The American Conservative

Dear Ms. Rowling,

I just read Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. And I was a little disappointed.

To start with, I do appreciate the format: plays are rather fun to read, and a nice change of pace from the novel. It’s not something we see every day, especially in YA or fantasy literature. It’s obvious that—with a careful and creative hand—this could be a really fun production to watch live (if one had the $10,000 necessary to buy a ticket at this point). And I’m sure that the production will inspire and excite those who did not grow up with Harry Potter, giving them new characters—such as the protagonists, Albus and Scorpius—to identify with.

Additionally, I should applaud you for continuing to set forth important virtues and thematic concepts in your work. Since the beginning of the Harry Potter series, you’ve talked about the importance of membership and friendship: suggesting that no one person, however talented, can (or should) ever act alone. The characters in your book are supporters of the idea that men are social animals, that “a cord of three strands is not easily broken,” that familial relationships are important, no matter how torn or fraught they might be. And these themes are refreshing in our increasingly solipsistic, solitary world.

But the praise ends there. Because this work is such a poor offering in contrast to the literary greatness and sparkling prose of your previous books, it’s really not worth mentioning in the same sentence.

To some degree, I understand why you’d want to keep proffering Harry Potter works to your fans. They’re loyal, dogged fans. When you created Hogwarts and the Harry Potter universe, you created something truly special and unique, and the millions who’ve read your books just don’t want to let go. You have continued to answer their questions and speak to their yearnings for Harry Potter creations over the past nine years, whether on Twitter or via Pottermore or in various interviews.

That said, I think you should stop—now.

I think your series will always be a classic, on the level of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. But only if you cease and desist from publishing mediocre fiction to supplement the original greatness of the Harry Potter series. The seven volumes were unique, sparkling, creative, and endearing. They were about as perfect as a seven-volume children’s series could get: aging with their audience, developing complexity and thematic intensity as Harry, Ron, and Hermione grew. The books were engaging for old as well as young (my father-in-law just finished reading them, and loved them), and the characters therein grew to be as loved and admired as any in the classical canon.

But whether for love of fans or fame (or both), you’ve continued to spin tales associated with the original seven books—keeping yourself ever in the limelight, proffering viral comment after viral comment over the past nine years. There were your notes about Dumbledore’s sexuality, your suggestion that Harry should have wed Hermione, your prediction of the drama surrounding Draco’s wife, your discussion of the fate of the Longbottoms, your revelation that Ron almost died, etc. etc. Then you helped create a film about an American wizardry school (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, set to release in November), wrote a short story about the 2014 Quidditch World Cup, helped assemble this new play about Harry’s son Albus, and released three new books about the world of Harry Potter.

Here’s the problem: although it’s impossible to know how excellent Fantastic Beasts will or will not be, the rest of your revelations have been decidedly mediocre. They’ve done little to accent or highlight the best of your written work—instead, they’ve served mainly to provide you viral attention and literary limelight every few months. And that’s frustrating and saddening to those of us who truly love the work and world you’ve created in the Harry Potter books, and don’t want to see it cheapened or degraded in the name of pop-culture praise.

Perhaps you’re afraid of being a one-hit wonder. It’s true that The Casual Vacancy received decidedly lackluster praise—it was a decidedly lackluster book. The Cormoran Strike novels (written under the pen name Robert Galbraith) began to garner attention only once it was revealed that you were, in fact, the author. The books don’t come close to the greatness of others in their genre. The Harry Potter series alone remains excellent, memorable, enjoyable. It’s one of the most bestselling series of all time.

For that reason, I don’t think you’re necessarily doing it for the money—after the success of the first seven books, it doesn’t seem you’d be all that worried about producing more blockbuster hits. But surely, after bursting onto the literary and cinematic scene with such resounding, celebrity success, it must be difficult to let go.

But let go you must.

It would be one thing if the additional works you were creating were of the caliber of Tolkien’s accessory works to The Lord of the Rings. Some consider The Silmarillion to be as good as or even better than LOTR; some prefer the joyous, childlike wonder of The Hobbit to the darker, more intense nature of his other works (and to be clear and avoid the wrath of Tolkien fans, The Hobbit was published before LOTR). Regardless, one thing is certain: Tolkien was fastidiously careful in crafting these works. They’re masterpieces in their own right, interesting and detailed works with characters and plots that speak to the detailed genius of their author.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is no such work. As other countless fans have pointed out, the writing of the work is mediocre, at best—full of clichés and halfhearted character development, with a plot that is absolutely riddled with holes. Many of the original characters (especially Hermione) are not true to their original selves, serving as two-dimensional copycats.

So what does the book do? Well, it keeps the Harry Potter series alive and in the limelight. It serves to inspire new fans to return to the original books. And it definitively makes money—lots of it. But that’s the extent of its virtues.

I caution you, because I think there’s a point at which truly excellent authors know how to say “enough.” Their fans can content themselves with the simplicity and beauty of a finite offering (be it one book or seven). Limiting the scope of a fictional creation enables it to stay mysterious, enchanting, and delightful. Limiting the scope of Harry Potter serves to inspire and foster the imagination of its fans more than coughing up another 20 volumes ever would.

Some will disagree with me here: they’ll point to the world of Star Wars fan fiction, perhaps, and argue that these creations—while some are better than others—continue to inspire and delight fans of the universe that George Lucas created. And that could be true, to some extent. But Stars Wars isn’t on the level of The Lord of the Rings. And if you want your work to be more of a Star Wars, that’s great—I just think it could be something better, something more important and lasting in the literary canon. If you let it stand on its own, without any more additional works or Twitter revelations or viral interviews.

You keep saying that’s what you intend—and then you keep changing your mind. I would urge you to stick to your word on this one: for your own sake, and for the sake of Harry Potter’s lasting legacy. Because I’m a huge fan, and love the world you created in the Harry Potter series. And I want it to remain extraordinary and beloved for years to come.

Sincerely,
Gracy Olmstead

Are today’s college students especially sensitive?

Debates over trigger warnings seem to indicate such a tendency, though it would be unfair to paint an entire generation of young adults as dainty, tremulous orchids. In a Tuesday New York Times column, David Brooks argues that—without stereotyping too much—a large number of today’s university-bound truly are not as resilient as their elders:

When I ask veteran college teachers and administrators to describe how college students have changed over the years, I often get an answer like this: “Today’s students are more accomplished than past generations, but they are also more emotionally fragile.”

That rings true to me. Today’s students are amazing, but they bathe one another in oceans of affirmation and praise, as if buttressing one another against some insecurity. Whatever one thinks of the campus protests, the desire for trigger warnings and safe spaces does seem to emanate from a place of emotional fragility.

Some have suggested that this fragility emanates from the excesses of helicopter parenting: a generation gone soft and thin-skinned from pampering. But Brooks thinks the trend has its roots in a deeper, more philosophical dimension:

[Emotional fragility] … is caused by anything that makes it harder for people to find their telos. It’s caused by the culture of modern psychology, which sometimes tries to talk about psychological traits in isolation from moral purposes. It’s caused by the ethos of the modern university, which in the name of “critical thinking” encourages students to be detached and corrosively skeptical. It’s caused by the status code of modern meritocracy, which encourages people to pursue success symbols that they don’t actually desire.

We are all fragile when we don’t know what our purpose is, when we haven’t thrown ourselves with abandon into a social role, when we haven’t committed ourselves to certain people, when we feel like a swimmer in an ocean with no edge.

If you really want people to be tough, make them idealistic for some cause, make them tender for some other person, make them committed to some worldview that puts today’s temporary pain in the context of a larger hope.

On the one hand, this is a rather sweeping generalization.  Surely students can be sensitive and easily offended while still embracing some telos or larger purpose for their lives. And while the university tends to tiptoe around the personal, fostering various degrees of disillusionment and cynicism, it is also oftentimes ideological and optimistic to a fault. It all depends on the subject.

At the same time, Brooks’s argument—that a defining telos or purpose makes us strong and resilient—resonates with examples I’ve seen in my own life. My grandmother had a troubled childhood, but she responded to hardship with tenacity: she raised her siblings almost by herself, learning how to nurture safety, stability, and comfort in her wake. As she grew older, Grandma continued to foster these things in her own life, and in the lives of others. Her home was a place of security and stability, a “safe space” in which anyone could feel at home. It emanated comfort, beauty, and gentility. Hers was a story of overcoming—not just economic difficulty, but emotional and personal hardship.

Her life became focused around the cultivation and nurturing of family, and she fulfilled that vocation well until the very end. A tenacious love and loyalty directed her work ethic and private pursuits. It spilled into what she purchased, and into how she structured her schedule. Her telos was faith and family, and it showed in everything she did.

I recently read a book (review forthcoming) about a Cambodian Christian who survived the Khmer Rouge regime: barely eking out survival amidst the horror of prison camps, the devastating loss of almost his entire family, the constant shadow of starvation or violent death. What kept him going? A promised word, whispered in the lonely night: “I have a plan for you.” This was the telos that animated and inspired hope, despite all the challenges.

Christians are known for being tenacious despite persecution (and here I’m speaking not of cake-baking controversy or bathroom wars, but of torturing and beheading for one’s faith). Why is this? Because they have an animating purpose—a telos—that makes them, as Brooks writes, “strong like water”:

A blow might sink into them, and when it does they are profoundly affected by it. But they can absorb the blow because it’s short term while their natural shape is long term.

There are moments when they feel swallowed up by fear. They feel and live in the pain. But they work through it and their ardent yearning is still there, and they return to an altered wholeness.

Emotional fragility can result from a lack of confidence in who you are, or ignorance as to where you’re going. The one makes us debilitatingly vulnerable to the jabs and barbs of our world; the other leaves us despairing and forlorn when hostility tears away our societal, familial, or scholastic supports.

Christians have historically combatted these tendencies through a strong understanding of the self as loved and redeemed by God. The confidence of a Christian does not rely on moral superiority or self-righteousness—quite the contrary. The Christian views him or herself as already guilty of sin and insufficiency, but as loved, treasured, and redeemed anyway. So when the world accuses or makes fun or belittles, the Christian can stand firm. There’s no perfection in the self—but the self can still be perfectly loved. That gives stamina and endurance.

Christians also combat despair through believing they have an immortal purpose and end: communion with God. This gives a teleological direction to their life, as they seek to live in a manner worthy of this calling. It means that if their jobs dissipate, their families desert them, or their health fails, they still have a telos. There’s still a purpose worth pursuing.

That said—there’s another reason for emotional fragility that Brooks just doesn’t fully explain or acknowledge in his story: trauma. For some, emotional fragility is the result of a coddled childhood or lack of personal purpose. For others, it’s the result of a truly troubled past—one that fosters vulnerability and hurt in its wake. Not every member of the “orchid generation” is entitled or privileged. And for these people, our answers must lie beyond “tough it out,” or “make sure you have a telos.”

The solutions we present to such people must be different than the ones currently on offer. An elimination of controversial material or insensitive speech in the name of fostering a “safe space” surely won’t stretch or strengthen the modern student. It will, instead, prevent them from cultivating the necessary virtues and resiliency needed in the harsh and insensitive world that lies beyond the university.

I wish I could ask my grandmother how she conquered the fears and pains of her past. How did she build tenacity despite hardship? While it’s impossible to know what her step-by-step journey looked like, I do believe—through observation and reminiscence—that her faith did play a large role. It offered comfort and love, while also bolstering her and giving her a larger purpose to live for, to fight for.

The cultivation of confidence and common sense were also important: she had dignity and grace, a sense of poise and assuredness that lifted her above the petty and painful. She knew better than to take everything personally: she was more likely to say “oh for pitys’ sake” and move on than to reprimand or take offense.

As Brooks points out, the blows suffered by children in prior generations may have made them tougher—they may have also, however, made them more callous and susceptible to despair. Women like my grandmother, who emerged from the hardships of childhood with combined resiliency and delicacy, are quite rare. It’s hard to remain empathetic and open to others’ hardship, while still managing to steel ourselves against the suffering and disappointments this world is sure to throw at us. Compassionate courage: that’s what we need. But how do we foster it?

It is important to teach students to see the value they hold within themselves: to not consider their own worth too lightly (this is something I’ve explored in writing about sexual assault). But it’s also important to instill in them a love and charity that is willing to overlook and forgive: to show mercy, compassion, and care.

The university is a place where it’s all too easy to get focused on the self. Independent from family constraints or social responsibilities, young adults can throw themselves into personal concern and acclaim without thought. But if we strive to make our collegiate experiences about more than just the self, we can start fostering virtues—and start building a telos—that will give us hope and direction in days to come.

In order to do this, it’s important to seek holistic knowledge, not just a temporally satisfying GPA. College can all too easily become about vocational and career acclaim. And while it’s hard to deny the importance of these in times of economic hardship and instability, the sort of knowledge that will give us a telos extends beyond grade point averages and perfect exam scores. College should be about asking important philosophical questions, and finding the answers through diligent study and consideration. It should be about embarking on a quest for knowledge and discernment, striving to build a healthy understanding of the world—in all its horrors, as well as in all its goods. The university should, true enough, help us develop a vision of the true, the good, and the beautiful: but it should also confront the complexities of sin and suffering head-on, so that we can best consider how to fight them.

Second, it’s important that we do not become too solipsistic in our scholastic pursuits, but rather continue to dedicate time to fellowship and service: seeking to help others, whether through extracurricular pursuits, student life involvement, tutoring, or other forms of mentorship or voluntarism. These things will take our eyes off of ourselves, showing us that our own vulnerabilities or sensitivities may, in fact, be trivial things compared to the difficulties of others. It will give us perspective, and help us cultivate grace.

Finally, college is an ideal time to foster friendship—the sorts of friendships that last a lifetime, not just a semester. All too often, relationships during college fixate on the sexual. But there’s no better time to begin building a collective of soulmates who will foster accountability, camaraderie, and fellowship in days to come—helping provide the emotional and relational rapport necessary to direct and define your telos, helping remove some of that emotional vulnerability you’re likely to experience during college and beyond.

We don’t have to be a Corrie Ten Boom or Louis Zamperini to live tenaciously and well. But examples such as these show us that—even if we’re victims of intense trauma and hardship—it is possible to overcome. We need a telos to undergird our actions and pursuits: a purpose, a hope, that gives us strength despite difficulty. With this, emotional fragility is not eliminated, but instead finds its proper sphere.

TAC commenters are the best commenters. Thank you for all of you who offered thoughtful input and commentary on my last piece regarding the church and declining attendance.

Here are some responses to those comments—because they offered excellent food for thought, and I wanted to give some deeper thought to them. 1,000-or-so-word blog posts aren’t adequate to address the depth and complexity of the issues the U.S. church is facing, and it’s worth considering these issues in greater detail. So without further ado, here’s a look at some of the main objections I received Wednesday:

It’s About Catechesis, Not Community

This is true to some extent: don’t go to a heretical church, even if it’s just across the street. Don’t abandon doctrine or orthodoxy in your efforts to connect with a body of believers. When referring to “denominational difference” in the original piece, I was referring more to minor issues of worship or layout than core doctrinal considerations. If we’re considering two churches that are both Bible-preaching and doctrinally sound, then choosing between them becomes a matter of other, more gray issues: such as location, size, and communal integration.

Because we’re discussing this issue in the public sphere, and because logistics are what people pinpoint as keeping them from church on Sundays, I think it’s important not to simply say, “The right doctrine and sound preaching will keep people in the pews.” It should—that’s true. We would hope that, as one commenter points out, “the Church that preaches repentance and hope” would draw and keep a congregation. It’s about the Gospel, first and foremost.

But if people say that they are “too busy, have a crazy work schedule,” or are “too lazy” to attend church, it could also be that they need physical checks and balances (such as church proximity and member connectedness) to get them out the front door on Sundays. This isn’t unspiritual or belittling of doctrine: it’s an acknowledgment of the sinful proclivities of our nature, and the need for support and accountability.

In her book Got Religion?, Naomi Schaefer Riley considers millennials’ abdication of church (as well as the synagogue and mosque, which have also seen a decline in attendance). Many of the deterrents she pinpoints are social and communal: if a young person’s friends leave the church, they are likely to leave, as well. “When a group of friends who are coreligionists starts to dissipate, the religious observance starts to fall off,” writes Riley. “Practicing a faith does not, on its surface, seem like a team sport. There’s no reason you can’t go to synagogue or church alone. But people don’t.”

Thankfully, this isn’t a temptation for everyone. One commenter said, “We attend a Church that is 40+ miles from our home, passing roughly eight others on our way. It takes up approximately 4-5 hours of any Sunday. It’s where we feel the focus is where it should be and the liturgy is delivered in it’s purest form.”

When you have the conviction and church allegiance necessary to attend church 40 or 50 miles away, that becomes a salutary and acceptable practice. Geographic and logistical concerns are more important for people who find it difficult to “stick” with a church, and need some extra accountability.

This plays into the “communal” aspect of a church, as well. Fruit is important—as so many commenters pointed out, there are a lot of Christian churches out there that have produced bad fruit, and it’s debilitated or decimated the faith of many. But let’s not forget that church isn’t a social club or humanitarian nonprofit: it is, first and foremost, the church. We should not become so focused on the political or social (or geographical) facets of our faith, that we lose sight of the deeper philosophical and theological truths necessary for a church to thrive. “Church shopping” is symptomatic of someone looking for a laundry list of experiences or services that they think it ought to provide. But church is meant to be more serious, more metaphysical than this: church is meant to delve into the deepest subjects, the ones that have to do not just with this world, but with the next.

Don’t Pick On The Megachurches

One commenter said: “Many megachurches actually do the ‘personal, communal’ thing better that smaller churches by having really good small group ministry. Sunday morning becomes a kind of modern version of big, cathedral Christianity with small groups filling the need for smaller, communal groups (many of which are often geographically-centered) during the week.”

I hadn’t thought of it this way: perhaps the “megachurch” is the best evangelical response to an absence of the awe-inspiring beauty and reverent ethos offered by a cathedral. It gives members that sense of collective solidarity, along with an impression of towering greatness and beauty. That said, it seems that without the ancient, embodied rituals of the cathedral, a megachurch cannot offer the same depth and lasting reverence that a cathedral can. It may be able to foster some emotional goods via its inspiring service, but whether these responses will blossom into lasting devotion and discipleship is difficult to know.

It isn’t fair to disparage all megachurches. But there are some interesting findings worth considering for people who want to worship there: the Hartford Institute for Religious Research reports that people who attend megachurches are most often younger, single, wealthier, and have a higher level of education. Most attending a megachurch have been doing so for five years or less, and 45 percent of the church’s members never volunteer. While social and communal outreach programs exist, the Hartford Institute found that these are largely set up to help members “craft unique, customized spiritual experiences” by providing a “multitude of ministry choices and diverse avenues for involvement.”

These words—a “unique, customized spiritual experience”—are symptomatic of, I would argue, one of the biggest problems with modern Christianity. They’re indicative of a consumer church, one that’s set up more like a Build-a-Bear Workshop than as a body of united and serious believers. Members are likely to fall prey to what Rod Dreher has called “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”: asking what their church will do for them, how it will appeal to their needs and wants and desires, and not really committing themselves to the truths of the Gospel or the demands of Christ.

In January, Jonathan Aigner shared some of his reasons for disliking megachurch worship services. Focused on the experiential and personal, he said, they do little to foster the unity of their congregants or the longevity of their faith. Worship, he argued, is “about unity, not choice. It’s about Holy Scripture, not self-help. It’s about theology, not experience. It’s about participation, not consumption. It’s about liturgy, not jesusy entertainment.”

A megachurch that accomplishes the former without falling prey to the latter is defying the stereotypes and tendencies of its brand, and will (hopefully) overcome the difficulties of size and potential alienation to build a strong, healthy membership.

The Damage of Scandal

As one commenter put it,

People who call themselves Christians and publicly proclaim their love for the Lamb of God and Prince of Peace and then treat defenseless kids with stern cruelty are not a good advertisement for their beliefs.

People who spend millions of dollars to make themselves more comfortable for an hour or so each Sunday and no money on local people who might need help are not a good advertisement for their beliefs.

People who act as church leaders and commit crimes or cover up for others who commit them are not a good advertisement for their beliefs. … These people either have never read the Sermon on the Mount or, if they have read it, they have rejected it.

This is so true, and such an enormous problem to face. Rod Dreher has written well on this subject before, as he spent a lot of time researching and writing about the Catholic church’s child sex abuse crisis. He knows firsthand how faith-crushing such horrific evil can be.

This is why I did emphasize a loving, serving church in my first post: because we need to see fruit. We need to know that the truth of the Gospel is being acted out, that loving service is happening in the body of Christ. The only way healing can come to those wounded and marred by poor doctrine and cruelty, is by the true, real Gospel being administered to the hurt and wounded.

However, there’s another important point worth mentioning here. No church is perfect, and it’s important that we differentiate between scandalous, evil behavior and the everyday pitfalls and weaknesses of a body that has yet to be sanctified. A worship service that is less than perfect, a message from the pulpit that rubs you the wrong way, a couple of congregants who gossip after church—these are issues that need to be sanctified, but are not necessarily grounds to run away from the church. Here are some thoughts from an article I wrote on this subject a couple years ago:

The truth is, the longer you are part of a church, the more you will begin to notice its dust and dimness, its fake smiles and half hugs. Many have memorized rituals that have no heart or purpose behind them. You will begin to see the church’s flaws, and they may frustrate or even disgust you. But if you seek church (or religious experience) somewhere else—reveling in all its polished “authenticity” and golden sheen—it will not take long before there, too, you will see the fatal flaws, the pretensions. And they may again drive you away, urging you into a “free range” faith that is ever seeking the authentic.

But you can choose to stay and to love this flawed and marred church, still so far from perfection. You can choose to walk amongst the faltering limbs of this body, this ailing bride, because you know that you too are a flawed limb. You know that you, too, have caked makeup over your raw sores, and have attempted to look “normal,” even perhaps “authentic.” You know that you’ve whitewashed your tombs.

Church is not about our perfection or authenticity. There are layers of sin and blindness that we have yet to uncover. But church is about Christ… . It’s about the Gospel. And that truth reaches out to us in our states of inauthenticity, giving us a chance to rise above the facades.

Why aren’t people going to church? It could have more to do with the car drive than with philosophical agnosticism or disillusionment. Emma Green considers a new Pew survey on religious participation and church attendance over at The Atlantic:

While Americans on the whole are still going to church and other worship services less than they used to, many people are actually going more—and those who are skipping out aren’t necessarily doing it for reasons of belief.

… First, people who report going to worship services less frequently now than they used to overwhelmingly say the logistics of getting there are the biggest obstacle. Second, a significant number of people who said they’re not part of any particular religion expressed mistrust of religious institutions, suggesting these organizations’ reputations have something to do with why people are dropping out of public religious participation.

… While it’s easy to empathize with the hassle of trying to wake up and rally kids to go sit still for several hours every Sunday morning, this explanation is interesting for a slightly different reason: It suggests that many people view religious services as optional in a way they might not have in the past. Fifty or 60 years ago, churches, in particular, were a center of social and cultural life in America. For many people, that’s still the case, but the survey suggests that many people may be creating their social lives outside of a religious context—or perhaps forgoing that kind of social connection altogether.

To some degree, these findings are indicative of a society in which churches increasingly sit on the sidelines of cultural life. Geographically, they’re distanced from the actual places where people live and work (a consequence, some might argue, of suburban sprawl or consumer-centric urban planning). Culturally, they’ve grown increasingly segregated from the dominant political and artistic voices of our time. Communally, many churches have invested less in the needy and destitute than in building bigger church buildings or organizing short-term mission trips overseas (not to denigrate international ministry—but it does seem that many churches invest more internationally than they do locally).

It’s also true that people’s lives have become increasingly career-centric: with Americans working more hours than ever before, weekends have become a time to “veg” and relax—not wake up early and drive to church. Sunday is the one day we don’t want to commute or rush out the door in a frenzy.

But there are ways to combat these tendencies—and most of them have to do with where we choose to attend church. Consider these questions:

• Are you more likely to attend a church a half mile from your home—close enough to walk on a cool morning—or a 30-minute drive away?
• In which scenario are you more likely to skip church:
  1) There are 700 people there on a given morning, and you’ll never be missed.
  2) There are only 100 to 150 people there on a given morning, and you know almost all of them by name.
• Which are you more likely to attend:
  1) A church that only offers a Sunday service
  2) A church that does various outreach and community activities during the week (not just youth get-togethers and cookouts, but also ministry-geared events like soup kitchens and clothing drives)

My guess is that most people prefer the church that’s closest to them, the church full of familiar faces, and the church that’s eagerly serving its community. People will attend a church that is local, personal, and communal.

People will not attend a church that is distant, giant, and solitary.

Unfortunately, it is often difficult to find a church that fulfills all three of these requirements equally. Depending on where we live and our own personal proclivities and weaknesses, many of us have to determine which of the three above attributes are most important—and most likely to keep us at church.

For those who feel drained and tired on Sunday mornings (not a tendency to be ignored or sneered at in today’s workaholic world), it may be salutary to find a church that is in or extremely close to one’s own neighborhood. If church is less than a couple miles away, it lessens the logistical and personal burden necessary to get from one’s front door to the church pew.

This does mean, however, that the local churchgoer may have to overcome some denominational and personal biases in order to embrace what’s nearby. Many Americans have gotten used to “church shopping,” hopping from pew to pew until they find a congregation that “fits” them best. Unfortunately, this can either disincentivize our church attendance altogether, or put enough miles between us and the church doors to decrease our chances of regular attendance. Committing to the local church requires an ability to overlook these rather consumerist tendencies, choosing a church in spite of its weaknesses.

That said, it could be that the nearest church is a giant megachurch, with thousands of members and four to five services on a given weekend. Stepping in the front doors, you immediately feel like a lost face in the crowd. No one greets you by name; no one knows your children. There may be donuts and artisan coffee in the foyer, but social and emotional connection is scarce.

In this case, it makes sense to move further afield to find a church that is more personal and communal—a space in which members know each other, proffering both fellowship and accountability. Some seem to find great value in the megachurch, arguing that such “seeker churches” have an important mission. But in practice, it seems that a church characterized merely by emotive worship music and a finishing altar call will have little lasting impact on the “seekers” who visit its doors—because there is no potential for lasting, deep fellowship or accountability amidst the sea of faces that drift to and from the worship hall.

A church that is personal should also be communal: focusing its resources and attention not merely inward, but also displaying an eagerness to find and address needs in one’s local community. Many American communities are broken and hurting, dealing with the deleterious effects of poverty, drug use, and family breakdown. This is where the church can and should work—and a church that is deeply involved in its local community will both attract and keep members, because it gives them a purpose beyond mere self-absorption and back-patting.

This is also one of the most powerful ways to combat the widespread distaste for “organized religion” mentioned in the Pew poll and Green’s article: “Among people who were raised religiously and who fell away from religion in adult life, roughly one-fifth said their dislike of organized religion was the reason,” Green writes. “Insofar as the decline in U.S. religious affiliation is an intellectual or philosophical story, it seems to be this: Fewer people are willing to sign on with the rules and reputations of institutions that promote faith.”

“Organized religion” can often connote a corrupt and insensitive institution, a group that is both callous and shady in its everyday work. Many Americans have been hurt by a church or other religious body at some point, and they’ve seen firsthand the damage that results from corrupt leadership or a wayward pastor.

But a church that truly roots itself in its community, loving and serving its neighbors unconditionally, can combat some of these judgments. It can help demonstrate the goods that flow from a religious group that is investing its resources in helping the needy.

Ultimately, a lot will have to change to draw record-breaking numbers back to the church. But combating some of the apathy felt toward America’s churches may be as simple as proffering options that are local, personal, and communal: showing people that the joyful fellowship and service they find at church on Sunday morning is worth getting out of bed for.

If you’ve been disappointed by TV’s latest offerings, there is hope. Netflix’s new eight-episode series, Stranger Things, is an exciting new project that revels in the past, while offering a novel story and splendid characters.

Set in small-town Indiana, Stranger Things chronicles the supernatural, eerie events that unfold following the vanishing of a little boy named Will Byers (Noah Schnapp). After an evening spent playing Dungeons & Dragons with his best friends (an eccentric, nerdy, and delightful band of brothers), Will disappears. As his mother and brother search frantically for him, the town sheriff and his best friends join in. A mysterious girl named Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) also turns up, tied somehow to the inexplicable and sinister Department of Energy lab that sits broodingly nearby.

It’s a thriller and 1980s-themed masterpiece, reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s E.T., Richard Donner’s The Goonies, and (more recently) J.J. Abram’s Super 8. Its reverence for 1980s culture and art—especially film, music, books, and games—also reminded me of Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One. 

When the Netflix series first came out, Stephen King admitted he was totally addicted. This weekend, my husband and I joined the legions of hooked fans, as we followed the journey of Will’s mother Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and his faithful cohort of best friends—Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), and Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin)—in their quest to find Will. Ryder has (rightly) received an outpouring of accolades for her role: tender yet resolute, strong yet vulnerable. David Harbor’s troubled and brooding sheriff, Jim Hopper, is also fantastic. But without Byers’s trio of friends, the film would fall flat. They add pathos and humor to the film. Without them, it would all too easily become an eerie, depressing horror flick. With them, the film transcends mere spookiness, offering sweetness, tragedy, humor, and delight.

Beyond the (fantastic) acting, this film is made by its nostalgia and attention to detail. It is truly a homage to the 80s: the films, the board games, the music, the clothing, the food, the tv commercials, even the political paranoia (some of the Department of Energy “experiments” referred to in the film actually happened back in the day). Not to mention the wonderful retro fonts, especially the title sequence font. The Duffer brothers carefully, exactingly recreate the world of the 80s, one piece at a time.

But more than these outer accoutrements, this film reflects on a time when kids rode their bikes around town without parental concern, considering the beauty of a small community in which people know each other: where there is a shared history and context undergirding everything. As Mark Steven writes over at Tech Central,

My sense is that, in this instance, the nostalgia runs deeper than form. Stranger Things is nostalgic for a certain kind of filmmaking, certainly, but it is just as attached to something at the very heart of 80s horror: the communal ethos that comes when social outcasts join forces to face off against cosmic evil — the primitive communism of childhood friendship.

Stranger Things reminds us what it was like to have that sense of safety and camaraderie. It reminds us of the communal threads that hold us together, lending context and beauty to our lives. But it also—importantly—hints at that mystery and wonder that also thread their way through childhood, transmitted in fables and films and games. It suggests (as so many other stories have before them) that these tales are not to be taken lightly, but convey something vitally important to the next generation. It’s their attention to tales and lore that help Will’s friends find and save him, in the end.

In the past, I’ve suggested that younger people (especially millennials) crave mystery and enchantment in a largely disenchanted world. If this is true, then Stranger Things is an answer to that longing, and its success is indicative of its resonance. Despite the fact that we roll our eyes at the endless sequels and remakes that fill movie theaters these days, it’s also true that we seek films that offer us this sort of nostalgia. As Todd VanDerWeff put it for Vox, “When we say we want something ‘original,’ what we really mean is that we want something familiar, but just different enough to feel novel.”

But Stranger Things is more than just a “nostalgia fix,” as the New York Times put it in their review. The series hints at our (very human) desire to transmit and preserve a cultural tradition, to reverence and emulate past cultural works and artistic masters. Paying homage to such a “canon” helps us make good art.

In his book Tradition, Josef Pieper wrote that “To hand down does not mean simply to give somebody something, to bring it, to share it, or deliver it. It means rather to deliver something that has previously arrived in your hands, which was consigned to you; to share something that was handed over and handed down; to hand on something that you received—so that it can be received and handed on again.”

Many of the people who watch Stranger Things will not remember the 80s, or associate any fond remembrances with the cultural tokens it offers up. And yet, by watching it, they may feel the same yearning and delight that older generations feel—the same longing for something good, resonant, “classic” in its rhythms. That yearning is a sign, I would argue, of enduring art. It makes the past meaningful and identifiable, while still proffering something new.

“Again and again there are ‘renaissances,’ which attempt programmatically to win back something forgotten or suppressed and to restore it to esteem,” writes Pieper. “Admittedly, the usual result of such ‘rebirths’ is the unintentional creation of something completely new.” Unintentionally or no, the Duffer brothers seem to have achieved this with Stranger Things—and we hope their future seasons of the show will be just as laudable.

To prevent sexual assault, we’re going to need to start teaching consent earlier—much earlier, argues Tovia Smith over at NPR:

Kate Rohdenburg, who runs a violence prevention program in Vermont and New Hampshire called WISE, says even 5- and 6-year-olds can be taught basic principles of boundaries and autonomy.

“Of course, we’re not saying the word ‘autonomous’ to kindergartners,” she explains. “But we talk about who here likes hugs, and some kids raise their hand and some don’t. ‘Well, how are we supposed to know if this person wants a hug when they’re feeling sad or not?’ And kindergartners will tell you that you should ask them.”

… “I think it’s reasonable to think that parents, even when they have babies or toddlers, they start using language like, ‘I’m going to change your diaper now. Is that okay with you?’ ” Rice says. “Obviously it’s OK, but it’s reinforcing the concept of consent really from a very early age.”

There are some good points in Smith’s piece about teaching the consent and politeness to high school students. But the above two points are ridiculous. Asking my baby if it’s alright to change her diaper is not going to educate her on issues of sexual consent, or help her set “boundaries.” Talking to kindergarteners about respecting the space of others is an obvious issue of etiquette, like learning to share toys and use “inside voices.”

The problem with the culture we’ve crafted surrounding sex isn’t ultimately about consent—it’s ultimately, and more deeply, an issue of respect and charity. We don’t need to ask our kids whether they want their diapers changed: we need to teach them about character.

The seeds of sexual assault are going to start young, Smith is right about that. But talking about consent to a kindergartener is not going to solve the problem—because a young man like Brock Turner doesn’t care whether or not a woman gives him consent. He’s already decided that his desires trump the needs or desires of anyone else around him. We need to reach beyond sexual politics, and seek to guide the hearts of our children: teaching them what is right, and stirring in them a desire to do what is good.

When I was a young girl, I remember reading Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe. Say what you will about the romantic, embellished prose or stereotypical characters—it taught me what it looks like to be a lady, and what it looks like to be a gentleman.

Take, first, the character Rebecca: noble, valiant, stubborn, virtuous. She has self-respect and nobility. When others treat her badly, it doesn’t upend her security or confidence. When she’s threatened by a man who wants to her to become his mistress, she firmly, resolutely tells him “no.” It doesn’t matter what the world thinks or what the consequences might be: she knows what is right. And she has the dignity and courage to pursue that unflinchingly.

Then there’s Ivanhoe: a valiant knight, caring son, loyal lover. He also does what is right, no matter the consequences. Near the end of the book, Ivanhoe seeks to rescue Rebecca from her tormenter and be her champion—even though he’s in love with someone else. This is what a gentleman is: someone who seeks the wellbeing and safety of vulnerable people around him, regardless of whether it’s in his own interests.

Stories like this—be they fairy tales or histories, biographies or novels—foster virtue. They shape our loves and desires, pointing us toward the good. Between a video game such as World of Warcraft—in which violence is promoted and women are portrayed in an objectifying and sexualized way—and the above story, which do you think would encourage boys more toward gentlemanly behavior? Toward seeking the consent and comfort of women they’re attracted to?

Words like “lady” and “gentleman” seem antiquated in today’s society; and it’s true, they’re derived from a time in which gender roles were less fluid and sexual mores were more strict. But I’d argue that ladylike and/or gentlemanly behavior needn’t be consigned to the history books, because these words capture what it means to have a virtuous balance of self-respect and deference, dignity and charity. Being a lady has nothing to do with acting “feminine” or wearing frilly clothing. Being a gentleman has nothing to do with lording one’s might or “manliness” over others—quite the opposite. These words describe a person who prizes their own self-worth and dignity, while also caring deeply for the wellbeing of those around them.

And it’s these two ingredients that—when well-balanced—enable our sexual relationships to be healthy and prosperous. Women need to have the confidence necessary to say “no” when they want to, to be stubborn in pursuing what they know will make them happy. Men need to have dignity and self-worth to see certain acts as evil and abhorrent—to see sexual assault as repulsive and beneath them. At the same time, men need to care deeply for the wellbeing of the women around them. They need to seek their health and happiness, first and foremost. And women, too, must exercise this sort of kindness toward the men in their lives.

This isn’t something that a Youtube video about tea or a discussion about hugs in kindergarten will fix. It’s something that requires regular, thoughtful, intentional investment in a child’s character: seeking to put virtuous role models in his or her life, striving to foster habits of virtue through intentionality and love. It’s about fostering children’s moral imaginations, not just teaching them how to set boundaries or say “yes” and “no.”

Admittedly, this makes things a lot harder: it’s a more three-dimensional response to the issues of sexual assault we’re confronting. But it will give us better long-term solutions to this problem by fostering self-respecting, charitable individuals who seek the good of those around them, no matter the circumstances.

Who to vote for in November? Neither presidential candidate particularly appeals to me. In the past, I’ve been tempted to ignore the presidential race altogether, and focus instead on local elections this fall. Indeed, I still think that’s where my focus should be: there is a lot of work that can and should be done to revitalize our politics at the state and local level.

But if a good argument for either Clinton or Trump is out there, I want to consider it. Thus far, many of the most common arguments I’ve seen for Trump have seemed rather lackluster and unconvincing. I share the top two below, with a third that I take more seriously. If you feel you can trump any of the three (ha), feel free to share in the comments below.

1. “Yeah, Donald Trump has issues—but so does Hillary Clinton.”

When I posted a piece by Michael Brendan Dougherty on Tuesday that pointed out the many concerns voters should have with Donald Trump’s character, my Twitter followers responded en masse with, “Yes—but look at Hillary!” I understand their concerns, but the flaws of the one do not excuse or negate the vices of the other. Or as Dougherty put it, Trump’s character is not the “differentiating factor”—but it is, or at least could be, the “disqualifying factor.”

You are entitled to say, “I find Clinton more offensive. Her email scandal frightens me more than anything Trump’s done. So I’m voting for Trump.” But someone else could easily point to a myriad of controversial or offensive actions and statements by Trump, and say that—because of these things—they’re voting for Clinton. And I can’t blame them.

For me, this vote comes down to some extremely difficult questions:

– Am I willing to overlook the blatant pro-choice past of both Clinton and Trump, in voting for one or the other?

– Do racist, misogynist remarks and past actions on Trump’s part have any bearing on his qualifications for the highest political office in the land? Is he the sort of person I want to be the diplomatic and domestic leader of our country?

– Do the alarming privacy and security stumbles of Clinton have any bearing on her qualifications for the highest political office in the land? Is she the sort of person I want in charge of our national security and military?

At least at this point, my answer is leaning toward “NO” in both cases. Which leads me to the next, all-too-common, argument spilling forth from the Internet…

2. “You have to pick your poison: Trump or Clinton.”

You have to vote for one or the other—to do otherwise is to “throw away” your vote, to automatically cast it for Clinton/Trump (whichever is, in your mind, the worst).

This idea that a presidential debate boils down to a “lesser of two evils” decision makes sense if you adhere to the pilot theory of presidential politics. In sum: there’s going to be a pilot flying the U.S. plane for the next four years, it’s just a question of which you’re going to choose. If you don’t choose one of the two pilots offered, one of them is still going to fly the plane. So why not just pick one?

But what if the vote I cast now matters less for the here and now, and more for a candidate four or eight years down the road?

As David McPherson argued in his piece for First Things about the American Solidarity party, it could be that—instead of “throwing away” our vote—we can be part of a reconfiguration of American party politics, making it loudly and abundantly clear that we refuse to ally ourselves with parties that refuse to look out for our interests or concerns. We can be a vocal minority with a mind to change the current political quagmire—looking to the future, as well as to the present. “If we are to work fully toward the kind of politics we need, we must first break from the political status quo,” McPherson writes.

It could be that, while we do not achieve what we would like in this election cycle, we could help push for more palatable and trustworthy politicians in 2020, 2024, or 2028. And that would be something worth voting for.

But there’s one argument for Trump that makes me question all that.

3. “It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.”

That’s the actual headline of a piece in the Washington Examiner by Hugh Hewitt. He writes,

If Hillary Clinton wins, the Left gavels in a solid, lasting, almost certainly permanent majority on the Supreme Court. Every political issue has a theoretical path to SCOTUS, and only self-imposed judicial restraint has checked the Court’s appetite and reach for two centuries.

That restraint will be gone when HRC’s first appointee is sworn in. Finished.

This is not hyperbole. I have the advantage of having taught Con Law for 20 years, of having argued before very liberal appellate judges like Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the very liberal Ninth Circuit, of practicing with the best litigators in the land, and I know what a very liberal SCOTUS means: conservatism is done. It cannot survive a strong-willed liberal majority on the Supreme Court. Every issue, EVERY issue, will end up there, and the legislatures’ judgments will matter not a bit.

It’s actually one of the better arguments for Donald Trump, in my opinion—though as Matthew Lee Anderson argues at Mere Orthodoxy, there’s no guarantee that Trump would pick a Supreme Court nominee who would make any substantive difference for conservatives. This month, Trump has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t intend to passively kowtow to the GOP. What makes us think that he will adhere to their recommendations for a Supreme Court nominee, or take into account the wishes of pro-life voters who he has historically ignored or even sided against?

The argument that a Supreme Court nominee matters more than anything else, because it’s a lifetime appointment, does make sense. And it’s true that with Trump, there’s a chance that appointment would be more favorable to conservatives than anything Hillary would come up with. So I need to decide whether that one decision is more important than any other questionable decision—on national security, on domestic or foreign affairs—that could be made by a President Trump over the next four years. And that’s a tough gamble to make.

I don’t believe—can’t believe—that voting is merely a matter of picking your poison. That we are required to vote against our conscience.

“Why is a vote for your ticket not a wasted vote?” one person asked Gary Johnson during CNN’s Libertarian Town Hall last night.

“A wasted vote is a vote for someone you don’t believe in,” Johnson responded. “If we’re going to continue to vote for a lesser of two evils, that’s still evil.”

On the opening night of the Democratic National Convention, speakers and video clips focused a good deal on our children: Michelle Obama spoke of the love she and her husband share for their daughters, and said her support of Hillary Clinton is largely influenced by a concern and care for their future.

A video segment showed children watching Donald Trump on television, making fun of a reporter with a disability. It asked viewers to consider the impact such comments have on American youth. Yesterday, nine grieving mothers gathered on the DNC stage to share how they lost their sons and daughters in “racially charged incidents.”

Yet in all the Democrats’ discussion of children, they are ominously silent about the unborn. As the most pro-choice party in America, they emphasize the autonomy and freedom of the mother, but ignore children in the womb. Hillary Clinton has endorsements from Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice, and America PAC. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards spoke at the DNC yesterday evening, emphasizing paid family leave alongside women’s right to abortion.

The Democratic platform often feels disjointed: overflowing with compassion and empathy on a plethora of issues—from LGBTQ rights, to paid family leave, to affirmative action, to income inequality—but deathly quiet when it comes to the rights of the unborn, the most powerless and vulnerable of us all.

Yet this silence was also largely present during the Republican National Convention. As Ruth Graham wrote for Slate, “This week’s Republican convention in Cleveland barely tried to pretend that its candidate cares about abortion, sexuality, or God.”

Donald Trump is the man who once described himself as “very pro-choice,” and has yet to demonstrate his alleged change of heart on the abortion issue. “His past positions on abortion and clear lack of interest in the subject, which seems to be reflected in how little the issue has come up at the Convention, is making it difficult for even single issue voters to trust that he is the real deal,” Millennial Journal editor Robert Christian told the Catholic News Agency.

Some expressed hope that Trump’s selection of Mike Pence—a pro-life politician—would reflect a broader pro-life platform in the future. Pence was one of the few to even mention the issue during the RNC, noting in his acceptance speech that “for the sake of the sanctity of life … we must ensure that the next president appointing justices to the Supreme Court is Donald Trump.”

But watching the Republican and Democratic national conventions over the past couple weeks has only emphasized our country’s absence of a strong, vibrant pro-life platform. This, despite the fact that a significant group of Americans label themselves as pro-life, and would say that, if they were to be a one-issue voter, their “one issue” would be abortion.

Because of this, Ben Domenech suggested in June that there could be room in our politics for a third party—a Pro-Life Party—in the U.S. He wrote for The Federalist,

The future of Christianity in the U.S. is looking bleak, if current Pew polls and trends are accurate. As Rod Dreher referenced in a recent blog post, millennials are more likely to reject religious labels or affiliations than any other generational cohort—and even those who call themselves Christians are, in Dreher’s words, “shockingly illiterate, both in terms of what the Bible says and more generally regarding what Christianity teaches.” He quotes the late blogger Michael Spencer, who argued the following in 2009:

We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we’ve spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

Is Christian faith simply doomed to dissipate and die among America’s young people, or is there something we can do to reverse this trend?

As a millennial myself, this is something I’m putting a lot of thought and consideration into. And while—considering I can never speak for the entire millennial cohort—the following prescriptions are neither comprehensive nor foolproof, I think they might be useful in fighting … perhaps even reversing … the trends we are seeing today. I offer them up for the consideration of my peers, and for the consideration of those who work in religious ministries and/or outreach.

1. Appeal to the Past

In his excellent new book You Are What You Love (full review coming soon!), author and Comment editor James K.A. Smith describes the stereotypical youth group one is likely to encounter in most churches throughout the U.S.:

You walk into a kind of loft space that combines various elements of an arcade, a coffee shop, a dance club, and a family rec room. The room is dripping with energy, an unrelenting sense of scripted happiness that is synonymous with being ‘upbeat’—even while trying to communicate that this is a place where young people can ‘chill.’ … A raucous band takes center stage, a routine widely familiar from concerts and music clubs. The band leads the group through a rousing set of triumphant praise songs and then into a quiet set of introspective, heartfelt, eyes-closed, hands-raised meditations.

… Having been fed a vaguely biblical message, though in a more palatable package—kind of like choking down medicine hidden inside a piece of candy—the young people are dismissed with promises of more fun next week.

You wouldn’t know it, but the entire ‘program’ we’ve just witnessed is designed by fear—not for fear, by fear. It is the creation of a generation of parents and adults who are terrified that their children—the proverbial next generation—will leave the church and leave the faith. … But we need to face a sobering reality: keeping young people entertained in our church buildings is not at all synonymous with forming them as dynamic members of the body of Christ.

Smith is right. In this “chill” yet “upbeat” space, young people sense they’re being catered and acquiesced to. They sense that the adults are trying to make the Bible more palatable and interesting to them—which implies that it isn’t all that palatable and interesting on its own. Meanwhile, the youth group’s layout and ethos reinforce pop-cultural messages about the self, community, and consumerism. It’s reminding kids that the real purpose of life (at least life when you’re young) is to have fun, enjoy your friends, and not take things too seriously. Thus, by extension, it suggests to them that they shouldn’t take God all that seriously, either.

In practice, this sort of messaging distances youth from the church, rather than drawing them to it. It reinforces secular messages rather than fighting them.

This is why, Smith argues, we should look backwards to the historic rhythms and rituals of the Christian faith, and work to break down the progressive and anti-traditional messages of the modern youth ministry. “In my experience, many young people are intensely ritual animals without realizing it,” he writes. “And when they are introduced to the habit-forming practices of Christian faith, invited into ways of following Jesus that are ancient and tested, their faith is given a second life.” In order to fight the addictive trappings and messages of our secular world, we need to “re-enchant” the church in the minds and hearts of millennials.

The idea of enchantment is quite common in the history of Christian thought (read G.K. Chesterton and you’ll see the wonder and beauty of it). But I’ve especially appreciated Richard Beck’s recent blog posts (over at his blog Experimental Theology) on the subject, as they break down the disenchanted world we currently live in, and suggest a myriad of ways in which we can “re-enchant” our faith, and thus our world.

In yesterday’s post on the subject, Beck suggests the following: “Life demands … a hallowing that pulls us out of the entertainments and consumptions of capitalistic culture. We want more from life than fun. We want life to be holy. We want life to be sacred. And it is this demand for holiness that makes us human.”

In this series, Beck has suggested that “We are disenchanted with living in a disenchanted world.” And it is this disenchantment I’ve recognized among many of my peers. When I wrote “Why Millennials Long for Liturgy” in February 2014, Lee Nelson, co-chair of the Catechesis Taskforce of the Anglican Church of North America, told me he believes a sacramental hunger lies at the heart of many millennials. “We are highly wired to be experiential,” he said. In the midst of our consumer culture, young people “ache for sacramentality.”

“If you ask me why kids are going high church, I’d say it’s because the single greatest threat to our generation and to young people nowadays is the deprivation of meaning in our lives,” a Greek Orthodox convert told me. “In the liturgical space, everything becomes meaningful. … We’re so thirsty for meaning that goes deeper, that can speak to our entire lives, hearts, and wallets, that we’re really thirsty to be attached to the earth and to each other and to God. The liturgy is a historical way in which that happens.”

As an evangelical reader told Rod Dreher in 2013,

I believe that Millennials are looking for someone to tell them the hard truths that they have long suspected were there. So if it looks like young people are flocking to ancient faith, it’s probably because they are searching for a faith that has foundation. I believe that nondenominational churches tend to disappear because they are just islands in history. When you are disconnected from the historical Church, you are pretty much guaranteeing your own demise. Churches with no past are churches with no future and if evangelicalism is going to survive, it desperately needs to learn the story of the Church. It needs to reconnect itself to history, to the traditions of thousands of years of prayer and worship and teaching and music.

In order to keep millennials in the church—or invite them back into it—we must re-enchant our faith. We must not offer them a copycat, religious replica of pop culture rituals, but rather an ancient, deeply meaningful faith that rescues them from the meaninglessness and disenchantment they sense all around them.

2. Appeal to Their Hungers

Another important argument in Smith’s book is that faith isn’t caught or kept through head knowledge (at least not by itself). Faith is transmitted and bolstered through daily, tangible habits that form our desires. We are, after all, physical beings—and a church that falls prey to gnosticism will find itself ill-suited to counter our culture’s potent consumerist ideology. Thus, we must not just appeal to millennials’ heads: we must appeal to their “gut” as well, to the hungers and desires that form and guide their hearts.

This is done in the church, through the cadences of worship, prayer, communion. But it can also be transmitted, powerfully, through the outreach and fellowship we offer.

In his book A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken speaks of a ritual he and his wife began when he was a professor: they would invite his students to come over in the evenings to discuss religion and philosophy—around food, drink, and the comforts of home. The students gravitated to the Vanauken’s home as a tangible place of refuge. They craved comfort, human fellowship, good food. In the Vanauken’s home, these embodied, physical trappings lent winsomeness to the message of Christian faith.

In order to reach young people we need to resurrect the art of hospitality, and understand the importance of breaking bread with others in order to show them the truth of the gospel. This is one way we “re-enchant” the world; it’s also a vital way in which we assuage the “sacramental hunger” of millennials.

Orthodox convert Jesse Cone told me in 2014 that, while reading through the book of John with friends, he began to notice the “conversational and sacramental” way Jesus related to people. “There’s a lot of bread, and wine, and water,” he says. From Jesus’s first miracle—turning water into wine—to telling his disciples “I am the True Vine,” the mundane, communal ways in which in which Jesus connected with people “confirmed in me a sense of sacramentalism—that everyday aspects of life are important, in a way the modern mindset doesn’t share,” Cone says. “I started looking at the world with more sacramental eyes.”

The Christian message does not fixate on the metaphysical and spiritual to the detriment of physical, embodied hungers. In fact, it redeems the body and its desires. From the giving of manna to the wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation, Scripture is resplendent with the potent imagery of food and drink, hospitality and fellowship. The gospel needn’t be reserved to pulpits on Sunday mornings. It can—and must—be shared over big bowls of stew and crusty bread on dark wintry nights, or alongside a large mug of steaming coffee and fresh cookies, or in the laughter and joy of a late-night movie and bowls of buttery popcorn. This is how we show people the joy and love that bubbles up from a faith that is incarnate, tangible, embodied, and “enchanted.”

3. Appeal to Their Minds

All that said: millennials need to understand how the Christian faith responds to their fears, doubts, and questions. We live, after all, in an exceedingly uncertain and troubled world. We’re surrounding by faiths that result in decay, death, and despair. Fundamentalist creeds and cults have ravaged and torn apart human community, sowing seeds of death and anger. We need thoughtful Christians—the G.K. Chestertons and C.S. Lewises of modern Christianity—to reach and reason, to share their perspectives on how and why Christianity offers a balm and alternative to hate and horror, as well as to relativism and moral confusion.

We need to show millennials why moral absolutes exist and cannot be ignored. We need to offer them a faith that illuminates good and evil, truth and falsehood—without the totalitarian, hateful tendencies of other religions they may be familiar with. Many “nones” in the millennial generation associate Christianity with a distasteful relative, friend, or acquaintance with whom they associate a degree of backwardness or vice. Perhaps they have an uncle who stocks his basement with canned goods and assault weapons, spewing angry, condemnatory statements about the government, the culture, and anyone who disagrees with their version of life and faith.

As a church friend once told me, the life of a seed depends entirely on its soil. And if the soil millennials are immersed in only serves to castigate and condemn Christianity, any words offered regarding the faith will choke. This can be true of a young adult immersed in a vehemently atheist family, social group, or institution; it can also be true of a young adult who finds herself in the noxious and repellent soil of fundamentalist or rancorous Christians (or other religious faiths). She is likely to transplant herself as far away from that soil and its influences as she possibly can—and unfortunately, is likely to associate any religious faith she encounters with the radicalized, bellicose messages of her youth.

Thus, the words and arguments we share for Christianity 1) must be rooted in good “soil,” as mentioned above, and 2) must be well thought out, reasonable, winsome—offering answers to the manifold doubts and frustrations young people have today. For the questions we cannot answer well, it’s good to have a solid repertoire of reading material on hand. You may not be able to answer a young person’s question about evil—but perhaps G.K. Chesterton or Henri Nouwen or Timothy Keller can.

4. Appeal by Example

In her book Got Religion?, Naomi Schaefer Riley considers millennials’ abdication of church (as well as the synagogue and mosque, which have also seen a decline in attendance). Many of the deterrents she pinpoints are social and communal: if a young person’s friends leave the church, they are likely to leave, as well. “When a group of friends who are coreligionists starts to dissipate, the religious observance starts to fall off,” writes Riley. “Practicing a faith does not, on its surface, seem like a team sport. There’s no reason you can’t go to synagogue or church alone. But people don’t.”

Many young people have grown up outside a two-parent family, grappling with the effect that divorce or single parenthood might have had on their conceptions of stability and security.

But the church, throughout Scripture, is referred to as “the bride of Christ.” Marriage is meant to be a reflection of “the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church.” It’s also meant to remind us of the communion at the very center of the gospel: the relationship between the members of the Trinity, the love offered to us in Christ, the eternal community we’re offered through his death and resurrection. Thus, this shift in our understanding of marriage, the family, and community impacts youths’ ability to build a proper relationship with the church: they view church, and God, through the same eyes with which they view secular marriages and families.

But our world is increasingly chaotic and polarized. Whether it’s haunting violence and shootings in our cities and towns, the graphic horrors of global terrorism, or families falling apart and fraying at the edges, millennials are seeing whatever was once concrete and simple in their lives fall apart. In this world, messages of narcissistic consumerism and independence will begin to lose their sheen.

As a result, we need to offer millennials the security and comfort of homes, family, community. The world cannot offer these things. But we—members of the church, no matter our denomination or creed—can. By God’s grace, we can offer stable marriages, happy homes, strong families, rituals of togetherness and hope. We can invite disillusioned young people into these communities, and let them know there is always a place for them in our homes and at our tables. By example and inclusiveness, we can give them rest, nourishment, and hope.

5. Appeal With Joy

We live in a time fraught with insecurity, tragedy, and loss. And yet, at the same time, most millennials I know are obsessed with the search for beauty. Their aesthetic sense is strong, and they are always seeking the silver lining in life. It’s why, I think, they’re drawn to games such as Pokémon Go; why they watch reruns of their favorite childhood shows; why they love to travel to new and beautiful places; why they so carefully stage and filter their Instagram photos.

They are seeking re-enchantment. They are seeking the materialization of a longing that they just can’t quite put their finger on. They want their dreams, their fairy tales, their favorite pieces of nostalgia to find embodiment; they want to recapture the incandescent wonder of their childhoods.

This desire reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s classic consideration of “joy” in his autobiography, Surprised By Joy. He describes the first moment it hit him—”a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what? … before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased.”

This “desire”—a yearning that fades almost as soon as it is felt—kept popping up along the narrative of Lewis’s life. He kept wondering where it came from, and how to find it again, how to fulfill that deep, blissful yearning. But no matter how he pursued this “joy,” it would reply, “It is not I. I am only a reminder. Look! Look! What do I remind you of?” These moments, Lewis says, are like signs along a road, “pointer[s] to something outer and outer.”

Finally, after he became a Christian, Lewis found the answer: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

When I read this as a teenager, I felt my heart say, “YES. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. This makes sense of all the longings of your heart.”

Perhaps I was lucky to read this when I did—it probably helped me hold onto my faith, helped me associate the yearnings of my body and spirit with deeper religious truths that gave it meaning, history, and context.

But other millennials need this. They need to understand that a hipster love of vintage items, bohemian zest for travel, nature, and aesthetic beauty, youthful desire for peace, love, tolerance, kindness, and joy—all these things make sense when you view the world as enchanted, and view our lives as a quest for “joy” and its actualization. It means that every material desire that goes unfulfilled is a hint, a taste, even a portkey of sorts offering to usher us into a more enchanted, divinely inhabited reality.

“Parenting” should never have become a verb, Alison Gopnik argues in an article for the Wall Street Journal.

“After all, to be a wife is not to engage in ‘wifing,’ to be a friend is not to ‘friend,’ even on Facebook, and we don’t ‘child’ our mothers and fathers,” she writes. Yet, alas, we’ve turned “being a parent” into “parenting” as our understanding of the vocation has changed. Gopnik suggests that, because many modern parents start having children after they’ve pursued higher education and a career, their lens on childrearing is changed. They approach their offspring with a task-oriented mindset. They think of themselves as carpenters, she says, and treat their children like chairs to be built, maintained, and polished.

“The promise of ‘parenting’ is that there is some set of techniques, some particular expertise, that parents could acquire that would help them accomplish the goal of shaping their children’s lives,” Gopnik says. But this promise gives parents a dangerously flawed impression both of  their children, and of their role as parents. Rather, Gopnik suggests that “caring for children is like tending a garden, and being a parent is like being a gardener”:

When we garden, we work and sweat and we’re often up to our ears in manure. We do it to create a protected and nurturing space for plants to flourish.

As all gardeners know, nothing works out the way we planned. The greatest pleasures and triumphs, as well as disasters, are unexpected. There is a deeper reason behind this.

A good garden, like any good ecosystem, is dynamic, variable and resilient. Consider what it takes to create a meadow or a hedgerow or a cottage garden. The glory of a meadow is its messiness: The different grasses and flowers may flourish or perish as circumstances alter, and there is no guarantee that any individual plant will become the tallest, or fairest or most long-blooming. The good gardener works to create fertile soil that can sustain a whole ecosystem of different plants with different strengths and beauties—and with different weaknesses and difficulties, too.

Perhaps the simplest and most profound reason this metaphor works is that children are living things, not objects. The more we see them as projects, inanimate or vacuous “things” we can control, the more flawed and potentially dangerous our attempts to raise them.

But when we understand that children are live, sentient, unique souls—with autonomy, with creativity, with passion and character and dynamism—we see them truly, and raise them differently. Because—as any gardener will tell you—caring for a garden requires humility and patience. We must recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each plant, and understand that no one approach will work with all of them.

This summer, I’ve been reading Michael Pollan’s excellent book about gardening, Second Nature, and read a passage yesterday that fits in beautifully with Gopnik’s gardening allegory:

The more common varieties of garden failure … I divide into failures of under- and overcultivation. … Failures of undercultivation usually indicate that the gardener has been reluctant to alter the landscape to the extent his plants require; he has not sufficiently tamed nature. Perhaps because of his romantic notions about animals or weeds, he didn’t do enough to protect his plants from their incursions. Or he assumed the soil in its unimproved state was adequate to the needs of his trees or tomatoes.

… Of course the gardener can push nature too far, and when that happens, he is prone to … failures of overcultivation. The gardener who uses large quantities of fertilizer to coax quick growth from his plants will find them more susceptible to insects and disease. If he adopts an inflexible line on insects, he’s apt to spray so much pesticide that he deadens his soil; the bugs are gone, but suddenly nothing seems to grow very well. Plants healthy only to the extent they are wild—‘able to collaborate with earth, air, light, and water in the way common to plants before humans walked the earth,’ in Wendell Berry’s sensible definition. When cultivation is too intensive it compromises wildness and thereby courts failure.

… The green thumb is the gardener who can nimbly walk the line between the dangers of over- and undercultivation, between pushing nature too far and giving her too much ground. His garden is a place where her ways and his designs are brought gracefully into alignment. To occupy such a middle ground is not easy—the temptation is always to either take complete control or relinquish it altogether, to invoke your own considerable (but in the end overrated) power or to bend to nature’s.

The above seemed like a perfect description of the extreme dangers most parents are prone to: the excesses of helicopter parenting on the one hand, and the defects of heedless or even neglectful parenting on the other hand. The one threatens to choke out the life, autonomy, and freedom of the plant; the other leaves it susceptible to all sorts of soul-crushing weeds, pests, and dryness.

Yet between these two extremes, there is beautiful flexibility and diversity. Every plant and every gardener is unique. As our seedlings grow, they take on their own unique shapes, proclivities, desires. A rose and a carrot need completely different styles of care and attentiveness. The parent, like the gardener, must learn to see these differences as their children grow, learning to be attentive to the needs of their disparate differences, strengths, and weaknesses. Learning when to be firm and supportive, when to let go and allow a child to spread his or her wings … there are times and ways in which to do this, and it will look different with every family, as well as with every child.

Every parent’s garden is going to look a little different—and as long as it doesn’t fall prey to the types of excess and defect described above, that’s okay. Some gardeners prefer wildflower gardens, bushy and lush and very laissez faire; others cultivate manicured English gardens, with carefully trimmed shrubs and thoughtful, shapely plants. Each are beautiful, in their way.

Similarly, the fights parents often have regarding birth preferences (natural or epidural?), the care of infants (cloth diapers vs. Pampers, cheerios vs. gluten free, swaddling vs. no swaddling?), the education of their children (public school vs. private vs. homeschooling vs. unschooling?), and discipline (spanking vs. timeouts vs. grounding vs. no punishments?) are all, when done within moderation and for the good of their children, good and fine. The methods may raise different children—but there is beauty in diversity. Gopnik agrees with me on this point: “Should you co-sleep with your babies or let them cry it out? Should strollers face front or back? How much homework should children have? How much time should they spend on the computer? There is almost no evidence that any of this has much predictable effect on what children will be like when they grow up.”

There are some things every parent-gardener must do. They must care for the soil surrounding their plants (fostering a home environment that is safe, nurturing, supportive, and healthy). They must prune and weed around their plants (promoting healthy discipline and fostering social and educational atmospheres that help, not hurt, their children). They must water their plants (providing verbal, physical, and emotional cues that encourage their children and let them know they are loved).

If you’re doing these things, it’s likely your plants (a.k.a. kids) will flourish. They may turn out differently than you might expect—but as any gardener will tell you, just because you thought you’d planted a gardenia doesn’t mean you’ll be disappointed when it turns out to be a rhododendron. Each plant is gorgeous, sweet, and awe-inspiring in its way.

Gracy Olmstead is senior staff writer for The American Conservative.