Kedo Peseyie
To write about one’s experience with the youth of today is not a simple exercise. We do not live in a simple society anymore, but in many ways, I believe it is a complex one with all the designs and products of modernity. Not all of the products of modern technology have reached us in Nagaland, but there is little doubt in our minds that the character and influence of modernity and post-modernity are here. This short account of my experience with the youth is based on some reflections on these changes in our society.
It was Francis Schaeffer who said that in this modern world things happen so fast. What would have taken a 100 years to change in the pre-modern world, now takes only 5 years to change in this modern context. We don’t need to go to the West to see this effect. If you were born in Nagaland in the 1970s, and have seen the changes after that, you will understand what Schaeffer meant. Before the early 1990s working with the printing press in Nagaland was an extremely tiring job. We used the type-set where each letter had to be arranged separately. After a few years they brought the offset machines which immensely reduced the hassles in the printing process. In the late 1980s I remember my school friend telling me one day, “Hey, MTV is coming to Kohima shortly!” And I replied, “Who is MTV?” I have lived 31 years now, but it’s long enough to see the introduction and invasion of TV, Xerox machines, mobile phones, cable TV, computers, internet, etc, in our society.
I mention all these changes because our young people are so vulnerable to the designs and products of modernity. Majority of the older generation may feel left behind and so they don’t easily fall into the trap of all the modern gadgets. But our young people certainly own it, and are sipping every bit of it into their minds and souls. Os Guinness said that those who are most blessed by modernity are often most blind to it, and those first hit by modernity are often the worst hurt by it. In the case of the Nagas, we were hit late, but the effect is evident. In my experience with young people in churches and largely in the colleges, many of them certainly fall into this category described by Os Guinness. Of course not all the fault can be put on these forces, but let me try and explain some trends in many young people today which have clear connections to them. I am also aware that I may have excluded a large group of youths in the more rural areas. But I believe the situation is not very different anymore.
Of sound, image and feelings
For many young people, words have taken the form of images; viewing has replaced reading; and feeling has replaced thinking. Very few youths read good Christian literature. If they read, they seem to prefer books that help them disconnect with the world, with the future and with themselves and their problems. One day I read out a passage from a book called “Notes to Myself” to some students. The passage suggested that what we think to be true and to have meaning today will change in the future; and what matters is the present; don’t hold on to any belief too firmly. “What do you think about it?” I asked, and they all replied, “That makes a lot of sense.” I was disappointed. But the good news is that they haven’t given up reading all together, they prefer magazines and newspapers. That’s why magazines like this (Attitude), and newspapers with good Christian content are so important for our young people.
Many prefer to feel rather than think. They prefer sound. Music is their language and form of expression. That’s why a church service without loud praise & worship is boring for them, and many of them may not be able to “feel” the presence of God in such a service. And that’s why when they don’t have the “sound, image and feelings” anymore, they feel extremely lonely. And this is the sad fact about many young people: most of them feel extremely lonely most of the time and easily backslide.
All of these modern products and influences cannot be labelled as bad and destructive. They have made our lives very easy in a lot of ways. They have even made evangelism easy. But as Os Guinness said, discipleship has become very hard because practising the Lordship of Christ over our lives runs counter to the attractions and distractions of our modern world. And our youths are at the forefront where all the attractions and distractions are. The result is lack of meaning, purpose, intimacy, conviction, and feeling worthless and weightless in the midst of this overwhelming progress and fast changing world. It was the atheist Friedrich Nietzsche who said that when there is the “death of God” in a culture, that culture becomes increasingly weightless. This is similar to Daniel’s interpretation of the King’s dream about the writing on the wall, Tekel: you have been weighed on the scales and found weightless and wanting.
Another obvious influence is in their understanding of sex. Young people believe what the movies and TV tell them about sex and relationships. They limit sex only to the physical level, or let’s say, the animal instinct level. Our traditional culture and our churches may deny it, but the effects are there in our streets at night, in our young college and school students studying away from home, and in our abortion clinics.
Sometime back I was at a school camp where one of the topics was True Love Waits. The chaplain sent even the class six students for the session. When I objected saying they were too young, he simply said, “talk to them and find out for yourself”. I found out later that some of these young boys and girls were having affairs with the opposite sex and in a lot of confusion.
The crisis of identity and the crisis of the family
This is one very sad thing about our young people today. There is a search for identity, but many search for it in the dehumanising forces of advertising, television and pop-culture. These forces take their identity away and replaces it with an idol, an illusive ideal, and an ever dissatisfied outlook toward life. What they need first of all is to realise their identity in Christ. But this realisation is very hard to come by unless it happens in the context of healthy relationships both in the family and in the fellowship.
Time and again I have been deeply troubled by the family problems many young people go through. Very often they come to me asking me to pray for their alcoholic father, or how they struggle to remain faithful in a family where there is no love and peace. I have worked in a secular college setting for over 4 years now and I have discovered that most of the students who create problems in the college are from broken families, or from families that have no love, no peace and no proper Christian teaching and example at home. I believe that this crisis of the family has largely contributed to the crisis of identity among the young people. This fact about our society is truly heartbreaking and a crisis far deeper than the crisis of AIDS, political unrest, inequality etc.
The good news
Of course, not everything about the youths is negative and unredeemable. The positive sides far outweigh the negatives. The best thing about them is that they are ready for Jesus. Young people in Nagaland know very little about Jesus and the Bible, making the situation almost alarming. But that can change as long as they are ready, and we are there for them to preach Jesus and teach the Bible. Someone said, “The very things that have made them so lost have made them so ready.” It’s exciting. Statistics tell us that 75% of those who come to Christ do so before the age of 18. If we don’t catch them young, we have only 25% chance of bringing them to Christ when they grow older.
In my encounter with the youths I have had more positives responses than negative ones. Once after a camp at the LifeSpring corner, some class 11 students decided to start a weekly fellowship for prayer and discussion. I was glad but a little doubtful how far it could be sustained. But they proved me wrong. It started with 10 students and by the end of the year, about 40 students were gathering every week for prayer and fellowship. Sometimes they went to classrooms laying their hands on the benches to pray. They called me often for Bible studies and I could see that the work of the Holy Spirit in them was genuine. Later I found that I had underestimated the importance young people give to relationship and friendship. They don’t care about great sermons and great preachers, but they do care about great relationships and great friendships. If we can create an atmosphere for young people where genuine and healthy relationships are developed, where there is guided freedom and proper boundaries, I believe we can release a force we are yet to see in our society.
I close with this poem which so succinctly illustrates the needs of the young people:
I’d rather see a sermon
Than to hear one any day.
I’d rather have you walk with me
Than to point the way.
The eye is more ready a pupil
Than ever was the ear.
Good advice is often confusing
But example is always clear.
(Writer’s note: this article was first published in the May 2006 issue of the Attitude magazine. Used with permission)
