarantee that the majority of Gen Xers voted for both of them because they didn't want the other to win.
And the rest of Gen X who did cast a ballot, truly believed their candidate who stick a boot in the rear-end of the country.
In both cases, the result will ultimately be the same; Christianity isn't really advanced. Christ isn't really profiting from our elections.
No, top-down faith doesn't work; our faith must be spread to others from the bottom-up.
It doesn't matter who was in the White House; Jesus is still King.
Having said all of the above, to my politically inclined mind; it makes sense why what happened, happened.
It does not make sense that the church, media and government continues to ignore Gen X.
But I do know this, Jesus still makes sense and there are millions upon millions of Boomers, Gen Xers and Millennials who are seeking the real answer to life's issues...and we have that answer.
You see, when Jesus was on earth, not only did He send people out with His message; He also was tempted.
In fact, Jesus resisted of having authority over 'all the Kingdoms of the World.'
When One is King, they need not have a false authority before ascending His throne for all eternity and before all humanity.
When one is a servant and follower of the same King, we need not wallow in hurting insults or injuring of the past; we need not embrace political power rather than Kingdom Authority.
We should, however, embrace to the fullest, even though we may have been ignored by the world, the Great Commission of our Lord and seek to reach every tribe, tongue and nation for His glory.
Until next time, win one for the good guys.
