Millennials are the young adults who were born between 1981 and 1996. Many of them are kids who grew up in our ministries. Recent reports say they are less engaged in church. Why is this?
David Masci, who is a senior editor with Pew Research, recently sat down with Michael Hout to discuss this. Michael is a Professor of Sociology at New York University and author of the book: Century of Difference...How America Has Changed in the Last 100 Years. Here's a transcript of their conversation. It offers some great insights for church leaders.
By many measures of religious commitment, Millennials are less religious than older Americans. Why do you think this is?
Most age differences at any given time are
the legacy of the times people grew up in. Many Millennials have
parents who are Baby Boomers and Boomers expressed to their children
that it’s important to think for themselves – that they find their own
moral compass. Also, they rejected the idea that a good kid is an
obedient kid. That’s at odds with organizations, like churches, that
have a long tradition of official teaching and obedience. And more than
any other group, Millennials have been and are still being formed in
this cultural context. As a result, they are more likely to have a
“do-it-yourself” attitude toward religion.
Is what we’re seeing with
Millennials part of a broader rejection of traditional institutions or
is organized religion the only institution being affected?
Oh, it is widespread. It’s just easier to
quantify religious change because we have such good data on it. But
Millennials’ faith in nonreligious institutions also is weaker than they
used to be. You see evidence of their lack of trust
in the labor market, with government, in marriage and in other aspects
of life. General Social Survey data on confidence in the leadership of
major institutions show that younger people particularly are not as
confident as older adults when it comes to institutions like the press,
government and churches. But I think trust is not the whole story.
For one thing, there has been a long list
of scandals in recent decades, such as Watergate, that have undone the
reputations of major institutions the Greatest Generation trusted.
Millennials didn’t grow up trusting these institutions and then had that
trust betrayed like older Americans might have. They didn’t trust them
to begin with. And these institutions have let people, particularly
young people, down.
Are these trends likely to be long term?
I’m reluctant to make predictions, but we
can see how things have worked out lately. There used to be this view
that there was a religious life cycle, that when you got older and
married and had kids you got more active in organized religion. But that
doesn’t seem to be happening. In the past 20 years, we really haven’t
seen a lot of evidence of that cycle continuing.
With respect to the Catholic Church – lack
of trust is fueled by the sexual abuse scandals in the church. What we
see across all denominations is a gap emerging between politically
liberal and moderate young people and leadership among conservative
churches who are taking political positions on abortion, gay marriage
and other social issues.
When that happens, people who are politically liberal and not active in a particular church often put distance between themselves and organized religion by answering “none of the above” to questions about religious preference. Moderates show the same tendency, just not as clearly. As a consequence, in the most recent General Social Survey (2014), 31% of political liberals who were raised in a religion had no religious preference compared to just 6% of political conservatives.
On a couple of measures of
religiosity – namely belief in heaven and hell and willingness to share
their faith with others – Millennials do seem more similar to older Americans. Why is this the case?
I think you see higher levels of these
things among Millennials because they require very little in the way of
institutional involvement. They also are harbingers of the “make your
own way” or “do-it-yourself” religion that characterizes this group.
I think people assume that people who do
not belong to an organized religious group reject religion altogether.
But many “nones” believe in God and heaven.
And spiritual experiences are still attractive for people who don’t go
to church. Some people find God in the woods rather than in a church.
I have to admit that the data on “sharing
faith” is a bit confounding. But I’m sure many Millennials who said they
share their faith don’t mean that they engage in missionary work. The
choice of the word “share” is vague, so maybe some of them who answered
the question thought of it in a more casual way, as in they discuss
religion with others.
