As Gen X moves into late middle-age and millennials move into early middle-age, nostalgia is a resurgent cultural force. More and more adults are clamoring for things from their childhood. Note the increased presence of things like adult coloring books, Lego sets for adults, and the AI generated images and videos of from an imagined past that say things like, “Look what they took from us.” 

Why are we longing for the past so earnestly? What is it about our collective childhoods that beckons to us? 

For many of us in these generational cohorts, it’s the simple divide in our minds between our pre-internet and post-internet existence. As we age, many of us now share a collective realization that the hyper-efficiency and connectivity of the Internet has not really delivered on its early promise. In fact, everything seems worse. A lot of the nostalgia driven merchandising and wish-casting I see hearkens back to a time of a simpler monoculture. People were bound together more tightly by common experiences, but those bonds have now been fractured by the sprawling content in our social media feeds. Our common memories about tv shows, toys, music, and important cultural events have become more outsized than they should be. In our imaginations, life used to be simpler and easier to understand.   

I’ll insert here a passage from Richard Louv’s book, “Last Child in the Woods” that echoes a similar sentiment: 

“Perhaps we’ll someday tell our grandchildren stories about our version of the nineteenth-century Conestoga wagon. “You did what?” they’ll ask. “Yes,” we’ll say, “it’s true. We actually looked out the car window.” In our useful boredom, we used our fingers to draw pictures on fogged glass as we watched telephone poles tick by. We saw birds on the 65 wires and combines in the fields. We were fascinated with roadkill, and we counted cows and horses and coyotes and shaving-cream signs. We stared with a kind of reverence at the horizon, as thunderheads and dancing rain moved with us. We held our little plastic  cars against the glass and pretended that they, too, were racing toward some unknown destination. We considered the past and dreamed of the future, and watched it all go by in the blink of an eye.” 

Louv, writing in 2008, believed that technology has driven a wedge between us and the natural world in an unhealthy way. Now in 2026, technology has driven a wedge not just between us and nature, but also between us and each other. This mourning of what has been lost is meaningful. I don’t mean to make light of it. We have lost something important that can’t be reclaimed in our never-ending immersion in the digital world.   

Nostalgia feels like a last gasp attempt to try anyway. 

Lego sets, YouTube clips of old cereal commercials, movie reboots…these things are not restorative, only distracting. They can spark a wave of nostalgia that makes us feel something, but there isn’t anything we can do with that feeling. Eventually we just get bummed out. Nostalgia is a spiritual dead-end.  

Make no mistake, Christians can fall into the nostalgia trap too. Every time before our current time seemed better for Christians. The world hated us less, accepted us more, or had a stronger Christian ethos. People went to church more and dressed nicely when they did. There was less trash on television and in movies. People were kinder. Folks knew their neighbors. 

But alas, a life in Christ offers us not a way back, but a way forward. To long for what has been lost is ultimately a fool’s errand. The Bible literally says in Ecclesiastes 7:10 “Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.” 

The day-to-day vagaries of our current existence can be immensely dissatisfying. Instagram reels and AI chatbots aren’t a salve for the pressures and anxieties we all face in a world that no longer shuts itself off. What we are longing for essentially is a return to something that is meaningful, lasting, and solid. 

Spiritual longing should always propel us forward, not backwards. The cultural longing we feel, if we allow it, reverts us back to a kind of second childishness. But the way of the child is simple, naive, and self-centered. Eventually the child must grow up. That’s the way the world works. 

Jesus said clearly that to enter his kingdom one must become as a little child because it takes simple trust and faith to submit to Jesus. But to perceive the world like a child is not the same as living as if we could go back to being a child. We are now old. Our parents are also much older. Life is getting more complicated. We’re being asked to adjust in very uncomfortable ways. Things are moving too fast, and even if we want off the ride, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so. 

What does the future hold that the past doesn’t? Why is hope so much better than nostalgia? The answer is a deeper life in Christ. As a Christian, I strongly believe my best years are in still in front of me, both in this life and in the life to come. All the scary cultural forces that our changing the nature of our existence continually present us with a series of choices between retreat and trust. I can’t control the future, but I can trust in God. Jesus himself said “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” What a comfort it is to know this!