The trend towards growing non-affiliated populations is spreading to all corners of the world and across different religions. While this is not necessarily a negative development, leaders of each faith group need to understand why younger generations are increasingly less likely to associate with religion and start to take action in order to prevent further declines.
The trend of generation of youth not affiliating with religion is expected to continue. As a result, they are increasingly less likely to have faith in God or practice religious rituals such as prayer and attending church services. In addition, there is also an emerging trend of spirituality without religion among generations of youth. While many millennials do not identify with any specific religion, they still consider themselves spiritual; for example, more than three-quarters (76%) say that “believing in God” is crucial to them and 54% say that “praying daily” is must for them (compared with 38% who say praying daily). They don’t pray regularly but still express high levels of spirituality and they’re more comfortable with identifying themselves as spiritual rather than religious people. They also place less importance on belonging to a religion compared with previous generations. As you might have already realized, people’s religious beliefs and practices are highly personal, and there is no single way to define religion. Overall, however, people may be considered religious if they have faith in some sort of higher forces or deity who can be petitioned or worshiped. The degree to which they have faith in such a being varies greatly from person to person: Some people are deeply committed to their faith while others consider themselves more spiritual than religious; still others claim not to believe at all.
Younger Generations Are Spiritual Rather Than Religious
Younger generations are also more likely than older ones (in this case those born before 1945) not only to identify as spiritual rather than religious but also as unaffiliated — meaning with no formal membership in any particular group or institution that promotes belief systems related directly or indirectly through shared values (such as churches).
Statistics
Youth is more likely to support Israel. 30% of millennials and Gen Zers say they sympathize with Israel, while nearly half say they sympathize with Palestinians. The second group — spiritual but unaffiliated — is defined as those who say they “do not currently identify with any particular religion.” About a third (31%) of youngsters in this group say they have faith in heaven, compared with 21% of religiously affiliated youngsters and 15% of the youngest generation overall. Nearly four-in-ten (38%) spiritual but unaffiliated Americans have faith in hell, compared with 27% of religiously affiliated youngsters and just 15% among all older generations combined. About half (51%) in the “spiritual but unaffiliated” category say they think miracles still occur today, a higher proportion than any other generation surveyed.
More than half (54%) said there are angels among us today compared with only 29% of religious Americans overall; about six-in-ten (59%) said good and evil exist independently from human consciousness; 59% said that Satan is real; 58%, that some people can predict future events through psychic powers or intuition alone; 55%, that some people can see ghosts or spirits without having been told about them first; 48%, telepathy between living humans exists today and 46 percent thought reincarnation was possible.
Summary
It’s crucial to note that there’s a diversity in the population of youth, and it would be a mistake to generalize about them as a whole. Although they are more secular than their parents, it’s not necessarily because they don’t believe in God. Rather, there’re various reasons why they have become less religious:
- Some prefer alternative philosophies such as Buddhism or Taoism to Christianity or Islam.
- Others might have lost faith due to personal experiences that led them away from religion.
- Still others may simply not identify with any particular belief system at all (i.e., they reject organized religion).
One major issue with those that responded to the study is that they are so young. Over 65% of the participants in the study were between the ages of 16 and 25. Unfortunately, their thoughts and feelings towards religion can only really be considered in regards to their current age and not to their beliefs as they age throughout life. The reason for including them is to provide an example of what younger generations think about religion as it is today.