Check out Brad Drell's interesting post on the Episcopal Crisis and the Generation Gap. Since BabyBlue is, indeed, a GenXer (as is Kendall Harmon, and most, if not all, the gang at StandFirm as well as Brad himself - and of course, well, Bono - but that's a different story) and that most (except for the fellow U2 fan and Mac-User Sarah Dylan Breuer) of the vocal TEC progressives are Boomers, well - what can we say, except pass the pork chops and apple sause.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
GenX?
Check out Brad Drell's interesting post on the Episcopal Crisis and the Generation Gap. Since BabyBlue is, indeed, a GenXer (as is Kendall Harmon, and most, if not all, the gang at StandFirm as well as Brad himself - and of course, well, Bono - but that's a different story) and that most (except for the fellow U2 fan and Mac-User Sarah Dylan Breuer) of the vocal TEC progressives are Boomers, well - what can we say, except pass the pork chops and apple sause.
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Did I just comment that 'Gen X' desires to hold onto our value and story and the Boomers think they can rewrite anything on a whim?
I think the funniest is when Truro thought to have a 'contemporary' service and thus one pattern the music off Calvary Chapel praise and worship. It's chalk full of Boomers. Meanwhile at the 'young adults' at Kairos or elsewhere are asking if traditional hymns can be added to the mix, 'because few songs have the dept of theology as "Be Thou My Vision."' Proportionally Gen X-ers are spread evenly throughout TFC service where the vast bulk of the 11AM 'Contemporary' congregates are Boomers.
I love Brad's piece!
Coincidence?
I think not.
(Okay BB, we'll let you in the club, but sometimes I think you're try to pull daul citizenship ;p )
I always thought 1963 was considered the final year of the Baby Boom? I think those of us born in about 1960-1965 are perhaps a bit in both worlds. Just old enough to remember some of the culture-shattering events of the 60s and early 70s (assasinations, Vietnam, Kent State, Watergate, Landing on the Moon, etc.) and yet young enough that we were observers, not participants.
Trying to define generations always gets a bit fuzzy around the edges, but in most respects, I think Brad's observation has a lot of merit.
LOL! I wrote my comment before reading Kevin's. I see Wikipedia agrees with me about Baby Boom cutoff being in 1963. (it's always been easy for me to remember since it's the year I was born.)
It is interesting to ponder. However, I might point out that not one person in our home group could be mistaken for a Gen-Xer. We are Boomers! (with one couple even older, if you can imagine such a thing. I am 1950. I hope I haven't misjudged anyone's age and insulted them! We might have a couple on that cusp you were talking about)
Perhaps the reason you see so few orthodox Boomer blogs has to do with the fact that so many Orthodox Boomers have given up and left the Episcopal Church already. (That, combined with the fact that, as a general rule, the more conservative one is, the less likely he is to embrace new technologies, like blogs.)
Start looking at the blogs of those who have left TEC (and other denominations for that matter) over similar arguments.
I believe you will find that the younger folks have the energy to stay and fight - and the hopes that they will succeed.
We Boomers are getting tired of the fray. We've been doing this too long; we are weary and have decided that it's better to cut losses and go somewhere else. TEC isn't the sole guardian of God's Truth. We can get that nourishment elsewhere and spend our lives worshiping Him rather than battling each other. And we are finding a blessed peace in our new homes.
I may be completely wrong on this one. I think I often am.
I love to read the blogs - mainly of Gen-Xers - but can't imagine having a blog myself. What could I possibly have to say that would interest others? Often after I post a comment, I think to myself, "That was stupid - who cares what YOU think?"
And yet, here I am, doing it again.....
Well, I'm a "tweener", born after the depression-ers and before the boomers. I often wonder what that has to do with me being out HERE.
There's a group between the Boomers and the Xers that I like to call the BoXers. That would be about 1955-1965. You know, the folks who the first punk, new wave and alt rockers. And of course, it would include Bono and U2. It's not the same sensibility at all as the first decade of Boomers. I'm a BoXer. But I like the younger kids best - the Millenials or whatever you want to call them.
Sorry for the mangled sentence...
That would be "the first punk, new wave and alt rockers."
That's what I get for quick editing without proofing my edit.
Funny...
Having been born in 1962, I'm a bit on the cusp between the Boomers and the X'ers. "BoXers" is an interesting way of looking at it.
Yeah, it's weird that people get assigned to a "generation" on the basis of a demographic event like the baby boom. Fact is that people born between 1940-1945 (pre-boom) share a culture and sensibility with the older boomers. People born in the second decade of the baby boom (1955-1965) are cultural precursors to GenX - both for good and ill. So the demographers, IMO, drew the generational boundaries wrong. The 20 year old kids who put safety pins through their cheeks in 1977 are NOT part of the same generation as the 20 year old kids who hitched a ride to Haight Ashbury in 1967 - even though they were both born during the same demographic event.
Well I'm in that "pre-boom" window your're talking about, telerimedia, but I hated rock & roll and drugs (and got left out on the sex part).
But I must confess I was quite taken with the wave of folk music that rolled through. Does nobody play folk music any more?
And of course, my all time hero, king of the poets, was Bob Dylan. (Not singer, of course: poet.)
Obviously when we talk about generations, we're painting with broad brush strokes. I lumped the war years in with the boom because so many 60s youth culture leaders and participants were born during the war years, not during the boom. There are always variations among individuals within a generation, but the war babies were a huge part of the 60s generation.
I also think it's bizarre to trash the entire 60s youth culture, as some do. It had its down side, of course. But so does just about everything that fallen humanity touches. The Civil Rights movement - which IMO was a great good - was a huge part of 60s youth idealism. And Dylan was at the March on Washington. Singing "When the Ship Comes In," as a matter of fact.
As for folk today...
My friend Andy Whitman writes for Paste magazine, and he's constantly coming up with all sorts of new folk stuff. (actually, he doesn't have to come up with it. review copies just arrive on his doorstep. he must have one heckuva an iPod!).
Andy's Paste blog is here: http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/whitman/ (do hyperlinks work on this interface?). His personal blog is here: http://andywhitman.blogspot.com/
If you want him to give you a list of all the best new folk stuff, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to oblige.
Definitely check out Sufjan Stevens, one of Andy's favorites. A Christian. And a songwriter. But not a "Christian songwriter." Like all the best artists, he doesn't use a sledgehammer, but it's impossible to remove faith from his songs and still have anything remaining.
I know where I belong solidly in the Generation X camp as I was born just before Christmas in 1969.
I know that the revolution won't be televised because the post war boomers have become the media establishment. I happen to love folk music. There are two folk festivals held near me every summer and by the crowds of families they draw of GenXers, I am not the only one.
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