Friday 9 June 2017

What is the voice of the youth we need to hear through the General Election?


I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you pesky kids.

tweeted by @mikegalsworthy


My wife Maggie still refers to ‘young people’ when describing some of our friends who are now in their mid-thirties … I’m usually exasperated by her comments, which are never just ignored! I guess it’s a sign of growing older, but have we institutionalised this perspective? In Church and politics.

Everyone appears surprised at the results from this General Election. Many political commentators made massive assumptions when Teresa May called for the recent General Election and most of them have proved to be wrong. I’m hearing echoes of conversations with many church leaders and people belonging to our Baptist Churches. The particular assumptions I’m thinking about are around the ‘young’ … I hear similar huge assumptions made by people in our Baptist Churches.

"The ‘youth’ are getting older!"

I find it very interesting to dig down a little under statements about ‘youth’, because as the average age of the UK increases, it seems the youth are getting older. In Christian youth work circles we’ve long talked about ‘youth’ as up to 25, but that’s including teenagers. Of course, when it comes to voting in a General Election you need to be 18 and by definition an adult, so to talk about ‘youth’ is interesting to say the least.

Across church life, it appears as the ‘youth’ bracket gets wider, so the missing gap grows bigger. An increasing number of church congregations have no people under 40 among them.

"Those younger ‘are not interested these days’!"

Hopefully one result from this election will be to highlight we disregard those with the smallest voices at our peril. Politicians appear to have become accustomed to the idea younger voters were disenfranchised from the system and not voting, but on the day the general election was called, 57,987 people under 25 registered to vote - more than any other age group. The second largest group was people aged between 25 and 34, with a further 51,341 registering. Articles are already appearing, the morning after the long night before, asking 'was it the youth who caused the hung parliament?'

I’ve become tired of hearing a similar chorus within churches. However, wherever churches are directly engaging a younger population there are people becoming Christians. It is simply not true those younger are less likely to become Christians. Neither is it true the younger generations are so influenced by post-modernity they have no convictions, around right and wrong, light and darkness, values and integrity. Jeremy Corbyn’s appeal to the 18-24 age group would appear to have much to do with ideals and conviction and in my experience younger Christians have largely rejected the liberal theology experiments of the twentieth century. They want conviction, truth, integrity and action.

PS.
According to the Office for National Statistics we are still getting older in the UK:

In mid 2015 the adjusted estimates from the 2011 census suggest:

11.6 million, or 17.8% of the population are over 65, with 1.5 million, or 2.3% over 85.

The median age of the UK population (the age at which half the population is younger and half the population is older) is 40.0, which is an increase from 38.7 in mid-2005.

The future projections available look like:


Year
UK population
0 to 15 years (%)
16 to 64 years (%)
65 years & over  (%)
1975
56,226,000
24.9
61.0
14.1
1985
56,554,000
20.7
64.1
15.2
1995
58,025,000
20.7
63.4
15.8
2005
60,413,000
19.3
64.7
15.9
2015
65,110,000
18.8
63.3
17.8
2025
69,444,000
18.9
60.9
20.2
2035
73,044,000
18.1
58.3
23.6
2045
76,055,000
17.7
57.8
24.6

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