According to a Pew Research Center survey earlier this year, the proportion of Americans who self-identify as having no religious affiliation (called “nones”) has increased from 16% of the total population in 2007, to almost 25% now. Meanwhile, mainstream Christian affiliation is declining, particularly among millennials, the generation born from around 1980 to around 2000. WMRA’s Kara Lofton reports on what the trend might mean and how it is being experienced here in Virginia.
During the summer, the congregation of Rise United Methodist Church in Harrisonburg dwindles to core leadership and the few older members who have made the Friendly City their permanent home. The rest are college students from the area’s four universities who file into Court Square Theater every Sunday (or so) during the school year around 10ish. It’s a decidedly young environment.
Amanda Garber is the pastor there. She said unlike what people might think, young people aren’t walking away from church because community isn’t important to them anymore, but rather because they’re finding community in places that feel more relevant and authentic to them.
AMANDA GARBER: I would say millennials, in particular, speak a language of community in a very distinctive and powerful way, they just are finding community in what they would say are more authentic, meaningful ways. They are walking away from organized religion, in part, because they have experienced it as inauthentic, inhospitable, damaging to themselves and others, hypocritical and legalistic.
This description of church certainly seems to be accurate for the millennials I have spoken to who struggle with their church’s positions on same-sex marriage, women in leadership and literal interpretations of scripture. These young adults are more likely to be found in coffee shops, on hiking trails or “in nature” than in a church pew on Sunday morning.
But others, such as Adam Miller, youth program assistant at another Harrisonburg Church, First Presbyterian, believe no amount of community outside of the church can account for what is found in “a body of believers.” But even community itself isn’t enough, he said. The most important piece in faith is a relationship with Christ.
ADAM MILLER: It’s something you hear more and more from people within different churches, and it’s this idea that is quite honestly very toxic. But it’s this idea that if you live a good life and think happy thoughts we’ll all get to heaven and almost removes Christ from part of the equation, but at its core it is a terrible lie, an absolutely terrible lie. If you look at the teachings of the Bible, you will not find anything that teaches that there is any other way to heaven or being right in God’s eyes other than Christ.
But strong religious affiliation, including an active relationship with Christ, is on the decline, says James Ward, professor of religion at both James Madison and Eastern Mennonite Universities.
JAMES WARD: We’ve moved away from a time in which if your parents were Methodist, you were going to be a Methodist. So your religious identity was more or less fixed by the family you were born into, the area you were born into. And religious identity is shifting from this ascribed kind of identity, increasingly toward a more, let’s call it a voluntary or chosen identity. So when this happens, and you couple this with let’s say less social pressure to be religious, it’s not a surprise in some ways you’ll see the trends in this data that we see.
Ward says there is still a cohort of millennials, like Miller, who retain as strong a religious affiliation as any generation at any time in history. But others say, “Since I don’t have to be religious, I won’t.” Miller wonders if the non-religious group doesn’t go to church because they buy into the consumeristic American society, which says, “If church doesn’t have anything to offer ME, why would I go?”
Jordan Garrett grew up in the Baptist Church, but worked at Rise as worship leader while a student at JMU. Now that she has graduated and has moved back home to Richmond, the decision about whether or not to go to church is a little more complicated.
JORDAN GARRETT: Speaking for me, I think a church should be a community, but from my past experiences a lot of time it’s not or it’s not a diverse community.
She said even though she still loves the church, thinks it should be criticized because it is letting people down. On the other hand, she agrees with Miller about millennials having a kind of religious apathy.
GARRETT: It’s not that they dislike the church, it’s more that they don’t see its relevance anymore, which is a really key part of it, which is why I feel a lot of churches are freaking out, they are wondering why millennials aren’t staying and I think it’s more of an argument of we aren’t really driving them away, but you’re not necessarily giving them a reason to come either.