Generational Differences (pt.2)

Hello, everyone. Today is Friday, February the 24th. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm John Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have a question for Dr. Shah or a suggestion for a future episode, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com.

That's right. You guys can help us keep this conversation going by supporting this podcast. You can share it online. You can leave us a couple of good reviews. I'm actually going to read one here in a second, but you can leave us some good reviews on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, anywhere where you get your podcast and content from.

That's going to help us a great deal, because it lets iTunes and all those platforms know that you like this show and you want to hear more of it. Thank you for leaving those reviews. We appreciate them.

Keep leaving them. Again, that's going to help us a great deal. Definitely. You want to read the rest of the day?

Yeah, I'd be happy to. The rest of the day today comes from Proverbs 10, verse 30. The righteous will never be moved, but the wicked will not inhabit the earth.

Yeah. That's something that Paul himself said, our citizenship is in heaven. That's a guarantee where God has established us for eternity.

Nothing can ever remove that. Nothing is ever going to... Like he said, the righteous will never, ever be removed. To me, that's a vote of assurance. Not a vote, but that's a mark of sure-fire assurance.

You know what I mean? Maybe you listening or watching have heard that verse and you're like, I feel like I've been moved and there are wicked people who are inhabiting the earth. Ultimately, in God's plan, the righteous will be established and the wicked will not inhabit the earth. Even if that doesn't reflect your reality right now, that is the promise that we have, the eternal assurance that we have in Christ that we will not be moved, we will not be shaken. We are established upon the truth of God's word. That's right.

Amen for that. Got some fan mail today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Read it from us. People are texting. By the way, that number that Ryan gives out, that's a great resource for you guys to get in touch with us and share your thoughts on the show.

People are texting us all the time, just kind of general, hey, love the podcast, keep up the good work. But then sometimes I get stuff like this, which I'm not going to lie, I'm not happy. I'm not happy. This is coming from... That didn't take the turn. I thought I was going to... I'm just joking.

It's fine. This is from Mike S. in North Carolina. Mike has written into the show a bunch of times. We love Mike.

It's real long, so I'm not going to read the whole thing. But basically he's saying, hey, I love the Contends Day Wednesday thing. I love that people are, you know, we're doing a weekly apologetics episode people are really liking. And he said, John said something in the Contends Day Wednesday episode, dope name, by the way, about why do most people have problems coming from Genesis? He says, in criminal justice, which Mike is law enforcement. Mike's a good friend.

We know him very well. In criminal justice, there's a thing called the exclusionary rule. Basically it says that any evidence obtained from an unlawful, unjustified stop or seizure is not admissible in court. So lawyers always attack the reason for the stop because if that was not correct, it doesn't matter if you caught them red handed, you can't use evidence if it was unlawfully obtained. The rule is ironically based off a doctrine called the fruit of the poisonous tree. If the tree is bad, then the fruit is bad. Sound familiar?

So if people can find a flaw in Genesis, the start of it all, the rest of the Bible is null by default. So I was like, wow, that's a great point. He then goes on to start trash talking. He says, now, if we're talking street fighter, Guile all day.

I'm not a street fighter guy. Guile is like the army guy, I think. Guile is like, I think I'm right on that. Guile is like the really, let me just double check and make sure I'm right.

He's like the guy with the, he's like the Paul Phoenix character in Street Fighter. Yeah, yeah, that's Guile. Look at that flat top. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It makes sense that Mike would like Guile. That's a wide flat top.

That's a real wide flat head. He also said, in Smash, I'm going Kirby or Link. Yeah, that was mine. Yeah. Yeah, Mike.

Absolutely. Listening to you guys go back and forth about those games makes me nostalgic and got me a bit hype and now I think we should have a church guy's night. The ladies have movie night but instead we have a Bible study fellowship followed by hours of Smash Mario Kart and absolutely Goldeneye. But know this, I will John Wick you all in Goldeneye. Oh, no. Let me tell you something, Mike.

Let me tell you something, man. I've been playing Goldeneye ever since I was five years old, dude. Nintendo 64 all day. That's five? No, probably not five, but I've been playing it for a long time. And if you and me go head to head in Goldeneye, I promise you, my friend, it will not be good.

Let me tell you something, David has done nothing but talk junk about Smash and I trounced him into the ground. I'm just saying I was pretty good at some Goldeneye back in the day. I was pretty good at Goldeneye. I'm not a big first person shooter guy, but I rock some Goldeneye.

Yeah. David learned what happened when you talked junk to me about going head to head in Smash. You really don't want problems with me, Mike.

I don't want to start anything because this is like a new podcast, a new day, new mercies from the Lord. You can't beat me in Smash. I did beat you in Smash.

No, you did not. When me, you, and Jarrett played at my house, you're saying I didn't beat you? That was not one-to-one. It was not a fair fight. It was not a fair fight. And you had items on.

So I will maintain that. Until you can beat me one-to-one, head on, that's like me coming up to you in real life and being like, hey, I know I beat you in a fight. And it's like, no, you didn't.

You had a hammer and you smashed me over the head. David said, your help comes from the items. My help comes from the Lord. My help comes from the Lord himself.

That's right. I guess we, I think we really... Stay tuned. We may plan a video game live stream. The tension is just building up. I think we just have to go for it at this point. We need to bring Mike S. in, bring Dr.

Shy in and just go for it and settle this once and for all. We've got a great show planned for you guys today. If you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, text us at 252-582-5028.

Let us know who you main in Smash Brothers or Street Fighter. Hashtag Toon Link. And uh, or visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. We'll get Dr. Shaw. We'll be right back. Hey there, listeners. I'm John Galantis.

And I'm Ellie Galantis. And we just want to take a quick second and talk to you about Dr. Shaw's and Nicole's book, 30 Days to a New Beginning, daily devotions to help you move forward. You know, this is actually the second book in the 30 days series. And the whole point of this devotional is to help us get unstuck from the ruts of life. You know, when it comes to running the race of life, it matters how you start, but a bad start doesn't ultimately determine how you finish the race. You can have a good finish even with a bad start. And that's where this book comes in. No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck.

Instead of going out and buying some gadget or some planner, like I know I've done several times. I know that's right. 30 days encourages you to find your fresh start in God's word. Life doesn't have a reset button, but our God is a God who does new things.

His mercies are new every day, which means every day is a new chance for you to start over. You can grab 30 Days to a New Beginning on Amazon.com. We're going to leave a link in the description box below. And if you already have the book, let us know what you think about it.

That's right. Send us a text, 252-582-5028. Share what God has done in your life through this devotional. Hey, maybe we'll even read your story on the air. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show? Let's do it. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, or if you have a question or suggestion for a future episode, send us a text at 252-582-5028. Dr. Shah, welcome to the studio this fantastic, fabulous, far out Friday. Oh, it's Friday already.

Like any of that. There's a little alliteration for you. Friday kind of snuck up on us this week. Busy week. Busy week.

Well, we hope you guys have had a great week as well. If this is your first time ever tuning into the show, we want to let you know who's talking to you. Dr. Abbadon Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's episode.

You can find all his work at AbbadonShah.com. That's right. And I use the word far out because we're talking about generations today. Oh, that's groovy, baby. That's groovy. Radical.

Yeah, that was totally tubular. I love that. So if you listen to yesterday's episode, you know that we began a conversation about the different generations, specifically centered around things like, you know, from Boomers to Gen X to Millennials to Gen Z and how these generations sort of work together, how they sort of, you know, sometimes clash with one another, but how we can understand each other's generations better. Whatever generation you're a part of, maybe your kids or the people that you work with, you're interacting with those different generations. And yesterday's conversation was so helpful in kind of clarifying what these different generations are, how they think, how they approach life. So we want to continue that conversation today. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that our listeners ask about is, you know, I've heard about these generations and there are so many different names and designations.

Can you please clarify, can you please tell us who is who and who is, what age limits and all that? So can we do that in this particular episode and see how far we can go with time? Because the time is always our enemy. Yeah, especially when the conversation's good. Yeah, it's a fun conversation. You're learning, you're beginning to see people and what makes them tick and what makes them, you know, advance.

And you want to see and help your children, your grandchildren, but then all of a sudden you go, oh wait, time's up. So in this particular radio show, episode, podcast, we're going to focus on just describing each of these generations going all the way back to 1901 to the greatest generation, if that's okay with you. Yeah, let's do it. Absolutely.

Right? So most demographers, sociologists, they talk about six generations, okay, that affect us directly. So we're going back to the greatest generation. Greatest generation would be from 1901 to 1928. Now this is the period in which they were born. So don't assume that they were full grown people at 1901, right? That would be the lost generation that came before that.

And maybe another radio show, we can cover that. But here we're talking about the greatest generation. These are those who, let's see, they, they went through the Spanish flu. They went through the great depression. They went through World War II. This is, many of them actually fought in World War II, the greatest generation.

You know, Tom Brokaw wrote that book and he popularized that idea of the greatest generation. You know, they, they had their roaring twenties. So there was that period of, wow, yeah, oh, awesome. But then all of a sudden they heard these, not just footsteps, but these, these heels clamping down and coming, goose-stepping across Europe. And they were the Nazis, right? It's like, whoa, wait, all fun stops. We got to suit up, go to boot camp and go to fight.

And we're fighting an enemy who is very powerful, very intelligent, and they will kill us. So this is the greatest generation. As to values, they were more conservative. They took life as it came and made the best of it because they had to. When it comes to things like marriage, they had it till death do us part mindset. Greatest generation.

In their time period, and maybe we can cover that another time, but just to quickly mention, I mean, a lot of inventions happen, right? Like the traffic light. Yeah, that's a useful one. Significant. Yeah.

The vacuum. Wow. Radio came a little bit before Marconi and all that, but, but to have a radio in every home and all that, you know, that's in their generation. Television was coming at this time.

Well, if you want to talk more about other inventions, the pop-up toaster. Ooh. Oh, wow. Yeah. That came then. The atom bomb.

They were all, they were all, they were all at the same time. Like, Oh, okay. That's cute. Oh, top up toaster. Wow.

I can play Betty next door. And there's an atom bomb. Oh. All right. Well. So a lot of inventions.

Okay. And then you talk about helicopters, you talk about planes. I mean, you know, this is that, that time period where all these things were coming of age.

You know, the model T forward. Yeah. It's like society itself is being completely rewritten. Yeah.

Right then and there. Yeah. We tend to think of our generation as man. Wow. So many inventions. And yes, when it comes to information, technology, communication, a lot of stuff happened that has never, ever happened. I would say in the history of this world, maybe pre-flood, they didn't have computers pre-flood. I can assure you that, or somebody would have taken some film of the flood.

So their technology was there, but it was not like ours. Now I just imagine like the flood waters are rising and everyone's like, check it out. Check it out. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, so yes, I think they had some, some wicked technology back in the day before the flood, but it was nothing like what we go, we have found today. But the greatest generation had their inventions, powerful stuff. How about the one following them? That would be the silent generation, those born 1929, right in the middle of the depression or the start of the depression or somewhere there to 1945. That's the silent generation 1929 to 1945 right up to the World War II.

And they're the ones who actually fought in Vietnam in the Korean War, or I should say Korean War and then Vietnam. They're also the ones just like the previous generation. They, you know, they were hardworking and small, but unlike the previous one who had some fun, right. They had their fun. What was their fun? All these inventions were their fun. The roaring twenties were the fun. They sort of had a grim life from 1930s to 1945. I mean, think about it. That's all of World War II. Yeah. You know, it go from depression to, you know, if you were living in the countryside, maybe not as bad, but if you're living in the cities, you got these Hoovervilles, right?

You're living hand to hand to mouth. And then all of a sudden World War II, you know, so it was not a fun time for them. Nonetheless, they made it through. They worked hard.

And especially with regards to family values, marriage, they were faithful to their commitments. Why are they known as the silent generation? Not much to say. Quiet. Yeah.

Just kind of put your head down and get through it. Yeah. Where's mom and dad?

I mean, think about it. Mom is at work. Remember? What's the woman with that rolled up sleeve? It's something Ripper, like Rhonda the Ripper or something. Rosie the Ripper.

Rosie the Ripper. Ripper or Riveter? Riveter. Riveter. Riveter. Yeah, you're right. Not Ripper.

I'm thinking of Jack the Ripper. That's a different thing. Riveter.

That's a different thing. Riveter. Riveter.

No, Riveter. And of course, dad is at war. So now you have, you know, just be quiet. Do your job.

Don't do dumb stuff. You know, mom and dad are not here. So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. They were the builders. Savers, right? We had to save because the next generation we would call them the boomers.

This is 1946 to 1964. These are the boomers. So when the World War II people came back, some of them were greatest generation people. Some of them were the silent generation people.

You know, it depends on the age. They just wanted normalcy. They just wanted to have tons of kids, laughter.

You know, they could hear Louis Armstrong singing. What a wonderful world, right? And if you pay attention to the song, that's why he's singing because, you know, they want normalcy.

Yeah. They want to get back to life the way they think it should be. I see children laughing, right?

People in love. And then, you know, have the house and a nice car and the white picket fence. That's what they wanted. And tons of kids. That's why that generation that was born from 46 to 64 became known as the boomers. So they're not the ones who had a lot of kids. They were the kids. They were the lot of kids. Right. They boomed into existence. They're the pig in the Python group.

That's what they call them. Okay. Python is the generational snake, so to speak.

And the pig in the Python is where it all of a sudden balloons. All right. And so this generation, you know, the pendulum swung and it went to the opposite extreme with the coming of television, world news and all of that. This is the generation that saw rock and roll. This is the generation that has civil rights movement. This is the generation that had free love. Right.

So kind of grew up in a promiscuous, provocative type culture. What were the years again? 1946 to what?

64. So this is my dad's generation. Oh yeah. That's yeah.

He's a boomer. Of course. A hundred percent.

Cause everything I'm like rock and roll, free love. Yeah. Yeah. This is my parents. Yeah. Mostly without adult supervision, you know? So, and as this generation sort of lived through the aftermath of the divorce, I'm sorry, they, they, they lived through the aftermath of the world war II, you know, they sort of began to experiment when it comes to traditional values.

You know, they wanted to do things different when it comes to marriage. Let's just live together. Let's just do whatever. Let's get in a little Volkswagen van and just go. We'll just go.

Go where the wind takes us. Yes. Not all of them in that generation were like this, right?

It's a caricature in a sense, but a lot of them were, and even those who were not going to get in a van and just go supported the ones who did that and understood why they do that. Yeah. Something else, their cry for authenticity, you know, Hey, we need to be real. You know, we find out you know, what's going on. I want to know what's happening behind the scenes, you know, with all the white water gate and all that water gets scanned.

I would say water gets scandal. They wanted to know. And so that's boomers and boomers are followed by who? Gen X. Yes. Right. Starting from 1965 to yours truly from 1973.

Nice. So all the way 1965 to 1982 is Gen X. Now what do we know about Gen X? These are what you would call the MTV generation. These are the, watch a lot of MTV growing up.

No, not really. No, but I did watch, it was not MTV. It was just at night after 10 o'clock, they would have this American music channel. They had a name for it. I can't remember the name, but I saw all the videos.

Really? Oh yeah. That's awesome. I saw all the videos I saw from rock and roll to pop name it. Nice.

And I would sit there and watch and my dad would come in the loom and say, what are you watching? What is this? Oh, I'm doing it for English. I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

This is homework. No, no. I mean, no. What I meant is like, I'm learning English.

English. I got it. This is like, okay, don't watch anything bad.

Okay. Like, oh no, no, just that. And I would sit there and watch it and nothing bad compared to what today is. At least it was tame.

Nothing was crossing the line, especially because it was sort of edited over when it came for India. So, but I saw a lot of those videos and it was like, wow, some of the music was really awesome. Others was like, what is happening here?

But I saw it all. Yeah. But this is also the busters, which means unlike the boomers, which were, you know, birthed by the greatest generation or the silent generation and you know, tons of kids, the Buster, the boomers did not have tons of kids. So this generation X became known as the busters means less kids, latchkey kids. Many of our generation, because our parents, the boomers went through divorce, they had to sort of bounce between parents. You know, this is that generation. Thank goodness. I grew up in India, grew up in a Christian home and mom and dad were together forever.

So that's, that was good for us. But Gen Xs had to deal with that. And so they sort of became skeptical regarding marriage also, and began to wait later in life to have children. And they did not want to do what their parents did with all that, have it all lifestyle. They said, no, we're going to take care of our family. We're going to, you know, work hard, but we're not going to be like these people. So that's them.

They prioritize marriage and family. Following them, guess who? We have millennials.

Here they come. 1983 to 2000. Again, the population began to grow. So keep in mind, boomers, busters. One other reason, by the way, I didn't mention about the busters is one reason that generation from 1965 to 1982 was small is because of abortion.

I didn't even think about it. Yeah, Roe v. Wade. Then health matters. Yeah. Did a lot of damage.

A lot of damage. A lot of Gen Xs died. So our generation is small. Yeah.

Wow. And right now our generation is leading in a lot of places, but our numbers aren't big. So millennials are like jockeying, coming in, coming through. Millennials are coming. Sexes are like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, let, let, let us have our time, man. Hang in there. You'll get, you'll get your moment to dance in the sun.

Not right now. Millennials of course had computers. I remember the day I signed up for this computer class.

I think it was somewhere like in 1986, something like that. And my dad said, Hey, I signed you up for this computer class. I'm like, Oh, what is that? I knew where computers were because we had them at school. We said, well, you're going to get some special coaching when it comes to computers.

I'm like, Oh, okay. And so I went to this home where this lady had this computer. She was like a college professor or something like that.

And she really didn't teach us anything. She's like, okay, so hit this and hit that. And it was like a DOS. Oh, wow.

A DOS machine. Wow. With the black screen text and stuff.

It was boring. I was like, huh? And then she didn't know what she was doing. So now I've figured that out. At the time I was like, wow, I'm really dumb. I don't know what to do. No, she, she didn't know what to do.

She wasn't teaching us anything. So anyways, but that's millennials. But now it's, we're talking about millennials who had computers, they learned computers.

And what else do we know about them? They sort of came of age at the turn of the millennium. And they're known as generation me because everything is about them.

Right. And their parents became helicopter parents, always there for them. So these are the millennials and what do we know about them? Well, you know, they're not lazy. They just are doing things a little different.

They're taking their time getting things right. And again, because they're taking their time and doing what needs to be done, the divorce rate has dropped for the millennials, which is great, but at the same time, they are cohabiting, which is not great. It's not a good thing.

You'd never fix problems, especially if you cohabitate before marriage, good chances are you're going to step out of marriage and try again. So not a good thing. And then finally we come to gen Z, gen Z is 2001 to 2015. This is that remember X, Y, Z. This is the gen Z.

What do we know about them? Well, if anything is that this generation has been hit by crises. Yeah.

Right. Starting with September 11, maybe we can back up even more and talk about the Enron crisis. You know, so many lost their job.

So many lost their incomes, their savings, their 401k. Then of course, nine 11, then came the Iraqi war. Prior to that, the war in Afghanistan. Then came the ISIS crisis. You know, they're burning people, beheading people. I mean, just evil demonic stuff.

Right. And then followed that by mass shootings or maybe even parallel to that. Kindergartens, you know, riddled with bullets, schools, malls, clubs, concerts, people just begun down.

This generation, generation Z saw all these things. And then of course the riots in the streets, the fight against the police, defund the police, you know, and things like that. It just, it has been chaotic to say the least. And then two years ago, guess what happened? The pandemic, right? 2020, all of a sudden their world shut down. And so you can only imagine how this generation has felt and is feeling.

They feel like never know what's going to happen next. Yeah. Right. So what's happening is unless they are in a good family, in a good church setting, in a good community in these past couple of years of the pandemic, many are struggling morally, spiritually, and mentally. Andy Melmore says that mental health is their top priority. Yeah, I can see that.

Yeah. And personally, as a pastor, I've had people come to me and say, Hey, my kid is having anxiety attacks. Can you help? And I'm like, at first, like, what are you anxious about?

You got nothing to be anxious about. And then when you get to know it's like, Oh, wait. Oh, there's another kid. And there's another one. And not just in our church, but other places.

It's like, wow. So this is a common problem. Now these are just reported. How about the ones who are just struggling and just not reporting? Right.

So instead of just making fun of them or, you know, discounting them, we need to understand that could it be that because of all these crises coming against them, that they are struggling. Yeah. So so much we can talk about Gen Z.

Maybe we can do that next time. But I think maybe God may choose this generation to do some great things. I think so. Right.

And then of course, a generation alpha that's coming behind them, which is 2016 to 2030. So, you know, so much, so much that is there. I love it. It's so helpful to hear you talk about that, Dr. Shah. And I really appreciate you bringing out the differences and not, you know, putting down any one generation by saying, Hey, there's things we can learn across the board.

Whether you're looking at people older than you, or you're looking at people younger than you, there are things that we can, we can do to benefit each other. If you guys have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, or if there's something from today that stands out to you that was beneficial to you, let us know by sending us a text at 252-582-5028. Or you can send us an email at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. You can support us financially on that same website, ClearviewTodayShow.com. We are grateful to all of our giving partners, grateful for your partnership in reaching the, the generations reaching the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's right. We got it. We're going to end with a quote to leave you guys with to go into your weekend. Nicole T. from North Carolina sent us this quote. Thank you, Nicole. From Adrian Rogers, it is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error.

It's better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals than falsehood that comforts and then kills. One of my heroes. Wow. So beautiful. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clearview Today.