Contemporary America is marked by striking differences among generational groups, ranging from the Silent Generation (1928–1945) to Generation Alpha (2013–2025). These differences extend far beyond age, encompassing deep shifts in worldview, attitudes, values, and priorities. Research, including studies by Dr. George Barna, indicates significant changes in beliefs about God, truth, morality, sin, and the afterlife. Such fundamental shifts challenge the nation’s historical foundation rooted in a shared biblical understanding of truth. Among the many areas affected is a measurable change in perspectives on one of life’s most basic human desires—the need to love and be loved—which forms the focus of this article.
Generation Z appears to have a particular challenge in its understanding of love. For context, Generation Z refers to those born between 1997 and 2012, meaning individuals who are currently roughly between the ages of 13 and 28, spanning early teenagers through young adulthood.
Like every older generation, we often look at the younger generation and tend to think of them as lackadaisical, uninspired, or lazy. However, when we look at what is happening with Gen Z, we see a component that has not existed in previous generations: the unprecedented accessibility of modern technology. Gen Z is a group that has likely never known life without a cell phone or some type of device connecting them to the broader world, and this technology has been formative in shaping them. We now live in a world where technology is not merely a neutral conduit; it actively instructs young people. With smartphones constantly in their pockets, many are implicitly taught to view themselves as neutral observers.
What I mean is that as Gen Z surveys the world of ideas presented on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and others, there is a danger that they perceive themselves as unbiased—approaching issues without leaning to one side or the other and maintaining emotional distance. Believing themselves to be without bias can, in turn, legitimize the idea that they are qualified to serve as arbiters of truth. The result is that roughly 40% of Gen Z identifies as religiously unaffiliated (“nones”), having evaluated religion and concluded it is biased while trusting their own judgments. Correspondingly, about 64% of today’s high school graduates disengage from the church—a trend that appears closely tied to the formative influence of their technology-driven environment.
Obviously, movies are not a reflection of academic research, but Gen Xers would remember the movie As Good as It Gets. In that movie, you see Jack Nicholson pursuing a woman, and in the moment, he proclaims his love for her, he delivers his famous phrase, “You make me want to be a better man.” In other words, the idea of change—immediate change—was something that Gen Xers knew had to be done, and they were willing to do it in pursuit of love. By the time the millennials came around, this idea of demanding change was more along the lines of, “I may change eventually, but you’ve got to love me for who I am right now.” Gen Zers, however, now have the idea that “you will affirm who I am right now and accept me; change is actually the opposite of what love is.”
Movies from the eighties show men pursuing women, and in that pursuit, there was a major change men had to make in order to win that woman over. So, “change” was the idea that, if you change, the sacrifice will result in a demonstration of love.
As we move into the millennial generation, however, you see that love seems to revolve around a rejection of immediate change. You see this throughout churches that are run by millennials, even today. They keep telling everyone that God loves you just the way you are. But eventually, once we get you under our wing, maybe you might consider some actual change. These churches don’t think of change as beginning with God’s law; they see that as too harsh. Instead, they begin with acceptance first. This is how you get Hobby Lobby creating Super Bowl commercials saying that “God gets us,” as if God is winking at our sin.
But as we get to Gen Z, we see another level—something that goes even further in this anti-change mindset. Among many Gen Zers, especially those who have bought into social media and more “woke” ideologies, love is proclaimed to mean full acceptance of someone as they are and expecting no change whatsoever. In fact, expecting someone to change is seen as an insult. True love, for them, is full affirmation. Affirmation, then, is at the heart of love itself. When you demand that love involves discipline, improvement, standards, etc., they are appalled by those things. For many couples with the Gen-Z mindset, they don’t expect their partner to change, and their partner shouldn’t expect them to change. This is who they are. They are doubling down on their identities because they live in an identity-political world. If someone wants them to change their identity, that person doesn’t really love them.
What kind of an effect would this view of love as affirmation have? In the short term, you’ll see young people working very hard to be inclusive. They will be very well-behaved people. They’ll believe they’re showing love to their old-fashioned parents by accepting them and their Christian practices—despite their personal, silent disagreements. Bringing up a disagreement with mom and dad, in their view of love, is going to be disruptive; it’s going to bring an argument and introduce a kind of reality they don’t want to see. For them, disruption is not loving.
Young people might agree with and hold some generic views of Christianity but not the specific, fundamental doctrines. The specific doctrines will seem too harsh, too clear, and too rigid; and in that rigidity, they conclude that doctrine is not loving. For example, it is one thing to say, “The Bible seems to disapprove of homosexuality.” It is another thing when they actually see what the Bible says about it—that God sees homosexuality as an abomination and despises it. They quickly conclude that this is too rigid and unloving.
In the long term, we will see young people walking away from the faith with a kind of Christless religion. At first, they were simply trying to get along, but later—often influenced by institutions of higher learning—they are told they have been oppressed within the Christian home. They are oppressed because Christianity demanded change, and being asked to change one’s identity is tantamount to hate. This rhetoric can be very tantalizing to young people because it frames them as victims, and victimhood is one of the primary ways many young people today seek identity. If they are on a steady diet of social media, where their heroes are portrayed as victims who overcame their oppressors, they will long imitate those heroes. In that imitation, they may come to view organized religion, particularly Christianity and the church, as the oppressive force that made them victims. Their rebellion, then, becomes the means by which they overcome oppression. In short, what can emerge are well-behaved atheists who are simply trying to get along because their view of love is rooted in affirmation rather than truth.
Because we were born in sin (Ps. 51:5), and we carry the guilt of Adam (Rom. 5:12), and every thought we have outside of Christ is to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18), we need a transformation! God’s Word tells us not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we may prove what is perfect and acceptable before God (Rom. 12:2). Heart change, mind change, and eventually even bodily change are at the epicenter of our redemption (Col. 1:21–22). Satan has carved out a philosophy and inundated the next generation with the message to despise change, despise repentance, and despise transformation. Satan has cultivated a generation that longs for the earthly, even when God tells us to keep our eyes on the heavenly (Col. 3:1–3).
So, what does Gen Z need to know about love? The biggest problem we have in defining love is that we tend to define it as 21st century Americans. Instead of using God’s Word, we long for love to be a concept. And as a concept, we believe anyone can participate in it. For instance, consider the concept of grief. We have determined that there are stages of grief. No matter who you are, when you grieve, you will participate in some way in those stages. It is something we can all identify with because it is a concept we can all grasp and in which we all participate. But love is not talked about that way in Scripture. In 1 John 4, we learn where love comes from, beginning in verse 7: “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God.” Now this is interesting. If we even left it there, we would start questioning: How does an unbeliever love?
If love is from God, do they participate in this love of God yet remain unbelievers? Well, the passage answers that question: “Love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” Now we see this absolute stick to John 3, where Christ, speaking to a Pharisee about love, says, “Ye must be born again” (v. 7). The passage in 1 John goes even further: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (4:8). It is important to understand that God is not made up of a collection of concepts. Love is not bigger than God so that God merely participates in something called love; rather, God is love. This means love is not merely a concept—it is rooted in the person of God. If you do not have Him, you do not truly have love.
First Corinthians 13 tells us many things about what love does. All of it requires us to change. But these changes we must make are the fruits of love. The fruit of love is the opposite of affirmation. Love commands us. Love has expectations for us. Love says, “put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:22–24).
And this is precisely what Generation Z must recover. In a world that equates love with unconditional affirmation and views change as hostility, Gen Z is being discipled to believe that transformation is oppression. But the gospel presents the opposite: transformation is freedom. The most loving thing God does for us is not to affirm us in our fallen state, but to redeem, renew, and reshape us into the image of Christ. If Gen Z continues to define love as affirmation, they will drift toward a Christless spirituality that feels kind but lacks truth. However, if they come to see that true love originates in God and necessarily produces change, they may rediscover that repentance is not hatred, standards are not cruelty, and obedience is not oppression. For Generation Z, the future of faith may hinge on this distinction—whether love means being left as we are or being lovingly transformed into what God created us to be.