Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 30, 1994 TAG: 9405060001
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID BRIGGS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LOUISVILLE, KY. LENGTH: Medium
Since then, she has performed 47 funerals, but has attracted 150 new members and others who participate but have not joined. There are now 200 people in church on Sunday, nearly two-thirds of them baby boomers.
Many of the baby boomers are open, interesting people who are great at cocktail parties and more than willing to pitch in for community service projects, Blaisdell said. But amid all the success, there are lingering doubts about the substance of their faith commitments.
``It's me and my Jesus, or you and your Jesus or Buddha or whatever works for you,'' she told a recent conference of sociologists, pastors and theologians who gathered to discuss ``Baby Boomers and the Changing Shape of American Religion.''
The good news from the conference sponsored by the Louisville Institute for the Study of Protestantism and American Culture is that the nearly one-third of Americans who are baby boomers are interested in spirituality.
The more disturbing news is that the spiritual quests of many of the 76 million people ages 30 to 48 are startlingly personal, and the claims of past generations of church tradition and sources such as the Bible are far less compelling to them than past generations.
Many researchers saw a gloomy short-term prognosis for traditional religions, particularly for mainline Protestant churches such as the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
In a study for their book, ``Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers,'' sociologists Dean Hoge, Benton Johnson and Donald Luidens surveyed 500 people ages 33 to 42 who were confirmed in Presbyterian churches in the 1950s and 1960s. Half were now classified as ``unchurched,'' while only 29 percent remained active Presbyterians.
Sociologist Penny Long Marler of Samford University said many young adults have so little denominational identity and their biblical knowledge is so vague, ``I think it's going to have to be something tantamount to a conversion experience'' to bring them actively back into the religious fold in large numbers.
If the research on baby boomers is not discouraging enough, there are signs the baby buster generation has even looser ties to organized religion, researchers said.
In Canada, only 14 percent of people under age 35 reported attending church weekly in a national survey, compared with 37 percent of people age 55 and older, said Reginald Bibby, a sociology professor at the University of Lethbridge.
``The farm systems are in trouble,'' he said.
But there remains widespread spiritual interest, many researchers said.
For example, 88 percent of Canadians in a 1991 census reported a religious affiliation, and 90 percent still turn to religious institutions for funerals, Bibby said.
``The churches are going broke at a time when the population is going hungry,'' he concluded.
``The problem might be lying with the churches.''
Wade Clark Roof, author of ``A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation,'' said baby boomers have shown by their interest in the environment and cultivating relationships that they are open to new kinds of spiritual searches, and ultimately ``new ways of being church.''
``American religion has always been individualistic,'' said Roof, professor of religion and society at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ``I'm more hopeful that out of this individualism will emerge new forms of community.''
To balance the spiritual needs and spiritual gifts of baby boomers at Central Christian in Indianapolis, Blaisdell said the church is considering requiring people to take some sort of religious education program before allowing them to sign on as volunteers in community service projects.
Even if boomers cannot articulate many theological claims of their faith, they are close in spirit in their empathy to people in need to such central messages as the need to love one's neighbor as oneself.
She told the story of a homeless man in his 40s who was living out of his car when he first came to the church. Now, he is a volunteer in a street ministry.
His rationale: ``I just know I want to treat people who come through these doors the way the church treated me.''
by CNB