The Church of the Perpetually Burned Out

The pastor of my church was a guest last week on our Seattle-based NPR station alongside a local rabbi and Buzzfeed writer Anne Helen Peterson. Peterson won the Water-Cooler-Conversation-Starter-of-the-Year-Award with last January’s “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation”. If, like me, you’re one of the more than six million readers who could talk to friends about little else than this article after you read it, then you probably agree that Peterson has uniquely distilled the Millennial experience.

Since the article was published, Peterson has been speaking with religious leaders about burnout and wondering if work has replaced the church, a question sparked by this Atlantic article that calls workism, “a kind of religion, promising identity, transcendence, and community.” Which is how my pastor John was approached by KUOW to be a guest on this segment asking if faith and worship can provide a cure for Millennial burnout.

It feels like there’s a growing cultural curiosity towards people of faith, and I wonder if through liturgical practice the church could establish itself as a place of respite as burned out Millennials navigate careers and city life.

Even if you’ve been harmed by the church, I bet you’re still drawn to the idea of a community of folks doing life together around a central theme. If you want to swap out Jesus for the pursuit of happiness or find community for community’s sake, I can tick off a whole host of Facebook groups you can join and conferences waiting to send you a registration confirmation.

But I don’t believe in work for work’s sake, that happiness or community alone are the end goals. I don’t believe that our identities are simply rooted in the market, because that competitive stance pits us against each another — earning more, getting the job, proving myself, buying more stuff — and by definition works against community.

We may be burned out, but as practicing Christians we’re finding a layered and rich “identity, transcendence, and community” in Jesus instead of what through we can accomplish in the market.

In addition to work, I’d argue that modern American culture assigns self-worth to a second spoke of capitalism’s wheel: lifestyle. That includes what people with disposable income tend to buy, and as a result what consumerism looks like in society.

Cultural capital and consumerism are explored on an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast featuring public policy researcher Elizabeth Currid-Halkett. She wrote about the “aspirational class” after observing how folks today that identify as upper middle class, or affluent, less often flash fancy cars or watches or buy silver spoons. Instead, she argues that today class manifests itself culturally through “healthy” choices like breastfeeding, doing yoga, and buying organic.

But we know that Christianity’s message is decidedly un-aspirational. Jesus was born in the middle of nowhere to powerless people, a revolutionary teacher and outsider in a classist culture.

In 2019, in Seattle and a lot of other places, the aspirational class definitely does yoga, breastfeeds, and shops at Whole Foods. I go to barre class and farmers markets, and this is not a judgment that certain actions are wrong, but an observation about what they imply culturally. In my experience living in the city, there’s also a norm that the aspirational class does not attend church. Some of that is practical: When you’ve been working hard all week, who doesn’t want to stay in bed for an extra hour or two? But it’s also cultural: Going to church does not fit into Sunday brunch with The New York Times culture.

I wonder, what does the aspirational class look like in affluent American Christian culture? It might be how well versed we are in the enneagram, the size of our essential oil collection, how many meals on wheels we deliver, the number of likes we get on inspirational posts, or any other banner we carry that inches higher than our truest identities as people of faith.

The Christian story redefines our identities away from people who produce and purchase. Jesus untethers our worth from work and lifestyle, and invites a loosening of our grip on the things we buy and the way we fill our time.

Towards the end of the NPR segment, the host asks the guests if they think religious people feel loved when many other people feel unlovable. It was an interesting question, especially from a public radio host, with both a trace of snarkiness and a real earnestness.

John’s response still has me thinking. He commented that the system produces a shame-based culture. One that tells us, “you are nothing unless you can produce, unless you can measure up, unless your life matches your Instagram feed. And you cannot outrun that.” But he goes on to say, “The way I understand the message and the work of Jesus is that he’s actually the one that’s delivered me from that system and brought me into the kingdom of God, which is a kingdom for the poor, for the people that don’t measure up, who aren’t productive members of society … The ones who knew they were worthless in the world’s eyes, they were valued by him.”

That message, centered in innate human worth and not wage brackets or productivity, is refreshing and totally relevant. Pull the thread long enough and capitalism begins to unravel, bringing rest in the middle of the sleepless city.