People bristle at labels. They say they dont want to be boxed in by the limits that come with identities liberal, moderate or conservative, for example. Being a political independent gives them more latitude. They even say they are spiritual, but not religious. That is one reason why in 1998, we change our weekly Tribune section from Religion to Spiritual Life.Religious identity is coming to be problematic for a lot of reasons, including peoples own unfolding, evolving spirituality that may stray and drift from what they have been taught by organized religions and are expected to accept as the gospel truth. But free will and widespread ideas undermine that. People start to get outside the lines in their thinking, sort of like errant floodwaters that dont want to follow the channels of a stream. When faith groups themselves are split over what their tenets are or should be, followers become conflicted and take sides. Often some bail out altogether and find something else or stay clear of established religions lest it crimps their spirituality. Certainly the community churches benefit immensely from organized and denominational religions too bent on over-defining their doctrines and tenets, often to their detriment. Andrea Useem, writing for the Religion News Service this week, cites findings that the era when religion was determined solely by accident of birth is over. She spoke to Peter Berger, professor of sociology and theology at Boston University, who said, People are making more choices in everything from lifestyle to sexual identity. Its not surprising if they are making more choices in religion. Religious exploration, of course, carries great risk for faith groups. Let the young, especially, experiment and explore, and there is a very good chance theyll not be back. Thus the pains some faiths take to denounce the relativism and apostasy in all other traditions. Thus the strong investment in religious education, schools, catechism and youth groups and encouraging them to find life partners of their own faith traditions. Useem points to Barry Kosmins recent book, Religion in a Free Market: Religious and Non-Religious Americans. It is based on a large 2001 American Religious Identification Survey. Kosmin notes that family and ethnic loyalties the old glue that maintained inter-generational religious identification has weakened. He said that mobility stirs up and scatters families, allowing members to explore and search for religious truth outside their own traditions. That 2001 study, Useem explained, found twice as many Americans left Catholicism as joined it, while evangelical Christianity showed a net gain with more than three times as many people joining that leaving. The biggest change, however, was registered among Americans who said they had no religious identity at all, increasing from 8 percent of the U.S. population in 1990 to 14 percent in 2001, she wrote. Love and marriage start many folks scrambling. In mixed religious marriages, all sorts of things happen one accepts, or goes along with, the others faith; each continues to practice his or her own faith; they find a compromise; they start over; they become inactive altogether; or they embark on endless faith-seeking. Often one discovers something long missing from his or her own journey in the spouses faith and things click. Useem quotes Kosmin in saying that while religious switching may bring satisfaction to the individual seeker, the phenomenon can be unnerving for clergy who are competing for customers who are keenly aware of the many options that they seekers have. We have a supply-side religious market with more competing firms each year, Kosmin said, noting that giant churches are partly successful because they actively reach out to potential members of which there are many in the high-mobility suburbs. Moreover, their smorgasbord of lifestyle opportunities, from gyms to travel to book groups, create inviting club-like enclaves. But recruitment can just be an in-the-front-door and out-the-backdoor activity, said Daniel Olson, a researcher of religious competition and a sociologist at Indiana University South Bend. He cited the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Buddhists and Jehovahs Witnesses as faiths especially prone to getting lots of converts but losing them in due time. He said smaller religious groups may tend to have better retention because they may be able to cement closer relationships and tend to be invested in the friends who brought them in. A Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in December in Florida included a speaker who said mere modernity translates into choice. It empowers people to make new religious choices that may fly in the face of the wishes of family and friends. As people no longer expect to get and keep the same job for a lifetime, they arent as apt to stick with the church or theology they started with. The ease of being exposed to outside ideas and a pervasive drumbeat to question authority and challenge conventional teachings make it harder for houses of worship to foster deep loyalties and make followers want to claim a denominational identity. Aloof, no-strings-attached spiritual grazing spells trouble organized religion with mortgage payments and staff salaries to pay.

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