Chapter 7
Designer Lifestyles
Back in the good old days if you missed the stagecoach, you'd wait around a day and catch the next one. Now, miss one place in a revolving door and you have a nervous breakdown.
"We're honking at our own taillights," says Frank Tillapaugh, with only slight exaggeration.1
Speed, hyper-speed, and a near-obsession with convenience, flexibility, tangibility, options, quality, short-term commitments, and individualism characterize the designer lifestyles of the fast-lane 1990s. Above all, we want to stay in control.
"What used to be called stable is now called inflexible and outdated," declares George Barna, president of the Barna Research Group in Glendale, California. "This is a video-driven generation, with a three-to-four-minute attention span . . . used to short, crisp, colorful blocks" of video information.2
Convenience is increasingly a byword, adds Barna, who conducts marketing surveys for church leaders. "People will look for something that's ready, available and as simple as possible . . . Abstract or theoretical ideas won't interest most people. They want to be told quickly and efficiently. And they want things they can touch and feel."3
Individualism will be exalted, taking the place of the old allegiance
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in lifestyle conformity. Variety will be the rage, with experiments in new co-housing and shared community facilities. Look for novel religious philosophies as well as unusual occupations and leisure activities. But privacy, considered to be integral to individualism, will be prized.4
The quest for quality and competence will be critical in the competitively ruthless marketplace of 2001. The move from conspicuous consumption to critical consumption is already taking place. Satisfaction, not brand-name loyalty, will be the watchword — as true for local congregations and denominations as for consumer services.
Commitments to institutions, relationships, and products will be situational and short-term. Example: Book and record clubs found they had a hard time signing up new subscribers when multiple-year or multi-product commitments were required, so they've dropped those demands.5
And credibility will be hard to come by. Once lost, it will be even harder to recover. This will carry over into a "guilty until proven innocent" attitude toward alleged misdeeds of churches and their leaders.6
At Your Leisure
With the radical urbanization of the world's population, the radical breakdown of natural units like the family, and the radical reshaping of the way the mind processes information, many of our "traditional" values are on the way out.
In the next ten years, routine schedules will be rare. Vacations will be shorter and more frequent. We'll spend shorter and shorter blocks of time on more and more things. And the wristwatch will be more important than the wallet in determining priorities for most Americans, according to Barna and other trend-watchers.
Americans spend less time working now than they did twenty-five years ago — gaining about five hours of leisure a week. We may have a bit more nonworking time by 2001,7 but what are we doing with all that "extra" time now?
Experts say that, regardless of the hours supposedly available, we generally feel as if we have less free time. This is attributed to such things as intensified job pressures, the dizzying explosion in leisure
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options (even for couch potatoes, there's more on television to choose from), and the fact that many members of the vocal baby boom generation only recently got around to having children of their own.
For many, the list of scheduled activities steadily lengthens. To accommodate people who complained they didn't have enough room on their calendars to fill in their daily plans, Hallmark Cards is now making ones with bigger day boxes.8
What we do with discretionary time is now the single most important thing to Americans, says Barna. And our concept of "discretionary time" is changing. If we've made a choice about how to use that time, then it's something we have to do and is no longer "free."
Take exercise. For many of us it's a "must," so it doesn't count in the leisure docket. But a growing focus on "active, productive leisure" rather than "mindless activities" is shaping the kind of activities that go in those calendar boxes. "It's purposeful things" for the boomers: seminars, health, therapy groups, cultural activities; the elders, in contrast, prefer travel, games, TV, dancing, and other pleasing pursuits they don't have to "work" at.9
All the while, television is barging ever more aggressively into the lives of our children: "Except for school and the family, no institution plays a bigger role in shaping American children," profoundly influencing the way they learn — and don't learn.10
Look also for this video / music generation to continue its fascination with heavy metal, rap, and themes that fixate on violence and sex and sneer at traditional religion. Increasingly, it would seem, schools and churches will need to use video and rap to communicate with this generation.
On another level, psychologists and counselors contend that many people are "overwhelmed and anxiety-ridden" because fast isn't fast enough anymore in a modern world paced by time-saving products and services. In fact, in an expected backlash from high-speed living, the later 1990s may well be a period of "cocooning," with many people spending more time at home.11
"What with VCRs, microwaves and the knowledge that the sexual revolution is over, it's easier than ever to stay home," maintains Ash DeLorenzo, trend director of BrainReserve Inc., a New York marketing firm.
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"People are also feeling that life has gotten too complicated and the excessiveness must be simplified."12
Couple this with the vague guilt experienced by many men who feel they aren't giving enough time and energy to their families, and you have the makings of a home-again trend. And, hey, with home-delivered videos and Domino guaranteeing a piping-hot pizza at the doorstep within thirty minutes, what's to go out for?
As for the current health kick, DeLorenzo and others think the freneticism will slow, while staying healthy will remain a priority well into the new century. People are bored with "tiny vegetables" and want real "mom food" like lots and lots of baked potatoes, meat loaf, and ice cream, he adds.13 And menu maven Julia Child says we're going to "have more sense, go back to the pleasures of the table in a reasonable way. I think we'll go back to the simple foods — baked potatoes."14 Joining potatoes will be a yen for international foods, particularly Asian cuisine, according to both Child and Naisbitt.
In fact, American decisions about food, clothing, and entertainment are fast blending with those from a potpourri of foreign cultures. "The merging global lifestyle," observe Naisbitt and Aburdene, "walks a thin line between greater options and greater homogenization, which decreases options."15
In fashion, global is in. For women it's going to be away from the "power dressing" and "aggressive look" of the 1980s. Soft, feminine, prettier; less uniform and more personal, predicts Vogue editor Anna Wintour. "At the same time, the athletic, more relaxed approach is going to be very important."16
Burgundy, pinks, variations of apple red, and earth tones will be popular colors in bedrooms and living rooms, predict designers. Furnishings of the mid-1990s and beyond? Bringing indoors anything previously used only outdoors.17
Bringing in the Values
But a far more serious consideration than what we eat or what we wear will be how we should live the next years — indoors and out.
"The great public battle is over culture — how we ought to live,"
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says Richard Neuhaus, director of the Institute on Religion and Public Life in New York. "At least in America, for the overwhelming number of people, the moral questions are inseparable from the religious questions."18 At the same time, more and more people are pointing to their lifestyle as the best definer of who they are and what they stand for.19
As Christian believers are barraged by secular influences which, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, threaten to drain the credibility of their witness, many are uncritical or unaware of the distinction between culture-based values and values that derive from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And 21st-century lifestyles will coalesce with moral and ethical issues radically different from anything known in biblical times.
"There is a growing distinctiveness in being a follower of Jesus," says lay Presbyterian Mark Cutshall of Seattle. "This is a time when there is a greater tolerance of diverse beliefs and an unwillingness to challenge non-orthodox beliefs."20
Cutshall and others interviewed for this chapter were in strong agreement that sexual issues, particularly homosexuality and the devastating effects of AIDS, will be at the top of the moral challenges facing religious believers and organizations in the years ahead.
Bob Fryling, director of campus ministries for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Madison, Wisconsin, adds that dysfunctional families; alcohol, drug, and sexual addictions; pornography; and physical abuse and violence in childhood will also continue to grow at alarming rates in the next decade. (Sexual abuse of children has tripled since 1980.)21 "We haven't seen the bottom of the iceberg on this one," Fryling told me with a sigh.22
"There's no question about it," nods George Gallup, Jr. the famous pollster. "The sex-related issues are going to be the most important issues facing all churches in the foreseeable future. Abortion, AIDS, premarital sex, homosexuality, all those are going to be at the vortex."23
Controversy over abortion and forms of contraception such as Norplant, a new female arm implant that lasts up to five years, and RU 486, an "abortion pill" made in France, will continue to be a combat zone for ambivalent Americans as we cross into the next millennium.
But without doubt, both conservatives and liberals agree, homosexuality is "The Issue"
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for the church. The "Gay Nineties" surely have a different connotation than they did a hundred years ago!
Liberal minister William Sloan Coffin has said that homosexuality is probably the most divisive issue since slavery split the church.24
Meanwhile, conservatives in mainline churches are watching to see whether their denominations will go on record approving ordination for homosexual persons. Some regional bodies are already ordaining homosexuals and installing them as pastors; others are blessing the "marriage" covenants of same-sex couples. To many conservatives, The Issue is a kind of litmus test for whether they will stay in or leave their denomination.
Virtually all conservative denominations and evangelical colleges officially oppose homosexual behavior as unbiblical. But the number of homosexually inclined persons within conservative church circles may be no different from the percentage in liberal denominations or society at large. Commonly cited figures are 4 to 10 percent of men and 3 to 4 percent of women.25
The pressure to accept active homosexuality as an appropriate — even normal — lifestyle will only increase as the 1990s fade into the next century. By 1990, gay travelers were finding more places where they could openly travel and vacation.26 Lesbian college students were "coming out," taking a higher profile and even founding lesbian social sororities.27
And while individuals and church committees struggle to interpret recent research about gay men and lesbians, the AIDS epidemic looms, an overshadowing specter.
Coming to the AIDS of the Afflicted
In January 1991 the number of known deaths in the United States attributed to AIDS passed the 100,000 mark — more than died in the Vietnam War.28 Experts predict that New York City alone will eventually tally more AIDS-related deaths than America suffered in its last four wars.29
AIDS, caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), is shaking the very foundations of America's future and threatens to change our culture for decades to come. Alarmingly, the epidemic is spreading most rapidly in the nation's inner cities.30
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Because the infection rate is probably twelve to fifteen times greater among blacks than among whites, says Shepherd Smith, who with his wife, Anita, heads Americans for a Sound AIDS / HIV Policy (ASAP), a national Christian organization, "by 2000 we will consider AIDS to be a 'minority disease.' " And because the messages about the danger of AIDS have not had an impact on teens, "after the turn of the century, it will become a disease of adolescents of all races."31
Sexual activity among teens climbed in the 1980s; the proportion of girls aged fifteen to nineteen who had sexual intercourse rose from 47 percent in 1982 to 53 percent in 1988, with the increase being greatest among whites and in higher-income families.32
Today's 1.5 million to 2 million HIV-infected individuals will become ill and die in the decades ahead. This, the Smiths say, will present "one of the biggest ministry challenges ever to confront the church in America." Through education in churches and schools, they emphasize,
Our strategy is to send a strong message regarding sexual integrity. The risks must be shown, but we don't want to overreact out of unreasonable fear.
The optimal message is abstinence [before marriage]. If not, you must know the HIV status of your partner. Next, is condoms, but in the context that condoms have a failure rate of 10 to 15 percent.
What will end this epidemic is interrupting its transmission, through knowledge.33
"By 1993," says Smith, "AIDS/HIV will affect us all. Experts tell us every person will know at least one individual infected by HIV. That means every church in the United States will ultimately have to address the issue."34
The Smiths' ASAP organization is one of several Christian models for ministry that can play a decisive role, emphasizing redemptive compassion for those infected and presenting a clear message of prevention for those not infected. Part of ASAP's work is to help churches develop AIDS policy statements so that when the question of AIDS ministry arises — as it will sooner rather than later — a congregation is ready.
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Archbold Evangelical Mennonite Church in Archbold, Ohio, for example, adopted a written statement that supports, through foster care and adoption, children infected or affected by AIDS. And the congregation has faced the sticky wicket of what to do when HIV-infected children appear at church: "Should a parent or guardian of an HIV-infected child desire fellowship at Archbold EMC, we shall seek to support them by providing nursery care that is age-appropriate."35
Another ecumenical AIDS work is Beyond Rejection Ministries, based in Long Beach, California. It is directed by James Johnson, a lay Catholic, who became involved in AIDS work through counseling homosexuals. Beyond Rejection Ministries operates two shelters for persons with AIDS and an AIDS "hotel" for homeless persons with the disease.36
Another group, the AIDS Interfaith Council, an association of clergy and laity, provides educational and service programs as well as "congregation-based care to people with AIDS and their loves ones."37
"It is time," writes Dr. Robert R. Redfield, Jr., of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research,
to reject the temptation of denial of the AIDS / HIV crisis; to reject false prophets who preach the quick-fix strategies of condoms and free needles; to reject those who preach prejudice; and to reject those who try to replace God as judge. The time has come for the Christian community — members and leaders alike — to confront the epidemic with the commitment that comes from Christ's example.38
For Christians, the question will persist: how to respond in the midst of the crises of values and designer lifestyles that will stretch, bend — and perhaps break apart — the society of 2001.
