Religion, Faith, and Kids:
Losing their Connection to the Church
It's eleven fifteen on a Sunday morning. The family wagon is moving at the speed of light on the Interstate. My wife keeps a watchful eye for the police and radar guns. My daughter has her headset on listening to music. My son is watching some darn video downloaded from a video sharing site. We take the turn at a high rate of speed and a few seconds later, we wind up in the church parking lot, slamming the brakes, and conducting a parking move only seen by movie stuntmen, using the emergency brake to turn into the spot and turning off the car.
I look at my watch and shout out an expletive (which I won't repeat here ... after all ... this blog is rated "G"). I might have shouted it out three times, in rapid succession, like I was summoning "Beetlejuice" (If you haven't seen the movie "Beetlejuice", please take a look at your streaming media service and watch it). Once the car settles, the kids notice that I was waiving my hands in the air, because I really did care (ok., That was bad. Sorry.) about getting the kids to church on time!
The kids unplugged from their electronics and my daughter says, "Why are we here?"
My wife turns her head and looks at my daughter in the backseat, then replies, "Because I said so!"
Then., dark clouds start to form over the car, lightning strikes the pavement, and thunder cracks like Indiana Jones's whip (If you haven't seen the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark", please take a look at your streaming media service and watch it). The kids made my wife mad! After being on this Earth for more than a few days, they should realize that you don't mess with my wife on several topics: 1) all chick flicks are great, 2) doing chores is an essential part of growing up, and 3) the community of shared worship and its positive effects on everyone's life!
The kids, quickly understanding what they have done, drop their electronics and head into the church. My wife and I lock up the car, find our seats, and the church begins. All the time I am sitting in the pew, with the occasional elbows in the ribs from my wife to keep me awake, thinking about what my daughter said. If she only sees the church as a chore, will she (when she is an adult) gravitate to the light and continue going to church, or deviate from it?
"In fact, in 46 countries around the world," says the Pew Research Center, "adults under age 40 are less likely to say religion is “very important” in their lives than are older adults; the opposite is true in only two countries. In 58 countries, there are no significant age gaps on this question, according to surveys conducted in more than 100 nations. 51% of younger adults in the average country consider religion to be very important, compared with 57% among people ages 40 and older – a difference of 6 percentage points." (1)
| Figure 1 |
| Figure 2 |
"In the U.S., the age gap is considerable: 43% of people under age 40 say religion is very important to them, compared with 60% of adults ages 40 and over. Age gaps also are especially common in Latin America, with gaps appearing in 14 out of 19 countries. In the average country in the region, 63% of young adults consider religion to be very important, compared with 73% of their elders.
In Europe, an age gap appears in 18 out of 35 countries, with 19% of young adults in the average country and 26% of their elders saying religion is very important in their lives."
In Africa, these trends seem to be reversed: in "sub-Saharan Africa – which has the world’s fastest population growth – also has the smallest age gap on the importance of religion and has a high rate of religious commitment overall. In the average country in the region, 88% of younger adults and 89% of older adults say that religion is very important in their lives." Look at Figure 2, where it looks at the overall age gaps between two generations: 1) 18-39-year-olds and 2) ages 40+. Overall, there is a six percent gap between the generations. On a country by country basis, the United States has a seventeen percent gap as sub-Saharan Africa only as one percent. Now, this does not mean that anyone generation is more devout to a religion that the other, but it does show a gap in the importance of religion in that generation's lives.
So, the big question becomes, why? Why do kids today not see the value in religion as their parents do? In 2013, National Public Radio (NPR), had a roundtable discussion with kids about religion. I won't spoil it for you, so I embedded the radio article below.
At the end of the day, people (regardless of generation) need to connect with religion and make it their own. It has to be relatable, accessible, and feel like they are part of something greater. Maybe the best way to gets kids to be a part of something is not to shove them in a car on a Sunday and make them go to church. If we are to have religion be a part of the next generation, they will have to want to go on their own. Thanks for reading the blog! If you have any questions, please leave them in the areas below.
Bibliography
(1) "Younger people are less religious than older ones in many countries, especially in the U.S. and Europe", Pew Reseach Center, (June 13, 20-18),
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/06/13/younger-people-are-less-religious-than-older-ones-in-many-countries-especially-in-the-u-s-and-europe/
(2) "More Young People Are Moving Away From Religion, But Why?", NPR, (January 15, 2013), https://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169342349/more-young-people-are-moving-away-from-religion-but-why
