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Believers, dogmatists, and secularists 191

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good example of this. She is a 41-year-old mother. Kim’s spirituality is a
combination of Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist principles combined in a
way that the former is tempered by the two latter.

Kim: I would describe myself as basically being Christian but, you know,
not a 100 percent focused on being a Christian like Christian people
think I should be, and a lot of other spiritual stuff. Because, it’s like
there’s a lot of Buddhist stuff that I can relate to, there’s a lot of Hindu
stuff I can relate to
Her spirituality is particularly focused on questions of reincarnation. When
asked to reflect on the role that media play in her spirituality, Kim immedi-
ately moves to a description of kinds of music that serve this function.
Kim: In my music I, ever since I was a kid, I’ve looked for kind of that
combination of the Christian idea but also something more. And so, I
also in my music I’ve always looked for a connection of, like the earth
and everything on it, that type of idea, like the Native Americans had of
everything being, of interacting with each other. So I’ve often looked for
that kind of thing in my music, too. Of that whole idea of, you know,
not just . . . I mean I certainly in my music don’t listen to like Christian
gospel music . . . you know, when I think about spirituality in my music,
that’s [gospel music] certainly not what I’m thinking. It’s more, hearing
something in the music that has to do with that whole idea of basically
everything. . . . I mean not to the point that everything has a soul like,
the trees and whatever. But just the whole idea of everything being, you
know, interacting with each other and that being important.

These families, who are describable as “metaphysical believers and
seekers” according to Roof’s definition, differ markedly from other cate-
gories in terms of their religiosity and spirituality. They also differ from the
families in the other categories in terms of their ideas about ideal role of
media in their lives. However, they seem not to differ from the others so
markedly in terms of their acquaintance with contemporary media such as
television. Most of them have watched the most popular contemporary
programs and genres, and have clear ideas about their content. There are
issues beyond content, though, with most of them also articulating a
concern not about the content of television but about its tendency to domi-
nate the time and attention of children and families.

Dogmatists
Based on our reading of Roof’s description of this category, I speculated
in Chapter 3 that we’d expect them to be the most “dualist” in their