Researchers have been investigating why Gen Y and Gen Z (those born after 1982 who constitute 59% of the population of the world) seem so disinclined to associate with organized religion. They have found that there is an admiration for Jesus on the part of these cohorts but they don’t see a connection between what the Church says and does with what Jesus said and did. This lack of historical consciousness is, of course, not limited to religion. In society at large there is a denial of how the past impacts the present. Jesus, on the other hand, knew who he was and what his mission was about because he could connect it with the stories he knew from the Bible. “I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah.” The only way we can move forward as a Church into the future is by becoming aware of the hand of God at work throughout all of human history.
