Page 159 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

148 Born-agains and mainstream believers

reflexivity of these practices, rooted as they are in a postmodern moment
described by Giddens and others as an era where the self and self-under-
standing are dominant modes of consciousness. Third, Roof wishes to
emphasize that these trends are not self-centered or self-absorbed, but are
about “a deep hunger for a self-transformation that is both genuine and
personally satisfying.” 2
As I suggested earlier, these emerging ways of doing religion and spiritu-
ality are rooted in a “new paradigm” that combines a number of
dimensions into a frame of reference centered on practice. Roof calls this a
3
“lived religion” of everyday life that combines novel symbols, practices that
locate individuals in symbolic frames of reference, with the more-or-less
autonomous self that is both the active agent and the object of this religion
or spirituality. The larger societal context is also an important factor, with
traditional religion now having to compete with a media-saturated and
pluralistic society where mixing of religious traditions and symbols is the
4
norm. Roof sees the agency of the individual as a logical consequence of
the conditions of religion in late modernity. As he puts it,
To emphasize quest is to make the point that in an age when bound-
aries are especially permeable, when exchanges freely occur, spiritual
searching should come as no surprise. Flexibility and movement
encourage creative, soul-searching processes; the actual practice of
religion in a context of overlapping religious cultures and blurred
boundaries encourages a degree of self-scrutiny and reflection. Both
faith as traditionally conceived within religious communities and spiri-
tuality conceived in its extreme as its alternative require deliberation
and a sustained act of will, certainly under conditions where no single
type of religious institution or spiritual activity monopolizes symbol-
ization of the sacred. 5

While such self-orientation might raise anxieties in the absence of a sense
of form or grounding, Roof refers to Robert Jay Lifton’s notion of “the
protean self.” The object is to be fluid in that the individual moves freely
between contexts, locations, and symbolic resources, but yet grounded in
that what is sought is an explanation or a framework for understanding or
6
action. This desire to be “fluid, yet grounded” is in fact one of the most
difficult things for many to understand abut quest culture. It helps to keep
in mind that the whole practice circulates around the reflexive agency and
autonomy of the individual. A given set of symbols or practices derived
from a specific religious tradition need not depend for legitimacy on the
formal characteristics of that tradition. What matters is that they are
meaningful to the individual in her negotiation between traditions
(fluidity) and within traditions (grounded). As Roof notes, most of his
informants (and many we present in these pages) legitimate their quest