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In 2000, a journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch pitched an idea to the Phillips Foundation Journalism Fellowship Program. Colleen Carroll wanted to examine the attraction of young adults to Christian orthodoxy and their efforts to transform the culture. She won a $50,000 grant, took a year off from the newsroom, and delved into her research, meeting with over 500 "new faithful," young people devoted to orthodoxy. What she found turned out to be more widespread than she had expected.

Christianity Today associate editor Agnieszka Tennant talked with Carroll about her findings, which will be published in September in The New Faithful: Why Young Adults Are Embracing Christian Orthodoxy (Loyola Press).

When did you first become aware of the intense interest that many young people express in Christianity?

I saw signs of it for years. I was noticing things that ran counter to the conventional wisdom about Generation X when I was at Marquette University in Milwaukee. I was there between 1992 and 1996. A lot of what I heard and saw in the media didn't jibe with what I was seeing among my peers. Some of it did, and some of it still does. But I felt that a lot was being left out in the analysis of Generation X and, even later, Generation Y.

What surprised you most in your research?

I was surprised by just how widespread this trend was, how deep it runs in the culture. It wasn't spotty. I had so many stories and sources that I constantly had to turn down people who wanted to tell me their story, which is pretty rare. People were thrilled that someone was noticing something that they were living day after day.

What do you mean by orthodox Christianity?

I use a definition offered by G.K. Chesterton, who said that orthodox Christianity is "the Apostles' Creed, as understood by everybody calling himself Christian until a very short time ago and the general historic conduct of those who heed such a creed." He wrote that in 1908, but it still holds true. One Generation Xer, Andy Crouch, editor of re:generation and a ct columnist, defined orthodox Christians pretty succinctly as people who can say that creed without crossing their fingers behind their backs.

What about orthodoxy particularly is appealing to Generations X and Y?

You can look at it in two ways. One is sociological. These young adults are reacting in large part against a lot of what they grew up in or what they've seen around them—not only in the media and popular culture but even in their churches. Among Protestants, there is a swing against mainline Protestantism in some cases. Some young evangelicals might be moving into mainline churches looking for liturgy, but they're still committed to the central tenets of evangelicalism and very concerned about being in a church where the Word is preached and not compromised by other concerns.

For Catholics, there is a similar reaction. A lot of Catholics today grew up when the Baltimore Catechism was out and "God is love" was in. They learned a lot about love but they often didn't learn much of anything about the faith. And a lot of them left for a time and came back or rolled along with it until they had a reconversion experience and really looked into the faith. Now they're very committed to unabashedly proclaiming what Catholicism is and rejecting versions of Catholicism they think aren't true to the pope or to the teaching of the church or to Scripture.

In general, there is a reaction against the larger culture—a feeling of being saturated by greed, sex, and all the decadent forces in our culture. But sociology is not the full explanation here. There is a deep spiritual hunger that transcends sociology.

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August 5 2002, Vol. 46, No. 9