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THE NEW FAITHFUL
Now in its sixth printing,
The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing
Christian Orthodoxy was first released
by Loyola Press in hardcover 2002 and in paperback in 2004. The book blends extensive firsthand reporting,
storytelling and analysis to shed light on a trend that has far-reaching
implications for American religion, politics and culture.
Order this book from
Loyola
Press,
Amazon.com, or
Barnes & Noble.

" . . . a blockbuster of a book . . . " --
Canada's National Post
"Ms. Carroll combines
first-hand reporting with social-science metrics to examine a remarkable
trend toward religious orthodoxy" -- Wall Street Journal
"(O)ne of the brightest
young Catholic writers in America . . . Colleen Carroll’s book is replete
with wonderful human stories of spiritual struggle followed by conversion."
-- George Weigel, from his syndicated column, The Catholic Difference
"This is a great resource
for anyone involved in young-adult ministry." -- CBA Marketplace
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Full-text reviews and articles about The New Faithful
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Endorsements and critical praise: |
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"Colleen Carroll
blends investigative reporting with profound analysis to reveal a world of young
people that most of us do not know exists. This brilliant young journalist opens
the door to exciting and inspiring vistas."
-
Robert
D. Novak
CNN Commentator
and Syndicated Columnist
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"With the knowledge of an insider
and the sprightly facility of a good journalist, Colleen Carroll tells one of
the largely unheralded stories of our time: the turn of so many highly educated
young Americans toward serious religious commitment. How did these young people
become, as she puts it so well, 'defenders of orthodoxy in an age that denigrates
dogma?' Carroll unravels the mystery in a book that will become an important
document of our time. The orthodox, the unorthodox and the flexible souls in
between will find grist here for lively argument and serious reflection."
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E. J. Dionne Jr.
author
of Why Americans Hate Politics and
co-editor (with John J. DiIulio Jr.) of What's God Got to Do With the
American Experiment?
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"Colleen Carroll's
reporting and analysis in 'The New Faithful' does more than simply chronicle
the embrace of Christianity by young adults, as important as that is. Her interviews
and meetings with young American adults serve as documentation of the spiritual
and intellectual bankruptcy of postmodernism. 'The New Faithful' is a reminder
that when the idols of our age crumble, as they invariably will, it is the truth
of Christianity that remains standing."
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Charles W. Colson
Chairman,
Prison Fellowship Ministries
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"You may have
heard, and you may have believed, that decades of moral, cultural, and
religious tumult have destroyed the foundations. Colleen Carroll has a different
story to tell in this exciting book. Despite everything, the foundations
are solid and a new generation of young people, Catholic and Protestant,
is discovering the high adventure of Christian fidelity. The rebuilding
has begun. The New Faithful is a portrait, both honest and heartening,
of the Church of tomorrow, and of today."
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Fr. Richard John Neuhaus
Editor
in Chief, First Things
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"A fascinating,
highly readable book that opens up a world most of us know little of--the world
of young people making their own journeys into faith and discovering the wisdom
of traditions many claim that the young have abandoned. Carroll brings the rhythms
of the story-teller and the fact-finding of the journalist to bear in helping
us to encounter those she calls 'the new faithful'."
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Jean Bethke
Elshtain, author of Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy
The Laura
Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics
The University
of Chicago
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"This is an
important book about the new generation of Christians born since 1965--a
new, orthodox, and realist generation tired of the fads, bizarre personal
opinions, and sad experiments of their elders, and hungry for the 'real'
doctrine, the real Church of the ages. These are the young who begin
shouting, in 1979, 'JPII--We love you!'."
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Michael Novak
George
Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion,
Philosophy and Public Policy and director of Social and Political Studies
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“If you are vitally
interested in the renewal and reform of Christianity, Catholic, Protestant and
Orthodox in America, this well-documented and very readable book is the good
news. If you are not so persuaded but would like to know what’s going
on in religion, the growing wave of the future, then this book is a must for
you. If you get aggravated by the deeply personal and believing commitment
to Christ observed on the part of a significant group of young adults, don’t
read this book; it will upset you. Colleen Carroll has done a masterful
job of bringing together the profiles of a diverse generation of fervent young
Christians who are shaking up the American religious scene. She marshals
the anecdotes and studies in such a way that she offers the best sociological
indication and explanation of what those who work with young people see that
they want – authentic, personal and convinced Christianity. If you are
making plans for your church in the next decade you can’t afford to leave this
book unread.”
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Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR
Author,
Journey Towards God
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“Colleen Carroll's
'The New Faithful' reveals the first lights of an unexpected dawn: the growing
youth movement toward Christian orthodoxy. Yet Carroll also shows that this movement
must wrestle with vexing issues of assimilation versus isolation, righteousness
versus self-righteousness. If Carroll's discernment and clarity are typical
of young believers, the future of the faith is bright indeed."”
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Frederica Mathewes-Green
Christianity Today columnist, National Public Radio commentator, and
author
of "Facing East: A Pilgrim's Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy"
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"Evidence has
been accumulating for a few years that a generational and cultural revolt has
been brewing in America against the "counter-culture" clichés of sexual freedom
and unrestrained hedonism that grew out of the 60's and 70's. In this
richly reported and beautifully written account, Colleen Carroll takes us inside
the lives of those who have participated in that sea-change in American culture.
She shows how a new generation of Americans have found truth, beauty and fulfillment
not in the trendy hot-tubs of New Age spirituality but in the bracing truths
and disciplines of an ancient faith--traditional and orthodox Christianity.
The stories she tells are deeply moving. The sense of hope they offer
to the spiritual future of this nation is warmly encouraging. This is a marvelous
book."
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David Aikman
Former
correspondent for Time magazine
and author of "Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century"
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| “As if to prove that the worst of
times are also the best of times,
Colleen
Carroll heartens us with a detailed and documented tale of how the young are
turning to Christian orthodoxy. The signs have been all around us for a
long time, intimations that something important was afoot. Young people on
campuses, new converts, young families, seminarians at places like Denver
and Lincoln, suggested that we were coming out of an era of dissent and
secularization and dumbing down. Colleen Carroll engaged in vast and
exhaustive research to bring the good news that there is indeed a
groundswell of orthodoxy among the young. In her book, you hear their voices
and they will warm your heart.”
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Ralph
McInerny
Philosophy Professor, University of Notre Dame
Author, the Father Dowling Mysteries
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beautifully
about today's young adults embracing Christian orthodoxy. Her research, worthy
of a competent journalist and scholar, is impressive. Her findings create credibility
that faith will be an increasingly important part of building a better world.”
- Richard Leonard, Retired Editor of The Milwaukee Journal
and
Nieman Chair Emeritus at Marquette University.
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“Colleen Carroll
deserves serious congratulations. This narrative of her quest for the religion
of some of the most thoughtful young Americans is as readable as its implications
are profound. For anyone seeking a proper understanding of the immensely complex
forces at work in our culture, and indeed for someone at the seeming mercy of
those forces but seeking God, The New Faithful charts a course
to the truth.”
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Nigel M. de S. Cameron
Principal,
Strategic Futures Group, LLC
Dean,
The Wilberforce Forum
Former
professor and provost at Trinity International University & Divinity School
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“This is an important book. Colleen Carroll has captured
the deep yearnings of the generation just emerging from college into the work
world. In their own words, these new faithful deliver a powerful message: Life
is about more than amassing toys, the spirit matters, and they intend to be
heard.”
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Howard Means,
author of Money & Power: The History of Business
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"Though replete
with personal testimonies, Colleen Carroll's The New Faithful: Why Young
Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy goes far beyond the merely anecdotal
in her description of Generation X's markedly traditional and orthodox religious
impulse. Filled with sociological data and descriptions of movements and
organizations that are spawned by and support the phenomenon, Carroll provides
significant narrative and deep insight into a generation of believers who are
seeking to embrace Christianity with intellectual rigor and moral integrity
in the midst of a postmodern, relativistic, and pluralistic America. In
contrast to many of the previous generation, great numbers of those born between
1965 and 1983 are finding the Church to be a faithful mother giving birth to
a renewed spiritual life, both for individuals and communities of believers.
Carroll explores the uniqueness of this resurgence of belief, which is evangelical
in spirit, seeks to engage rather than to ignore the culture, and to transform
the world. This engaging book, which is not hesitant to present the criticisms
that have been directed to the younger generation by their oft-dismayed elders,
is an important tool for understanding the growing number of young, active Christian
believers. It would be invaluable for anyone engaged in ministry to this
generation with its great spiritual hunger."
- Fr. James F.
Garneau, Ph.D.
Academic
Dean
The Pontifical
College Josephinum
Columbus,
OH
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"Carroll shines
a light into the lives of young spiritual seekers that dispels gloomy assumptions
about the decline of orthodox Christianity. Unfulfilled by the cream-puff theology
of their parents, Gen Xers are turning to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob—and
Jesus. Carroll sensitively explores how Christian faith informs and fortifies
attitudes about sexuality, vocation and education for large numbers of young
adults. With its smart cultural critique and journalistic flair, The New
Faithful is a groundbreaking study of religion in America."
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Joseph Loconte is the William E. Simon
Fellow in Religion and a Free Society at the Heritage Foundation and a regular
commentator for National Public Radio.
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"This is an important
story, well-told by one of our finest young religion writers. The New Faithful
should be on the reading list of every church leader and anybody interested
in the future of the faith in this country."
- David Scott,
author and former editor of Our Sunday Visitor, the largest U.S. Catholic
newsweekly
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"In The New
Faithful, Colleen Carroll combines her religious sensibilities and
consummate reporting skills to take readers on an insightful tour through
the world of Generation X "orthodox believers." Those immersed in
lives of faith will find this book a great affirmation, while those not so
immersed may find it a great revelation."
- Cole C.
Campbell
Fellow, Charles F. Kettering Foundation
Former editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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"If baby-boomer Catholics have
been puzzled by their younger Gen-X counterparts lately, they need look no
further than Colleen Carroll's excellent new book for an explanation of
what's up with Gen-X Christians. The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are
Embracing Christian Orthodoxy is a fascinating study . . . a
well-researched, enjoyable read."
-- Commonweal
"Anyone who is worried about the
future of the Church can look here for hopeful signs."
-- National Review Online
" . . . novel and timely . . .
This is a book that generously and comprehensively examines a group that is
often misunderstood and caricatured."
-- Publishers Weekly
"Highly recommended."
-- Library Journal
"The New Faithful is
certainly encouraging . . . we owe thanks for these dispatches from the
front."
-- Books & Culture
"This exploration probes beneath
the surface of Christian Orthodoxy, analyzing the root causes and the
diverse consequences of this new religious movement."
-- Booklist
" . . . The New Faithful
is a hopeful book . . . The people Carroll introduces us to are the kind of
people we want to know are around and with us as the Church in America
enters the 21st century."
-- Crisis
" . . . highly acclaimed . . ."
-- Zenit News Agency
" . . . frequently moving . . . a
nuanced and cautious reading of the signs of the times."
-- Touchstone
"Watch out, promiscuity! Out of
the way, relativism! A wave of young Americans just wants that old-time
religion."
-- Christianity Today
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Full-text reviews and articles about The
New Faithful: |
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| "The young and the orthodox"
By
Amy Welborn
Our Sunday Visitor, July 28,
2002:
One can’t help but wonder what Garry Wills would think of
St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Colleen Carroll’s new book, "The New
Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy" (Loyola Press,
$19.95). For while Wills is deeply engaged in conversations with other
middle-aged Catholic academics, Carroll tells us that something else quite
interesting is going on in the real world: Young people are rejecting the
culturally compromising, self-reverential religious formation that their
elders have given them and are turning, in increasing numbers, to
traditional ways of thinking about and practicing the Christian faith.
Liberalism, it seems, is not the big draw. Orthodoxy is.
"Across the nation . . a small but committed core of
young Christians is intentionally embracing organized religion and
traditional morality. Their numbers – and their disproportionately powerful
influence on their peers, parents and popular culture – are growing. The
grassroots movement they have started bears watching because it has thrived
in the most unlikely places, captured the hearts of the most unlikely
people, and aims to effect the most unlikely of outcomes: a revitalization
of American Christianity and culture."
"The New Faithful" is the fruit of a year’s research
on this trend. Carroll reports on the variety and vitality of orthodox
Protestant and Catholic young people wherever they’re found – on college
campuses, the workplace, Capitol Hill and even Hollywood. Those she
interviews are full of hope and promise, with a faith that’s intellectually
vigorous, yet, at root, stirred by a deep love of God that calls forth
sacrifice, fidelity and joyful service.
It’s not exactly your dad’s Christianity. If your dad
is sitting on a college campus growling about the right wing and writing his
membership check to Call to Action, that is.
And for that good news, we can all be deeply grateful,
don’t you think?
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CBA Marketplace,
September, 2002:
Carroll studies 20- and early 30-somethings who are embracing the
Christian faith with passion and fervor in her book, subtitled "Why Young
Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy." She shares many testimonies of
individuals who discovered or returned to the faith; many tell of finding
worldly success but being spiritually hungry. Issues she examines include
traditional vs. contemporary liturgy, Generation X's desire for community,
and the appeal of a challenging Gospel. What makes this book unique is
Carroll's ability to focus on both Catholics and Protestants returning to
the faith. Catholic and Protestant ministries, resources and references are
used throughout. This is a great resource for anyone involved in young-adult
ministry.
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Library Journal,
September 2002:
With the help of a Phillips Journalism Fellowship, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
journalist Carroll traveled the country to interview young adults to
ascertain how religion fits into their lives. Most of her interviewees were
Catholics or evangelical Protestants, along with some Orthodox Christians.
Carroll found a turn to the Right in the religious lives of her peers, born
between 1965 and 1983; not everyone in this age group is religiously
oriented, but those who are have more often than not turned to traditional
beliefs and morality. Among Catholic priests, for example, the youngest are
as traditional as the oldest, with the baby boomers falling in between. It
is not unusual for married couples in this age group to embrace natural
family planning as opposed to artificial birth control and for singles to
reject premarital sex. These young adults are seeking authoritative
guidelines and meaningful commitments. Carroll's journalistic skills are
evident in this very readable volume about a tendency toward traditionalism
that she predicts will spread. Highly recommended.
-- John Moryl, Yeshiva Univ.
Lib., New York
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Publishers Weekly, July 15, 2002:
Carroll’s
title promises to answer a question that is not new; the decline of liberal
Christianity and the rise of the evangelical movement has been a source of
scholarly and journalistic fascination for more than 20 years. Carroll,
though, gives an up-to-the-minute account of this phenomenon. She spent a
year—beginning in 2001 and ending in 2002—conducting research and interviews
around the U.S., and, unlike most treatments of the new American passion for
orthodoxy, hers focuses on the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as well as
evangelical Protestantism. This emphasis on orthodoxy and ancient,
liturgical tradition among young members is both novel and timely. While
evangelical Protestant mega-churches were the big story 15 years ago,
record-breaking conversion rates in conservative Catholic and Orthodox
churches are today’s headline. Carroll quotes many young people who yearn
for both conservative interpretations of the Bible and the mystery and
symbolism of liturgy. Especially popular among young orthodox Catholics is
the pre-Vatican II practice of Eucharistic adoration, which involves
reverencing a consecrated communion wafer. In her introduction, Carroll
makes brief mention of her identification with the young, conservative
Catholics she features, and this identification shows in analysis that often
bleeds into advocacy. She does occasionally quote critics of the trend
toward orthodoxy, but she never fully explores these dimensions. However,
this is a book that generously and comprehensively examines a group that is
often misunderstood and caricatured.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 18, 2002:
Book examines young adults'
yearning for Christianity
By Gayle White
Special To The Post-Dispatch
In the middle of a year in which scandal, cover-up and
distrust defined American Catholicism, tens of thousands of young people
walked miles in baking heat, camped out in a field and endured soaking
rainstorms for Mass with a feeble old man who represents the authority of
the church.
Anyone who questions the thesis of Colleen Carroll's
"The New Faithful," only has to watch the films of World Youth Day 2002 held
this summer in Toronto. As early as the 1980s, Pope John Paul II sensed the
longing of the young for identity and structure and saw in it an opportunity
to solidify the church for future generations. He has been rewarded at his
periodic youth revivals with the cheers of hundreds of thousands, shouting
"John Paul II, we love you."
Carroll, a former reporter for the Post-Dispatch,
understood the desire for old-time religious moorings among some young
adults, and believed the trend stretched past the Roman Catholic Church. She
saw the same grasping for solid doctrine and sacred symbols among some young
evangelicals.
Carroll researched her book in 2000 with a Phillips
Journalism Fellowship that allowed her to spend a year traveling the
country. She admits that not everyone under 30 is ready to sign up for a
lifetime of biblical literalism and traditional morality, but writes of a
"small but committed core."
Participation in Latin Mass and chastity movements
appears to be related to the renewed interest by the generation born between
1965 and 1983 in the jitterbug, World War II and 1940s fashion. But all of
those, Carroll would argue, are symptomatic of a sort of rebellion against
rebellion - a rejection of their parents' approach of putting faith in sex,
drugs and rock 'n' roll until they entered the marketplace, where they
joined the Church of the Consumer.
George Gallup recently predicted that the teen-agers
following today's young adults will be the same, only more so. In a briefing
released July 30, Gallup said, "One might say, 'Here come the
traditionalists.'" Gallup's data from the past 25 years show that today's
teens are less likely to use alcohol, tobacco and marijuana and more likely
to want abstinence taught in school.
Carroll offers her own section of polls and statistics
which, she points out, offer contradictory evidence. A poll by George Barna
shows that three-fifths of teenagers say the Bible is completely accurate in
all that it teaches, and a poll of young Catholics showed that about 90
percent believe the bread and wine actually become the body of Christ. But
only 31 percent of them attend weekly Mass.
She writes that a 1999 study by Barna "found that 42
percent of baby busters - those born between 1965 and 1983 - were likely to
attend church weekly, as compared to 34 percent of their baby boomer
parents. The busters also were more likely to read the Bible (36 percent to
30 percent) and to pray (80 percent to 70 percent)." Carroll sees a
generation that wants rock-solid beliefs with a bit of religious mystery, is
willing to make sacrifices for personal holiness, will trust authority that
proves to be trustworthy and is unafraid to take on the larger culture.
The influence of these young adults extends beyond
their number, she says, because many of them came to their new orthodoxy
after achieving academic or professional success. They came early to the
classic midlife crisis question, "Is that all there is?"
Ironically, she points out, it may have been the base
of wealth and opportunity provided by their materialistic parents that
permitted them this luxury.
It's not just the personal experience that is
appealing to these smart, successful young adults, according to Carroll.
They crave community, she says. "Many of them are nostalgic for something
they never experienced."
To Carroll's credit, she makes no claims that the
neo-orthodox will carry their newfound faith to their graves. Rather, she
acknowledges, faith that is chosen can be tossed over in favor of some new
trend.
Gayle White covers religion for the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. She is past president of the Religion Newswriters
Association and author of "Believers and Beliefs."
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The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 13,
2002: Back to Basics
By JOHN A. BARNES
In 1993, 24-year-old David Legge seemed to have the
world by the tail. Blessed with Tom Cruise-ish good looks, he had just
finished his second year at Yale Law School and was a summer associate at a
big New York law firm. Making more money than he could spend, he painted the
town red four or five nights a week with lavish parties and big bar tabs. A
bright future beckoned.
There was only one problem. He wasn't happy.
"I had a good time, I guess," Mr. Legge recalls, "but
I didn't have that many real friends in New York. And I realized that it was
just kind of an empty life."
Like many Gen X (and Y) Catholics raised in the wake
of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Mr. Legge's childhood
religious formation had been spotty at best. He was raised in a Catholic
family, but he found that his religious courses in school consisted mostly
of "psychobabble." The spiritual emptiness he was feeling that summer in New
York led him to apply to his own faith the kind of intensity he had
previously reserved for his legal studies. The result was a revelation.
"It was like God hit me over the head with a bottle,"
he said. It took a few years, but eventually Mr. Legge found the courage to
walk away from his job and the girlfriend who did not share his deepening
Catholic faith and enter a Dominican seminary to become a priest.
David Legge's conversion (or re-conversion) story is
one of many that animate the pages of Colleen Carroll's "The New Faithful"
(Loyola, 320 pages, $19.95). A reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms.
Carroll combines first-hand reporting with social-science metrics to examine
a remarkable trend toward religious orthodoxy among Americans born roughly
between 1960 and 1983. These were the children exposed full-force to the
consumerism, secularism and "me-first" ideology that seized the helm of
American society in that period -- very much including most mainstream
religious denominations.
Concentrating her reporting on Catholics and
evangelical Protestants, Ms. Carroll borrows G.K. Chesterton's definition of
"orthodoxy" as the Apostles' Creed. ("I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth . "). For the young adults profiled in her book,
that means the acceptance of a transcendent moral authority, a commitment to
regular prayer and worship, a belief in absolute truth and an allegiance to
objective standards of conduct.
What drives these young people in such a, well,
un-orthodox direction? The high rate of divorce among baby-boomer parents
certainly played its role. And anyone with the least experience of young
people knows that a high percentage of them, almost by reflex, are skeptical
of the dogmas laid down by their elders. That seems just as true when the
dogmas are relativism, permissiveness and militant secularism as when they
are their opposites. The appeal of Pope John Paul II to young people,
evident from the first days of his pontificate, is mentioned frequently by
Catholics and Protestants alike.
"They want to get off the merry-go-round," says the
Rev. David Burrell, a Catholic priest. "They really want something that can
touch their souls. And a faith culture is the only thing that can respond to
that."
One of the most refreshing aspects of Ms. Carroll's
book is the near absence of I-found-God-when-I-hit-rock-bottom stories. Most
of the newly faithful are successful in their worldly endeavors, a fact that
conventional wisdom would say works against fervent religious belief.
But as Ms. Carroll notes, affluence may now be one of
the engines driving religious revival. One result of the good (secular)
life, apparently, is the kind of "premature mid-life crisis" that David
Legge experienced. And while most who confront such a crisis do not end up
at a seminary, many do find that their turn to religious seriousness
requires new friends and a new career.
The orthodoxy vogue, if it may be called that, does
not please everyone. Some baby-boomer priests actually seem bitter about it
-- or envious. After all, new and orthodox religious orders like the New
York-based Sisters of Life and the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal are
turning away candidates while liberal orders wither on the vine. Potential
seminarians, approaching a particular order, warily demand to know whether
the priests wear their clerical collars and whether they accept the teaching
authority of the Church on abortion and extramarital sex. "There's a kind of
nostalgia for a church they've never experienced -- and I have," one priest
grouses. "I don't want to go back there."
But the young orthodox faithful are not looking back.
They are looking forward, striving to make something "countercultural" in
the non-1960s sense of the word. Thus they are eager to evangelize their
peers. That their peers often remain unaffected doesn't discourage them,
either. You don't need to convert a whole generation, one of Ms. Carroll's
subjects points out. Jesus, after all, started with just 12.
Mr. Barnes, a corporate communications executive with
Pfizer Inc., is writing "Jesus on Leadership: Executive Lessons From the
Servant Leader." |
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George Weigel: The Catholic
Difference - October 23, 2002
Young, smart, successful ... and passionately orthodox
By George Weigel
Two and a half years ago, I went to Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts, to give a lecture on “the soul of John Paul II”
and to have a dinner-discussion with Smith’s religion faculty and senior
religion majors. Smith is one of the academic centers of American feminism,
and given academic feminism’s usual take on this pontificate, I was a bit
concerned that the afternoon and evening could turn dicey. On the contrary.
My lecture was heard respectfully, the questions were intelligent, and the
dinner discussion was polite, engaging, and intellectually stimulating.
Smith’s faculty and students even took the Pope’s challenging “theology of
the body” seriously -- which is more than can be said for the editors of
Commonweal, among others in the Catholic opinion business.
All of which prompted the thought that something
interesting was afoot in Gen X, or Gen Y, or whatever generation we’re in
these days.
Now comes Colleen Carroll, one of the brightest young
Catholic writers in America, with a book painting a similar picture on a
much broader canvas.
After several years as a beat reporter and editorial
writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Colleen Carroll was awarded a
Phillips Journalism Fellowship, which allowed her to spend a year going
around the country talking to Christians who are young, bright,
professionally successful -- and quite passionately orthodox in their
religious and moral convictions. The results of Carroll’s research are now
available in The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian
Orthodoxy (Loyola University Press).
The “new faithful” come from different ethnic,
religious, educational, and family backgrounds. Some grew up in devout
Catholic or Protestant families and drifted away, only to return to the
faith with fervor. Others skated along on the surface of the consumer
society until the hollowness of the world depicted in Abercrombie & Fitch
ads created an ache that purchasing-power couldn’t heal. Still others
pursued fast-track academic and professional careers, and then found that
success was empty without something more, something deeper.
But whatever the path they took, the “young orthodox”
have one trait in common: they find Christian orthodoxy an exhilarating,
exciting adventure. Unlike their parents’ generation (i.e., mine), which
grew up at a time when the smart thing to do was to put down tradition,
reverence, doctrine, and a demanding morality, the new generation of “new
faithful” aren’t interested in how little they can believe and how little
they have to do to stay “inside” the Church. They’re interested in exploring
the fullness of Christian truth and making it their own.
That exploration takes place in a host of settings.
Some are traditionally parish- or campus-based. But there are also Gen X
innovations like Regeneration Forum, a network of reading-and-discussion
groups in more than two dozen cities, and “The Vine,” an occasional
ecumenical conference of Gen X-ers interested in issues of faith and
culture.
According to Colleen Carroll’s research, the “new
faithful” are not the quietists some skeptics might expect them to be. They
are actively engaged in bringing their convictions into public life through
instruments like “Faith and Law,” an ecumenical study group of young,
orthodox Christian Congressional staffers. (As an occasional speaker at
“Faith and Law” breakfast seminars, I can testify to the seriousness of the
discussion and the Christian commitment of its members). Gen X “new
faithful” are passionately pro-life; indeed, as Carroll points out, one of
the striking (and virtually unreported) phenomena of American politics today
is that the pro-abortion forces are getting older and greyer while the
pro-life world is displaying a much younger face.
Colleen Carroll’s book is replete with wonderful human
stories of spiritual struggle followed by conversion. Those stories also
pose a challenge to secularists, and to those determined to deconstruct
Catholicism into high-church Unitarianism: the clock is ticking, and the
world isn’t working out the way you thought it would. The great human
adventure remains the adventure of orthodoxy. It beats the flat, arid world
of secularism. It beats the frantic world of shop-‘til-you-drop
hyper-consumption. It beats the brave new world of a remanufactured
humanity.
And it beats Catholic Lite. Which is one reason why
there are far more young faces at “The Vine” than at “Call to Action”
conventions.
George Weigel is a senior fellow of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center in
Washington, D.C. |
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TCRNews.com -
November 2002 Traditional Catholic
Reflections & Reports ©
News, Opinion, & Hope for a Post-Modern World
The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing
Christian Orthodoxy
Reviewed by Oswald Sobrino, Esq.
In George Weigel's recent book The Courage to be
Catholic, he makes it a point to emphasize that the liberal crowd of
dissenters, which he calls the "Catholic Lite" brigade, is aging and
diminishing. The point was brought home to me visually when I recently
watched a television talk show on the clergy scandals in which the
68-year-old Garry Wills, looking to me quite worn, was challenged and
contradicted at every turn by two conservatives: one a very young looking
journalist and the other an older priest who was nevertheless much younger
and more robust than Mr. Wills. In The New Faithful (hereafter "TNF")
(Loyola Press, 2002), Catholic author Colleen Carroll provides the
background to a demographic trend that favors orthodoxy both among Catholics
and Protestants in the United States. This trend provides the refreshing and
vibrant alternative to the aging ranks of liberal dissent. As Cardinal
George of Chicago has commented, liberal Catholicism has been unable to pass
on the faith. Ms. Carroll documents that failure and the success of
orthodoxy among many young Americans. Her book has been endorsed by
respected authors such as Fr. Benedict Groeschel and First Things editor Fr.
Richard Neuhaus.
Shortly you will probably see Catholic dissenters
writing articles from Commonweal to The National Catholic Reporter debunking
the thesis of this book. All I can say is that denial is the last refuge of
the defeated. In anticipation of this deluge of denial, it is worth taking a
look at the evidence for the trends documented by Ms. Carroll. Boston
College professor and apologist Peter Kreeft, certainly a credible source,
terms the embrace of orthodoxy by the young "a massive turning of the tide"
(TNF, p. 3). A 1999 study confirmed a trend among young adults born between
1965 and 1983 to attend church weekly, read the Bible, and pray at higher
rates than their "baby boomer" parents (the baby boom is usually considered
to have ended about 1965)(TNF, p. 4). A 1997 Gallup poll also confirmed an
increase in the influence of religion among teenagers (TNF, p. 4). Another
Gallup poll from 1999 found that "nearly nine in ten" teens polled believed
in the divinity of Jesus (TNR, p. 4). More specifically Catholic is the 1999
report from Time magazine that the number of American dioceses hosting the
Tridentine Mass rose "from 6 in 1990 to 131 in 1999" with 150,000 people
attending weekly (TNF, p. 5). That number alone is about three times the
number of subscribers to the dissident newspaper National Catholic Reporter
(whose subscriber base may very well decline in the future due to layoffs in
the bureaucracy of the Los Angeles Archdiocese).
Another survey of young Catholics from 1998 listed
"three core elements" of their faith: 1.) the Real Presence in the
Eucharist; 2.) Concern for the poor; and 3.) devotion to Mary "as the mother
of God" (TNF, p. 5). It is surely no coincidence that these core elements
are a perfect profile of the main themes of the lengthy pontificate of John
Paul II, now in its 25th year. The author also mentions another survey
finding that younger priests are decidedly more conservative than the "more
liberal middle-aged baby boomers who directly preceded them" (TNF, p. 5).
This theme of more conservative younger priests has been the topic of recent
comment in the media, both secular and Catholic (see, e.g., Diana Jean
Schemo, "Priests of the 60's Fear Loss of Their Legacy," New York Times,
Sept. 10, 2000, section 1, cited in TNF, p. 303). Significantly for American
culture, this youthful conservative trend appears also among Protestant
evangelicals and Jews. Fortunately, the author supplements these statistics
with detailed observations, interviews, and anecdotes that portray a picture
of young orthodox Christians eager to embrace the challenge of a secular and
relativistic America by sharing their faith in Jesus. Especially heartening
are the anecdotes from universities where students gather and pray for
mutual support, and challenge, especially in Catholic colleges, the
liberalism of older campus ministers. The picture that emerges from the
interviews is that of highly educated and enthusiastic Christians with a
strong commitment to orthodoxy and a habit of being assertive in challenging
the liberal establishment. There is a populist quality to this youthful
"rebellion" of the orthodox that reverses the roles cherished by aging
liberals.
The author also documents an important trend among the
young and orthodox: ecumenism. Among Protestants, there is both a trend to
interdenominational gatherings and toward more liturgical worship. The book
also documents how many orthodox Catholics on campus feel that they have
more in common with orthodox Protestant evangelicals than with liberal
Catholics. The ecumenism portrayed is one based on unabashed devotion to
Christ, as opposed to a bureaucratic ecumenism emphasizing mergers and study
commissions. This new ecumenism challenges older practitioners by raising
the question: is ecumenism ultimately about mergers and studies, or is it
ultimately about praying together and praising Christ together? I submit
that, as in liturgy, a horizontal ecumenism without the vertical dimension
of devotion is, in the end, of little worth.
Another aspect of the trend worth emphasizing is the
embrace of traditional teachings on sexuality. Even the long-derided
Catholic ban on unnatural forms of birth control has drawn renewed favorable
attention among the young, to the certain shock of Catholic dissenters. It
appears from this book and others that the embrace by young Christians of
the traditional teaching that sexual activity belongs in marriage is related
to the devastation of divorce among their parents' generation and the
depressing consequences of widespread fornication. The author dedicates an
entire chapter to sexuality and the family and notes that sexuality "often
plays a central role in the conversion of young orthodox Christians" (TNF,
p. 136).
A major trait of the young orthodox movement is the
emphasis on evangelization among both Protestants and Catholics. Among
Catholics, the trend has been strengthened by the presence of converts from
evangelical Protestantism who maintain their commitment to spread the
Gospel. This trait is probably the most surprising because it requires the
most courage in a society where orthodox religious belief and devotion is
subject to mockery and disdain by cynical professors and fellow students in
many colleges and universities. Yet, it is precisely this commitment to
evangelization plus a commitment to marriage and children which augurs well
for the perpetuation into future generations of Christian orthodoxy. That
concern with handing on the faith to future generations is evident in the
growing popularity of home-schooling among orthodox Christians (cf. TNF, pp.
151-53).
The author goes beyond mere description to make a
thoughtful evaluation of both the strengths and weaknesses of young orthodox
Christians, including conservative Catholics (see p. 268). One challenge
that she notes repeatedly is that of refusing to retreat from engagement
with the secular culture both within and outside the churches. Such
engagement is necessary to be loyal to the evangelizing imperative of
Christian faith and to avoid an isolated, "quarantined faith" (TNF, p. 279).
Yet, the author is optimistic that many of the new faithful will be
"effective reformers" within their churches (TNF, p. 279). She also expects
that the new faithful will continue to use new approaches to evangelize
beyond the churches (TNF, p. 285).
For orthodox Catholics, this welcome trend among young
Catholics is an exciting work of grace, and its welcome effects spill over
to those of us born before 1965. Confirmation of this welcome work of grace
can be found in the anxiety of liberals whose failures have set the stage
for this revival of the faith. The author notes that the 2000 national
conference of the dissident group Call to Action was quite concerned about
"the conservatism of young seminarians and the overwhelming sense that
today's young Catholics no longer care to wage the battle for women's
ordination, married priests, and democracy in the church, battles that
consumed their baby boomer predecessors" (TNF, p. 281). Yet, it should not
be surprising. Truth by its nature propagates itself in spite of the best
machinations of its opponents, however sincere. False teaching, sooner or
later, collapses in the real world created by God. The young are perceptive
enough to see the collapse. |
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The Sunday (Portland) Oregonian,
October 20, 2002: Faith and the
Freshman
by Su-jin Yim
The temptations and freedom of college lead some
students to stray from religion, so churches try to forewarn them As early
fall sunshine seeps through the window blinds, Ben Burns tries to beam extra
protection into the heads of Mr. Custis' high school senior class.
"The devil will introduce doubts into your faith
at college," Burns tells the seniors at Westside Christian High School.
"If you lose confidence in your Bible, you'll lose
confidence in your faith," he reminds them.
"If you feel a little nappy, don't fight it," he
says reassuringly as one student lays her head on her desk. Burns, director
of college prep seminars with Campus Crusade for Christ, a Christian campus
group, knows he's not reaching all of the students in class. They're
seniors, top of the heap at school, and they feel bulletproof.
But, he knows if statistics hold true, a
significant number of high school students, even at this Lake Oswego
Christian school, will fall away from their faith during college. His goal
is to arm students with arguments, reminders and resources to call on when
their once-solid faith starts to waver.
As school revs up this fall, and freshly minted
high school graduates go to the bottom of the collegiate food chain, core
religious beliefs often get squeezed between studying, socializing and
carving out an independent identity.
"If they think they've been exposed to
opportunities for sex or opportunities for drinking now, college is a whole
different world," the 40-year-old, bespectacled Burns says. "They're walking
into an environment where it's very, very accepted to do these things. It's
not if you have sex, but how loudly."
Some college students steadfastly follow their
faith without the ready-made group of fellow believers they had in high
school and at home. Others dive into an organized group, such as Campus
Crusade for Christ; Hillel, a student Jewish group; or a Muslim community on
campus.
"College is party time"
But many find themselves straying from a wavering
faith that once felt rock solid.
"A lot of people here are very apathetic," says
Todd Melrose, a senior at the University of Oregon who says God called him
to transfer from a small Christian college in California. "It's the stage in
life where college is party time."
According to a 2000 report by the Barna Research
Group, the relative superficiality of teens' religious relationship leads to
"massive dropout rates among college students, with relatively few of those
young people returning to the church immediately after college." Only one
out of every three teens say they plan to keep church a part of their life
when they're living on their own. In contrast, more than seven out of 10
high school teens participate in some church activity in a typical week.
Lead us from temptation Brian Robertson, a UO
freshman from Lake Oswego, is getting a firsthand look at how college life,
newfound freedoms and loneliness can pull a Christian away from God's
commandments.
"There's swearing, there's drinking, all sorts of
things like that," says 18-year-old Robertson, who just joined a fraternity.
"You do it or you see it or you think about it and it's like, 'whoa,' you
gotta take a step back."
In high school, Robertson attended Our Savior's
Lutheran Church, toured with the youth choir group, helped lead a junior
high youth group and attended his own youth group.
"I was at church a bunch," he says.
Now, just a few weeks into school, Robertson says
he plans to join Campus Crusade for Christ, study his Bible and pray. He
hopes these efforts, along with "hopefully just getting my butt to church,"
will help him, he says.
Going to services every week helps calm a hectic
schedule for Shoshi Zeldner, a UO sophomore who helps coordinate Hillel's
outreach program.
"It's a nice break from the week, just like slow
down for a second," Zeldner says.
For Reed College sophomore Misha Isaak, the son of
a rabbi, every bite of food is an affirmation of his faith.
"Whether or not I've got a community to help,
Judaism is part of my diet, part of my everyday practice," says Isaak, who
keeps a kosher diet.
Isaak's faith isn't just about religion but about
the complex intertwinings of politics and power. As the crisis in the Middle
East boils over, tensions on campuses nationwide have grown, he says, and he
feels compelled to speak up.
"I think there's an automatic tendency to view
Israel as this oppressive state that has no legitimacy," says Isaak, who
jump-started Chaverim, Reed's Jewish student group, last year. "That's been
difficult for me to reconcile with my own identity."
Isaak was raised in a Conservative Jewish home,
but says he now is not as observant as he once was.
Consciously choosing faith A growing population of
students at some of the nation's top colleges is emerging as a new breed of
faithful followers who are attracted by the traditional core of
Christianity, says author and journalist Colleen Carroll, whose book, "The
New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy," (Loyola
Press, $19.95, 320 pages) was released last month.
"For them, hearing that God is demanding a certain
lifestyle from them, that there are certain things you don't do even if it
feels right, that is a lot more countercultural than parents think," Carroll
says.
But their interest goes beyond rebellion, she
says. Often, the students endure a period of questioning and doubt, only to
return to their faith.
"These kids may look like their grandparents in
that they're going to the same churches, living by the same moral code, but
in many ways they're very different," Carroll says. "They've consciously
chosen faith. They've never had the luxury to just inherit and not
question."
This surge of orthodox youth means some campus
organizations have to work harder to serve diverse needs even within one
religion. At UO, Hillel offers both Conservative and Reform services. Some
students find the group too different from their more traditional upbringing
to participate, Zeldner says.
"Some people I know won't go to services because
it's not what they're used to," she says.
Though Robertson, who graduated from Jesuit High
School, plans to get more involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, he says
being at college makes participating in religious life more difficult.
"It's definitely harder than it was being at
Jesuit," Robertson says. "Everyone over there was (in) some sort of
religion. It kind of makes it easy." |
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Booklist, the review journal of the American
Library Association
During the past decade, there has been a remarkable
resurgence of religious fervor among members of Generation X. Born into
privilege and prosperity, many of these young people are now searching for
spiritual, rather than materialistic, fulfillment. They are finding answers
to their questions in a relatively new style of Christian Orthodoxy.
Conservative churches are attracting droves of new members seeking both
substance and sustenance. Not content to merely practice their faith
privately, many of the newly committed embrace a more evangelical and
action-oriented approach to worship. Based on countless interviews with
young adults across the country, this exploration probes beneath the surface
of Christian Orthodoxy, analyzing the root causes and the diverse
consequences of this new religious movement.
-- Margaret Flanagan |
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Canada's National Post,
Saturday, December 07, 2002:
Catholic ghosts, past, present, future
Father Raymond J. de Souza
The season
might lend itself to casting these books as visits from the ghosts of
Catholicism past (Wills), Catholicism present (Weigel) and Catholicism
future (Carroll). The most topical of the three is Weigel's, and should be
on the list of anyone who buys Christmas presents for priests.
The Courage to be Catholic was written in direct
response to the American sexual abuse scandals and reveals some of the
twists and turns of the crisis, especially at the Vatican (Weigel is the
author of the authoritative biography of Pope John Paul II). Yet the
gravamen of Weigel's book is that the sexual abuse scandals are the bitter
fruit of 30 years of infidelity to Catholic doctrine, laxity in priestly
discipline and an unwillingness of bishops to act as courageous shepherds
rather than mere managers.
In response to a "culture of dissent" in which Church
doctrine is contradicted without consequence and a blind eye is turned to
moral failings, Weigel proposes a return to fidelity, beginning in
seminaries and extending to the criteria for selecting bishops. The uniting
theme of all his proposals is more radical discipleship and a return to
Catholic fundamentals.
The principal strength of Weigel's analysis is that he
always looks at the Church through a theological lens which, though it may
surprise many lay Catholics, is not always what bishops have done. This
permits Weigel to cut through all the legal and public relations blather
regarding priests who have committed grave sins. He begins with what the
Catholic Church says her priests should be, namely, icons of Jesus Christ.
In the sacramental imagination of Catholicism, the priest is not merely a
deputy of the congregation, nor is he simply the one authorized to perform
sacred tasks; rather he is by his ordination conformed spiritually to Jesus
Christ so that in seeing him, Catholics ought to see Christ himself.
That is why, Weigel, explains, a Catholic priest
remains a priest forever. The Church cannot take back that conforming grace
of the sacraments. Yet a priest who abuses children so deforms that image of
Christ that he can no longer serve as an icon, and therefore, Weigel argues,
he can no longer serve as a priest. It is a theological argument far more
satisfying than debates about concepts quite alien to the Church's
vocabulary such as "zero tolerance" or "one strike."
Weigel's book on the present state of affairs squarely
fixes the blame on those who have reigned supreme in seminaries, theological
faculties and episcopal bureaucracies for three decades. He calls them the
"Catholic Lite Brigade" for their desire to water down the traditional
faith.
The Lite Brigade, who would style themselves liberal
or progressive Catholics, have no more articulate spokesman than Garry
Wills, whose Why I Am a Catholic defends his allies' role in the recent
Catholic past. Wills' book is an "unintended sequel" to his book Papal Sin,
which indicted the papacy for institutionalized deceit throughout history.
This book attempts to answer why Wills remains a Catholic.
That being said, most of the book consists of
rehashing his dolorous history of the papacy; in the two millennia of the
Church, only Pope John XXIII seems to meet with Wills' approval. As he does
in Papal Sin, Wills presents a tendentious reading of history. Every
possible conflict is resolved against the papacy, to the extent that Wills
writes that the English Catholic martyrs of the 16th century should justly
be considered traitors to the English Crown. That is, to put it gently,
incompatible with the Catholic view.
Which gets to the heart of the matter: Is Wills'
presentation of the faith to which he adheres recognizable as the authentic
Catholic tradition? Whether Garry Wills should be a Catholic or Anglican or
Unitarian is something which no reviewer can pronounce upon, but it is fair
to conclude that the Catholic faith as he presents it is not how the
Catholic Church has historically understood herself.
For example, while Weigel calls for a renewed
priesthood in all its iconic fullness, Wills argues that the Catholic
priesthood is something endlessly modifiable, a creature of the Church's own
law. He likes to point out that Christ did not ordain anyone a priest, which
is beside the central point. Christ did not baptize anyone either, but
Catholic doctrine insists that both sacraments originate in the divine will.
In the end, Wills proposes not the flesh-and-blood,
gritty, Biblical faith that Catholicism is, but an abstract confection in
which one professes faith in general principles that never seem to make
demands in concrete situations. The upshot is that Wills adheres to a papacy
without popes, a creed without definite content, martyrdom without actual
martyrs, authority without authoritative judgments, and morality without the
moral drama of sanctity and sin. In short, it is Catholicism in which being
a Catholic does not really matter very much.
In The New Faithful, Colleen Carroll, a
twenty-something journalist formerly of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, says
that the future will not turn out to be the one Garry Wills imagined when he
was a young man. If Weigel calls for a new, muscular and confident
Catholicism, Carroll provides the evidence that it may be on the horizon.
Writing not just about Catholics -- though they do form the largest part of
the book -- Carroll identifies a new generation of dynamic leaders who are
opting in radical ways for the "tried-and-true world view of Christian
orthodoxy."
Canadians will recognize in Carroll's book of profiles
and anecdotal evidence the same scenes they saw on the streets last summer
during World Youth Day. Wills dismisses all that by appealing to survey data
that show that X number of Catholics disagree with Church teaching on this,
that and the next thing.
The future of the Church is not decided by those who
give answers to telephone pollsters. It is decided by those who give their
lives to the faith they hold to be true. The New Faithful is less an
argument than the story of lives touched and lives transformed -- and thus
may be the most important book of the lot, for that is what the Church
exists to do.
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Capital Times (Madison, WI),
December 17, 2002: BOOKS ON FAITH AND ETHICS ENLIGHTEN,
ADVISE
Looking for a sense of enlightenment, entitlement,
fresh perspective or foolproof advice? Check the store shelves for these
titles
By Mary Bergin of The Capital Times
"The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are
Embracing Christian Orthodoxy" by Colleen Carroll (Loyola Press,
$19.95) - The author, a newspaper journalist in St. Louis, contends that
young adults are doing an about-face regarding religion and morality by
rebelling against the liberal traditions of their families.
That conclusion is based on Gallup polls, sociological research, church
membership trends and the observations of denominational leaders on and off
major college campuses.
Anecdotal evidence is plentiful. The book has Gen X and Y tales of the
search for meaning in life, and the religious rituals that have become their
priorities. We read of students who start their own Bible study/prayer
groups, who attend Latin Mass, who are saving sex for marriage. Carroll, a
Marquette University grad, received a $50,000 Phillips Journalism Fellowship
to produce this book. She shows a bit of her hand in the book's
acknowledgements, where she writes that she is "grateful to the God who
answered the call of my heart." |
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Crisis Magazine,
April 2003
Orthodoxy Returns
By
Kathryn Jean Lopez
Even the most faithful Catholics could easily find
themselves depressed after this past year. So far as the mainstream media
are concerned, the Catholic Church is synonymous with abuse and scandal.
Most of us know better, but still the headlines and the water-cooler talk
can be hard to bear. A young reporter named Colleen Carroll has an antidote
for such discouragement.
In her new book 0 The New Faithful: Why Young Adults
Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy, Carroll tells the story of a "small but
committed core" of young Christians who want nothing more than to be
authentic members of their churches, young people who are increasingly
opting for "time-tested approaches to metaphysical questions." While the
book is not just about Catholics, Carroll herself is Catholic, and many of
the young Christians she writes about found their faith on the path to Rome.
If you have trouble praying for miracles, this book
might help. Consider: Well-educated twenty- and thirty-somethings-she
focused on those born between 1965 and 1983-who have grown up with moral
relativism, who have been taught to believe that there is no singular truth,
are again seeking Truth. And once they get hold of it, they're not
only singing its praises, they're living it. Peter Kreeft of Boston College
says, "Today's young adults are rejecting 'the old, tired, liberal, modern'
mindset in favor of a more orthodox one."
According to Carroll, this is not a small, isolated
movement. Something of a mini-Great Awakening seems to be afoot. University
of Chicago philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain told Carroll: "I certainly have
detected among my students a quest for some kind of purpose or meaning." She
notes the most surprising trend-students who arrive at a secular university
with a religious faith that deepens during their years there. And as Carroll
writes, these are not "perpetual seekers." These young adults are "committed
to a religious worldview that grounds their lives and shapes their morality.
They are not lukewarm believers or passionate dissenters. When they are
embracing a faith tradition or deepening their commitment to it, they want
to do so wholeheartedly or not at all." In other words, they are exactly the
kind of young people you want in your church-particularly when you think
about its future.
The numbers, though scarce, appear to back up the
author's hopeful contention. One study has found that nearly 80 percent of
teenagers consider religion a significant influence in their lives. George
Barna found in a 1999 survey that 42 percent of those born between 1965 and
1983 were likely to attend church weekly (compared with 33 percent of their
parents). A more recent survey of Catholics found that "the three core
elements of faith of today's young Catholics are belief in God's presence in
the sacraments (including the presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist),
concern for helping the poor, and devotion to Mary as the mother of God."
Another survey found that young priests today are "increasingly conservative
on theological questions" and (in Carroll's words) "have more in common with
conservative elderly priests than with the more liberal middle-aged baby
boomers who directly preceded them." This new generation of priests has not
been bred in the culture of theological dissent. Good news-especially if
they are able to benefit from the lessons of that culture's failure.
The author considers the rising demand for traditional
liturgy as another sign of this renewal. She remarks on "the popularity of
traditional services in mainline Protestant churches-like the Sunday night
compline service at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle that has drawn
crowds of more than six hundred, most of whom are young adults." The number
of U.S. dioceses offering Tridentine Masses rose from six in 1990 to 131 in
1999. Not long ago my own alma mater, the Catholic University of America,
was under the leadership of a president who adamantly preached that the
school was "a university before Catholic." Now, under a new administration,
the university hosts a popular Eucharistic adoration service.
The author is also interested in the impact this new
generation of converts may have on the culture at large: "The young adults
who embrace organized religion tend to be cultural gatekeepers who have a
disproportionately large impact in academic, artistic, political, and
professional circles. Their talents, education, and positions make them
natural trendsetters in the church and the culture." The book profiles
Capitol Hill staffers, book publishers, beauty queens, and, of course,
priests.
Carroll's generally sympathetic tone leaves room for
important reservations. She does not ignore the remnant mentality
alarmingly common among her orthodox contemporaries:
Conservative Catholics, besieged by fellow Catholics
and the culture at large, tend toward defensiveness and isolation.
Condemnations of them as judgmental and self-righteous sometimes reveal the
critic's own prejudices against orthodoxy. But often those criticisms are
deserved, as many young Catholics who adhere to papal authority or revere
liturgical tradition regard liberal Catholics or non-Catholics with a
mixture of condescension and contempt. Some seem doomed to repeat the
mistakes of the pre-Vatican II church that gave too little credence to the
laity and of cultural Catholics who confuse accidentals of the faith with
its essentials. Many young orthodox Catholics are sensitive to this problem,
but many others spend so much time with like-minded friends that they fail
to realize how others perceive them. If they do not guard against that
tendency toward rigidity, they could render their orthodox revolution
irrelevant.
Young evangelicals, on the other hand, have exactly
the opposite problem: Instead of isolating themselves from the greater
culture, they are sometimes "tripping over themselves to prove how relevant,
culturally engaged, and non-judgmental they are." Carroll argues
convincingly that prayer, Scripture, and the sacraments are the solution to
both problems.
Overall, The New Faithful is a hopeful book. The
conversion stories Carroll has collected give us reason to believe that the
Church may be quietly gaining ground on at least one front. The people
Carroll introduces us to are the kind of people we want to know are around
and with us as the Church in America enters the 21st century.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is executive editor of National
Review Online
(www.nationalreview.com) and an associate editor of
National Review. She can
be reached at klopez@nationalreview.com. |
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==================================================
ZENIT News Agency, The World Seen from Rome
==================================================
Generation X and the Turn to Christian Orthodoxy
Journalist Colleen Carroll on a Surprising Trend
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 29, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The
growth of evangelical "mega-churches" has long been a focus of media
attention.
Much less noted has been 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-X journalist, Colleen Carroll, set about to
document this trend. The result was a highly acclaimed book, "The New
Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy" (Loyola
Press).
Carroll described the phenomenon of "the new faithful"
in an interview with ZENIT.
Q: How did you ever launch upon this project of
finding out about "the new faithful"?
Carroll: I first saw signs of the trend toward
orthodoxy in the mid-1990s, when I was a student at Marquette University.
The students there were not necessarily of the "new faithful" mold, but they
also defied the "cynical slacker" stereotype of Generation X. Many had an
almost visceral attraction to God, the Church, and self-sacrifice.
Later, as a young newspaper journalist, I continued to
see a disparity between media portrayals of my generation and the young
adults that I saw all around me. 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. So,
with the help of a grant from the Phillips Foundation and a book contract
from Loyola Press, I set out to explore this trend and tell their stories.
Q: Is this "new faithful" phenomenon a part of the new
springtime in the Church?
Carroll: Yes, I believe the new faithful are at the
heart of the Church's new springtime and are a driving force behind the new
evangelization. I interviewed a mix of young Catholics, Protestants and
Orthodox Christians for "The New Faithful."
The Catholics I interviewed certainly stand at the
forefront of renewal in the Catholic Church. They are committed to spreading
the Gospel -- a commitment instilled in many of them by their hero, Pope
John Paul II.
Q: Who are the new faithful? Did they have any
previous religious background?
Carroll: As I mentioned earlier, 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.
These young adults have chosen to take Christianity
seriously, and have decided that embracing Christian orthodoxy is the way to
do that. Their faith commitments have led them to make countercultural
decisions about everything from who and how they date to which careers they
pursue and which political causes they embrace.
Q: Your title suggests that the new faithful are
embracing Christian orthodoxy. Does that mean Catholicism?
Carroll: The orthodoxy embraced by "The New Faithful"
is a small "o" orthodoxy that encompasses more than one denomination. Many,
many Catholics have embraced an orthodox practice of their faith, and my
book focuses a great deal of attention on them. But this trend crosses
denominational borders.
To draw boundaries for this book, I borrowed a
definition from G.K. Chesterton, who said orthodoxy means "the Apostles'
Creed, as understood by everybody calling himself Christian until a very
short time ago and the general historic conduct of those who held such a
creed." Or, as one young man told me, "orthodoxy means you can say the
Apostles' Creed without crossing your fingers behind your back."
Q: Are the new faithful receiving good catechesis?
From where are they receiving such teaching?
Carroll: Yes and no. Most of the New faithful,
particularly the Catholics in this group, did not receive good catechesis as
children. Many were raised by parents who did not know or teach the faith.
Many others attended Catholic schools and parishes where they learned "God
is love" -- and little else.
These twenty- and thirty-something Catholics grew up
in the years after Vatican II, when the American Church was still struggling
to make sense of the changes. They suffered the effects of a religious
education crisis, and many never learned even the most elementary Christian
teachings.
The good news: Many young adults have taken it upon
themselves to learn the faith and study Church teaching, by forming parish
groups to study Scripture, the Catechism, or the teachings of the Holy
Father. And many have benefited from the new boom in Catholic apologetics
materials and the rise of such popular apologists as Scott Hahn.
The Catholic apologetics craze -- driven in large part
by the catechetical demands of this generation -- reflects the deep and
widespread hunger for truth among today's young Catholics.
Q: What aspects of Catholicism did the new faithful
feel drawn to? Why have they chosen the Church or Christian orthodoxy rather
than the New Age spiritualities the Church recently addressed?
Carroll: The New faithful Catholics are drawn to
precisely those aspects of Catholicism that repelled many of their baby
boomer elders. They love Church tradition and history. They relish devotions
like the rosary, and they line up for confession in droves. They are
committed to eucharistic adoration and evangelization. And they love the
Pope -- not simply because they admire his personality, but because they
admire his commitment to defending the truth in season and out of season.
These young Catholics grew up in a society saturated
with moral relativism and dominated by the idea that they should "do
whatever feels good." They see orthodoxy as a fresh alternative to those
values, an oasis of truth and stability in a world gone mad.
While many of their elders criticize Church teaching
as rigid or retrograde, these young adults love the Church's time-honored
teachings and countercultural stands. To them, it is New Age spirituality --
not orthodox Catholicism -- that's empty, boring, and yesterday's news.
Q: What factors within the culture and the larger
society do you think gave rise to the new faithful?
Carroll: 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. These young
adults think that authority and tradition make more sense than free love and
no-fault divorce.
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.
For a Christian, the only way to understand those
stories is to take these young adults at their word, and judge God by his
works, and see this as the amazing grace of the Holy Spirit being poured out
on a generation once considered lost.
Q: Do you have any sociological data to back up your
findings? How widespread is this phenomenon of the new faithful and why is
it largely found among young, educated, professional people?
Carroll: The book overflows with statistics -- from
the Gallup poll that shows a growing number of teen-agers identifying
themselves as "religious" instead of "spiritual but not religious," to the
UCLA freshmen poll that shows approval for abortion and casual sex dropping
year after year. This trend has not swept over the entire generation, of
course.
The new faithful still constitute a fairly modest
segment of the population. But their influence extends well beyond their
numbers because so many of these new faithful 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. They are the
sort of bright, culturally engaged young adults that their peers tend to
follow. And they are uniting -- across denominational lines, in many cases
-- to bring the Gospel to every realm of American life that they touch.
Q: Do you see this phenomenon continuing for the
foreseeable future?
Carroll: This phenomenon is on the rise, and for the
reasons mentioned above, it has considerable room to grow and serious
staying power.
As this movement grows, the new faithful will be
tempted to fall into extremes of either isolation from the culture or
capitulation to it. Both extremes could undermine this movement and hamper
the spread of the Gospel by these believers. Those who want to be "salt and
light" in the world will have to keep those dangers in mind, and strive to
be "in the world, but not of the world."
Q: How has the secular media responded to your
findings? Has your book received much attention outside of Christian media?
Carroll: The secular media has given this book a good
deal of attention, which has been gratifying. "The New Faithful" has been
featured in the Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, Washington Post,
National Review, PBS, Canada's National Post, and dozens of other regional
newspapers and secular radio outlets.
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.
But to their credit, a fair number of baby boomer
journalists in the secular media have been willing to consider that the
excesses of their generation may have made today's young adults reluctant to
follow in their footsteps, and attracted those young adults to orthodoxy. |
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Canada's National Post,
December 10, 2003
Religion is no pyjama party
By Father
Raymond J. de Souza
It is a commonplace that the mainstream media just
doesn't "get it" when it comes to covering religion. Even so, every so often
something so embarrassing makes it to air that one suspects it was made entirely
without adult supervision.
That may well have been the case last Saturday with CTV's newsmagazine 21st
Century (the youth-oriented version of W5). The program was so extraordinarily
obtuse that mere incompetent reportage could not possibly explain it.
The program was ostensibly
focused on the religious landscape of youth in Canada -- with the promise that
surprising things are afoot. Indeed. The majority of the program was given over
to exploring Wicca, repeatedly ballyhooed as the "fastest-growing" religion in
Canada. How so? My brother recently got married, so his household is growing
faster than the world population, having doubled in just one year! Wicca is now
up to 25,000 adherents we were told, which would put this "fast-growing"
phenomenon at about 3% of the number of people who attended World Youth Day with
the Pope last year.
The comparison is apposite,
because the program also featured two young Catholics, a woman from Vancouver
and a Toronto man who had entered, respectively, the convent and the seminary.
In the former case, the WYD experience was a decisive factor.
What unites Wiccans and our new
vocations? Perhaps young people doing unusual religious things? Actually,
freakishness was suggested, but not of the equal-opportunity variety. The
Wiccans, we were told, were very responsible, cheerful folk, carefully adhering
to the "discipline" of ceremonial incantations and spell-casting rituals. As for
Sr. Antoniana, who left behind her family, and Ed Curtis, who left behind his
girlfriends, they were just a touch weird, illustrated with plenty shots of
weeping parents and frequent questions about sex.
CTV introduced us to a coven of
teenage witches, giggling through a slumber party as they fielded questions on
Wicca theology with all the sophistication for which the adolescent mind is
renowned. Not to worry, we were assured that contemporary witchcraft is the heir
to a millennial pagan tradition, even "older than Christianity." As for
Christianity itself, we were told that Jesus was "apparently celibate" and the
Church got around to priestly celibacy around 1600 or so.
In the upside-down world of
CTV's religious journalism, Christianity is the slightly curious novelty, while
Wicca is the laudable tradition. Young people embracing lifelong dedication to
worship of God, service to the poor, and yes, chastity, are subject to skeptical
scrutiny, while dilettantes who prance around a fire before donning their
pyjamas to gossip about cute boys are portrayed as serious spiritual seekers.
All of which is a shame,
because CTV missed an opportunity to cover what is truly remarkable on the youth
religious landscape today -- of which last year's WYD was a manifestation.
Documented in a remarkable book published last year by Colleen Carroll, a former
editorial writer with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, all across the United States
teenagers and young adults are embracing the orthodox demands of the Christian
tradition. Anecdotal evidence in Canada suggests that the same is happening
here. But in the absence of a Canadian version of Carroll's The New Faithful:
Why Young Adults are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy, further investigation is
needed. CTV might have profitably looked into that.
That religious affiliations and
practice are in decline is the standard storyline. But there are important
exceptions to that story, especially among future leaders who turn to orthodox
Christianity looking for the meaning that success in other spheres of life has
not provided. I serve as a Catholic chaplain at Queen's University and the
Christian fellowships and campus chaplaincies are vibrant and more numerous than
most other clubs. They don't get much attention -- and 21st Century is a perfect
example of why journalists are missing the story.
"Young adults who have grown up in a culture that celebrates self-indulgence and
sexual license and in churches that stress love of self more than service to God
have seen the fallout of self-fulfillment fads," Carroll writes. "Families
divided by no-fault divorce. Adults pursuing pleasure or careers with reckless
abandon. Children left to raise themselves, making adult decisions -- and adult
mistakes -- well before their time. The pendulum swings, and they find
themselves captivated by Christianity's emphasis on self-restraint, sacrifice
and commitment."
In that context, Sr. Antoniana
and Ed Curtis are far more important cultural harbingers than are the
slumber-party girls dabbling in spiritualism. Far from freakish, they are normal
young people who have discovered that the wisdom of the ages offers, well,
wisdom for our age too.
Carroll speaks about a
generation "weary with secularism." For those with a hankering after ersatz
spirituality, Wicca and other new-agey nostrums might fit the bill. But for
those who want the real thing -- accompanied by real sacrifice and real joy --
the ol' time religion is the answer.
© National Post 2003
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More information about The New Faithful: |
- The New Faithful has become required
reading for courses at several colleges and universities, including
Wheaton College, Benedictine College, and Immaculata University.
- A finalist for
the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award, The New Faithful
debuted and repeatedly returned to the top 10 bestseller list of the
Catholic Book Publisher's Association from 2002 through 2004.
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