140 Wade Clark Roof
commentators. More often than not, the discussion focused on the dire implications
for religious institutions in their loss of membership loyalty and support, and far less
on what this deeper inward turn might mean spiritually for the individuals themselves,
or for the rise of a spiritual quest culture permeating not just the larger environment
but the churches, synagogues, and temples that were a part of that environment.
Terms such as narcissism, privatism, and “Me-ism” surfaced as descriptions of the
cultural mood at the time. Research documented relatively high levels of religious
switching, or movement from one religious affiliation to another, and, likewise, much
movement in and out of active participation within congregations of various tradi-
tions. Religion emerged as an important institutional arena in which to observe the
expression of individual subjectivity and fluidity. Observed as well were high levels of
biblical illiteracy and a growing lack of familiarity with religious denominations and
traditions. Not surprisingly, this was the time when the impact of the large post–World
War II boom generation was very much being felt on all the major social institutions.
Having grown up on television, lived through the Vietnam War and Watergate, and
caught up in the cultural revolutions with regard to race, sex, and gender and lifestyle,
the baby boomers became well known for their distrust of institutional authority, for
developing new styles of networking and decision making, and for turning inward
on themselves. This triad of experiences – shifts in notions of authority, institutional
realignments, and self-focused inwardness – came together making this generation a
crucial carrier of cultural and religious changes. More than any other constituency,
it is this generation, so argues Robert Putnam (2000), that became the vanguard for
what he describes as a culture of “bowling alone,” or the decline in civic and religious
involvement following the 1950s.
But the religious changes were complex and subtle. The enhanced subjectivity and
moral and cultural relativism of the period generated a fundamentalist religious resur-
gence, aimed at reclaiming an external authority – described variously as Scripture,
tradition, or God. Yet we should be cautious not to exaggerate the strictness of this
resurgence. For despite all the talk of “a return to stricter moral standards,” almost
half of the evangelical and fundamentalist respondents in our survey reported being
uncomfortable with rigid moral rules and insisted, above all else, on following the
dictates of their own conscience (Roof 1999a). The mood of the time favored moral
accountability, but not at the expense of individual freedom and even flexible religious
styles. Especially in the aftermath of the therapeutic culture of the 1960s and 1970s,
the “new evangelicalism” would take on some features that distinguished it from the
more conservative, fundamentalist-leaning Protestantism.
The appeal of popular evangelical faith that has emerged in the years since lies
in no small part to its focus on personal needs, and not simply on dogma or strict
morality. Psychological categories such as “self,” “fulfillment,” “individuality,” “jour-
ney,” “walk,” and “growth” became prominent in its rhetoric reconciling a legitimate
self with a deeply embedded American religious narrative emphasizing the benefits
of faith (Hunter 1987: 50–75). Survey analysis shows in fact that “personal need” in-
dicators better explain evangelical involvement than do the more customary socioe-
conomic variables that have long been used by social scientists (Shibley 1996). Put
simply, evangelicals are well on their way toward being absorbed into an accommo-
dating middle-class culture that encourages self-expression and creativity, acceptance
of diversity, and, perhaps most revealing of all, a softening of traditional assumptions