Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 156 | God, Kids & Country

Episode Date: August 28, 2019

A WSJ and NBC study found that the younger generations care less about patriotism, religion, and having kids than ever before. What does this mean for America? 

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. Today we are going to talk about a study that was published this week by NBC and the Wall Street Journal that examines Americans' values by generation. I've talked about it a few times this week on Fox, on the radio, on OAN, so maybe you've already heard my analysis, but of course, today we'll get more in depth. I've been really excited to talk about this because this points to so much of what we discuss on this. podcast about self-love and self-obsession. I know we talk about this topic a lot, but that's because it is so prominent and so pervasive in our culture today. And there are even attempts by Christians to make this biblical or quasi-biblical. And I think it's really important that we as Christians

are able to stand against it logically and biblically and all of that good stuff. So we're going to talk about what the results were and what they actually mean. It shouldn't surprise us, anyone that has been paying attention to the direction that our generations are going or any of you who have listened to this podcast for any amount of time. We kind of know this about the younger generations. So it looked at ages 18 to 38. That's part of Generation Z and all of millennials. It showed they do not care about three things, at least not as much as older generations and not as much as they did about 20 years ago. Patriotism, God, and Having Kids. Those are the three things that compared to older generations, our generations just really don't care about that much.

Here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal. Among people 55 and older, for example, nearly 80% said patriotism was very important, compared with only 42% of those ages 18 to 38. The millennial generation and older members of Gen Z, two-thirds of the older group cited religion as very important, with fewer than one-third of the younger group. Over 50% of baby boomers also play a high value on having children. while only a little over a third of millennials do.

So, in other words, the vast majority of millennials in older gen Ziers do not value patriotism. They do not value religion and they do not value having children. These are values that Americans have been able to bond over for a very long time, whether you were on the right or the left that's just not true anymore, at least among people who are under the age of 40. Most of us do this poll shows. Most of us do still place a high value on hard work, but the younger generations are still less likely to care about that than the older generations are, which isn't really surprising. Now, before we get into the analysis, which you can probably

guess what I'm going to say, let me first state that I understand. I understand that the millennial bashing gets really old. I get it. I am a millennial. I have talked about how terrible millennials are. I have heard how terrible millennials are many times. I am not someone, let me tell you, I am not someone who hates millennials. I don't. Or who thinks all millennials are bad or who thinks that all millennials were raised in a vacuum. I obviously know that's not the case. Baby boomers, my parents are baby boomers.

I love them very much. They did a great job raising me and instilling me with awesome values. But a lot of baby boomers love to complain about millennials and about terrible we are about how lazy we are, but they did raise us. Like I said, we were not raised in a vacuum. So whether it was their direct influence or through their lack of influence and the impact of whatever school that we went to, millennials have learned their values. We've learned our principles and we have learned our worldview from somewhere. We didn't make it up on our own. So I understand that. And millennials do have good traits. I think that we are more empathetic

than generations that have come before us. We are better traveled, so maybe we're better, we're more open and more interested in other cultures. I think that can be a good thing. We're obviously very technologically savvy. We are innovative. We are extremely creative. We also can be very entrepreneurial while at the same time some millennials want things handed to them.

There are a lot of millennials who are willing to pursue their passion and make it into a career. I also think that the millennials who do have their head screwed on straight, have the potential to be excellent parents as well as excellent leaders. We have started to see the harm that technology is doing to kids, and we might be more disciplined in that, not just for ourselves, but for the people that we raise, maybe we'll lower their screen time, maybe we'll be more diligent about making sure that we are their primary influence.

That's what I hope, anyway, for millennials and generation C. The common descriptions, though, the stereotypes that we see of our generation, or our generations, I should say, as entitled and self-centered, are true about a lot of us, not all of us, of course, but about a lot of us. And there is so much that has helped create this helicopter parenting, that everyone gets a trophy mentality that we had at school growing up, increasingly individualized technology. There was a day and time in which an entire family shared a television or shared a computer,

and it increased as we got older that everyone had personalized devices, whether that was a Game Boy or an iPad or an iPhone. I was trying to think of what it was, an iPod. I already forgot about what that word was. An iPod or an iPhone. Social media, of course, is contributed to this. And then as we got older, we got even more conditioned to this idea of instant gratification that characterizes services like Amazon, Uber-Reids, et cetera.

we are used to things being individualized. We are used to things being immediate. We are accustomed to being served. We are accustomed to having our very personalized needs met. Our universes have grown increasingly centered on ourselves. That is not necessarily our fault. That's just the world in which we grew up. And that's also not to say that millennials haven't had challenges.

Of course, like every generation millennials have had challenges, there was the recession about 10 years ago that especially older millennials really probably got the brunt of. And even if you were a younger millennial, your parents went through it. Maybe that was a hard time for your family. And of course, a lot of millennials have been overseas in the Middle East fighting what seems like an endless war. And of course, individuals who are in these generations have had their own personal struggles. Of course, there are millennials in Generation Z whose families are in poverty. Of course, there are things that difficulties that these generations have had to overcome. This is not to say that every, you know,

Every millennial has had it easy and that every millennial should just buck up and stop complaining. I'm not saying that. But, but it appears that millennials have learned in general that the world should serve them, that we are on the throne of our own universes, that we are the center of our lives. And this, of course, is reflected in the thing that we talk about all the time in online culture. So self-love, self-care, self-empowerment, self-fulfillment. These all fall under the category of what I call trendy narcissism. We can try to say that it's healthy, that it's good, that it's boosting confidence, but it's not.

It's a way to glorify selfishness and arrogance as virtues. That's all it is. This, of course, is in large part why millennials don't care about having kids, don't care about patriotism and don't care about God. I'm not saying there aren't other factors, but this is, at least in my opinion, a large factor that plays into all of this. All of these things require sacrifice. They require self-denial. They require self-empting. The putting aside of immediate gratification for the sake of someone or something else. I talked a lot about this on my motherhood podcast that I did last week,

the joy of self-empting that can be something that maybe at first you want to resist, but actually affords you a lot of satisfaction. Millennials have also learned that America is bad and is completely characterized by its failures rather than its victories. This is also something that we talked about last week in an episode titled, Two Americas. We've learned that having kids will hamper our self-fulfillment, which is found we're told in being fit and successful, and that believing in God and actually believing in practicing what the Bible says is bigoted and backwards and wrong. So we're taught all of these things. We believe all of these things. And it's not to say that we are just victims of our circumstances or victims of other people's

we have made the choice to take these things on. But most of all, we have been taught that we are the only thing that matters. Now, let me clarify, as it seems I always have to, because there's probably already comments on YouTube saying these things, but let me just clarify that when I criticize self-love, I am not advocating for self-deprecation. And when I criticize self-care, I am not advocating for self-harm. And when I criticize self-empowerment, self-fulfillment, and self-help, I am not. advocating for self-sabotage. Obviously, I am not saying that we shouldn't acknowledge or use

our abilities, that we shouldn't get our nails done, or that we shouldn't set our goals and have a schedule and an agenda and all of that. That's not what I'm saying. I just don't think. I just don't see the need to focus on loving ourselves or caring for ourselves or helping ourselves any more than we already do. I just don't see, and I've never seen a self-love deficit in our culture. I've never seeing that. And yet, and yet all of a sudden we are getting told by Instagram psychologists that we do, that our problem is that we don't love ourselves enough. Our problem is that we don't take care of ourselves enough that we don't do, we don't do enough of the things that we want. We're not doing enough of what makes us happy. And I just don't really see that as a problem that our society in

the United States of America, especially among young generations has. But we're told that all of our problems will go away, that our anxiety, that our insecurity, our paranoia, our depression, the answer to all of these things are found inside of ourselves. And if we just muster out the strength to love ourselves more and to be more confident, then we will finally be at peace and be satisfied. But as I've said many times, that's not the answer to all of those things. What we find is that if you are in a place of depression or insecurity or paranoia or something like that, you actually don't have the strength to just love yourself more.

If someone just tells you, if you are in a state of, despair, just love yourself more, you're thinking, okay, I would love to be able to do that, but I can't. That's, you know, part of the problem is that you can't feel any positive thoughts or you feel like you're out of control in your own mind. And so the prescription of self-love actually doesn't solve what the problem is. It's not actually a proper diagnosis. Because the reality is, is that self-love is already natural. Self-love is natural. It is something that we are born with. It's instinctual. This doesn't mean that. that you think that you are perfect and lovely and awesome all of the time.

It means that you will naturally always look out for yourself and your best interest. And it actually takes effort and discipline for us not to do that, for us to put those things to the side and for us to look to the interests of other people. This is why Ephesians 529 says, husbands love your wives as you love your own body. For no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it. And that is why and how Jesus tells us, to love others as we love ourselves.

I know we've talked about this a million times. But when you think about it, that's really a radical command that we are born with this instinct to do whatever we have to do to survive. We are born with the inclination to serve ourselves to find comfort and protection and sustenance. And unless we are driven by a purpose or a reason

or a thing, something is driving us to something that is higher than ourselves, we will do whatever we can to obtain it. And Jesus tells us to love people like that, to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of others. So just as you would instinctively look for shelter for yourself in a storm, Jesus is telling us, in the same way, look for shelter for other people. So just as you would desperately look for water if you're thirsty, Jesus is telling us desperately look to quench someone else's thirst,

just as anxiously as we would look for food if we were starving, we should be just as anxious to satisfy the hunger of someone else. As much as we naturally seek to avoid loneliness and avoid despair, we are to seek to help others escape loneliness and despair as well. That is the kind of a so-called self-love that Jesus is telling us to reflect and imitate to other people, the kind that you don't have to teach, that we were made with, that we were naturally driven by. in addition, obviously, to the sacrifice that is learned through Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

He's asking that we be naturally driven by the same kind of love to other people. And actually, I'll correct myself, it is loving other people in the natural way that we love ourselves that is the sacrificial love that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. He is not saying, Jesus is not saying unless you think, for example, that your postpartum body is beautiful, you actually can't love yourself until you're able to do that. or until you have higher standards for what kind of guys you date, you can't really love other people. I mean, think about that.

Think about how dumb that would be if that was the commandment that Jesus, the God of the universe gave us, that that's what the world tells us, that you can't love other, or that is what the world tells us, that you can't love other people until you love yourself. And the kind of love, though, that they're describing it is superficial. It's not the radical, hospitable, inconvenient love that Jesus is talking about.

It's the tell someone they look good in their genes. and that their feelings are valid kind of love, and it's empty, it's fleeting. Do you honestly think that Jesus, knowing who Jesus is, having read the Gospels, who bled on the cross for our sins, the ultimate act of self-denial on behalf of wayward sinners, do you honestly think that when he is asking us to imitate him in our own self-denial, that he actually meant that we need to hold off on loving other people until we feel good about ourselves. As I've said, the Bible is radically unconcerned with self-love. But I want to correct that because it actually is concerned with self-love, just not in the way that our world is.

It happens to be very concerned with it. So 2 Timothy 3 1 through 5 has something to say about this. But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self. Lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not-loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power, avoid such people. I mean, how many are guilty of us, first of all, of at least a few of the things that were listed. I mean, we as Christians sure are not immune to these things.

So I'm not trying to say that, okay, we're innocent of all of the things. these sins that have been listed. The point is that they are sins. They are sins to be repented from. They are not things to be glorified and they are things to be struggled against and not things to indulge in. How accurately, though, does this describe where we are and who we are? Lovers of self, lovers of money, proud and arrogant. These are virtues, we're told nowadays, ungrateful, aka entitled, unholy. We hate the idea in our culture of sanctity or purity, heartless, just look at abortion advocates, unappeasable. Our hunger for sin cannot be satisfied.

It also reminds me of those who are constantly setting new standards of forwokeness. They can't be appeased. Slanderous, aka cancel culture, without self-control, telling someone to make good choices. We think nowadays is bigoted, brutal, not loving good, reckless. Again, I would refer you to many of those who promote abortion, swollen with conceit. again, something that we see as a virtue, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, this is what happens when you exchange the God of Scripture for the God of self, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. How many people do we know nowadays? I think I've

said nowadays, like three times, which is three times more than I've ever said it in my life, but nowadays, who simultaneously claim to be morally relative, but are constantly setting their own standards for morality that other people need to abide by. Here's an amazing quote by Miley Cyrus, of course, our moral arbiter, that really it just typifies exactly what has been normalized by people our age. She says, why are we trained that love means putting yourself second and those you love first? If you love yourself, then what? You come first.

And she's exactly right. If you love yourself, if self-love is your main priority, you come first. And that's the problem. actually the whole article about her on e-news.com, not typically where I get my news, but I was looking for this quote because I had seen it floating around is a very perfect encapsulation of today's morality

or so-called morality, but we just don't have time to get into the entire article. We could probably do a whole episode on Miley Cyrus. I love this quote by John Calvin. These are actually excerpts from a passage from a little book on the Christian life. So first let me quote this pertinent biblical passage. Philippians 2.3,

do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. That is a radical commandment only made possible by the Holy Spirit. I certainly could never do that ever by myself. John Calvin says this in this book. And again, these are excerpts. It doesn't all go together. Each of us thinks we have just cause for elevating ourselves and despising all others in comparison to ourselves.

Our self-love ruins us with such blindness. In fact, we so delude ourselves that we sometimes embrace our vices as virtues. There is no one who does not nourish a high opinion of himself within. Our very nature inclines us towards self-love. As a result, we don't easily deny ourselves or our desire. in order to seek the good of others. By constant recognition of our vices, let us then return to humility.

By so doing, there will be nothing left in us to pop us up, but on the contrary, there will be much to put us in our place. We will never achieve genuine meekness except by having our hearts saturated with self-denial and respect for others. And this was written, by the way, hundreds of years ago, which to me it comforts. me to realize that what the Bible says is true, of course, that there is nothing new under the sun, that the same sin that we are now glorifying today was also glorified hundreds of years ago

in John Calvin's time. And the reason that comforts me is because I'm constantly getting caught up in my anxiety that the world is worse than it's ever been, which in some ways I do think that it actually is. But Satan is not creative and sin is not innovative. And so the things that we are struggling with today, people have always struggled with. It is human nature, which just renews the importance of us Christians being knowledgeable about what this problem is and what it means and how to logically and biblically fight against it. So self-obsession by which we have been conditioned, millennials have been conditioned four years is a, not the, but a root cause of our resistance to anything that burdens us or displaces us from the center of our universes.

We start to view privileges as rights and we start to view inconveniences as injustice. When you put yourself on the throne of your universe, that's what happens. You see privileges as rights and inconveniences as injustice. And that really explains a lot of the attitude that we're seeing from a lot of young people today. This is precisely why we as a generation are also attracted to the policies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. and you know that I am not including myself in that, but as a generation, we have a right, we think to free college, to free birth control,

to free abortions, to free health care, to free hormone therapy. We have a right not to work if we don't want to. We have a right to reparations. And any policy that says that we don't or any person that says that we don't is just bigoted and the policy is unjust, who disagrees with any of these things.

And the opposition to this might say, well, no, this view, point is actually compassionate because you're not just saying that you want these things for yourselves. You're also saying that you want these things for other people, people who are underprivileged. It's about taking care of the poor. They might say the marginalized and the environment, but it's actually, it's actually not when it gets down to the pragmatism of the actual policy. Now, I do believe, and I've said this before and I will always say this as long as I see this happening, I do believe that there are many, many liberals. Some of you might not believe me. There are

many liberals who genuinely believe that leftist policies are the most compassionate, and they are sincere in this. They are sincere in their desire to care for the least of these. Now, they probably don't give conservatives the benefit of the doubt for our policies, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt because I do believe that. But the problem is they are still ultimately selfish and detrimental policies because most of them are, because you are asking the government to subsidize your unwillingness to help people yourself. And as I have always said, socialism is millennial's way of feeling virtuous without ever having to get off the couch, which of course is not actual virtue.

There is a reason why study after study shows that conservatives give more to charity than liberals do. Why the percentage that every millionaire Democratic candidate for president gave to charity last year was under 3%. 3% of what they made. I know people who are much poor, like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, dollar is poorer than Beto O'Rourke, who gave a lot more, not just percentage of what they make, but also just a dollar amount of what they make to charity. And yet, these are the same people that want to lecture the rest of the world, or at least the rest of the country, about empathy.

But it is not empathy. It is not empathy to tell the government to take money from people that are richer than you and distribute it to the poor. It is not generosity if you are being generous with other people's money. And for those who are Christians who also people who identify as Christians who also identify as socialists, besides the myriad biblical passages that we have walked through many times that push against socialism, I would like these people to consider why socialism and godlessness always seems to go hand in hand. Why is it that nations, that when nations move further to

the left and the government grows that faith in God as a country wanes? I want them to consider. consider why that is. Can you name a country that has become more Christian or even more religiously free, has had more religious liberty as it's moved closer to communism and socialism? Can you name a country that those two things have gone in the same direction? I can't. But before I freak all of you out and you're thinking, oh my gosh, we're going to hell in a hand basket here and the country is going to be ruined. Here's where I find hope. As scary, it can be to think about that we might be approaching this age. There's obviously there's always hope.

There's hope in Christ. There's hope in things eternal, knowing that this world is not our home and that one day Jesus is going to rule in perfect peace and that there's not going to be divisiveness. There's not going to be politics. There are going to be people that we disagreed with on this earth and heaven. And we are going to be in perfect unity and perfect peace there. Of course, that's hope. And of course, that's a good thing.

But there's also something to hope for and to understand about this life or this side of eternity, that what happens when Christianity becomes less mainstream in a country, as hard as it is to watch as difficult as it is and as much as I think we have a responsibility as Christians to make sure that God's law as much as we can is being advocated for here on earth, either, you know, legislatively like through abortion policy or privately, you know, through our own lives and just through sharing the gospel, as difficult as it is to see Christianity become less mainstream, though, what we can find comfort in is that the Church of God always becomes stronger, is that when the church, the true church, is pushed to the margins

of society that we actually become stronger, that there is no law, that there is no policy, that there is no rule or ban, or any kind of limitation on free speech, or freedom of religious exercise that is going to drown out the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not going to happen. That is why the Bible is extremely concerned with us persevering through the end. That is why the Bible is extremely concerned about persecution and extremely concerned about trial, not concerned in the sense that they're scared that it's not going to be ultimately fruitful for the gospel, but that we would pray for the strength to endure and

that we would understand these persecutions are going to come and that we find comfort and peace and the ability to keep going through the Holy Spirit in Christ. The Bible is extremely concerned and extremely focused on that. And the Bible tells us time and time again that the word of God is not going to fail, that it does not return void. And for those of us who are in Christ, we have hope in that, that it's okay if America, and this is so hard for me to say as a Christian conservative who loves this country and loves the values upon which our country was founded. It's okay if our country becomes not a Christian country. It's okay if God is taken out of government. Now, I'm not saying, I'm advocating for that, obviously, and you would have to be a crazy person to think that I was,

but it's okay eternally. It's okay for Christians. We will be okay. All we have to do is to be obedient to God. So raise our families in the Lord, preach the word of God as much as we can, share the gospel, be loving to our neighbors, stand up for what's right, speak the truth, be kind as much as we can. That's getting increasingly difficult by the way, especially on social media, which is why I might just delete Twitter altogether. But that's another subject for another day. Our responsibility is to be obedient and to glorify God in all that we can. And we win the battles that we can. But if we lose, we understand that the war is already won in Christ. So there is hope. There is no reason to despair. all we have to do is trust and obey and trust me.

I understand that it is easier said than done, especially as a mom. And for those of you who are moms and dads out there who are worried about the future generations and what it's going to look like and raising your kids in a potentially socialist country, I know, I know. I've talked about this a million times. I know. But we have to trust that the Lord put us on this moment on the span of eternity for a reason and that he equips every generation with what they need.

And if you are a Christian that's in this generation, then we have a very special role, a very significant responsibility. And we certainly shouldn't give that up just because times are scary. Actually, we should be even more bold in the gospel. So that is it for today. If you have any questions, as always,

please reach out to me, follow on Instagram, Twitter, wherever you want to follow. Unless, of course, I give up Twitter. Let me know if you think that I should give up Twitter. What I do is I delete the Twitter app and then I just end up using the browser for like two weeks, which is really annoying. And then I get the Twitter app and then I'm on it too much. And then I delete it.

And then I consider deleting my account. I never do. And so, but my life and my mind is so much better when I'm not on Twitter. This week has been a terrible, a terrible Twitter week because I've been on Fox a few times. And whenever you're on Fox, there's always people, crazy people. people from, I'm not even going to say their organization that will take what you say, post and say, I can't believe this person said that. And they're trying to embarrass you and you're like, yeah, I said that because it's true. But it's just, and then you get trolls and people saying

terrible things. Some of you know if you saw on social media. I mean, people are crazy. People on both sides are crazy. But man, people are crazy and people hate conservatives. And I just, sometimes I just want to unplug. And so I might do that. So let me know what you think. if I should just delete my Twitter. I'm highly, highly, highly considering it. Oh, I have a very special guest on Friday. I'm really excited about it. You guys are going to be excited about it.

I'm so excited for the conversation. I think I'm going to learn a lot. And oh, by the way, there's always someone that says this. This is just another thing. You can understand. This is what my mind does all day. It doesn't actually finish thought. And then I just go to the next thought.

Okay, that's all I have to say today. And I will see you guys back here on Friday.