Goodbye Boomers, hello Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Here's a book I'll be eager to read: Princeton sociologist Robert Wuthnow's "After the Baby Boomers," analyzing a number of studies creating, in the aggregate, a spiritual profile of post-boomer American Christians. Brian McLaren's review in The Christian Century cites a number of startling (to me, anyway) findings, among them:

+ Post-boomer Christians (PBCs) -- which is to say, young adult Christians -- are falling away from formal religious practice, but not because, or not mostly because, of advancing secularization. It has more to do with changes in family life -- in particular, marrying later and having fewer children -- and mobility. Result: "fewer young adults contributing to the activities of local congregations or receiving support from these congregations." McLaren concludes, from Wuthnow's data, that the single most important way 20-and-30something Christians are shaping the future church is "by staying away."

+ McLaren: "Since the early 1970s retention rates for both mainline and evangelical Protestants have fallen, so that as a proportion of the U.S. population neither group—contrary to popular opinion—has been growing, and this is especially true among younger adults."

+ McLaren again: "The only groups receiving some consolation from the statistics are Catholics, Jews and black Protestants, whose percentages of young adult affiliates 'have remained remarkably stable.'"

+ Evangelicals are no longer growing at the expense of mainline Protestantism. In fact, data show that more Evangelical converts these days are coming from Catholicism than a generation ago.

+ Wuthnow: "The most notable of all these figures is the large increase in the proportion of younger adults who are nonaffiliated. That proportion has risen in the space of a generation from one person in eleven to one person in five."

+ And yet, Wuthnow says the data show that the age demographic most likely to talk about religion with their friends are people in their twenties. These people are concerned about religion and spirituality, but perceive no need to formalize their religious impulses in churches -- at least not until they have children.

+ PBCs are not being educated out of orthodox Christianity. College-educated PBCs are more likely to be religiously orthodox than those PBCs without a college education. That makes sense, if you think about it. If you have come through college with your religious beliefs intact, chances are you are more aware of why orthodoxy matters, and are therefore more committed to it. (That's my conclusion, not Wuthnow's).

+ Contrary to what Your Working Boy would have expected, a majority of PBCs -- 56 percent -- lean towards liberal Christianity. Only 38 percent call themselves conservative-leaning. But does that mean that tomorrow's Christianity will be more liberal? By no means: more than half of religious conservatives attend church weekly, while only 14 percent of religious liberals do. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which demographic is more likely to pass on faith to their children. Then again, perhaps they will pass along a kind of faith -- hello, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism -- just not a faith that would be recognizable by any meaningful historical standard.

+ McLaren:

What should churches start doing, given Wuthnow's findings? My answer would be that they should redistribute energy. When we think of all the time and energy that churches invest in children, youth and their parents, and when we think of the high level of clout exercised by senior church members, it's clear that young adults are being left out or left behind. This is tragic for the church because it means that the substantial investment in children and youth is too often allowed to be lost when they graduate high school. And it's tragic for the young adults because during the years when they make their biggest life-shaping decisions, they're outside the church's circle of influence and support.

Discuss.