The Transformation of American Religion by Alan Wolfe

...By providing sufficient empirical detail so that readers can decide for themselves whether the problems created by these contemporary transformations outweigh the benefits, the book serves as a sort of Rorschach test...

...dominant hue is beige...

...I often wonder, "Why am I here...

...When I look at Wolfe's verbal ink blots, I tend to see a half-empty glass headed toward total emptiness...

...His central thesis is: "In every aspect of the religious life, American faith has met American culture-and American culture has triumphed...

...Wolfe charts this transformation in eight chapters, each of which explores change in a particular domain of religious life...

...At the same time, the attachment to tradition has often been the source of religious xenophobia, and if that has been lessened over time, good...

...For example, the view that the person is the proper end of religious fellowship neglects "the kind of sensibility that reminds individuals that there exist duties and obligations to traditions and forces more permanent than their immediate wants and needs...

...Mallozzi is a young-adult Catholic who remains loyal to the church and is active in her parish, and for that I suppose gratitude is in order...

...We go to Mass for God, not for ourselves...

...Instead, he takes care to highlight both gains and losses in the process of change...

...I go because it is an obligation established by Christ...

...In doctrine, feelings have triumphed over ideas...

...And so on...

...Although his examples often seem unusual, Wolfe is describing mainstream American religious life...

...Given that parish involvement for Mallozzi revolves around herself and her needs, it's not surprising to read that she doesn't feel obligated to attend Mass...

...Yet the nature of her attachment to the church is troubling...

...And sin...

...Wolfe recounts a Mosaic service he attended that focused on "plugging in" to the church and its activities...

...David Yamane In The Transformation of American Religion, Alan Wolfe takes us on a tour of some of the most fantastic developments in America's religious marketplace...

...When it owned its facility, Mosaic dispensed with staid pews in favor of couches, bean bags, and lounge chairs...

...He finds that contemporary worship increasingly emphasizes meeting the personal needs and interests of members (he later calls this "liturgy for dummies...

...I need to belong to a parish," she says, "that is going to nurture me and offer me the tools in the areas that I need...

...Wolfe dislikes certain aspects of American culture (for example, its "hedonism" and "short attention span"), but he's ambivalent about their effect on religion...

...I'm not getting anything out of it...

...Mosaic's membership is equal parts Caucasian, Latino, and Asian, and more than half work in media and entertainment...

...More positively, Wolfe concludes that the transformation has softened religion's divisive, sectarian impulses and rendered it un-threatening to America's pluralistic, liberal democratic political system...

...The relationship of members to their congregations looks more and more like free agency in sports- people shop around for the church offering the best pay package...

...Seems unlikely...

...American religion may be a mosaic, but thanks to the leveling power of American culture, its dominant hue is beige...

...Unfortunately, Wolfe's book leaves me wondering whether religious resistance to American culture can be anything other than marginal...

...Similarly, there are obvious benefits to nonjudgmentalism, especially in terms of civility, but insofar as this view of sin reflects an image of God, it reinforces a "tamed" conception that makes Wolfe uneasy...

...This positioning-a particularly American one- may account for his evenhanded assessment of these developments...

...But I recognize that this self-cen-teredness ought to be remedied by Mass...

...Lord knows I'm not always thrilled to be at Mass...

...Two recent histories of American Catholicism by my Notre Dame colleagues Jay Dolan (In Search of American Catholicism, Oxford) and John McGreevy (Catholicism and American Freedom, W. W. Norton) highlight a creative tension between Catholicism and American culture, but Wolfe suggests that when we look at "how we actually live our faith," we find little tension today...

...Wolfe reports that these theatrics seemed successful in driving home the service's theme...

...The "old-time religion" (epitomized by Jonathan Ed-wards's 1741 sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God") has passed, trumped by an increasingly mass-mediated American culture dominated by mutually reinforcing therapeutic and utilitarian forms of individualism...

...This is especially true with respect to the general trend toward an excessive focus on the self...

...The notion of witness advances a form of proselytizing that is just another form of marketing, subject to the whims of popular culture...

...As you might detect, I like my religion somewhat countercultural...

...The service included a "riff"-rather than a sermon- on a passage from Luke that was punctuated by a group of young members dressed as cheerleaders jumping on stage and spelling out "P-L-U-G-G-I-E...

...Wolfe bucks the religious-commentator trend of either celebrating or lamenting the transformation of American religion...

...Perhaps nothing better captures that emerging spirit than Mosaic, a Los Angeles church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention...

...Wolfe comes to this material as a sympathetic outsider...

...Nonjudgmentalism" articulates a one-dimensional view of God as understanding and empathetic...

...Wolfe could have filled the book with scenes like this, but to his credit he avoids the temptation to write a sociology of the bizarre...

...Entertainment Center, a nightclub space sometimes rented by Shaquille O'Neal...

...Immigration from the Southern Hemisphere...

...Wolfe's books suggests that the acids of American culture will dissolve the dis-tinctiveness of these traditions just as it did those that came before them...

...What especially troubles him is how individualism tends to become narcissism in culture and religion...

...I hate rules, such as 'you have to go to Mass,'" she declares...

...Can anything shift the balance...

...I reacted strongly to Wolfe's characterization of Mary Mallozzi, a thirty-year-old cradle Catholic he calls "the kind of Catholic for whom the church ought to be grateful...

...Plug-gie turned out to be another church member dressed as an electrical plug...

...I am not, and have never been, a person of faith," he writes...

...A secular Jew with no formal training in the study of religion, he nonetheless heads the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College and has become a leading public commentator on American religion...

...Its cutting-edge services are now offered on Sunday mornings in a high-school auditorium and Sunday evenings at the L.A...

...Instead, he draws on the best contemporary sociological studies and his own research to show that the same cultural forces that give rise to Mosaic are transforming other churches and synagogues of many stripes...

...Perhaps the growth of non-Judeo-Christ-ian traditions...