Many of the friends of my adult children are losing their faith. What has happened to that generation? Reports have been written about the many reasons for their developing doubts, but if there is one centre to their objections to orthodoxy, it is a diminishing trust in the goodness of God. In their minds, if God was good he would not send people to hell for believing another religion; he would not prevent their same-sex attracted friend from finding love; he would not restrict his revelation, if it is needed by the whole world, to one nation and one book.
A Good God?
They end up losing confidence in the character, then the existence, of the Christian God. God does not pass their basic tests of morality. An un-good God surely cannot exist. As they see it, Christianity can’t be right because its God isn’t kind.
What is needed by these young doubters? There is nothing we can do to perfectly protect against all doubts and temptations. But that doesn’t mean we are completely powerless. The individual objections to faith already listed, and others like them, need to be discussed from the pulpit, in small groups, and in one-on-one check-ups with young adults.
But since, at the heart of these issues, there is doubt in God’s goodness, this generation needs, more than anything, continuous teaching on the glory of God.
Glory and Goodness
I find myself becoming more and more convinced that a fresh understanding of the glory of God is needed by this generation that is losing confidence in the goodness of God. With an apologetic edge and a pastoral concern, preachers need to regularly find excuses to talk about this primary theme of the Bible.
If you doubt that the glory of God is the primary theme of the Bible, read Providence by John Piper. Piper defines the glory of God as “the beauty of the full panorama of his perfections”. He warns that
God’s glory is not any one of his perfections but the beauty of all of them … and the way they are expressed in creation and history. This is important to emphasize because some scholars choose to make one perfection of God so prominent in their understanding of his providence that other perfections are, so to speak, deactivated. This is most often done with God’s love. For example, someone may believe that the love of God would not allow a particular act of God’s providence. (44).
This is an underlying reason why many of our young adults are losing their faith. They believe that the love of God would not allow a particular act of God’s providence. This new generation is feeling the weight of an old philosophical problem: the problem of evil. It has a new flavour to it, but the basic underlying structure.
This new generation needs to hear rich explorations of how God’s purposeful sovereignty (Piper’s definition of providence) displays his glory (which includes his goodness). It is high time for urgent and regular preaching, teaching and discipleship centred around the character, goodness, attributes and purposes—all which we can sum up as the glory—of God.
It’s not all they need but the doctrine that deconstructionists most need is the doctrine of the glory of God.
