Years ago, I started collecting quotations, writing them in a notebook. The other day, as I was reflecting on the theme for the Advent services this year, I recalled one by Patrick Henry. In Advent, we’re considering what it is we are passing on to the next generations: faith, in particular, but also values, memories, stories, activities. Patrick Henry was an orator and politician in the States in the 1770’s. Although I probably would not agree with much of what he said or wrote, I do like this:
“I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would have been rich; and if they had not that, I had given them all the world, they would have been poor.”
Substitute “Christian faith” for “Christian religion” and you have a very countercultural statement. How many adults believe that passing along faith to the next generation is the most critical gift they can give? Yet, as I think about the rising rates of suicide among young adults, or the widespread abuse of alcohol and drugs that takes its toll on so many families, or the effects of pursuing more and more money, or the costs of our selfishness on the environment, it seems that passing along faith and hope to the next generation would change their world.
The faith I would pass along is a faith in a holy, loving, living God who longs for communion with each person; who is more powerful than the forces of evil and death; who is actively at work in the world reconciling the world, healing its brokenness; whose ways are good and just. I would want to offer the next generation a community of people who are learning to walk in God’s ways, so that human life in community flourishes and bears good fruit.
I spend time wondering what it would take for Christian communities to be passionate about passing along such faith to a generation (or two or three) of people who are floundering for a lack of hope and wisdom about living. Any ideas?
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