Polarization in the Church

Polarization runs rampant in our 21st century world.  Everywhere we turn there’s one kind of partisan division or another.  In contrast with that, think how counter-cultural Jesus’ church should be.  In an age of raging tribalism, we’re called to live out a joyful, humble unity regardless of the many real differences between us.

1 Corinthians 12 portrays the church as one body with wildly differ­ing parts:  we’re supposed to be a unity of diversity.  How ridiculous would it be to have just a single body part (imagine that lone eyeball, see 12:17)?  A body can only be healthy—in fact, it can only sur­vive—when all the diverse parts operate harmoniously.

Racial, political, and religious divisions are often in the public eye.  But generational polarization is a major issue too.  Think about the builder, boomer, gen-X, millennial, and gen-Z generations:  builders are frugal and loyal; boomers spend now and worry later, gen-Xers are sus­picious of boomer values, etc.—stereotypes, yes, but yet a grain of truth that can fuel division between age groups.

In churches, generational tension can flare up, for example, around music (traditional vs. contemporary; organ vs. guitar) or clothing (dressing up shows respect for God vs. dressing down shows authenticity—come as you are).  And the cultural wind is always blow­ing us to separate into nice, “safe,” comfy, age-group cliques.

But this is not honoring to God!  Here at Goshen, and in any church where the Bible is taken seriously, we aspire to bring together older and younger believers in all kinds of good (even if challenging) ways.  God’s wise design is for us to be a multi-generational church family, with older believers discipling those who are younger (Titus 2:1-6), and men and women of all ages pursuing Jesus side by side (1 Pet 5:5; Acts 2:17; 1 Tim 5:1-2).  Intergenerational learning-serving-leading-wor­shipping is “standard operating procedure” in a healthy church.

How else can we obey Psalm 145:4, “One generation shall commend your works to another”?  And Psalm 78:4, to tell “the coming genera­tion the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done”?