Religion and Youth

Pink Dandelion, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Sylvia Collins-Mayo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317067719
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

What is the future of religion given the responses of young people? What impact do existing religious forms have on youth? What kind of spirituality and religion are young people creating for themselves? Religion and Youth presents an accessible guide to the key issues in the study of youth and religion, including methodological perspectives. It provides a key teaching text in these areas for undergraduates, and a book of rigorous scholarship for postgraduates, academics and practitioners. Offering the first comprehensive international perspective on the sociology of youth and religion, this book reveals key geographical and organisational variables as well as the complexities of the engagement between youth and religion. The book is divided into six parts organised around central themes: Generation X and their legacy; The Big Picture - surveys of belief and practice in the USA, UK and Australia; Expression - how young people construct and live out their religion and spirituality; Identity - the role of religion in shaping young people's sense of self and social belonging; Transmission - passing on the faith (or not); Researching Youth Religion - debates, issues and techniques in researching young people's religion and spirituality. James A. Beckford writes the Foreword and Linda Woodhead the Epilogue.

PART I
Generations and their Legacy

The years following the end of World War 2 have been witness to rapid socio-cultural changes in the West. Shifts in patterns of education, employment, communication, consumption, family life and geographical mobility have all been associated with changes in people’s attitudes towards, and involvement in, religion. One of the ways researchers have tried to document and analyse these changes has been in terms of generational differences. Three generations are commonly referred to in the literature: baby boomers (those born in the 15 to 20 years immediately after the War), Generation X (those born in the 1960s and 1970s) and Generation Y sometimes called the Millennial Generation (those born in the 1980s and 1990s). The first three chapters of this section focus on how the post-boomers differ from previous generations. Flory and Miller focus on post-boomers in the United States. Collins-Mayo and Beaudoin consider the particular significance of popular culture and digital media for the religiosity of Generation X and Y. Voas considers explanations that underpin generational religious change. Lynch changes our focus a little and offers a critique of the generational approach used by researchers to document and understand young people’s religion.

Chapter 1
The Expressive Communalism of Post-Boomer Religion in the USA1

Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller

Introduction

The ‘post-boomer’ generations may constitute an entirely new consciousness in terms of how they relate to religion in the twenty-first century. Individuals who were born after 1975 grew up using computers, finding information on the internet, and, more recently, carrying digital devices that seem to be appendages to their bodies – cell phones, iPods, and Blackberrys. Even pre-teens are snapping pictures with their phones. Coffee shops are filled with people of all ages downloading email messages on their computers, swapping music files, watching the latest webisode of their favourite TV programs, and texting, twittering, and checking Facebook updates on their iPhones.

In many ways, we are on the front end of this revolution. It is only in the last several years that people discarded their film cameras for digital replacements. While thousands of trees are still being chopped down each year to produce books such as this one, there is every reason to think that most future communication will be digital in form. E-books are already available in which text is supplemented by video and audio clips. Increasingly people are replacing their morning ritual of reading the newspaper with their first cup of coffee and instead are clocking a few minutes scanning headlines online before they turn to breakfast. Indeed, it will not be too long until you could be reading this book on some convenient device balanced on your knee that will enable you to listen to the latest worship music, see video clips of church services in Nigeria or Brazil, and interact in real time with religious leaders as if they were sitting in the living room with you. Articles with text will not disappear, but they will be nested within an interactive media framework.

One result of the digital revolution is that people are exposed to multiple worldviews in visually rich formats. The religious implication of this cultural change is that people have to struggle with the issue of pluralism in ways that are historically unique. The old argument about pluralism was that it promoted secularization, because how could one possibly hold to an exclusive religious perspective when one was faced daily with an incredible variety of competing options? In other words, how could they all be true and why should one worldview be privileged over the others?

More recently – especially when everyone did not become agnostic relativists – the argument about the effect of pluralism changed. Having multiple options from which one could choose produced competition within the religious marketplace and, very possibly, better products. Under religious monopolies lazy members of the priestly class could survive without serving their client population or engaging in innovation. Today this is not possible. Within Christianity, for example, there are multiple niche markets catering to specific consumer needs. One size does not fit all, and some mega-churches are accommodating themselves to this fact by having simultaneous worship services, each with different music, different liturgical styles, and corresponding different clienteles (see, for example, McConnell 2009; Thumma 2007; Surratt et al. 2006).

While religion is not a business, it must be responsive to changes in the marketplace because if it does not, it will be deemed irrelevant. This is precisely what is happening to many of the historic Protestant denominations in the USA. At one time, the so-called ‘mainline’ churches claimed the majority of Americans. Today these churches are increasingly filled with graying heads. They may expound ‘sophisticated’ theological arguments by well-educated clergy, but they are culturally out of touch, packaging their religion in ways that does not communicate to a broad range of the American population – and especially to the post-boomer generations.

The dilemma of the moribund mainline denominations raises the question of whether churches that are prospering today, including many megachurches, are prepared to address the needs of the post-boomer generations. From our interviews with post-boomers, as well as consulting a number of reports from surveys of post-boomer religiosity (National Institute on Spirituality in Higher Education 2000–2003) and other studies of the lives of American post-boomers (see, for example, Winograd and Hais 2008; Wuthnow 2007) several distinct patterns emerge that we suspect have a lot to do with the fact that they are children of the digital age.

Here are some characteristics of post-boomers:

• They perceive religion to be a choice and not an obligation.

• Religious labels, including denominational identifications, are relatively unimportant to them.

• They are typically tolerant of other people’s beliefs and, in fact, enjoy the variety of different religious practices that they see on campus.

• Religious authority is internal rather than located in some external source, such as the hierarchy of a church.

• They see more value in religious experience than in a codified set of beliefs.

• They affirm the idea of being on a religious journey rather than embracing a static set of beliefs and practices.

• If they join a religious group, they are more interested in the authenticity of the people—their honesty, openness, and humility – than they are in an authoritarian presentation of the truth.

• They have no problem being eclectic in their religious taste, which sometimes includes creating their own hybrid religious identities.

• They want to make a difference in the world and therefore believe that religion should address issues of justice and equality.

Obviously these characteristics do not describe every post-boomer, rather that they are found in unique ways among post-boomers that are related to the experiences they have had while growing up, influencing how they approach relationships, jobs, and even how they understand and participate in religion. That said, we would not expect all post-boomers to act in exactly the same ways, rather that there would be a range of responses to the challenges of a changing culture that are related to their formative experiences and to their time and place in history (see Mannheim 1952, and Schuman and Scott 1989 for this basic framework on generations).

Cultural influences

There are several cultural factors that have shaped the perspectives of post-boomers, many of which are related to the digital revolution.

First, post-boomers take globalization for granted. From the day they were born they have had access to multiple worldviews, simply by clicking the button on their television remote, or now, through their cell phones. They have grown up with the knowledge that their culture, their belief system, their style of life is simply one among many. Furthermore, they realize that the world is interconnected, both economically as well as ecologically. For some post-boomers, this exposure is threatening and they have retreated into a fundamentalist ghetto of racist and ideologically isolated beliefs, where they are right and everyone else is wrong. But this is not the majority viewpoint of post-boomers – especially those who are educated and live in urban areas interacting with a wide variety of persons and cultures. These individuals tend to believe that the world is a richer and more interesting place because of the variety of cultures and belief systems that surround them.

Second, post-boomers have grown up in an incredibly cynical period in the USA. They believe that most politicians are corrupt, that priests molest children, that Evangelical pastors have affairs, that corporations promote faulty products and otherwise exploit their unwitting customers, and that few people can be trusted. Hence, it is not surprising that many post-boomers chant the mantra that ‘I am spiritual but not religious’ (see Fuller 2001), because they distrust institutions of all sorts, including religious organizations. Philosophically, they imbibe an informal expression of postmodernism that sees any comprehensive belief system as inadequate, because there are no universal truths. Reality depends on where one stands, on one’s perspective. At best, truth is partial and perhaps there is no truth at all. Based on what they have seen in their lives, they believe that money, power, and self-interest control the world.

Third, post-boomers live with residual fear – of environmental disaster, the collapse of the American – and global – economy, the decline of the USA as a superpower, and of the next terrorist attack, which may be just around the corner. Many post-boomers think the USA is living on borrowed time given the state of the US economy and its reliance on foreign oil. They are genuinely frightened by the emergence of other countries as economic superpowers and thus competitors to the USA. They notice that most of the smart science students at their university were born someplace other than the USA, and they wonder what is wrong with our educational system. Many post-boomers question if they will be able to sustain the lifestyle that their parents achieved. How could they ever afford to buy a house that is comparable to the one in which they grew up?

Post-Boomer religious responses to culture

Research on spirituality suggests that particularly since the 1960s, spirituality has become decoupled from religion, with many people pursuing their own private, individualistic, and noninstitutionalized spiritual journey, where the individual spiritual quest for fulfillment takes precedence over membership in, or commitment to, the religious community (see, for example, Bellah et al. 1985; Roof 1993, 1999; Wuthnow 1994, 1998, 2001). Among post-boomers however, we have found an understanding and approach to religion that, based on their formative experiences and general outlook, are different than what is described in the literature. For example, although post-boomers tend not to accept social institutions of any sort unquestioningly, we have found that they are willing to participate in religious institutions, although within certain limits. They carefully choose the types of institutions within which they participate, they are more interested in the relationships and community that they find there than in the institution itself, and they can be somewhat fluid in their institutional commitments, often participating in more than one institutional setting at the same time.

Further, post-boomers live in a digitally driven, symbolically saturated culture, one that they can easily access and participate in, and thus many are seeking religious experience in ways that seek to include various combinations of symbols, traditions, rituals, and expressiveness. These range from reinvigorating ancient symbols and rituals within their own religious traditions, to borrowing from other traditions and even creating their own rituals and symbols in order to have an embodied spiritual experience.

The post-boomer spiritual quest that we describe here is quite different than the individual spiritual quest as described in much of the literature, in particular in terms of their commitment to a religious community within which they seek a physical experience of the spiritual, and where they actively live out their spiritual lives as part of their commitment to both the religious community and the surrounding community. We think of this as an embodied spirituality that is both personal and social. post-boomers seek individual spiritual experience and fulfillment in the community of believers, where meaning is both constructed and directed outward in service to others, both within the religious community and the larger community where they are located.

Within the context of the way that post-boomers have experienced the world, and out of which their basic outlook on the world has been formed, we have identified three different religious responses to cultural change among post-boomers. First there are the Appropriators who tend to embrace the latest cultural fad in their style of worship and programming. In all of their activities, whether in a worship service, a Christian rock concert, or even a mission trip, Appropriators seek to provide a compelling and ‘relevant’ religious experience for individual participants. In this, both churches and independent ministries seek to create these experiences through imitating, or appropriating, trends found in the larger culture and ultimately popularizing these into a form of pop-Christianity that is primarily oriented toward an individual spiritual experience. For Appropriators, it is the desire for relevance and to produce products mirroring the trends in the larger culture that drives their efforts. In many ways, they have created an almost parallel world to the larger culture in which the individual believer finds refuge from the challenges of suburban life, where they can find a safe community of similar people within which to pursue their spiritual journey.

In contrast to the cultural imitation of the Appropriators, a second response is what we have called the Reclaimers, because they seek to resurrect various liturgical forms and practices from the past (e.g., the ‘bells and smells’ of the Catholic, Orthodox or Anglican traditions), finding the worship in many mega-churches to be shallow. Reclaimers are reacting to the sterile worship locations of most mega-churches and the emphasis on entertaining worship. They happily forego the skits and jokes and Hawaiian shirts of Appropriator clergy in favor of a Gothic cathedral, flowing incense, candles on a well-worn altar, robed priests and dim light streaming in through stained glass. They believe that tradition has value – that the saints of ancient times developed liturgical and meditation practices that have the potential to bring one closer to God. While they are backward looking, they are surprisingly postmodern in their desire to unite mind and body in mystical union with the Holy. Although some Reclaimers seek out Orthodox churches (for example, Greek or Russian) in which to worship, a much larger group of people are turning to the Anglican tradition and especially to those congregations that prize the sensuality of ‘high church’ liturgy. In terms of the digital revolution, Reclaimers typically see the church as a refuge from the bombardment of the commercial world. Worship is a time to shut out the external buzz of contemporary life and move inward to a place where God’s presence can be felt more than proclaimed in words.

Finally, we identify a relatively small group of churches that are true Innovators in that they are not simply packaging cultural elements and rebranding them with a Christian label, but instead they are seeking to embody the essence of Christianity in genuinely authentic ways that relate to the culture. Innovators represent a constantly evolving, or innovating, approach to religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. Many of these are newer, less established groups that are affiliated with the ‘emerging church’ movement, while others are established churches and ministries that are innovating within their own traditions. These groups, whether emerging or more established churches, frame their approach in contrast to what they see as an overly institutionalized and inwardly focused church to one that is focused on building community, both within the religious group and with the surrounding community. These churches are introducing various forms of ritual and symbol into their worship services along with new forms of religious and community life that emphasize community and belonging, as well as service, within the religious community and to the larger community (Flory and Miller 2008).

Expressive communalism

What then do these three different approaches to religion have in common? We have argued that the common experiences of post-boomers have resulted in a similar understanding of the world, yet have presented three different religious responses to the challenges and opportunities that post-boomers perceive in the larger culture. We believe that each of the three responses we have identified represent a larger desire for religious expression, spiritual experience, and a sense of both belonging, and service to, a community.

None of the three responses we have identified fit neatly into the individualistic spirituality identified in previous research. That is, although there are certainly individualistic elements found in each of these responses, each also, and in most cases equally, emphasize elements that relate to community – both in the sense of belonging and in serving. This is not to suggest, however, that they have somehow removed themselves from the individualism that pervades American society, rather that their individual spiritual quest is mediated through the communities in which they are active and in which they seek membership and belonging.

The importance of embodiment and community for post-boomers, whether through using one’s body in worship or in living out, or embodying, Christian teachings, suggests that there are many who are seeking a new form of spirituality that goes beyond the individualistic questing that characterizes much of the sociological literature on spirituality. The responses we have identified, whether embracing or resisting these trends, have shown that there is a new, or perhaps renewed, emphasis on an embodied worship and service, and a desire for seeking, creating, and committing to a particular faith community. It is in the context of these faith communities where one can be both personally fulfilled, and where one can serve others, whether in one’s own religious community, or the with homeless in Los Angeles, or AIDS victims in Africa.

Thus, whether it is through the stained glass, icons, and incense of the liturgical traditions, or the creation of various art-works intended to express their particular spiritual experience, or service to others, these only have personal meaning within the context of the religious community. These young people are not the spiritual consumers of their parents’ generation, rather they are seeking both a deep spiritual experience and a community experience, each of which provides them with meaning in their lives, and each is meaningless without the other. We believe that we are witnessing the emergence of a new form of spirituality, what we are calling Expressive Communalism, that although related to the individualistic forms of spirituality as noted above, is also distinct from them. post-boomers have embedded their lives in spiritual communities in which their desire and need for both expressive/experien...