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OMG!
One of my favorite topics to read and think about these days is religious outreach. I'm not entirely sure why I'm so fascinated by something that really just boils down to marketing strategy, but it's compelling anyway. The idea of trying to bring in unaffiliated people to your way of thinking, or your church, or your social-event-nominally-religiously-affiliated; and doing it in this hyper-secular country (and my part of the country in particular); can seem like the most futile of uphill battles. But we try anyway, and as much as I'm a part of it, I don't understand why.
Of course I'm talking about mostly (though not exclusively) Jewish stuff, since that's where my interests and my leisure time lie. I attended a panel discussion at my synagogue two months ago, featuring the editor of a major national Jewish periodical, about fixing the Conservative movement of Judaism. Everyone kept talking about all the failings as it exists now. How, basically, there's nothing for anyone but traditional Jewish families. Intermarried couples aren't welcomed. Gay people, though not as marginalized as in many other religious denominations, aren't as welcomed as they could be. There's nothing for young people. There's nothing for people who want a vibrant religious experience.
After this discussion, and not for the first time, my synagogue's new Men's Club president discussed the outreach problem with me. Why he came to me I'm not certain, but he wanted to know if I had any ideas about how our synagogue in particular could improve outreach. How we can draw in the people who our doors are always open to, but who don't bother to come. It's an interesting problem, no? I told him I had some articles to send him. Among other things, I had in mind Profile of an Unaffiliated Jew, which I think I've mentioned before here.
Really, I think the root of my interest here is that I'm in the particular demographic group that is hard to reach, and that is the most misunderstood. We 20-somethings, on the whole, are so much more religious than our institutions give us credit for! This has come up time and time again for me, even the rare times that I'm surrounded by a peer group that I didn't meet in a progressive Jewish environment. We young people are religious! We just don't want to be preached to. Or something else; it's different for everyone, I guess. But the groups that are trying to reach out to us just don't understand us well enough to do so, or they're a victim of such inertia that they can't see how we fit into what they already have, and neither can we.
I've been reading this fascinating poll. It's a full-blown research study with a great name: OMG!: How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era [warning: PDF link]. I'm only partway through it so far, but it's painting a picture of a religiously identified youth (people currently aged 19-26 were surveyed a year ago) that has a strong sense of self, has a diverse social network, finds a role for spirituality in life alongside all of life's other questions, and above all, isn't disappearing.
I don't know what the answer is. Hell, I don't know what the question is. But it sure makes for interesting reading.
And now, with the knowledge that not all of you out there are in this age group, or are Jewish, or are even in a place religiously that makes these questions make sense at all, even though I attempted to cover every possibility; and with the knowledge that the results here won't really mean anything at all; I'd like to take a poll.
Note: When I say "belong to a particular structure/movement" below, what I meant to say is "belong to a particular institutional structure within my religion (such as a local church/synagogue/mosque), or am a member of a movement within my religion". (The LiveJournal poll thing won't let me say that much. That's probably a wise decision on its part.)
[Poll #604025]
(And by the way, the nine choices in this poll are the reason I hate the question, "Are you religious?")
Of course I'm talking about mostly (though not exclusively) Jewish stuff, since that's where my interests and my leisure time lie. I attended a panel discussion at my synagogue two months ago, featuring the editor of a major national Jewish periodical, about fixing the Conservative movement of Judaism. Everyone kept talking about all the failings as it exists now. How, basically, there's nothing for anyone but traditional Jewish families. Intermarried couples aren't welcomed. Gay people, though not as marginalized as in many other religious denominations, aren't as welcomed as they could be. There's nothing for young people. There's nothing for people who want a vibrant religious experience.
After this discussion, and not for the first time, my synagogue's new Men's Club president discussed the outreach problem with me. Why he came to me I'm not certain, but he wanted to know if I had any ideas about how our synagogue in particular could improve outreach. How we can draw in the people who our doors are always open to, but who don't bother to come. It's an interesting problem, no? I told him I had some articles to send him. Among other things, I had in mind Profile of an Unaffiliated Jew, which I think I've mentioned before here.
Really, I think the root of my interest here is that I'm in the particular demographic group that is hard to reach, and that is the most misunderstood. We 20-somethings, on the whole, are so much more religious than our institutions give us credit for! This has come up time and time again for me, even the rare times that I'm surrounded by a peer group that I didn't meet in a progressive Jewish environment. We young people are religious! We just don't want to be preached to. Or something else; it's different for everyone, I guess. But the groups that are trying to reach out to us just don't understand us well enough to do so, or they're a victim of such inertia that they can't see how we fit into what they already have, and neither can we.
I've been reading this fascinating poll. It's a full-blown research study with a great name: OMG!: How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era [warning: PDF link]. I'm only partway through it so far, but it's painting a picture of a religiously identified youth (people currently aged 19-26 were surveyed a year ago) that has a strong sense of self, has a diverse social network, finds a role for spirituality in life alongside all of life's other questions, and above all, isn't disappearing.
I don't know what the answer is. Hell, I don't know what the question is. But it sure makes for interesting reading.
And now, with the knowledge that not all of you out there are in this age group, or are Jewish, or are even in a place religiously that makes these questions make sense at all, even though I attempted to cover every possibility; and with the knowledge that the results here won't really mean anything at all; I'd like to take a poll.
Note: When I say "belong to a particular structure/movement" below, what I meant to say is "belong to a particular institutional structure within my religion (such as a local church/synagogue/mosque), or am a member of a movement within my religion". (The LiveJournal poll thing won't let me say that much. That's probably a wise decision on its part.)
[Poll #604025]
(And by the way, the nine choices in this poll are the reason I hate the question, "Are you religious?")
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Though if that's your answer, then why define yourself as Conservative? People who convert don't even have the burden (or the luck, depending on how you look at it) of having to define themselves as a reaction to their parents, which is probably how most Conservatives end up there in the first place.
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At the same time, I do believe that Torah, particularly the oral traditions, have a significant basis in humanity and are not, in their entirety, straight from G-d and thus completely unmalleable. I find Modern Orthodoxy in its absoloute hard-line black-and-white interpretation of Torah just a bit too conservative for me, given my bent toward believing there's more human influence on the oral traditions than they're willing to admit, but I'm very much on the conservative side of the, well, Conservatives at the same time, at least around here.
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I have a deep distrust of religious structures that seem to throw accountability to the wind, to a point, and just say 'feel free to pick and choose whatever fits you,'
I would imagine that once you say "do whatever feel like" you cease to become a structure, in that whole "structured" sense of the word. I was always under the impression that that was the reconstructionist movement, anyhow.
And I totally agree with your interpretation of the oral tradition. As far as I can tell (or wish to have been the case), up until the point that Rabbi Yehudah codified it, the oral tradition was the living, breathing, organic arm of Jewish observance, custom and law, and could be refined each and every generation to fit the needs and circumstance of that generation. Which, frankly, is friggin elegant. Me wantee (it back)
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I belong to a particular structure, yes, in the sense that I became a member of a community in order to get a small benefit for a small cost (benefit: high holiday tickets; cost: nominal fee and providing for meals/kiddushes when asked/needed).
I'm happy there (choice one), but not exclusively there (choice two), and so often go to many other individual structures (choice three).
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Seriously, though, that's about where I am. I don't pay membership to any synagogue, but I attend mine pretty regularly and I'm (often) happy there. But I do consider myself Conservative (often), even though it doesn't fit me perfectly, and even though I often consider just dropping that label. And I definitely try to attend services in new places pretty often.
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"I still consider myself a member of my religion, but I'm not "religious" by any stretch of the imagination."
replace "religious" with "observant"
am terribly offended. die.
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and in this post being super-convoluted with posting and commenting etc. Whew! hard for me to read!
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Of course, there's some middle ground between those two options. Maybe "nation" would be more appropriate. I mean, sure, there are genetic traits that Ashkenazi (eastern European) Jews share, but we share those with a lot of Polish/Ukranian/Russian non-Jews, too. Then there's the cultural stuff (bagels == Jewish) and the religious stuff (Yom Kippur == Jewish) on par with each other, along with the stuff that's somewhere in between religious and cultural (Hanukkah candles == Jewish). All of those seem like better defining characteristics than racial ones do. Which isn't to say he's wrong, or that his point bothers me much. It's just not where I see Judaism's importance.
Why doesn't he choose to define himself as a half-Ashkenazi non-Jew, I wonder?
And I don't think intermarriage is any more frowned upon in Judaism than other religions. It is harder to convert to Judaism, yes, but I don't know if that's necessarily true historically, when compared to other non-proselytizing religions. I'm not a history person, though, so I can't say. I just don't see how those points make it a race more than a religion.
Sorry, that was really rambly.
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I'm religious, I belong to more than one movement, but don't really feel comfortable in any of them, but have managed to find structures outside the denominational paradigm that suite my needs.
except that my chayah (the 4th level of the soul, the one that relates to community - from jitw friday night get-to-know-you thing as facilitated by shulamit and eli d.) is majorly in flux - i've been wondering exactly what my place is in most jewish situations these days... and that's not even mentioning the academic existential crisis that was brough about by registering for spring classes last week!
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Though I think I was accurate in the "hyper-secular" part; just overreaching with the "country" part. I think the term applies well to the "megalopolis", the Boston-to-DC area plus suburbs. And especially to the youth in that area, as measured by affiliation. (You're right, there are parts of the country, especially parts I've never lived near, that are far from secular.) But as I'm trying to show here, affiliation isn't the best way to measure what people actually feel.