Comparing Texts
Robert Wuthnow gives a few aspects to the role of faith in young adult lives including church shopping, social networks, conversions, seekers, and spirituality apart from religiosity. How does these experiences of faith connect with Christian Smith's six religious types (committed traditionalists, selective adherents, religiously indifferent, etc.) and Mike Hayes' classifications of young adults (eclipsed, private, communal, sacramental, etc.)?
Where is the overlap between the readings? Where do the authors differ from each other in their outlook of young adults and their relationship with faith/church?
The primary overlap between the assigned readings of Hayes, Wuthnow, and Smith comes in the discomfort that each of the authors has in trying to describe and categorize the lived realities of young adults. While they each are interpreting data, they are all cautious about overgeneralizing the experiences of this large group of people.
ReplyDeleteThe obvious overlap is that none of these writers disagree over the data that congregational participation among young adults has diminished/continues to diminish. But what becomes interesting is how young adult participation gets characterized.
Wuthnow talks about church shopping and hopping as a common practice among young adults. I see it as a consumerist approach that comes from years of cultural and media formation regarding "choices." Such variables like parental level of education, economic status, number of geographic moves influence the degree of church hopping/shopping that a person engages in to get their spiritual needs met and to find a congregation to serve them.
Wuthnow is broadly focused on young adults in the context of American religion. He offers historical descriptions of religious experience in addition to interpretations of the data that he examines.
Smith offers six typologies to describe "emerging adults." From 'committed traditionalists' to irreligious emerging adults, he offers a kind of spectrum of religious involvement in an American context. With well described categories he then offers three case studies to demonstrate what it is that he sees in the religious life of young adults. Much like the tinkering that Wuthnow described Smith sees that same phenomena and urges care with regard to the enormous diversity of experience among this group.
Mike Hayes applies the designations of "millenials" and "Gen Xers"onto young adults and then applies Jim Basik's quasi-theologic-sociologic categories to describe the lived experience and the available data about young adults in the United States. Hayes has a specific focus on young adult Catholics. That was a helpful approach for me. He effectively described the consumerist approach to faith formation that Wuthnow also offered. He offered some clear insights about the diverse experience of faith within the Catholic Church.