Interview by David Ricaud: “I live and breathe teenage melodramas. I am a gay man with a sharp tongue and, ironically, a kind spirit. No apologies.”
A graduate of Harvard’s Master’s in Divinity program, Anna Humble brings a unique perspective to TNGG about the role of Christianity in the lives of millennials. She is currently finishing a book geared toward ministers in which she discusses the relationship between adolescent development and ministerial leadership.
TNGG is excited to hear Anna’s point of view and to hear your reactions. Is Anna’s point of view strictly her own? Or is her system of beliefs becoming widespread?
David Ricaud: You are currently writing a book about the relationship between adolescent development and the Church. Why and how is this important for generation Y?
Anna Humble: Frankly, I think the church has a lot of work to do if it’s going to survive to baptize our children’s children. We have to completely rethink the way we “do” church. What we’re doing right now at 9 or 10 am on a Sunday morning with pipe organs and pulpits couldn’t be less appealing to our young people, and that’s a real shame. It’s a shame because the Bible says that children are a blessing and it’s our responsibility to bring them up in the Way of Christ. How can we share this gift with our children – the richness of our faith, our tradition, our way of life, and our religious communities if we can’t even get kids in the door? The fact is that you get anyone in the door and coming back is by serving them — serving their needs — not our own needs, and so the same goes for adolescents. And we can only understand adolescent needs if we can have empathy and understanding for them – if we can really “get it” when it comes to where they are in all stages of their development: spiritual, physical, sexual (yes, I said sexual!), psychological, social, academic, and cognitive. Basically, it’s our job as Christ’s Church to serve our children, and we can’t serve our children if we don’t “get” what they need
David Ricaud: Who or what led you to embrace Christianity?
Anna Humble: A lot of people have these incredible conversion stories, but for me, there was never any single event or person that led me to embrace the Way of Christ. It was a gradual pull that I finally surrendered to. As an adolescent, I began finding, through the example of my grandparents and Christian friends, that Christianity nurtured me in so many ways: the study of scriptures and the academic depth of theology fed my mind, the Church fed my longing for community and belonging, and the spiritual practices I learned (such as prayer, meditation, service, and almsgiving) grounded me. Most of all, the stories of our Biblical ancestors gave indescribable meaning to my life; I found myself weaving the narrative of my life alongside the narratives of our ancestors in the Bible, and I found salvation – not the kind of salvation from a fiery afterlife that popular Christian groups will sell – I found salvation from aimlessness, loneliness, guilt, and darkness. I was saved for a life of meaning. And I think this kind of salvation is exactly what the scriptures talk about as the fruit of our faith.
David Ricaud: What is Christianity now? Has it evolved over time? If so, how?
Anna Humble: The Bible says, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
I love that passage. It’s from an amazingly beautiful letter that an early Christian named Paul sent to a church in Corinth. I think it describes to us something that we already know, that God didn’t stop God’s work of creation after the second chapter of Genesis. Furthermore, the story of the people of God did not stop when the Bible was finished. Creation, salvation, and the story of the people of God is an ongoing story and revelation. We are constantly turning, evolving, changing, and transforming into the beings God created and is calling us to be. For this reason, religion has changed a lot over the years. There are certain things that we used to believe that we now know were wrong. For example, the Bible condones slavery and advocates for the stoning of homosexuals, but now we have grown up and put away our childish ways, so-to-speak. We see more clearly. We see that the Bible is not infallible – only God is infallible. We see that it is our best testimony to revelation, but it is a living document inspired by God but written by human hands. Over time, we’ve gotten to know God better and what God is telling us. So I think that religion, for the most part, has changed for the better over time.
On the other hand, I think the culture around Christianity has also changed immensely, and in turn, has put a lot of pressure on the church. Just fifty years ago our pews were filled and now they are empty. And that’s not completely a bad thing. Life is about change and cycles, and nothing stays the same, so we must embrace that. God’s presented us with a unique challenge – to be relevant in this quickly changing world while keeping our traditions, beliefs, and culture. I think our essentials – the teachings of Jesus – are timeless, so I think we can do it; we just have to be willing to get rid of a lot of our non-essentials and embrace God’s changing and evolving world.
David Ricaud: What is the point of religion?
Anna Humble: That’s a really hard question. I think every person of faith might give you a different answer. My first reaction would be say the point of religion is to “make meaning.” As I said before, the stories, theologies, practices, traditions, and community that are part of my faith make meaning out of my life. You learn how to forgive and let go. You learn to love in a way that’s selfless but not draining. You learn to marvel at the miracles of this world. You learn that you are loved and cared for. You learn that you belong to a special People and a special story. You learn that you are connected to something much bigger, that you are part of Christ’s mission on earth. You learn to hope, to serve others, to work for peace and justice… and all these lessons make meaning out of our lives. I don’t really know of any other way to say it, but when your life is so richly saturated with meaning, you find a peace you didn’t know existed.
David Ricaud: You intend to be a minister. What do you want to bring to the Church?
Anna Humble: First of all, I think everyone who is baptized is baptized into the work and ministry of Christ, so we’re all ministers. My job will be a little different from other people’s ministries, though, in that I will be called to lead a congregation. I believe God has given me a lot of gifts to bring to leadership ministry.
One of my gifts is that I don’t strike people as a minister: I’m in my 20s, female, petite, and nerdy; I love clothes, and sometimes I can be loud and irreverent. I think it expands people’s minds about who a Christian is and can be. They meet me and realize that the Way of Christ fits everyone – not just the self-righteous and uptight! They see my disaster of an office and they suddenly feel like they can relate to me and feel comfortable talking about their failings and fears! I like that because I want to bring the Church that permission for people to be exactly who God created them to be, not some smiling cookie cutter Christian!
I also want to bring to the Church new ideas from a new generation. Like I said before, we’ve got a lot of work to do if we’re going to survive, and I’m excited to get started!
David Ricaud: A lot of people in generation Y reject religion and scoff at the idea of a God. How do you respond to this?
Anna Humble: You know, I haven’t really run across many people in my generation that “scoff” at God. Most people our age are very respectful… actually more than that; I would say our generation is very curious. (Or maybe people are just being polite to me!) Actually, statistics show that only 3% of Generation Y’ers identify as atheist and the vast majority (around 8 or 9 out of 10) of our generation has positive associations with religion – even if they don’t believe in God or aren’t part of any organized religion.1 Just one generation ago, our parents had much more negative associations with organized religion. I’ve run across all types of people, some who have a little faith, some who have a lot, and some who have none at all. Regardless of where they come from on that spectrum, I still feel like we have a lot to talk about and a lot in common. What’s important when encountering someone who is different from you is respect, so I don’t engage in conversation with people that can’t respect my beliefs.
David Ricaud: Many people say religion is responsible for war, genocide, and suffering. How do you respond to this?
Anna Humble: I would say that it’s a bit more complicated than it seems. Most of the time, war, genocide, and suffering is of human creation, not religious creation. Scratch the surface and you see that these atrocities don’t actually have support within their religious orthodoxies. We all — each and every one of us — have the capacity for hate, violence, and sin inside of us – with or without religion. Unfortunately, sometimes after these seeds of hate take root, people go to their religion and find support for that hate in certain isolated scriptural passages. What these people do is that they fail to see the forest for the trees, so-to-speak. They focus on one or two isolated passages in the Koran or Old Testament, for example, they take it out of the context, and ignore the great overarching themes and teachings of the faith: love, hope, faith, and peace. The root of this cycle of violence and suffering is not religion. The root of this cycle is poverty, fear, loneliness, hopelessness, hunger, injustice, and abuse. And we are called, as Christians, to get at these root causes for the sake of peace on earth.
David Ricaud: Have you ever hidden your religious beliefs out of fear of ridicule? Have you ever been, to your knowledge, dismissed by agnostic or atheist Gen-Yers?
Anna Humble: I don’t think I’ve ever hidden my religious beliefs out of fear of ridicule. I’m not ashamed of who I am or what I believe. I’m sure I’ve been dismissed by other people because of my faith before, but I can’t really remember a time. I do get the sense though, that as soon as some people see the cross around my neck they start making all sorts of false assumptions. It’s even worse when they find out I’m a minister. People suddenly start apologizing for swearing, asking if it’s okay that they order a drink, or assuming that I rather talk about existential things than hear a good joke. So I might say that sometimes I delay volunteering information about my career in cocktail party situations in order to avoid undue awkwardness, but it always comes out eventually, and again, people usually react with a mixture of curiosity and respect.
Note: The responses in this interview do not reflect the opinions, values, or ideals of those of TNGG. The editors of TNGG do not endorse any specific religious philosophy. This interview serves as a platform for reflection and debate. How do you think religion fits into generation Y?
I already expressed my own views on religion in a TNGG article, so I won’t repeat them here, but I do want to say that I agree with Anna, that I don’t think many in our generation “scoff” at God. We are, for the most part, very respectful or the idea of religion, and other people’s religions. However, that doesn’t mean we necessarily want to be part of them, and that’s why those church pews are empty. We feel that we can get all those things that religion has to offer in other places, without the dogma and ritual, which is unappealing.
I do think that if I had grown up with Christian role models like Anna, my experience with Christianity might have gone differently. It’s refreshing to hear a Christian talk about Christianity growing, and learning, and to be all-around relatable. This is very different from the Christian environments that I grew up in where they may never have cited the passage about stoning homosexuals, but that was mainly because the topic of homosexuals wasn’t really discussed, and if it was, it was met with a sort of uncomfortable, awkward silence, and shuffling of the feet.
Best of luck on your path, Anna.
In a time of so many uncertainties and questions, religion has a chance to be a huge part of Gen Y life. It can be a place to find, maybe not answers, but strength, community support, and love. It can provide a model on how we can live our lives to be the best that we can. As Anna says, the Church (and religion in general) must strive to stay relevant to its children. It must evolve to be as open and caring as its many children.
Great interview! Thanks!
Tom
@TomOKeefe1
“There are certain things that we used to believe that we now know were wrong.”
Indeed. That heaven is above, hell below, that that the earth is at the center of the solar system, that the universe is 4,000 years old and on and on and on.
The Bible is a fairy tale with some good points about what it means to be human mixed in with a lot of utter ridiculousness.
Anna, you talk about curiosity drawing people to religion and you might be right, but religion is the enemy of curiosity, for it says Accept not Discover. And when one of us humble humans does indeed attempt to Disccover, it is the religious who object. But not with words, no, they use torture, with my favorite being the following: a heretic would be trapped to a table and a cage of starving rats placed on his stomach. The bottom of the cage was removed and the rats would begin to eat their way to freedom. All the while, church officials were bedside asking the victim to repent.
How you could be smart enough to go to Harvard and still find religion persuasive (unless you got the rat treatment) is beyond me. Or maybe it’s not. Smarts and judgment are not the same.
Jeff Shattuck
http://www.cerebellumblues.com
I was struck by the following passage, in response to what the point of religion is:
“As I said before, the stories, theologies, practices, traditions, and community that are part of my faith make meaning out of my life. You learn how to forgive and let go. You learn to love in a way that’s selfless but not draining. You learn to marvel at the miracles of this world. You learn that you are loved and cared for. You learn that you belong to a special People and a special story. You learn that you are connected to something much bigger, that you are part of Christ’s mission on earth. You learn to hope, to serve others, to work for peace and justice….”
I’ve learned how to forgive on my own, how to love in a way that is selfless. I marvel at amazing miracles of sight and event, I know I am loved and cared for, I believe I am special and I trust that I am connected to something bigger.
But I am not a Christian. I do not believe in heaven or hell. I don’t believe the Bible is the divine word. I don’t believe I am lost.
I’ve found meaning in the world because meaning exists, not because God, or anyone else, has told me to. I understand that some find a community and a life in religion that suits them, but the point of religion stated here (which Anna admittedly said might be different for others) isn’t unique or special to Christianity itself.
She has a good point – pews and pipe organs have nothing for us. The church as it exists now is a bloated dinosaur.
When it’s no longer a organization who’s purpose is to feed itself, it will grow. When money is no longer involved, it will grow. When people tithe by giving their time and resources directly to those in need, it will grow.
When the church is meeting in people’s living rooms and basements, it will grow. The church has historically thrived in persecution. You want the church to grow? Try to kill it.
I think Anna’s responses are thoughtful and poignant. I enjoy how she takes such an honest approach to recognizing modern religion’s pitfalls, as applied to today’s generation. I think adolescents are truly lucky to have someone in the church who tries so determinedly to reach out and understand them and what is important to them. They are our future, and it’s important, if the Church wants to fill its pews and brings members back, to be flexible and approachable in educating these folks about religion.
Maybe when the church stops preaching that sex is sinful and something to be ashamed of. Then again, that still won’t cut is, as most of what the bronze age myths known as religious scriptures have to say has been rendered obsolete by modern science, technology and applied philosophy.
I must admit that I’m surprised to read here so many viscerally critical responses to Ms. Humble’s interview. She has presented a balanced, honest and engaging portrait of her own experience as a Christian, while in no way assuming that others should or must agree with her. Her answers seem to me to reflect a journey of discovery rather than acceptance, and a balance of smarts and judgment.
I sometimes wonder if there isn’t a sense of trendiness to the criticism of Christianity within this generation. I doubt that if a Hindu from Harvard had appeared here and offered an equally open and intelligent summary of her Hindu viewpoint that everyone would be so eager to question her intellectual capacity or criticize the foundation of her experience. Perhaps we need to start a broader dialog about what exactly about religion is so bothersome and whether those things are universally human or tradition specific.