Religion By The Numbers

Robert Wuthnow is a sociologist known for his research about all things 'religious' in America. He has a new book on the market called After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion. Brian McLaren reviews it in this month's issue of Christian Century. Brian says the biggest insight Wuthnow offers is that young adults are surprisingly open to spirituality...and even to Christianity. What's cool is that this isn't just wishful thinking on the part of denominational leaders or emerging church grant writers. This is based on the best data gathering effort around. But, Brian warns, none of us ought to make the mistake of thinking that these young adults are all just going to trip back in the door once little junior comes along. Church leaders need to be listening closely - and intentionally - to what these 20 and 30-somethings have to say. Both McLaren's review and Wuthnow's book are worth a look. But here's a quick glance at some of the numbers McLaren finds especially interesting in Wuthnow's research:

52 - The average adult age of mainline congregations
48 - The average in evangelical congregations

4 to 5 - The ratio of mainliners to evangelicals in 1970
2 to 3 - The ratio in 2000

12% - The percent of younger evangelicals who had been raised as mainliners in 1970
9% - That same percent today

4% - The percent of younger evangelicals who had been raised Roman Catholic in 1970
9% - That same percent today

46% - The percent of people in their early 40s who attend church weekly
29% - The percent of people in their 20s who do

80% - The percent of people who have some kind of affiliation with a church or religious community
55% - The percent of affliated people who have a sense of being uninvolved in a church (the effectively "unchurched")

38% - The percent of young adults who lean conservative religiously
56% - The percent who lean liberal religiously

56% - The percent of religious conservatives who attend church weekly
14% - The percent of liberals who do

20-somethings - The group who has the highest proportion of people who say they talk about religion with their friends

What here surprises you? Depresses you? Gives you hope?

Comments

[Dave]

These stats are really interesting. I think the last three regarding young adults are the most interesting. Young adults have high interest in the subject, are leaning liberal yet not participating in traditional church communities. Where are they talking about it? Will religion be in coffee shops and blogs or will they start organizing themselves? I anticipate that the liberal young adults will not be willing to claim affiliation with defined groups so the 80% number will drop.

I actually think it is hopeful that young adults are talking about it. I would rather have large numbers of young people thinking deeply about the issues, talking about it, as opposed to weekly attendance but with no incorporation into their daily living. I think it would be even better if they could organize themselves, I think it would be a scene of open dialogue, tolerance, and collaborative service activities.

KELLY'S RESPONSE: I wonder if "organizing" just looks different today than it used to. My Space, Facebook, Second Life, etc. are highly organized communities, for example. Does this count? Absolutely it does, even if it makes traditional church folk nervous. Maybe the question is, how can Christians begin to engage each other where life happens today?

[Jess]

Very interesting to me as a 30-year old who has run the whole gamut of identifying with the churchgoing portion of my faith.

Having grown up in a rural, pretty staid and traditional ELCA church community composed of lots of old school farming families, I went faithfully through Sunday School as a child, and through confirmation, tapering off a bit as a high schooler. I attended a Lutheran college, but rarely made chapel services unless my choir was singing. After college, though, I ended up in a Lutheran Volunteer Corps placement working for a small, fledgling urban church that was interested in doing things a bit differently and outside the box, and that's where I got more personally connected to and intentional about my church involvement, versus going mainly due to tradition and habit. Since that time, I've always sought churches that are still intrinsically Lutheran in spirit, but that go the less conventional route in their presentation and character. I now attend a very small (but hopefully growing!) RIC church that meets in a storefront and offsets its traditional liturgy and hymns with a "come as you are...dressed up or in jeans, straight or gay, rich or poor, etc." philosophy. It fits me best...as a liberal, a bleeding heart devotee of social justice, and a believer that God's love, and God's love expressed through other people, is extended to all regardless of things such as economic status, walks of life, personal politics, or sexual orientation.

I have found, though, (and particularly when I was in my twenties), it was difficult for others in my age demographic to believe that liberal churches existed, that socially conscious churches existed, that churches that spread a message of hope, not one of fear, punishment, and retribution, existed. Mostly, it seems very difficult for people my age and younger to wrap their heads around the likelihood that they would be able to find a church where they feel engaged and personally connected to the community within. My own boyfriend, after an entire childhood of parochial schooling and not much churchgoing other than that, was blown away when we were first looking for a church home, to find a church where it felt like (and is) a group of actual friends.

But whether or not people in that demographic are interested in attending regularly, they will very often talk about issues of faith and churchgoing. I'm active in several online communities with people in their twenties and thirties, and have been for a half-dozen years, and searching for meaning and happiness is definitely an active force in the lives of this demographic. Many are just somewhat wary of looking toward faith communities for this, though.