Pray Tell?

Millennials are those born after 1980, and in a world of rapidly expanding universe of evangelical Christians, America’s youngest generation may be the least religious in our history. Yeah, we know there are no atheists in foxholes and that people tend to become more committed to religion as they get older, but the trend lines are interesting to review. A new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (the February 2010 Religion Among the Millennials) is a treasure-trove of information about this latest phenomenon. Here’s a little bit of what they found about this less-devoted young, 18-29:

Only 21% regularly attend church or temple services.

26% of this cohort have no religious affiliation.

64% absolutely believe that God does exist.

Reflecting a trend across most age groups, about three quarters believe in an afterlife.

78-79% of all age groups believe in miracles (someone should make a “fix this economy” request)

18-29’s are more open to formerly unacceptable moral acceptance of homosexuality, accepting of other religions and believing that there are multiple paths to “salvation.” Even among evangelicals, the differences between under and over 30 are quite significant. For example, according to the study, only 47% of evangelicals under thirty believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, while that percentage rises to 61% for those evangelicals over that age.

For younger believers who have affiliated with one particular religion, the numbers appear to buck the trend lines: 29% of the under 30 believe that their faith is the “one true path” to salvation, a view held by only 23% of adherents over 30. The Pew study looked at X-Gen and Boomers when they were the same age, and indeed, they were somewhat more religious than this flock (and the older one goes, the greater the disparity).

The February 22^nd Los Angeles Times review this report: “The Pew study found that, although young adults -- the so-called Millennial generation born after 1981 -- are shunning traditional religious denominations and services in unprecedented numbers, their faith in God and the power of prayer appears nearly as strong as that of young people in earlier generations… ‘If you think of religion primarily as a matter of whether people belong to a particular faith and attend the worship services of that faith . . . then millennials are less religious than other recent generations,’ said Alan Cooperman, associate director of research for the Pew Forum, a Washington-based think tank run by the nonprofit Pew Research Center. ‘But when it comes to measures not of belonging but of believing, they aren't so clearly less religious… Millennials are coming of age less affiliated than any recent U.S. generation,’ Cooperman said. ‘ And . . . I would say there's no reason to think that they're going to become more affiliated.’”

In a world where the line between politics and religion appears to be increasingly blurring, where the electability of our representatives is often contingent on the degree that they are committed to one form of Christianity or another – and yes, it is Christianity – it will be interesting to watch the impact of these changes on future American elections. Young adults still believe as much as ever… just not exactly as much through a formal religious base.

I’m Peter Dekom, and everything seems to be connected to… well… everything else.