Feeling of guilt

The Imagetic Generation breaks with this dichotomy and sees the father as a “big daddy”, but who in no way reflects or deserves the comparative attributions to Divinity. The father is respected, but not God. For such a generation, the Creator cannot interfere in the individual’s life, as it seeks a considerable distance. This assertion is expressed in the attitudes of young people inside a Protestant temple – I am referring to historic and missionary Protestants of European and North American origins, such as Adventists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Presbyterians, among others. The Generation 64 carried them religious books; the Imagetic Generation has electronic devices at its fingertips. The Generation 64 martyred itself by any thought disconnected from the ceremonial and sacred environment; the Imagetic Generation challenges the sacred and desecrates the temple by using communication resources to hold inappropriate conversations, play games, and distract themselves in order to waste time during liturgical services. The sense of Divine presence goes circling the drain.

When reflecting on this condition of those labeled as supposed heirs to the leadership of religious communities, whether they are theologians or not, the torture of conscience of Generation 64 increases. From these, loyalty, reverence, punctuality, responsibility were demanded and a list of threats and their predictable punishments and consequences were imposed. Regarding the attitudes of the emerging, the blame once again falls on Generation 64 for not establishing limits and rules. Both are on a path of misconduct, off course, heading for a collision, each with dramatic particularities. The warning signaled in the scenario glimpsed on the horizon raises three questions for reflection and discussion: By losing their roots, would families practicing religious confessions be able to maintain the same hope? What consequences will society suffer if religious confessions melt away? And the most important: What effects did authoritarian leadership have on the worldview of children, adolescents and young people between the 1960s and 1980s? Coincidentally, for the Japanese this phase marked the birth of the so-called “lost generation”, corresponding to 15% of the current population of the eastern country.

Although there are no conclusive answers to the previous inquiries, it is necessary to discuss them, trying to show the shortcuts and deviations from the ills resulting from this profile installed in recent decades as consequences of negotiations from more distant times. Given the possibility of losing the confessional bond, it can be deduced that there are factors that lead to the cooling of religious connections. The great villains of this deformation of the Protestant character emerge from materialism, poor time management, susceptibility to powerful cybernetic tentacles and the contradictory discourses of the leadership and its representatives in relation to daily actions. (Continued in Part 4)

Ruben Dargã Holdorf, Comm.Se.D