Posted on 09/25/2007 9:22:27 PM PDT by Terriergal
Young Americans today are more skeptical and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago, says a new study.
Tue, Sep. 25, 2007 Posted: 11:19:17 AM EST
Young Americans today are more skeptical and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago, says a new study.
Negative perceptions toward the Christian faith have outweighed the positive as a growing percentage of younger Americans associate with a faith outside Christianity.
Only 16 percent of non-Christians aged 16 to 29 years old said they have a "good impression" of Christianity, according to a report released Monday by The Barna Group. A decade ago, the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society,
Young people have an even lesser positive impression of evangelicals. Only 3 percent of 16- to 29-year-olds who are not of the Christian faith express favorable views of evangelicals. In the previous generation, 25 percent of young people had positive associations toward evangelicals.
"[Evangelicals] have always been viewed with skepticism in the broader culture," said the Barna report. "However, those negative views are crystallizing and intensifying among young non-Christians."
Common negative perceptions among non-Christians is that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87 percent), hypocritical (85 percent), old-fashioned (78 percent), and too involved in politics (75 percent).
For the most part, Christians are aware of the greater degree of criticism toward Christianity. According to the study, 91 percent of the nation's evangelicals believe that "Americans are becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity."
Half of senior pastors say that "ministry is more difficult than ever before because people are increasingly hostile and negative toward Christianity."
There were also some widely held favorable perceptions toward Christianity including beliefs that Christianity teaches the same basic ideas as other religions (82 percent), has good values and principles (76 percent), is friendly (71 percent), and is a faith they respect (55 percent).
Criticism, however, was not limited to young people outside the Christian faith. Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical and too political. Also, one-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.
Moreover, the study showed a new image attached to the Christian faith that is growing in prominence over the last decade. Overall, 91 percent of young non-Christians and 80 percent of young churchgoers say present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual."
"As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians," the Barna report stated.
Young Christians largely criticize the church, saying it has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else and that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians.
Among other common impressions, 23 percent of young non-Christians said "Christianity is changed from what it used to be" and "Christianity in today's society no longer looks like Jesus." Young born-again Christians were just as likely to say the same (22 percent).
"That’s where the term 'unChristian' came from," said David Kinnaman, president of The Barna Group who presents the findings in his new book unChristian. "Young people are very candid. In our interviews, we kept encountering young people – both those inside the church and outside of it - who said that something was broken in the present-day expression of Christianity. Their perceptions about Christianity were not always accurate, but what surprised me was not only the severity of their frustration with Christians, but also how frequently young born again Christians expressed some of the very same comments as young non-Christians."
Research further revealed that those outside of Christian faith have had significant experience with Christians and Christian churches. On average, young non-Christians said they have five friends who are Christians; more than four out of five have attended a Christian church for a period of at least six months in the past; and half have previously considered becoming a Christian.
"Older generations more easily dismiss the criticism of those who are outsiders," Kinnaman said. "But we discovered that young leaders and young Christians are more aware of and concerned about the views of outsiders, because they are more likely to interact closely with such people. Their life is more deeply affected by the negative image of Christianity. For them, what Christianity looks like from an outsider’s perspective has greater relevance, because outsiders are more likely to be schoolmates, colleagues, and friends."
The declining reputation of Christianity correlates with shifting faith allegiances of Americans, the study pointed out.
Each new generation has a larger share of people who are not Christians, which includes atheists, agnostics, people with no faith orientation or people associated with another faith). Among adults over the age of 40, only about one-quarter associate with a non-Christian faith compared to 40 percent of 16- to 29-year-olds.
"This is not a passing fad wherein young people will become 'more Christian' as they grow up," according to the report. "While Christianity remains the typical experience and most common faith in America, a fundamental recalibration is occurring within the spiritual allegiance of America’s upcoming generations."
Audrey Barrick
Christian Post Reporter
While it seems to be "so loud lately", it is actually toned down from what it has been at times. The greatest modern charge against Christians seems to be "being judge mental", but it takes judgment to make that charge. If it is a sin, it seems to be pretty much universal, but no group has it used against them as much as Christians. Why?
**“Young Americans today are more skeptical and resistant to Christianity than were people of the same age just a decade ago, says a new study.”**
Not Catholics! They are running to the churches with the Tridentine Mass; they want holy and sacred and prayer, without the interruption of the secular world.
Sadly this is a matter of the world transforming the church, not the church transforming the world.
Actually 75% down to 60% is a big drop off any way you look at it. Trends in religious belief in America have showed much smaller changes in the past. If the change had been much larger than that people would be calling it a major collapse.
At Barna's website they claim that these young people will not become "more Christian" as they grow up. And they make this claim without providing any evidence.
I don't know if Barna has their own sources, surveys conducted over the past 20+ years from Pew Research shows this to be true:
Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987-2007 (PDF file)
table from the top of page 8:
Percentage of Americans who are atheist, agnostic, or not religious.
| 1987 | 1997 | 2006-07 | Change | ||
| Generation | (year of birth) | % | % | % | 87-07 |
| Pre-Boomer | (< 1946) | 5 | 4 | 5 | 0 |
| Boomer | (1946-64) | 10 | 9 | 11 | +1 |
| Gen X | (1965-1976) | -- | 14 | 14 | -- |
| Gen Y | (1977-) | -- | -- | 19 | -- |
| Total | 8 | 9 | 12 | +4 |
This would appear to be good evidence that once a generation has reached its 20s, the number of people who change their beliefs is relatively insignificant. Wholesale conversion later on in life doesn't seem to be happening.
I don't believe this is anything new. I've been hearing from religious leaders for decades about the importance of "getting them young". It's only because the numbers are beginning to drop away so rapidly that more people are now beginning to sit up and take notice.
FWIW, we are supposed to be judgmental.
We have been told how to live and to judge one another. We are not supposed to condemn those that are doing the same things we are doing. We are both supposed to stop and after we take the plank out of our eye help our brother take the plank out of his eye. That does not mean we are to live like pagans so we don't seem judgmental of pagans.
Course we are, tho our official state church (secular humanism) teaches that Christians are sinning if they do it in line with Christian faith.
True.
Help a brotha take a plank out hes ahye
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
1 John 2:15
The gay activists heap stones on the heads of Christians. They do not hate us for our “hypocrisy” but because we dare say that what they are DOING in wrong. He have stopped their ears because they do not want to hear this. Nor do they want to hear unwelcome messages from health professionals, who warn them quite kindly that they are abusing their bodies to death. Never mind that their life spans ate twenty fives less than their fellows; might as well tell a moth not to fly too close to the flame. Except they are more like wasps who sting any hand that tries to wave them away.
Why does the public not perceive gays in a negative light? In part it is because the public does not know what they do. The media image of the gay is that of a harmless clown, a figure of fun. Many are tortured souls, but that is put down to an oppressive public opinion, when their angst runs deep. They have played the public much as the blacks have, except that most blacks, in their heart of hearts, prefer not to play the victim, casting blame on others for their misery. Where do we read about the violence they have done to others, to the young victims who have suffered from their lust. Aboiut 4% of the priests have committed hideous acts and been found out. Ironically their deeds are what gays do daily and are not reproached for it, becauuse it is all done in the name of love. The public image is comedy, but the lived life is a tragedy.
You make a good point. They’re probably going with the sandal wearing, hippy peacenik version of Jesus that’s popular in some circles.
Our starting premise about the nature of men is from opposite ends. Secular humanists believe that we’re born basically good & the world makes us bad. If a Christian does wrong, there’s something bad & wrong with Christianity.
Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.
“Aboiut 4% of the priests have committed hideous acts and been found out. Ironically their deeds are what gays do daily and are not reproached for it, becauuse it is all done in the name of love.”
I completely disagree with you here. The priests that molested children (mostly boys) took advantage of a position of power, with boys that were sometimes not old enough to understand what they were doing, let alone consent. This is a horrible crime against another person and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. A relationship between 2 consenting gay adults, is nothing like it. However distasteful a relationship between gays may be, it is consensual. No crime is being committed.
As for why the public doesn’t perceive gays in a negative light, I don’t really know. I can answer for myself only. I know several gay people, and have worked with several more. One I have known since I was 2, and I have always known something was different about him, even in Kindergarten. I asked my mom why Carlos didn’t care about our football or baseball games, and why he always played “dishes” with my sisters.
Yes, homosexuality is clearly a sin. No, I don’t believe it should be encouraged. But, just as I don’t condemn my buddies who sleep around, or my sister who lives with her boyfriend, I leave personal matters to people and God. It just isn’t any of my business. Trust me, I have enough trouble worrying about my own sins.
How would they know? They're young. . .they weren't around then.
Ghandi spoke truth, but he missed the point. Christianity is not about 'doing, doing, doing' to get into heaven. It's about 'done, done, done'. . .by Jesus.
That is not to say that each Christian should not strive toward being a better person each and every day. But Christians are far from perfect in practicality - we are just perfect positionally because of what Christ did.
Well said.
I don’t know anything about young boy prostitutes, and gay teenage boys who take advantage of young boys. As a paramedic I see a lot of the darker side of life, but I must have missed that one.
My comments were speaking of 2 adults who are gay, and in a consensual relationship.
Those in a position of authority or trust with children, that take advantage of children sexually, should go to prison. Gay or straight doesn’t matter. I have to ask why you seem to have this preoccupation with homosexuality in a thread about the public’s perception of the church? There is a whole lot more to Christianity than that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.