Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Surprising turn by Gen-Xers
It's good to have some good news to pass on to start the new year. And it's reported that Generation Xers are beginning to turn to Christian Orthodoxy.
Journalist Colleen Carroll, a former speech writer to George W. Bush, has been researching the embrace of traditional Christianity by Generation X and the rejection of the religious and cultural values of that generation's parents, the baby boomers.
A Gen-Xer herself, Carroll documents the trend in a new book, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy".
Carroll says she first saw signs of the trend toward orthodoxy in the mid-1990s, when a student at Marquette University. Later, as a young newspaper journalist, she continued to see a disparity between media portrayals of her generation and the young adults that she saw around her. "Not all young adults are attracted to orthodoxy, But a growing number are seeking truth and embracing a demanding practice of their faith. Their stories were not being told in the mainstream media, and many religion experts seemed to be tone deaf to their voices."
Carroll says the New Faithful come from denominations across the Christian spectrum, though most are Catholics or evangelicals. They range in age from about 18 to 35. They are united by firm, personal, life-changing commitments to Jesus Christ. Their religious backgrounds vary. Many grew up in secular homes or fallen-away Catholic homes. Many others were raised in evangelical or mainline Protestant churches or Catholic parishes. Nearly all of them faced a reckoning in young adulthood that forced them to decide if they would make following Christ the central concern of their lives or not.
The rise of the new faithful is partly the result of a pendulum swing. Many of these young adults are the sons and daughters of the hippies, children of the flower children. Many suffered ill consequences from baby boomer experimentation in morality and religion, and they want their own children to experience a more stable life. They crave stability for themselves, as well. But sociology only gets us so far in this analysis. In the end, each of these young adults tells a story far richer, and far more complex, than the story of the pendulum swing.
"I met doctors, lawyers, Hollywood writers, and cloistered nuns who told me amazing conversion stories, stories of faith and hope and a love that reached out and grabbed them when they least expected to find God."
The new faithful still constitute a fairly modest segment of the population. But their influence extends well beyond their numbers because many are educated professionals with a disproportionate amount of cultural influence. They are rising stars in politics, the arts, the entertainment industry, in medicine and law and journalism. Many secular journalists still struggle to understand this trend: It's counterintuitive for those who assume religion is on the wane and orthodoxy is on life support.
It's good to have some good news to pass on to start the new year. And it's reported that Generation Xers are beginning to turn to Christian Orthodoxy.
Journalist Colleen Carroll, a former speech writer to George W. Bush, has been researching the embrace of traditional Christianity by Generation X and the rejection of the religious and cultural values of that generation's parents, the baby boomers.
A Gen-Xer herself, Carroll documents the trend in a new book, The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy".
Carroll says she first saw signs of the trend toward orthodoxy in the mid-1990s, when a student at Marquette University. Later, as a young newspaper journalist, she continued to see a disparity between media portrayals of her generation and the young adults that she saw around her. "Not all young adults are attracted to orthodoxy, But a growing number are seeking truth and embracing a demanding practice of their faith. Their stories were not being told in the mainstream media, and many religion experts seemed to be tone deaf to their voices."
Carroll says the New Faithful come from denominations across the Christian spectrum, though most are Catholics or evangelicals. They range in age from about 18 to 35. They are united by firm, personal, life-changing commitments to Jesus Christ. Their religious backgrounds vary. Many grew up in secular homes or fallen-away Catholic homes. Many others were raised in evangelical or mainline Protestant churches or Catholic parishes. Nearly all of them faced a reckoning in young adulthood that forced them to decide if they would make following Christ the central concern of their lives or not.
The rise of the new faithful is partly the result of a pendulum swing. Many of these young adults are the sons and daughters of the hippies, children of the flower children. Many suffered ill consequences from baby boomer experimentation in morality and religion, and they want their own children to experience a more stable life. They crave stability for themselves, as well. But sociology only gets us so far in this analysis. In the end, each of these young adults tells a story far richer, and far more complex, than the story of the pendulum swing.
"I met doctors, lawyers, Hollywood writers, and cloistered nuns who told me amazing conversion stories, stories of faith and hope and a love that reached out and grabbed them when they least expected to find God."
The new faithful still constitute a fairly modest segment of the population. But their influence extends well beyond their numbers because many are educated professionals with a disproportionate amount of cultural influence. They are rising stars in politics, the arts, the entertainment industry, in medicine and law and journalism. Many secular journalists still struggle to understand this trend: It's counterintuitive for those who assume religion is on the wane and orthodoxy is on life support.
