There was a very salutary article in The Guardian on 5 February detailing the latest ONS statistics on unemployment. The jobless rate amongst 16-17 year olds is 35.9%, and 18% amongst 18-24 year-olds, compared to 6.7% amongst 25-34 year-olds, 4.7% amongst 35-49 year-olds and 4.4% amongst 50-64 year-olds. Young people have historically fared amongst the worst in periods of high unemployment (this was broadly true during the 1980s, the inter-war slump and the late 19th century), but is no less concerning for all this. A few years ago St Peter's Saltley Trust funded Workcare (Coventry and Warwickshire's workplace chaplaincy team) to do some research amongst church-related projects helping young unemployed adults, (the material is temporarily unavailable on their website, but keep checking!). But there is more to be done. What can your local church do?
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We've recently heard about a new book edited by two very experienced reflectors on issues of ageing, faith and spirituality: Keith Albans and Malcolm Johnson (eds), God, Me and Being Very Old: Stories and Spirituality in Later Life (SCM Press, 2013). I'll try and review it here once I've had a chance to read it.
There's an interesting and entertainingly illustrated article in the Huffington Post from 15 September 2013 suggesting that high expectations of entitlement and specialness are at the root of much contemporary discontent amongst young adults. Such self-perceptions are not at all unique to those alive today (I'm currently reading George Eliot's Middlemarch, and there are several characters who exhibit similar traits - Rosamond Vincy is disappointed due to her expectations of her material and social standing in the community, whilst Edward Casaubon is ultimately deluded in thinking he has found 'the key to all mythologies' when in fact his thinking is not only wrong but not even terribly original). However, unhappiness due to feelings of entitlement and unusual specialness does seem pervasive at present (although Generation Y readers may wish to comment on whether the Huff Post article accurately captures what is going on for their generation).
Christian faith has a long track record of commentary on entitlement and specialness. It hasn't always found it easy to get the balance right - some spiritual traditions almost seem to divinise the self and its desires, whilst others too easily fall prey to an 'I am a miserable worm' sort of theology which can be particularly damaging to the estimated 1 in 4 churchgoers who already struggle with depression or low self-esteem. In reality both extremes are theologically questionable. A more balanced view arguably emphasises and holds in tension a view of the human person as fundamentally created in God's image and loved by God (something which should shape our identity more than any other consideration) with a view of the human person as marred by sin and in need of grace. True humility consists in knowing 'of what we are made', having neither artificially inflated expectations of ourselves or the world, nor harmfully imagining we are worth nothing. The question is: how to help people, through prayer, support, worship, and learning opportunities, to discover this strong centre in God which will prevent us from flipping and flopping between two more harmful extremes? |
AuthorsIan Jones is Director of St Peter's Saltley Trust. Archives
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