A Generation Alone : Xers Making a Place in the World

Looks at the characteristics of Generation X individuals and discusses their religious life

This probing book takes an inside and personal look at the spiritual life of America's so-called "Generation X," that group born between 1963 and 1983. To the pessimistic examinations of Xers provided us by other writers, Mahedy and Bernardi contribute their findings, concluding that Xers, like Vietnam vets, are really victims of post-traumatic stress disorder. As heirs to a polluted, overpopulated world, as latch-key kids and video junkies, Xers, the authors find, are spiritually dispossessed. Ironically, they argue, the Xer sense of isolation is amplified by the churches, the very institutions that, with their spiritual traditions, should be best equipped to bring the dispossessed into fellowship and community, but that instead seem to drive them futher into despair. Mahedy and Bernardi have done us the great service of launching a necessary discussion; and their work will be an important stimulus for boomers and Xers who struggle to find wholeness.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a rather different approach to Generation Xhere defined as those born between 1961 and 1981Mahedy, a 57-year-old Episcopal college chaplain, and Bernardi, an Xer who coordinates college and young adult ministries for the Episcopal Church in San Diego, argue that the aloneness of this generation makes Xers particularly anxious to find meaning and community and more ready than their elders to commit to a radical Christianity. Mahedy has worked with Vietnam veterans and sees a strong similarity between their posttraumatic stress disorders and the alienation and lack of affect of young people who have survived broken or unstable homes, brutally violent schools and neighborhoods, and decades of leaderless politics and failed economic panaceas. Because they have little stake in the way things are, the authors argue, members of Generation X have the potential to find in love of God and in concern for others and the planet new answers to society's most troubling problems. As against both secular and fundamentalist visions, the authors propose radical, take it all Christianity as a powerful source of meaning and hope for twentysomethings. Mary Carroll