16. Navigating intergenerational tensions Revd Dr. T. V. Thomas

If you knew my full name, you would be confident that I was South Indian. But if you simply met me on the street, you may wonder if there’s more to my story. And there is. I am ethnically Indian but culturally Malaysian – a SecondGeneration Malayali who attained Malaysian citizenship by birth. My parents migrated to this country in the mid1930s under the British rule.

Still, the roots of my faith were formed in predominantly Indian congregations. In my formative years, I faithfully attended the Mar Thoma Church in my hometown of Malacca. When I moved for Pre-University in Malaysia, I was a part of the local Mar Thoma congregation there. While studying at Madras Christian College, I was active at the Chetpet Mar Thoma Church in Madras (Chennai) and helped with children’s ministry of the Church of South India. While pursuing further studies at Nagpur University, I attended a fledgling Mar Thoma congregation in Nagpur, Central India. During my college years, I was deeply involved with the Union of Evangelical Students of India and Youth for Christ India.

Responding to the call of full-time ministry, I came to North America for theological education in the early 1970s and over the last four decades, I have been engaged in itinerant ministry nationally and internationally. I have had the privilege of ministering to a variety of Kerala congregations across five continents. In my travels, I have had many formal and informal conversations with Indian bishops, achens, parents, young couples, youth groups, teenagers and children in various settings. Some of the most frequent problems relate to intergenerational tensions, specifically the struggle between FAITH and CULTURE. The older generation wants to preserve both FAITH and CULTURE by all generations while the younger generation, having lost linguistic and cultural competencies, feel frustrated by the growing irrelevance of their parents’ ritualistic faith regarding their personal faith walk with Christ in the local contexts.

“Generation” is a complex concept across many academic disciplines including biblical studies.

Biblical writers once defined “generations” as the time elapsed between the beginning of one particular generation and the next. They typically understood this to be a period of 40 years. In the 21st century, the length of years between generations has been reduced from the Biblical four decades to a more manageable two decades. Here, we are not taking the marketers’ approach where they define generations to sell more goods to generationally distinct markets. Sociologists define the adult who arrives as immigrant in a new country as Generation 1 and those who are come in preteen years as Generation 1.5, while children born to immigrants in the foreign land as Generation 2. The children of Generation 2 are considered as Generation 3.

From the beginning, God’s purpose was perceived that humanity should increase through families and not through isolated individuals (Gen 1:28). The family unit is understood as a basic unit of creation. This means that the family is a fundamental divinely – ordained unit in human society and is intended by God to function as a microcosm of the Church. The family is the key training ground of cross-generational understanding and respect. The New Testament depicts the Church to be an all-age community of brothers and sisters in Christ. Therefore, God is interested that each of the three elements of family, generations and the Church serve its purpose for God’s Kingdom.

Every generation has its own assumptions, peculiarities and preferences. It is natural for one generation to be biased toward one’s own generational views. We need to constantly remind ourselves that God does not have such biases towards any generation or cultural particularities. Every generation is important to God, and each has to fulfil their respective destinies. In the Old Testament God frequently refers to himself as God of many generations (Gen 32:9, Ex 3:6, Deut 9:5).

Each and every culture is valid. But no culture is perfect because each culture has been tainted by sin. Therefore, every culture must be scrutinized and evaluated through the lens of the Bible. It is common to remain blind and ignore such evaluation. Critiquing each culture with Biblical principles needs to be an on-going discipline and process. The deeper the understanding of biblical principles the more precise the critique would be.

ancestral homelands while the younger generations would have grown up in the outside of India are influenced by a contemporary culture of their adopted homelands. Therefore, the values, expectations and aspirations of the generations will significantly be different. Every generation need to mutually seek to understand their distinctives and differences and learn to appreciate and relate to each other.

It is commonplace that intergenerational tensions develop in family life. When a child moves into adolescence, he/she will assert his/her own independence and identity. This often results in misunderstanding and division between the teenager and the parents who expect certain behaviour and respect. God’s ideal is that children mature to the point where they and their parents begin to empower each other.

The family is an analogy of the broader tension that can develop between the generations in church life. Each generation in any congregation will tend to contribute to the respective tensions. The emerging leaders of Generations 1 and 1.5 may display impatience, arrogance and self-righteousness. The older leaders of Generation 1 often may exhibit insecurity, over- protectiveness and control. I believe that the differences between generations could be ironed out with a combination of open communication, ready acceptance and generous forgiveness.

The pressing need in the Church is for the older generation to model to the younger generation a life of deep faith, authentic character, and humble service. The older generation must also be vulnerable about their shortcomings and flaws considering a loving, merciful and patient God. This is essential if we want to be living examples of God’s goodness and grace, and an inspiration to all who follow behind. By doing this, the senior members of God’s covenant community can humbly impart knowledge and understanding to emerging generations. On the other hand, younger generations have a responsibility to honour older generations and be open to learn from them (Proverbs 4:1-2, 1Cor 4:14-17, 1Tim 4:12). They need to ask God for his divine perspective to better understand their parents’ upbringing and have grace for their cultural blinders.

When both groups allow God into the frustrations of their intergenerational tensions, they can expect supernatural healing and understanding towards each other. Only then will leadership pass from one generation to the next, along with appropriate preparation and training provided for such transition to better navigate generational differences.

*Rev. Dr. T.V. Thomas is an international speaker, mission mobilizer and networker. He serves as Chairman of the Lausanne Global Diaspora Network. He lives with his wife Mary Thomas in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. They have three adult children living in various cities of Canada.

Book Review – Journey of a Candle: Devo-

As we learn from the message from Revd Eapen Abraham—former Vicar, St. John’s Mar Thoma Church, London—and the preface by Professor Dr. Zac Varghese, London, the Devotional was originally used at the St. John’s Mar Thoma Church during the Advent season. However, the Devotional has now been released as a book, based on popular demand, making it available to the broader faith community, with the potential to lead us “to rediscover the real meaning of all the events associated with the life and ministry of Jesus Christ to create a community of ‘at-one-ment’”, as suggested in the preface.

The Devotional is divided into five sections: (i) Melt the frozen wax . . . melt the frozen heart (Day 1-7); (ii) Mash the fragrance . . . mash the fruits (Day 8-16); (iii) Moulding the wax . . . moulding the heart (Day 17-20); (iv) Mirror time . . . moulded candles . . . moulded hearts (Day 2124); and (v) Lighted to Lighten by the Light of the Life (Day 25).

In the first “Melt the frozen wax . . . melt the frozen heart” section, the Devotional opens with the examples of Mary (Day1), who overcame fear by accepting God at His word, and Joseph (Day 2), who conquered doubts and questions by accepting and obeying God’s will and purpose for his life. Next, the Devotional presents Zechariah (Day 3), the priest; though his heart was “frozen with unbelief” first, God used Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, for raising John the Baptist, the forerunner to Jesus. However, in the rest of this first section, the Devotional presents others—Herod (Day 4), the Innkeeper (Day 5), all Jerusalem (Day 6), priests and scribes (Day 7)—who responded differently to the news of the birth of Jesus and missed Christmas altogether. From the standpoint of the candle lifecycle, this first section marks the process of melting the frozen wax.

In the second “Mash the fragrance . . . mash the fruits” section, the Devotional charts the process of being filled with the fruits of the spirit ((Galatians 5:22-23): love (Day 8), joy (Day 9), peace (Day 10), forbearance (Day 11), kindness (Day 12), goodness (Day 13), faithfulness (Day 14), gentleness (Day 15), and self-control (Day 16). The daily meditations emphasize behaviors the mandated by the spiritual fruits: (i) We can show our love for God only by loving our fellow beings; (ii) Joy is a gift that we enjoy through service to others and the creation; (iii) We need peace with God and others; (iv) We must show forbearance to others, just as God has been patient with us; (v) Practicing kindness and compassion is transformative, but demands intentionality; (vi) We must remember and embrace our inherited goodness from God during Christmas; (vii) Jesus calls us to live faithfully—with total trust, commitment, and fidelity;