Last week, I was quite taken by the daily report on National
Public Radio regarding why so many young people are leaving formal religion.
Highlighted were six young people in their early thirtys who had grown up in
various religious traditions (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) but
for different reasons had turned their back on God and faith in general.
At first I thought it was another broadcast intended
to flaunt yet another example of why our culture doesn't need religion
anymore. But as I listened more
carefully, I realized the program was actually responding to a study by the Pew
Charitable Trust on Religion in America.
The research results are indeed sobering as statistics show America is
becoming more and more a secular nation. More than one quarter (28%) of
American adults now say that they have left the religious faith that they grew
up with as a child. From the nation’s entire population, 16.1% say they are
unaffiliated with any religion – the highest percentage in our nation’s
history. And for the younger generation,
those between 18 and 30, the percentage is now 25%.
As sobering and perhaps discouraging these statistics might
be, there is another part of the story which I’m quite sure will not get
covered on NPR. It has to do with the counter trends
in the rest of the world. Because for
every American who might have left his faith, there are two or three in the non-Western world who are embracing religion—especially evangelical
Christianity.
These charts taken from Patrick Johnston’s book, The Future
of the Global Church give dramatic testimony to this fact.
On this bar graph, the rates of growth of several religions
are compared to the overall world population growth rate (black bar.) Although
it is interesting that both the Hindu and Muslim religions are growing slightly
faster than the world population rate, the Evangelical, Independent and Pentecostal
branches of Protestantism eclipse it by 200% to 300%.
These set of three graphs look a bit complicated, but the
main thing to note is the shift from left to right. From 1960 to 2000 to 2050, they dramatically indicate that as Western nations (left side of center line) are losing members of all
branches of Protestantism (different colored rectangles), the right side (Latin American, Africa, Asia) are
more than making up for that loss.
Although young people may be turning their
back on God in our country, the search for spiritual meaning and truth is certainly
alive and well in the rest of the world.
Aren’t you glad He’s got the WHOLE world in his hands?
