millennials

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Media revelation: Two-parent homes are good for children. Religion questions, anyone?

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Media revelation: Two-parent homes are good for children. Religion questions, anyone?

The past two weeks have produced a boomlet in scholarly and journalistic revelations of facts that establish heavy disadvantages afflicting children not raised by two parents, who are more prevalent in the United States than any other nation.

This is a controversial topic and has all kinds of links to debates about religion, morality and culture.

Consider this from a lengthy New York Times op-ed Sept. 20, with this explosive headline: “The Explosive Rise of Single-Parent Families Is Not a Good Thing.”

The evidence is overwhelming: Children from single-parent homes have more behavioral problems, are more likely to get in trouble in school or with the law, achieve lower levels of education and tend to earn lower incomes in adulthood. Boys from homes without dads present are particularly prone to getting in trouble. …

This article, by University of Maryland economist Melissa S. Kearney, was based on her new book “The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind” (University of Chicago Press). The Religion Guy has yet to read this book, which has won media praise as “important,” “compelling” and “a great service,” with a “top scholar” offering “reams of evidence.”

By coincidence, the same day the book was released, University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox and three Institute for Family Studies colleagues posted a piece (.pdf here) headlined “Do Two Parents Matter More Than Ever?” Their answer: Yes. It’s the latest such documentation from the Institute and the university’s National Marriage Project, which Wilcox directs. (Note: these social scientists are not saying spouses should remain in physically or emotionally dangerous marriages.)

These writings do not center on religious arguments or sources, but Christian, Jewish, Muslim and other clergy, and members of their congregations, will respond: “Duh!”


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Will religious groups face questions linked to America's declining marriage stats? (Part II)

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Will religious groups face questions linked to America's declining marriage stats? (Part II)

It's a message young people in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hear early and often: You should get married, because marriage is wonderful and family life is at the heart of the faith.

The problem is that church leaders haven't grasped the power of cultural trends in technology, education and economics that are fueling sharp declines in statistics linked to dating, marriage and fertility, said Brian Willoughby of the Brigham Young University School of Family Life.

"The key word is 'tension,' " he said. Among the Latter-day Saints, these numbers are "not falling as fast" as in other groups, "but our young people are feeling tensions between the patterns they see all around them and what they hear from their parents and religious leaders.

“We are seeing the same changes -- only moving slower. The average age of people getting married is rising. Fertility rates are declining. … We can no longer assume that religious young people are some kind of different species."

It's urgent, he added, for congregations to "start making a more explicit case for marriage and family. Our young people know that marriage is important, but they don't know specific reasons for WHY it's important."

The result is what some researchers call the "marriage paradox." Young people continue to express a strong desire to "get married at some point," but they place an even higher priority on other "life goals," said Willoughby.

"Marriage becomes a transition in which they fear they will lose freedom or success. … They hear everyone saying: 'You go to these schools and get these degrees. You get job one that leads to job two. Don't let anything get in your way or get you off track.' With this kind of head-down approach, serious relationships can be a distraction on the path to success. … The heart isn't as important."

Thus, marriage isn't disappearing, but the population of young adults choosing marriage is shrinking -- especially among those with little or no commitment to religious life.


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Gen Z and trends in religious faith and practice: Looking at 2021 and beyond

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Gen Z and trends in religious faith and practice: Looking at 2021 and beyond

It’s been nearly two years since I’ve written a post about the precarious religious position of Generation Z (those born after 1995), and with data from late 2021 available it seems like a prime opportunity to update what we know about their religious inclinations.

Because almost all surveys only contact adult Americans (18+), we can’t get a full picture of the entirety of Gen Z, but just the oldest members of this generation. Thus, here I am analyzing those between the ages of 18 and 25 years old.

Let’s start broadly, comparing the religious composition of different generations beginning with the Silent Generation (who were born between 1925 and 1945).

In this generation, half of all respondents indicated that they were Protestant, while 22% said that they were Catholic. Just 8% of the Silent Generation say that they were atheists or agnostics and nearly the same share describe their religion as “nothing in particular” (10%). In sum, the oldest Americans are 72% Christian and 18% none.

Now, for Generation Z things are much different.

Just 22 % of the youngest adults describe themselves as Protestant — a more than 50% decline from the Silents. Catholics make up 14% of Gen Z, an eight percentage-point dip from the Silent Generation.

Of course, the share of nones is much larger. Seventeen percent of young people describe their religion as atheist or agnostic, and 31% say that they are attached to no religion in particular. Taken together, 36% of Gen Z are Christians, while 48% are nones.

For journalists, there is the news hook: This is the first generation in history in which the nones clearly outnumber the Christians.


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Tops in religion for 2021: Gallup spotlights America's downward Church Lurch

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Tops in religion for 2021: Gallup spotlights America's downward Church Lurch

As Religion News Association colleagues vote on the top stories of 2021, here's The Guy's own pick for first place: Gallup spotlights the great downward Church Lurch in 21st Century America.

The polling organization, which is unmatched for data on trends that span decades — including a steady barrage of questions about religion — marked the Easter and Passover seasons by announcing that only a minority of Americans report membership in a religious congregation any longer.

Yes, yet again we confront those religiously unaffiliated "nones,” “nothing in particulars” and the long-emerging flock often called “spiritual, but not religious.”

The much-buzzed-about poll report, full details here, said membership rates held remarkably steady from the 73% in Depression-era 1937, when the question was first asked, through 70% in 2000. But now, self-reported affiliation has plummeted to 47% -- and a mere 36% for younger Americans in the Millennial generation. Equally significant, a three-year aggregate of 6,000 respondents in 2018-2020 also gave membership minority status at 49%.

This slump drew attention from media that rarely mention much less cover religion substantively. Assessing the many reactions, GetReligion boss Mattingly's post back in April — “Thinking with two key Southern Baptists: Concerning those scary Gallup Poll numbers” — astutely focused on two pieces by Baylor historian Thomas Kidd and the Rev. Russell Moore, who was soon to quit as president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. They analyzed Protestantism with little specific to Catholicism or other faiths. Links to both articles are included in Mattingly's post.

Note that responses in 2000 would not capture the potential negative impact of COVID-19 — which was hurting attendance and donations — on future membership counts.

So, what's happening?


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Still thinking about (trigger alert) a scary Twitter topic -- Elizabeth Bruenig and motherhood

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Still thinking about (trigger alert) a scary Twitter topic -- Elizabeth Bruenig and motherhood

At this point, I am a bit confused. What is the latest Twitter firestorm about Elizabeth Bruenig, the latest New York Times talent to hit the exit door for one reason or another? I may have missed a controversy or two in recent weeks.

You see, I am still stuck on the furor that greeting that essay published (May 7) just before she left the Gray Lady, the one with that terrifying headline: “I Became a Mother at 25, and I’m not Sorry I Didn’t Wait.”

I’ve been thinking about that one ever since and, thus, I have decided to treat it as a weekend think piece. But part of me still wants to argue that there was some kind of news feature that could have been written about that whole affair.

Yes, it was another example of folks in the blue-checkmark tribe losing their cool because someone triggered the urban, coastal principalities and powers. Can you say “fecundophobia”? However, this essay was also linked to some huge trends in postmodern America, especially crashing fertility rates and declines in the number of people getting married. There was news here, of some kind.

First, here is the Bruenig overture:

If someone had asked on the day of my college graduation whether I imagined I would still be, in five years’ time, a reliable wallflower at any given party, I would have guessed so. Some things just don’t change. What I would not have predicted at the time is that five years hence I would be lurking along the fringes of a 3-year-old’s birthday party, a bewildered and bleary-eyed 27-year-old mom among a cordial flock of Tory Burch bedecked mothers in their late 30s and early 40s who had a much better idea of what they were doing than I ever have.


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Impact of online confusion? Many, many young Americans just don't get the Holocaust

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Impact of online confusion? Many, many young Americans just don't get the Holocaust

It was the kind of open-ended question researchers ask when they want survey participants to have every possible chance to give a good answer.

Thus, a recent 50-state study of Millennials and younger "Generation Z" Americans included this: "During the Holocaust, Jews and many others were sent to concentration camps, death camps and ghettos. Can you name any concentration camps, death camps or ghettos you have heard of?"

Only 44% could remember hearing about Auschwitz and only 6% remembered Dachau, the first concentration camp. Only 1% mentioned Buchenwald, where Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel was a prisoner when the American Third Army arrived.

Another question: "How was the Holocaust carried out?" While 30% knew that there were concentration camps, only 13% remembered poison-gas chambers.

"That was truly shocking. I have always thought of Auschwitz as a symbol of evil for just about everyone. … It has always been the ultimate example of what hate can lead to if we don't find a way to stop it," said Gideon Taylor, president of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

It was a sobering "wake-up call," he added, to learn that half of the young Americans in this survey "couldn't name a single concentration camp. … It seems that we no longer have common Holocaust symbols in our culture, at least not among our younger generations."

Popular culture is crucial. It has, after all, been nearly 30 years since the release of Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," so that landmark movie isn't a cultural reference point for many young people. And it's been 20 years since the original "X-Men" movie, which opens at the gates of Auschwitz, and almost a decade since "X-Men: First Class," which offered a variation on that concentration-camp imagery.

Old movies and school Holocaust-education materials, said Taylor, are clearly being buried in information from social media and Internet search engines.

"The world has changed so much in terms of how information is transmitted," he said, reached by telephone. "Obviously the Internet has transformed how young people take in stories and information. … Twenty years ago, we could assume that most students were being exposed to books by Elie Wiesel" in history classes or "movies like 'Schindler's List' or 'Sophie's Choice.' We cannot assume this anymore."


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New York Times on young Republicans and African-American voters? Look for familiar ghosts

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What we have here are two New York Times political stories that really needed input from (a) the religion-news desk, (b) polling experts who “get religion” or (c) both.

Both of these important reports are, to use GetReligion-speak, haunted by “religion ghosts.” If you look at them through the lens of politics, alone, then you won’t “get” what is happening with millions of voters who don’t want to vote for Donald Trump in 2020, but believe that they will have no choice but to do just that.

The headline on one story states: “Trump Pushes Young Republicans Away. Abortion Pulls Them Back.”

Oh my. I wonder if religious convictions might have something to do with this? You think?

So let’s do some familiar searches in this text. How about “church”? Zip. Maybe “God”? Zero. Surely “religion” or “religious” will show up? Nyet. How about “Christian”? Nope.

That’s strange. Look at this summary material and I think you will sense the ghost that is present.

Like millennials, who are now in their mid-20s to 30s, members of Generation Z — born after 1996 — tend to lean left. But there are still plenty of young Republicans, and the generational divide that is so apparent between younger and older Democrats is no less present on the other side of the aisle. It’s just less visible.

In interviews with two dozen Republicans ages 18 to 23, almost all of them, while expressing fundamentally conservative views, identified at least one major issue on which they disagreed with the party line. But more often than not, they said one issue kept them committed to the party: abortion.

While polling shows an age gap in opinions on abortion, it is smaller than the gaps on some other issues, and researchers say that for people who oppose abortion, that opposition has become more central to their political choices.


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Dawn of the dead: Faith-based colleges face challenges even bigger than coronavirus

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Dawn of the dead: Faith-based colleges face challenges even bigger than coronavirus

Every week or so, John Mark Reynolds does something that presidents of academic institutions rarely do -- he cleans his office at Saint Constantine School.

This isn't a symbolic gesture in an age of ominous trends, and now a global pandemic, that threaten private education. Reynolds always takes his turn -- with other members of his team -- cleaning administration offices at this classical school in Houston.

"We have no administrators who are just administrators. Everyone teaches. Everyone shares many of the jobs that need to get done," said Reynolds, reached at his "sheltering in place" home office. "We have a maintenance team, but we all help out. The first lady and I plan to water some plants later today. …

"We call this the economy of small."

Saint Constantine is a K-16 Orthodox Christian school, which means it offers four years of college credits. College tuition is $9,000 per year.

"Our whole model was created to survive the collapse of liberal arts education, while striving to preserve the core of liberal arts education through an Oxford-style tutorial system," said Reynolds. "This pandemic is only exposing the weaknesses of what was already a business model fraught with peril."

College educators have long known that painful challenges were coming in 2025, due to falling birth rates and the end of high millennial-generation enrollments.

Now, the coronavirus crisis is forcing students and parents to face troubling realities. A study by McKinsey & Company researchers noted: "Hunkering down at home with a laptop … is a world away from the rich on-campus life that existed in February."

What happens next? The study noted: "In the virus-recurrence and pandemic-escalation scenarios, higher-education institutions could see much less predictable yield rates (the percentage of those admitted who attend) if would-be first-year students decide to take a gap year or attend somewhere closer to home (and less costly) because of the expectation of longer-term financial challenges for their families."


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Podcast: Faith-based colleges face coronavirus crisis (and hard identity questions, too)

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What is going to happen on college and university campuses this fall?

That’s a huge question, right now, and nobody knows the answer yet. Parents and students want to know. Football fans want to know. Trustees want to know since, in the end, they’re the people who will end up trying to handle the financial fallout of the coronavirus crisis (including predictions of a second wave hitting with the flu-season in November).

But there is more to this story than COVID-19, if you have been paying close attention to higher-education trends in recent years. Leaders in higher-ed were already bracing for the year 2025 — when the enrollment surge linked to the massive millennial generation would be coming to an end.

Now, look past all of those state-funded schools — big and small. How will these trends hit private schools, including faith-based private schools. Many have been facing rising tides of red ink, and that was before the arrival of the coronavirus.

“Crossroads” host Todd Wilken and I talked about all of these issues, and more, during this week’s podcast (click here to tune that in). The hook for this discussion was my “On Religion” column for this week, which included this crucial passage:

… The coronavirus crisis is forcing students and parents to face troubling realities. A study by McKinsey & Company researchers noted: "Hunkering down at home with a laptop … is a world away from the rich on-campus life that existed in February."

What happens next? The study noted: "In the virus-recurrence and pandemic-escalation scenarios, higher-education institutions could see much less predictable yield rates (the percentage of those admitted who attend) if would-be first-year students decide to take a gap year or attend somewhere closer to home (and less costly) because of the expectation of longer-term financial challenges for their families."

This could crush some schools. In a report entitled "Dawn of the Dead," Forbes found 675 private colleges it labeled "so-called tuition-dependent schools -- meaning they squeak by year-after-year, often losing money or eating into their dwindling endowments." While it's hard to probe private-school finances, Forbes said a "significant number" of weaker schools are "nearly insolvent."

How many of America’s truly faith-defined private colleges are in that “Dawn of the Dead” list?


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