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In the Beginning….

And Gawd CAME DOWN and said unto them, “Dude… wtf??”

New Harvard Institute Survey came out a while back. I’m a slacker – I finally printed it, read it, and made smiley faces and stars in the margins.

THIS – caught my eye:

“One-in-five members of Generation Next say they have no religious affiliation or are atheist or agnostic, nearly double the proportion of young people who said that in the late 1980s. And just 4% of Gen Nexters say people in their generation view becoming more spiritual as their most important goal in life.”

And do we think that me reading these stats on the SAME day that my copy of Jesus Camp arrived is anything other than divine inspiration??? So, I started looking around wondering more about Gen M’s of faith and the extent to which their faith also influences their activities and their politics.

“Data from 30 years of the General Social Survey pinpoints age 22 as the point in the life course when average levels of weekly or more frequent church attendance are at their lowest (17 percent). The climb back into regular or semi-regular religious practice—if it occurs at all, and it usually does—is often stimulated by marriage and childbearing. How Corrosive is College to Religious Faith and Practice?

This doesn’t surprise me in the least. Ever go to church these days? Ever been to a MegaChurch? An Evangelical Church? It’s depressing. Its damnation and you’re bad this and shame on you that. And its down with the gays and no sex for anyone. To a 20 something this message is BS. The same survey says 19% strongly believed that homosexuality was morally wrong. Chances are those same 19% are the ones going to church on a simi-regular basis.

According to Maddie Lear of GirlHeadQuarters.com (a teen based blog site that address every issue under the sun and is geared toward teenage girls)

“it seems as though if you believe in god, read the bible, and go to church that you are automatically an evangelist Jerry Falwell, who hates all, killing people in “god’s name.” I finally know now that that is not true at all. For a while I didn’t know if it was okay to believe in something. That there was no medium. That if I believed in god or jesus, and read the bible, that I was a crazy mean person of whom my parents wouldn’t approve. But, if I went the other way then I might not be atheist per se, but still deprived of believing.”

We all know that the right wing is screwing young people out of a future of a clean environment, a solid economy, peace, a good education, and the like – and the conservative churches are laying the path to their victory.

We’re not stupid. A majority of the Gen M people see through the God guise and understand that it’s an extremist sect of wackos. But look at poor Maddie. She has been frightened away from the church. These people are scaring people away - and if your point is to bring people to live a life of service and good works and talk about a Prince of Peace... dude...

So after years of safety and security (ideally) under the rule of our parents – our culture craves freedom, experience, and boldness is a cultural norm. The hard nosed, traditional structure of organized religion is as distant as parental influence.

Only further in life, following the debauchery, the experiences, the drama, and scandal do we start to settle down. And after years of losing jobs, losing loves, losing friends or death of family do we begin to look for security again – stability – comfort –structure. Is that why we are seeing a generation of pot smoking, acid dropping, flower children and x-hippies turning into Republicans?

What ever happened to that peace and justice movement where being a person of faith meant doing good works and helping the poor? According to Theocracy Watch “Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.”

Is the absence of progressive youth and fearful old school activists what is allowing the church to turn? After all, Church is a business, isn’t it? It needs its bling – don’t matter who is going to buy it.

And lately we’ve seen a radical increase in Evangelical Churches, Conservative Christian Churches, and Assemblies of God (according to these guys). And apparently the drastic decline is in more progressive churches like Episcopal, United Methodist, and yep… even these guys. But there has been quite the influx of MegaChurch-ism. There are over 330 Baptist Churches – compare that to one Quaker! Prince of Peace?

If the progressive youth and the activists moved back into the church would there be an uprising of more progressive friendly activities and policy?

So its no wonder the 18-30 gen is more progressive and the old fogies are more conservative. I guess we all just have to help each other going forward to make sure that we don’t stray into the divisive world of Evangelical Republicanism and start talking in tongues from the Senate floor.

Peace be with you.


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May 3rd, 2007 9:29pm
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fwiw

Submitted by Michael Connery on Fri, 2007-05-04 07:05.
“One-in-five members of Generation Next say they have no religious affiliation or are atheist or agnostic, nearly double the proportion of young people who said that in the late 1980s. And just 4% of Gen Nexters say people in their generation view becoming more spiritual as their most important goal in life.”

For what it’s worth, I kinda look at this statistic the opposite way. That means 4/5 do. And since young voters chose Democrats by what - 60% to 38%? - in the last election, that means that matters of faith are extremely important to a lot of progressive young voters. Democrats need to be attentive to that. That’s what the Bendixen California poll showed.

I don’t dispute anything you wrote. There are a lot of crazies on the religious right, but there are a lot of good people on the religious left who are working to overcome the negative light in which their religion is now viewed due to the actions of conservative evangelicals. I think those evangelicals have really hijacked spirituality in political discourse and it’s not that there aren’t any progressive people of faith, it’s that they are only now counter-organizing in the political realm.

I’m hoping that Sam Taylor will weigh in here - he’s usually my go-to guy on this matter. As progressive as they come, and his faith is a big source of those progressive values. I’m an agnostic, so frankly this conversation always makes me a little uncomfortable. I recognize that faith is important for a lot of people, and that it has a big place in Democratic politics - particularly among youth, I’d say - but i don’t feel particularly well equipped to speak on behalf of those people.

We had a huge conversation about this on the site a few weeks ago.

true

Submitted by Sarah Burris on Fri, 2007-05-04 10:47.

but the 4/5 kids who do feel some spiritual connection - are still not practicing - because only 17% are showing up on sundays. I see it similar to the stat that like 95% of people in the world believe in the possibility of something greater than themselves. Well… that’s pretty vague - it could be their boss it could be the door between them and the liquor cabinet it could be god, Krishna, or Isadora Duncan.

I agree that there are a lot of people on the religious left that are working to disparage the religious right - but the ratio is so considerable that its embarrassing. Plus a majority of liberals of faith just don’t practice anymore - which is why I think we see the drop in attendance to more liberal churches like UMC and UCC etc..

I have a good friend who was the faith based coordinator for the state party and what he found was that more liberal pastors were so grateful to have someone to meet with because liberals just ignored them and resigned the field. They said that the right wing has been the only ones doing the talking and they were grateful to have the connection finally. Further, however, when many of those same pastors were asked to do exactly the same thing the right wing does but for the left wing they said no way.

So again - while there are a number of awesome people working on this…. the ones in the pulpit feel uncomfortable going as far as the RW does because naturally the believe politics doesn’t have place in church. Which… I agree with. But again - its resigning the field and equals a world where only the RW is doing the talking to a huge pep-rally of swing voters every sunday.

38% in church

Submitted by Michael Connery on Fri, 2007-05-04 11:04.

You may well be right about most of this. I just don't have the experience to know.

On a statistical note:
The Bendixen Poll (pdf, page 35) says that 38% of young people say they express their spirituality by attending church. If you're 1/5 is accurate, that leaves an only slightly smaller proportion on the left or in the center (18% vs. 20%).

This is kinda apples and oranges - the Bendixen poll was a small sample - 600. And it was only Californians, but something to think about.

As you suggest, maybe it is a matter or effective organization or will to organize, but I suspect that in sheer numbers, the ratio may not be as large as you say.

On a purely anecdotal note:
We got tons of pushback at MFA from our membership about the LACK of spirituality/faith in any of our messages and materials, blogs, etc.

A majority of the Gen M

Submitted by imaginarysamuel on Sat, 2007-05-05 15:25.
A majority of the Gen M people see through the God guise and understand that it’s an extremist sect of wackos. But look at poor Maddie. She has been frightened away from the church. These people are scaring people away - and if your point is to bring people to live a life of service and good works and talk about a Prince of Peace… dude…

i’ve seen it over and over again, this thing.

the deal is that the evangelical conservatives (conservative theologically, important to note, not only politically), they got the mic. and this will always be the case, precisely because evangelizing is a key part of what they do. (i think that the drive to convert people to your religion is a big part of what keeps people so dogmatic. if you allow room for questions in your own faith, then you might be ever so slightly less likely to tell someone you have The Way. and let’s face it - answers are a lot sexier than questions if you’re running a tv network.

but that is neither here nor there.)

as a result of having the mic - the tv networks and the publishing houses and so on and so forth - conservatives have put their theologically liberal christian counterparts in an awkward spot. when people - even me, and my dad’s an episcopal priest - hear the word Christian, little alarm bells go off and you quietly start assessing whether the person you’re talking to is crazy or not.

allowing oneself to paint christians in the crazy colors is exactly the wrong approach. wrong for this reason:

A lot of people are going to be religious no matter what. whether they feel it in their bones or whether it’s a cultural superego thing or whatever - they’re gonna do it. we’ll call these people fish. and if the only people fishing for them are the theological conservatives (who are frankly mostly concerned with the blood of jesus cleansing you if you Believe the right things - which is to say a superstitious reading of John 3:16), then we’re fucked. but if we could get some prince of peace type people fishing for them, then the fish have options as to which net they get into.

because i’m certainly not trying to make the argument that our generation is particularly religious. but anecdotally in my own life, most of the people i know sort of feel like they might be religious if the word Religion didn’t put a nasty pat-robertsony taste in their mouths. in other words, they’re staring at the creepy nets thinking: um. no. i’m not gonna be a fish. i’m gonna go be a person.

on the other hand, what about that large number of people fish that just feel it in them that they are fish? if the left doesn’t cultivate a place for them in the culture of progressivism, then they’re just gonna vote republican because they believe in god.

which is fucking goofy.

also, that piece i keep rumoring about on the history and significance of the stuff going on in the ECUSA is nearing completion.