Tim Clydesdale - The Twentysomething Soul: Understanding the Religious and Secular Lives of American Young Adults

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

Oxford University Press 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 9780190931353

eISBN 9780190931377

To the late

Dean R. Hoge

scholar, educator, friend

The Twentysomething Soul is dedicated to Dean Hoge, who helped envision and initiate the research on young adults that forms the basis of this book before his untimely death on September 13, 2008. Dean was a greatly respected sociologist who spent the last thirty-four years of his career at Catholic University of America where he taught classes on sociology and published dozens of books and over one hundred articles and book chapters. A lifelong Christian, Dean hoped his sociological research would be useful to church leaders as they sought to understand changing social structures affecting church life. We are deeply grateful to Dean for inviting us to join this study of young adults and to carry on this project in his absence. We hope that Dean would be pleased with the finished book.

We also wish to recognize the many contributions of Jim Youniss and Tony Pogerelc. Both have seen the project through from the beginning, offering thoughtful contributions and constant support at every stage. When Dean fell ill, Jim stepped in to oversee the (successful!) writing of the research grant proposal, and after Dean passed, he remained a senior advisor to the project even though transitioning to emeritus status. Tony took on the role of principal investigator of the project awarded by the Lilly Endowment. We greatly appreciate his gracious leadership, especially his deft handling of financial matters and keeping us on track.

Our gratitude goes also to the Lilly Endowment and Chris Coble for their early support of Deans vision along with a four-year grant to gather the data presented in this book and to create a website through which to share expert information about twentysomethings with the public. Lillys funding enabled us to commission essays by sociologists, psychologists, and media studies scholars summarizing current research on twentysomethings along with commentaries from church leaders on these essays. In addition, we shared descriptive case studies of the congregations with vibrant young adult communities that are further analyzed in this book. It was Lillys and our hope that church leaders would find these freely available resources beneficial to their ministry. These resources are still available in the Catholic University of Americas digital archives.

This project was housed at the Catholic University of Americas Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies (formerly called the Life Cycle Institute), where Dean Hoge, along with colleagues Jim Youniss and Joseph Tamney, developed the initial plans for a national study of the religious lives of young adults. We are grateful to the Institute for supporting our work and especially wish to acknowledge the hospitality of director Stephen Schneck and administrative support of office manager Woinishet Negash.

A great number of people contributed to the research that forms the basis of this book. We wish to thank the project advisors Nancy Ammerman, Steve Warner, and Gerardo Marti, who shared their wealth of experience in congregational studies with us. Our gratitude also goes to the hard work of the research fellows who conducted the congregational studies and shared their insights with us: Walt Bower, Tricia C. Bruce, Richard Cimino, Justin Farrell, Ashley Palmer, Grace Yukich, and Hilary Kaell. We are also indebted to William DAntonio for his thoughtful advice on our national survey of twentysomethings. We benefited greatly from the assistance of students who helped with interviews, observations, transcription, and coding of hundreds of interview recordings: especially Karen Nevin, Nana Marfo, Mollie Kennedy, Elizabeth Jahr, and April Westmark.

This book would not have been possible without the generosity of hundreds of people who allowed us into their lives to observe their congregations and interview them. We are especially appreciative of the pastors who warmly invited us in to their churches, gave us access to their staff and layleaders, and introduced us to their young adults. We also want to recognize the universities that allowed us to interview students who do not have a religious affiliation. To the hundreds of young adults and church leaders who gave us an hour (or two or three) of their time to be interviewed, we are immensely grateful, and we hope that you recognize your journeys in the pages that follow.

This book would also not exist without the many years of encouragement and advice from Oxford University Press editor Theo Calderara. We are also grateful to editorial assistant Aiesha Krause-Lee for ushering the manuscript through its final stages, and to Doreen McLaughlin for her careful indexing of this topically diverse volume.

Lastly, we wish to recognize the role our families have played in the completion of this work. Kathleen thanks her amazing husband, Anthony, for his unfailing support while managing to work full time, earn a PhD, and raise our beautiful children, Jonah, Eva Marie, and Elijah, who will be twentysomethings much too soon. Tim thanks his beloved wife, Dawn, for her infectious laugh and saintly forbearance that she generously shares with this less-than-cheery author, and the many teens and twentysomethings who pass through our home, courtesy of our passionate, soon-to-be twentysomething, Grace, and our talented and now legal twentysomething, Jonah; you all have taught me much.

Maria is a thoughtful 22-year-old graduate student studying speech pathology in Texas. She hopes to contribute something to the treatment of autism. Her ultimate life goal, though, is to be a stay-at-home mom. We first met Maria at a parish focus group interview with seven other young adults at St. Anns Catholic Parish in the diocese of Dallas. St. Anns is a large parish, with 28,000 registered members and over a hundred different ministries. Because Maria did not get to say everything she wanted to say in the focus group, she asked to be interviewed individually. Maria is active in the parishs Twenty-Something ministry and attends Mass at St. Anns about twice a month, but during the week she attends morning Mass at another parish near her job. This kind of commitment to religious practice is not common among American twentysomethings, but it is not exactly rare, either: about 1 out of 4 of todays twentysomethings makes it a priority to both worship regularly and grow spiritually. So Maria is not alone in her devotion to faith, even as her daily Mass attendance places her among the most devoted of American twentysomethings.