Pastor John Wright

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November 30, 2009

Souls in Transition: Chapter 4 -- The Statistical Morass

Chris Smith attempts in chapter 4 to describe the "relgious and spiritual lives" of 18-24 years olds. Again, this is an abtraction as the study only has statistical warrant to analyzed groups that Smith argues are "Conversative Protestants," "Black Protestants," "mainline Protestants," "Roman Catholics," "Church of Later Day Saints," and "Jews." Sociologically, the groupings emerge that put Conservative Protestants, Black Protestants, and LDS emerging adults together; mainline Protestants fall with Roman Catholics and Jews -- with Jewish young adults showing the deepest accomodations to the liberal democratic culture in which we live that undercut their own sense of adherence to the synagogue. The statistics suggest that America is currently doing what early 20th century German could not -- eliminate the Jews as a historic, visible, distinct worshipping people.

Smith assesses on-going "beliefs" and "practices" of emerging adults, largely through methods of self-reporting. He doesn't find mass abandonment of the church or synagogue, although a decline is no doubt present. He writes,

"Ths first, simplest conclusion that one may draw from these findings, then, is that over the half decade between the teenage years of ages 13 to 17 and the emerging adult years of 18 to 23, there is a significant though not massive decline in religious identification--most of which in absolute numbers is drawn from the two main Christian traditions of Protestantism and Catholicism, but in relative numbers is taken especially from Judaism and Catholicism" (p. 105).

One notes that Catholics and Jews are those that emphasize the historicity of their divine election, and run into the most conflict with the presuppositions of a liberal democratic culture. But it seems as if they have lost the ability to name this tension for their youth, and to call them to deeper adherence to their historic tradition rather than their contemporary life.

Smith finds statistical evidence for what Charles Taylor has called "fragilization": the movement to and from and through different theological traditions (a la Bob Dylan). Taylor writes, "The existence of an alternative fragilizes each context, that is, makes its sense of the thinkable/unthinkable uncertain and wavering. This fragilization is then increased by the fact that great numbers of peole are not firmly embedded in any such context, but are puzzled, cross-pressured, or have constituted by bricolage a sort of median position. The existence of these people raises sometimes even more acute more acute doubts within the more assured milieu (A Secular Age, p. 556).

Because we live in a cultural tradition that undercuts other traditions to make claims on person's lives by creating selves that must express themselves according to one's own will, Smith finds nearly half the emerging adults move traditions (or subtraditions) from those in which they were formed as teenagers. Most of these movements are slight -- and usually in a direction of non-adherence or groups more assimilated to the culture. Except for those who had "no religion" as teenagers. Almost 1/3 of these when they hit emerging adult become engaged in a historic theological tradition. One sees that "fragilization" is not absolute secularization, but bears within it its own limits.

The statistics of the movement of emerging adults show that high adherence to a particular tradition becomes rarer and theological convictions becomes more privatized. Smith writes, "Clearly, personal involvement in actual religious communities is not for most of the emerging adults of any tradition examined here a necessary part of a life of faith" (p. 136). "Faith" is internal, non-bodily, intellectual assent relegated to certain times and places.

Here is the primacy of the cultural struggle in congregations like Mid-City that attempt to demand bodily adherence to a specific congregation in the proclamation of the Word, participation in the Sacraments, and personal engagement in the works of mercy. As the culture "develops" humans from childhood to teenager to emerging adult to adult years, the liberal institutional patterns gradually "de-naturalize" our concrete human relationships into abstractions and/or private convictions. "Human development" becomes a cypher for cultural assimilation, even if what the culture teaches is blatantly false and ultimately personally and morally debilitating. As persons "develop" more "autonomy" (i.e., are more deeply assimilated into the cultural categories provided by the political structure) and achieve "financial stability," they become less willing to have their lives embedded in social structures that are not "voluntary" -- based on the will -- unless one is paid to do it. And, one might add, have less time or interest to interact with the poor when they have so many other things to do.

Smith tells a story of how assimilative the American "social imaginary" is to "emerging adults." Theological traditions (mainline Protestantism, post-Vatican II American liberal Roman Catholicism) that have assimilated to these structures, to support it, end up losing their teen age adherents to the secularity of the culture; some evangelicals migrate to mainline Protestants to sustain their numbers (only to secularize in the next generation). Until the ultimate implications of total secularity with its nihilism sink in. Then bigger questions are raised.

Fragile and fragilization. This is not normal; this is the particular institutional form with which we must deal with in North America. We have to be able to name the dynamics so us not to let it distort life from how it really is. We are embedded in a social, institutional context that seeks to fragilize all others. It is this larger, largely silent claim on our lives, that we must learn to name and be reshaped from to achieve a genuine freedom -- not freedom to exercise our will arbitrarily, but freedom for the Triune One who has created and redeemed us, and called us into concrete congregations for the formation of our lives.

Posted by johnwright at November 30, 2009 12:31 PM

Comments

Theological traditions (mainline Protestantism, post-Vatican II American liberal Roman Catholicism) that have assimilated to these structures, to support it, end up losing their teen age adherents to the secularity of the culture;

How are these traditions assimilating to these structures? In what concrete practices is this being done?

Posted by: Ryan at December 1, 2009 12:20 PM

Hi Ryan!
Welcome! Smith will cover this later in the book. But in sum, I would argue that these traditions have a diminutive concept of revelation. Within these traditions, "revelation" is within the immanence of history, usually within an experience of the self. "Religion" becomes personal, private, subject to the critical assessment of the person. One needs not adhere or conform to the revelation; revelation conforms to the desires of the self. Adherence becomes "optional" if the individual finds it personally profitable.

How does that do?
John

Posted by: John Wright at December 2, 2009 7:59 PM

Yes. Thanks!

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