Sharing an integral Christian worldview with a younger generation: Why and how should it be done and received?

Abstract

This investigation discusses the question how an older generation should transfer to or share their own worldview with a younger generation. For various reasons this has become a problem today. One is the inability of some of the old guard to share their perspective on and way of life with the youth. Another factor is that the Christian youth of today is strongly influenced by contemporary cultural tendencies, often incompatible with a biblically based worldview. The question how a worldview should be transferred as well as how it should be received is of equal and crucial importance to ensure that an age-old, valuable tradition does not become the living worldview of the dead and the dead worldview of the living. Therefore, answers to the following questions should be found: (1) What is the essence of such a worldview to be shared? (2) Why should it be shared? (3) How should it not be done? (4) What are the prerequisites for effective sharing? (5) What are the typical characteristics of the young receivers, the group today called Generation Y, Me, or the Millennials (those born between about 1980–2000)? (6) How should this group of emerging adults receive such a heritage? The abstract above mentions the six questions to be answered by both the older and younger generation when they seriously try to share a Christian worldview. What follows is an attempt to provide answers to these problems.

Keywords

• Contemporary culture
• Generation Y
• Me or Millennials
• generational differences
• developmental stages
• individualism
• information technology
• mentoring
• postmodernism
• worldview