Youth and Religion: Is 4% Accurate?

A widely quoted "fact" is going the rounds. Have you heard it? It asserts that soon only 4% of American teenagers will be "Bible-believing Christians," meaning Evangelicals or conservative Protestants. The source of this "fact" is a footnote in the book The Bridger Generation by Thom Rainer, a Southern Baptist minister seminary professor.

It is being used widely by Evangelical leaders to rev up support for youth ministries, which is not a bad goal. But it ignores a lot of realities and is very likely not as factual as it is presented to be.

1. The poll this is based on is more than 10 years old.

2. Rainer's research is all quite thin and very biased. If you read his books, he misses all kinds of statistical and sociological nuances.

3. The corroboration some give is a more recent Barna poll that says 5%, but Barna uses such idiosyncratic definitions as to make his data not easily comparable to anyone else.

4. Christian Smith is also an Evangelical and he has a much stronger reputation on this topic than either Rainer or Barna, and he does not agree with their percentages at all.

5. No other researchers get the same results.

My hunch is that someone latched onto a particularly dire number and began to use it for fund raising purposes. It is undoubtedly true that the next generation of Evangelical young people are not going to perpetuate the most extreme views and political stance of the Christian Right among Baby Boomers. The Baby Boom generation has become exceptionally polarized and that is unlikely to be duplicated among their Millennial generation children.

Some of the guys trumpeting the 4% panic are the same ones who have been involved in so much shady political manipulation in recent years. Why can't these folk get a handle on reality? Why does their faith always demand sensationalism? Where does the urge to force everyone else to buy into their opinions come from? It is surely not the spirit of Christ!

Comments

[Johnny]

What is this fascination we American Christians have with being the last generation? I mean throughout our history the rhetoric has remained the same especially during times of national revival.

If anything the 4% figure represents those who will believe and behave just like contemporary evangelicals. Of the stripe that developed the survey.

I of course base this on the always accurate statistics of my inference and opinion. haha.

[Selin]

Have you heard about the movie Jesus Camp (http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/)? After watching the preview, I don't think we've seen the worst of extreme Christianity just yet.

[Monte]

My browser is evidently not up-to-date enough to see the fancy graphics at the Jesus Camp web site. Selin, is it a documentary or a drama?

[Selin]

Monte, I believe it is a semi-documentary. The link above for some reason doesn't work. The address again is http://www.jesuscampthemovie.com/ Here's the description from the website: A growing number of Evangelical Christians believe there is a revival underway in America that requires Christian youth to assume leadership roles in advotcating the causes of their religious momvement. Jesus Camp follows a group of young children to Pastor Becky Fischer's "Kids on Fire Summer Camp", where kids are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God's army and are school in how to take back America for Christ. The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future.