I like Jesus, but I don’t like Moses.
Without question, this generation of believers sees through a different lens than their evangelical parents did when it comes to church structure, leadership, politics and the OT law versus NT Jesus.
Many people today, especially among emerging generations, just don’t resonate with the organized church as they do with Jesus. These sons and daughters of evangelicals connect much more with the grace, love, compassion and forgiveness of Jesus than they do the Torah (the law).
Though they respect the law, they refuse to live by it from a legalistic and fundamentalist viewpoint as their parents did. As one 32-year-old preacher’s kid put it, “I was raised in the land of NO!”
“No you can’t! No you won’t! No, you’re not allowed to listen to that secular music! No, you can’t think like that! No, you’re not going out with those worldly kids!”
He said that it seemed as if he was raised in a sterile subculture that was “us” against “them”!
“I felt like it was much more Moses and the law then it was Jesus and His love.”
He said it really wasn’t until he read Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel as an adult that he saw what real grace and agape was all about.
What a sad description of a lost opportunity for so many Baby Boomer evangelicals that meant well in raising their children, but missed the mark when it came to law versus grace. Perhaps it’s because of negative and dominating learned behavior stemming from their parents’ own family systems.
Historically, a large segment of late ’60s and early ’70s hippies came to Jesus and created what is known as the Jesus Movement. Birthed out of that movement came the politically powerful Evangelical Religious Right which dominated social politics up until the election of Barack Obama in 2009. To its credit, the evangelical Religious Right had great success in helping a nation wake up to faith in God, morality and political consciousness.
However, it failed to balance its forbidding and dominating voice when it came to showing a grace filled, loving, merciful and forgiving Savior to their children.
So no wonder a generation sprung up wanting to distance themselves from The Law and instead welcome a compassionate new sound from a gentle Messiah saying: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28).
The difference between the two approaches of sharing Christ’s message were miles apart.
