My latest article for Evangelicals Now is now out and has landed in print. Below is the original, unedited version.
It seems nostalgia is back in vogue. My last article in these pages referenced Blur and Damon Albarn’s hissy fit at Coachella. By some coincidence, the perma-bickering Gallagher brothers seem to have made up and decided to get Oasis back together. Cue much hoopla from middle aged people and geriatric millennials who remember the first time (if you spot the allusion to another Britpop band and write in with the correct answer, just like the 90s Saturday TV of yore, EN might send you a Marathon Bar and a Tamagotchi!)[1]
What is perhaps a little more surprising is the Oasis reunion seems to have excited a lot of Gen Z. Those of us who remember the first coming (another reference for another 90s nostaligia toy – Stretch Armstrong or something) also have memories of saving up to spend £10-15 in order to purchase one CD. Yes, Gen Z, you read that right. For those of us who did not grow up around money, by which I basically mean me, it meant I usually had the bunce to get one album every month or two. This was risky business being as you could have been stuck with Heathen Chemistry or anything by Travis as your only music purchase for the next month or two! Gen Z have no such fear as the cost of streaming is the same price as a single 90s/00s CD album (half if you’re a student) and you can access absolutely anything you want. I suspect it has led to much broader and eclectic music tastes amongst Gen Z than Millennials and Xers as there is no risk in trying out both old and new bands, making them much more willing to take a punt on new music (or, at least, new to them even if it’s actually quite old). Hence, the Gen Z excitement about the Oasis reunion.
The interesting dynamic this has created is between those who were there in the heyday and those who have discovered them long after the fact. Not unlike Millennials who discovered The Beatles. Tickets, particularly for the Manchester gig, are at a premium and Gen Xers are currently arguing a) tickets should be primarily for people who were part of the first iteration and b) quizzing Gen Zers with Oasis trivia to find out if they are worthy of a ticket. The basic line is, if you don’t know who the original drummer was, you aren’t a real fan. Gen Z are smart enough to just google it. It turns out the old-fashioned Saturday morning phone-in style quiz, where your only hope of cheating was having all the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s open on the right pages, doesn’t work in the modern world.
The point is, nostalgia seems to be everywhere at the moment and it seems to be a driving force behind a desire to return to happier days (as we judge it) and of judging who are the real members of our group. Maybe even a sense of protecting our group and, by extension, how we feel about it. For Gen X Oasis fans, it’s being there then and knowing the original drummer (name the album allusion for a pack of pogs). But nostalgia has been a feature in these pages over recent months too. Only it’s not about whether you are a true band fan, but whether you are really a good pastor. The dividing line is less between Gen X and Gen Z, but Boomers and Millennials. The quiz isn’t about original drummers, but the number of services you’re willing to preach in per week and your views on visitation. The response from the younger generation is, we like a lot of the old hits but we access things differently and your measures are not fit for purpose in the modern world.
Nostalgia is neither good nor bad in and of itself. At its best, it can help us reconnect with people and places that were once important to us. Nostalgia is, at heart, about social connectedness. It is why band reunions are so important for people. It is an attempt to recapture a time in their life, and a sense of belonging based on a shared love of this kind of music, which simultaneously affected the kind of clothes you wore, language you used and shared references you make. It is fundamentally a matter of belonging and connectedness.
In the church, the current nostalgia trip does not stem from any biblical teaching. Nothing in the Bible demands morning and evening services, Sunday schools or particular forms of visitation. How the Bible views such comments is fairly clear (cf. Ecc 7:10-12). But those arguing for models of a by-gone era, and demanding that “young pastors” (most of whom are actually pushing into middle-age) revive the glory days and stop with the “go easy on myself” attitudes, not really understanding the nature of pastoral ministry in the world in which we now operate, are probably suffering from a sense of not belonging and/or social connectedness. The world has changed, the church has clearly changed, some feel at sea and a return to the good old days will help us get our bearings again.
I wonder how much the nostalgia for the old models of busyness cover over a more stark reality. In the busyness of church life in the past for most people, and in the models of work and church they operated in, I wonder whether we did very little for actual fellowship and social connectedness amongst the members. In the hectic schedules and the ministry to be run, this can be easily overlooked as everything feels, well, busy! But we hit retirement, we step back from ministry, the busyness either slows right down or we find everyone else is too busy with all the things to be run that they seem to have little time for social connection with us. It is easy to lose the sense of belonging and shared purpose when our involvement winds down or changes shape. It is easy to think things would be better if they were how they used to be.
Of course, those in ministry will tell you nothing is less busy. But they will also tell you what occupies their time today – safeguarding, live streaming, charity administration, fundraising, etc, etc – were often not matters churches had to deal with in the past. To those who have lost their sense of social connectedness, but do not see the same forms of ministry that used to occupy their time being run, it can easily turn into a negative view of lazy pastors. For those of us on the receiving end of such things, it may just pay to recognise (as most do) these are not biblical complaints so much as social ones. The answer lies not in bringing back old models, but in seeking to find new ways to regain the sense of belonging and social connectedness in the world we now live in.
[1] Prizes not a guarantee