A recent report from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) suggests that divorce is a significant factor in provoking millennials to leave the church.
The report, published last month, was titled, Exodus: Why Americans are Leaving Religion – and Why They're Unlikely to Come Back. It says: "Americans who were raised by divorced parents are more likely than children whose parents were married during most of their formative years to be religiously unaffiliated (35 per cent vs. 23 per cent respectively)."
Divorce also impacts not just religious affiliation, but attendance too: "Americans who were raised by divorced parents are less likely than children whose parents were married during most of their childhood to report attending religious services at least once per week (21 per cent vs. 34 per cent, respectively)."
The report adds: "This childhood divorce gap is also evident even among Americans who continue to be religiously affiliated. Roughly three in ten (31 per cent) of religious Americans who were brought up by divorced parents say they attend religious services at least once a week, compared to 43 per cent of religious Americans who were raised by married parents."
Andrew Root, a professor at Luther Seminary who has authored a book about the spiritual consequences of divorce on children, told the Washington Post: "Everything in a divorce gets divided. Literally everything. Parents' friends get divided. Relatives get divided. Everyone takes sides... even religion takes sides. The church gets divided. Dad leaves Mom's faith, or vice versa. Negotiating those worlds becomes difficult."
The PRRI report highlighted another family-related cause of millennial disaffiliation with the church: whether a child's parents shared the same faith or not.
The report reads: "Americans raised in mixed religious households – where parents identified with different religious traditions – are more likely to identify as unaffiliated than those raised in households where parents shared the same faith (31 per cent vs. 22 per cent, respectively)."
Other reasons for leaving the church include a non-religious upbringing (32 per cent of respondents) negative teachings about the treatment of LGTB people (29 per cent), and the clergy sexual abuse scandal (19 per cent). However, the biggest reason for leaving, at 60 per cent, was that people simply "stopped believing".
