Customer Reviews

Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion.

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Baby Boomers have hit the empty nest stage of their lives with a bang! For decades marketers and ministers have tried to understand how to reach out to Baby Boomers. With the advent of the empty nest stage of the lives of Boomers where often they function as a sandwich generation between aging parents and their children who are struggling to be adults, another great opportunity has presented itself. Therefore, as one who feels that congregations and parachurch ministries need to include intentional ministry to persons in the empty nest stage of their adult lives, I find this book to be valuable.

This book charts the emergence of five subcultures of Boomers: dogmatists, Born-again Christians, mainstream believers, metaphysical believers and seekers, and secularists. The value of this book is in its ability to provide you with an understanding of these five subcultures that is not based on shallow, pop research, but on in-depth suveys and interviews over a ten-year period.

One of the changes going on in Baby Boomers connections with congregations is that long-term loyal adults are dropping out when they become empty nesters, and those who left during their twenties and have not yet come back to a congregational community are now coming back as empty nesters. However, those who are coming back often find that congregations are not looking for them. They are looking for young adults, single adults, and senior adults.

This book both informed and affirmed something inside me. By calling the book the spiritual marketplace instead of the religious marketplace, the author immediately reveals the issues for a generation raised on modernity, but which nonetheless knows when it is spiritually hungry. It is almosts too simplistic to equate spirituality with inner experience and religion to outward beliefs, but it's good for a starter. The search culture seems to opt for community based on common inner experience rather than on "truth once revealed". A case in point is a cohort of "born again" boomers whose inner experience draws them into fellowship, but whose modern views shock the old guard who still equate spiritual fullfillment with a proper set of beliefs. Roof's findings make me cheer for the human spirit, the compass of which will always point north when distractions are out of the way. By listening to the stories and the data in Roof's book, I feel more hope that we really CAN find our way home.

Written with a 'hands on' approach, Spiritual Marketplace takes the reader on a exploration of what drives America's faith. The classic Catholic & Protestant models no longer seem to be working the way the used to. And yet Americans continue to identify with some sort of faith. The latest trend of describing oneself as 'spiritual not religious' is reflected in a market which prusues and explores alternatives to traditions that no longer seem to fit today's lifestyle. Roof offers great insights. The book keeps the reader engrossed and curious. Definitely worth the investment.

At the time this 1999 book was published, Wade Clark Roof was "a well-known commentator on religious trends in the United States (and) ... Professor of Religion and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara." He has also written books such as A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation, American Mainline Religion: Its Changing Shape and Future, Contemporary American Religion. Two Volume Set., etc.

He writes in the Introduction, "This book is about religious change in the United States as viewed through the experiences of the post-World War II 'Baby Boomers.' ... My purpose if to examine how the religious terrain itself is being transformed, and how trends now in place among members of this generation may be altering our most basic conceptions of religion and spirituality... and perhaps even our understanding of the sacred itself... Hence the thesis of this book: the boundaries of popular religious communities are now being redrawn, encouraged by the quests of the large, post-World War II generations, and facilitated by the rise of an expanded spiritual marketplace."

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"This culture of choice seemed particularly troubling in the religious realm. In Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, With a New Preface, readers were introduced to a young nurse, Sheila Larson, whose description of her own deeply personal style of religiosity---which she designated as 'Sheilaism'---was held up as an example of this new-style religious individualism. Sheilaism would quickly become a household word among religious leaders, journalists, and sociologists, who saw in her a worrisome image of the future." (Pg. 148)
"But we cannot overlook other kinds of spiritual networks and metaphysical enclaves, often hidden from social view, yet whose influence is not to be disputed. Most Americans live in 'temples,' it is said, but some people life in 'tents'---the latter referring to the more loosely knit associations less bound to a stable, geographic location and, to extend the metaphor, easier to repitch in the sense that they do not involve as much bureaucracy or theological orthodoxy constraining them." (Pg. 298)

Best and most lasting is knowing one has embraced faith. Roof's message is not new. Humanity has a long history of time spent on the elusive "quest" -- that long (and continuous) trail ever treading toward spirituality. A fulfilling goal. Yes I would recommend "Spiritual Marketplace." As an aside I will share a few personal observations. A friend and his friend, an older gentleman known locally as the 'Hermit of Cold River,'were both skeptical of all man's institutions. They eventually turned to a life time of living in the wilds of the earth's oldest mountain range, the Adirondacks, almost a century ago. There they found meaning in their life and discovered their greatest joys. I recommend reading LIFE WITH NOAH. A narrative of joy, a story of rediscovering one's values. Between pages of survival and adventure living in the outdoors one is treated with some beautiful prose. Backpacking pilgrimages have been taken into the Cold River valley just to capture God's grace and a fraction of the inner peace these men found among nature.