Forty-six percent of 18- to 25-year-olds classified themselves as “undecided” about their faith, while 27 percent said they were “godly” or highly religious, according to a study released April 11 by Reboot, a national network of Jewish adults.
The remaining 27 percent in the national study defined themselves as “godless” or secular, said the survey of 1,385 young people, completed in November 2004.
The study called “Generation Y,” those born between 1980 and 2000, a “generation of individuals” who choose between faiths just as easily as they click to play their own songs on an iPod, a digital music player.
But unlike the music industry, most churches do not hold focus groups or poll young members to find out what might get them into the pews more often, said Reboot co-founder Roger Bennett.
Bennett said the motivations of young people are changing “and the question is whether major denominations will be able to tap into that.”
Pollster Anna Greenburg, author of the Generation Y study, decried a lack of “understanding the role religion plays in young people’s lives.” She said because Generation Y is the most ethnically diverse group to date, religion is no longer the defining characteristic it once was.
According to the report, “Gen Y” is expressing religion in more casual ways than its parents’ generation did.
Praying before meals (55 percent), chatting with friends (38 percent), and reading religious literature (33 percent) were seen as alternatives to attending a synagogue or going to Sunday morning services.
(RNS)
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