Sex and the Next Generation

In their 2003 report, Spirtuality in Higher Education, UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, conduced a poll of over 100,000 college students.

They divided the sample between student with a “high level of religious engagement” and those with a “low level.” They then surveyed their opinion on “social/political issues.”

The first 4 issues had to do with sex – and by an overwhelming margin.

Regarding the statement, “Abortion should be legal,” 23% of those with a “high level of commitment,” agreed; 77% of those with a low level” agreed. Thus, a 54-point difference.

Regarding the statement, “Sex is okay if people really like each other,” 15% of the “high” agreed; 67% of the “low” agreed. Thus, a 52-point difference.

Regarding the statement, “Same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status,” 28% of the “high” agreed; 76% of the “low” agreed. Thus, a 48-point difference.

Regarding the statement, “It is important to have laws prohibiting homosexuality,” 53% of the “high” agree; 16% of the “low” agree. Thus, a 37-point difference.

Meanwhile, there is almost NO major difference between the “high” and “low” on issues NOT relating to sex.

For example… Regarding the statement, “The death penalty should be abolished,” 36% of the “high” agree; 30% of the “low” agree. Thus, only a 6-point difference.

Regarding the statement, “The activities of married women are best confined to the home/family,” 23% of the “high” agree; 18% of the “low” agree. Thus, only a 5-point difference.

This validates my point – made in The Mustard Seed – that the issue of sex is a major faultline between believers and non-believers – especially among the youngest generation. While the survey data is silent on this point, it is reasonable to assume that the traditional Christians’ attitude toward sexuality may be a turn-off for those with a “low level of religious commitment,” and thus, preventing those “low” people from making a religious commitment.

Traditional views on sexuality may also be a leading factor in the decline of organized Christianity among young people overall.

In their 2005 report, “OMG! How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era,” Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research asked 18-25 year olds… “Which of the following statements comes closest to describing your beliefs – you are religious, you are spiritual but not religious, or you are neither?

44% said “religious.” 35% said “spiritual, not religious,” and 18% said “neither.” Thus a majority (53%) do NOT describe themselves as “religious.”

In 2007, David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons published a book called Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…and Why It Matters.

The book is about what Christianity looks like to people age sixteen to twenty-nine who are outside the church. I’m tempted to buy the book, although, in this article, Clint McCoy provides a good summary.

In a nut shell, says Kinnaman, they think that Christians today no longer represent what Jesus had in mind for the faithful. Those ages 16 to 29 think “Christianity has become marketed and streamlined into a juggernaut of fearmongering that has lost its own heart.”

Beyond that, Kinnaman’s research has discovered that Christianity’s image problem is not just with those who stand on the outside. Younger people who think of themselves as being part of the church are also feeling the weight of negative perceptions. Kinnaman found that most young people who were involved in church as a teenagers disengage from church life, and often from Christianity itself, at some point during early adulthood. But unlike their forebears, the Baby Boomers, today’s young people are less likely to return to church later in life, even when they become parents.

They exhibit a growing hostility and resentment towards Christianity. Whereas a decade ago surveys tended to show that Americans possessed a widespread respect for Christians, this isn’t any longer true; in fact, to Kinnaman’s chagrin, the “disdain for evangelicals among the younger set is overwhelming and definitive.”

The research does not indicate that hostility to the church is due so much to theological perspective per se as to attitude. “In our national surveys we found the three most common perceptions of present-day Christianity are antihomosexual (91 percent), judgmental (87 percent), and hypocritical (85 percent),” followed by three-quarters’ percent of young outsiders who say the church is old-fashioned, out of touch with reality, insensitive to others, boring, not accepting of other faiths, and confusing.

The generation of young people from 16 to 29 years old yearns for a faith expression in which honesty, integrity, enthusiasm, energy, joy, humility, service, community, loyalty, faith, hope and love are self-evident in the lives of people.

Makes sense to me.

-Todd