Staying Power
Why are the religiously unaffiliated so good at retaining their kids in their "faith?"
The Pillar ran an interesting analysis of religious demographic trends in the United States recently. (The Faith of the Next Generation) The interesting thing I saw was those who are raised without a religious affiliation have the highest “retention rate.” In other words, if you are raised without religion, you stand an almost 80% chance of not entering a religion as you get older.
Here’s the relevant table from the article.
Almost 80% of Nones stay Nones. That raises the question, how are they so good at it?
My working hypothesis is culture. The advantage the Nones have is that the prevailing culture in the United States is secular. Religion is routinely dismissed as irrelevant, illogical, or even harmful. You don’t have to find any special meeting to get that message, just walk into most any public school, turn to most social media or watch a movie or a TV show.
How can we best evangelize Nones? From the data, no religious group is having great success. Have any thoughts? I’d like to read them in the comments.
Grace & peace,
Chris