c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Opening old high school yearbooks invariably produces two questions: “Did we really look like that?” and “Whatever happened to …?”

The answer to the first query is always “Yes! That’s the way we were.” However, the second question often goes unanswered because we have lost touch with many classmates _ in my case those who graduated with me more than 50 years ago from Alexandria, Va.’s George Washington High School.

Happily, I have remained in contact with five women who were GWHS cheerleaders back then. I recently interviewed them about their lives, education, careers and families, focusing especially on their religious identities and perspectives. My classmates’ answers provide a fascinating picture of the current status of religion in America.

Four cheerleaders _ Lee Everitt Kostel, Martha Jordan Stringer, Elizabeth (Betsy) Randolph-Horn, and Patricia (Patsy) Smith Ticer _ were all raised Protestant, and remain so today. The head cheerleader, Sally Baker Canestrari, had a Jewish mother and an Episcopal father. Interestingly, her father served as the president of Alexandria’s United Jewish Appeal in the 1940s and was an active leader in my childhood synagogue.

The five women graduated from various Virginia colleges _ William & Mary, Mary Washington and Sweet Briar _ and three of them received graduate degrees, including Sally’s doctorate in clinical psychology. All five cheerleaders married; they have a total of 15 children, 17 grandchildren and even one great-grandchild. Most of my classmates have always lived in the South, although more than 10 years ago Betsy moved to Britain and is married to an Anglican clergyman.

Only Patsy remained in our hometown, where she was Alexandria’s mayor and is now a Democratic state senator. Martha, an avid student of women in the Bible, is active in an Atlanta Presbyterian church. She has lived in the Georgia capital for 35 years and worked in the florist industry. Lee, a widow, has a home in Williamsburg, Va., and is a family therapist. Sally has retired as a therapist and lives in nearby Hampton, Va.

Of the five, it is Betsy who devoted herself to a religious career, including a leadership role in an “ecumenical leadership development organization” in Newport News, Va., and later as a lay member of an Anglican community in Britain. For years she “took on the role of a `Village Vicar’s Wife”’ in an English village, but now she and her husband reside in Leeds and “enjoy the vibrancy of city life once more.” She is increasingly attracted to the Quakers, and all five women express support for religious pluralism.

Well-educated, with interesting careers, married with children and grandchildren, the women do not, at first glance, present any startling news for religious leaders. They are longtime members of congregations, except for Sally.

Interestingly, one of Sally’s comments was a preview of what has taken place among most of the children and grandchildren of the five cheerleaders. “I do not think … religion has directly affected my long friendships either positively or negatively,” she said. “(Religion) is largely inconsequential in picking friends and in choosing a husband.” The key word is “inconsequential.”

Writing independently of one another, all five report a sharp drop in both religious identity and congregational participation among their children and grandchildren: “(My children are) not currently active in any church,” wrote one woman. “Organized religion seems to set their teeth on edge or is deemed immaterial or not applicable to their lives,” wrote another.

The cheerleaders’ words describing their offspring’s growing indifference to “organized religion” represent an ominous challenge to all spiritual leaders.

Finally, I asked my friends to choose any three religious leaders, living or dead, as dinner guests, and to select questions they would pose at such an imaginary meal. Although none of the women is Roman Catholic or Muslim, Pope John Paul II and Muhammad garnered the most invitations.

The cheerleaders all raised similar issues and concerns: Why aren’t there full religious rights for women, including ordination? Why does “so much bad stuff happen” if God is just? Why does evil exist along with religious bigotry and murder, all in the name of God? “(Why is there) a rise of anti-Semitism in the Middle East and France?”

I originally thought my interviews would simply produce a nostalgic snapshot in time. But to my surprise, something more important emerged: a revealing religious portrait of three generations.

DSB/PH END RUDIN

(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the recently published book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)

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