Adults flock to Sunday school, but seldom at church

Faith education in every generation has been an attraction for adults at times of major transition - childbirth, the death of a parent, or a crisis such as divorce or job loss. The task, says John Elias, professor of religion and education at Fordham University, is always to "reinterpret and explain a [religious] meaning system from childhood in adult language and adult context."

Yet today's adults are seeking extra knowledge in fresh ways, he says, for another reason: Many came of age in the 1960s and '70s when "doctrinal rigidity gave way to experience sharing" as a mode of faith education. "They feel shortchanged," Mr. Elias says. "They feel they never got their grounding in the basics."

Other adult learners, however, are creating demand for courses that challenge those very basics. One example: Hundreds of discussion groups have formed from coast to coast this year to tackle "The DaVinci Code," a bestselling novel that depicts church doctrine as a mere product of ancient politics.

The result is that, whether someone is drawn back to a religious tradition in adulthood or repelled further away from it, educators from varied backgrounds are standing ready to serve up whatever's hot.

In prior decades, "adult Christian education was taken extremely seriously," according to Louis Weeks, professor of historical theology at Union Theological Seminary & Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, Va.

Local churches and seminaries in the early 20th century took the lead, he says, developing adult curricula and teacher training resources so good that many parishes today choose them over the newer alternatives.

More recently, however, local parishes have generally failed to keep pace with demand. Priest shortages in Catholic churches, for instance, have made adult education an unfeasible luxury in many cases, according to the Rev. Anthony Ciorra, director of the College of St. Elizabeth center from 1992 until earlier this year. What's more, parishioners have raised the bar of expectation.

"In our society, people are used to quality in education," says Mr. Ciorra. "But parishes don't always have the desire or the funds to deliver.... People are not used to paying top dollar to go to a religious event.... But what we're seeing is once they start coming and seeing that you're offering good stuff, they start giving."

For some adult learners, the social contacts are as important as course content. For that reason, the Alpha Course makes sure to always begin with a meal, followed by a video with plenty of humor, before engaging the serious claims of Christianity, according to Alpha New England director Willard Cook.

"The main reason people come to church is for relationships," Mr. Cook says. "It's not the content that's the important part of Alpha. It's the relationships. That's the glue."

In Judaism, Chabad Lubavitch aims to heighten the Orthodox observances of Jews, but invitation begins sometimes with nonreligious programming. Widely advertised events, such as a presentation by singer/poet Bob Dylan, aim to attract a broad cross section of Jews.

Once inside a Chabad center, which have grown in number from 300 in 1994 to about 600 in America today, some Jews begin to hunger for what they've been missing in Judaism, according to Los Angeles Rabbi Chaim Cunin.

And for those who prefer anonymity, Chabad has 100 rabbis across the globe who volunteer to answer personal questions through askmoses.com. The site hosts 1,200 conversations per day, averaging 28 minutes each.

"Some people would be very hesitant to walk into an Orthodox classroom or synagogue," says Mr. Cunin, director of askmoses.com. "Whereas in Chabad, everybody feels like the beautiful person they should feel like.... We're not just filling a need. We're creating a need. We see that as our responsibility."

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