“Faith of our fathers, holy faith, we shall be true to thee ’til death.”
Maybe so. Maybe no. The old hymn might not ring true anymore.
A study released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life concludes that young Americans are significantly less religious than their fathers, mothers and grandparents.
Pew researchers interviewed more than 35,000 Americans about their religious views. They found one in four “millennials” (that is, people born after 1980 who came of age around the millennium) characterize themselves as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. Fewer than one in five members of Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980) expressed similar religious doubts when they were in their early 20s.
Only 13 percent of baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) were unaffiliated with a religious tradition when they were young adults, according to the survey and comparison with past data.
None of this means the younger generation doesn’t have a prayer.
In fact, 45 percent of the millennials surveyed say they pray daily — about the same percentage as generations past. They also believe in an afterlife and concepts such as heaven, hell and miracles at roughly the same percentages.
Read full article: http://www.parentdish.com/2010/02/18/faith-of-our-fathers-survey-says-not-so-much/
{ 1 comment }
Interesting blog, but it’s missing an important part of the equation: Generation Jones (between the Boomers and Generation X). Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report chose the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here’s a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. And most analysts now see generations as getting shorter (usually 10-15 years now), partly because of the acceleration of culture. Many experts now believe it breaks down more or less this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Generation Y: 1979-1993
Comments on this entry are closed.