Nine Years Ago in TIME

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Elizabeth L. Bland, Julie Rawe, Eric Roston and Roy B. White

Well before the scandals over Catholic priests accused of pedophilia, Americans were beginning to cast a skeptical eye on mainstream religion. In a 1993 cover story, TIME noted that people were turning away from the traditional CHURCH in search of more personalized spiritual havens.

There was a time in America when a spiritual journey meant a long, stormy crossing of the soul, an exploration mapped by Scripture and led by clergy through the family church. Catholic you were born and Catholic you died, or Methodist, or Jew... Today, a quiet revolution is taking place that is changing not only the religious habits of millions of Americans but the way churches go about recruiting members to keep their doors open. Increasing numbers of baby boomers who left the fold years ago are turning religious again, but many are traveling from church to church or faith to faith, sampling creeds, shopping for a custom-made God...Analysts say mainliners are suffering because they have failed to transmit a compelling Christian message to their own children or to anybody else. "One thing about the Episcopalians, Methodists and Catholics," says Margaret Poloma, professor of sociology at the University of Akron, "is that people in leadership positions are out of touch with the people in the pews. The evangelical churches have made a real attempt to reach out to younger people."

--TIME, April 5, 1993