The Third Generation

The generation that lived through the Great Depression and fought in World War II was also deeply affected by the Pentecostal revivals that swept through the United States from the 1920’s. It was this generation, whom I will call the first generation, which sent its young men to defeat Nazi Germany and the Imperial Empire of Japan.Show more

A mighty move of the Holy Spirit was active when some 12 million American soldiers returned from the war and millions of them came to Christ through the Billy Graham crusades, the tent revivals of Oral Roberts and A.A. Allen, the healing meetings of Kathryn Kuhlman, the conventions by Demos Shakarian’s Full Gospel Businessmen International Fellowship, thousands of Baptist and Pentecostal evangelists, and on the college campuses by Youth For Christ and Bill Bright’s Campus Crusades.

THE BABY BOOMERS
When the American soldiers returned from war, millions of them married, some of them had to postpone being married. Something unusual takes place after a major war; more babies are born than normal. If we look through history it is a phenomenon that has been repeated for thousands of years and it is an act of God, when He replaces soldiers and civilians who have died in war. Thus the children born after 1945 and up to 1960 became known as the “baby boomers.”

The baby boomers were the second generation and led a completely different life than their parents. The economy was in high gear after the war and millions of couples purchased homes in the sprawling suburbs that sprouted up all over the United States. The first generation could afford to purchase automobiles, and in the early 1950’s, television became a staple in every home in America. As the second generation became teenagers, Hollywood and the music industry took advantage of the fact that they had money to spend. Drive-in movie theaters became popular and rock-n-roll swept the nation.

This second generation was raised on television and became bored with church; the result was a rash of teenage pregnancies, increased use of alcohol and nicotine, and the beginning of the drug epidemic.

Then came the Vietnam War (1962-1975) which affected 2.7 million men and their families when they came home traumatized from the horrors of war, drug addicts and strung out on sexual perversions since the government entertained them during the breaks in fighting at the whorehouses of Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. Nearly 10% of the baby boomers spent at least a year in the meat grinder war in Vietnam. More than 50,000 were killed and the suicide rate among the survivors from the war was higher than those who had been killed on the battlefield.

In the late 1950’s the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) introduced LSD to young people around the United States. LSD was the drug of choice when the hippie movement began in the late 1960’s. It seemed like most of the young people were going to be destroyed, but God intervened with a mighty awakening that became known as the Jesus Movement. Hundreds of thousands of hippies were saved, baptized in water and filled with the Holy Spirit. Los Angeles was the point of origin and Chuck Smith was the pastor who had the vision and wisdom to reach out to these young Christians. The Calvary Chapel denomination came out of this great move of God.

As the Jesus movement crested, another Holy Spirit movement started which became known as the Charismatic Movement. One of the principle persons in this move of God was an Episcopal priest named Dennis Bennett. He announced in 1960 that he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and consequently was asked to resign from the 2,500 member church in Van Nuys, California that he pastored. After exposure from television and newspapers, he relocated to Seattle, where he became the pastor for yet another Episcopal church.

Harold Bredesen was an American Lutheran priest. He was baptized in the Holy Spirit in 1946, and when the Charismatic movement took off in the 1970s’, he became one of its leaders and introduced Pat Robertson and Pat Boone to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

The Charismatic movement had become infiltrated by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1980’s. A number of television evangelists took advantage of the charismatic movement and started to fleece the flock. The television evangelists during this golden age were Pat Robertson, Paul & Jan Crouch, Jim & Tammy Bakker, Robert Tilton, Kenneth Copeland, W.V. Grant, Larry Lea, Jimmy Swaggart and many others. Americans were turned off from Christianity because of these evangelists and turned their attention to New Age gurus.

Paul Crouch was disgraced as a homosexual and paid out millions to silence his sex partner, Jim Bakker committed adultery with Jessica Hahn; he had also homosexual encounters and was sent to prison for financial wrong doings. W.V. Grant was sent to prison because of financial mishandling and the rest were disgraced because of sexual immorality and financial misconduct.

The Charismatic movement was over by the end of the 1980’s. Despite the abuse of trust and power by the prominent televangelists, millions of baby boomers from the second generation were saved and joined churches across America and kept the faith going. However, the third generation of children did not fare well.

During my years as a pastor, I worked with the second generation and sadly many of them started out strong when they embraced the Gospel and witnessed to people around them with enthusiasm. Only a few had lasting power and one of the saddest cases was that of a man named Stuart who came to be set free from horrible demonic oppression.

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