Generalizing about social trends among Canadian youth and young adults can be misleading. “Listening to The Echo” is a research project that concentrates on “adulto-lescents” who are not active in formal religious communities. But I don’t want to suggest that the entire generation or cohort is behaving in a unified, coherent way.
Many different social dynamics are occurring at the same time in our society. Parents and grandparents notice that children and grandchildren may be more religious or more traditional than they are; and, of course, some see their children and grandchildren drop out from religious community.
This true for Christians and Jews, Muslims and Hindus – everyone.
We don’t know how this breaks down in our Canadian population, and I am not attempting to discover that in any statistically-reliable, quantitative study. But there is recent American research that may serve as a reference point.
Download the full document:
Echo-6-Types-of-Spirituality.doc
Next week: Echo #7: an “Echo moment” in Holy Week.
Echoes #1 to 5 are posted at
http://campuschaplaincy.ca/category/listening-to-the-echo/
If you would like to receive new Echoes via email, you can address me at
tomsherwood@campuschaplaincy.ca
I’ll be sending out weekly Echoes for the next two months.