November/December 2002

MegaTrends
Destined to Affect You

Cultural changes that might impact you in this new century -- and how you can respond

by Greg Hartman

If everything I heard in grade school had come to pass, I'd commute in a flying car with an atomic engine. We'd have videophones, vacations on the moon, home hydroponics, undersea cities and no national borders. Not wishing to be another failed prognosticator, we offer this caveat: Only God really knows the future, and he shares that knowledge sparingly. Nevertheless, certain cultural trends are predictable enough that we can map their progress into the future with some confidence. If you are informed, you can plan how to respond -- or even attempt to short-circuit negative trends. With this in mind, we offer four major developments to watch for in the months and years just ahead.

1 - The New, Improved Family

Rosie O'Donnell, among others, argues that we need a redefinition of the word family. A family, it is said, is simply a "circle of love," not the narrow, restrictive nuclear family model our Judeo-Christian heritage says it is.

Sounds nice, but it opens the door to -- well, anything. Homosexual partners have already been adopting children for years. A "family" could soon also incorporate polygamy, incest -- you name it. A man named Peter Singer, for instance, has published attacks against "speciesism:" the ignorant notion that people ought not have sex with animals. Sounds laughable, unless you realize Singer is Princeton's Decamp Professor of Bioethics.

1. Practice what we preach. You've heard it before; here it is again: The divorce rate in the church matches that in the rest of the world. We can hardly ask better of the world than we model ourselves. The church must show the rest of the world what healthy marriages and families look like.

Local churches need to support and encourage broken or hurting families. We need not condemn those whose marriages have failed, yet we must not wink at divorce, adultery, abandonment or any other means by which parents subject children to anything less than a complete, healthy family (James 1:27).

2. Pay attention. The only way to make sure our elected officials represent us is to make sure they know their constituents are watching. You don't have to watch C-SPAN around the clock; many legislative watchdogs provide condensed, easy-to-skim information on bills designed to redefine family or marriage, or efforts to attach similar last-minute amendments to other bills.

Most outrageous government shenanigans happen when no one's looking. Keep an eye on your government, and it's much more likely to do the right thing.

2 - Special Interest Isolationism

No cable service has just one movie channel; we seem to require action, Western, classic, mystery, horror, true-life, family, kids' and ethnic movie channels. We can't have one radio station; we need country, classical, talk, sports, plus alternative, contemporary, classic rock and oldies.

The more ways you can parse data, computer engineers say, the more "granular" it is. And so it goes with entertainment and news -- media outlets offer a combination of TV, movies, Internet and print that target your politics, demographics, race and personal philosophy.

What flavor of talking head do you prefer? If you lean to the left, "Crossfire" is just for you; "Hardball" straddles the middle; "Hannity and Colmes" provides the conservative viewpoint. Get the facts -- the way you like to hear them!

Is this catering to special and specific interests a good thing? Depends. It's good that producers are trying to better understand their audiences. It's good that more journalists are abandoning the pretense of impartiality and letting their viewers or readers know where they come from -- which helps news consumers be more discerning.

Our global village has disintegrated into clusters of special-interest groups, each more shrill than the last, and all of them wondering why no one listens. In the past few years, for example, elements of the animal-rights lobby have:

· Launched an ad campaign claiming that a rash of Florida shark attacks, including one in which a boy lost an arm, were merely the sharks' way of getting back at the fishing industry.

· Launched another ad campaign claiming that Jesus was a vegetarian, and

· Claimed that the death and suffering of 9/11 pale in comparison to the mistreatment chickens suffer every day in poultry farms.

The intriguing thing about the people who said these things (besides the fact that they could do it with a straight face) is the bewilderment they expressed at the ridicule or outrage their statements provoked. Apparently they were so used to preaching at the choir that occasional contact with the rest of world found them hopelessly out of touch.

This insularity has happened to the church as well: Witness the outcry at Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's blaming 9/11 on feminists and homosexuals -- and their confused backpedaling. Christian media consumers are used to hearing homosexuals and feminists blamed for everything; the rest of the world isn't. And the two are getting farther out of touch all the time.

The gospel, though, is supposed to be a cross-cultural bridge, not a hole in the sand where we can stick our heads (Galatians 3:28). How can Christians resist the tunnel vision caused by the special interest focus of today's media?

1. Sample the spectrum. If you like the way a given media personality thinks, there's nothing wrong with listening to what he or she has to say. But it's a mistake to stop there. Rush Limbaugh fans ought to challenge themselves to listen to James Carville, and vice-versa. Chances are the only way to get the full story is to hear them both.

2. Cross the aisle -- or the street. If you're like me, you have a dozen e-mail friends from around the world who think just like you, but you don't know your neighbors.

No one said life is obligated to cater to us -- the world abounds with people we don't agree with or like. Yet the essence of the gospel is to find value in people the world would discard. Get to know your neighbors, co-workers and other less-than-casual acquaintances; make a point of cultivating friends with whom you have little in common (Matthew 5:46).

3 - Do-It-Yourself Spirituality

Time was that a person in need of spiritual advice would visit his or her pastor (or priest, imam, guru or what have you).

Not any more. "Spirituality" can't be confined to religion and denomination these days. Why would you subscribe to someone else's predefined rules when a spiritual guide can help you build a personal road to enlightenment?

If you like, for example, the pageantry and liturgy of the Greek Orthodox church, but also have a thing about dirty movies, you don't have to fret about any of the church's rules. Your spiritual guide can design a program of chanting, incense and Tantric sex to push all your buttons and deny you nothing.

In the same way that the term circle of love means nothing and everything, today's buzzword spirituality encompasses anything it needs to, or can be just a word to hide behind as we continue feeding our flesh.

How will this affect Christians? We're already seeing alarming demands for churches to reform in their congregants' images. For example, note the struggle over whether Presbyterians should ordain homosexual ministers or perform gay wedding ceremonies.

As we drift farther into postmodernism, we're going to see loyalty to tradition, doctrine or Scripture labeled as intolerance. But we can also capitalize on this trend:

1. Major on the majors: The constant mantra of "diversity" can work in your favor. If Christians are supposed to accept individuals or groups without placing demands on them, we can reasonably ask for the same consideration in return. We must, however, learn to appreciate the wide range of Christian expression by learning the difference between personal conviction and scriptural absolutes -- a weakness the church has had since its beginning.

With all the squabbling and nitpicking Christians engage in, it's a wonder anyone else ever wants to get involved. Paul's discourse on the issues "of first importance" (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) is notable for what it doesn't say: Nothing about communion, speaking in tongues, worship practices, Bible versions or any of the other issues we dicker over.

Augustine said it well: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, grace." Christians need to draw a circle of orthodoxy , then enjoy healthy debate and mutual respect over everything outside that circle (Romans 14:1-7).

2. Learn what we believe: When dealing with a postmodern culture that has no respect for the Bible, it's worse than useless to defend our beliefs and practices by quoting the Bible -- yet we constantly fall into that trap.

Perhaps, we all need to become apologists -- believers who can explain why the Bible should be trusted and obeyed. The Bible's accuracy, historicity and unique place in literature may be the subject of innumerable doctoral dissertations, but you don't need a doctorate to know the basics. The best way to convince a skeptical world we're not wearing blinders is to be able to talk reasonably and intelligently about our faith (1 Peter 3:15).

4 - Educational Consumerism

Whether we think the problem is too little funding or too little parental choice, no one seriously contends that everything's okay in America's public schools. The high dropout rate, low academic performance, crime, violence and institutional atheism plaguing our schools has sent a frightening wakeup call to parents: We can't assume our kids will graduate from high school even knowing how to read, much less with a solid education.

Education is slowly becoming a consumer-driven endeavor. Parents want more control over not only the quality and safety of schools, but also curricula, textbook choices and so on. Depending on how long the education lobby holds out in the face of the inevitable, educational consumers will eventually be catered to the way they are in any other retail endeavor. School districts will recognize that parents are paying for their services, if indirectly, and treat them accordingly.

Popular solutions for Christians worried about public schools include home schooling, charter schools and private schools. Yet these are not possible for many families, and they don't help the kids stuck in failing schools.

1. Focus on what works. It's all too easy to criticize failing schools. Instead, we should try to import what makes home, private or charter schools work so well into our public schools: Personal attention, consistent and sensible discipline, tough academic standards, less bureaucracy, curricula that respect parental beliefs and so on. Anyone can go to a PTA or school board meeting and identify problems; what really helps is when we arrive bearing solutions. The more pressure that is brought to bear on the public school system, the more receptive local schools are likely to be about trying new solutions.

2. Stay involved. Home schools obviously demand more parental involvement than public schools; charter and private schools tend to as well. All three recognize a fundamental fact: The more parents are involved in their kids' education, the better their kids tend to do in school, no matter what their schooling situation.

Christians have a reputation for using home, charter and private schools to produce outstanding students. If more Christian parents were more directly involved with their kids' public school education, Christians just might gain a reputation for producing scholarly kids no matter what.

The United States is, at heart, still a pragmatic nation. No matter what howls of protest may arise from the ACLU, the NEA or whomever, ideas that work tend to hold sway in the long run. If Christians bring a reputation for academic excellence to the table, that leverage could make all the difference in the world as education continues to change in America. 

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Specifics change, but life's main issues rarely do: Family, politics, religion and education are, and always have been, some of the most important challenges facing humankind throughout history. The future is uncertain for everyone -- even Christians. But we know our destination, if not everything that will happen along the way. We can take comfort in knowing that God knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). 

Greg Hartman and his family live in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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