The following description represents a lot of Millennials or Gen Y individuals
A 22-year female smoker who believes that God is an energy. She thinks the way one treats other people, other living things, and the environment is what is really important. She doesn’t think the color of one’s skin, wealth, social status should matter. In the past, she attended a Baptist church, was raised in Irish Catholic family, has been to temples, oracle readings, psychics, and been too a lot of different churches and has attended bible study before. She doesn’t believe in organized religion. Grew distaste for it mainly because she discovered that a lot of churches were not focused on the people but on their status and monetary gain.
She thinks the Bible has really good morals, but she also believes it was written thousands of years ago. She believes in the golden rule and believes that there should be no adultery or killing your neighbors, etc. She believes the way a person lives their lives, if it makes them happy and is not hurting others, then she thinks that’s okay. She thinks the Bible shouldn’t be taken literally. She doesn’t believe in absolute truth but believes in an “individual absolute truth”. Everybody has their own truth. She believes that absolute truth can contradict each other. She thinks God could be Buddha, Jesus, other things but all are ways of getting to the same thing.
She believes that to get things straight with God, it takes an extremely open mind. It’s a willingness to be open to all people as they are, accepting their beliefs, understanding and accepting them as people. You don’t have to believe what they believe. Just accept and understand what others believe.
She thinks Jesus was a leader (whether fictional or not it doesn’t matter). He was a leader because he led a lot of people. Not everybody believes that Jesus’ leadership is good for them. She thinks it is possible that Jesus could have risen from the dead. Miracles can happen.
To her, the major problems in the church today are too much of a focus on money, too much of a focus on what other people are believing, they are trying to change other people’s minds.
Thinks Catholics took beliefs from the Celtics in their many gods and they changed them. They changed them and then asked them to believe in one God and so that has carried over to a degree where they persecute people who believe in many Gods. She doesn’t think it is right for any church to only love people who believe what they believe. Thinks the universalist unitarians that accept everybody are great.
Some characteristics of millennials
- Many have no real church background.
- Some have been exposed to the church and have had a bad experience with it. As such they know the bad aspects of the church even including the history of the inquisition.
- Don’t believe in a personal, all-powerful God like the Judeo Christian God.
- Maybe an atheist or a theist who believes that God is energy that permeates all things, etc.
- Don’t believe in absolute truth but in “individual absolute truth”. Everybody has their own truth.
- They are natural activists with a high sense of a call to social justice to protect others, the environment, etc.
- They don’t like division over social, political, and spiritual issues. They like to advocate for accepting and respecting everyone’s beliefs as equally viable for that person.
- May think the bible has good moral stories in it but was written thousands of years ago and is not relevant or authoritative.
- They believe in the golden rule and other moral principles the Bible teaches.
- Believes as long as a person doesn’t hurt others, they can do whatever makes them happy.
- Value being very open-minded. Accept everybody’s believes and respect them without questioning or trying to correct them. You don’t have to believe what they believe, only respect it and leave it alone.
- They think churches are focused on money
- Jesus was a good moral human leader.
Source
The above story comes from a video that I watched in an evangelism class.