-
-
Email Event
-
-
Millennials, the generation of Americans born between 1982 and 2001, are emerging into adulthood, and one thing is clear: this is a generation that believes they are going to change the world. As Neil Howe and William Strauss put it in Millennials Rising (Knopf Doubleday, 2000), "Today's kids are on
Listen to Audio
play
pause
Download Audio as MP3
track to become a powerhouse generation, full of technology planners, institution builders, and world leaders, perhaps destined to dominate the twenty-first century like today's fading and ennobled G.I. Generation dominated the twentieth."
Where does Evangelical activism fit within this new "powerhouse generation"? Evangelical activism fueled movements from the abolition of slavery to the "culture wars" of the 1980s. As the millennial generation gains influence, how will these efforts change? Will they succeed? Should they even try?
At this event, James Hunter, author of To Change the World: the Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010), will discuss these and other questions with two leaders of the millennial generation. Mr. Hunter will describe what factors allowed broad social change to occur throughout human history and the lessons for Christians today.
There is no cost to attend this event.
| 5:45 p.m. | Registration | |
| 6:00 | Introduction: | Eric Teetsel, AEI |
| 6:15 | Address: | James Hunter, University of Virginia |
| 7:00 | Respondents: | Anna Littauer Carrington, Institute for Global Engagement |
| Matthew Lee Anderson, MereOrthodoxy.com | ||
| 7:30 | Question and Answer | |
| 8:00 | Adjournment |
Phone: 202-862-5866
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-862-5806
WASHINGTON, JULY 20, 2010--University of Virginia professor James Hunter, author of the groundbreaking book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010), offered a lecture on the failure of the three prevalent modes of cultural engagement among Christians: defense against culture, relevance to culture, and purity from culture. Hunter explained that young evangelicals are dissatisfied with these approaches to world change because they are inadequate to address the reality millennials experience. Two young evangelical leaders offered their responses to Hunter, praising his criticisms of evangelical approaches to social change and highlighting aspects of the book that resonate most strongly with millennials, including the effects of the dissolution of words from meaning, the role of technology in networks of influence, and the concept of resentiment, a sense of injury that one group feels has been inflicted upon it by another group. The event was sponsored by the AEI Project on Values and Capitalism, which aims to educate young evangelicals on the congruence between the values of Christian faith and the American system of democratic capitalism.
- "The Church has institutional strength and vitality, but not in places where it counts. It is not that Christians don't work hard enough, or don't care, or lack sufficient spiritual foundation. The problem is that we have been absent from influential arenas--we have no leverage where it matters. There are exceptions to this, but not many: Christians are not working together with common agendas. Christianity in America is not only marginalized, but the institution in itself is weak--it is less than the sum of its parts, and its capacity for significant influence is doubtful."
--James Hunter, University of Virginia - "The dominant scripts have little traction. The paradigms of older generations do not provide an adequate account of those realities which the millennials experience."
--James Hunter, University of Virginia - "The pluralism of our society makes a more challenging context for belief. This is something that older generations don't understand: Christianity isn't mainstream for us as it was for our parents. They had a common societal narrative that no longer exists. . . . Pluralism can actually draw from people a deeper faith effort."
--Anna Littauer Carrington, Institute for Global Engagement - "The first and last movement of the Christian to the world must be one of affirmation, not negation. We cannot be motivated by resentment, and instead must focus on the good."
--Matthew Lee Anderson, MereOrthodoxy.com
--ERIC TEETSEL
James Hunter is the LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia. Since 1995, Mr. Hunter has served as the director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, a university-based, interdisciplinary research center concerned with understanding contemporary cultural change and its implications for individuals, institutions, and society. He has written seven books, edited four books, and published a wide range of essays. Most recently, he published The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil (Basic Books, 2000), Is There a Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life (with Alan Wolfe, Brookings Institution Press, 2006), and To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Matthew Lee Anderson is the author of Earthen Vessels: Breathing New Life into a Broken Faith (Bethany House, forthcoming) and the founder and lead writer of MereOrthodoxy.com, where he observes the intersection of evangelicalism, culture, theology, and politics. His work has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Christianity Today, and the Associated Press. He is a graduate of the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University.
Anna Littauer Carrington is the program assistant for publications at the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) and assistant editor of The Review of Faith & International Affairs, a quarterly journal published by IGE and Routledge. She is a graduate of Wheaton College, where she served as news editor for the campus paper and studied international relations.
Eric Teetsel is the program manager for the Project on Values and Capitalism at AEI. Before coming to AEI, he was a life direction adviser at Colorado Christian University. He is a graduate of Wheaton College and Azusa Pacific University, where he earned a master's degree in college student affairs.
