The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy [Hardcover]

Colleen Carroll Campbell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

The New Faithful is a groundbreaking book that examines the growing trend toward religious orthodoxy among today's young adults.  author and Journalist Colleen Carroll Campbell offers strong opinions on how this movement might transform an American society steeped in moral relativism and secularism.

Blending investigative journalism with in-depth analysis, Campbell seeks the reasons behind the choice of orthodoxy in a socity that often denigrates traditional morality and rejects organized religion.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

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
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Loyola Press; First Edition, First edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0829416455
• ISBN-13: 978-0829416459
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #966,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Young adults revealed with truth and depth!, November 10, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Hardcover)

Colleen Carroll has done an incredible job of describing why and how some young adults in our culture have thrown aside the liberated views passed down by the baby-boomers and have chosen a life-style of commitment, mystery and faith. Through powerful personal stories, the reader discovers that this counter-cultural lifestyle is more than a sociological trend or backlash of divorce and materialism. Instead, for the young adults spotlighted, their choices actually balance the extremes of the ultra restriction and conformity of the Fifties and the reckless and relative views of the Sixties and Seventies. We can see, on a very intimate level, how Generation X-ers have sought and found meaning and depth in their lives through authentically living out orthodox Christian faith. Personally, this book has helped me understand why I, as a young adult, think and act as I do--very insightful.
"The New Faithful" is an inspiring account of a small, yet powerful portion of our society. Carroll has the wisdom, experience and superb writing ability to convey precisely what is going on in the heart of our generation. A must-read for any young adult--faith-filled or not--and anyone hoping to understand them better.

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing, Distressing, Depressing . . . Delightful!, December 15, 2002

By 

James H. Toner (Montgomery, AL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Hardcover)

Colleen Carroll's thesis is simple: "[T]he future of orthodoxy [that is, traditional, customary, established religious belief and practice] in America looks bright" (p. 265). Young adults, she says, are increasingly turning (or returning) to the faith--Greek or Russian Orthodox, Evangelical Christian, or Roman Catholic--in which they were born (between 1965 and 1983). They are unfulfilled by or even angry at the vacuous and hollow ideologies of secularism, materialism, hedonism, and relativism which exalt the self or proclaim, as do nihilists, that there is nothing of worth or of everlasting meaning. Ms. Carroll is particularly incisive in her examination of Catholicism, which lost a generation of young adults to incompetent and even cowardly catechesis, to religious (priests and nuns) sometimes concerned more about politics than souls, and to widespread disaffection with orthodox Church teaching and corresponding self-deification. In a society plagued by rampant divorce (p. 123), by media corruption (especially movies and TV [pp. 249, 257], and by a soulless spirituality which offers only jejune sentiment to people instead of the sacramental realities of established religion (pp. 4-6), young adults are turning, she says, to Christ as the center of their lives. But this Christ is not a "superstar"; rather, He is the Savior Who expects total commitment of heart, mind, and soul (Mt. 22:34-40). And this devotion, she says, is what yong adults desire--not balloons; not flowers; not silly church music (as opposed to the classic hymns and chants); not liturgical improvisation; not a demand for women priests, or for nuns in mini-skirts, or for priests who preach a feckless gospel of worldly values (p. 281). Ironically, Archbishop Sheen had it exactly right in a 1949 book, PEACE OF SOUL: "Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved; there can be no world peace unless there is soul peace." Thus come back the timeless devotions of Eucharistic Adoration, the rosary, the stations of the cross, benediction--and, of course, the Mass, Sacred Scripture, Sacred Teaching, and Sacred Tradition. Young adults seek out, and matriculate at, serious Catholic and Evangelical colleges and attempt to reform from within the apostate colleges (pp. 179, 184) which have at least partly lost their reason for being. Despite countertrends, there is increasing concern about natural law (p. 171), about genuine ecumenicism between Evangelicals and Catholics Together (p. 275), and about commitment to Christ. One of her main points is that "there is a positive future for the Catholic Church in particular" (p. 284). All this is disturbing, distressing, and depressing for liberal Protestants and Catholics intent upon "progress" without Authority, without Mystery, without Miracle, and for media intent upon echoing the timeless and mocking question of the nihilists: "What is 'Truth'?" But this book is delightful for orthodox Christians who believe that Christ is, as Pope John Paul II expressed it, "the answer to the question mark that is every human life." Warmly recommended!

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Journalism But Unconvincing, September 10, 2003

By 

Arthem "arthem" (Knoxville, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Hardcover)

I would have loved to write an entirely positive review for this book. I certainly respect the author and believe her thesis. There are many positives to the work put into the book, as well as to the publication of the book itself.

However, I found the book to be a largely anecdotal effort. While certainly meeting (modern) journalistic standards, I remain unconvinced that America is really seeing a significant trend of permanent orthodoxy among the Gen X'ers (among whom I am counted).

I want to believe Carroll, and much of her argument agrees with my own experience. Still, it reminds me of a Neil Peart quote: "My precious sense of rightness is sometimes so naive, that that which I imagine is that which I believe."

I didn't find the book to be a particularly engaging read. The content seems repetitious and the same points are made in identical manners in several different places in the book. We are reintroduced to the same sources in different contexts. I certainly can't say that the book was not well written, but it seemed disjointed.

In any case, the author has much more experience with a diverse population than I do, and her argument is very encouraging. Hope springs eternal, and I'll join her in praying that the tide has turned against secularism.