By Rick Plasterer, Juicy Ecumenism.
Richard Bradford, director of the Swiss branch of the L’Abri Fellowship, spoke at the annual L’Abri Conference in Rochester Minnesota on February 15 concerning the continuing crisis of meaning in the contemporary West. He began with a quote from Nieztsche: “He whose life has a why, can bear almost any how.”
Bradford referred to a Harvard study of young adults, ages 18-25. It showed that 36% of the respondents suffered from anxiety, while 29% suffered from depression. The most frequently cited cause for distress was “a lack of meaning and purpose.” The madhouse which is public consciousness today was cited as an additional reason, in such factors as “social media, rising tension in the world, political polarization, increased pressure on young people,” etc. But the “lack of meaning” was held by the report’s authors to be the reason that “a large proportion of the population” is “struggling.” Such a cause is more difficult to address than the other causes specific to our time.
Bradford quoted another source from the National Library of Medicine which said that “experiencing meaningfulness is based on a validation of one’s life as coherent, significant, directed, and belonging. A positive appraisal of these components occurs mostly unconsciously, while a perceived lack meaning in life occurs consciously, and is known as a crisis of meaning.” Bradford agreed that meaning in one’s life is noted mainly by its absence. “Depression, suicidal thoughts … heightened anxiety, negative affect, and pessimism … and decreased resilience, motivation, and life satisfaction, hope, self-regulation, and self-efficacy.” This all “results in questioning life’s purpose.”
While a lack of meaning is a problem, there also seems to be an unlimited number of meanings on offer in the contemporary world. This may be contributing to the lack of meaning. However, Bradford looked at some specific reasons for the lack of meaning. God and creation were the framework for meaning in the pre-modern world, but from the Enlightenment on, things began to change.