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Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy’
More articles on this topic: BooksGuiding Spirit
‘The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy’ by Colleen Carroll
Reviewed by Peter Manseau
Washington Post, Sep. 1, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14032-2002Aug29.html
Loyola Univ. 320 pp. $19.95
The word “orthodox” is sometimes used as shorthand for a collection of attributes every religious believer tends to associate with his or her own faith. Authority, tradition, theological correctness: These characteristics determine the purity of belief that “orthodox” suggests, and it is hard to imagine a Christian who would admit to lacking them. Claiming orthodoxy is a way of asserting, “My beliefs are correct” — which in turn is often another way of saying, “Yours aren’t.” Generally, all varieties of Christians believe there is one true way, but there are any number of interpretations as to which particular way that is.
That’s the trouble with orthodoxy these days: Now that there are many different notions of what it means, can it still be said to exist at all? In The New Faithful, Colleen Carroll proceeds from the assumption that such a singular orthodoxy does exist. She finds it in the religious practices of those Americans born between 1965 and 1983 who have discovered or returned to “time-tested approaches to metaphysical questions.” “Amid the swirl of spiritual, religious, and moral choices that exist in American culture today,” Carroll writes, “many young adults are opting for the tried-and-true worldview of Christian orthodoxy.”
What they are opting against, she contends, is an unholy trinity of isms that plagues the youth of today: relativism, pluralism and postmodernism. According to her, these forces combine to form a reigning ideology that amounts to a sense that “all values and judgments are equal.”
Carroll maintains that young Christians refuse to accept this. They are dissatisfied with the religious inheritance they have received from their parents, baby boomers whose laxness in spiritual matters midwifed the slack morality and spiritual hunger of Generation X. A 28-year-old journalist from St Louis, she spent a year traveling among twenty- and thirtysomething believers with the goal of “scrutiniz[ing] seemingly disparate trends in the Christian tradition to unearth their unifying themes.” She found that “across the nation a small but committed core of young Christians is intentionally embracing organized religion and traditional morality.”
Carroll provides scores of thumbnail sketches of lawyer-evangelists, chemists-turned-seminarians, virginal Miss Americas and Capitol Hill up-and-comers with a passion for Jesus. “They tend to be cultural leaders,” she writes, “young adults blessed with talent, intelligence, good looks, wealth, successful careers, impressive educational pedigrees, or charisma. . . .”
The tenor of this assessment dominates the book. In Carroll’s telling, young Christians have it all. The adulatory tone remains consistent as well. Throughout The New Faithful, she makes no effort to conceal her admiration for her subjects. In fact, at times it seems as if she is writing a recruitment pamphlet: “For the generation weaned on Watergate and no-fault divorce, broken promises are a fact of life. . . . But the concrete example of Christians who are happy, genuine and radically committed to living — not just preaching — gospel ideals can cut through suspicion and lead to conversion.”
All of which might be more convincing if Carroll did not have so much in common with the particular sort of Christians she most often writes about. A conservative Catholic, she admits early on that she “strongly identifies” with these young orthodox believers. This would not present a problem for a journalist who made an effort to venture outside the comfort zone of her own religious experiences. Though she may have set out to “scrutinize seemingly disparate trends in the Christian tradition,” she has written a book overwhelmingly concerned with conservative Catholics like herself. Introducing each chapter, she presents a scene intended to show young adults “in the act” of orthodoxy. A mob of young Christians queue up for confession. A Catholic beauty queen proclaims her chastity in the ballroom of a Chicago Marriott.
Again and again, Carroll presents as examples of Christian orthodoxy practices and doctrines (eucharistic adoration, for example) that many believers would find not just unorthodox but only questionably Christian. Her occasional nods to various other stripes of Christian belief only serve to remind us of the deep-rooted differences she chooses for the most part to ignore.
None of this is meant as an attack on Carroll’s intentions or her faith. The point is not that she is attempting to foist Catholic orthodoxy on the other young Christians about whom she writes. Rather, it seems that the flaws of the book are precisely the flaws of orthodoxy’s subjective nature. Making light of differences for the appearance of cheerful cohesion, Carroll misses the great diversity — political, cultural, ideological, theological — of a rising generation. And in so doing, she also misses a more interesting story.
Peter Manseau is an editor of the online religion magazine KillingTheBuddha.com, and co-author of the forthcoming book “A Heretic’s Bible.”
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