How religious views are changing among America's young.
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Is religion losing the millennial generation?
Mon Feb 4, 12:16 AM ET
By Stephen Prothero
Religions seem ancient, and many are. But they all began somewhere, and
a considerable number began in the USA. The most successful new
religious movements of the 19th and 20th centuries ‹ Mormonism and
Scientology ‹ were both "made in America." And according to J. Gordon
Melton of the Institute for the Study of American Religion, Americans
continue to pump out new religions at a rate of about 40 to 50 per year.
For the past two years, I have asked students in my introductory
religion courses at Boston University to get together in groups and
invent their own religions. They present their religious creations to
their classmates, and then everyone votes (with fake money in a
makeshift offering plate) for the new religions they like best. This
assignment encourages students to reflect on what separates "winners"
and "losers" in America's freewheeling spiritual marketplace. It also
yields intriguing data regarding what sort of religious beliefs and
practices young people love and hate.
(Illustration by Alejandro Gonzalez, USA TODAY)
The new religious concoctions my students stir up might seem to mirror
the diversity of American religion itself. Students tantalize one
another with a religion (Dessertism) that preaches the stomach as the
way to the soul, another (The Congregation of Wisdom) that honors
Jeopardy! phenom Ken Jennings
as its patron saint, and yet another (Exetazo) dedicated to sorting out
the pluses and minuses of all the other religions so you can find a
faith tailored to your own unique personality.
What strikes me most about my students' religions, however, is how
similar they are. Almost invariably, they mix fun with faith.
(Facebookismianity anyone?) But they do not mix faith with dogma. My
students are careful ‹ exceedingly careful ‹ not to tell one another
what to believe, or even what to do. Above all, they want to be tolerant
and non-judgmental. Most of the religions my students developed were
fully compatible with other religions.
They made few demands, either intellectually or morally. Repeatedly,
their founders stress that you can join their religion without leaving
Catholicism or Judaism or Islam behind.
'Dogma aversion'
During the 1930s, the neoorthodox theologian H. Richard Niebuhr skewered
liberal Protestants for preaching "a God without wrath (who) brought men
without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of
a Christ without a cross."
But my students' "dogma aversion" (as one put it) goes liberal
Protestantism one further. These young people aren't just allergic to
dogma. They are allergic to divinity and even heaven. In the religions
of their imagining, God is an afterthought at best. And the afterlife
is, as one of my students told me, "on the back burner."
What my students long for is not salvation after they die but happiness
(or, in the case of Euphorianity, euphoria) here and now. They want less
stress and more sleep. (In fact, two student religions ‹ Sertaism and
ZZZ ‹ emphasize the importance of a good night's sleep.) They want to
discover themselves and to give voice to their discoveries. They want to
experience joy because of their bodies, not despite them. And they don't
want to be told what to do with those bodies, or with whom.
My students are not libertines, however. A religion that takes the
lyrics of the reggae star Bob Marley as gospel (Eudaimonism) says
nothing about smoking pot. The founders of Zen Boozism (a "religion of
togetherness" in which alcohol lubricates the pathway to
"self-expression and self-discovery") insist that its followers drink in
moderation. And a faith based on the grooves of rapper Tupac Shakur
teaches that those who do not follow the ethical injunction to "respect
the rhythm" will trade in a glorious postmortem "After Party" for
eternal silence.
A couple years ago, Andy Deemer, a documentary filmmaker from Brooklyn,
advertised for a new messiah for a new religion. The pay was $5,000, and
the only requirement was that the winner spread the word for a couple of
months.
The winner, and the subject of my god, Deemer's not-yet-completed
documentary, was Joshua Boden, a bassist in a rock band called the
Angelic Bombs. The religion Boden invented goes by the Church of Now,
and one of its 14 precepts is "This life is the one that counts; this IS
your eternal reward." To which I can practically hear my students
cheering, "Amen!"
What of tradition?
In their final exam this past semester, I asked my students to reflect
on whether young Americans are the canaries in the mines of more
traditional religions. Study after study has shown that American college
students are fleeing from organized religion to mix-and-match
spirituality. So what will happen to what one of my students referred to
as the "religions of discipline" when this millennial generation (born
in the late 1970s through the 1990s ) grows up? What will today's youth
do with religions whose ethical injunctions arrive as strict
commandments rather than friendly suggestions? Will they be able to
abide religions that divide the human family into the saved and the
damned, that present as absolute truth what they suspect is mere
speculation?
My students' projects suggest that traditional religions are in trouble.
Of course, these young people might eventually see the light. Who cares
about heaven or hell when there is a party to go to and a hot young
thing eager to meet you there? But after college, after your children
are born and your parents die and your body grows old, traditional
religions might look more appealing.
One of my students, Carrie-Anne Solana, told me that the religions her
colleagues presented in class amounted to nothing more than "organized
atheism." "They took normal human impulses," such as eating, drinking,
sleeping, having sex and socializing, she said, "and justified them
under the title of religion while not offering any form of explanation
into why we are here, where we came from or where we go when we die."
Even so, I can't help but think that priests, rabbis, imams and
ministers would do well to engage in interfaith dialogue not only with
one another but also with this "spiritual but not religious" generation.
One of the biggest challenges to any ancient faith is to adapt to modern
circumstances and then, as circumstances change, to adapt again.
American religious institutions are, as a rule, doing a poor job of
listening to and learning from this millennial generation. Far too
often, religious services in the USA are of the adults, by the adults
and for the adults. And don't think young people aren't noticing.
Yes, the religions that students conjure up in my courses tend toward
vagueness and relativism. Often they seek to entertain as much as to
enlighten. But because they are invented rather than inherited, these
religious creations provide a glimpse into the concerns and convictions,
hopes and fears of young Americans, who are slouching not toward
Bethlehem or even atheism, but toward new ways of being religious ‹
innovative ways that ancient religions ignore at their peril.
Stephen Prothero is the chair of Boston University's Department of
Religion and the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs
to Know ‹ And Doesn't.
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John #1782
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