A friend and former colleague from CBS, Dick Meyer, has weighed in on a phenomenon he knows well: the difficulty of some to embrace traditional faith.

By way of introduction…Dick has just published a new book “Why We Hate Us”, which Publishers Weekly describes thusly: “In this study of American social self-loathing Meyer addresses why Americans have come to hate themselves (and each other) at a time of national prosperity and relative peace.”

How does this translate to matters of faith?

Take a look and see what you think:

Having no ability or capacity for faith, religious practice or mystical experience, I am fascinated and attracted to people who do. In high school, I spent a long, hot Ozark summer working on a ranch with a man who came back from the war in Vietnam born-again. He was studying to be Pentecostal preacher and his final exam was to convert me, the lonely little Jewish boy with whom he worked. I enjoyed the hours we spent picking rocks out of a hay field when he preached at me and I argued back citing Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche. I majored in Comparative Religion in college.

Since then, I have thought consistently about why it is so hard for many Americans of my generation and younger to embrace traditional inherited religion. “Traditional” is the key word here. It is obvious that since the 1960s there has been no shortage of spiritual seeking. There has been an equally obvious rise in alternative religion, including Christian fundamentalism, which isn’t especially traditional in many parts of the country. This is rather different than Europe, which has tended to just reject religion in all forms.

I am not a sociologist of religion. But my most influential professor in college, and now my close friend, was. Arnold Eisen is the now the Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary (and a member of the On Faith panel). His book “Taking Hold of Torah” discusses the challenges of modernity to traditional religion, specifically Judaism:

“…the loss of integral Jewish community has meant that Jewish commitment is a matter of choice. That is nowhere more true than in contemporary America, where the freedom to participate fully in the life of the larger society is in every respect greater than has ever been before, indeed is nearly absolute. We are living, moreover, in what is very likely the most mobile society that has ever existed on the face of the earth… It is no wonder that the Jewish community in this situation has to argue for every single Jewish soul, compete for every pledge of allegiance against and ever-increasing wealth of beckoning possibilities, and must do so not once in a person’s life but repeatedly, year in and year out, because each of us not only decides where to live, but with who and how.”

The two critical factors are community and choice. In my book, “Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium,” I discuss how diminished community and increased choice have challenged not just religion, but our broader capacity as individuals to get happy and content, and our capacity as a society to solve problems and produce culture we are proud of. Religion and faith are important elements of that.

My great-grandparents, grandparents and parents all lived in insulated communities of German Jews, in America. They were reform Jews whose families had fled Germany around 1848, extremely assimilated (a term of denigration to many other Jews), secular and non-observant. They had unadulterated and strong Jewish identities, part cultural, part historical and part ethnic; they had realistic and unbending views about anti-Semitism and the social marginalization of Jews.

That is the religious tradition I inherited and that I feel is an invariable core of my identity – no matter what choices I may make in life. Nobody but me thinks of this as something religious. I am not observant and I am not a believer. Within my own skin and experience, however, I feel traditional.

What I certainly lack is a German-Jewish community of reform Jews. They really don’t exist in America anymore. Community is what nurtures religion organically; without community, religion is not inherited and taught by example – it is chosen and in some ways improvised. In America, that can be like any other consumer choice.

Many essential ingredients of human happiness deteriorate when people live among strangers, far from relatives and grandparents, lifelong friends that span the generations, familiar merchants and neighbors. Americans are mobile; often we move by choice – to get away from a stifling small town or a dysfunctional family, or to pursue an education or better job. These are choices we make, choices with consequences. For many Americans, the consequence has been fewer social ties and close confidantes, less help raising children and shallower roots.

There’s much more at the WaPo link. Read the whole thing. It’s worth it.

Oh, one more thing (warning: shameless plug ahead)….take a moment to buy his new book, too.

UPDATE: The Anchoress has chimed in with her own thoughts on Dick’s book — and a lotta links to other postings about him and his work. Check ’em out!