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Dialogues@RU is published annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume One
Spring 2002
The Evolving
Spiritual and Religious Landscape of American Culture -
Page 2
by Christopher J. Flor
The decades before the 1950s were dominated by war and depression, as was the majority of early American history. Foremost, the early twentieth century began with World War I, which was followed by the ethical controversy of Prohibition, then by the Great Depression, and finally by World War II. Robert Elwood, author of the book, 1950: Crossroads of Religious Life, sees religion as being the backbone of surviving these ordeals (2). The children who grew up through these trials were raising children during the 1950s and gave them a unique pessimism during optimistic times. Their children were the Baby Boomers and their pessimism would develop into a social revolution that would force this nation to reconsider the authority of its institutions. However, the rebellion of this generation was foreshadowed by the strange indifference of the one directly preceding it. This generation was the one which fostered the literature of the Beats, typified by Jack Kerouac's novel, On the Road. That novel signified a generation with nothing by which to stand where the lead characters aimlessly travel the country looking for the intellectual answers about life. Elwood defines this generation as being "not rebellious" while "waiting for the next move of fate" (222). What made this generation different from its predecessors was a lost enthusiasm for the nation which was destroyed by the ethical problems revolving around the dropping of the atom bombs in Japan and the over dramatized paranoia of McCarthyism against Communism. This lost enthusiasm for the institution of American government planted the seeds for the rebellion of the Baby Boomers during Vietnam which would develop into a widespread skepticism against institutions in general, including religion.
With the seeds of skepticism planted after World War II, Porterfield describes the attitude of the Baby Boomers during Vietnam as "a break down of belief in the sacred canopy of American culture" (93). While historically, Americans were known to rally together for war, many Baby Boomers found themselves rallying against war during Vietnam, displaying the rebellious attitude that the previous generation ignited in their pessimism. These rebellious attitudes were fueled by the traditional transcendentalist literature that was being taught in High Schools following World War II. Baby Boomers went through high school reading Walden, The Crucible, and The Scarlet Letter, all works that embody the idea of civil disobedience and the act of questioning authority (Porterfield 94). The Baby Boomers grew up learning the values of questioning the morality of authority which in fact was being taught to them by their preceding generation that was dominated by the Beats. Ironically, a great amount of Beat literature makes reference to transcendentalist literature, such as Allen Ginsberg's poem "Love Poem on a Theme by Whitman." The title itself introduces a reference to the transcendentalist poet, Walt Whitman. Such values derived from this education sent the Baby Boomers on a quest where they would "stand up against society for the sake of conscience" (Porterfield 95). This quest, which began with questioning the greatness of American government, evolved into questioning the greatness of organized religion with another catalyst that would also facilitate such questioning: increasing religious pluralism.
With the potency of religious institutions already in question by the Baby Boomers, the increasing religious pluralism of the nation gave this generation somewhere else to find spirituality. This pluralistic increase began with the loosening of immigration laws during the 1960s (Lippy 156). These legal changes brought a large influx of immigrants from Asia bringing with them Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The Hippie subcultures of the Baby Boomers were quick to embrace these religions which the Hippies saw as having a more openly intellectual approach to life than the dogmatic religions of Christianity. Another religion that the Hippies embraced was Wicca that was brought to the United States from England which had recently repealed its Anti-Witchcraft laws. Wicca was accepted among the Hippie subcultures for it's deep reverence for nature, an ideal that was greatly valued by the group. Wicca, as stated, along with other New Age religions would continue to exist sub-culturally in the United States until its pop culture surge in the 1990s (the surge which this project attempts to explain). With these new religions growing in the nation, the Baby Boomers were able to turn away from the currently suspect religious institutions in the United States that had been the status quo for so long.
Author Wade Clark Roof in his book, A Generation of Seekers, focuses on a number of individual Baby Boomers who exemplify the generation's suspicion of religious institutions. One of his examples is a man named Barry Johnson. Clark quotes Barry commenting on his life during the social revolution of the 1960s as being a time of the "rejection of old values" (12). Barry, like many others of his generation dropped out of church during his teen years. Now in adulthood, he would only join a church that "doesn't have rigid beliefs or guidelines" (11). Wade accredits Barry's skepticism to a "loss of confidence in governmental and social institutions" (12). Such skepticism against institutions parallels Elwood's ideas about the lost enthusiasm for American institutions as well as Porterfield's "breakdown of belief" in American culture. Barry's skepticism was fueled by his resistance to the Vietnam War and the events of the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. With these historical events, Barry lost faith in the reality with which he was raised and forced him to begin questioning the world around him. Many Baby Boomers share this experience having shared the same history. Barry's accounts exemplify the attitudes of most Baby Boomers during their early adulthood and their present beliefs.
The religious skepticism of the Baby Boomers soon transferred into Generation X, which is associated with children born between the years of 1960 and 1979. Tom Beaudoin, author of Virtual Faith, sees Generation X as being unique in that it had nothing to fight for. The generation is characterized by single parents, latchkey children, and a thirst for pop culture to replace the nuclear family. In terms of religion, the generation is described as being "lost" and "irreverent" (Beaudoin 175). Beaudoin also cites a cynicism of "Xers" that stems from the perceived failures of the Baby Boomers to create change in society. Despite Beaudoin's insistence of the generation's unique qualities, there seem to be many connections between Generation X and the Beat Generation of the 1950's. Both generations have been described as having nothing to fight for and as being cynical against the status quo. In Generation X's case, these individuals were cynical about the rebelliousness of their predecessors. However, the Xers are on a even larger search for spirituality because they were raised without it. Charles Lippy, in his book Pluralism Comes of Age, notes, "individuals construct a world of meaning through which they understand and interpret their own human experience" (159). Perhaps the great search for spirituality among Xers stems from the fact that their parents did not transfer a world of meaning to them. Therefore, the search to perceive reality (especially through God) is left solely upon the individual.