The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy by Colleen Carroll

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Now reading with Julie. The author is Colleen Carroll, a journalist in her late twenties. Another “Emergent Church” book, it focuses on Catholic renewal. Discovered via “Orthodox Twenty-Somethings”:http://www.nonviolence.org/cgi-bin/axs/ax.pl?http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=590, a review in TheOoze.

h4. Review/Thoughts By Julie & Martin

Colleen Carroll’s book The New Faithful is an attempt to examine the religious phenomenon of Christian theological “orthodoxy” among current twenty and thirty-somethings. Her goal is to consider two groups: the young evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic devout. Considering that this demographic is virtually invisible to the religious and social establishments dominated predominantly by white, upper middle class/upper class Baby Boomers, Carroll’s book represents a welcome and refreshing endeavor.

We purchased this book because we longing to hear stories of fellow young Christians sympathetic to the issues we face as two theologically conservative, post-liberal twenty/thirty-somethings. In an age dedicated to progress, openness, post-modernism, subjectivism, and, of course, metaphor, we’re often written off as reactionaries, as if simply believing something too much is a form of violence or bigotry. We find we often have a lot more in common with those of other faiths who also take care to root themselves in their tradition.

We opened The New Faithful eager to hear the voice of someone in our age bracket crying from the rooftops, “There IS objective truth, and there are young people who believe his name is Jesus!” In this sense, Carroll’s book has served as a reassurance that this demographic does, in fact, exist. But her book is hardly unproblematic.

The book started off great: Carroll’s writing style not only held our attention but was also insightful. We identified with much of what she was relating. So much so, in fact, that we found ourselves underling paragraph after paragraph:

bq. These young adults are not perpetual seekers. They are committed to a religious world view 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. When they are attracted to tradition in worship or in spirituality, they want to understand the underlying reality of that tradition and use it to transform their lives. That sense of commitment and total acceptance of orthodoxy sets them apart from many of their peers and fellow believers who share their affection for the trappings of religious tradition but reject its theological and moral roots. p. 11

Not far into the book, however, an annoying tendency soon became manifest. It appeared as if Carroll has a rule of not talking to anyone who isn�t an Ivy League graduate with Tom Cruise looks and a stock broker past. A remarkable number of interviewees were described as having movie star features. They were from elite colleges. They were the trend-setters of the future.

At the first repetition of this formula, we thought she had probably written the book too fast and gotten careless with a repeated assertion. At the second repetition we grumbled that she needed a good copyeditor. By the third time, we concluded she just had major class insecurities and needed to spend a little one-on-one time with therapist.

Finally, we began to suspect something else was at work. Many of these interviewees worked, lived, and worshipped in the Washinton DC area. Carroll’s focus on the uniqueness of her subjects as persons with innate leadership potential began to feel more and more like a promotion for a Future Leaders of America banquet. As we read on, it became more than obvious that she was writing this book for a particular audience. What we originally took to be sloppy journalism appeared more and more to be political talking-points. The first rule of interviews is to repeat the same points over and over so that the journalists will transmit the message you want. Why was a professional journalist writing on Gen-X relgious movements sounding so much like a politician?

Halfway through the book we finally decided to google “Colleen Carroll,” found her “website”:http://www.nonviolence.org/cgi-bin/axs/ax.pl?http://www.colleen-carroll.com/ and learned that our suspicions were confirmed. After the book came out she was invited to a number of speaking engagements sponsored by conservative Repubican Party politicians. She was well-received and before long got one of the most coveted jobs a twenty-something reporter could hope for: speechwriter to the President himself, George W. Bush.

A certain amount of congratulations are in order: this is quite a feather-in-the-cap for an ambitious journalist. Unfortunately though, she weakened the book when she decided to make it a Republican-Party calling card. More than that, the book itself is a compromise. Carroll cannot be trusted because her scholarship is not real. She not only began with a premise and sought out to prove it; she intentionally rejected any phenomena that failed to serve her agenda.

While the book brilliantly critiques Baby Boomer liberals, it gives Boomer conservatives a free pass. There’s nothing in this book that would upset a politically powerful, middle-aged conservative like Attorney General John Ashcroft. Just the opposite: this is a cooing love song promising that his spiritual and political offspring are resurging: good-looking, trend-setting, righteous conservatives are taking back the college campuses from the peace and justice Catholics at the Newman Center. Nor does the book take on the “incestuous amplification”:http://www.nonviolence.org/martink/archives/000100.php and group-think inherent in many religious institutions. Sadly, Carroll steers clear of any issue that might divide the old conservatives from the new ones.

The book could have been more. When Carroll writes about the problems of Baby Boomer liberal othodoxy in contemporary religious life, she’s fantastic. She has good observations and writes with wit and humor. As we’re both politically liberal (or perhaps more accurately, post-liberal), we enjoyed this tremendously and would love to recommend this as a book that attempts to correct what we see as the over-reach and thoughtlessness that’s overcome religious liberalism in the past few generations. But this audience would most likely see the uncritical conservative political agenda and dismiss Carroll’s entire thesis. (Julie would actually still recommend the book, with the caveats she lists at the end of this review.)

It’s instructive to compare this book to Robert Webber’s “The Younger Evangelicals”:http://www.nonviolence.org/Quaker/emerging_church.php (“see my bookstore review here”:http://www.nonviolence.org/cgi-bin/axs/ax.pl?http://www.Quakerbooks.org/info/staffpicks-martin.php) which contrasts the three twentieth-century generations, showing that the new conservatism is often a knowing and sophisticated reappropriation of religious practices or attitudes that have been lost or de-emphasized. Webber’s twenty-somethings don’t fit neatly into old left/right, conservative/liberal political stereotypes, but instead bring a new perspectives on faithfulness, issue advocacy and self-identity.

How we longed to see Carroll turn her observant gaze on examples that flew in the face of picture-perfect, white, upper-middle class, Christian traditionalists. The voice of a sincere, devout gay Catholic who was traditionalist in everything but his sexual orientation, for example. Or some D.C.-area activist who took his cue from Pope John Paul II and was outspokenly anti-war and critical of Presidential appeals to Christians to support the Iraq War. Or someone who worked on the street to build ties of understandings between Christians and Muslims as a way to defuse the “War on Terror” rhetoric. We could list dozens of examples like these, of individuals who are theologically conservative, but not necessarily politically conservative. It is apparent to us, as witnesses to this on a daily basis, that all too often theological liberals feel that they must also be politically liberal, and vice versa. This is not always the case. This is a major issue for many young Christians, and a divisive issue generationally. But Carroll wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole—it’s simply too controversial. And besides, it would be too messy, it would spoil her neat and tidy thesis.

We’re still only two-thirds of the way through the book. We’ve read reviews that it picks up again later. She’s on EWTN tonight (March 11) & we’re really looking forward to seeing it. Despite our reservations, we really like a lot of what she’s saying. It’s just that we wish she had said so much more. She tries so hard not to alienate politicaly-conservative Boomers that she backs off a lot of important issues just as she’s about to say something interesting. It’s fine if she’s a Republican, but why does she consistently insist that the conservative religious orthodoxy has to line up so perfectly with the conservative political powers that be?

h4. More to come as we continue reading the book….

bq. Note: Julie would recommend the book, but with serious reservations. Her reason: There are NO other books that she considers worthwhile out there that are attempting to describe this phenomena. Her reservations: 1. Carroll’s scholarship is awful. No, it’s actually painful it’s so bad. She doesn’t even quote studies themselves. She was obviously too lazy to read the actual studies so instead read, for example, Time Magazine’s synopsis of a study and so instead quoted that. She also quotes highly questionable sources. Also, her sample is not at all adequate. This leads to point #2: Carroll seems to have race and class issues and they stick out like a sore thumb in the book. It would’ve been cool to hear from a few African-American Catholics and the struggles they face in the Church, for example. And hey, what about some homely people too?! Not all of us Catholic traditionalists look like fashion models. And 3. Carroll, in my humble opinion, compromised the very endeavor she undertook because, while The New Faithful is really an extended opinion piece, she tried to make it look as if it was academically responsible (or at least quasi-scholarly), and it is not. The point: take The New Faithful with a grain of salt. Realize that yes, likely the phenomenon of Christian orthodoxy among the young is probably legitimate, but that her picture of it is not. She makes good points, it is an interesting read, and it may be foundational for future writers on this topic. For that, Julie would like to thank Colleen Carroll for being so perceptive and for taking the time to write the book.