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One
in every four of them say they can imagine God as a Mother. One in three are born-again
Christians. Two in three support the ordination of women. Who are they? Whether you think
of them as the Love Generation, the Now Generation, the Pepsi Generation, the Rock
Generation, or the Me Generation, they are the "boomers," the baby boom
generation of 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964.
Many people have speculated about the boomers'
beliefs and higher values (or lack of same). Now the details of their spiritual worldview
has received substantial factual representation in the new book A Generation of Seekers:
The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (Harper San Francisco). It's a massive
study that tells us all we ever wanted to know about the spiritual lives of baby boomers
but didn't have the means to find out. The research, involving surveys as well as in depth
interviewing, was funded by the Lilly Foundation. The director of the research and author
of the book reporting the results, is Wade Clark Roof, who is J. F. Rowny Professor of
Religion and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Roof compiled 80 questions to ask of a stratified
sample of 1600 boomers, plus some comparative groups of older Americans. Among the
questions: Do you feel God is personally involved in your life? Do you believe God is
"within us"? How much do you think about why there is suffering in the world?
What happens after death? Is it good to explore many different religious teachings and
learn from them, or should one stick to a particular faith? The researchers followed up
this survey with an in-depth telephone interview conducted with one third of the
respondents. Then they conducted face-to-face interviews with 64 of these people. There
followed several group meetings with respondents to discuss in still more depth some of
the spiritual or religious issues that emerged in the earlier interviews. Clearly, the
study was thorough.
The book contains so many interesting charts and
statistics, it is easy to graze among the facts. When asked, for example, "For you,
which is more important: to be alone and to meditate, or to worship with others?" 53
per cent preferred to be alone, and 29 per cent preferred to worship with others. 28 per
cent indicated a belief in reincarnation and 26 a belief in astrology. These two figures
were constant, regardless of level of education. In the older generation, belief in these
two controversial areas existed mainly in the less educated. Sixty per cent prefer to
explore a variety of religious teachings, while 28 per cent feel it is important to stick
to one faith. The greater the amount of education, the greater is the desire for variety
in religious exploration. There may be a pattern here.
Roof puts the facts together to present a picture
with many complex patterns, and offers some startling conclusions. For starters, the
boomers are spiritual seekers. Almost without exception they believe in God. Although they
picture God in different ways (and many are struggling to find an image they can accept),
they all seem to have an instinct for spiritual commitment, something that will take them
beyond themselves. They have, however, an apparent deep division in their ranks.
Roof describes as a "spiritual divide"
the split between those boomers who are of a fundamentalist Christian orientation and
those who pursue less conventional spiritual paths, from Native American spirituality to
Zen Buddhism. He finds several points of divergence in these two groups: the self
orientation of the less conventional vs. the Jesus orientation of the fundamentalists,
inner authority vs. outer authority, individualism vs. uniformity, mystical vs. theistic,
letting go vs. mastery and control, spiritual vs. religious, and being influenced by the
"sixties" vs. "sheltered" from that influence. Billy Graham, of an
older generation, and speaking from one side of the issue, summed up the essence of the
difference when he said, "The locus of the conflict in the world today rises from the
battle between the absolute and the relative." The boomers are split over whether the
spirit is sought within oneself, where in might appear in many guises, or in outside
authority, where it would appear in a more uniform fashion.
The tension between unity and diversity is
archetypal. The One and the Many: one God, the Creator, yet many Creatures, all of whom
experience a certain autonomy. This tension is at the heart of our country: E Pluribus
Unum, out of the many, one. It's dangerous to allow either faction to gain the upper hand.
If individualism were to win the day, there's the danger of chaos. If the forces of
uniformity and control were to become dominant, there's the danger of a dictatorial,
soul-murdering society. It's hopefully possible and definitely fruitful to hold the two
factions in creative tension.
Roof himself suggests a possible tension bridge
over the spiritual divide within the boomers. For one thing, he found ample evidence that
the fundamentalism of the boomers is quite to the left of earlier generations. There are
many concessions to individualism, most notably the premise that having a better life is
the prime motive for being a good Christian. He concludes that the self-improvement ethic,
regardless of the images or vocabulary used, unites all boomers. Self-realization, whether
focused through an external ideal, or inwardly through the prompting of one's own heart,
would seem to be the boomer's common search. Roof also found that as that search matures
toward self-fulfillment, boomers are uniformly committed to sharing the fruits with
others. As self-fulfilled becomes self-transcended, boomers become united in diverse
manners of helping others toward self-improvement. The boomers then, in pursuing intently
the two branches of the pluribus-unum dialectic, may be playing a special role in
preparing the next generation to integrate these forces within themselves. Such a
development certainly would portend a Novus Ordo Seculorum, the New Order of the Ages
which seems to be the outer goal of the boomers' inner spiritual search.
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