Amy Orr Ewing: Changing times in our culture – the challenge of the Millennials

Christians in Parliament hosted a guest speaker on Tuesday lunchtime this week. Amy Orr-Ewing. She is the Training Director of the Zacharias Trust and Director of Programmes for the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and she spoke to us about the Millennials.

Call me uninformed and ignorant, but I had never heard of the Millennials until today. Of even greater concern perhaps is the fact that I am one! Millennials or ‘New Victorians’ are the generation born between 1977 and 1994, and research about them is just emerging, with fascinating conclusions.

Millennials have departed significantly from Generation X and the Baby Boomers before them. Instead of shopping and getting drunk at all night parties, they are more interested in growing their own vegetables and sewing. This was particularly accurate for me as I have recently started knitting! It worries me how much these sociologists know!

Orr-Ewing described the millennial generation as being fiercely passionate and interested in social justice and the environment. She challenged the view that often surrounds the youth that they have no moral framework. Going further, she said that postmodernism, which says that everything is relative and there is no absolute truth, has passed by this generation. She explained that the Millennials do believe in moral categories, although they may not line up with the Church’s morals.

Using an article in the Daily Telegraph magazine Orr Ewing told the story of a girl whose parents divorced when she was a child. Now aged 25 the woman is optimistic about the idea of marriage. She said that rather than be put off by her parents’ experience, it has spurred her to work harder at her relationships. This is a common belief held by many Millennials who are working to correct the mistakes of their parents.

You might think that all this information would be more appropriate in a sociology lecture, but Orr Ewing laid down a challenge to the Christians in Parliament as the church of today and as leaders. This generation is incredibly passionate, how, she asked, can we meet that passion and vision, and connect their moral framework to the gospel and to Christ?

This generation have been called the ‘New Victorians’, supposedly they can be the ones who change the face of society as the Victorians did, bringing in a new age of prosperity and technology, of justice and mercy. The abolition of slavery, improvement in factory working conditions and government programmes opening thousands of new schools were all enacted in the Victorian era (or just outside it). Much of this change was linked to an evangelical revival which placed the Bible at the centre of public policy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the New Victorians can enact the same level of positive change founded on the words of the Bible? It inspired me to think that from my generation could come another William Wilberforce or Thomas Barnardo.

Of course this generation is not without its problems, and many suffer from depression and low self esteem. Orr Ewing’s solution to this is the Christian principal of Imago Dei, the idea that we are all made in the image of God and therefore have intrinsic value. The institutions of church and family have been torn down somewhat by previous generations; it is time that they are rebuilt. What an opportunity to spread the gospel as we recreate these institutions!

The talk was inspiring, as a Millennial I feel that this is an amazing opportunity to use the raw passion of my generation to change the world while we still believe we can. God’s heart is for justice and the environment and all the things the Millennials are in to, the Church must therefore get up and show that we can lead this generation.

Amy Orr Ewing will be speaking again next Tuesday 26th January on ‘Changing times in our culture – the challenge of Narcissism’, it should be a great event, please join us if you can.

Esther is a Volunteer working with CSM January-March 2010. She is on a gap year and will be going on mission to Guatemala in the spring. She lives in North London and attends St Barnabas Church. She will be going to Oxford Univeristy in September to study History and Politics.