Millennials And Faith

This is family policy matters program is produced by the North Carolina family policy Council of profamily research and education organization dedicated to strengthening and preserving the family and from the studio. Here's John Rustin, president of the North Carolina family policy Council, thank you for joining us this week for family policy matters.

It is our pleasure to have Naomi for Raleigh with us on the program. Naomi is a weekly columnist for the New York Post in a formal Wall Street journal editor and writer whose work focuses on higher education, religion and culture for articles have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, among other publications.

She appears regularly on Fox News and FOXBusiness.

Naomi is the author of a number of books including her most recent book got religion help churches, mosques and synagogues can bring young people back to be talking with Naomi today about some of the issues that she raises in her recent book about millennial's and faith, and particularly how to bring millennial's or young adults who were born during 1980 or later back into the church. Naomi, welcome to the program is great to have you with us. What were delighted to talk with you now. Naomi, as you know, surveys continue to show that millennial's are the least religiously engaged generation among us, and they tend to be disconnected from church. What is driving this defection if you will, of young adults from the church. I think that there are number of different factors affect. I think the most pertinent one is the fact that when he yelled and an American generally now are putting off marriage longer and many people are not getting married it all, marriage used to be kind of a signal to people that it was time to do if they had left religious institution for any period of time that it was time to come back they thought marriage and also having children as kind of this at this moment where clearly you need to belong to a religious community, and sale of the decline of married. I think in America is definitely having a significant effect on the health of our religious institution, another thing which is come up in a lot of commentary these days is simply that the social pressures to be part of religious institution are not present anymore, I remember I interviewed Russell more of your listeners may be familiar with in the southern Southern Baptist convention. I interviewed a couple years ago I remember he told me this story about a friend of his in college who once was an atheist and who once asked him for a recommendation for a church and Dr. Morris. Why would you want that he's it's what I want to run for office someday, but I think I know he told me the story and sort of an effort to demonstrate just how far we've changed, which is to say, I don't think that social pressure really exists anymore, and certainly not to the extent they once did.

Well, I'm curious about what you started with discussing the relationship between marital status and religious attendance talk about doubled more if you will. What does marital status have to do with religious attendance and space in general. One of the things that you see now is this.

That we often refer to emerging adulthood that this time when people have written in certain classes graduated from college and often drifting around, they have different jobs different roommates out there, moving from place to place and this kind of out of the restlessness that characterizes that some of them are living in their parents basement. Of course, but what you have is kind of a lack of connection to community and I and sort of some people might call it a fear of commitment. Generally, people who are not putting roots down and I think that that is one way in which marriage and religious attendance have tended to go hand-in-hand.

And this is borne out by the statistics that married people are much more likely to attend religious institution and often happy marriages are when people attend religious institutions together thereto. I think the factors that feed one another will Naomi the Raziel and what is owed to New Orleans with those who claim no religious affiliation is something that were hearing more about these days. A recent pew survey founded New Orleans as a group have grown from about 16% to about 22% over the past seven years. How much of this trend is being driven by millennial's in your opinion, I think a significant part of editing by millennial no one pew survey showed 30% of people under 30 has no religious affiliation. I do, I do always like to caution people you know none does not mean that people are saying that there atheist that they don't believe in God or even that they don't have certain kinds of religious practices. For instance, there have not been a steep decline in the number of people who say that they pray on a daily basis. What have decline is the communal religious experience and the willingness to affiliate oneself with a formal religion and/or a religious institution so I mean I might think that those are, you know, certainly significant problems but I don't think we want to just sort of say all these people have given up on God or spirituality or face generally speaking, that's interesting not to get too far off on the rabbitry but I know that we've seen a very similar type of mentality in the political arena where many of the newly registered voters in North Carolina for example are registering on affiliated because they don't care to associate directly with either of the major political parties, not whether that is related to this or not. I have no idea, but it does seem that there may be a growing trend, particularly among younger people to avoid a more direct affiliation with particular organizations or groups they would rather remain somewhat flexible when it comes to that does not make sense.

Certainly they will say that they don't like the label that they don't like you know the bureaucracy that they don't like being told no sort of a top-down approach to their religion or their political affiliations. I think we can sort of give some credence to that without saying, this is entirely new. I'm sure that you have gotten a similar reaction from twentysomethings in previous generations to email, in the sense that they too would a satellite and I don't like being told what to do and I don't like the label that you're putting on me.

I don't think that's an entirely new sentiment, but it might find that that number of the religious institutions that I visited for this book I religion you know really found a way to bring these needs millennial in an and into institution.

So what. I guess the message would be is that it's not a blanket rule.

It's not that they don't like all institutions, and I do think that many religious institutions have, unfortunately, have thrown their hands up and said there's nothing we can say to these young people that would draw the men well in your book you point out the millennial Americans tend to be consumers of religion rather than producers and you argue that this consumerism actually begins in college for many young people. If you will explain more about the consumerism mentality among young adults and how it negatively impacts the well. I think what happened earlier than college. I mean, the first thing that happens in our religious and now is that we are segregated by age and so you have a kindergarten service and a first-rate service in the team therapist that you have. You know the young adult part and in each of these parts of the event of a church is geared toward particular age rivets. We don't ever want you have to listen to a message that you don't find completely relevant to you and and I think that that really continues and is exacerbated in college. I where you get a lot of these college ministry groups you know they they have a very exciting music. They have wonderful speakers come in on and it's a very enthralling experience for many young adults who really begin to see that version of Christianity in particular as the only person and it speaks to them leave. They begin to sort of think this is every part of religion is going to be geared for where I'm at in my life right now and I'm never going to have to sort of stretch myself to be a part of a larger community that doesn't look exactly in and think exactly like me.

So I think what happens then is that these young people are to spit out of college at the other end and it's very hard for them to find a religious institution that looks like the institutions that they been exposed to in college and it leaves them. I think floundering often and often unable to pick an institution at all. That's really interesting to know one of the recommendations on that note, that you have for reaching millennial's is for churches to give young adults more opportunities to serve and actually we are having a discussion very similar to this at my church how we can engage younger members of the church to get involved, and by providing them opportunities to serve were they would feel more part of the community more part of what's happening at the church one is serving in this manner so important to millennial's well I think you know one thing you have.

It is an interesting demographic shift. Now I was speaking to a pastor in New Jersey and I asked him about this problem of not not having young adults in the congregation and he said well we thought about this a few years ago and the first thing I did was I fired my wife. I said well he did that your congregation anything about what you know she had been in charge of the women's ministry at his large church for more than two decades and she was in an old let me she was probably 60 at most.

By the time he fired her. But he said to her luck. We need to get something else and an opportunity and you and your friends could serve in this role in this leadership role for another 20 years, but what method would that send to young people walking our doors, it would say we really need you and and so he sort of turned around.

He said, look, you know you need to step aside and I'm to go find 20 and 30 somethings to run this group and and and the people that he and I talked to the people that he and they were not only flattered but I think really felt like now, it matters that I show up every week. I have a an important role in I think too often we underestimate what young adults are capable of, I mean you know a lot of what goes on in church is not rocket science. That means we we need people who understand how to raise money to organize how to send out emails that meeting, you know how to clean up the cook. These kind of thing and so we assume somehow that because they're not married or maybe they haven't finished their degree.

Yet, or maybe they are living in their parents basement and a 25-year-old is not capable of those things, but in fact they are in and I think that church leaders would do well to recognize that and give them more responsibility can be easy for folks and maybe putting away individuals in the older generation students with their hands to give up reaching millennial's and throwing them into the church but you've argued that we should not give up on young adults. Based on your research. What makes you at least somewhat optimistic about millennial's returning to the fight with concrete examples I found where you know where religious institutions had look we we we may need to think about vanities differently. And then I went to one church in New Orleans out of Redeemer Church. I you know these church plants out there and him and what was really interesting was that the pastor there had taken a very old-fashioned approach to church. He said churches can be about this neighborhood. This chapter I met he walked everywhere he doesn't drive and actually break something very common among millennial and they have a very low rate of car ownership and I think it's not just because they're poor because they're environmentalist.

I'm also because they really like that kind of neighborhood he feel it something that they didn't get used to in college living in dorms and being in walking distance of all your friends, and I think that they've tried to translate that into a church community. So he has really this pastors really made the church community about this neighborhood serving this particular neighborhood and you've even gone so far as to tell people from other neighborhoods want to join anything you can join but wouldn't you rather find a church that's closer to you and what these people get out of it I think is this sense of I can run into the people from my church every day of the week it affects their sense of accountability effect. Their sense of community, but if you think about what this pastors done.

I mean this is the model that the Catholic Church used to use for their dioceses. That means this is either the lines. This is the neighborhood and these are the people who are to become your extended family, and I think that's an idea that really appeals to millennial unfortunate we have to close on that note I think it's it's important that folks are encouraged that our listeners are encouraged that there is hope. Now, millennial's my approach things a little bit differently than they did when they were that age, particularly when it comes to the relationship with the church but I think it's incumbent upon the church to really assess these important issues and want to understand millennial's to find out exactly what they're looking for and see how we can all work together to accomplish that important sense of community.

Naomi, unfortunately we are out of time for this week, but I want to give you opportunity to let our listeners know where they can go to learn more about your latest book got religion and to read more of your articles on this extremely important topic, thank you. Though I have a website Naomi Riley.com and also all the books are available on Amazon and I really encourage people to check out got religion just because it provides a think a lot of concrete allergies or religious leaders and lay leaders and parents and grandparents to think about how to reach this generation will Naomi Schaefer Riley.

Thank you so much for sharing your insights on millennial's and played with us on this week's family policy matters and we certainly wish you all the best. Thank you for we close out like to invite you to follow the nuclear family policy Council on Facebook. Just login and find us in C family.org again and see family.org. Be sure to watch us when you visit an addition for instant updates on profamily news of interest. Follow us on Twitter MC family of origin family matters.

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