Our Responsibility Toward This Generation
Our Responsibility Toward This Generation
We must not live in this generation as mere spectators. Nor is it right to take a negative stance toward it and pray, saying: “You shall preserve us, O Lord; You shall guard us from this generation forever” (Psalm 12:7).
Rather, from a positive perspective, we should—as the Lord said—be the light of the world and the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13–14).
If we are unable to bear a general responsibility toward this generation, then at the very least we are responsible for our children, our disciples, and our community.
Yes—how can we have an impact and influence in this generation?
First of all, we must study the nature of this generation, its battles, and its problems. For every generation has its own particular responsibilities that correspond to its condition and requires a special kind of confrontation.
The Danger of This Generation
Responsibility toward this generation demands deep seriousness and readiness, because its dangers are greater and its problems more complex.
Never before has there been a generation in which the media spread and multiplied as in ours—characterized by all forms of temptation, excitement, and stumbling blocks, found freely in many magazines, newspapers, and books, with a freedom of publication previously unknown.
Added to this are radio and television with all their channels and directions, connected to everything published and broadcast across the world—satellite channels, satellites, dishes, computers, and the internet—along with the films, images, and influences they carry. These affect not only the young, but adults as well.
Moreover, drugs have spread widely, with many names and types unknown in the past. They have even reached schools; students have become aware of them, and some have used them. They have become a danger to our children, who may fall into them through deception or bad example. We are responsible for protecting them from all of this.
Our generation has also experienced extremism, deviance, and terrorism. Freedom has taken on a distorted meaning, sometimes reaching recklessness and the questioning—or even attempting to change—values and established truths. It is a generation that often does not respect elders and opposes all authority.
We must also not forget the strange sects that have spread, especially among the simple and the uneducated, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists. They believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the archangel Michael, call for observing the Jewish Sabbath, claim that no one enters the Kingdom unless he keeps the Sabbath, and deny the immortality of the soul, asserting that the doctrine of immortality was invented by Satan.
Monitoring the activity of these sects and protecting our children from them is part of our ecclesiastical responsibility, as well as confronting other denominations that fight Orthodoxy and seek growth by attracting our children through various means, temptations, and activities. They work in informal settlements, city expansions, and areas without churches, as well as in schools, clubs, trips, and entertainment venues.
One of the gravest threats to this generation is doctrinal and interpretive deviation that arises from some servants and leaders within the Church itself.
Their danger has reached the point of publishing books containing strange teachings. We bear a great responsibility to monitor them and prevent them from altering the beliefs of young people who trust their teachers and read their writings—only to be led away from their Church under the name of a so-called spiritual revival or internal reform.
Some of these individuals are attracted to presenting “new ideas,” believing that novelty proves intellectual superiority, even if it destroys deeply rooted beliefs in people’s minds and hearts. Many foreign books have spread in this generation; some read them, adopt their strange ideas, and promote them as renewal and intellectual progress—presenting all this within the Church under the name of Orthodoxy!
Thus, our responsibility is grave because of the seriousness of what is happening. If matters in the past required simple care, the mission of this generation requires double care, for its problems are complex and intertwined.
Our Responsibility
This responsibility is extremely serious. If we fail to convey sound teaching, the word of God, and the principles of spirituality and holiness—if we fail to teach, warn, and preach in order to prevent people from falling in conduct or in thought—then each servant will hear that divine warning repeated twice in the book of Ezekiel:
“That wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand” (Ezekiel 3:18; 33:8).
God will hold us accountable for their blood if we fail in our duty toward them—whether the blood of those who err if we do not warn them, or the blood of those who stumble because of others if we do not protect them through teaching, awareness, preaching, and pastoral care.
We constantly pray in Psalm 51: “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation.” What blood do we ask God to deliver us from, if not the blood of those of whom He says: “From your hand I will require his blood”?
God will require from us the blood of those whom we left in their stumbling, or whom we failed to care for through prevention, protection, or rescue. He will also require their blood from those who caused their stumbling.
We cannot leave the fallen lying on the road and pass by them like the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:31–32). Nor can we say, as Cain once said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9), lest we hear the Lord say: “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10).
Indeed, much blood in this generation cries out to God from the land in which we live together. What have we done for all these people?
Our duty can be summarized in two points: feeling responsibility and fulfilling responsibility.
If we do not feel responsibility, we will never act.
Responsibility has two forms. One is official responsibility borne by the Church—by clergy of all ranks, deacons, servants, consecrated men and women, as well as parents, schools, associations, homes of care, and all whom the Church entrusts with specific responsibilities.
The priest’s responsibility in this generation is comprehensive. Before him stands the saying of the Lord Jesus Christ: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). As he is responsible for leading the people spiritually, he is also responsible for helping solve their problems in every way—“rejoicing with those who rejoice, and weeping with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
In his service also stands the word of the Lord: “I will feed My flock, and I will make them lie down… I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick” (Ezekiel 34:15–16).
Regarding intellectual problems and doubts, the Church must study them well, provide convincing solutions, and bring peace to people’s consciences. Educational curricula must not ignore the reality in which people live or the ideas society implants in their minds. Curricula should vary—for students, workers, the needy, and for rural areas where all age groups and levels gather together.
Alongside teaching, we are responsible for the poor and needy—not only for food, drink, clothing, and shelter, but also for healthcare, especially in our days of serious and costly illnesses. Even those with high incomes may become needy in the face of such diseases. Illness and need can lead to greater dangers and be exploited by organizations seeking to attract the poor.
Limited monthly aid is no longer sufficient for this generation. What is needed is comprehensive support that meets the needs of the entire family, protecting it from deprivation and deviation.
We must also find decisive solutions to unemployment—through vocational training, small projects, skill development, cooperation with business leaders, and making use of opportunities provided by the state.
The family too has a crucial role in raising children—parents, grandparents, older siblings—each has a spiritual responsibility, alongside good example and shared spiritual life. Strong families preserved faith in places like Russia for seventy years under atheistic communism, where mothers and grandmothers taught children at home and planted faith in their hearts.
Each of us has a responsibility. Beware of fleeing responsibility or shifting it onto others. A day will come when God says to each of us: “Give an account of your stewardship” (Luke 16:2). We are responsible not only for ourselves, but also for this generation.
There is also responsibility within friendship and fellowship. Many of us have friends, yet we feel shy about speaking to them on spiritual matters—though this is our duty. How else can we fulfill the Lord’s command: “You shall be My witnesses” (Acts 1:8)? Let us remember: “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).
