young evangelicals

Not a lot going on this week - but a few notable things I thought I'd share.

• This week Markos over at the DailyKos wrote a piece about the GOP's attempts to win over young voters. Markos says ... good luck with that... He outlines their "genius plan" on the issues

  "The environment: Trash it.
  War: Wage it.
  Economy: Undermine it (for all but millionaires and billionaires).
  Education: Cut it.
  Freedom to marry: Hate it.

  And don't forget—nothing brings home the youngsters more than worshipping a guy who first got elected president 31 years ago. Fact is, as much as this granddaughter of the Founding Father of the Great Depression might want to talk about "individualism," it's Republicans who get in the way of the aspirations of the millennials.

• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi met with Young Americans this week to talk about the debt crisis and hear their concerns. Video from Campus Progress:
  
• On the table for cuts in the budget is - you guessed it - Pell Grants. After an historic increase in the investment in youth in 2007 now we're looking at historic cuts in youth investment all to continue to subsidize the wealthy. Leader Pelosi and other Democrats are standing up to fight for it.
• Speaking of young republicans. Young Americans for Liberty - the Ron Paul Revolution offshoot is doing a co-conference this week that they'll be live streaming.
• You can read David Halperin's remarks from Campus Progress's national conference from last week. Amazing talk about our generation fighting for progressive victories.
• Reuters has a piece about the higher ed crisis titled Schooled in Austerity: Students Reluctantly Borrow.
  

  For many who came of age during the financial crisis and deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, blindly borrowing for an education makes little sense, especially when they are not certain they will find work after graduation.

• Feel good Alert! Young voters and young elected officials are taking New Jersey by storm says this piece.
  

  ""It’s sort of a harbinger of things to come," said Elizabeth Matto, director of the Eagleton Institute’s Youth Political Participation Program, which has tracked younger political up-and-comers at the local, state and national levels for nearly a decade.

  Matto attributed the rise in participation to the so-called Millennial generation’s commitment to community, and a propensity to get and stay involved, which itself could be tied to current socioeconomic factors: a poor economy, high unemployment, ballooning national debt and growing angst tied to war and terrorism."

• If you've served in the armed forces - don't forget you can get college credit for that. An article reminds us tours of duty get you credit and save you money
  

  "The Lone Star State is luring her back to school in San Antonio with a pledge that her war-time tools can translate into college credits: Credits that could make her a “sophomore” her first year in school.

  “So, I guess about 60-credits hours? That would usually cost about 30-thousand dollars a year, or something to that effect. It’s a huge savings.”

• In the line item budget cuts in Virginia mental health services paid for by Medicaid for teens and children is on the chopping block. Seems like a good idea - I mean it isn't like mental health persists into adulthood right? There's no real chance of these problems getting worse and creating dangerous or violent adults that will be a greater drain on tax dollars, right? Great place to start Virgina... good luck with that.
• In religious news - young evangelicals are taking back their religion by "creating" this piece says, rather than "condoning."
• And finally this week began the end of Harry Potter. If you don't know how it ends - I'll fill you in. Harry quits school and creates a social network. Ron's twin brothers sue him, but if they had thought of it... they would have made it. The final book that I've heard is being written by JK Rowling (via Bill Maher) is Harry Potter and the Burden of His Student Loans.

Ingrid Schlueter of the Cross Talk Blog wrote before Christmas that forms of "youth ministry" in evangelical churches are becoming a joke. She thinks the focus of religious institutions is placed more on the entertainment of youth rather than the religious teachings of the faith.

"The real issue is that evangelical parents are too busy servicing their debt providing iPhones and iPods and laptops for their offspring to worry about the biblical training of their children. Fathers are too involved watching the NFL on their large television screens to lead family worship. Mothers are too busy working out to achieve age-defying abs to teach children Scriptures when they rise up and when they lie down. That’s what youth group is for, they think. Except youth groups aren’t doing these things either. Youth pastors, even those well into middle-age, are bent on proving their coolness to the students in their care. They got krunk, see? They like dance-offs and air guitar competitions and having food items lobbed at their heads for entertainment purposes. Biblical training? Catechesis? Ha Ha Ha. Right."

But a piece in last month's New York Times paints a picture of a different form of young evangelical Christians. Jenna Liao begins by explaining the work she does coordinating volunteers for World Relif, an organization that works with refugees and displaced families of war torn areas.

Another, Matthew Soerens, wrote a book with friends on immigration reform from the evangelical perspective called Welcoming the Stranger.

"Without disowning longstanding causes for evangelical activists like opposition to abortion or support for school vouchers, these young evangelicals have taken up issues previously abdicated to secular and religious liberals: climate change, AIDS prevention and treatment, Third World poverty."

Soerens goes on to say that he doesn't believe his generation of Evangelical Christians are rejecting the issues their parents are concerned with, but rather widening the spectrum of issues.

In January of 2009 Matthew Anderson of Mere Orthodoxy wrote a series of pieces on the cultural and political evolution of the new generation of young evangelicals titled The New Evangelical Scandal. Among other things, Anderson discusses the break in voting support from the GOP last year, and the extent to which younger evangelicals were supportive if not enthusiastic about President Barack Obama whose message was about a broader humanitarian focus and call for the common good, rather than all about gay marriage and abortion. (emphasis is mine)

"Even if the outline of our theology is broadly the same as our parents, as it is for an increasing number of conservative evangelicals, our ethos is different. And the differences are not strictly political—the political trends among young evangelicals that have received so much attention are grounded in different concerns and emphases that undergird younger evangelicals’ approach to culture and spirituality as well. This new ethos is largely a reaction to the abuses, failures, and excesses of our parents’ generation and contains significant clues as to the future of evangelicalism in America."

A local Oklahoma City magazine had a piece about the ways in which metro area churches were turning to technology in efforts to better connect to their members and other potential flock. The piece defends the use of the so called "debt providing iPhones and iPods and laptops" to create consistent connections to this new generation that one pastor said communicates "in a way so that each person has an opportunity to know, act or respond, [all of which] which requires mul­tiple avenues of communication." And the Lord said, "Let there be Twitter," and it was good.

While some scoff at the use of new fangled gadgets to communicate in youth focused services, it seems the "true message" that the Cross Talk Blog seems to be so concerned about, might actually be getting through. What older more traditional Evangelicals seem to focus on is rather a more restricted, right-wing, political ideology backed by elders of their faith and preached from the pulpit. This might be the reason for the disconnect for younger generations of young evangelicals who seem to be more interested in acts of good works and the common good rather than shilling for Sarah Palin.

Happy Sunday!

Saturday night reading... check it out:

• Mother Jones and Campus Progress are looking for "campus hellraisers" to profile in the September-October 2009 issue of Mother Jones. Check it out (self-nominations are allowed).
• A "No on Gay Marriage" campaign is an epic fail with young people.
• Christian punk and heavy metal music is blurring the lines between young evangelicals and secularists.
• MTV has announced that TRL, having been canceled last November, will be replaced by the Alexa Chung Show. The new show reportedly will heavily emphasize Twitter through courting online reaction to its music videos and celebrity guests.
• Some good news and some bad news from a survey regarding youth (ages 13-29) attitudes toward the Green Movement:

  Good: Youth see the Green Movement as "responsible" and "cool," and they believe it to be a very worthy cause.
  
  Bad: Many youth believe the Green Movement to be too demanding on a personal level, too time-consuming and too inconvenient.

• Tens of thousands of young Americans will be educated and trained to deal with America's energy problem, thanks to President Obama.
• An article in BusinessWeek calls for more business schools to rein in Millennial entrepreneurs by focusing increasingly on problem-solving.
• Terry McAuliffe is seriously hemorrhaging some youth voters in Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Shocker, right? But - there are a number of religious groups that did vote for Obama or are becoming more democratic.

A new Pew Study interviewed people both before and after the election to get their reading on who they were choosing and categorized the respondents by religious affiliation. Because Pew is also pretty good about doing these kinds of things on a regular basis we also have some nice 2004 data to compare it to to see where the GOP lost and made gains.

First, the 2008 data. Understandably, the largest group were Black Protestants. This is actually no change - they are solidly Democrat whether its John Kerry or Barack Obama. What we know, however, is that turnout was significantly up from 2004.

What did change in 2008 was the "Hispanic and other Minority Catholic" vote. We knew about this mostly from the exit polls but now we can see the extent to which Hispanic Catholics fled the GOP. In 2006 we saw the beginning of this

"Pollsters generally agree that the same voters abandoned the president's party in droves during last week's elections (November 2006), with Latinos giving the GOP only 30 percent of their vote as strident House immigration legislation inspired by Republicans and tough-talking campaign ads by conservative candidates roiled the community. "

Here is the breakdown of 2008 vs. 2004 among religious voters according to Pew:

As you can see the right wingers didn't go for Obama... that was the shocker I proposed at the beginning. According to Pew

"To begin with, there was essentially no change in the vote of regular worship-attending white evangelical Protestants, the core of what sometimes is called "the religious right" -- one of the strongest Republican voting groups. . .

"There was, however, some change in the evangelical community, and it occurred mostly among less-observant evangelical Protestants. Among mainline Protestants there was an interesting pattern. In the exit polls, there was essentially no change among white mainline Protestants. But the data presented here suggest that there were some changes within this large religious community. For instance, Obama may have made some gains among regular worship-attending mainline Protestants. And it may very well be that a lot of the efforts to mobilize the religious vote paid off in that particular community. However, these data show essentially no change among the less-observant mainline Protestants, who were evenly divided. This group was where one might have expected bigger Democratic gains." (emphasis mine)

I highlighted that section because while Democrats might have made modest gains there was really only a small gain overall. Kerry lost with 49% of the vote in 2004 and Obama won with 53% of the vote. There isn't a lot of wiggle room here - so even modest gains can be significant and show democrats where they can look to develop further links and relationships.

Now with Young Evangelicals that's the fun part... Anna Greenberg from Pew did a poll for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Because people were saying that young voters were coming out for Obama she (smartly) over-sampled young evangelicals when looking at the groups of religious voters.

"Most of the national tracking polls had Obama at about 60% among under-30s, and he actually got 66%. So what we did with this poll was [a] multi-mode study. A certain number of interviews came from random digit dial, a certain percentage from the internet -- we didn't do the cell phone for a variety of reasons. We had, I think, the first real sample of young evangelicals and what we found was that, in fact, it was true that younger white evangelicals were more likely to support Obama than older white evangelicals."

Greenberg goes on to make an interesting point that traditionally young people vote more conservatively as they get older. This is because they tend to have children, go to church, pay taxes yada yada... Greenberg remarks that these people already do all of that. They should be conservative ... but they're not and she doesn't have a real idea on if they will develop into republican voters. I have no ideas either - its an interesting point I've never heard anyone discuss before.

All very interesting stuff that I think points to both the success in organization and the success in outreach. If you build it... they will come.... With youth outreach and faith based outreach that rivaled anything seen before the results were favorable.

If democrats want to continue to make inroads into these communities and tighten their grasp I encourage continuous issue based outreach through legislative sessions and constant communication with these groups to better develop loyalty to the party.

Who knows what the next election could bring, but if the groundwork is laid early with these groups, it could equate a much stronger majority.

First let me wish you a very Happy Merry Mistletoe and other such things! If you're looking for a family escape by pretending to read the blogs today, or write blogs, or pretend to do work as a means of ignoring that same story about the odd shaped moles on your relatives, then I'm happy to provide some interesting factoids along with your eggnog.

Now that the election is over I can go back to doing things that require more reading, like books. So I finally picked up The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church by Christine Wicker, an x-evangelical who discovered she'd been duped.

One thing you see 'round these parts of America are megachurches. You know, those giant buildings filled with pristine carpet and that always smell like new construction and chlorine. Driving south on the 35 from Kansas City into Oklahoma City, I'm always faced with what I lovingly refer to as the big-damn-cross, displaying the perfect marriage of Jesus and an one of the wealthiest cities in Oklahoma displaying their support of another excessively wealthy church.

According to Wicker, while these churches are flourishing under such wealth and power, their pews and/er stadium seats are increasingly empty.

"Even as evangelical forces trumpet their purported political and social victories, insiders are anguishing over their significant losses, fearing what the future holds. The idea that evangelicals represent and speak for Christianity in America is one of the greatest publicity scams in history, a perfect coup accomplished by savvy politicos and religious leaders, who understand media weaknesses and exploit them brilliantly."

Partnering Wicker's book with another reTHiNK: Decide for Yourself, Is Student Ministry Working? by Steve Wright. This gem appears on page 53

"Student ministry in many cases has become the local YMCA or teen amusement park; students check in and out, but mostly out. After all, once they have experienced years of fun-and-games, all-you-can-eat, no-responsibility, free-from-parents amusement, then we have helped train their appetites for pleasure to find more alluring fulfillment in the adult world."

It goes on to quote major studies into patters in youth participation via the evangelical church post-high school

• "A recent TIME Magazine article points to research that found 61 percent of the adults polled who are now in their twenties said they had participated in church activities as teens but not longer so. Some argue that young people typically drift from organized religion in early adulthood, but others say the high attrition is a sign that churches need to change the way they try to engage the next generation.
• A study from UCLA found that almost half of college students drift away from their Christian upbringing. While 52 percent of incoming students said that they regularly took part in church events, the number shrinks to 29 percent who are still involved in church activities by their junior year.
• Josh McDowell estimates, 'over 69 percent of youth are leaving traditional church after high school.'
• LifeWay Christian Research reports, 'The overwhelming majority of children from evangelical families are leaving the church as they enter adulthood.'
• Mark Matlock finds, 'Depending on whose numbers you use, 58 percent – 84 percent of graduating youth from church youth groups are not returning.'
• David Wheaton, author of University of Destruction, states that 'as many as 50 percent of Christian students say they have lost their faith after four years of college.'
• George Barna gives troubling news in his book, Real Teens: 'Now only 33 percent of churched youth say that the church will play a part in their lives when they leave home.'
• Glenn Schultz at LifeWay Christian Resources estimates that 75 percent of young people leave church in their late teens and aren’t reconnecting later.
• Student Venture reports that about 70 percent of seniors in high school who claimed faith, stop attending church during the college years.
• Ron Luce in Battle Cry for a Generation estimates '88 percent of kids raised in Christian homes do not continue to follow the Lord after they graduate from high school.'
• LifeWay Research found that 70 percent of young adults ages twenty-three to thirty stopped attending church regularly for at least a year between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two."

Holy plastic Jesus, Batman! This is a lot of flight. But wait... there's more... Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture by Luhr Eileen will be released in February from UCal Press. (Read chapter 1 here) This book details the rise of the evangelical pop-culture movement in the United States.

"The disparity between a church-sponsored record burning for youth and a family-centered moral critique reveals the self-conscious "modernization" project undertaken by some conservative Christians in the late twentieth century. In both instances, music provided an entry point to debates about cultural reform. Both strategies demonstrate how conservative Christians linked youth culture and social problems and how they aggressively sought to reestablish "youth" as a category of innocence in need of adult protection during the late-twentieth-century culture wars. In both formulations of the reform agenda, culture, rather than socioeconomic structure, was the catalyst for change. . . .

. . .The era's "parents movement" intersected with what has become known as the culture wars. The political battles of the culture wars are well known, but many of these struggles also involved popular culture, especially since entertainment provided a ready example of the challenges posed to parental authority."

I won't go on, but chapter 4 is titled "An MTV Approach to Evangelism: The Cultural Politics of Suburban Revivalism."

If you're an ADD reader like I am, then going back and forth between the 3 books won't be a problem, but the curious mix they provide is an understanding of how evangelicals came to power, how they are losing power, and a faith based perspective on why the evangelical youth movement lost its power, authenticity, and credibility particularly among young people.

All interesting reads - hopefully I've detained you from your families long enough. Have a great holiday and a Happy New Year.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner has released a new survey today on young evangelicals.

A recent survey conducted for Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly finds that young white evangelical Christians are less supportive of John McCain for president than their older counterparts. Although McCain maintains a solid winning margin among white evangelical Christians on the ballot, white evangelicals ages 18-29 are less supportive of his candidacy and express less favorable impressions of McCain than older white evangelical Christians.

While the survey shows McCain winning the young white evangelical demographic, the lead is much thinner than among evangelicals over 30: 62-30 McCain among white evangelicals under age 30 compared to 73-22.

This may at first not seem like a big deal, but it is. It shows that there is a clear opening for Democrats to make inroads with young white evangelicals, as well as a greater number of them supportive of Democrats that could work within the demographic to build more support.

Young white evangelicals view John McCain less favorably than their older counterparts: 54% vs. 68%. The biggest surprise is that young white evangelical women tend to not be sold on Sarah Palin. Only 46% rated her favorably, compared to their over-30 counterparts who gave her 65% positive ratings.

One of the big demographic changes between young and older white evangelicals is the view towards civil unions/same-sex marriage:

Fifty-eight percent of young white evangelicals support some form of legal recognition of civil unions or marriage for same-sex couples; a quarter (26 percent) support the full right for same-sex couples to marry. White evangelicals over age 30 are less supportive: forty-six percent favor some legal recognition, but only 9 percent of older white evangelicals favor full marriage rights.

While both young and older evangelicals feel similarly about abortion issues, this shift in regards to same-sex marriage shows a huge generational change on social issues.

Take-aways

• It is important for Democrats to make their case to young evangelicals. There is room for large gains, and it is important to do so before partisan identity is solidified.
• As the Millennials age the evangelical demographic will be much more favorable than it is now. The opportunities for marriage equality will also increase.
• Democrats should find and recruit Democratic-leaning young evangelicals to make further inroads into the demographic.

Here on Future Majority we have talked about the new school of evangelicals, the political shift of young evangelicals, and Obama's young evangelical outreach. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate has reinvigorated the discussion of what is going to happen with young evangelical voters.

Obama's relative strength with young evangelicals was causing a lot of distress among the crazy conservative elder evangelicals. An article on Jusiper quoting one of these evangelicals shows just how freaked out they are:

This generation is not the "Joshua" generation, it is the "Judas" generation. They are not Christians, they are devils. The Church should hang its' head in shame that we have produced generation after generation of apostates who have disgraced the name of Christ by sniffing after devils like Obama like animals in rutting season. Fortunately, our Lord is a mighty God who can conquer Satan and these minions of his regardless of how few true believers remain.

Young evangelicals haven't been lock-step with their older counterparts. Surveys have shown young evangelicals as more accepting of homosexuality, and that they are not single-issue voters on abortion issues, but also are concerned about the war in Iraq and social justice.

McCain's selection of Sarah Palin was supposed to energize the evangelical base, seeing as though she believes that a few thousand years ago people were dinosaur hunting instead of moose hunting, yet it appears that the reaction of young voters to Palin is mixed.

It seems that young evangelicals are starting to split into three camps, similar to the philosophical split of the country: conservative, progressive, and moderate. While the conservative evangelical youth are more excited about the Republican ticket with Palin, the progressive-leaning evangelicals aren't nearly as impressed. To them, Palin's selection undercut McCain's claim to be "country first" and independent-minded.

One of the wild-cards being talked about is the effect that Bristol Palin's pregnancy will have on young voters. Some think that it will help young voters relate to the ticket, which frankly I think is stupid. I think a possibility is that young evangelicals who have actually remained abstinate may be turned off by it.

The point is that even with Palin on the ticket Obama has a good chance at pulling a significant portion of the young evangelical vote. With McCain effectively giving up on young voters and Obama doing significant outreach to both youth and evangelicals, we have the opportunity to succeed by putting in superior effort.

What are your thoughts on Palin's effect on the evangelical youth vote? Share in the comments.

See... I told you...

Since I last posted about Young Evangelicals becoming a new targeting group in battleground states FoxNews, who I'm certain reads FM on a regular basis, has picked up the story.

"Three swing states — Ohio, Missouri and Colorado — could tip the scales if religious youth show up the way they have in recent elections, said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute at University of Akron in Ohio.

"These 'battleground states’ are good reflections of the nation as a whole," Green told FOXNews.com. "The youth vote — both religious and non-religious — are likely to show the same patterns at the national level. If they [religious youth] can have an impact nationally, they will have an impact in the battleground states."

But a new poll by the Barna Group shows Obama leading McCain among all faith groups, except for evangelicals.

"Obama maintaining a substantial 43% to 34% lead among those who are likely to vote in November, with 5% selecting minor party candidates. That lead is a decline for Sen. Obama’s since early June, when he led his Republican rival 50% to 35% among likely voters. In the past two months, more voters have gravitated to third-party candidates (5%) and a higher proportion is now undecided (up from 15% to 21%)."

Interestingly enough, the LA Times reports this morning that the two candidates will chill on a stage together at Rick Warren's church in Orange County, CA

"But they will make a brief joint appearance, their first of the campaign, and Warren will interview each separately about the Constitution, poverty, AIDS, human rights and other subjects. . .

Many evangelicals believe that Warren's growing profile, and his willingness to welcome Obama to his pulpit, are evidence that he has emerged as the most pivotal figure in U.S. evangelicalism. . .

The forum with McCain and Obama, he said, is his latest attempt to introduce civility into public discourse, even if it irks some of his fellow evangelicals. Warren faced biting criticism in 2006 when Obama spoke at his church for a global AIDS summit. Last year Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) appeared at another AIDS conference at the church.

Warren has been called perhaps ‘America's most influential pastor,’ an evangelical megastar who leads the nation's fourth-largest church, reaches thousands of ministers through the Internet and crusades against poverty and AIDS. That globe-trotting work -- and his phenomenally successful book, ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ -- have propelled him into the vanguard of a movement that inspires young and socially conscious Christians."

All very interesting.... we're always bringing you the best info here at FM.

We all know that Obama's campaign is reaching out to young people, but specifically his campaign is reaching out to young evangelicals who we've seen trend more progressively in the past few years.

But, Michael reported last Friday about the final Iowa numbers from CIRCLE which included some interesting info about young evangelicals:

"65% of [Republican] caucus-goers under 25 described themselves as "born again" or "evangelical."

But it seems Obama might be winning more of the Young Evangelical Vote in crucial battleground states. Bloomberg reports on Liberty University's Obama for America chapter.

"[Michelle] Miller, 23, calls recruiting political converts there "an uphill battle.'' Still, the group's existence signals an opening for Barack Obama among conservative evangelicals -- especially younger ones -- that may help sway the outcome of the presidential vote in states like Virginia and Florida."

"Surveys show evangelicals are increasingly concerned about such issues as the economy, global warming and the Iraq War. While Obama has little chance of carrying this group, if he persuades 10 percent of those who typically vote Republican that he reflects their values better than McCain, that may make a difference in some battleground states. "

This might be because the Obama campaign is leaving no vote uncontested. Much like the campaigns outreach to young voters, connecting with evangelical voters is a step toward growth. The beginning of August marks the opening of Obama's Evangelical Outreach Campaign according to the Christian Broadcast Network.

"There's no doubt Obama has engaged an eager and energetic younger crowd during this presidential campaign. These twenty somethings wants to discuss issues beyond abortion and marriage. Obama is tapping into that. Will the McCain campaign combat this effort and highlight the fact that younger Evangelicals care deeply about abortion and marriage as well? My sense is the heavy lifting on this will have to come from conservative pro-family organizations. At this point the Obama campaign is winning the narrative on the younger Evangelical front. Not a surprise from an religious outreach team that has been on its "A" game ever since Obama announced his intentions to run for President."

I've said it before, I'll say it again... if you build it, they will come. How we got to a place in the Democratic Party where we ONLY went after our base of support instead of working indy's and persuadable is beyond me. Whoever had the idea - I hope they're working for the GOP now. Actually, it seems they might be given the GOP outreach....

My mother REALLY wants me to go to Family Day at the Southern Baptist Church this Sunday.

So, in my FM fun this week, I wanted to look at some recent studies I've seen that talk about young people who are or who aren't alienated by organized religion and contrast that with actions we are seeing across the country

According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 44 percent of young American adults agree that religion is a very important part of their lives. For most, that's thanks to the parental forces. Mom enters

The National Study of Youth and Religion in an ongoing report claims that

"One of the most widespread and persistent stereotypes about U.S. teenagers is that they are alienated from “established” or “organized” religion and that this alienation is increasing."

But the reality (according to them) is that, "the majority of 12th graders in the United States — about two-thirds — do not appear to be alienated from or hostile toward organized or established religion"

Y'all have heard me go off about how evangelical practices have turned into adopting the cultures of young people as a means of recruitment.

This was not the case back in the day - this has only been a recent (20 years or so) development that has been quickly spreading from Orange County and the corners of West Virginia to the Bible Belt (like we needed any help...)

So it comes as no shock to me that young people suddenly don't feel alienated by religion - because religion isn't religion as we once new it. The anti-dancing, anti-rock n' roll, suit wearing, sticker stickin, holier than thou world that we see contrasted with these guys in my favorite ad that actually talks about our generation: