Faith in Context

How Many Adventists Are College and University Students?

By Monte Sahlin

The most recent Freshman Survey in the United States (from 2014) found that three-tenth of one percent of the students reported that their religious preference was Seventh-day Adventist. That is 0.3%. Only two of the listed religious categories at a smaller response: 0.2% each for LDS (Mormons) and Quakers. The largest responses were 27.5% who indicated "None" and 25.3% who selected Roman Catholic.

The most recent number available for the total number of Freshmen in all institutions in the nation is 2.2 million. (National Center for Education Statistics.)  That means there were about 65,000 young adults who indicated that they are Adventists in the Freshmen cohort for the 2014-15 school year.

If this sample can be applied to the entire population enrolled in post-secondary education in the country (a total of 21 million), then there are more than 600,000 students who have an Adventist religious preference. According to the statistics on the denomination's North American Division Education web site, no more than 30,000 of these were enrolled in colleges and universities affiliated with the Adventist Church.

It is important to understand that "religious preference" is not the same thing as membership. And members do not all participate regularly. Research has shown that about 30% of Adventist Church members in North America only rarely or never attend on Sabbath, and this percentage is somewhat larger among young adults.

There is a hint of this generational differential in the data from the Freshman Survey. The incoming students were also asked the current religious preference of their parents. The response was 0.4% for both mothers and fathers. Compared to the 0.3% for the self-reported preference, this means that one out four students with Adventist parents do not prefer to be Adventists themselves or a generational dropout factor of roughly 25 percent. That is actually about half the rate found in Roger Dudley's longitudinal study of teenagers in Adventist families in the 1990s. (Institute for Church Ministry at Andrews University)

Is there some chance that the dropout rate among Adventist young adults is slowing down? Perhaps, but remember that Dudley's study followed a sample of young people from the time they were 15 and 16 to the time they were 25 and 26. The Freshman Survey sample is largely age 18 and 19. For these young adults it is too soon to know. Which also means you can still do something about it.

You can respond or ask questions by Email at:   [email protected]

America's Most Secular Cities

By Monte Sahlin

"Nones" are people who when they are asked in a survey, What is your religious preference? answer with "none." That is their religious preference is no religion. One of major trends underway in America today is the rapid growth of "nones," especially among new generations. (As we have mentioned often in this space.)

New data reports the percentage of adults who are "nones" in each of the major metropolitan areas of the United States. For those who have studied American history and geography, it comes as no surprise that (with one exception) the cities with the higher percentage of "nones" are all in the West and the North. The South and the Midwest have fewer "nones" and more people interested in and involved in religion.

Portland (Oregon) is the metro area with the highest percentage of "nones." Overall 42 percent of the adult residents have no religious preference.

Three metros tie for second place, each with a third of their adult residents who are "nones." These are all in the West: Seattle, San Francisco and Denver.

Six metros each have about a quarter of their adult residents who are "nones."

• 26 percent in Phoenix (Arizona)
• 25 percent in Tampa-St. Petersburg (Florida)
• 25 percent each in Los Angeles, Boston, Columbus, Detroit

All of these metro areas are also among the leaders in cultural and technological innovation, as well as having above-average proportions of young adults. They reveal the map of cultural tensions in America.

Source: Christian Century, April 15, 2015 (page 9)

 

Is "Spiritual But Not Religious" Real?

By Monte Sahlin

Nancy Ammerman's new book, Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes is excellent. I recommend that you read it! One interesting question she raises is about the category that is currently getting a lot of attention, the people who say, "I am interested in spiritual things, but I am not interested in religion." So much study is currently focused on this category that it now has a label among scholars and professional research writers: SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious)

Dr. Ammerman calls SBNR a "unicorn," a species that does not exist in real life. Closer examination, she reports, finds that the people in her surveys who were "most active in organized religion, were also most committed to spiritual practices and a spiritual view of the world." She suggests that the SBNR thing is simply a device for people to tell their zealous friends to back off and leave them alone on topics related to values, spirituality and religion.

A reviewer in the Feb. 4 issue of Christian Century makes the observation that SBNR may be a media invention. "Dominant U.S. media don't seem to know how to talk about religious congregations" or spiritual life in general, so "lacking such capacity" they pretend that places exist that are not there in reality, observes Anthony Robinson, a UCC pastor.

Unlike Ammerman and Robinson, it seems, I have met a lot of people who are SBNR. Once they trust you as a friend, they are more than happy to talk about both religion and spiritual life. They express concerns, beliefs, emotional connections with the Divine; they pray, express spiritual sentiments and ask religious questions. They are turned off or simply unimpressed by the usual round of things we religious people do to express our faith both in the context of congregations and in our private lives.

Let's be honest, a lot of what we do is tradition and ritual, and not all that vital or vibrant even to those of us who enjoy it. To make faith real requires a level of creativity and authenticity that we are usually not willing to invest in. It breaks through at funerals, weddings and similar very important occasions, and sometimes even unexpectedly, but it is almost impossible to sustain daily or weekly or even once a month. That is why many religions invest so much value in "revival" or "renewal" or "reformation."

The incongruous thing about the emphasis on "revival" is that often the people who talk the most about it are the largest opponents to real change. We want the benefits of an edgy, powerful relationship with God while keeping it safely under control and limits. That is the real unicorn! I got news for you; there is no such animal. Either your experience with God is risky and upsetting, turning over things you would like to cling to, or it is boring and meaningless ritual that most of the people around you will not see a reason to give particular respect, time or energy.

SBNR is simply one aspect of being people real about organized religion. We want the riches without paying the price. We are just a little bit cheap and fraudulent, but we want people to treat it as if it were the wonder of the universe. Get real .... one way or another.

Is America Near a Demographic Tipping Point?

By Monte Sahlin

For six years in a row the number of births in the United States has declined. In 2013 there were 3.93 million babies born following 3.95 in 2012. Since a high point in 2007 the number of babies born in America each year has declined by seven percent.

One conclusion is that possibly the generation following the Millennial Generation should be marked as beginning in 2008. Generations are generally considered to be bordered by demographic events, not cultural or other events. So far, there is no consensus of what to call this new generation and no widely accepted idea of what years to include. It is possible that the consensus among demographers will wait until the current down trend in births bottoms out, as they did with Generation X (or Baby Bust Generation as it is known by demographers).

This means the Post-Millennial Generation could be seen as the babies born from 1995 through 2007, a period of 12 years. This is a short time frame for a generation, which means that likely the consensus will wait until the current down turn in births bottoms out. But, maybe not simply because that could be a long time; too long to contain in one generation. If so, that would mean that the Post-Millennial Generation will be the last big generation in America for a long time.

The birth rate is down not because of a low population, but because women are simply having fewer babies. Or fewer women are having babies. The average number of babies born to women between 15 and 44 years of age dropped to a record low in 2013 at 1.86 babies. This is similar to the highest rates in Europe where some countries (like German and Spain) have much lower rates.

The "replacement rate" necessary to maintain the population level is an average of 2.1 babies per woman during her "child-bearing years" (defined statistically as above). Because America is now significantly below that rate, immigration becomes very important in order to maintain the population at the current level. This is important because many mechanisms in society (such as an adequate supply of nurses and doctors, a balance of working and retired people, etc.) depend on a relatively stable population.

What does this mean for the church?

Immigration is a positive factor for church growth, but it makes the church membership more diverse than the general population. A clear Bible-based doctrine of diversity therefore becomes important because members have to be taught that their natural prejudice against a multicultural Body of Christ is wrong in God's eyes.

Americans Like Jews Better than Mormons and Muslims

by Loren Seibold 

For a June Pew Research Center study researchers asked what appears at first to be a fairly uncomplicated question: rate on a scale of warmest to coolest your feelings about a named religious group. Jews, Catholics, and Evangelical Christians elicited the warmest feelings; Mormons, athiests and Muslims the coolest.

• Not surprising is that we tend to be most warm toward the group we personally identify with, and Christians were most strongly represented in the survey group. The odd outlier here is the warmth felt toward Jews, who were a relatively small proportion of the panel surveyed (only 100 individuals out of a group of  3217). Does this reflect the links between Judaism and Christianity, particularly Evangelical Christians whose theology posits a central rôle for Israel in end time events? Or the outsize place of Jews in public life? Yet for their part, Jews felt quite negative toward Evangelicals—more negative than they do toward Muslims!

• While Mormons believe in Christ, and Islam is a fellow Abrahamic religion, these ended up near the bottom of the list. I am surprised by the antipathy toward Mormons, given that we have seen so many Mormons successful in American life, including a presidential candidate who was popular with Catholics and Evangelicals. Note that Islam, even though  historically related to Christianity, rated lower than rather alien eastern religions like Hinduism—and even lower than atheism.

• The survey showed that American atheists feel more positive about Jews, Hindus and Buddhists than about any of the Christian faiths. The eastern religions have strong strains of non-theism, though it isn't clear if that's what makes them more palatable to atheists, or whether it's because they tend to be less doctrinaire and evangelistic than the Abrahamic religions.

• The feelings of people with Republican leanings were more polarized toward Christianity and against atheists and Muslims than those leaning Democratic. Democrats' answers clustered to the center, suggesting less strong feelings about religion generally. There's also an age divide: older Americans felt warmer toward Jews, Evangelicals and Catholics, while younger Americans gave higher ratings to atheists and Muslims than did their elders.

• The study showed that simply knowing someone of a particular religious group results in warmer feelings about that group—proving that ignorance about those who differ from us may be the reason for our prejudices about them. 

Note that the survey asks for respondents' feelings, not what one thinks about a group's doctrine, actions, or reputation. Though one would suppose that feelings and thoughts would closely reflect one another, I wonder whether the results would look different if they'd asked people to react to the named religion in a different way.

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Americans Are Increasingly Polarized, Pew Finds

The Pew Research Center’s recent study puts numbers to something I think we’ve all knew was happening: an increasing political polarization between left and right in the United States. 

My family of origin was rather apolitical: there were no impassioned speeches about the necessity of one party over the other. My father leaned mildly in the direction of the Republican party, which he thought might do a better job for small businesses like his. I was aware that others in my community thought the other party was better, but I don’t ever remember fierce arguments or accusations. All political discourse, should it happen, was overlaid was two contrasting feelings: that the leaders, whatever their party, deserved respect as long as they were doing something, and at the same time that the whole enterprise of government was by its nature slightly soiled, and there probably wasn’t a whole lot of difference between one candidate and the other in that regard. 

After studying the latest Pew survey, I suspect that their attitude was probably typical of the time: people simply weren’t as passionate about their political ideology as they are now. Here’s Pew’s summary statement:

 “The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.”

That people are more polarized is, it seems to me, the less surprising finding. More consequential  is that everyone is angrier. 27% of Democrats see the Republican party as a threat to the nation’s well-being, and a whopping 36% of Republicans think the same of the Democrats. When pushed to explain, Pew’s Carroll Doherty admits that the “greater levels of partisan antipathy” are “currently more acute on the right than on the left.” It’s even more intense when when the split is thought of in terms of ideology rather than party. “Among consistently conservative Republicans, 66% regard Democratic policies as a threat to the nation’s well-being. Substantially fewer (50%) of consistently liberal Democrats think Republican policies represent a threat to the nation.”

There’s undoubtedly a religious element here: conservative Christianity is a major factor with conservative voters.  To what extent is this this mutual hatred reflected in religion, and could it lead us into religious strife as is happening in many of the world’s nations right now? 

What Young Adults Think about the Bible

Today's young adults, the Millennial generation, now 19 to 34 years of age, have significantly less regard for the Bible than do older generations. That is the general conclusion from a survey conducted for the American Bible Society by Barna Research Group.

Nearly two in five Millennials (39 percent) report that they never read the Bible, as compared to half of the total adult population. One in five (19 percent) are of the opinion that no literature is sacred or has divine origins compared to just 13 percent of the total adult population.

Half of the overall adult population in the United States say the Bible has too little influence in society and it contains everything a person needs to know to live a meaningful life. Among Millennials only a third agree: specifically 35 percent agree that Bible contains everything a person neds to know to live a meaningful life and 30 percent agree that it is too little influence in American society.

Among research specialists, Barna's surveys are generally known to have a conservative and Evangelical Christian skew .... so it is probable that things would be even worse if the same survey were replicated by NORC at the University of Chicago or the Pew Research Center or Hartford Institute for Religion Research, which tend to have less skew.

What does this mean? For pastors, churches, ministries and ordinary Christians who want to share their faith with Millennials, it means that the authoritative use of Scripture to prove a point or answer a question is unlikely to work. The conventional structure of doctrine and moral rules by using Bible quotes and logic is less and less feasible, unless you are dealing with Christians who are largely disconnected from the contemporary intellectual environment. Alternative approaches to share the gospel have to be found.

"Porn on the Brain": What Is a Moral Argument?

by Loren Seibold

BBC4's recent documentary "Porn on the Brain" (still available on youTube) generated a lot of ink in the UK and the US. Indeed, it was remarkable in several ways. First, that it originated in secular Britain, a country with low regard for the standards of sexual morality that are still given lip service in Christian America. Second, it was hosted by Martin Daubney, best know as the ex-editor of "lads mag" Loaded, which gives it the allure of witnessing an enlightment and conversion of sorts. (Lads mags aren't hardcore porn, but unquestionably fall in the "boys will be boys" objectification of women genre. A popular American example is Maxim.) Third, and most important, it's a popularized acknowledgement that ready availability of pornography might have serious psychological ramifications, particularly for those whose brains are still forming. This is from Daubney's accompanying piece in the Daily Mail: 

"I'd been invited to sit in on a forward-thinking class led by sex education consultant Jonny Hunt, who is regularly asked into schools to discuss sex and relationships. To establish what these kids knew about sex - including pornography - he had asked the children to write an A-Z list of the sexual terms they knew, no matter how extreme. Most of these children had just hit puberty and some were clearly still children: wide-eyed, nervous, with high-pitched voices. Some of the girls were beginning their first forays into make-up. Several wore braces on their teeth. Everybody was smartly turned out in school uniform, and the most anti-authority statement in the room was a tie worn deliberately short.… These were clearly good children, from good homes. So far, so very, very ordinary. 

"But when Jonny pinned their lists on the board … the first word every single boy and girl in the group put on their list was 'anal'. When questioned, they had all - every child in a class of 20 - seen sodomy acted out in porn videos. I was stunned they even knew about it - I certainly hadn't heard of it at that age - let alone had watched it and as a result may even have wanted to try it. One 15-year-old girl said, 'Boys expect porn sex in real life'. And one boy - to choruses of approval - spoke of his revulsion for pubic hair, which he called a 'gorilla'. When Jonny pointed out that pubic hair was normal in real life, the boys scoffed, but some of the girls were angry that the boys' template of what to expect from real girls had clearly already been set by porn. 

"By the end of the hour-long class - and three others that followed with other children - I was profoundly saddened by what I had witnessed. While teenage boys will always be fascinated by, and curious about, sex, what's now considered 'normal' by under-18s is an entirely distorted view of intercourse and the way relationships should be conducted."

"Porn on the Brain" hasn't the journalistic seriousness of, say, Frontline, but it's pretty sobering, and probably right for the audience it aims at. Daubney presents evidence that exposure to pornography in the young is addictive, and messes with development, mental health, sexual performance and relationships. 

A thought that struck me watching it is how different this is from what we used to handle under the heading of "morality". "Porn on the Brain" is about what is or isn't good for you. Is that moral argument, or merely an observation about health, like tobacco use will give you cancer or exercise helps you live longer? 

A quick and dirty definition of morality is that it's the study of right and wrong. Certainly "Porn on the Brain" isn't Christian morality (though some have used this documentary to back a Christian view.) Yet there is here no sense that a sexual act is wrong because of some innate sexual morality that can be described with concepts like adultery, sin, or purity. Daubney assumes the existence of porn and rampant masturbation; he merely mourns for the innocent porn of his youth, smiling topless girls you had to sneak around to find, as opposed to porn made by "sexual psychopaths" and available at a click. 

In spite of the slightness of its moral component, "Porn on the Brain" may have opened a conversation with a group that is used to pornography being talked about as legal or illegal, but haven't understood why it might be bad. It occurs to me that this may be the future of all discussion of sexual morality in a secular and libertarian world: to talk about what may or may not be healthy. The problem, of course, is that it is then subject to whatever scientific studies one wants to cite, and there are others quite willing to argue the other side of this issue.  

 

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How Today's Young Adults Experience Faith

By Monte Sahlin

It is not the primary purpose of a recent article in the Whitman College campus newspaper to report on the religious experience of young adults, but it provides some interesting insights. The article is a profile of Walla Walla University, another Christian college in the same small city in eastern Washington state.

It describes how service experiences, both overseas and in the local community, are an important part of the values and education at WWU. It quotes a student, Rachael Coon: "I took this last year off and I worked in an orphanage in Belize. That was an incredible life experience. Life is raw there. It is what it is. There's no fluff. There's no mask to put on."

A faculty member describes the "reverse culture shock" that students experience coming back from a time of living with and serving the poor: "Some of them go down to Walmart and just cry because there's so much stuff and for the last year they were in a place where there just wasn't anything."

The reporter also expressed some mild surprise that WWU students, unlike the typical American college student, generally stay away from alcohol and tobacco, etc. Coon was quoted putting this in the same context as the life experience among the poor: it opens up a kind of access to authenticity, personal and spiritual authenticity, which is very important to young adults.

At the same time, new generations are cleary changing the religions they are part of. Another student, Jesse Churchill, explains that a number of his classmates have tattoos, but "it's just not really flaunted [because] there's a potential for it not being accepted. People my age are usually OK with it, but if you walk into church, there will be older people judging you."

And there is clearly an extended impact of new generations that cannot be fully measured from this point in their history. "Adventist beliefs could definitely change in the future," the reporter stated, quoting Churchill further: "Church in general is dying. I want to have a church that can actually reach people where they are, here in this culture, rather than try to revert back to the 1960s. The religion of our parents and grandparents tended to accept the beliefs a little more, whereas our generation questions everything."

Divine truth should stand up any questioning, of course. What is washed away is likey not really divine truth, but the cultural accretions of previous generations. It is difficult to know until we can look back from a historical perspective; a reality denied us in the current situation.

Source: Whitman Pioneer, October 23, 2013

 

The Dark Side of Virginity

by Loren Seibold

Growing up in a conservative church I learned that Scripture demanded perfect sexual purity before marriage. The way the subject was framed even made it seem a virtue to be ignorant and naive. Implied (and sometimes said) was that sexual interest couldn't coexist with faith. Consequently some left the church precisely when they needed a church family most. Others stayed and learned hypocrisy.

Some Christian commentators are questioning the high place we've given virginity. In the Christian press Sarah Bessey, Elizabeth Esther, Rachel Held Evans, Jen Pollock Michel and Carolyn Custis James have all taken on the subject. Writes Bessey in "I Am Damaged Goods", "I was nineteen years old and crazy in love with Jesus when that preacher told an auditorium I was 'damaged goods' because of my sexual past. He was making every effort to encourage this crowd of young adults to 'stay pure for marriage.' He was passionate, yes, well-intentioned, and he was a good speaker, very convincing indeed. And he stood up there and shamed me, over and over and over again."

We Christians pride ourselves on a sterner morality: "thus saith the Lord" trumps any other reason for being good. Yet inseparable from—ideally, homogenized into—a specifically Christian morality is something that we don't always mention: Divine grace as a guarantee of forgiveness and restoration.

In practice, the line between acceptable Christian behavior and forgiveness for misbehavior is a shifty one. The church has had a tough time finding the balance between discouraging sin and encouraging sinners. The reformed sinner back from a life of addiction and debauchery may be a hero, making the rounds of the Christian lecture circuit to show what God can do. At the same time the young Christian trying to make early adult decisions is protectively shamed and scolded and left to believe there won’t be a way back."Your life will be ruined if you lose your virginity" is self-fulfilling: it gets ruined at least in part because we said it would be. And admitting there’s forgiveness isn't giving permission. 

Understandably, Christian leaders don’t want young people to do what they’d later regret. There’s plenty to fear about the effects of promiscuity: unwanted children, STDs, exploitation and psychological damage. I think you can make a good argument that fewer of these things would happen if there were any way for the church to talk about sex except "Don’t!" 

Given what is apparently permitted under the seventh commandment (concubines, multiple wives, women as chattel, adolescent marriage, child-bearing slaves), it’s hard to see how it can make the case for the judgemental purity preached from many pulpits. The New Testament is clearer on adultery and marriage, but it still doesn’t come up to the standard of conservative churches—a standard Elizabeth Esther calls our "new and improved" virginity. "Ultimately" she says, "we implied that a woman’s inherent worth and dignity could be measured by whether or not a man has touched her."

Perhaps that's why where the church is leading, few are following. A 2009 study  by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy concluded that 80 percent of unmarried evangelical young adults (18 to 29) admitted to having had sex. (See more here.) Another study shows that the Christian purity movement has been a crashing failure: "Teens who took a virginity pledge have sexual relationships that are nearly identical to those of similar teens who did not make such a pledge. The one area in which the pledge does make an impact is negative: Teens who took a virginity pledge and did have sex were less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control."

There must be more effective ways to help young people grow up to have happy Christian families.

 

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