Date posted: 12-21-2021
Estimated Reading Time : 6:00
Richard Harris is executive director of the Truth & Liberty Coalition. We seek to educate, unify, and mobilize believers in Jesus Christ to affect the reformation of nations through the seven mountains of cultural influence.
A recent survey led by renowned pollster George Barna shows that members of the Millennial generation in America – defined by Barna in this study as those born between 1982 and 2002 – desperately need the truth of the Gospel. Barna’s work shows most Millennials have no biblical foundation or sense of purpose, and are turning to leftist ideology to satisfy their spiritual needs.
Barna’s team at the Cultural Research Center (CRC) at Arizona Christian University recently released the report Millennials in America: New Insights into the Generation of Growing Influence.
According to recent shocking news reports, nearly 40 percent of Millennials identify as homosexual, transgender, bisexual, or some other sexual identity (LGBTQ). Beyond those numbers are troubling trends that should concern every Christian – especially parents – as Millennials and the following generation exert more influence over culture and politics.
According to the report, “Millennials represent roughly one-quarter of the nation’s total population, and about one-third of” adults – “about 78 million individuals.”
Influenced by ‘woke’ ideology, Millennials have been taught that there is no God (evolution) and no objective truth (moral relativism). The rejection of the existence of truth leads directly to the generation’s despondency and lack of purpose or identity reflected in the CRC report.
Three quarters of Millennials said they lack a sense of meaning in life. Approximately the same number “believe that all religious faiths are of equal value” – denying the authority of the Bible and Jesus Christ as Lord.
The Cultural Research Center found that “most Millennials reject the existence of absolute moral truth.” At the same time, less than one quarter of those surveyed said that life is sacred and about half agreed with the statement “there is no absolute value associated with human life.”
Barna’s findings are deeply troubling. Amorality and lack of purpose have deadly consequences. Because they have been taught to believe they are nothing more than an accident, Millennials find little value in life for themselves or unborn children.
According to the report, “suicide rates have been climbing” because they believe “life is not worth the struggle.” Millennials are more likely than most to believe “an abortion performed to reduce personal economic or emotional discomfort [is] morally acceptable.”
Their rejection of the intrinsic value of human beings also leads to a failure to treasure freedom of conscience or speech and helps explain why they favor more control over expression on social media and the public square.
Barna’s survey results also shed light on why socialism is appealing to Millennials. It’s a short step intellectually from believing that all truth is relative to believing that private property is just an idea someone created in order to take advantage of others. In the Millennial mind where there is no such thing as Truth, can anything truly be sacred? There are no transcendent laws of morality (what our founders called, the “laws of nature”), so Millennials have no objection to the use of political or economic power to force the world to fit the leftist social ideal in their lifetimes (utopianism). Sharing a common status as renters and subscribers in the dystopian future of the Great Reset probably seems almost natural and inevitable to this tragically disillusioned generation.
Without God, eternity or Truth, Millennials seek to satisfy the universal desire for purpose by pursuing various social causes, such as environmentalism, LGBTQ activism, or race identity politics. Their quest will inevitably leave them unsatisfied. Jesus is the only one who truly satisfies the longing in every human heart for meaning and significance. He told the Samaritan woman at the well, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13-14).
Today’s news from George Barna’s report is both sobering and promising. It is sobering because it shows that the emerging generation of leaders in America are utterly lost. The statistics are tragic for them as individuals and for us as a nation. As Millennials assume the roles of social, business and political leadership, their views of relativism and meaninglessness portend chaos and profound loss for the culture.
But, the Barna survey is also promising. It is promising because it shows that Millennials are coming to the end of themselves. Their cravings for meaning, purpose and significance are left unsatisfied, and are even exacerbated, in the foul graveyard of progressive politics. As they are confronted slowly but surely by the broken promises of leftist ideology, they are finding themselves disillusioned and are seeking real answers. The good news is that, by God’s grace in Christ, we (the Church) have those answers.
We are simultaneously faced with a historic challenge and an unprecedented opportunity. We are challenged by the fact that tens of millions of our countrymen have been cemented in a worldview that rejects the Kingdom of God. But, we have a massive opportunity to reap a harvest of truly biblical proportion! I believe that as Millennials encounter the love and goodness of God, they will rise out of their brokenness and be set ablaze for true righteousness. As with countless generations before them, when they are set free by the risen Savior, they will become the agents of reformation and revival the world desperately needs.
The only question is whether we choose to see them the way God sees them. Will we consider them wayward children in need of love and Truth, or have we written them off as reprobate, a lost cause and beyond saving? As for us at Andrew Wommack Ministries, Charis Bible College, and Truth & Liberty Coalition, we will seek them. With God’s strength, we will reach them. And, I know with certainty, He will be faithful to save them.
Learn More
To read the full report, Millennials in America, and view other research, visit the Cultural Research Center website at CulturalResearchCenter.org.
Visit our Research Center for great practical resources. Also learn how you can become a Truth & Liberty Coalition member and join us in standing for truth in the public square.