Over the past 6 months i have been privileged enough to spend some time with 5 theologians who are much greater thinkers than myself, each with over 2 decades of ministry and lecturing experience in Australian Evangelical circles. This has all come about because of a few factors a. being in the right place at the right time (not sure how, but i managed to spend considerable time with 2 just by chance), and b.3 of these guys heard through the traps that we were taking time out and wanted to see how i was going (once again thanks, and I am amazingly honored by you guys).

I have found it interesting talking to people who i have either studied under or looked up to for years and talking with them as an “equal” (me 10 yrs experience vs 38yrs in one case) in ministry. One thing struck me as we talked and as i asked them all how their lecturing (in their various institutions) was going. All of them said that over the past 5-10 years they had found lecturing to get harder and harder, not because what they believed was getting any harder to explain or prove but they said the students attitudes were getting harder to teach. Students were coming to college not to learn but with their ideas all constructed and their egos as big as the lecture rooms and the only reason they were there was because “that is what you need to do so that you can become a pastor(minister/priest/brother or whatever you call it in your denomination)”. At various points all 6 of these guys said “by the time they are coming to college they already “know everything” and instead of interacting it seems to be more of a witch hunt to see who is not the believer in the class”.

Every single one of the guys described it as an increase in the level of arrogance within this generation of intakes into their college.

Now as i look back on my time at college, yeah there were some arrogant idiots; I remember 7 guys standing up within the first week of lectures and walking out because our lecturer for Early church History was a very smart and knowledgable godly woman, and because of male headship refused to be taught by a woman (i still wonder to this day whether they read anything -Christian or not- by a woman given that they may learn something), but they were not the majority, and it is not an issue i want to debate here now..maybe later….i said maybe!

Me and another 2 guys were the first Gen Y’s to ever go through Moore (actually i think they may have been born in ‘79 which makes me the only GenY) and as i look back on our time we would have never presumed to be arrogant towards our lecturers, if anything we were  the ones that were asking the stupid questions, being the idiots and trying to be class clowns (failing miserably) and no-one knowing what we were on about, but never arrogant. Young and immature YES, but never arrogant. Which leads me to wonder “what on earth has happened that people who are starting out their theological education presume to know it all and have this inbuilt arrogance?” yeah with the internet (wikipedia) we have access to lots of information but does that increase our arrogance?

I don’t now, I have been out of Theological Education circles for a while (apart form correspondence stuff but you don’t get to interact with people) what is the feel from people who are going through at the moment? is there anyone who can confirm or deny these attitudes of arrogance that have been placed on the GenY’s going through Bible College?