Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion.

This book charts the emergence of five subcultures of Boomers: dogmatists, Born-again Christians, mainstream believers, metaphysical believers and seekers, and secularists. The value of this book is in its ability to provide you with an understanding of these five subcultures that is not based on shallow, pop research, but on in-depth suveys and interviews over a ten-year period.

One of the changes going on in Baby Boomers connections with congregations is that long-term loyal adults are dropping out when they become empty nesters, and those who left during their twenties and have not yet come back to a congregational community are now coming back as empty nesters. However, those who are coming back often find that congregations are not looking for them. They are looking for young adults, single adults, and senior adults.

Both Deep and Wide
This book both informed and affirmed something inside me. By calling the book the spiritual marketplace instead of the religious marketplace, the author immediately reveals the issues for a generation raised on modernity, but which nonetheless knows when it is spiritually hungry. It is almosts too simplistic to equate spirituality with inner experience and religion to outward beliefs, but it's good for a starter. The search culture seems to opt for community based on common inner experience rather than on "truth once revealed". A case in point is a cohort of "born again" boomers whose inner experience draws them into fellowship, but whose modern views shock the old guard who still equate spiritual fullfillment with a proper set of beliefs. Roof's findings make me cheer for the human spirit, the compass of which will always point north when distractions are out of the way. By listening to the stories and the data in Roof's book, I feel more hope that we really CAN find our way home.

The Long Arm of God.
Best and most lasting is knowing one has embraced faith. Roof's message is not new. Humanity has a long history of time spent on the elusive "quest" -- that long (and continuous) trail ever treading toward spirituality. A fulfilling goal. Yes I would recommend "Spiritual Marketplace." As an aside I will share a few personal observations. A friend and his friend, an older gentleman known locally as the 'Hermit of Cold River,'were both skeptical of all man's institutions. They eventually turned to a life time of living in the wilds of the earth's oldest mountain range, the Adirondacks, almost a century ago. There they found meaning in their life and discovered their greatest joys. I recommend reading LIFE WITH NOAH. A narrative of joy, a story of rediscovering one's values. Between pages of survival and adventure living in the outdoors one is treated with some beautiful prose. Backpacking pilgrimages have been taken into the Cold River valley just to capture God's grace and a fraction of the inner peace these men found among nature.