Rating: 
Summary: Evangelical is Not Enough
Review: Seeker Sensitive Churches primarily attempted to woo Baby Boomers into Church by removing any hint of tradition, ritual, symbol, or mystery. This may have appealed to the Boomers, but it is proving to be ineffective--even empty--for Generation X and Millennials. This book if proof of this. In The New Faithful, Colleen Carroll documents the rising interest in traditional orthodoxy (with all its rituals, mystery, and symbols) and traditional morals among young Catholics and Evangelicals. The "new faithful" are ecumenical, traditional, and culturally-savvy. They seek to engage their culture while remaining critical of their culture. In short, this book is proof that tradition, liturgy, ritual, symbol, mystery, and historically-rooted and informed orthodoxy still exists and is growing stronger every day. Churches still seeking to remove any hint of these things should take note--they may be irrelevant in the years to come to the budding "new faithful".My only critique of this book is that Colleen does not have a sophisticated view of postmodernity. She views postmodernity through a completely negative lens. She often equates postmodernity with secularism and relativism. In doing this she fails to deal with the subtle nuances of postmodernity. If the "new faithful" are not more careful than Colleen in their interactions with postmodernity, they may end up just another marginalized and irrelevant, separatistic fundamentalism in the end--and that's the last thing we need more of!
Rating: 
Summary: It's about time!
Review: The truth is that hundreds of America's brightest 20- and 30-something men and women are passionately orthodox Christians. They go to Ivy League schools, make millions, write, think. But the middle-aged types (producers, professors, Howell Raines) hollering loudest into the media microphone deny it. At my self-consciously elite university, being a serious Christian felt like belonging to an anarchists' circle or communist cell. I met other believers one by one, and slowly learned that there were schools and clubs, whole new communities of friars and nuns, journals like First Things -- loads of smart people actually thinking about God. Why had I never heard anything about any of this before? Colleen Carroll gets real about what's going on in America, and her honesty is refreshing. This book is first-rate journalism, balanced and deliberate. She choses her subjects well, and their stories are often moving. Bet the best part about the book is the glee you'll feel at how our generation is violating all the posted rules of the hippie establishment. Marlo Thomas is wearing supphose, but Thomas Aquinas never grows old.
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