INSIGHT
A short-term society needs a long-term Gospel
- ELAINE
STORKEY considers why, for many people, ‘getting a life’ is
certainly not about marrying, bringing up children, taking out
25-year mortgages, and making pension plans
Those
who come to 2004 with the benefit of having lived through much
of the second half of the 20th Century will have noticed some key
changes in how we deal with time.
Back in the Sixties, the aim which was passed on to most people leaving school
was to find a job or profession which would guarantee them work (and therefore
an income) for the next 10 years at least, make sure they had a good boss,
good prospects and then get on with the business of living.
The business of living involved finding someone to marry, having children,
getting promotion, owning a house and car, taking out a pension plan and generally
ensuring a relatively comfortable lifestyle. On the whole, personal debt was
to be avoided, and family planning meant some freedom in deciding family size.
Time was the way this happened. Decisions made one year would decide what was
available another year. Savings made one year would create opportunities later.
Exams passed one year would bring better job prospects in another.
In the predictability of this climate, Christian evangelism would often focus
on “disturbing” the false security of people’s lives urging
them to think beyond time to an eternity without God.
The sense of “temporal security” which then permeated many people’s
lives for a while is almost gone from our culture today. Most young people
leave school fairly uncertain about their future work or future prospects.
Those leaving college often go into their first decade of work with thousands
of pounds of debt, and into a job market which is fluid and unstructured. Many
of them will not be looking for a good boss, or indeed, any boss at all, but
will want to set themselves up in business doing something which appeals to
them, and which they hope will bring in some revenue.
According to statistics, most of these ventures fail, leaving the venturer
with more debt and fewer prospects for the future. Those who become employed
are unlikely to find the long-term prospects which attracted their fathers.
Short-time contracts are much more normal. The advantages are greater flexibility
and a greater variety of experience. The disadvantages are that it’s hard
to keep your focus on a job which will end in a very short time, when there
are other contracts to chase up.
This “short-termism” doesn’t just affect work. For many people, ‘getting
a life’ is certainly not about marrying, bringing up children, taking
out 25-year mortgages, and making pension plans. It is about life now, living
to the max, knowing where to chill out, and being able to access the money
to enjoy oneself.
As one social commentator said (astutely, I think): “Where the symbol
of modernity was the savings book, the symbol of a postmodern culture is the
credit card.” Sooner or later the payments will have to be made. But not
now. And before then, anything might happen. Who knows? We might win the lottery,
be left some money, get a place on Big Brother or be the next Pop
Idol.
Meanwhile, those who have followed the patterns of their forebears and are
in solid and lucrative professions are increasingly unwilling to give up the
freedom this brings for a life where they are deskilled and left vulnerable.
The number of young women who say they do not intend to have children is higher
than any previous figure we have on record.
It is not surprising therefore that relationships themselves have changed in
their shape and structure. For a generation that spends more time surfing the
web than talking to parents, problems in relationships have to be worked out
on their own, or with each other. In any case, for many, their parents did
not manage to hold their lives together, and they have lived through the acrimony
and heartache of split family relationships, and don’t feel inspired to
take on advice from a previous generation.
No, it is better to stay on the safe side: enjoy what you can now, and let
the future (if there is one) look after itself. Provisional living patterns,
high levels of cohabitation (the highest in Europe in fact) and regular shifts
of partner are becoming worryingly normal. Worryingly, even for secularists,
because those who have studied the figures and treated people in sexual health
clinics know that this is an unstable and unhealthy way of living. It neither
serves people’s sense of security or identity.
Whatever benefits our present lifestyle options have brought people (and they
are many) in a country where well over one million children have no contact
with their fathers, we are indeed close to losing the plot.
However, the aim of writing this is not to moan on as we enter a New Year!
I’m rather trying to understand the difference in climate which faces
the generation of 2004, compared with those who grew up in much earlier decades,
especially in our view of time. For this is the climate in which we now need
to communicate the Christian faith.
A society which accepts provisionality and insecurity as an inevitable part
of existence needs more than ever to know the God who does not change and whose
love is permanent and abiding. Christians in a culture obsessed by the present
need to have a greater sense of continuity with their Christian past. And a
society dominated by short-term measures needs to face the challenge of the
long-term commitment which God requires of those who follow him.
So how do we get this across? As always, it is both in what we say, and how
we live. We need more teaching on time and commitment, and what it means to
be living for Christ, in the long haul. But we also need those more mature
in faith and in years to recover their own calling and commitment, and begin
to model this more effectively.
For real faith and obedience is what the generation ahead needs to see.
- Elaine Storkey is president of Tearfund
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