Generational Blackmail or Tepid Pseudo Spirituality?

Earlier this week, Respected Philosophy professor (and one of my favorite authors), James K.A. Smith blogged the following:

It seems like every other day I'm told another reason why young people are leaving the church: because Christians fight too much, or because Christians are too political or anti-gay or don't care about social justice.  Millennials, we're told, are leaving the church because the church won't bless their cohabitation or provide them with contraception for pre-marital sex. They're leaving because they don't care about fights over creation/evolution or abortion or worship style or what have you.  In sum, it seems we're regularly informed that if the church doesn't change, young people are going to leave. 

And what exactly are we supposed to do with these claims?  I think the upshot is pretty clear.  Indeed, am I the only one who feels like they're a sort of bargaining chip--a kind of emotional blackmail meant to get the church to relax its commitments in order to make the church more acceptable? 

Could we entertain the possibility that millennials might be wrong?

I would agree entirely that millennials are, in fact, wrong on many issues. But I would argue that the reasons listed by Smith above are by no means the most prominent of reasons why young people are leaving the church. It isn't that the church simply needs to "get with the times" or accommodate moral ambiguity. The fact is that young many young people are leaving church because they have come looking for "church" and have found many things -- but authentic christian community is not among them.

What I mean is that young people are leaving because they have been in attendance at church services, Sunday schools, and other aspects of "church" life and instead of finding a community of spiritual depth and Christ-like love that truly cares about its community, they have found too many people over-concerned with gimmickry, social status, self-interest, and self-preservation. Instead of finding a community of authentic worship of God and sacrificial love for neighbor, they have found a community of fear, anxiety, and tepid pseudo-spirituality.

Millenials are searching for authenticity and community and that the church today has, indeed, lost its way. But the problem is not just that the church has refused to accommodate millennials' moral shortcomings by "relaxing its commitments to make church more acceptable" -- it's that the millennials have come looking for a community passionately following Christ in all areas of life and - far too often - we (i.e. Christians) haven't given them what they're searching for. I am not surprised that millennials are leaving church because as I survey the landscape of American Christianity today I don't see that it has much to recommend itself to the next generation -- or any generation, for that matter.

In order to regain the trust of future generations, the church needs to regain its own spiritual vitality, but this will not come through gimmicks, ad campaigns, moral laxity, or any of the other "desperate measures" currently being pursued to stave off the church's decline. If there is to be any hope that the church will regain the next generation, what is really needed is steadfast obedience to Christ's call to sacrificial love and a commitment to be "good news" to our communities born out in concrete acts of service and radical hospitality. We need to be less committed to the "institution" -- our buildings, bulletins, budgets, and social status -- and more committed to Christ and the pursuit of the koinonia that Christ lived, died, and rose again to create.