GEN Z & THE DAY OF THE LORD
Restoring a Lost Plot to a Lost Generation
There’s a photo of me and my high school students on my Instagram, and if you didn’t know me personally, you’d have a hard time guessing which one of us is the teacher. I just turned twenty-five, but apparently, I still look sixteen— at least according to the waiter who ID’d me for a glass of wine last week. Needless to say, whether I’m teaching English or history, my classroom is aggressively Gen Z. I change topics or activities every 5-15 minutes (thank you, Tik Tok). I use Gen Z slang in all my lectures (as my students cringe). And, no matter what topic we are studying, the class conversation inevitably turns to issues of social justice.
A cultural phenomenon is occurring in my generation, and I have a front-row seat to it every day. Gen Z is thinking less in terms of Western hyper-individualism and more and more in terms of communal issues and solutions. I’m consistently stunned by how the “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” mentality is rejected by my students– not because it’s difficult, but because it’s selfish. I currently live in the reddest part of a very red state, so this communal mentality is not affecting my students’ political ideas or beliefs about the government's role in society. Rather, it’s affecting their view of the Church’s role in society–and the way they view and practice their faith.
When I was their age, I was likewise taught to put very little faith in man-made or government solutions, but this left me with a big question: who is going to solve the mass social and systemic injustices in the world? Surely, God is not okay with human trafficking, genocide, or the abuse occurring every day in our world. Surely, we shouldn’t be either as believers. When I would ask this, I was told God’s Kingdom was now on earth and I should try to spread the Kingdom to every sphere of culture: politics, government, entertainment, maybe even another nation. But this just left me with even bigger questions, especially, if the Kingdom is spreading so rapidly, why does injustice seem to be increasing?
To my shame, I didn’t start actively evangelizing until I was twenty-one— and I know exactly why I didn’t: I felt ashamed of the Gospel I received. I didn’t want to tell people who had legitimately suffered or, you know, seen the news:
“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you: the Kingdom is on earth. But also, the Kingdom is in Heaven and, of course, you’ve heard about Hell. But don’t worry, say this twenty second prayer with me, and you too can receive a get-out-of-Hell free card. Act now and escape to a paradise in the sky where we’ll watch the world burn together.”
That Gospel didn’t make sense. It didn’t match observable reality. And it didn’t satisfy the desire of my heart to see the Lord actually do something about suffering and iniquity in the earth.
A cheaply won, “personal-escape-route-to-Cloud-Heaven” Gospel will never be attractive to Gen Z. They want solutions that work on a global and communal scale. My generation is crying out for justice and a half-baked Gospel just won’t cut it. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to.
Every year, I look for an opportunity to share with my students that Jesus doesn’t just have an answer to their questions–He has the answer–an answer it took me twenty-one years to find. This year, we were reading To Kill a Mocking Bird, they were asking their own big questions, and I decided to set aside an entire class period to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to 11th grade.
I told them this was the most important thing I would ever share with them and I’d appreciate their full attention. For 50 minutes, you could hear a pin drop in the room.
The first thing I shared with them is that a Day is coming when Jesus will end human history as we’ve known it. That is remarkably good news. Almost every world religion, including agnosticism and atheism, takes the position that human history will continue in repeating cycles: suffering and wickedness will perpetually exist. The solution, then, generally provided by these religions is some route of escape. You can become one with the Brahman, achieve Nirvana, enter the Ideal realm, languish in Hades, or just stop existing entirely. Their god is not capable or interested in doing anything about the endless hamster wheel of human cruelty and suffering on the earth, so the only option is escape. The Abrahamic religions take an entirely different view. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob does not simply provide an escape route to a spiritual realm. Rather, He has set a Day and appointed a Man to interrupt human history, judge the living and the dead, and bring the dumpster fire of this age to an end.[1] He will rule over the nations and settle arguments before anyone gets hurt.[2] Everywhere we once destroyed on the earth, He’ll offer us an invitation to restore it. Jesus actually stops the hamster wheel.
I then read Zechariah 14 and Isaiah 63 with my students. We talk about how this is a different side of Jesus than we usually hear about at Church. In Zechariah 14, He’s making war against the nations, splitting a mountain in half, and causing his enemies to flee.[3] In Isaiah 63, He’s covered in the blood of those who opposed Him.[4] This Jesus is not fragile or passive. He doesn’t look like the Suffering Servant or Gentle Shepherd we’re used to. He’s a Warrior, dripping in the blood of His enemies. He looks like Someone actually capable of dealing with the evil and suffering in the earth.
At this point, if they’re still listening, I know they’re wondering why Jesus doesn’t go ahead and end things right now. So, then we turn to 2 Peter:
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”[5]
I ask them if they have any friends or family members that don’t know Jesus yet, which elicits very somber nods across the room. I explain that, when Jesus returns, He is not going to leave an ounce of evil or suffering on the earth. He has to deal with all sin, even in its seed form, and end all rebellion against Him–even that of their friends or family. He’s going to make sure we never end up in this mess ever again. That is why we should preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to everyone who will listen. I remind them of Isaiah 63 and tell them, “On that Day, if you’re not covered in the blood of Jesus, He will be covered in yours.” This Kingdom is only good news to those on the right side of the Day of the LORD, for those who have put their faith in what Jesus accomplished for us at Calvary.
That is the full Gospel. Even when preaching to Gentiles, the apostles proclaimed the forgiveness of sins in the context of God’s covenants with Israel and the reality of the Day of the Lord.[6] The Western Church has largely isolated the atonement from its biblical and historical context, and, consequently we have lost the plot.
I’m desperately trying to help my generation recover the plot–one class at a time. Without fail, the part of that message that resonates the most with Gen Zers, particularly the young men, is that they need to get covered in the blood of Jesus or He will be covered in theirs. I startled myself the first time I heard those words come out of my mouth, because they sounded “fire and brimstone,” which I was taught to avoid growing up. However, evil and suffering – or at least our awareness of it– have significantly increased since I was taught that as a kid. My generation is significantly more terrified of a God who wouldn’t make war against evil than a God who would.
Gen Z doesn’t want a selfish, half-baked Gospel– and they will keep walking away from the Western Church as long as that’s all we’re offering them. They need actual answers to their sincere questions. And we, who are mature, have a responsibility to give it to them. May those who hunger and thirst for righteousness be filled.[7]
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How does Scripture’s vision of God’s patience and coming judgment help us make sense of the world today, where injustice seems to thrive? How might this shape our conversation with others—especially younger generations—who are disillusioned with both religion and the state of the world?
2. Was the Gospel of the Kingdom the first Gospel you received? How did the full Gospel speak to the deeper questions or longings you carried—either before or after you believed?
3. What does it look like to preach the full Gospel in your context or spheres of influence?
Grayson Borders is a Tennessee-based high school teacher and a member of the Editorial & Advisory Panel for THE EMMAUS TABLE. She serves on a ministry team dedicated to supporting laborers serving in the Middle East and Muslim world.