Summer camp, for my first time at age 10 in the summer of 1948, was like mini-boot camp for juniors. It was just after the close of World War II, and the influence of military victory pervaded the structure of fife. The heros of society were military figures, and “the boys" who had come home in triumph from foreign battle fields were not only welcomed, they were accorded education and employment which placed them in leadership positions for a generation.
Though I did not realize it at the time, our camp program was patterned after the military. Of course, camps were separated for boys and girls. And the procedures were both named and performed in military style. The dining room was the “mess hall." Washing dishes was“KP duty." We had line call and reports every hour or so for improper behavior. The residuals of the military generation were being played out in camp life. But camp life was only one of the more visible manifestations of this top-down militaristic structure. Society in general and the church specifically took up this mode of operation which had worked so well in the military.
Not only in theory was this accomplished, but the educational provisions of the GI Bill flooded our college religion departments with returned soldiers eager to enter the ministry. And of course they brought with them the system of leadership they had learned in the military. The result was that for many years, the ministerial force of the church was filled with largely those of military background to the exclusion of the normal age group who would have been expected to flow through the educational process year by year. This created an age gap between the military generation and the baby boomers who would follow them as the next dominant generation.
During the first half of the 1950s these GI Bill graduates were absorbed into the work force of the church in large numbers. Those who were not able to find a position in the pastoral ranks entered the teaching and literature ministries and whatever other positions might be available while they waited for openings in pastoral posts.
Then in the mid-1950s, just as this group began to be absorbed, the Social Security Service moved to include pastors in the system. Those about to retire were required to work 5 years before becoming eligible, thus blocking from the pastoral ranks that age group who normally would have been entering the work force in the last half of the 1950's.
The church is now in the era of transition when this gap in staffing is becoming evident in leadership. The military generation is retiring and the boomers are moving into leadership. And the clash of generations is evident. In fact, this is what the 60s were all about. The leadership of the church for the past 30 to 40 years has been happy with the model which has been comfortable for them. But the coming generation not only does not appreciate the top-down military model, they actually devoted themselves to its destruction during their youth.
And the scant group between these generations is left with the task of trying to bridge between them so that on the one hand they do not alienate their parents, and on the other, they do not lose their younger brothers and sisters.
It is reality that many things important to the military generation are of no moment to the boomers. Cherished institutional structures, procedures and standards are no longer relevant to a new generation. The risk is that the former generation will attempt, in the name of righteousness, to preserve its“irrelevant" standards, while the new generation may jettison true values in pursuit of its own processes and perceptions.
The natural sociology of the church is that it tends to become captured by a dominant generational group that then carries its form and activities along with its own aging process. At first, a new perspective appears to be a fresh cutting edge of growth in the church. But in time, it manifests itself as the perpetuation of the tastes and likes of one generation imposed on the following generation in the name of preserving righteousness. Thus the church is not allowed to grow and develop in a smooth and intentional progression but rather in fits and jerks of institutional revolution.
We are now at such a break point. It would be good if we could find a way for shifting plates to move without seismic calamities. Knowing what we are up against can help us. Whether we will heed this knowledge remains to be seen.