His Point of View

“I was raised as _________” (you fill in the blank) is the answer you are most likely to receive from anyone under the age of 35 or 40 who is honest with themselves when asked “What is your religion?” Perhaps it is a sign of the times as well as a result of a more educated population.

I was at a bar watching the NBA championship game on last Thursday night with a person raised as Muslim, a Catholic, and myself (raised as a Baptist). All of us are under the age of 30, and we are of 3 different ethnic backgrounds. We were born in different regions of the US, if not different countries.  I said all of that to illustrate the fact that its not a “birds of a feather” situation, these are not people that I have known longer than a few weeks.

It has been noted that as a people’s level of education rises the reliance on religion to function effectively decreases.  Is that what is happening here? Or is it something different? I have noticed in the last 15 years or so that religious worship in the US has been migrating away from the strict denominations. In my home town of Atlanta, GA, as well as the other places I have lived in Florida, Alabama, and Virginia, I have seen no new Baptist churches, no new Catholic churches, and few new synagogues. But I have seen lots of new “non-denominational” churches. I think our previous generation grew away from their parents’ church, and perhaps my generation has grown weary of even the non-denominational structure as well.  Is this a natural progression away from strictly organized religion?

I do think that younger generations have also learned that the mainstream religions are so very much alike that the differences don’t matter as much as previous generations would lead us to believe.  Many traditional churches are still so focused on why their faith is better than the rest that they are losing the youth who feel that their church’s teachings are not relevant to society today.   The non-denominational churches do seem to cater more towards focus on religion as it applies to today’s world, perhaps that is a reason for the shift towards them.  People of my generation have friends of all faiths and unless you are really stuck on converting everyone to your religion people tend to get along fine.  I know families where the parents are of different faiths, and the children alternate between churches… so with these changing times its is inevitable that religious teachings will blend just as cultures have.

Although many of the people I know do not actively attend church or participate in religious services, I think most still live according to the fundamental teachings of their faith, and we still believe in a higher power and believe in spirituality. Is this a natural cycle, do all generations wander away from the church before becoming dedicated believers? I can not answer that question because I have only lived through the first 29 years of my life so I have not yet seen what the next generation will do, and I have not studied this phenomena in great detail. I know that some religions and theologians expect that people in their teens-twenties tend to drift away from religion… So is it likely that with time most people will find their way back to the church? Only time will tell.

So I pose a few questions for you, my readers:

1. Do you feel that religion is less relevant due to the fact that we no longer need to use religion to explain the unexplainable?

2. Do you feel that the crimes committed in the name of religion have caused people to lose faith in religious leaders?

3. Do you feel that religion has become less important in the lives of the younger generations?