Gen Z

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Wednesday, June the twenty sixth, twenty twenty four. It is currently eight fifty four am Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. We have to do it this morning, ladies and gentlemen. We have to do it all right. The situation demands that we take some time this morning to talk about Generation Z orjen Z. Do you have anyone who's a gen Zer in your home? Do you have any gen Zers around you right now? Well, if you do, they won't care what I'm talking about because they will not be very interested because well, okay, we're gonna but we're gonna be talking about gen Z now. Before we can talk about gen Z, we just got to talk about something.

1:06 And I'm gonna at least try to articulate my perspective and my philosophy on this, because there's certain things that happen when people talk about different generations that I just loathe and I just hate. I really hate this mindset where well, back in my day, what has happened to this generation. The world is falling apart and hard day things were better than music was better, the television shows were better, the books were better, We were better everything, the air was better. Everything was better. And then this generation comes along and they've destroyed everything. I hate that mindset, absolutely despise it, you know how I am. Even when it comes to music, I hate people like the music today is just no good. Oh. I cannot stand that mindset.

1:52 It's just so like. Oh, people get like trapped and their generation and everything. Then for the rest of their life they just continually to live in that generation. And I seem to forget that the rest of the world has moved on. Nobody cares about what you were doing back in your generation. Now all of us do that. Right, there's things about my generation that I will speak fondly of, right that I remember that. I can get very sad to see them slowly deteriorate and fall apart, Right, I could. I could talk about different things. So there's one aspect that all of us look back. But I don't like that. I don't like I like to move forward, not to look back. That's why, like, even again, I have a very kind of strict rule when it comes to music, about eighty eighty to ninety percent of my music is always going to be new, and then I will pull up older albums. But I don't want to just live in the past. I want to move forward. So I just don't like that mindset. And I think a lot of times, what happened what really bothers me. This is more within the Christian world, is like, well, this current generation they're so ungodly. They they're rebellious, they reject scripture and on it and that we'll talk about all the sins of the current generation. It's like, hey, buddy, I don't know if you want to look back to your generation, but there was a lot of things going on in your generation, maybe different sins, but there was clear sins right as a lot of times people say, oh, the morality

3:23 today is just so bad, and it's like, well, when do you want to go back in time? We can look at Do you want to go back to the time where we, you know, bought and sold human beings as property? Oh? What a great time. Do you want to go back time when we restricted the rights of people simply on the basis of their skin color, color, I mean, we can every generation because from a theological perspective, this is what Christians should be very aware of. Right, every generation. Are you ready? This is like, I know, this is going to be the most shocking news you've ever heard. Every generation is made up of people, and people, no matter what generation they live in, they are sinners. They have a sinful nature. So every generation, that sinful nature manifests itself. And maybe some sins are more prevalent in one generation than another, but it's always there in some way, shape or form. Sin will always manifest itself in every generation. You've got your whatever generation you're from, your generation is probably known for specific sins. You may look to this generation like, well, I don't understand those sins. I don't like those sins. Those sins are disgusting to me. Yeah, because they're not your sins. But every generation has them. So I don't like the mentality of looking back and saying my generation was better and I don't understand this generation. I don't get that now. At the same time, I'm very aware of acknowledging that there are differences, but I don't like that whole

4:58 I don't like the generation A. I don't like that. I don't like that in any wayship performance. So sometimes when old people talk, and not to be disrespectful, but when old people talk, I'm just like, oh, just stop, just stop. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing to me. I'm embarrassed for you. Just don't do that, all right. So that's one thing that bothers me. And I don't like the mindset that we I can't understand this generation and they're so ungodly and completely seem to ignore how ungodly your generation was or the generation before yours, because every generation, trusts me, there was sin. That's it's been true since Adam and Eve fell. From that moment on, it's been every generation their sin, their sin.

5:41 There's rebellion, and there's failure, and every generation there is plenty to look at and and and and people will be like, what in the world were they thinking at that time? So I don't like the idea of looking back, but you know, more so than looking forward. And I don't like the idea of basically saying our sins were better than your sins. I don't like any of that. So I'm not one to necessarily like I don't like to pick on the current generation. I don't like to say, well, your generation is this, You're but just snowflakes. So I don't like to be all derogatory. I'm just I don't like to do that. But you at the same time, I've got to stress this. I can acknowledge that there's things maybe about certain generations that I'm just kind of like, what in the world are they thinking, Like where is that coming from? But most importantly, it's not so much so that I could criticize or mock. I tend to want to know what the current generation is doing because it kind of tells me where the world is headed right, where the world is going.

6:50 And from a philological perspective, I like to see where the current generation is because I'm thinking, how is that going to impact theology moving forward? How is that going to impact the church moving forward? Because I'm telling you you take a generation, you look at that generation that is going to influence the Church of the future. Every generation influences the church. Like you cannot deny that. You can go back to history, look at the Church of the fifties. Well, the Church of the sixties and the seventies is very different than the Church of the fifties. The Church of the eighties and nineties is very now. There may be those exceptions, but inevitably, the culture, the generation influences the church. I know we want the church to be the one influencing the generations. We want the church to be the driving force of influence, but it never truly works that way. We know we can go all the way back to First Corinthians. When I talked through First Corinthians, I said it every single week for what three years we were in the book of First Corinthians. First Corinthians is a letter written to a church that was located in a city, and the city was influencing the church more than the church was influencing the city. That is true over and over and over and over again. This current generation, whatever generation we're talking about today, we're gonna be talking about gen Z. They're the future of the church. You can like it, you can despise it, you can try to you can hope for the best, but it's it's going to happen. They will influence

8:22 the church. And the question is what is the church going to look like when it's a gen Z dominated church and a gen Z led church. What is that going to look like because they will develop new trends, new ideas, new philosophies that will enter in and ultimately it begins to change theology. Biblical interpretation changes so much now there will always be those who try to fight it and resist it. And many times the ones fighting and resisting are on the right side. Sometimes you could argue they could be on the wrong side. But it appears from what I have in front of me this morning, hut off the presses, put off the press that there's some things about gen Z according to the study that I have in front of me, that well, quite frankly, is alarming. Now, that's the headline that they've done a study on gen Z and what they found is alarming. This is not from a Christian website. This is actually found at MSN dot com from the Business Insider, and they are alarmed at what they found when they studied gen Z. That is fascinating to me. This is not some like Christian article, you know, something on the Christian Post or someone and like whoa, oh, we've got problems right here in River City because gen Z. I

9:54 say, that's using an old reference. I I not, okay, I'm using a dated reference. Okay, but but this is not like some kind of a philological thing right where the current generation or the older generation is now condemning the current generation. This is well, this is a secular source. Now what I wonder what they think is so alarming? Well, here's the full headline. Google studied gen Z. What they found is alarming? Whoa Google study gen Z? And what they found is alarming? I want to know what is so alarming? What? Come on, give me your predictions right now. If you're around people, just shout out your prediction to the people walking around you. They won't know what's going on. Just say my prediction is. What is alarming about gen Z is? Come on, shout it out? What is alarming about gen Z? Is? Okay? All right? Well I don't know if people are probably looking at you right now, okay, so what is alarming about gen Z? What do you think?

11:03 What do you think? Now? I I was trying to think now that this is I'm just trying to count how I engaged this article is. When I saw the headline, I immediately stopped and kind of just stated that out loud, what is alarming about gen Z? And I was trying to think of something like new or or creative or or something like, Okay, it's got to be something that I'm not even aware of and come to find out it really is. I mean to me, it's maybe it's alarming, but it's kind of just what I would think, right. It's like, it's so it's kind of so predictable. It was so predictable that I couldn't predict it right because it was just it felt like, what's so obvious?

11:50 But I think that what is true of gen Z has been a problem within culture, and it's been developing generation after generation. So I don't think that this is really a unique gen Z issue. But here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna try to figure out what they found out about gen Z. But what I want you to see now, I want you to I'm gonna try this. I don't know if I can pull this off, because I could just turn this on and bash gen Z, but I want and you know what I always try to do. Whenever I'm looking at something in the news, I want to use it as a mirror, not not as a window so I can look out there and point at everyone else. I like to use it as a mirror. How can we see ourself in this study? Because I think there's some things about gen Z that's already evident and true within Christianity, it's already influencing it. You may think that I'm wrong, But here we go. Are you ready? All right? Hot off the press now, I just keep the piece of paper here for for sound effects, because well it's actually on my iPad. Okay, but I can't do anything awesome with us iPad. I can just I mean, like you know that that's not that doesn't sound as cool? All right, yeah, I mess up my host screen there, Okay, here we go. All right, Google studied gen Z. What they found is alarming. Did you make your predictions? Did you write your predictions down? Right? Come on, right, write your predictions down on paper. Take take a screenshot of it or take a photo of it. Make sure there's a timestamp. Make sure that it states nine oh seven am correct time or central time, right,

13:24 because I want you can I can see if you got your prediction right, because I mean, if you send me a photo and there's no timestamp stamp, I think you'll just wait until after I give you the information. But what did they find that was so alarming. Here we go. Are you ready? Paragraph number one again? This is from MSN dot com. Uh, this is a story by Adam Rogers from Business Insider dot com. Here we go, first paragraph. Gen Z has come of age swimming in a gloppy stew of digital content. Every day they navigate memes, photos, social media, chats with their friends, flashes a video, influencers, influencing news articles from a zillion places across the net. How do American teens and youngest adults sort through all that digitized gunk to determine what's important or useful or true?

14:28 All right, so let's sup right here, gen Z finds themselves in an ocean of digital content? How do they navigate it? How do they determine this is important? This is useful? But it was that third thing? Is this true? Now? That's an important question because anytime I see a question about truth, well, that's right in line with a podcast called Theology Central, because when make Theology Central, we are trying to find the truth from a philological perspective? Right, what is true? Theologically? Because if we believe God is truth? Okay, well we can get a whole discussion about truth. But we ask Christians, we've been yelling and screaming forever that we believe an absolute truth. That truth is not relative? Right?

15:20 Is that not what we always claim? Now? I've been I've challenged that a lot because I think Christians have kind of abandoned absolute truth in a hundred different ways. But we can talk about that at a later time. So this already caught my attention. So, gen Z, they're swimming in digital content now, I think, to be fair, they're not the only ones, right, I think all generations who are alive right now, they're swimming in a gloppy stew of digital content. To use their language, we all are every day. You've got this, you've got this, you've got this. Maybe you're not as engaged on TikTok, or maybe you're not as focused on instant, but you are in your own digital stew and you're navigating it, and you're trying to figure out what is important, what is useful, and hopefully you're trying to figure out what is true. And what I have seen personally that I think many many of the I feel the older generation are incapable of navigating it in any meaningful way, and in many cases they can't figure out what's true. I would think the younger generation would be much more sophisticated because they've grown up around it, where the older generation doesn't seem they lot that sophistication. That would be kind of my thought. But let's see what they say about gen Z and they're navigating using their words as they swim through a gloppy stew of digital content. I do like that that phrase, right, But let's go to the second paragraph. A lot of folks would

16:53 love to know. They said, there's a lot of people would like to know how gen Z is navigating or swimming through this gloppy stew digital content. Social networks want young users, media outlets want subscribers, politicians want votes, Professors want to know why their students won't read books. Everyone, it seems, has a stake and understanding kids these days. So they're like, there's a lot of people who want to know. There's all there's a people who have some invested interest in knowing how kids are navigating this How are they navigating this digital stew of digital content or this ocean of digital content? Everybody seems to want to know. I think I think in some ways that's always been true, right, I think in some in some ways, it's always been true that the older generation is trying to understand kids these days, right because especially once kind of the teen age, that the concept of the teenager emerged, well, they kind of became a demographic someone you can market to, someone who disposable income, So trying to understand them, well, how can we get them engaged in this, How can we sell them this, How can we get them to watch our content? So I think there's always been a little bit of that throughout since the concept of the teenager really emerged into popular culture, But it's still true today everyone wants to understand well. Over the past couple of years, researchers at Jigsaw, a Google subsidiary that focuses

18:30 on online politics and polarization, have been studying gen zers and how they digest and metabolize what they see online. So Jigsaw, which is connected to Google, it's a subsidiary subsidiary of Google, they have been studying gen zers for the last couple of years and they're really trying to figure out how gen zers digest and metabolize what they see online. The researchers were hoping that their work provide one of the first in depth studies of gen Z's information literacy. Right, so it'd be the first in depth ethographic studies of gen Z's information literacy.

19:15 So they're studying a specific part of gen Z, basically their information literacy to make it all, you know, to make it as simple as I can make it. But the minute they started, their most fundamental assumptions about the nature of digital information came crashing down. So they got ready to study gen Z trying to understand. They're like kind of there, as they put it, their information literacy. But as soon as they started to study, their assumptions just came come crashing down. So something they found something right out of the gate that was like, wait, what is going on? And obviously the headline is indicating that what they start discovering is alarming, So what is it? What is it? What is it? Well, come back next week and I'm joking, I'm joking. I'm joking, I'm joking, but I'm trying to tease it, you know, trying to keep you engaged.

20:12 Right here we go, Are you ready? Next paragraph? Within a week? That's that blows my mind. Within one week, within one week, they're kind of like, wait a minute, we got a problem here, right, Red alert? Red alert. Okay, so within a week of actual research, we just threw out the term information literacy. So immediately within one week, they're like, forget this term information literacy. Let's just throw it out. It turns out gen zers, it turns out, are not on a linear journey to evaluate the veracity of anything. When it comes to gen zers, they are not on a linear journey to evaluate the veracity of anything. This is crazy. Instead, they're engaged in what the researchers call information sensibility information sensibility. So forget information literacy. Gen zers are kind of they're engaged in what they call as information sensibility. Information sensibility, not information literacy, but information sensibility. What in the world does that mean?

21:30 I have no idea. In fact, I was like, I don't know what information sensibility is. What does that mean? Are you saying that they instead of trying to be literate, they just want to know what sensible? Oka, Well, that could be a good thing. Are they trying to determine if this information is sensible? Well? What are they basing it off of? Okay, I'm intrigued, right, But the basic assumptions of the researchers came crashing down. So what is information sensibility? Well, let's see if we can find out. This is how they kind of define this. Information sensibility a socially informed are practice that relies on folk heuristics of credibility heuristics.

22:18 What is heuristics? Heuristics? Is that even? How? So? Then at this point I stopped reading the article. I'm gona wait a minute. So, okay, information sensibility a socially informed practice that relies on folk heuristics of credibility. I'm like, h E U R I S T C S heuristics? What's heuristics? So I'm like, what is heuristic? So I had to go look up the word, right, first thing I wanted to do is make sure I even know what it is or if I'm saying it correctly. Heuristics heuristics. Okay, all right, I've got that right. So I'm like, okay, good, But I'm like, what is heuristics? And simple terms? Heuristics are mental shortcuts for solving problems in a quick way that delivers a result that is sufficient enough to be useful given time constraints. Wait a minute, so heuristics. These are mental shortcuts for solving problems. So this tells me that gen z when it comes to information, they want a shortcut so that will just be sufficient for I guess the time they feel they have. They feel like they have limited time because they have a stew of digital content, so they need kind of a mental shortcut that will just get that will be sufficient enough for them so they can move on to the next piece of content. That seems to where I'm going. That's

23:49 starting to be a little concerning, right. That means they're like, okay, wait a minute, I need Okay, They've got a short cut in their mind, right, some kind of shortcut that just says, okay, this is efficient, I'm good, move on. Because they don't seem to want to slow down to really I really do any actual analysis of it. They don't really care about being literate. They just want to be well sensible. That seems to be the direction this is going. So I went back and I'm like, I got to read this all again. All right, So within a week of actual research, the research is throughout the term information literacy and finds out that they started because gen Zers are not on a linear journey to evaluate the veracity of anything. They don't care about the veracity of anything. Instead, they're engaged in what the researchers called information sensibility, a socially informed practice that relies on folk heuristics of credibility and other words. Gen Zers know the difference between rock solid news and AI generated memes, they just don't care. Now that worried me. That worried me. Great, I'm like, okay, no, no, we got an issue, right, So when it comes to gen Z, I want you to hear this again.

25:17 They know the difference between rock solid News, they know the difference between rock solid news and an AI generated meme. They just don't care. They just don't care. They don't care the difference. They know the difference, but they don't care that there is a difference. They don't really care about figuring out the veracity of anything. And I'm like, well, whoa, whoa that is concerned. Now. In some ways I felt somewhat justified because I've stated to young people in my church in the past that the thing with gen Z is they just don't care. It's like in the past, you're like, is God true? Is God not true? Is God real?

25:57 Is God not real? Is the Bible Trew's the Bible not true? Does God exist? Does God not exist? Like these big questions. But gen Z just doesn't really care one way or the other. They just don't care. And I'm like, well that is concerned. Let's see if that plays out, because that's kind of been my view on them all right, So here we go. So just hear that again. Gen z ers know the difference between rock solid news and an AI generated meme. They just don't care. Jigsaw's findings offers a revealing glimpse into the digital mindset of gen Z, where older generations are out there struggling to fight fact fact check information and site sources. Right now, I don't know if older generations actually do that.

26:45 I think this is a problem in all generations, right this is I believe this is a societal issue in twenty twenty four, not a gen Z issue. Gen Z it may be more prominent. Okay, but let me read this again. According to this article, we older generations are out there struggling to fact check information in site sources. Gen Zers don't even bother for a gen Z. They don't care. They're not going to spend the time to struggle to fact check information because they don't bother. I don't think they even care. They're going to say, they just read the headlines. So this is what a gen Zer does. They read the headlines and then speed scroll to the comments to see what everyone else says. Now, I will argue that's not a gen Z issue. In fact, I think that that started with the generation before the gen Zers. I think the previous generation brought forth the gen Zers and almost train them to think this way. Because I have watched adults do this over and over and over and over again. You'll they'll start, you know, they'll start arguing about something like, did you even read the article? Well know, well, then what are you talking about?

28:07 You just read a headline. So I think that this started before gen Z. But gen Z will read the headline, then go straight to the comments to see what everyone wants to says, and I quote from the article. They're outsourcing the determination of truth and importance to like minded, trusted influencers. So for gen Z, they're outsourcing the determination of truth to someone who's like minded and a trusted influencer. They're listening to influencers. Influencers can be people who you can be a YouTube channel could be on you know, someone streaming on Twitch. It could be it could be an Instagram, it could be on TikTok. They outsource it for today. But please note like minded influence, like minded influencers. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we can condemn gen Z for this. Christianity has made this sounds like Christianity to me.

29:11 We outsource the determined determination of truth to our favorite influencers. They're called pastors. We go to their commentaries, we read their books, we listen to their sermons. They tell me what truth is, and then I simply parrot back what they told me and then claim that I've done Bible study. This is I've been condemning this in Christianity forever. Everybody has their team. I only listen to the people who support my team. I've outsourced the determination of truth really to my own magisterium that are like minded. Well, MacArthur said, MacArthur study Bible said well, Piper said, well. Rci Sproull said.

29:53 And then when you get into an argument with someone, what do the Christians do? They hop on google those like minded articles, cut and pace, and then try to argue with you by parroting what they've read from someone else. It's very difficult to get them to go no, no, no no no, no, no no no, stop with Google. Let's go to the text and let's actually study the text. Let's actually dig in. Now. It may take us six months. We may have to look up every verse that uses this word. We may have to do this, we may have to do that. That's why I in many cases my Bible study exercises trying to get people to engage in like, in depth actual study, they're the most They are rarely that popular because people don't want to actually engage in meaningful, in depth, long study. They want to listen to someone tell them what to believe. They don't want to have someone say, hey, I'm not going to tell you what to believe. Let's dig in and let's figure it out together. In fact, I've received emails criticizing me because I just won't give an answer. Stop with all your questions. Just teach the truth. Oh you want me to teach what you think is truth.

31:04 You want me to simply tell you what to believe as long as you agree with what I say. I think Christians perfected the idea of outsourcing truth to their favorite influencer. I don't think that's a gen Z thing. I think the church perfected it. Okay, you may disagree, but okay, so it says that, I quote again from the article they speaking of gen Zers. They have outsourced the determination of truth and importance to like minded, trusted influencers. And if an article's too long, they just skip it. If an article is too long, they just skip it. Ladies and gentlemen, I have received I don't know how many messages since I have been broadcasting.

31:53 Well, someone will say something, and then will I will reply back to them, going, did you listen to the rest? Well, now, I didn't listen to all of it. It's too long, so you didn't listen to all of it. But you're immediately criticizing me. Give me a break. Christians have been doing this. Well, I'm not gonna listen to the entire sermon now. I just I saw a clip of a sermon on x or on TikTok, and man, this sermon is bad. This pastor is an idiot. Did you listen to the whole sermon? Of course not, of course not. Some people don't like my sermon reviews because they may be. They may one sermon may take me four or five six hours to review it. People don't like that. They want it quick and fast and to the point. Gen Zers. If the article's too long, they just skip it. They don't want to see stuff now are you ready for this, gen Zers. They don't want to see stuff that might force them to think too hard, or that upsets them emotionally. To me, that's Christianity they want. They don't want a podcast that will make them think, or that may upset them emotionally or may challenge them. They want to hear what they already think, and they want it done quickly. That's why they choose churches that never will rock the boat or challenge them. Or no. As soon as they are uncomfortable, boom, they leave and go find a place

33:25 where they can be comfortable, where someone will hold their hand and tell them what they want to hear. This is not a gen Z thing. This is our culture in twenty twenty four. Nobody wants to be forced to think, nobody wants to be upset. So we find our own little kind of digital corner, our little digital cave, and then we're like, we're only gonna I'm gonna only bring in the content that I like, that tells me what I want, that I agree with, and I will outsource the determination of truth to them because I don't want to actually do any serious work. I don't want to be forced to study. I don't want to be forced to do any work. Just feed me what I already know is true and just continue to reaffirm that that to me sounds like Christianity, It doesn't sound like gen Z. If they have a goal. This is back to the article speaking of gen Z. This is what the goal of gen Zers are.

34:25 It is to learn what they need to know to remain cool and to be able to have a conversation and their chosen social groups. So what gen Zers care about is just knowing what to think so that they can be cool and engage in conversation with their social group ladies and gentlemen. That has been going on in every generation. There's always in every generation. They just want to be cool. They just want to fit in. They just want to be cool and just fa I just want to know enough so that I can I can be able to have a conversation. I think some people sitting in church they just want want to know enough so they can tak Christianese. They're not really interested in in depth study. They're not going to go read the Church Fathers. They're not going to read books on hermoneuticts. They're not going to actually engage in serious study. They just want a little bit of spiritual content so they can be they can have a conversation with their peer group, and then they can feel comfortable in the social settings. I don't think this is a gen Z issue. They go on to say, the old guard is like, yeah, but you have to care ultimately about the truth.

35:34 So they say the older generation is like, okay, but you have to care ultimately about the truth. Gen Z's take is, you can tell me your truth and what you think is important. What establishes the relevance of a claim isn't some established notion of authority. It's the social signals they get from their peers. Again, now that gen Z thing comes from the previous generation, which became a wash and relativism. The previous generation was I remember in the nineteen nineties teaching my singles class and Bellevue, Nebraska. Hey, relativism.

36:14 This is this philosophical thing that is sweeping the culture relativism, so that relativism started way back, and now gen zers are like, well, you can tell me your truth, but what really matters to me, as they said, what really matters to me is the social signals I'm getting from my peers, because they don't really care about some established notion of authority. Jigsaw research doesn't purport to be statistically significant. They didn't poll a large group, so then it goes on to talk about but they did intense interviews with people who are from thirteen to twenty four years of old, from a representative range of demographics, classes, and genders. They were doing what anthropology or apologists do in the field, looking for a qualitative depth rather than quantitative data.

37:06 What they heard surprise them. Young folks basically say there's no difference between going online for news versus social interaction. Say that don't even see a difference going to a news site or just talking in a social interaction. It's the same for them. It's just the same. It's just information. There's not a hierarchy. It appears of information. Well, that could be concerning gen Zers approach. Most of their digital experience and what the researchers call time pass mode just looking to not be bored. So they the way they look for things is they just look not to be bored. They don't want to be bored.

37:51 They don't want to be bored. Oh I hate the word board, you know. I loathe the word board. That the word board was not even allowed to be utilized in my home. I hate that. How can you be bored in a world where there's a bazillion things to do every single day? I don't know. If you're bored, you're broken. You need help, you need serious help because something is wrong with you inside. How can you be bored? My problem is I don't have enough hours. If I had seventeen lifetimes to be able to do what I want to do. Oh man, there's okay. Yeah, So I don't understand. And their mother, I just don't want to be bored. They just don't want to be bored. If they want to answer a question or learn something new, they might turn to a search engine. But they're acquiring new information mainly via their social feeds, which algorithm based on the algorithm prone to reflect what they care about and who they trust, and short they've created their own filters to process an onslaught of digitized information, So they're not really gonna do a lot of research. They're just gonna go to their social feeds where the algorith them is gonna already send them what they basically what they already agree with, what they already like, so they have a filter to filter out anything that would upset them or cause them to think or produce or present to them a counter perspective. And ladies and gentlemen, Christians have been doing that forever. I'm not going to read that. I'm not going to listen to him. I don't like that. Just tell me what I already think and then will be

39:22 good. But the minute you make me think or you rock the boat, I'm not going to listen to you anymore. And I get those emails all the time. You just lost another listener. You just lost another listener, okay, because you're gonna go only listen to the people you already agree with. Well, congratulations, how how that you should You should be proud of yourself that you're gonna remove anything that could possibly challenge you. Well, that's what gen zers do. But I think the church has been doing that forever. I mean, I I've told the story before, I had had a commentary by James Montgomery Boyce. I'm First John. And in First John, we have that famous passage that some people say supports the Trinity and other manuscripts it's not really there, and so there's a big manuscript evidence our argument over it. Well, the church I was in was a KJV only church.

40:13 Well the manuscript that many of the manuscripts differ wildly with what the KJV translates, and First John on this famous passage. So I handed my pastor the book, you know, from the commentary, and I'm like, hey, could you read this and tell me what you think, because he's making some claims about the the you know, the manuscript evidence. And he's like, so what's his argument? I give an argument and he tossed the book back. Man, it's like, I don't read garbage. He wouldn't actually read the book, he wouldn't actually engage. He just said, I don't read garbage. That's the same church that you know. You weren't supposed to read this. When promise keepers was so popular, if you were in the Bible institutor doing serving in the church, you were not allowed to go to a promise keeper's meeting. Because well, because they were ecumenical, and they were In other words, you can only go to the the things he said you could go to. You can only listen to the preaching that they said you could listen to. They were basically creating their own filter. This kind of nonsense has been going on in Christianity forever. Don't read those books, don't listen to that pastor, don't use that commentary, only use this commentary.

41:14 Only listen to these pastors. Only read these books. A lot of times people in my church would ask me, so should I read this book? Why wouldn't you? Well, it may it may it may be disagree with everything we think, So is that going to hurt you at all? What could confuse me? Confusion is the first step to truth. If you're not confused, you're never gonna find truth. You just want it. You don't want to go through the valley of confusion. You just want someone to hand you answer in a nice little package way so you don't have to do any work and struggle or have any difficulty. That's not the pursuit of truth. That's the pursuit of comfort. Truth is never comfortable, and the pursuit of truth as always is difficult, says, only the important stuff shows up, and if something shows up, it must be important. So that's kind of the way they look at it is, Hey, what shows up in their feed. It's called time time pass mode, all right, So basically the way they do so they engage and light obligation free content and light obligation free content. I don't want any obligation to it. It's it's fast, it's quick, it's free. They don't wanna, they don't wanna. They don't want to have to be really to do much of anything. The article continues gen Z. They don't read long articles, and they don't trust anything with ads or paywalls or pop ups asking for donations or subscriptions. If you're making

42:46 clickbait, you have zero faith in your content. One subject told the researchers and news sources, even CNN and the New York Times do clickbait. I throw those articles away immediately. So if they feel like it's clickbait, now they, I guess, are the ones to determine if it's clickbait. They immediately throw it away. Just throw it out, just throw it out. Say they're not so much worried about the content they're worried about how the content is presented. I guess it's behind a paywall or it's quote unquote clickbait, So well, okay. For gen Z, the online world resembles the stratified, clickish launch room of a nineteen eighties teen movie. Instead of listening to old, stuffy, old teachers like CNN and The Times, they take their cues from online influencers, the queen bees and quarterback bros. At the top of the social hierarchy. The influencer's personal experience makes them authentic, and they speak jen Z language, so they're going to go to the influencers. Again, I see a parallel within a lot of Christianity. You have your favorite pastors, they become your influencer. They have their influencers on TikTok or whatever social media platform there. That's who they go to. It's really the same thing. And that's one of the reasons I've tried on this podcast not to quote unquote be an influencer. I try to be the place like, Okay,

44:19 you're here, now, let's get to work. We're gonna be working on it. I've given you this week. What are you working on? Joshua One eight. That's what you're supposed to be working on all week. I've given you specific things to look for, specific things to try to define. We're looking at an article on revival that we're gonna be like. I've always got some things we're working on, but it's always we're working on it, we're pursuing it, we're working together. I'm giving you assignments. We're looking this up, and I'm literally pointing you to other sources other than me. I'm literally telling you go read this, go listen to this, go check this out. I may one thousand percent disagree with it, because then you get to hear multiple perspectives. That's why when you do sermon reviews, we review the entire sermon. Why so you get to hear two different perspectives.

45:07 Now I may criticize one, but you still get to hear both perspectives. And you don't get to hear a little clip. You get to hear the whole thing. You get to hear those pastors present their entire hypotheses from beginning to end. You get to hear them flesh it out, and then I tell you how to go find it so you can go listen to the rest for yourself if for some reason we don't finish it, but usually we finish finish them completely, or at least about ninety percent. Gen z ers will have a favorite influencer, a set of influencers who they essentially outsource their trust to, and then and then they're incredibly loyal to everything that influencer is saying instead of they do this instead of research. It becomes extremely costly to fall out of that influencers group because they're getting all their information from them, so so that that's you know, they're they're basically listening to the influencer verse, is doing any actual research. Now, none of this means that gen Z is any less intelligent or diligent than other generations. They know how to research something more deeply. It's just that this usually they don't wanna. They know how to, they just don't wanna. They don't care. That don't care, they don't want to. They tap into those critical literacy skills and a really small proportion of the time they spend online if they're prepping for an argument they know they're going to have, or when they have to make big life decisions about schools or investments, they're willing to deal with the drudgery of

46:38 fact finding. But the vast majority of the time they're spending uh, spending their their time mindless, mindlessly in time pass mode. So most of the time that they're they're they're online or doing anything, it's in it's in a as they refer to it, it's mindless, it's in time pass mode. Veracity was not only not top of mind, it actually wasn't important to them at all. They didn't really care about the veracity of anything. They don't really, they just don't care. They've reached a point it's not a matter of your truth, my truth. They don't even care about the concept. They just don't care. Who cares? I need to know it if it makes it cool. Well, one of my favorite influence says, the concept of truth is gone. Now. This could be very detrimental, and I don't think the church will understand this. If you get a church leader, like someone in Christianity that comes an influencer to a large generation of gen Zers, they're just going to outsource the concept of truth to that Christian influencer.

47:45 Doesn't mean that they have really any true connection to that faith. They just like buy into it and go along with it. At some point someone's got to say no, no, no, no, you need to figure it out. Let's study together, let's dig in, meaning that what whatever they're committed to is really based off what they're being influenced by, not some real personal connection to it. Well, when it comes to Christianity and faith should be a personal thing to it. When one subject shared a fake image of Donald Trump running from the New York Police Department, the research has challenged them on it, they kind of shrugged. From the subject's perspective, they weren't using their critical thinking and media literary skills at all. After all, Trump was at that time headed for a criminal trial in New York. It could have been true. So they don't really care. H well, whatever, you challenge them on it, and they're like, whatever, I don't care.

48:40 And when it comes to things like diet or wellness, gen zers will just try it on their own bodies and see if it works. They perceive that is a safe way to do their own research, mostly because it's not hurting anyone else. If that new diet or exercise regime works on their body, that's more believable than data showing the effect on a whole population. If facty sounding stuff does not manage to sneak into the gen z's feeds claims about what constitutes a healthy diet, or what Trump would do as president, or whether Ukraine Russia is to blame for russia invasion of Ukraine, they're likely they head straight for the comments. That's partly because they know how they know the digital They basically they think that the people will quickly unmask any fake news, but it's also because they're concerned about But it's also because they're concerned about whether the news or a particular reaction to it might prove to be a canceable take.

49:38 So, in other words, they don't really want to work through the article, right, They don't really work with the facts. They go to the comments because they are trusting that in the comments they will determine if this is fake or true and whether if whatever has happened is canceable. Oh, this person should be canceled and this person should be silent. How should I feel about it? They go to the comments to figure out how they should feel about it. They go to the comments to determine what they should do. They go to the comments to determine whether something is fake or that is the most ridiculous thing ever. But at the same time, I think that's been evident in generations for a long time. I don't think this is something necessarily new. I think gen zers are following what many generations have done, all right. Rather than engaging in more traditional information seeking journey that seeks to answer a specific question, gen zers figure stuff out by bouncing around online.

50:43 So they're not going to do a traditional way of research or study. It's kind of bounce around online and I think they just try to get kind of a feel for what people are thinking. But guess what, but that's all based off the algorithm already giving them what they already think, so they're never going to be challenged. But again, Christianity does the same thing. People can be on the sermon's two point o app and they look at their feed. Most of it's going to be pastors they agree with are from a denomination that they're a part of. They're not going to have people that's presenting ideas contrary to what they think. Cancel culture came to be a thing as they were growing up. They were trained and attend to how to perform and not to perform to avoid that they're getting trusted information from closed group chats or followers with private feeds, so they're able to perform that they're part of an in group and can perform specific social signals. For gen Z, checking what other people are saying in the comments isn't shallow. It's a matter of social life or death. In other words, Hey, for them, there's a there's a real this is their this is their social life is online. So they're going to go to the comments to kind of get a feel for whateveryone is thinking, because they don't want to be canceled. If they put out a take that's against what everyone is saying, they're gonna be silence. They're gonna be shut down, They're gonna be canceled. So this is a matter of life or death for them as far as their social life is online. Now.

52:10 To be fair, I can't say I understand that completely right because I've never lived in that environment right the way they do now. For me, I always went against what everyone said. So it was death for my social life in high school because I went against everything I went against. I just like you tell me a I'm saying B even if I know it's a just because I'm not gonna go along with you. So if I was a lie, if I was a teenager today where my life was dependent upon, you know, being on social media and these online social groups, I would be I would be finished. I'd have been canceled within five seconds. But you know what, that's still not much different than Christianity. You say, you say things not the way everyone wants you to say them, you will be canceled. I've said Christianity is the is the original creators. They are the ogs of cancel culture. But it's the same kind. So that's why they go to the comments. They're they're trying to figure what eeveryone is saying because they don't want to get themselves in trouble. If this sounds like a generation that will believe any flim flam they encountered and never subscribed to a newspaper, well the researchers that Jigsaw worry about that too. But the good news is gen zers aren't seeing as much intentional falsehood as you might think. Researchers show that most miss and disinformation is being made and consumed by a dwindling minority of users who seek it out that's interesting, right, not sprayed out, you

53:45 know, through the algorithm, into the eyeballs of you know, the credulous internet surfing teens. Casual consumption, consumption of silly tiktoks is very unlikely to lead someone into a dark corner of hate or misinformation. So there's like, typically the people who want misinformation or seeking it out, Okay, maybe, but the point is they don't seem to care to research it one way or the other. All right, now, the article goes on, I'm just gonna skip down here to the bottom. There's a lot here you can go find this, it says. Still, I wondered what gen zers themselves might make of Jigsaw's research. Conveniently, two of them live in my house and call me Dad, so I texted them the findings, along with a question mark emoji. Yeah seems right, the younger one replied, But you know, not all of us do that. I counted myself lucky. That was more of a response than any of the researchers got. We always share the final results with respondents, he says. But when Goldberg asked her subjects what they thought of her research, true to her findings, all she heard back was the gravid silence of teenagers looking at their phones. I'm not sure how many of our eiers read our papers, she concluded, ruefully, no comment section, no comment. So, in other words, most of the peopeople who were involved in the research, when they sent them the research, they were like, yeah, who cares, We don't really care. That's gen Zers. We just don't care. We don't care. That maybe gen Zers.

55:14 And this has been talked about all the way in the eighties, right, you remember the famous story that the kids walk into the classroom and on the chalkboard there's the word apathy written right, and one of the students walk up to the chalkboard like app but the apathy app but the appa ah, who cares? Who cares? Well, well, gen Z just doesn't care. Now if there's a comment section, they care. Now what do you take from all of that? Now, here's what I'm going to do. If you have the church one APP, I'll be sending out the link to this article in just a few minutes, and then you can look at it for yourself and determine what you think. There's there's a lot more here.

56:04 I skipped a number of paragraphs, so I want you to read it again. The headline is Google studied gen Z. What they found is alarming. I tried to take it and draw correlations between what I see in Christianity and the Church. I think we have reached a point moving forward that I think there's a there's a there's a lot of similarities. And if the current if the gen Zers just don't really care about truth and don't really care about research, and don't really care to pursue it and to search it out, I don't think a lot of Christians care either. I think it's very difficult to get Christians to actually engage in meaningful study other than just going to their favorite influencers. I think this, I think the problem has been going. I think the problem has been developing before gen Zers. I think has been developing for a very long time. I mean, I remember in the late eighties, early nineties hearing seminary professors saying, we have got a crisis of biblical illiteracy. There's theological illiteracy, Biblical illiteracy. I remember talking about it in the nineties, talking about it in the two thousands. It's been talked about over and over. We've got a problem that we cannot get Christians to actually study. We cannot get Christians to actually study, so that we got to shorten our sermons, or we have to add other content, or we got to do this, or we got to do that, because they don't want long, lengthy sermons, they don't want philological study. Well, I've heard

57:37 this over and over to me that we've been laying the groundwork for gen Z, but that means it's only getting worse. So what is the church going to look like? What is the church going to look like? There's a lot of questions there I don't have good answers to, but there you have it. Google study gen Z. They say the results are alarming. I think the results are like I thought when they were alarming. When I tried to predict what they would be, I was trying to think of something just like completely out of the box. I didn't know what it could be.

58:20 Well, this is not that alarming, because this is kind of what's been going on. Society's been moving in this direction generation after generation, year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year. You said, well, how do we fix the gen Zers? I don't know. I'm more worried about how we fix the church. But yeah, I mean, you know, I'm more. I mean, I'm this a theology podcast. I'm trying to how this impacts the church. I don't know what you do with gen zers. Can you make someone want to research? Can you make someone want to care about the truth? Can you want someone to actually care about digging in and thinking and research and reading and considering? Already just want them in time pass mode where they're just more worried about being bored, and they just go from things. The thing and they're more worried about their life is I don't want to be canceled. So I got to go see what the comment's saying, and that's that's sad that we want to cancel anyone who has a contrary perspective, anyone we want to just cancel them.

59:22 But again, I've been seeing that in Christianity forever. So I think the previous generations kind of molded the gen Zers into what they are. They've taken all the bad parts of the previous generations and they're like, this is the way we're going to be now. I don't know what the next generation is going to look like. I think there's more. I mean, digital content's not going to decrease, It's only going to increase. The accessibility of digital content is only going to increase. I think. I do believe there's gonna be there's gonna slowly but surely be more and more of a pushback against cancel culture. I think we're already seeing that. So I think the next generation will be much more opposed to cancel culture, at least I'm predicting that.

1:00:07 I think they're going to fight back against it. All right, I'll start right there. You can email me news I F at yahoo dot com. That's news. I F at Yahoo dot com. News I F at Yahoo dot com. If you're using the Church one app, if you if you listen to this, if you'll download the Church one app Church O n E. Once you download the app, do a search for Theology Central. It becomes the Theology Central App. I am going to send out the link to this article hopefully here, as soon as possible. And I hate to say this again because we've been having this problem. Once again. During this broadcast, we had a disconnect from Sermon's two point oh and the Church one app.

1:00:51 I don't know why there was a disconnection. But there was a disconnection. I apologize for that what I but the recording should be fine. I'll be uploading the recording hopefully. If there was a disconnect and you missed something, it was brief, but the recording will be uploaded within probably five to ten minutes, and then you can go listen to you can try to fast forward to the part where it disconnected it and you can hear everything I said. Hopefully this was beneficial. I had no idea that I was going to go over an hour on this, meaning all the gen Zers already tuned out. So I apologize. So if you'll post comments, then the gen Zers will just look at the title of this and then go to the comment section. So for the gen Zers, maybe someone will post a comment on YouTube.

1:01:32 Right somewhere, someone will post a comment. You won't listen to me, so so that but seeh I was very careful how I did the head that the title of this, I just put gen Zers. That's all I put. I was gonna put gen Zer's Alarming Study. But then gen Zers would say that that's being clickbaity, So that's clickbait, and so you just you wanted me just to click on it. So I'm not going to listen to you. So I just put gen Z and didn't say anything. So he had accused me of being clickbait. Right, so but now I went sixty one minutes, So now sixty two minutes. So then gen Z is are going to be like too long. But you know what's funny, it's not gen Z ors will do that. It's the adults. It's the people and the generation before them that that will guess what, complain that I went sixty two minutes and you didn't give good answers and and well, so I can't. I'm telling you, this is a this is a call, this is a societal shift. I don't think this is a gen I think they saw it in their study of gen Z. I think this is a societal shift. Society is going the way of gen Z. Gen Z is only reflecting. I don't think this is a gen Z thing. I think this gen Z is reflecting the reality of society. I think gen Z is just reflecting it. I don't think they're causing it or driving it. They're simply reflecting it. That's my theory. You can tell me what you think.

1:02:59 News I fitt Yahoo dot com news if at Yahoo dot com, the link will be coming soon. Read the entire article. I know it's long, so I know. So if you find a gen zer, read it to them, well, they'll probably be looking at their phone. Okay, wait a minute, forget that. The adults won't even read the article. They'll be looking at their phone. See, this is not a gen z. This is a societal issue. I think it's a societal issue. You can give me your thoughts, all right, Thank you very much. Everyone, have a great day. God bless