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Finding Faith: The Spiritual Quest of the Post-Boomer Generation
Despite the masses still lining up to enter mega-churches with warehouse-like architecture, casually dressed clergy, and pop Christian music, the "Post-Boomer" generation-those ranging in age from twenty to forty-is having second thoughts. In this perceptive look at the evolving face of Christianity in contemporary culture, sociologists Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller argue that we are on the verge of another potential revolution in how Christians worship and associate with one another.
Just as the formative experiences of Baby Boomers were colored by such things as the war in Vietnam, the 1960s, and a dramatic increase in their opportunities for individual expression, so Post-Boomers have grown up in less structured households with working (often divorced) parents. These childhood experiences leave them craving authentic spiritual experience, rather than entertainment, and also cause them to question institutions. Flory and Miller develop a typology that captures four current approaches to the Christian faith and argue that this generation represents a new religious orientation of "expressive communalism," in which they seek spiritual experience and fulfillment in community and through various expressive forms of spirituality, both private and public.
Just as the formative experiences of Baby Boomers were colored by such things as the war in Vietnam, the 1960s, and a dramatic increase in their opportunities for individual expression, so Post-Boomers have grown up in less structured households with working (often divorced) parents. These childhood experiences leave them craving authentic spiritual experience, rather than entertainment, and also cause them to question institutions. Flory and Miller develop a typology that captures four current approaches to the Christian faith and argue that this generation represents a new religious orientation of "expressive communalism," in which they seek spiritual experience and fulfillment in community and through various expressive forms of spirituality, both private and public.
248 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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February 15, 2014
I was enjoying this book more than I expected, and then the concluding chapter hit, and I was disgruntled again.
What Flory did rather well was the delineation of four distinct varieties of contemporary evangelical perspectives/churches/spiritualities. He explained them all quite clearly and demonstrated their dinstinctiveness in convincing ways. This is a worthwhile addition to the sociology of contemporary religious study, particularly of evangelicals.
However, it is exceedingly obvious that he has a preference for one of the four varieties. This is first evident by the fact that one chapter concludes with questions of "Will this variety survive?" while the other three ended with "And here's a list of problems with this variety," and reinforced by his final chapter where he continues critiquing the three perspectives. Objectivity is apparently unnecessary for such a sociological study.
Further, he claims it is a study of "post-Boomer spirituality", but when describing two of the four varieties, much focus is made on individuals who were of Boomer or later age. This may be an examination of contemporary trends in evangelical spirituality, but not necessarily of post-Boomer generations alone. I'm also not sure why he refused to separate out Gen-Xers and Millennials, which are fairly different in perspective and tone, and the Gen-Xers are not, as stated, children of Boomers but rather of the Silent Generation.
It is also worth noting that Flory does not specify that this is an examination of evangelical Christian spirituality, despite the fact that he clearly was looking primarily if not exclusively at evangelical Christians. That he could describe a category of people leaving to rejoin with Orthodox, Anglican, and Catholic churches clearly indicates that these churches are not among his sample, and no mention of any other mainline churches or individuals is made at all.
I was a little concerned with his sample geographically, given that the vast majority of his examples came from southern California. He is based in the area, which makes this an easier survey source for him, but it does call into question the universality of his conclusions.
And finally, some aspects of his conclusions were simply arrogant. While I agree with many of his criticisms, not all of them were necessary or helpful for his analysis, and some of them were condescending. He also presumed to predict the future of the individuals and churches within each category, based on suppositions of their internal motivations and match with the culture. Again, many of those suppositions were rather demeaning.
The flaws, obviously, irritated me and left a bad taste in my mouth with this book, but I can't entirely disregard it because I think his categorization still has merit. There is something to his observations in the broad sense.
What Flory did rather well was the delineation of four distinct varieties of contemporary evangelical perspectives/churches/spiritualities. He explained them all quite clearly and demonstrated their dinstinctiveness in convincing ways. This is a worthwhile addition to the sociology of contemporary religious study, particularly of evangelicals.
However, it is exceedingly obvious that he has a preference for one of the four varieties. This is first evident by the fact that one chapter concludes with questions of "Will this variety survive?" while the other three ended with "And here's a list of problems with this variety," and reinforced by his final chapter where he continues critiquing the three perspectives. Objectivity is apparently unnecessary for such a sociological study.
Further, he claims it is a study of "post-Boomer spirituality", but when describing two of the four varieties, much focus is made on individuals who were of Boomer or later age. This may be an examination of contemporary trends in evangelical spirituality, but not necessarily of post-Boomer generations alone. I'm also not sure why he refused to separate out Gen-Xers and Millennials, which are fairly different in perspective and tone, and the Gen-Xers are not, as stated, children of Boomers but rather of the Silent Generation.
It is also worth noting that Flory does not specify that this is an examination of evangelical Christian spirituality, despite the fact that he clearly was looking primarily if not exclusively at evangelical Christians. That he could describe a category of people leaving to rejoin with Orthodox, Anglican, and Catholic churches clearly indicates that these churches are not among his sample, and no mention of any other mainline churches or individuals is made at all.
I was a little concerned with his sample geographically, given that the vast majority of his examples came from southern California. He is based in the area, which makes this an easier survey source for him, but it does call into question the universality of his conclusions.
And finally, some aspects of his conclusions were simply arrogant. While I agree with many of his criticisms, not all of them were necessary or helpful for his analysis, and some of them were condescending. He also presumed to predict the future of the individuals and churches within each category, based on suppositions of their internal motivations and match with the culture. Again, many of those suppositions were rather demeaning.
The flaws, obviously, irritated me and left a bad taste in my mouth with this book, but I can't entirely disregard it because I think his categorization still has merit. There is something to his observations in the broad sense.
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