On Religion in America: Teens fleeing religion like never before

As I've written about on this blog many times the Millennials are having a major impact on society, economically and socially. Probably no single event demonstrated this more than the recent gay marriage ruling by SCOTUS. However, some around the country, including a tiny 'church' right here in the City of Lake Worth, are not getting the message:

Image from the Facebook page of the 'Common Ground' church led by pastor Mike Olive.

Joan Shipps has this article in Raw Story about a "massive new study" on religion in America and it's not good news for churches and the future of religious involvement. This should ignite a clarion call for action. Here are the first few paragraphs and note what is said about the Millennials:

     Religion is rapidly losing the youngest generation of Americans, according to new research.
     America’s rising generation of adults are the least religiously observant of any generation in six decades [emphasis added], determined an expansive study led by Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State.
     “Unlike previous studies, ours is able to show that millennials’ lower religious involvement is due to cultural change, not to millennials being young and unsettled,” Twenge says in a San Diego State University news release.
     In one of the largest studies ever conducted on Americans’ religious involvement, researchers from Case Western Reserve University and the University of Georgia collaborated with Twenge and her colleagues in California to analyze data from four national surveys of U.S. adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18. The surveys were taken between 1966 and 2014, and include responses from some 11.2 million people.
     The researchers’ findings were published this month in PLOS One.
According to Twenge and her cohorts, today’s adolescents view religion as less important, report less “approval” of religious organizations, and spend less time on prayer than did their similarly-aged predecessors. Compared to their peers in the late 1970s, 75 percent more American 12th graders, the paper finds, believe that religion is “not important at all” in their lives.

The City of Lake Worth has a particularly low affiliation with religion which is surprising given the number of churches and faith-based organizations. In almost every category church affiliation is lower than the national average. One religion, Jewish, is well above the national average in Lake Worth (2.81% versus 0.73%).

Image from Sperling's Best Places.