I am dating myself with the title of this first post. My 17 year old has informed me that he had no idea what I was referring to. <sigh> Getting older has its advantages such as wisdom, experience, and perspective, but in our day and age of youth idolization, it can be humbling to find yourself “out of touch” with younger generations and maybe tragically labeled as irrelevant. For some of my fellow Millennials, it is a scary proposition to no longer be “relevant.” We prized ourselves in being “relevant” to such a degree that the magazine Relevant was created during at our birth in 2000.
Relevancy is a sliding scale and slippery slope. It is a slippery slope because, when defined by being up to date with modern culture (especially modern youth culture), there is the tendency to gild our actions with whatever might be trending or meme-able. This gilding often is a veneer that is covering up something that is still very beautiful. Like laying linoleum over beautiful hardwood floors.
[When asking AI to generate some feedback on this article, it gave me the following:” Engage with Younger Audiences: Incorporate examples or anecdotes related to current youth culture to enhance relatability.” Even the AI has been trained in this way.]
It is a sliding scale because as any teenager will tell you, the more someone outside of your sub-culture tries to engage your sub-culture the more cringy it becomes (unless you are purposefully embracing the cringe, as any good father should do if wanting to endear yourself to your children’s friends). Often, being aware of the larger cultural trends and way of thinking is enough. It is almost impossible without being glued to your phone to keep up with whatever is trending and in.
The truth is that there is a type of relevancy that is available to all people of all cultures across all generations. The human heart and the mortal life needs the same things regardless of whatever the popular culture might be promoting as a need in the moment. Relationships, intimacy, love, grief, honesty, truth, family, and the list could go on. If relevancy was based on culture, then it would not make sense that Jesus, the Epistles, and the rest of the Bible and other ancient and just older writings still find a readership.
My hope with this post, and all that follow, is to speak to those areas of perpetual relevancy. I am eager and apprehensive to see how well I will do and how God will develop all of this.
What is a Gersonian?
One final note, the title of my site is “Gersonian.” I talk about who Jean de Charlier Gerson on my about page and why I identify with him so much, but I thought it might be helpful to mention one or two things here as well.
Gerson was an individual who bridge the late Medieval period to the Modern era. He was a reformer before the Reformation. He was an academic who was pushing into the humanism of the enlightenment but still firmly grounded in Medieval sources. He was a spiritual mystic who saw union with God as something all people could strive for, not just monks, nuns, and clergy. He preached, wrote, and taught in French which while not unheard of was definitely not common. He fits fully neither in the Enlightenment nor in the late Medieval scholasticism and because of this, he is largely forgotten in Church History.
Gerson was a man of ideals who loved the Lord and struggled with the state of the Church, politics, and faith of his generation. I find a lot to identify with.
So while this is not going to be dedicated to exploring all things Jean Gerson, he will make an appearance from time to time. He is worth getting to know.
Thank you for reading so far, and I hope you will be blessed, encourage, and challenged in the time to come.
