Souls in Transition Quotes

“Most young people today know they need to approach their careers with a variety of skills, maximal flexibility, and readiness to retool as needed. That itself pushes youth toward extended schooling, delay of marriage, and, arguably, a general psychological orientation of maximizing options and postponing commitments.”
― Christian Smith, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults

“About those sociologists have much more to learn. But one thing is certain sociologically: operating at the heart of both personal and religious stability and change are the crucial matter of significant personal relationships—both those that affirm and bind and those that break down and set loose. Rarely do people’s thinking and feeling and behaving change dramatically (or stay the same) without significant social relationships exerting pressures to do so and facilitating these outcomes. Significant personal relationships may not be the heart of religious life itself, but they certainly provide the bones and other muscles within which the heart of religion beats.”
― Christian Smith, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults