The Postmodern Tales

I tried, but I couldn't let this one pass. Hip kids are worshiping in house style churches where they indulge in "revived medieval liturgies or practices, including prayer labyrinths and lectio divina, or sacred reading, a process of intense meditation and prayer over a short biblical passage. Some borrow Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox rituals that pre-date the Enlightenment", because "[t]he Orthodox practices represent stability. Marriage you can't rely upon. With the dot-com failures, having mad computer skills doesn't guarantee you a good job. That stability isn't there."

Yes indeed, youth apparently doesn't want a megachurch anymore. They "want it like a dusty cathedral. They want a sense of mystery and transcendence. Anything that sniffs of performance turns them off."

Because of course, rituals yanked from their context are so stable that they couldn't possibly be a performance by children who are so unambiguously obsessed with being cool that they wouldn't go to an actual cathedral. After all going to an actual cathedral might make them less judgmental of other Christians:

"I'm not that kind of Christian, I go to a cool church,' " said Lindsey Gice, 26, a graphic designer who had given up church after high school.

The church and small groups provided a different kind of community, Ms. Gice said.

"I'd go to churches that were way too judgmental or too ambiguous," she said. "At Spirit Garage, there is no question what we're doing. We're talking about Jesus. We're taking communion. We're just doing it together, as a journey."

Go read some Chaucer, hip kids, and then tell me how a journey with the hipply homogeneous could possibly be as interesting.