320: Gen Y's and Gen Zeds: Faith on their Own Terms: Frank Brouwer

Generation Y and Zeds are vexing for the traditional  church.  Author of ‘Losing Our Religion’ Christel Manning argues that Millennial and Gen Zed Nones (those born in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s)

“hold a wide variety of worldviews, ranging from deeply religious to highly secular, and transmit them in diverse ways. What ties them all together is a commitment to spiritual choice—a belief in the moral equivalence of religions and secular worldviews and in the individual’s right to choose—and it is that choice they seek to pass on to their children.”

In sociological speak, instead of having their identities ascribed or handed down and inherited, Gen Y’s and Zeds value elective identities and that includes religious and spiritual identities.

Dutch religious studies teacher and theologian Frank Brouwer joins me to discuss this fascinating question of how the young in Western Europe are responding to the deeper questions of life, how they understand the church and how, most interestingly, they are building their own spiritual literacy, on their own terms.