Why are so many teens non-religious?

[EasterJoy]

…With the young people I know who are your age…they have done their historical research into religions and come to the conclusion that they are man-made and often based on myths…so they don’t want to be a part of a specific religious structure.

This does not mean they are not good, moral, loving, kind, striving, honest, and dedicated people–because they are.
But they don’t sit in a church, temple or synagogue and pray to a deity to embody, express, and live those fine qualities…

You are right that many people leave religion because they have come to believe religion is based on superstition and myth which does not orient human beings towards the kind of virtues these “investigators” imagine they exemplify. You are not right that it is typical that they come to this conclusion by anything like rigorous investigation.

On the “moral” aspect, the OP was specifically referring to peers who have rejected the moral teachings of the Church. The Church teaches infallibly on matters of faith and morals; this is not up for debate. It is the truth. More to the point, anyone who has been to confession or examined his or her conscience on a regular basis can tell you this: It is very easy to have a vague sense that you are a “good person,” right up until you start actually paying attention to how you act and what you do with your opportunities to love your neighbor on a day-to-day basis. We come to realize that before we started this regular examination, we were giving ourselves a pass. We were not anything like as good as we liked to think, and we were not anything like as capable of living a virtuous life on a habitual basis as we had always thought. Teens are not unlike anyone else on that count.

Religion gets a bad rap these days, but it is not at all clear that the reputation is deserved. It is nearly unbelievable that anyone, even anyone scandalized by the sins committed in the name of religion, could actually do the research and say with a straight face that humankind, left to its own devices and umoored from the virtue of religion, has ever lived the “fine qualities” you describe to a degree that surpasses the religious. The religious fail, yes, but the irreligious do even worse. Name all the Damians of Molakai or Teresas of Calcutta that have come from the ranks of the irreligious. Hospitals for the indigent? An invention of the religious. Actual communal living? The religious have succeeded in Benedictine communities that have gone on for centuries. The irreligious? Those experiments somehow do not last. Yes, holy wars have spilled a lot of blood, but those who left religion in favor of their own sense of the way the world ought to work has included both the Nazis and the Communists. I don’t think I need to tell you that they were no paragons of life for the general welfare.

In other words, in spite of all the truly scandalous failures of those who are religious, nobody has actually done “historical research” and found evidence supporting the conclusion that the best way to live according to those qualities you talk about is to abandon the practice of religion. It simply is not true. There are atheists with those qualities, but if you want to live according to those virtues, becoming an atheist is not, statistically speaking, the way to go about developing them.

Your post reminds me of the first chapter of the Screwtape Letters, in which a senior demon reminds a younger one of these principles:

*MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

I note what you say about guiding our patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches… Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous - that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.

The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy’s own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it “real life” and don’t let him ask what he means by “real”.…

…Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. **Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see. **There have been sad cases among the modern physicists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don’t let him get away from that invaluable “real life”. **But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is “the results of modem investigation”. **Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!

Your affectionate uncle

SCREWTAPE*

 

[AKDee]

IMO, it’s because parents aren’t raising their kids in a religious environment. When I go to Mass, I nearly never see teens there. Oh, there’s a handful of them. But basically I see little kids, babies, and parents…and then apparently when the kids hits the teen years they are dropping out and not going to Mass.

Also, I was listening to one of those Lighthouse Catholic Media CD’s the other day and there was the most startling statistic. It was about how men are so important to the family and how in a family where only the woman attends Mass, only 5% of the kids will stay in the Faith, whereas in a family where the Father attends Mass (whether the mother does or not) 75% of kids will stay in the faith. And the point was that right now there’s a lot more women than men attending Mass. We need to get the Fathers back going to Mass, and leading the family to Christ.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

It mostly comes down to family.
–the multigenerational breakdown of the family
–the cultural acceptance of the breakdown of the family
–the fact that the state has taken control of the teaching of values from the parents and that parents often no longer recognize themselves as the true authority over what their children are taught to believe.
And Most Importantly:
–the fact that parents (and previous generations) don’t prioritize, or even believe the faith either. They just didn’t admit it as openly as kids today do.

I saw a cartoon on facebook recently, that basically explained that there is a large segment of the population who in years past, would describe themselves as Christian, even though they were pretty apathetic about the faith, because it was culturally and socially advantageous to claim that label/participate in a church community/etc. And today, it is no longer culturally or socially advantageous, so today, instead of using the label, they don’t bother.

In other words, 50 years ago, many, many “practicing Catholics” didn’t actually have a deep faith or understand or believe the teachings of the church. But they went through the motions because it was culturally “what you do.” The stigma of ignoring your faith has been largely eliminated, and the cultural benefits have been reduced (with communities now being centered around other things than parish life) so each generation becomes more comfortable with not going through the motions. Of course, even when one is just going through the motions, a little belief and real teaching can sneak in - and therefore some parents who just went through the motions, at least gave their kids the sacraments and the contact with the church so at least some of the kids would get drawn into the faith on their own, and many would maintain at least a basic identity as Catholics. But without people even going through the motions, we even lose that.

I am NOT saying that this is true of all Christians, but many. There are those that did have a deep faith back then, and they did their best to live it and pass it on. Of those, because of the breakdown of the family in the greater culture, and because of the handing over of the children to the state for values indoctrination from earlier and earlier ages, even some of those children have been lost to worldly values.

 

[InigoMontoya]

There’s a number of beautifully worded and drawn out explanations! My thoughts would echo many of them, with it basically coming down to two things; it being an age of rebellion and family. With the break down of the family structure, lack of family attendance, and the inclusion of societal influences into the family all being culpable.

Interestingly enough, there have been some studies indicating that teens and young adults are actually rebelling… back into the religious life, or at least at higher rates than their parents generation. It’s strange how teenage rebellion can work. Or I suppose teenagers are strange. Now, get off the lawn!

 

[AKDee]

I did notice many people who responded state that they were not religious as teens but are religious as adults. I am in that category. I was raised in a non-religious household. My parents never- literally never- took me to Church. My Dad was a cultural Christian and taught me to pray and that’s it. My Mom was, and is, a mish-mash of astrology/wicca/new age beliefs.

Despite that I’ve always had a very strong belief in God. I just joined the Chuch this year, at 42, but for many years have had a strong prayer life and routinely read scripture.

So it’s definitely not hopeless. But I do frequently wish I’d had the advantage of having been raised in the Church- advantage in the meaning that I wish I’d had the moral teachings of the Church in my life. I made a LOT of mistakes in my teens/20’s especially and wonder how much that would have been mitigated if I’d had the Church in my life.

 

[Latias]

Also, I was listening to one of those Lighthouse Catholic Media CD’s the other day and there was the most startling statistic. It was about how men are so important to the family and how in a family where only the woman attends Mass, only 5% of the kids will stay in the Faith, whereas in a family where the Father attends Mass (whether the mother does or not) 75% of kids will stay in the faith. And the point was that right now there’s a lot more women than men attending Mass. We need to get the Fathers back going to Mass, and leading the family to Christ.

A flippant response to that statistic are that Monicas have almost negligible value in the grand scheme of things, with perhaps the 5% that may be the Augustines. Most devout women will never be Monicas.

Also, the statistic implies that a faithful woman has so little value, since perhaps, 5% of children may be baseline of children that would retain their faith regardless of the devotion of the mother. Not an empowering statistic for mothers.

 

[AKDee]

A flippant response to that statistic are that Monicas have almost negligible value in the grand scheme of things, with perhaps the 5% that may be the Augustines. Most devout women will never be Monicas.

Also, the statistic implies that a faithful woman has so little value, since perhaps, 5% of children may be baseline of children that would retain their faith regardless of the devotion of the mother. Not an empowering statistic for mothers.

I’m not sure what you mean by “Monicas” and “Augustines”.

And while the statistic is disappointing, I think what it points to is the leadership role the father needs to take in leading his family to Christ. The speaker in the CD put it that mean are supposed to be the priest in their house.

 

[Hans_W]

The majority of American teens couldn’t point out China on a map yet they have done historical research into religions and come to a great rational decision that God does not exist? That’s quite risible.

Not only that, I’ve heard that 14% of Americans when put in front of a world map couldn’t point to their own country!

We always talk about the gap between rich and poor getting wider. I think that the gap between people who know what’s going on around them and the people who have no clue, is also growing.

Secondly, in the past, belief in God was something people simply accepted. It was mystical, you couldn’t compare it to any “knowledge” we have about the physical world. Today, everything must be provable, either logically or empirically. We want “scientific” evidence for God. Lacking that, people drift away from religion.

 

[EasterJoy]

A flippant response to that statistic are that Monicas have almost negligible value in the grand scheme of things, with perhaps the 5% that may be the Augustines. Most devout women will never be Monicas.

Also, the statistic implies that a faithful woman has so little value, since perhaps, 5% of children may be baseline of children that would retain their faith regardless of the devotion of the mother. Not an empowering statistic for mothers.

Well, what do you propose that researchers do when they find a correlation like that? Just cover it up? How is being lead to believe something other than the truth “empowering”? Isn’t it better to realize how important it is to get one’s husband to help out with the work of bringing up children in the faith? Knowledge of the truth might “empower” mothers to light a fire under the bottoms of their spouses and “encourage” them to be at Mass on Sundays, too.

We do well, too, to remember that correlation isn’t causation. The statistic doesn’t say what is the typical family dynamic when mom goes but dad doesn’t vs the typical dynamic when dad goes and mom doesn’t. Those could be very different. There is no way to correct for that.

 

[casslean]

Well, what do you propose that researchers do when they find a correlation like that? Just cover it up? How is being lead to believe something other than the truth “empowering”? Isn’t it better to realize how important it is to get one’s husband to help out with the work of bringing up children in the faith? Knowledge of the truth might “empower” mothers to light a fire under the bottoms of their spouses and “encourage” them to be at Mass on Sundays, too.

We do well, too, to remember that correlation isn’t causation. The statistic doesn’t say what is the typical family dynamic when mom goes but dad doesn’t vs the typical dynamic when dad goes and mom doesn’t. Those could be very different. There is no way to correct for that.

I don’t think such findings should be covered up, but I do think there is a responsibiltiy to present ALL possible explanations; offering a conclusion that “children are more likely to stay in the faith if Dad is involved” on the basis of the study done is both inaccurate and misleading. It is more accurate to say that the study suggests that children are more likely to stay in the faith if both parents are involved in the faith upbringing - thus the importance isn’t Dad, but the united front both parents provide.

If the researchers wanted to go further and study the effect when the father is primarily involved in the faith upbringing and the mother is largely absent, then they would have a group against whom they could accurately compare results.

 

[hesso12]

I am a 17 (almost 18) year old Roman Catholic and I am very excited about my faith. I pray and read the Daily Mass readings everyday, I go to Mass on Sundays (and weekdays or Saturday when possible), and I live my life differently than other teenagers who seem to be extremely liberal. I don’t support gay marriage, abortion, sex change, contraception, pre-marital sex, and all that, and I feel like I’m the only one. So…why are so many teenagers completely non-religious?

reasons are many

• To show off they are smart and don’t need God
• Ungodly leadership of Husband to home,this may turn the child away
• The wife rebelling against her husband,this may turn the child away
• Evolution idea contradicting with christian belief
• To show that they are hard
• Has divorced parents
• Has unloving parents
• Parents may not spank there child so there child become rebellious
• The husband giving a command or teaching and the wife gives a different command or teaching that contradicts
• Lack of prayer at home
• Lack of attendance to church
• Lack of upbringing

 

[AKDee]

It is more accurate to say that the study suggests that children are more likely to stay in the faith if both parents are involved in the faith upbringing - thus the importance isn’t Dad, but the united front both parents provide.

Except that’s not what the statistic was. It was 5% if Mom was involved and Dad wasn’t, and 75% if Dad was involved whether or not Mom was involved.

Why? I don’t know. I do think that in the home women naturally take on more of a nurturing role- in general- and men naturally take on more of a leadership role - in general. It may be that humans are hard wired to pick up habits from Dad, who knows? I do know that other studies have shown the importance of the father figure in the family for other things and it does seem to correlate. 90% of men in prison did not have a father in the home. Does that negate their mother’s importance? No. But I think it does show how important having Dad around is.

You seem offended and I didn’t post it to offend anyone. I posted it because I felt it was a stunning statistic that showed that importance of father’s attending Mass.

 

[Latias]

You seem offended and I didn’t post it to offend anyone. I posted it because I felt it was a stunning statistic that showed that importance of father’s attending Mass.

And especially, the unimportance of the mother’s piety. (And as I will demonstrate briefly later, the statistic alone does not necessarily illustrate the importance of the father’s Mass attendance) So for every Augustine, there are 19 children would probably ultimately end up hell for apostasy or at best drifting in a Protestant denomination. Statistically, Monica would likely be disappointed. A blunt Gregory House-like priest counseling a distressed mother whose teenage son abandoned the Catholic faith in teenage rebellion may just say that your prayers and piety may be commendable, but since you have genetic disability of disomy X, your piety has less efficacy than a male’s piety. I would not count on your children being faithful Catholics, even though everything is possible with God. But I and indeed any other rational gambler would still bet against it on even money.

Regardless of the mechanism (and I could think of at least two**), a mother’s piety doesn’t have influence on a child’s faith if that statistic is correct.

Consider this hypothesis:

If women have substantial influence on faith retention (A), then children whose mother is the only parent who attended Mass frequently would have a “respectable” rate of faith retention (B).

A → B

Since ~B (as 5% isn’t “respectable”), then ~A. This means dejection is justified.

Next, consider:

If men have substantial influence on faith retention (C), then children whose father attended Mass frequently would have a “respectable” rate of faith retention (D).

C → D

In this case D, but that does not necessarily imply C.

**For instance:

(1). A father’s frequency of attendance of Mass is a function by innate conscientiousness, while a mother likely attends due to more social reasons independent of conscientiousness. One can also assume that there assortative mating for conscientiousness, so that the wife’s conscientiousness is also a function of the husband’s conscientiousness. Faith retention can just be a function conscientiousness, which is just inherited from the parents.

(2). A father may likely attend Mass because he is financially secure. Living in a financial secure environment in childhood encourage faith retention. (Related to hypothesis 1, financial security and employment compensation could also be reasonably related to innate conscientiousness.)

 

[casslean]

Except that’s not what the statistic was. It was 5% if Mom was involved and Dad wasn’t, and 75% if Dad was involved whether or not Mom was involved.

Why? I don’t know. I do think that in the home women naturally take on more of a nurturing role- in general- and men naturally take on more of a leadership role - in general. It may be that humans are hard wired to pick up habits from Dad, who knows? I do know that other studies have shown the importance of the father figure in the family for other things and it does seem to correlate. 90% of men in prison did not have a father in the home. Does that negate their mother’s importance? No. But I think it does show how important having Dad around is.

You seem offended and I didn’t post it to offend anyone. I posted it because I felt it was a stunning statistic that showed that importance of father’s attending Mass.

I’m not offended, but even the way you’ve restated it shows how flawed the study is. The authors are comparing apples to oranges when they compare families where Dad is not involved and Mom is involved with those where Dad is involved and Mom may or may not be involved. The second group combines two variables - whether Dad is involved and whether both parents are involved. A true scientific study only changes one variable at a time. Hence, the groups should be a) where Mom is primarily responsible for teaching the faith; b) where Dad is primarily responsible for teaching the faith; and c) where both parents share responsibility for teaching the faith. Then the results from all three groups have to remain discrete to be comparable. Frankly, I doubt that the researchers would be able to find enough children to fit all the groups to render the results statistically significant.

 

[EasterJoy]

I don’t think such findings should be covered up, but I do think there is a responsibiltiy to present ALL possible explanations; offering a conclusion that “children are more likely to stay in the faith if Dad is involved” on the basis of the study done is both inaccurate and misleading. It is more accurate to say that the study suggests that children are more likely to stay in the faith if both parents are involved in the faith upbringing - thus the importance isn’t Dad, but the united front both parents provide.

If the researchers wanted to go further and study the effect when the father is primarily involved in the faith upbringing and the mother is largely absent, then they would have a group against whom they could accurately compare results.

While it is important to point out that no more ought to be read into these findings than what they say, it is also important not to say things that the data simply do not say.

A united front may be extremely important for other aspects of a child’s upbringing–I cannot imagine that it is not–but when it comes to the bare minimum of sticking in the pews, the data do not show that “the importance isn’t Dad, but the united front both parents provide.” The data show that the situation where Dad takes the children while Mom opts out typically leads to a very different outcome later in life than the situation where Mom takes the children to church while Dad opts out.

 

[antunesaa]

I am a 17 (almost 18) year old Roman Catholic and I am very excited about my faith. I pray and read the Daily Mass readings everyday, I go to Mass on Sundays (and weekdays or Saturday when possible), and I live my life differently than other teenagers who seem to be extremely liberal. I don’t support gay marriage, abortion, sex change, contraception, pre-marital sex, and all that, and I feel like I’m the only one. So…why are so many teenagers completely non-religious?

Hi - I have two teenage children, one eighteen (a girl) and the other sixteen (a boy). Since they were very young I prepared them for the world they would find in school and other social environments. The girl shares with me a certain spirit of being against things just as a matter of principle. Hence I told her that the mainstream would be supportive of abortion (which is the single most important issue in the West, IMHO), all for gay marriage and so on. When she became an adult (she is now 18) and entered medical school, she was prepared to fight the usual arguments for abortion, etc., in a particularly aggressive secular environment. At the same time she was used to pray the rosary at home, attending mass, going to processions in the city, etc. The boy is slightly less inclined to go against the tide but he is really a very sensitive boy and I think he is very receptive of the Christian message anyway.
So in the end I think that the idea that the only way to be truly radical these days is to embrace the counter-culture of Catholicism is appealing to teens. The only condition is that the parents must love them and give testimony of the Faith.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’m not offended, but even the way you’ve restated it shows how flawed the study is…

How can you possibly know that the study is flawed? Did you look to find out where the data came from? You raised an excellent question, however, and you are right that the situation is more complicated than indicated by the simple statistics given. It isn’t that the statistics are wrong or presented in a misleading way. They aren’t. It is just that that information that was lost is *also *telling.

All I could find was a second-hand account, with good reason. The “study” was a mind-numbing compilation of survey numbers. It was not even done in the United States, but in Switzerland, and it was done by asking questions that other European surveyors did not get around to asking.

The first awful statistic is that even when both parents attend regularly, 25% of Swiss who came from homes with two observant parents don’t attend church even irregularly. That is horrifying!!!

The other completed weird finding was Swiss adults seem even more tied to church attendance when their father attended regularly during their childhood and their mother did not. One has to wonder if most children in this situation don’t find more solace in church-going than their peers with two parents who regularly attend Mass:…that is, if the most typical situation where a Swiss mother does not attend Mass regularly when her husband does doesn’t signal problems more upsetting to children than the typical situation where it is their* Swiss father* staying home.

What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

Obviously, too, the cultural reasons where these situations crop up could be utterly different in the US. I would expect that they are.

Here is the most in-depth summary of the data I could find. If someone else can find more, so much the better.
*In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe (I write from England) were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not. The result is dynamite. There is one critical factor. It is overwhelming, and it is this: It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.

If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.
If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church.

Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

Before mothers despair, there is some consolation for faithful moms. Where the mother is less regular than the father but attends occasionally, her presence ensures that only a quarter of her children will never attend at all.
Even when the father is an irregular attender there are some extraordinary effects. An irregular father and a non-practicing mother will yield 25 percent of their children as regular attenders in their future life and a further 23 percent as irregulars. This is twelve times the yield where the roles are reversed.
Where neither parent practices, to nobody’s very great surprise, only 4 percent of children will become regular attenders and 15 percent irregulars. Eighty percent will be lost to the faith.
While mother’s regularity, on its own, has scarcely any long-term effect on children’s regularity (except the marginally negative one it has in some circumstances), it does help prevent children from drifting away entirely. Faithful mothers produce irregular attenders. Non-practicing mothers change the irregulars into non-attenders. But mothers have even their beneficial influence only in complementarity with the practice of the father.
In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.
A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!*

 

[antunesaa]

How can you possibly know that the study is flawed? Did you look to find out where the data came from? You raised an excellent question, however, and you are right that the situation is more complicated than indicated by the simple statistics given. It isn’t that the statistics are wrong or presented in a misleading way. They aren’t. It is just that that information that was lost is *also *telling.

All I could find was a second-hand account, with good reason. The “study” was a mind-numbing compilation of survey numbers. It was not even done in the United States, but in Switzerland, and it was done by asking questions that other European surveyors did not get around to asking.

The first awful statistic is that even when both parents attend regularly, 25% of Swiss who came from homes with two observant parents don’t attend church even irregularly. That is horrifying!!!

The other completed weird finding was Swiss adults seem even more tied to church attendance when their father attended regularly during their childhood and their mother did not. One has to wonder if most children in this situation don’t find more solace in church-going than their peers with two parents who regularly attend Mass:…that is, if the most typical situation where a Swiss mother does not attend Mass regularly when her husband does doesn’t signal problems more upsetting to children than the typical situation where it is their* Swiss father* staying home.

What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

Obviously, too, the cultural reasons where these situations crop up could be utterly different in the US. I would expect that they are.

Here is the most in-depth summary of the data I could find. If someone else can find more, so much the better.
*In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe (I write from England) were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person’s religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why, or if not, why not. The result is dynamite. There is one critical factor. It is overwhelming, and it is this: It is the religious practice of the father of the family that, above all, determines the future attendance at or absence from church of the children.

If both father and mother attend regularly, 33 percent of their children will end up as regular churchgoers, and 41 percent will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3 percent of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59 percent will become irregulars. Thirty-eight percent will be lost.
If the father is non-practicing and mother regular, only 2 percent of children will become regular worshippers, and 37 percent will attend irregularly. Over 60 percent of their children will be lost completely to the church.

Let us look at the figures the other way round. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes up from 33 percent to 38 percent with the irregular mother and to 44 percent with the non-practicing, as if loyalty to father’s commitment grows in proportion to mother’s laxity, indifference, or hostility.

Before mothers despair, there is some consolation for faithful moms. Where the mother is less regular than the father but attends occasionally, her presence ensures that only a quarter of her children will never attend at all.
Even when the father is an irregular attender there are some extraordinary effects. An irregular father and a non-practicing mother will yield 25 percent of their children as regular attenders in their future life and a further 23 percent as irregulars. This is twelve times the yield where the roles are reversed.
Where neither parent practices, to nobody’s very great surprise, only 4 percent of children will become regular attenders and 15 percent irregulars. Eighty percent will be lost to the faith.
While mother’s regularity, on its own, has scarcely any long-term effect on children’s regularity (except the marginally negative one it has in some circumstances), it does help prevent children from drifting away entirely. Faithful mothers produce irregular attenders. Non-practicing mothers change the irregulars into non-attenders. But mothers have even their beneficial influence only in complementarity with the practice of the father.
In short, if a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife’s devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children will become churchgoers (regular and irregular). If a father goes but irregularly to church, regardless of his wife’s devotion, between a half and two-thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally.
A non-practicing mother with a regular father will see a minimum of two-thirds of her children ending up at church. In contrast, a non-practicing father with a regular mother will see two-thirds of his children never darken the church door. If his wife is similarly negligent that figure rises to 80 percent!*

Very interesting indeed. It would be interesting to see results for other countries.

 

[Indigo_Cardinal]

My memories of being a teen…

“Oh my God, I’m so fat.”

(After a growth spurt): “Oh, my God, I look like a boy!”

“My whole face is covered with huge ugly zits.”

“My hair looks awful.”

“Everybody else is wearing XYZ jeans, and I’m wearing these cheap knockoffs.”

“Why do mom and dad keep treating me like a kid?”

“Why do mom and dad keep telling me to act like an adult?”

“Is he looking at me? Is he looking at me?”

“Oh my God, he is SO CUTE!!!”

“I’ll just die if I can’t go to Popular Band’s concert.”

“Those kids are laughing at me, I just know it.”

“I don’t get geometry…I’m so stupid.”

“Oh my God, I can’t sit in the lunchroom by myself, I’ll be the biggest loser in school.”

“I can’t sit with THOSE losers.”

“All the other kids get to do XYZ!!! You just don’t want me to have fun!”

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND ME!!!”

A lot of people here are going into poorly catechized families, family breakdown, attack on religion, etc etc etc…and in my opinion, it’s a lot more simple. Teenagers can be very introspective and self-centered and insecure. Everything about them is changing–they’re transitioning from childhood to adulthood, their bodies are putting them through all sorts of hormonal acrobatics, and they’re freaking out. They start focusing on themselves and their perceived flaws.

They’re not necessarily bad, evil, or misguided. They just get into a self-focused state for a period of time and the rest of the world may as well not exist while they have themselves and all their ‘faults’ under the magnifying glass. Fortunately, they grow out of it, as most of us with those years well past us can attest to.

 

[Thorolfr]

So…why are so many teenagers completely non-religious?

A study of 16-29 years olds that was done by The Barna Group about 8 years ago gives some indication of why many young people are skeptical about religion:

While Christianity has typically generated an uneven reputation, the research shows that many of the most common critiques are becoming more concentrated. The study explored twenty specific images related to Christianity, including ten favorable and ten unfavorable perceptions. Among young non-Christians, nine out of the top 12 perceptions were negative. Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%) - representing large proportions of young outsiders who attach these negative labels to Christians. The most common favorable perceptions were that Christianity teaches the same basic ideas as other religions (82%), has good values and principles (76%), is friendly (71%), and is a faith they respect (55%).

Even among young Christians, many of the negative images generated significant traction. Half of young churchgoers said they perceive Christianity to be judgmental, hypocritical, and too political. One-third said it was old-fashioned and out of touch with reality.

Interestingly, the study discovered a new image that has steadily grown in prominence over the last decade. Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is “anti-homosexual.” Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. 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. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a “bigger sin” than anything else. Moreover, they claim that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians.

barna.org/barna-update/teens-nextgen/94-a-new-generation-expresses-its-skepticism-and-frustration-with-christianity#.VXJLBs9Vikp