Despite the masses still lining up to enter mega-churches with warehouse-like architecture, casually dressed clergy, and pop Christian music, the “Post-Boomer” generation—those ranging in age from twenty to forty—is having second thoughts. In this perceptive look at the evolving face of Christianity in contemporary culture, sociologists Richard Flory and Donald E. Miller argue that we are on the verge of another potential revolution in how Christians worship and associate with one another. Just as the formative experiences of Baby Boomers were colored by such things as the war in Vietnam, the 1960s, and a dramatic increase in their opportunities for individual expression, so Post-Boomers have grown up in less structured households with working (often divorced) parents. These childhood experiences leave them craving authentic spiritual experience, rather than entertainment, and also cause them to question institutions. Flory and Miller develop a typology that captures four current approaches to the Christian faith and argue that this generation represents a new religious orientation of “expressive communalism,” in which they seek spiritual experience and fulfillment in community and through various expressive forms of spirituality, both private and public.

本書は、現代キリスト教の変容を鋭く喝破した、社会学的洞察に満ちた傑作です。巨大教会の娯楽性に背を向け、剥き出しの「本物の霊性」を渇望する世代の魂を鮮烈に描き出しています。彼らの制度への不信と共同体への切実な帰属意識は、宗教の枠を超え、現代人が抱える孤独と救済を巡る切実な物語として深く響きます。 著者が提示する「表現的共同体主義」という視座は、極めて鮮烈な知の冒険です。個人の内面表現と他者との絆をいかに再構築するか。この困難な問いに対し、本書は冷徹な分析を超えた希望を提示します。精神的空白を埋めるヒントが凝縮された、知性と情熱が交錯する今こそ読まれるべき一冊といえるでしょう。