GenZ, Spiritual Readiness, and Why YOU Should Care

I am excited to share another “Chaplain’s Corner” blog with you. I offer this one to help empower you as leaders across generations. Let’s talk about GenZ, spiritual readiness, and why you should care.

If there’s a young person living in your home who is 25 years old or younger, then he or she is a member of the demographic known as Generation Z.

GenZ is both unique and at-risk.

Dr. Jean M. Twenge is a generational researcher and psychology professor. She’s also the author of iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood – and What That Means for the Rest of Us. Yup, that’s a long title for a book, but it’s well researched and it calls attention to important facts like the following:

• GenZ is at the forefront of the worst mental health crisis in decades, with rates of teen depression and suicide skyrocketing since 2011.
• Contrary to the prevalent idea that children are growing up faster than previous generations did, GenZ’ers are growing up more slowly:18-year-olds now act like 15-year-olds did in the past, and 13-year-olds act like 10-year-olds.
• GenZ has come to adolescence in a time when their primary social activity is staring at a small rectangular screen that can like them or reject them.
• The devices they hold in their hands have both extended their childhoods and isolated them from true human interaction.

This is one of the big reasons why GenZ is both the physically safest generation ever and the most mentally fragile. My three children are GenZ.

Your children are likely GenZ too.

But that’s not all.

The vast majority of our junior Soldiers are GenZ, and they face the same challenges outlined by Dr. Twenge.

As a result, the Army has a vested interest in understanding this demographic and in combating the high rates of harmful behaviors and suicide among them.

One of the solutions the Army is applying to this situation is the power of what it calls, “spiritual readiness.”

The Science behind Spiritual Readiness

Spiritual readiness develops the personal qualities needed to sustain a person in times of stress hardship, and tragedy. These qualities come from religious, philosophical, or human values and form the basis of character, disposition, decision making, and integrity. – Army Field Manual 7-22 , Holistic Health and Fitness, Chapter 10

The Army Chaplain Corps has formed a strategic partnership with Dr. Lisa Miller of Columbia University Teacher’s College (and with the Army Surgeon General and Army Behavioral Health) to promote peer-reviewed scientific findings demonstrating that spiritual readiness is a protective and empowering factor for individuals and organizations.

Dr. Miller’s research demonstrates that spirituality is highly protective against depression and anxiety.

How protective is it, you ask?

The passing of the torch of religious or spiritual life from grandparent or parent to child provides 90% protection for that child against the onset of major depression.

Miller’s work also reveals that young adults without a strong personal spirituality are:

• 80% more likely to become addicted.
• 60% more likely to experience major depression.
• 70% more likely to take unnecessary risks.
• The young adult with no spiritual bearings at all is 50% more likely to face suicidality.
• The depression, addiction, and suicidality epidemics of our time go hand in hand with the sharp slide in religious life across society.
• Death by suicide now rivals the rate of death by auto accidents in both high school and middle school.

“In the clinical sciences, there is nothing as profoundly protective against the diseases of despair as a strong spiritual core.” – Dr. Lisa Miller

What are the BENEFITS of developing a Healthy Spiritual Core?

The answer (in a word) is wholeness. This is not proselytizing; this is science.

When our children were babies riding in car seats, my wife, Amie, and I always made sure they were properly strapped in.

When they were younger, and our family was at the beach, we lathered up our children in sunscreen. And, as they grew older, we instilled in them the values that form our family’s identity, values founded upon our spirituality.

Why? Because these acts are protective.

The Army Chaplain Corps is seeking ways to help today’s young Soldiers and families combat harmful behaviors and suicide.

But we can’t do it alone.

We need your help, and scientific evidence clearly states that the most protective factor available to us today is further exploring, embracing, and engaging spirituality and spiritual readiness.

It’s amazing what happens in our outside worlds when we get our inside worlds right first. Your Chaplain can help you do this, for yourself and for your family.

 

 

*To learn more about GenZ, click here. To view a 30-minute presentation on these findings by Dr. Miller, click here. For more empowering articles like this, visit our Homepage at AWN.

DISCLAIMER: “The views and opinions presented herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of DoD or the Army. Appearance of, or reference to, any commercial products or services does not constitute DoD or Army endorsement of those products or services. The appearance of external hyperlinks does not constitute DoD or Army endorsement of the linked websites, or the information, products or services therein.”