Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Young people abandon Evangelical churches in droves.

Courtesy of Laura Stepp for CNN:

Republican conservatives should be worried. Evangelical churches that frequently support conservative candidates are finally admitting something the rest of us have known for some time: Their young adult members are abandoning church in significant numbers and taking their voting power with them. 

David Kinnaman, the 38-year-old president of the Barna Group, an evangelical research firm, is the latest to sound the alarm. In his new book, "You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith," he says that 18- to 29-year-olds have fallen down a "black hole" of church attendance. There is a 43% drop in Christian church attendance between the teen and early adult years, he says. 

I'm not surprised. These young dropouts value the sense of community their churches provide but are tired of being told how they should live their lives. They don't appreciate being condemned for living with a partner, straight or gay, outside of marriage or opting for abortion to terminate an unplanned pregnancy. 

Consider the following facts about millennials in general: 

• Seven in 10 millennials say sex between an unmarried man and woman is morally acceptable (PDF). (According to Kinnaman, young Christians are as sexually active as non-Christians.) 
• Most women in their early 20s who give birth are unmarried. 
• More than six in 10 millennials (including 49% of Republican millennials) support same-sex marriages. 
• Six in 10 millennials say abortion should be legal (PDF), a higher proportion than found in the general population. A higher percentage say abortion services should be available in local communities. 

Millennials also part ways with conservative orthodoxy on wealth distribution and caring for the environment. According to a report in The Christian Science Monitor, three out of four say that wealthy corporations and financiers have too much power and that taxes should be raised on the very wealthy, and two out of three say financial institutions should be regulated more closely. In addition, most say that creationists' view on evolution is outdated. 

Sounds a lot like Democratic ideology to me.

As we all know, the Evangelical vote is the very foundation of GOP support.

With fewer young people willing to put their intellect in neutral in order to be directed as to how to think, and of course how to vote, the smaller the impact the Fundamentalists will have on the elections in this country. 

Adding this information to what we now know about the rapidly aging demographic of Fox News viewers, and the even older listeners of Right Wing radio, I think that we can now predict, with much confidence, that this country is DEFINITELY heading in a much more progressive direction.

Now we have actual data to use that disproves the Right Wing's irrational claim that America is growing more conservative. In fact it seems to be picking up speed as it rushes to embrace ideals that have long been the foundation of the Democratic party.

Have I mentioned lately how proud I am of this younger generation?

Perhaps THIS is why the Republicans keep trying to disenfranchise more and more young voters, and working to find ways to steal elections

Because they know that their time is coming to a close, and that someday the Republican party might well go the way of the Whig Party, and end up on the scrap heap of history. And what a great day in America THAT will be!

By the way I finally found a scientific illustration of how the fundamentalist religions work.

Yeah, that is kind of how I always pictured it.

38 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:12 PM

    I bet its also been noticed by the rightwingers, that the better educated young people are, the less likely they are to fall for bullshit.

    It would make sense of the sudden push to make public education a thing of the past, as we see from the clown car hopefuls of a Presidential bid.

    Turning most Protestant churches into Republican fundraising sites, is also a reason I've heard the young claim is driving them away.

    JUSTIFIABLY...even without an education, kids know when they are being manipulated, to THAT extent.

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  2. Learning about Christianity from the Fundies is about as enlightening as learning Economics from your average equity trader. In both cases, one should keep a hand on one's wallet at all times.

    In my view, neither experience is sufficient reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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  3. Anonymous6:19 PM

    Thanks for this illustration Gryphen, Love it !

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  4. Olivia6:25 PM

    It's teh goddam librul commies fault. Leading the kids astray with that fancy book lurnin' and f'n ideas and thinking bullshit.

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  5. I wonder how many of those who don't abandon it don't as an article of faith just despise America's first-ever evangelical President (the 39th)?

    Bonus quiz question: One President in history was a congregant of what you all call Quakers (the Religious Society of Friends). Who was it?

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  6. Gasman6:40 PM

    Gryphen,
    I've been saying for awhile now that the GOP has distilled itself down to a syrupy goo of homophobes, racists, nativists, anti-abortion freaks and fundagelicals.

    Your picture proves that I was right. It's also why they are the moribund tribe of cave dwelling misanthropes that they are.

    I predict that 2012 will be the LAST election where anybody gives a shit about the fundagelicals.

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  7. Anonymous6:53 PM

    Good news. YAY! (and I'm a preacher's daughter!)

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  8. Anonymous6:58 PM

    @the nasty liberal-richard Nixon! Ding ding! Do i get a prize? I want Fred's book

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  9. Hugh dunnit7:05 PM

    And don't forget, atheism is a non-prophet venture. (groan)

    And anon 6:37 - Nixon

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  10. Beldar GOP Conehead7:12 PM

    Until a better explanation comes along, cant we just blame Obama?

    Remember, kids, life is simpler when you're conservative. A whole lot simpler....


    Vote Republican!
    Simple answers for simple people.

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  11. Anonymous7:19 PM

    Well,no wonder!Young people go for fellowship and social reasons,then they get politics preached at them from the pulpit.

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  12. Anonymous7:21 PM

    NL: Richard Milhouse Nixon. Yeah that was a surprise!

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  13. Anonymous7:25 PM

    This is good news. I was concerned about the amount of home schooling the evangelicals have been doing to limit their children's exposure to other ideas and lifestyles.

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  14. Anonymous7:56 PM

    I think young evangelicals value the planet, plan when to have their lovingly anticipated children and increasingly are angry about right-wing evangelical politicians. The politicians the GOP is promoting are not people this demographic can identify with in any way. Consider how creepy Perry must seem to a 20 year-old? Gingrich is a stretch beyond any reason for this group and Bachman is simply weird and clearly out of touch with her own husband’s sexuality. (Not that he is in touch either!) I look at my children and the friends they grew up with and note 10 percent are gay. How much pain in this world could be eliminated by honesty regarding sexuality!

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  15. Anonymous8:00 PM

    I wish you'd stop saying, "unplanned pregnancy", Gryphen. Things happen contrary to plans all the time and people don't abort their lives or the whole day. One of my unplanned pregnancies saved a friend's life when she was 16, and another is doing some amazing work. (I have a large family of unplanned pregnancies!)

    What about stating that they just want the right to choose-- period? These young people will be appalled when they start seeing friends die from pregnancies that happen where they oughtn't in their friends' bodies, or when they die from problems that the pregnancies cause. Who will like it when Hospice needs a maternity care core of volunteers who watch women die at home or in the hospital? THAT will cause some pain right there and this is what they need to be considering. Incest? Politicians making rules based on incest or rape have no clue how hard it is on those women-- pregnancies conceived out of delusion, power struggles, and manipulation? We'll see a rash of depression.

    These situations need special focus-- unplanned pregnancy sounds like a matter of convenience.

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  16. Anonymous8:16 PM

    This is not a new trend. It has been noticed and commented on for years here in 'the bible belt'.

    The problem with the fundies is that they have panicked and gotten even more obsessed with making lines in the sand that young people dare not cross.

    And as we can see....
    they are crossing in droves.
    If they had just stayed with the teachings of Jesus and stayed out of politics and others bedrooms they would not be withering on the vine.

    Go next generation, go. You may yet save this country.

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  17. Anonymous8:20 PM

    Maybe this is part of the polar shift in thinking I have been praying for.

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  18. Same thing is happening in the Catholic church (Recovering Catholic here).

    Start with the same lifestyle condemnation as the Fundie youth flocks, add in the worldwide, rampant, child abuse, and top it off with the centuries old, institutional cover-up from the top down...

    And you have a recipe for desertion.

    "As ye sow, so shall ye reap!"

    Bastards

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  19. telah8:35 PM

    Found an awesome review of Nick Broomfield's "You Betcha!" on BBC1.

    "What emerged was a portrait of a vengeful narrow-minded ignorant evangelical incompetent bigot whose one pre-eminent skill is in street fighting."

    The reviewer is writing about a remake of Great Expectations and compares Palin to the classic Dickens character Pip thusly: "Let us give praise and thanks that the film is not more urgently needed now that Palin is no longer elbowing and scratching her way to the White House. But shame on Senator McCain for dragging this barely educated and ill-mannered hellcat onto the world stage. She's like Pip abruptly hauled up the social scale, only a hundred times less prepared for the journey."

    http://www.theartsdesk.com/tv/great-expectations-bbc-one-true-stories-sarah-palin-you-betcha-more4

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  20. Nasty Liberal: Herbert Hoover was a Quaker ~ ergo, his humble abode in Iowa.

    I don't think he flounced it, though... and, President Hoover was a great humanitarian, even after his term in office.

    Jackie Kennedy once said that she "didn't know what the big deal was about Jack being Catholic, because he wasn't a very good Catholic" :)

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  21. Some years back my nephew and his wife joined one of those mini-mega right-wing churches with arena seating. Gibson's Passion of the Christ was being shown in their 'church' and families were strongly encouraged to bring their young children to see it. I had heard about the depictions of extreme violence and asked them if they felt this would be appropriate for a 7 or 10 year old. "Oh, of course" they said, "our church wouldn't advise us to do anything that would harm the children".

    Long story short, the kids were traumatized and hysterical, having no idea what was transpiring in the film. They left early that day but it took them a few more years to quit the 'church' and that was more a result of the expected donations rather than the extreme political views and values of this group. The parents have retained the political indoctrination they received there but the kids have zero interest in any mention of church or religion and have somewhat recovered from the homophobic and anti-Semitic beliefs drilled in them by this faux 'church'. The saddest part has been the fracture within our family and I see very little hope of a healing especially not with my nephew who has become a rabid birther to boot.

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  22. Anonymous9:37 PM

    Hard for the youngsters to support a party that is dedicated to shrinking their opportunities in life too. This is the first generation in a long time that looks to have a lower standard of living than their parents.

    Rick

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  23. Herbert Hoover was also a Quaker.

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  24. Anonymous11:07 PM

    they mixed up ignorance and fear.

    Ignorance heats the fear and distills it to hate, I think, instead of the other way around!

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  25. johnie2xs3:04 AM

    Now that the LGBT community is forever out of their personal closet, maybe they can rent it to Evangelicals.
    I'd be glad to provide
    them with a lock.

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  26. (Hoover) Day-um! Hammer and a Feather nailed me yet again! They are correct, there were two. Nixon and Hoover (I try to forget him, although he was a good man overall, the way others wish to forget ole Milhous)

    Thanks for playing, folks. The only prize I can offer is my weak coinage of a joke: LDS (the Church of Latter Day Saints) don't like to be called Mormons. I say, we let folk call us Quakers, which is an outright derogation; you want to be called Latter Day Saints, fer crying out loud, all we wanted to be called is... Friends!

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  27. Anonymous4:59 AM

    The fundy's the the GOP have both used each other to accomplish their right-taking goals - but I don't count them as one in the same.

    Since money and conservative values stick together thick as thieves, I don't see the party hurting when the evangelicals leave or are kicked out of the shrinking Republican tent.

    Evangelicals can't even come up with a candidate, much less support the more socially conservative GOP candidates seeking the nomination.

    Santorum and Bachmann are still not accepted by Iowa voters and they wear their faith on their mouths, amplified for all to see and hear. It's just not working.

    As for young believers, if you read the Twitter Feed about Christmas, they sure as hell felt Jesus was the reason for the season. It was obnoxious.

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  28. Anonymous5:51 AM

    6:37 pm. Herbert Hoover was a Quaker and was well known for organizing relief for Europeans in the aftermath of WWI. He really messed up though during the first years of the Depression here. Richard Nixon's family had been Quaker but I do not think that he was ever a practicing Quaker.

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  29. Anonymous6:31 AM

    Bingo. He also describes earlier generations.

    Kid to teenage me. I left the church in phases, in my mind and heart, during the 1960s and 1970s. I left Christianity, when I was in my 20s, during the 1980s.

    Five or six year old me: I still recall asking about dinosaurs. Where they and evolution fit into the Adam and Eve story. The church school teachers were not amused by me.

    I learned early on, don't ask questions of many people and expect honest, well thought out, logical answers. I had to find other sources or trust my own mind and heart. Especially after I found out Santa Claus wasn't real. Hmm, Jesus or God, they also don't seem real. I don't trust what adults are telling me to have faith in or believe in. I'm going to question and doubt a lot of what they say to me is their, trust them, more of their false truths.

    ---
    I'm not surprised. These young dropouts value the sense of community their churches provide but are tired of being told how they should live their lives. They don't appreciate being condemned for living with a partner, straight or gay, outside of marriage or opting for abortion to terminate an unplanned pregnancy.

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  30. Randall6:51 AM

    "Young people abandon Evangelical churches in droves."

    ...thank God.

    .

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  31. This is something the evangelicals have known about for years, but really, if you look at evangelical families you can see it. They tend to have several kids, one of whom goes completely off the rails and gets into drugs and sex and rock 'n roll; one of them buys into the evangelical lifestyle completely and remains incredibly devoted; the remaining kids fall away but hide this from their parents because there's no point in upsetting your folks! They're getting on, yanno!

    And I agree: they have a focus on controlling education because the less educated people are, the less able they are to figure out when they're being fed bullshit. That is why they've been focusing on winning school board elections for a couple of decades now. Control the school board, control the curriculum and the hiring. This will last until community members take school board directorship more seriously.

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  32. Anonymous8:01 AM

    Yes, but new immigrants often refill the pews, allowing the mega-churches to continue spewing hate.

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  33. @TheNastyLiberal 3:11 AM

    My prize, Sir/Madam, is the honor of posting on the same side as you on this here blog...

    ... i wouldn't wanna be posting agin' you.

    [ :) ]

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  34. Don the Bluesman10:25 AM

    There is a reason all of the republicant prospects want to end the Department of Education and leave it up to the states. We can't have 50 different stories about slavery, the civil war, our real history. There are some historical facts that are universal and detailed in a lot of books. Rebubs don't seen to want anyone to get and education but want them all to believe the same crap. If you have no intel;lectual curiosity, you will fall for anything and that is the republicant way. Keep them stupid and stupid things keep the satisfied

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  35. Faith in God has nothing to do with intelligence or the lack thereof. Religious institutions were originally invented and still populated today by humans and are therefore fallible just as we humans are. The wise and intelligent search out churches that express religious truth by embracing all humanity in its collective imperfection. These religious institutions are more likely to be inclusive and inclined to practice tolerance. They do exist.

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  36. I hope you're right Gryphen in predicting a progressive trend in the electorate. Problem is, I think we've run out of time. The converging catastrophes (climate, pollution, peak oil) are poised to hit before we can overturn a government that is borderline fascist, and those convulsions will allow it to become overtly fascist.

    Sadly, although I think we should resist for compelling moral reasons, I do not think it ultimately is possible for liberals (who are famous for squabbling over the scraps rather than identifying a common enemy) to stand up to the enormous powers wielded by the 1%. And we won't do too well if everything falls apart and gangs rule in a Mad Max world, either.

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  37. Anonymous3:22 PM

    All it takes is standing behind the counter or selling shoes or waiting tables part time and find out how the Holier Than Thous from you church treat people the 167 hours a week they aren't in church, and you will never look at a church service with awe again or the people who sit in the front pews with respect again.

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  38. Anonymous7:54 PM

    Great Post, Gryphen. Now I'll spread the "good news" to all my fundie friends, does that make me athievangelical?

    _________________

    This ALWAYS happens. When the pendulum swings too far right and more and more rules and garbage are spoonfed, the endorphine rush of being in a crowd of like minded sheep gets boring, and some start looking elsewhere. Free Will is a good thing! I have a cousin who became an avid Jehovah's Witness, he married and had six children, two sons and four daughters. They weren't allowed to celbrate birthdays, breathe through their right nostrils on every other tuesday, wear purple at any time, nor listen to rock music.
    long story short, Two sons waited till they were eighteen, then went awol. Two daughters went to court for legal emancipation at the age of 16, One daughter got pregnant and married a Presbeterian, and the other stayed in the Jehovah Witness Kingdom Hall (Church?). Don't know if all are as strict as my cousin, and I admit I know little about their dogma, but I feel it caused them to rebel and leave.

    It does bother me, because I still think of them as a family and it's sad they don't speak to each other. life's too short.

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