Thoughts on Boomer Christianity

I read Aaron Renn’s article this morning on Boomer Christianity. It was solid. It got me thinking about my own experience with that generation.

Before I go any further, let me say this up front: I believe intergenerational cooperation is essential to the long-term health of both the church and society. We need strong ties between fathers, sons, and grandsons. That’s how it’s supposed to work. When those links break, the consequences are real and lasting.

So this isn’t a “which generation is better” rant. That kind of thing is childish. What we’re dealing with now is a real and growing divide. There’s no one reason for it, but I can offer a few thoughts from what I’ve seen firsthand.

In my 20s and 30s, I was mostly discipled by older Gen Xers and Boomers. For the most part, I had a good experience. They gave me chances. They let me preach. They backed a skateboard ministry I helped lead. They bought me books, paid for conferences, and took mentoring seriously.

Some of them were bold. They didn’t just talk about culture, they took risks to change things. They tried to reform broken institutions or start new ones. They weren’t coasting. They knew what was at stake and wanted to make a difference.

But over time, something shifted.

As they got wins and gained status, a kind of smugness crept in. And as they got closer to retirement, many of them clung tighter to their roles, platforms, and influence.

Just as the next generation was stepping up, right at the age they themselves had once taken big swings, they started telling us, “Slow down. Wait your turn. You’re still young.”

It was hypocritical.

These were men who had planted churches, launched ministries, and written bold books in their 30s. And now they were telling the next crop of leaders to stay on the bench. And when you dug deeper, it wasn’t really about wisdom or timing. It was about control. They didn’t want to hand over what they had built.

I’ve always had a strong drive to build. I’ve started businesses, ministries, and churches. Over time, I developed my own network and didn’t need older gatekeepers in the same way some of my peers did.

A lot of those peers tried to be “good sons.” They waited. They listened. They trusted the promise that their time would come. But it never did. And for some, that became a source of deep discouragement. Some got bitter. They played by the rules and got strung along.

Meanwhile, guys like me, and others who didn’t wait for permission, just started building. And before long, we weren’t just catching up to the "good sons." We were passing them.

That stirred up resentment. Not just across generations, but within them too. If you look closely at a lot of the friction online, some of it makes more sense through that lens. It's between those who were waiting at the gate and those who found another way.

Now, to be fair, there are Boomers who do try to raise up new voices. But often it’s only if those voices help reinforce their own brand. And I get it. When I hire someone or bring on a new elder, I want them aligned with our mission too.

The problem is that in many cases, the “mission” feels small. It’s not something bigger than themselves. It feels personal. And that makes it transactional. I’ll boost you, but only if you orbit me. That’s not always wrong, but it often feels shallow. Many of us want to take the baton from the older generation. We neither want to wrestle over it nor leave them behind. We want them to stay on as our coach and supporter.

That said, there are still a few Boomers out there who haven’t lost the plot. They’re still building. Still mentoring. Still wise. But they’re rare.

Truth is, neither Boomers nor Millennials are in great shape. They’re reflections of each other in a lot of ways. That’s no accident. Boomers raised most Millennials. The fears and pride are the same, just expressed differently.

These days, I’m building a lot of exciting things. But I’m mostly doing it with people my age or younger. I’d love more spiritual grandfathers in the work. But you deal with the moment God gives you. This is mine.

I try not to carry resentment. That’s easier for me than it is for some others. My early experiences with older mentors were mostly positive. But I understand where the frustration comes from. I see it clearly.

And I know this too, if you obsess over what you hate, especially in your father, you’ll likely become it. Some men swore they’d never be like him. Then one day they look in the mirror, and there he is.

Recently, I wrote a defense of reclaiming institutions, big ones. Denominations, seminaries, networks. My argument was simple: institutions are how generational weight gets carried. They matter. They hold real power. I still believe that.

But here’s the rub. Some of those institutions are gutted. They look solid on the outside, but the inside is empty. The wisdom has curdled into arrogance. The shell remains. The life is gone.

And if you’re on the outside looking in, it’s hard to tell which ones are still alive and which ones are dead. You don’t always know until you’re in too deep.

One thing I’ve come to terms with is this: my generation got a battlefield promotion, so to speak, into that “wise old owl” status. We didn’t necessarily ask for it, but here we are.

We are a transitional generation.

We grew up as latchkey kids in a time of stability and prosperity. And those two realities, neglect and abundance, formed an interesting counterbalance. We weren’t overly impressed with our parents. From an early age, we were taught—sometimes directly, often by necessity, that we had to figure things out for ourselves.

I remember nights when neither my mom nor dad was home by 8 PM. That was just normal. But the society around us didn’t feel like it was unraveling. In the ’80s and ’90s, things were mostly humming along. The economy was solid. There was no major war. We weren’t buried under waves of anxiety or overstimulated by the internet.

It gave us a strange clarity. A kind of qualified cynicism. We didn’t hate our parents. But we had few delusions about who they were or what they were about.

If now is our time to lead, and I really believe it is, then we must avoid the hubris of those who came before us. But we also have to retain the self-assertiveness and willingness to question the status quo that Renn highlights in his article.

That’s the burden and the opportunity of a transitional generation. Not just to criticize the past, and not merely to survive the present, but to clear a faithful path forward, so the next generation doesn’t have to.