To listen to some religious pundits, one would think the sky is falling. Almost one-third of young adults are not affiliated with any religious group. A little more than one-third (37 percent) of emerging adults (18–23 year olds) say they are losing the faith they had as high schoolers. Many in this group say they are “religious” but not active in a church. In short, young adults are the least religiously committed of any age group in the United States according to the General Social Survey, which dates back to 1972.
That is why some are asking if there is a future for the church with today’s young adults.
University of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith sees the statistics in a different light. He says, “There’s more religious stability across these age groups (young adults and emerging adults) than decline.”
Smith, the lead researcher of the National Study of Youth and Religion, a study of 2,500 young people across the nation, pointed out that the study found 56 percent of emerging adults remain fairly stable in their levels of religiousness. Seven percent say their faith life is growing.
Seventy-two percent of the young adults said they had positive feelings about the religious tradition in which they were reared. Almost half said they would like to attend worship services more often.
In a parallel study called the Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity, more than half of the young adults said religious faith was very important, extremely important or the most important part of their lives.
Smith found that those who maintained a high degree of religious faith into adulthood started off as teens with a high degree of religious faith. Those who declined in their level of religious involvement started out with lower levels of involvement.
The single most important predictor of a young adult’s attitude toward religion was that person’s parents, Smith reported. Also important were relationships with nonparental adults in the young person’s life and the religious practices of the teen.
The study found, “Young adults raised in a religious home where faith is taken seriously and practiced regularly (most likely) will continue those traditions. Parents with halfhearted attempts at inculcating faith (most likely) wind up with children who are less religiously committed as adults.”
Unfortunately, many parents of children in these age groups conclude they are no longer relevant to their children’s lives. They have been replaced by peer pressure. Not true, Smith says. Emerging adults want their parents’ love and are eager to engage them.
How strange it is that parents are urged to monitor their children’s activities from the athletic fields to social media uses to signs of drug and alcohol abuse. But when it comes to religion, the church and faith in God, parents are supposed to be hands off.
The outcome is predictable when that pattern is followed. Teens with fewer rules attend church less often and end up as young adults who attach less importance to a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Young people long for parents and for churches, the study concluded, to help them deal with the ultimate issues of life and the great moral truths of Scripture.
The church’s role plays out in two ways. One is through the influence of nonparental adults. Every teen needs someone to talk to about the formative issues of life. For those young and emerging adults for whom faith remained important, that person or persons came from their faith community. It was someone who knew the young person, someone who interacted with them. It may have been a Sunday School teacher or a youth leader. It may have been a member of the extended family for whom faith was important or a family friend.
In some ways the adult became a substitute for the parent because the youth liked and trusted the adult. The adult modeled the kind of behavior that invited a relationship that went beyond the casual friendliness of congregational life.
Young adults, emerging adults and teens all need mentors in their lives and there is no better place to provide those mentors than the church.
A second contribution of the church is to be true to its teachings. Today’s culture values openness. But there is a great deal of research showing that trying to appeal to young adults by being open to all beliefs often has the opposite effect. Being open to every idea or practice can reinforce a culture where truth and moral values are relative, thus making the church and other religious organizations irrelevant.
A teen’s religious practice was the third primary indicator of how important faith in God will most likely be in that person’s life as a young adult. Religious practices were more important than participating in a missions trip, which had little, if any, long-lasting impact on participants.
Instead lifelong influencers were frequent times of personal prayer and Scripture reading, devotional times and personal religious experiences. For centuries these practices have formed the foundation of a Christian life and they still do.
You may want to read Smith’s book, “Souls in Transitions: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults.” But whether you read it or not, remember the importance of Christian parents transmitting their Christian values; of churches providing strong, caring and accessible adult role models and mentors; of lifelong teaching about the importance of basic Christian disciplines. When these are present, faith in God and participation in church usually survive all the challenges of transitioning into adulthood.
So to the pundits of doom and gloom, the sky is not falling. As long as Christians remember these simple truths, the church will have a future with every generation.
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