Apologetics and Generation Z

Apologetics for Generation Z

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Who is Generation Z? 3

Understanding the Problem 8

Background to the Humanities 10

The Sources That Will Help 13

Walker Percy’s Moviegoer 14

The Disease That Haunts Man 18

Flannery O’Connor 21

Pluck Out the Mystery? 23

The Tale of Shoefoot 25

Take Them to the Wonder 26

Conclusion 28

Bibliography 31

Introduction

To counter the pluralism of today’s culture, it is important that the Christian faith be presented objectively and with an insistence on truth. In today’s world, truth is seen as subjective. Everyone has his or her own “personal truth.” “Tell your truth,” is how the saying goes. This is a problem because very often one’s personal truth conflicts with another’s truth or with objective truth—i.e., reality. Since Satan is the father of lies, it is important that Gen Z recognize that real truth matters, as commitment to real truth is the only way to disentangle oneself from the culture of lies and come to Christ, as the Yanomamo convert to Christianity Bautista states: Christ is the only one who can save a soul from being lost.[footnoteRef:1] [1: M. A. Ritchie, Spirit of the rainforest: A Yanomamö shaman\\\\\\\'s story (Chicago: Island Lake Press, 1996), pg 288. ]

This means that there is a need to focus on truth, real truth, and seeing the world through the eyes of one who recognizes the spiritual realities of this world, that God and Satan are real. One way to do this is by using the realities of this world to show the way to Gen Z, which is inundated with an atheistic, politically correct doctrine similar to that supplied to the Soviets of the 20th century.[footnoteRef:2] The key to opening up real truth to this generation can be literature, music, art, philosophy—i.e., the humanities. The humanities are one of the best ways to present biblical Christianity to Generation Z. The humanities have taught people about the real truths of God and life for centuries, and today the humanities have been pushed to the side. This paper explains how the humanities are one of the best ways to present biblical Christianity to Generation Z. [2: Barna Group. Atheism Doubles Among Generation. Accessed January 29, 2021. https://www.barna.com/research/atheism-doubles-among-generation-z/]

Who is Generation Z?

Commonly referred to as Gen Z, this generation is completely unique to history.[footnoteRef:3] Technically speaking, anyone born since 1997 is a member of Gen Z.[footnoteRef:4] Also known as the iGeneration (because of its affinity for iPhones), this generation is technically savvy and has never known a world without Internet. Yet there is much more to know about Gen Z than simply the fact that it is good with digital technology. As White points out: the modern soul of the 21st century is completely devoid of Christian sensibility, even if nominally he is a Christian. White calls the time now upon us the seventh age in which the very question of what it means to be human is no longer clear. There is no longer any religious affiliation among the nones—Gen Z. The nones—those without any religious affiliation were five percent of the population in 1930. Today they are 30 percent and their numbers are rising.[footnoteRef:5] In short, Gen Z has little to no faith in Christ. Christ is irrelevant in the great Digital Age. The iPhone and the atheistic ideology of social justice have usurped His throne. To drive home this point is a recent survey that reveals that 1 in 10 Millennials would sooner give up a finger than give up their iPhone—and those are Millennials.[footnoteRef:6] [3: J. E. White, Meet Gen Z. Baker Books, 2017, 12.] [4: Pew Research Center. Defining generations: Where millennials end and Generation Z begins. January 17, 2019. Accessed January 26, 2021. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/wheremillennials-end-and-generation-z-begins/] [5: J. E. White, Meet Gen Z. Baker Books, 2017, 14.] [6: Jones, C. “One in ten millennials would rather lose a finger than give up their smart phone: Survey”. AI & IOT Daily. 2018. Accessed January 30, 2021. Retrieved from https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/322677/one-in-10-millennials-would-rather-lose-a-finger-t.html]

With Gen Z one can assume that the feelings towards smart phones have not lessened. Once formed, these attachments are difficult to break. They grow and consume one until they become like a part of one’s body, a part of one’s soul. This is the state of things today. Gen Z wakes up in the morning and finds itself fulfilled—primarily because every waking moment is filled by some form of digital media consumption. There is no time for spiritual reflection. There is no reason to stop and wonder why things are the way they are. There is no reason to stop and ask oneself, “Who am I?” Everything in history has reached a final pivotal point wherein social justice is within reach (so they are taught). Technology has eliminated all obstacles (so they are taught). Human perfection is happening now (so they are taught). The real pivotal moment in history—the Incarnation—is lost upon them. They have not been taught its significance. They do not sense the lack because they are not given a mirror that shows them who they really are. They are constantly fed projections of an ideal self and an ideal world that is rooted in atheistic materialism, justified by social justice banter that hides the true reality of things.

The bottom line is that they do not see that they have an immortal soul that is in need of saving. They do not even realize they are atheists in many cases because they have simply given no thought to the matter.[footnoteRef:7] They are like the closed-minded characters of any Flannery O’Connor short story. More will be said on that in the next section of this paper. Few authors of the 20th century have done a better job of holding the mirror up to human nature and showing the reader who he really is. For that reason, O’Connor can be an excellent tool for the apologist because she helps to open the door to real reality and the real need for salvation. [7: Geisler, Norman, and Turek, Frank. I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist. Wheaten, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2004. ]

White also asserts that the apologists of today must adapt to address this new generation because they old ways do not line up with the needs of this new generation.[footnoteRef:8] It is not just a matter of getting this new generation re-engaged with a latent faith. That faith is not latent. One must realize that one is preaching the Gospel to a generation that has never heard it. Generation Z has to be considered as no different from the heathens of the past. It is as though they have returned to some of the pagan rituals that were incorporated into Christianity, but have left Christianity behind in doing so.[footnoteRef:9] They may be Christian in name—some of them—but they are not acquainted with the Bible or its relevance in their lives. The Gospel needs to be made new to them, and it needs to be made relevant.[footnoteRef:10] But it is difficult to see the relevance of an important fact when one does not see how it applies to one’s own life. The Pharisees did not see the relevance of Christ’s gift of grace because they thought themselves already saved; they thought themselves already perfect; they thought in terms of earthly power—and neglected to actually think about the true state of their souls (Matthew 12:38-42; Luke 11:29-32; Matthew 16:1-4). Gen Z is very much like the Pharisees of old, often adopting a mocking attitude and tone towards Christianity. With cancel culture all the rage among them, they are like the Puritans of Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter. They imagine that they are pure and must cast the impure out from among them. They very much resemble the Pharisees looking down their noses at Christ when he allowed the sinner to touch him (Luke 7:39-40). [8: J. E. White, Meet Gen Z. Baker Books, 2017, 24.] [9: Frank Viola and George Barna. Pagan Christianity? Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (Carol Stream, IL: Barna Books, 2008), 3.] [10: Ezell, Kevin, host. “#29 – Reaching Gen Z with the Gospel: Part 1.” North American Mission Board (podcast). Accessed January 30, 2021. https://www.namb.net/podcasts/evangelism-with-johnny-hunt/reaching-gen-z-with-the-gospel-part-1/]

But as Christ said from the cross, we must “forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). It is true—but that does not mean we must forget them. The apologist’s job today is one of reaching out to Gen Z and presenting to them the truth of their own selves; for until they see that truth, they will not realize why they need Christ.

One point in particular that summarizes the situation is taken from the film Gravity in which the character played by Sandra Bullock cries that she is about to die and that she wishes she could pray but that no one ever taught her how to pray. That is where Gen Z is at now: it is a generation that has not been taught the first thing about religion.[footnoteRef:11] Yet at the same time this is a group that is heavily networked, understands technology and social media, and is involved in social justice.[footnoteRef:12] [11: Barna Group. Gen Z: the Culture, Beliefs and Motivations Shaping the next Generation. Ventura, CA: Barna Group, 2018, 8.] [12: Corey Seemiller and Meghan Grace, Generation Z Leads: A Guide for Developing the Leadership Capacity of Generation Z Students. North Charleston: Create Space Publishing, 2017, 26.]

This is a generation that has to be engaged. Apologists of today must accept their questions, answer them, engage with them wherever and whenever possible.[footnoteRef:13] This is a generation that believes in ghost but does not believe in the redemption of the soul by Christ’s sacrifice and death on the cross. Those two things—that belief and that unbelief—have to be bridged: that is the primary purpose of the apologist seeking to spread the faith among Gen Z. [13: Mcdowell, Sean, and Wallace, J. Warner. So the next Generation Will Know: Preparing Young Christians for a Challenging World. Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2019.]

To be successful, the anti-Christian aspect of the world today has to be carefully considered.[footnoteRef:14] It is this anti-Christian world that Gen Z faces and has gotten used to: Gen Z is too wrapped up in tech, and Gen X (the parents of Gen Z) has been too hands-off in raising their children.[footnoteRef:15] This is a generation that believes social media presence will make it happy.[footnoteRef:16] It is a generation that believes in worldy perfection rather than in spiritual perfection.[footnoteRef:17] It is a generation that does not even realize each person has a spirit. It is a generation that has no concept of spiritual perfection or the need for spiritual perfection because it has no sense of spiritual imperfection. It is a generation that has been taught that if it says and does all the right things—politically—then it will go to social justice heaven (never mind what they may or may not be—no one asks). [14: Mark Moring, “Redefining Apologetics for a New Generation.” October 13, 2017. Accessed on January 30, 2021. Retrieved from https://lifewayresearch.com/2017/10/13/redefining-apologetics-for-a-new-generation/] [15: J. E. White, Meet Gen Z. Baker Books, 2017, 50.] [16: D. Freitas, The happiness effect: How social media is driving a generation to appear perfect at any cost (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 4.] [17: Ravi Zacharias, Can Man Live Without God (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 17.]

The parents of Gen Z are to blame to a large degree—but they themselves were given little to go on.[footnoteRef:18] The fact is it has been a slippery slope downward since the Baby Boomers embraced the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Freedom has been the buzzword ever since, but as E. Michael Jones points out, freedom—typically preached as sexual liberation—always leads to enslavement (of the mind, body, will and spirit).[footnoteRef:19] Gen Z has been given far too much freedom and independence, and their parents have not sought to protect the innocence of their children. That has made Gen Z particularly vulnerable to the temptations of the devil—and once snared and devoid of faith as they are it raises many an obstacle for the apologist of today. This is a Gen Z that is enslaved by Satan and does not even realize it because, to quote the film The Usual Suspects, “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”[footnoteRef:20] [18: J. E. White, Meet Gen Z. Baker Books, 2017, 50.] [19: E. Michael Jones, Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control (St. Augustine’s Press, 2000), 3.] [20: Bryan Singer, dir. The Usual Suspects, film.]

Understanding the Problem

The problem here is that the world has not just been de-Christianized; it is actively promoting an anti-Christian worldview. The world is being turned into Satan’s playground. Christianity is not just neglected: it is repulsed. The socialism of the past has crept back into the discourse of today’s politics under the guise of social justice. Gen Z does not see that it is being misled towards godless atheism under the bright shining banner of social justice. Sin and the need for redemption have not changed or disappeared from the earth just because the politics of today have shifted to the Left. The Left does not have the power to heal the spirit. Only Christ has that power—but Gen Z does not see this because Gen Z has not been taught the true state of human nature.

Part of the reason for that is the disappearance of the humanities in modern education. The classics have been pushed aside in favor of the promotion of social justice literature, critical race theory, and other modern inventions. The classics were for a long time part of the cannon of Western literature because they reinforced in young minds what it means to be human. Dostoevsky understood completely what it means to be human, to have a body and to have a soul in need of Christ. He depicted real life characters in 19th century Russia who had to face this fact of reality. Shakespeare did the same in his time. Even filmmakers today like Terrence Malick are doing this. All of these works of art are helpful because they reflect the real reality that Gen Z has not been made aware of. Gen Z cannot be expected to come to Christ unless it is first made aware of the reality of the problem, which is that human nature is fallen and every soul is in desperate need of God’s saving grace.

How to reach Gen Z and to teach them about Christ is a problem that can be solved by turning to the humanities. To summarize:

· The problem is that Gen Z is atheistic/agnostic and mired in a politically correct worldview that is pluralistic.

· The solution of course is Christ, but how can one direct a godless generation towards biblical Christianity where the answer lies?

· The nature of the impediment is that Gen Z is not open to a bible-based solution because the generation does not recognize the reality of their own very fallen human nature—i.e., that they have a soul in need of saving.

· The way forward is to go backward. By using the humanities to show them the reality of the situation, modern apologists can help Gen Z to realize their human condition, which ultimately is that they have a spiritual condition. These stories, both old and new (because many are still being told today in print or in film), can be very useful in opening Gen Z to the solution that biblical Christianity offers.

Background to the Humanities

The humanities matter for one very simple reason: they teach what it means to be human. Our Lord used stories (parables) to teach His followers. The greatest artists of the world have emulated Our Lord in doing the same thing. Humans have a fallen nature and are in need of redemption. Yet their fallen human nature often prevents them from reflecting on this fact. Satan also tries to blind men’s eyes to it as well. Stories attract the attention of people the same way flowers attract bees, the same way sugar attracts ants. People are social creatures by design. That is how God made us. There is no getting around that fact. Stories bring people together. They tap into that programming that God has given to all people.

The greatest of the humanities do what Hamlet told the players to do when they performed: he asked them to “hold the mirror up to nature.”[footnoteRef:21] The humanities show us who we are, warts and all, so to speak. The best of them also point the way out of the mess we are, spiritually speaking. The great challenge for every artist, just like every apologist, is how to communicate this truth to the audience of his day. The artist and the apologist are very similar in that respect: they must consider their audience and identify the way to best reach that audience with the truth. The artist, like the apologist, must tell the truth. But as Emily Dickinson wrote: [21: William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.3.2.html]

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth\\\\\\\'s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —[footnoteRef:22] [22: Emily Dickinson, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56824/tell-all-the-truth-but-tell-it-slant-1263]

The humanities are a way of telling the truth in a manner that gets the point across but often buries it so that the hearer must spend some time in reflection. This was true even with Our Lord and His parables. His disciples would come to him after and beg the meaning of the thing He had told them:

As Jesus said this, He called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Then His disciples asked Him what this parable meant. He replied, “The knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand’ (Luke 8:8-10).

If stories were of vital importance to Our Lord as He sought to communicate the eternal mysteries to His people, then we should not treat the art of story with anything less than the utmost respect. Stories can make all the difference in terms of opening the eyes of an individual who cannot see. That is the background of the humanities: they have always been recognized as important in the transformation of the mind, which is essential if one is to transform one’s will to align it with God’s.[footnoteRef:23] [23: Willis, Avery T. Jr. Making Disciples of Oral Learners: To Proclaim His Story Where It Has Not Been Known Before. Lima: Elim Publishing, 2004.]

There are so many sources to choose from when it comes to the humanities. One can focus on philosophical texts, such as Aristotle; one can look at religious personal narratives, like Augustine’s Confessions. Or one can look at dramatic works, such as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex or Homer’s Iliad or Shakespeare’s King Lear. All of these offer a way into understanding what it means to be human. Once that foundation for what it means to be human is laid down, the apologist is ready to bring the individual to Christ. This paper deals primarily with how the apologist can use the humanities to get Gen Z to understand what it really means to be human. Human nature has not changed one iota since the Fall. Therefore, any work that holds the mirror up to nature will suit our purposes.

For the apologist seeking to bring Gen Z to Christ, the most helpful approach is likely to be one that uses works to which this young generation of the 21st century can most easily relate. These are modern and in some ways post-modern young minds. The most appropriate works will be ones that reflect characters who mirror their own situation. Authors like Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, O’Connor and Shakespeare are all appropriate for this task, as are the films of Terrence Malick. In the following pages some consideration is given to how the apologist might use these works to catch Gen Z and open this generation’s mind to God.

The Sources That Will Help

One of the defining characteristics of Gen Z is that they believe in technology and in social justice. Their focus is on this world, on happiness here, which is achieved by conformity to social justice ideals and through the use of the great tools of technology that the developed world has given to us. They believe they are living the American Dream—or at least they did until 2020 struck. The disaster of 2020 and the response of governments around the world let a little bit of air out of the bubble of Gen Z and perhaps for some revealed to them the first time the actual nature of the world in which they live.[footnoteRef:24] For example, they might have begun to realize that just because someone spouts socially-conscious doctrine it does not mean that person actually has anyone’s interests in mind other than his own. [24: Cory Stieg, “More than 7 in 10 Gen-Zers report depression,” CNBC, 2020. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/21/survey-more-than-7-in-10-gen-zers-report-depression-during-pandemic.html]

What then does it mean to be in this world, to want to seek happiness, and to not know how to get it? Many of Gen Z suddenly found their dreams put on hold in 2020. If they were musicians or actors, their craft was cut off to them. Stages closed, theaters emptied, and places where musicians perform were shut down. If they were going to college, they suddenly found themselves being forced to live in isolation, separated from others because the authorities would not permit them to socialize like normal healthy young people.

Why was this happening? Did any of them ask themselves that? Or did they accept the narrative that the media fed to them? Today’s apologist can certainly use this very real moment in history to begin to engage with Gen Z. It is also an opportunity to make reference to some very real works of literature that can help Gen Z to probe reality even further. The point of probing reality is to arrive at truth. Truth is God. All truth comes from God. Getting Gen Z interested in truth—any truth—is therefore of the essence.

Walker Percy’s Moviegoer

One of the best books of the 20th century is Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. This is a book about a man who was raised in the Christian faith but by the time he has reached the age of 30 he fails to see what the relevance of his faith is any longer. At the same time he is not very comfortable living in the world around him, where no one seems to think about the meaning of this life. He spends his time often lost in ruminations; others think he is dreamy and flighty—but really he is simply reflecting internally on the beauty of the world, on the sadness of the passage of time, and on the great question of “Who am I?”—even though he never really explicitly asks that question to himself; but it is there, always haunting him.

As the main character of the novel moves through the book, he bumps into others, has meaningless flings with women in an attempt to satisfy some desire within, goes to the movies to indulge escapist fantasies, and plots his future career in an attempt to please his elders. All the while, the question of religion nags at him and he wonders why, since it seems to have little place in the lives of others. Indeed, most people he meets seem to view religion as though it were a settled matter, something nice to have around, but nothing really of any great importance in the real world.

One of the big questions that the main character finds himself asking himself is why the real world seems so sad, so empty, so cold and indifferent at times. He cannot account for this. What he is secretly wondering, of course, is why the world is fallen. As a Christian he knows the religious explanation: he knows about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden—but this knowledge is not really real to him. It is in his mind only; and his mind is disconnected from his body and from his spirit. He does not apply the truth that he has been given in his youth—his Christian faith—to his situation in life. The problem essentially is that he is not practicing his Christian faith. And he knows that, too.

Part of what haunts him is good old fashioned Catholic guilt. He has been brought up to believe that sin is really and that forgiveness of sins is not only possible but necessary. Yet he is also a man of the world and the world does not believe in Catholic guilt. The world says that guilt is a construct, that one’s conscience has been taught that x, y and z are wrong, which is why one feels guilty when one does x, y or z. But this guilt can be unlearned; one can kill a conscience, just as Macbeth does in Shakespeare’s tragedy. Macbeth knows that killing the king is wrong—but he does it anyway. And soon enough Macbeth is killing anyone and everyone because in his mind he has already gone over to the devil so why stop there? Kill or be killed becomes the motto of his downfall. He is killed in the end. Percy spares his main character in The Moviegoer from such a fate; rather than seek to kill off his conscience, the character listens to what it has to say and seeks to know how to apply the truth that he knows to be objectively true but finds hard to apply.

Why is the truth hard to apply in this world? It is because the truth is bound up in charity. That is the way of it, since Our Lord is not just Truth Itself but also Charity. Christianity is nothing without charity, as St. Paul writes: “And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Charity can be the saving grace that pulls a person out of sin and sets them on the road to God. It is what saved Boniface of Tarsus, after all.[footnoteRef:25] [25: David A. Gilbert, \\\\\\\"The Novena to St. Boniface of Tarsus: A Pastoral Program for Addressing Sexual Addiction in Colonial Mexico.\\\\\\\" Catholic Social Science Review 19 (2014), 88.]

At long last, the main character in Percy’s novel comes to realize the full extent to which charity must be exercised. Charity is the one thing that can save him, since he cannot save himself through his muddled intellectual endeavors. What he does know is that his cousin Kate needs help: she is depressed beyond measure and very nearly in a state of despair. Percy actually suggests that everyone is a state of despair if he or she is not actively pursuing holiness; but most do not realize their true condition—because they find enough empty distractions with which to busy themselves, or because they see no point in pursuing the matter. Percy never judges or condemns his characters, but he does show that charity is a thing that is much needed in this world. The main character realizes this, shows charity—genuine selfless love—towards his cousin Kate. She responds—because it is the sort of thing one infrequently comes across. It is a rare occurrence indeed to receive true charity in the modern world. Usually it comes with a catch.

Dostoevsky shows as much in The Brothers Karamazov in the Grand Inquisitor scene in which the skeptical brother—the unbelieving Ivan—tells the believing brother (faithful Alyosha) a story in which Christ returns to earth and is condemned to death all over again by the Inquisition. Christ says nothing but only gives his accusers a kiss—a display of genuine charity. After telling this story to his brother, Ivan goes on to state that because Christ is always being condemned he cannot believe in the goodness of God. It makes no sense to him. He sees charity is an unrealistic ideal that only “God” could have for such cruel creatures as man. He tells Alyosha that he admires him for his faith but that such faith is ultimately a fantasy. A God who could make a creature so cruel that His own creature would seek to kill Him cannot be said to be any God at all. He asks Alyosha what he thinks about this. Alyosha says nothing, but gets up and gives his brother a kiss. “Literary theft!” Ivan exclaims—but the gesture touches Ivan in a way words never could. Alyosha shows in his own actions the kind of charity that Ivan believes to be unreal. That kind of charity is what Christ expects of His followers. It is what St. Paul told the Corinthians they must—must—possess. Without charity, faith matters not a whit. Alyosha’s faith is made effective in charity. Charity is what serves as a testament to the reality of God in this world, which is run by the devil (who is the Father of Lies).

And so in The Moviegoer, Kate is saved from suicide by her cousin, whose charity brings her out of the abyss of herself and leads her to finding purpose in life. The main character stops chasing after fantasies in flighty romances with other woman or in movies. He finds reality, which is having a meaningful relationship based in charity, and aligning oneself with the laws that God wants His people to follow. At the end of the novel, the main character is fielding questions from a group of children: they are asking about God, life, sin, death, and what one must do to reach Heaven. The main character answers them all, truthfully and honestly, as he has been taught by the catechism of the Church from his youth. Charity and truth are thus shown to go together. Before he embraced charity, he was self-seeking and confused, conflicted and lost. After he embraced charity, everything suddenly became clear to him and he no longer felt the same sense of confusion and misdirection—both of which are the tools of Satan. The main character had been in the hands of Satan—but by embracing charity he puts himself into the hands of God. He receives ashes on the forehead at the beginning of Lent. He comes away from Church with a renewed sense of what it means to be in this world: one is on a pilgrimage to Heaven or to Hell. It is up to one to decide which way he wants to go.

Every member of Gen Z is in this same situation. The Moviegoer can be a good source for explaining to them what that situation is. It is one of many tools, however. The thing to keep in mind is that they all basically tell the same truths about human beings. They all reflect the same things. That is why they are useful in apologetics: they show man what he is and why Christ is the answer to his problems.

The Disease That Haunts Man

Mental health has deteriorated in young people since the COVID lockdowns of 2020.[footnoteRef:26] Yet there is a much more serious disease that often goes unnamed. It is the spiritual disease of modern man. Few authors have touched upon it as consistently and as effectively as Fyodor Dostoevsky. The 19th century Russian writer understood man’s condition, however. Raised a Christian but affected by the liberalism of his own time, Dostoevsky strayed from the faith in his young adulthood and mingled with revolutionary intellectual circles that were being monitored by the Tsar. Arrested along with a handful of others for being part of such a circle, Dostoevsky was sentenced to death—but the sentence was commuted by the Tsar and instead of death by firing squad he was sent to a prison camp in Siberia where his main reading material was the New Testament. This reading and his experiences there with real criminals showed him the true state of man. He was plucked out of his idealist, utopian liberal dream world, inhabited by so many 19th century authors, and shown the realities of human nature—proud, sinful, fallen human nature. He described his time in the prison camp in his first major work of real value: The House of the Dead. He told the stories of these inmates, many of them were like the walking dead because their souls had no life in them.[footnoteRef:27] [26: UN, “COVID impact on young people’s mental health,” 2020. https://unric.org/en/covid-19-impact-on-young-peoples-mental-health-in-spotlight/] [27: Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: a writer in his time. Princeton University Press, 2012.]

When Dostoevsky emerged from prison, he had formed a new and fuller perspective on life. His subsequent literary works all reflected his newfound appreciation for man. First came Notes from Underground, about a young man who rails against society yet refuses (out of stubborn pride) to conform himself to the law of God: he is an unhappy, miserable wretch as a result. Even though he sees through the lies of the liberal progressive movement, he is too proud to actually submit to Christ or to the true charity for others that Christ demands from us. As a result, he is worse than a dog—and what is worse is the fact that he knows it, and all he can do is rail against himself as well.[footnoteRef:28] [28: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground. Barnes&Nobles, 2005.]

In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky shows what happens to a soul that tries to defy God’s order in this world. The main character deliberately commits a murder so as to show his “strength,” i.e., his ability to overcome conscience and make himself an overman—an ubermensch the likes of which the godless Nietzsche would go on to promote. Yet Raskolnikov—the main character in Crime and Punishment—cannot overcome conscience no matter how hard he tries. He is consumed by guilt even though he refuses to admit it. His mental and physical health deteriorates rapidly until finally, with the help of two very good friends, he confesses and accepts his punishment. It is a story of sin, fall, guilt, acceptance, and redemption. It is the story of the human tragedy that Christ came to save mankind from.

In all of his novels, Dostoevsky explores what it means to be a human being with a soul. There is nothing superficial or contrived in his writing. He depicts people as they are, which is why many in his novels consign themselves to a tragic course. People in the modern era would sooner choose Hell than admit that Christ is King. In his novel Demons, several characters do just that, committing suicide because they refuse to admit that any power outside themselves has a claim over them.

It is in The Brothers Karamazov that Dostoevsky’s ultimate depiction of a good character, Alyosha Karamazov, is achieved. Alyosha is dedicated to leading a Christian life of virtue. He is a heroic character who overcomes temptation through charity and who serves as a light of grace for his brothers. His example and leadership saves a group of boys from descending into the pits of violence and Hell. His charity is constant and praiseworthy and he is loved for it everywhere he goes, even by sinners—because he never judges them. Alyosha Karamazov can be for anyone of the Gen Z generation a shining example of what it means to be a good person. Gen Z is so filled with a false notion of justice and false pretensions that they foolishly believe they themselves are good so long as they adhered to the standards of political correctness. But in The Brothers Karamazov, they can compare themselves to what it really means to be a good person. The apologist who wants to find a way to connect with the youth can do far worse than using Dostoevsky as a gateway. The 19th century Russian writer is one of the greats when it comes to understanding modern man and the spiritual disease that afflicts him at heart—pride.

Flannery O’Connor

If there is one modern American author who understands the modern era as well as any artist could, it is the southern Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor wrote two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away. She wrote numerous short stories as well. All of them are reflections of proud man doing his best to keep God’s grace out of his life. But God is persistent and in the end His love usually wins out and some cracks in the walls that proud man has built up around his heart, mind and soul begin to appear, with the harsh reality of God’s light and man’s sinfulness finally beginning to show.

Wise Blood is a great starting place for a young person of Gen Z. It is about a young person who was raised in Christianity but who now sees it as something that makes no sense to him and that he does not need. He sets out for the town to do some things he’s never done before, i.e., commit as many sins as there are opportunities to commit. The problem is that he gets no pleasure from any of these sins. Try as he might, he cannot stop thinking about God. He rails against God and calls Christ a liar, but everyone in town ignores his preaching of anti-Christ. The young man thinks more about Christ than anyone else in town. They are like the slumbering dead souls of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, aloof to the state of their own misery, uninterested in what Christ could offer them. The young man is engaged in an intellectual war with Christ. He wants to convince himself that Christ doesn’t matter because sin doesn’t matter and that if there is no sin because there was no Fall then there is no need for Christ. He repeats this over and over and over again, yet with every new sin he commits comes further proof that he is wrong—that sin is real because God is real.[footnoteRef:29] [29: Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1948).]

For Hazel Motes (the young main character of the novel), it is not charity that moves him to repentance but rather truth. Hazel is battling the Holy Ghost, Who is the source of all truth. Hazel ridiculously puts his faith in technology and says that so long as he has an automobile he is just fine and can go where he wants and do as he likes. He puts up these phony justifications because he is clinging to a kind of ethical egoism. Ethical egoism is the philosophical and ethical system that the majority of modern men cling to in order to justify their own selfishness. This is what Haze does, but finally even his automobile gets taken away from him when an officer of law pulls Haze over and judges the car unfit to be driven and pushes it down the hill into a pond. Hazel stands staring out over the scene of his final defeat, feeling himself once and for all judged in the eyes of the Lord. He goes home, blinds himself in an Oedipus Rex type of moment, and lives a life of severe penance for the rest of his days, passing on the torch of faith to his unsuspecting landlady at the end of the novel. O’Connor’s novel is haunting and magnificent, but it takes an apologist to be able to guide a young person through it. Most readers will look at a novel like Wise Blood and fail to see how it gets to the truth of things. The apologist will not fail to see how Haze comes back to God and takes up a life of penance in the final pages of the novel—but the young person who is not schooled in the faith or in the call for penance that the Old Testament profits called for or that Our Lord Himself engaged in when He fasted and prayed for forty days.

One of the best guides that an apologist who may not feel confident about literature or the humanities may turn to is Dr. David Allen White, who has lectured on Wise Blood and several other of O’Connor’s short stories as well as numerous other classics of the humanities. These lectures are available through The St. Marcel Initiative as well as other sites and organizations where Dr. White has given or recorded literature lectures and conferences.[footnoteRef:30] Not every apologist will have a firm understanding of the humanities; yet because the humanities help one to hold the mirror up to nature, one has to understand them if one is going to bring Christ to Gen Z. Dr. White’s lectures can open up this world of the humanities to the apologist, who can then help the young to unlock the mystery of themselves and allow the light of God to begin to break through the cracks in their own walls. [30: Dr. White Literature Conferences, https://stmarcelinitiative.com/bookstore/]

Pluck Out the Mystery?

Yet the apologist must be careful not to attempt to pluck out the mystery of the human soul. Every individual is unique, and it is Hamlet’s chief complaint that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern should attempt to label him as this or that, when he himself cannot even fully understand himself. Every human soul is on a pilgrimage up until the very moment of death, and even the most sinful soul can die repentant and even the most noble soul can fall into sin and despair and die without grace. Hamlet is a tragedy by Shakespeare that provides examples of all these realities. It is one that many young people of Gen Z will be able to identify with because Hamlet is an individual who thinks things over to no end, and yet always keeps his humor about him—which to some degree aids him in his search for what is true.

But to everyone else, Hamlet seems like a doomed man who has lost his mind. His step-father sends him away to England where he is to be put to death—but Hamlet escapes thanks to Providence, which enables him to make it back to Denmark. There Hamlet mourns Opehlia, who has lost her mind and drowned. A scrimmage follows and in the final scene of the play, Laertes, Hamlet’s mother, the King and Hamlet himself are all killed. Horatio would follow but Hamlet stays his hand before dying, warning him that he must not take his own life just because he himself is to die. Horatio is the noble soul who would undo a life of virtue through one act of self-slaughter. Hamlet, having come back to his senses and now seeing what is right, acts in an instant and tells Horatio to stay, to live, and to tell his story. Horatio accepts the command from the prince and prays for his soul as the prince dies. It is a moment of such heart-breaking compassion and earnestness that no other English playwright has ever come close to mimicking its profundity. It is the greatest death scene in all English literature. It is one that cuts through all the unimportant things and conveys the most important truths of this life: all go to be judged when they die; pray is efficacious; some souls will go to Heaven and some souls will go to Hell.

Which way they will go is known only to God. The heart is a mystery even to the most earnest mind. One must seek to know his own heart so that he can be oriented all the more faithfully towards God—but it is not an easy process, and sometimes it takes a lifetime to really know oneself. It is the argument of Socrates that all he sought to do in life was to know himself.[footnoteRef:31] If the apologist of God can get Gen Z to begin to ask themselves these same questions, it should not be considered a wasted endeavor. The beginning of knowledge is knowing one’s own self. [31: Plato. Apology. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html]

The Tale of Shoefoot

One of the most important books of the 1990s was written by a commodities trader named Mark Ritchie. This is a book entitled Spirit of the Rainforest. It would not be included on most humanities lists—but it is an important work because unlike most humanities, it is a work of non-fiction. It is about the Yanomamo tribe in the Rain Forest of South America. The shamans of this tribe converted to Christianity when preached it by the first missionaries to come to them. They understood the gravity of the situation, since they dealt with spirits in the rain forest and could direct evil spirits to kill their enemies and the children of their enemies.[footnoteRef:32] [32: M. A. Ritchie, Spirit of the rainforest: A Yanomamö shaman\\\\\\\'s story (Chicago: Island Lake Press, 1996), pg 288. ]