A study unveiled this week suggested in the US an increasingly secular Generation Z (those born between 1999 and 2015): more prone to doubt, more likely to identify as atheist, less interested in church. While the trends revealed in the research by Barna may not be wholly surprising – and nor should they be overstated – one fascinating finding arose over church attendance in particular.
More than half of Gen Z said going to church was either 'not too' (27 per cent) or 'not at all' important (27 per cent). Just one in five said attending church was 'very important'.
Among those who registered this disinterest, three in five (61 per cent) of Christians asked said it was because they 'find God elsewhere', and 46 per cent of the same group said 'Church is not relevant to me personally'. Though this is a US study and church going rates are much lower in the UK, the generals trends it found, particualrly of Gen Z's secularisation, are probably very similar.
It may not be surprising that non-Christians find church irrelevant or uninteresting, but that many Christians said the same is of interest, and isn't necessarily wholly bad news. Declining church attendance may not be simply a marker of waning faith, but a shift in religious priorities – faith taking new forms, 'elsewhere'. While commitment to some form of worshipping community is clearly foundational to Christian faith, rooted in the New Testament and evidenced by history, perhaps the leanings of Gen Z are not simply to be feared but have something to teach other believers.
The Church may need to accommodate, without compromising its identity, as it seeks to engage and involve the first fully 'post-Christian' generation. Here are three 'elsewhere's' through which young people may find God today, and that other generations could benefit from too.
1. Nature
When someone rejects institutional faith and its markers, such as Church and the Bible, they may make a move from the particular and human to the more generic and natural: the world of nature. Some may dismiss this direction as dangerous pantheism or 'mother nature' worship, but in interest in God's creation can hardly be antithetical to Christian faith. After all, 'the heavens declare the glory of God', wrote the psalmist, and if human beings did not praise, 'the rocks would cry out', Jesus said. Creation is the work of divine artistry, which in itself reflects glory back to God.
Spending time in it then can provide food for the soul, experience of a different kind of worship that in turn reminds us of God's creative, generous goodness. In his book Sacred Pathways writer Gary Thomas names the 'naturalist' as one of his 'personality types' of faith, those who grow most spiritually by spending time in 'God's cathedral' that is nature.
For many millennials and post-millennials especially, spending time outside may be desperately needed by those otherwise glued to digital screens. It may also be true that a love of nature is increasingly uncommon for some growing up today, precisely because of the addictive allure of technology. But whether indulged yet or not, the inherent power of creation to stir the human soul is attested both in Scripture and human experience: people of any age can 'find God' in it insofar as the world provokes them to awesome wonder.
2. Justice
Another avenue of human experience commonly associated with millennials is that of social justice. An interest in ethical living and moral outrage may earn some the pejorative nickname 'Social Justice Warriors', cast in a caricature of privileged, pretentious moralising that critics slam as 'virtue signalling'. Christians may suspect some who prioritise social justice to be wandering from orthodoxy, rejecting interest in 'right belief' and only focusing on 'right action'. But despite the fears and caricature, justice and human flourishing is clearly central to the witness of the Bible, in which the people of God are frequently urged to an ethical life and chastised when they neglect the needs of the oppressed: the orphan, the poor, the widow and the stranger.
Active concern for justice then – seen in the particularly millennial interest in ethical consumerism, for example – is surely not just an option but an imperative of faith and right living before God and neighbour (Micah 6:8). Those who take this path, advocating for the forgotten and challenging human vice, are reminded of a God who is angered by injustice and longs for human participation in the work of radical charity and reconciliation. That Christians have been at the heart of charitable work and the pursuit of justice for centuries is well known, but the tendency to dichotomise faith and works, orthodox belief and just living, remains strong particularly in evangelicalism. But it's a false choice – the Christian should embrace both.
3. Contemplation
Perhaps in part reacting against an overly intellectualised faith, focused on studying the Bible and evangelising, many have found solace instead in the devotional, contemplative life of prayer and silence. It might be glimpsed in the trend towards 'new monasticism', with young people seeking spiritual insight through a season of worldly dispossession and quiet, prayerful solitude before God.
In a stressed-out, frantic world of noisy newsfeeds and toxic Twitterstorms, these 'new monastics' embrace an alternative rhythm of life, not to escape reality but to reflect on it, to make proper space in one's life for God. It offers something of the invitation to mindfulness (another practice well attested among millennials), a peaceful interiority and awareness, but one crucially directed to God.
Many may find this more attractive than the often formulaic rituals of organised religion, which may at times consist of so much hyped-up worship and tubthumping sermonising that little room is made for the 'still small voice' of God best discerned through contemplative silence. Again, this kind of contemplative approach has a rich history in church tradition – it doesn't take some kind of revisionist reformulation in order to make space for it.
The above are just three examples of practices outside of but not opposed to church attendance, that exhibit alternative ways of embodying Christian faith, each valuable in their own way. There are others of course, and it's not to say that these are necessarily the 'elsewhere's' that respondents to the Barna survey had in mind, or that there should be no concerns about the future of religion for the coming generations.
But it also remains important not to narrow the Christian life into simple, restrictive measurable outcomes, but instead celebrate the rich traditions and dispositions within the faith that neither narrow down nor exclude gospel truth, but embrace its reach over all of human life.
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