The Generation That Does Not Remember 9/11

Just before I laid down last night, I remembered what happened the following morning 17 years ago. I remembered and I wondered how many had forgotten. I read an article early this morning written by a University professor. She talked about the state of students she teaches. She said most see all the wars of the last hundred years all mixed up. 

She grew up in Washington, D.C. when Congress controlled the public school curriculum for the District of Columbia. As a result, every student took American history in elementary, junior, and high school. She was steeped in the history of our country. Today, she wrote, almost all her students cannot distinguish between Korea, WWII, or Viet Nam. They have no living memory and they have not been taught, so they have no concept of why our nation is what it is - for good or ill.

These same students are the least Christian in the history of our nation. They are the greatest unbelieving generation in the history of our country, and perhaps in all of Western civilization. 

Could it be for the same reasons that they do not know the history of their own nation? 

Could it be that they simply have no living memory of Christ? What I mean is, could it be that, even if they were raised in a church, they never heard the whole Gospel of Jesus Christ, truly repented and truly believed? Could it be that they have no living memory because they saw no "living" followers of Christ? Could it be they simply have not been made disciples? 

They may have been taken to church, but were they continually taken to Jesus? Did His teachings not only permeate their Sunday School classes, but did they also permeate the lives of their parents, their teachers, and their friends. Discipleship requires teaching, but teaching is not only in the classroom. It is in the living room, the dining room, the locker room, the classroom, and the break room at work. 

Our purpose and mission is to make disciples. That is a life-long commitment to learn who Jesus is and follow Him with every step. Disciple-making does not guarantee that our followers will follow Him, but to fail to make disciples virtually guarantees that they will not follow Him. Don't despair, though, because the Lord Himself has given us the plan to further His kingdom. It is the kingdom that cannot be stopped by the gates of Hell. Go, make disciples.

Photo Credit: NIST Robert Miller - https://acrhive.org/details/NISC_9-11_Relea23_29 Public Domain Mark 1.0