Pre-Evangelization and Young Adult “Native Nones”
A New Paradigm for Reaching the Unchurched
Imprint: Pickwick Publications
What motivates American young adult "native nones," or those who have grown up without a religious background, to investigate the Catholic faith? What turns them off? How do we reach them? Tamra Hull Fromm re-examines the role of pre-evangelization in the contemporary context and presents a micro-study of twenty-four "native nones" who chose to investigate the Catholic Church through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) in the Archdiocese of Detroit, USA.
Tamra Hull Fromm is an instructor with the Catholic Biblical School of Michigan and an associate lecturer with Maryvale Institute in Birmingham, England. She is also an adjunct faculty member at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. Her background includes service in higher education administration, diocesan marketing for Catholic schools, and young adult ministry. Dr. Fromm earned a PhD from Maryvale Institute/Liverpool Hope University in 2019. She and her husband, Brian, live in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan.
“A timely, valuable, and well-researched contribution to an increasingly urgent issue in the church. Particularly insightful and helpful for the lay faithful who live, play, and work with young adults who increasingly have little to no exposure to Jesus and the church.”
—John Riccardo, Executive Director, ACTS XXIX
“Dr. Fromm studies a growing cohort of young adults who have not been raised in any faith (‘native nones’). She does an excellent job of identifying the necessity of a pre-evangelization to prepare the way for a sharing of the gospel. While solidly grounded academically the book also includes pastoral insights that can be of help to anyone trying to reach this cohort of young adults. A very well-done study with pastorally useful conclusions.”
—Ralph Martin, Director of Graduate Theology Programs in the New Evangelization, Sacred Heart Major Seminary
“Evangelizers recognize the changes in the young adult spiritual landscape. In Pre-Evangelization and Young Adult ‘Native Nones’, Tamra Fromm explains why and proposes a way forward: a renewed pre-evangelization for our postmodern time. A helpful blend of the theoretical and the practical, this book will benefit both the student and the pastoral minister.”
—Katherine Coolidge, Director, Parish and Diocesan Services, The Catherine of Siena Institute, and co-author of Ananias Training: Traveling with Others the Discipleship Path
“Tamra Fromm’s study on pre-evangelization enriches our understanding of the many barriers—for example, social, cultural, philosophical—to evangelization, conversion, and catechesis that currently inhibit the understanding and response of the ‘religiously unaffiliated.’ This study is ecumenical, drawing on the pre-evangelization methodologies of both Catholic and Protestant ministries, to understand the different challenges blocking the proclamation of the gospel. Her study is smart, asking the right questions, and insightful because it draws conclusions about the proper methodology/epistemology that may ‘predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 35).”
—Eduardo Echeverria, Professor of Philosophy and Systematic Theology, Sacred Heart Major Seminary
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