April 21, 2012

Millennials Abandon Christianity

Mark Silk, Religion News Service

Dude, that's the headline I'd put on the new survey of Millennials from the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown's Berkley Center. Like, 80.2 percent of them were raised as some kind of Christian and now just 64.2 percent consider themselves such. That 20 percent decline is largely accounted for by the increase from 11.1 percent to 24.7 percent of the cohort that the survey calls "unaffiliated"--i.e. those who identify with no religion, or Nones. Add a bit over a percentage point increase for both the non-Christians and the "Don't Knows," and you've got the whole picture.

While every Christian grouping experienced some decline, the big losers are the Catholics and the Mainline Protestants, both of which declined by 28 percent. White Catholics dropped 34...

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TAGGED: Christianity, youth ministries

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