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Commentary
GEN-X RISING: Crunching the numbers Andrew C. Thompson, Mar 19, 2008
Andrew C. Thompson
By Andrew C. Thompson UMR Columnist
A new study released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (www.pewforum.org) indicates that 28 percent of adults in the United States have left the religious tradition of their childhood.
And when you include switches from one Protestant denomination to another, the number of those leaving their childhood tradition increases to 44 percent.
Most of these people have chosen another religious tradition, but a rising number—12.1% of the adult population—choose no affiliation at all. In addition to that, 4 percent of Americans identify as either atheist or agnostic.
The numbers get even more interesting when the Pew Forum analyzes the net winners and losers from all this moving around. Methodists, it turns out, suffer a net loss of 2.1 percent: 8.3 percent of adults say that they were raised Methodist (which includes the United Methodist Church as well as other Methodist denominations), but only 6.2 percent of that number identify as Methodist now. It means that Methodists have a significant problem holding onto their members as they grow up.
These numbers suggest that the crux of the matter is a question of Christian formation: How can we form our children so that the faith they receive as children is strong enough to keep them committed to the church as adults?
On the practical level, we should look at how the church ministers to the young: How do we engage children in worship? Do our Sunday schools teach the Bible effectively? Are we communicating the gospel in ways that are transformative for our children’s lives?
Our confirmation process also raises questions of formation. Because we practice infant baptism, confirmation is extremely important. Through confirmation, children are instructed in the basics of Wesleyan theology and offered the chance to profess their faith publicly before the church. Confirmation typically happens around the sixth grade. But are 11- and 12-year olds really ready for this process? Perhaps we should consider saving confirmation class for high school, when kids can better grasp the central Christian beliefs.
On the spiritual level, there is a point to be made about the danger in letting people drift away from the church as they reach adulthood: Christians reach a state of salvation through their formation in a faith community. By hearing the Word of God preached, by receiving the Lord’s Supper, and by being in fellowship with other Christians, a real and lasting faith can be nurtured in the soul. In that sense, it is practically impossible to be saved apart from the church.
We can compare faith and the church to a seed and good soil (Matthew 13). Once the seed is planted in the good soil, it sprouts forth and grows into a healthy, mature plant. The church’s ministry provides the sunlight, rain and air needed to help the plant grow.
Drifting in and out of the church is akin to the plant withering from lack of proper nutrition. And frequently switching churches is like the plant being ripped up out of the soil by the roots and replanted elsewhere. It can be done, but it is traumatic to the plant itself. And if it’s done too much it can kill the plant outright.
The way faith is formed in people is similar. Faith needs a stable, nurturing community so that it can grow in a person’s soul. The grace that a Christian believer receives from God almost always works its transformation over a long period of time. So a deep and lasting commitment to a single church is necessary for the grace shared in the community to be effective. Formation is tied to salvation.
In recent years, some pundits have suggested that declining birth rates among middle-class churchgoers in denominations like the UMC are the chief reasons for the decline in overall membership. The Pew Forum’s new study suggests a different reason: the church’s inability to hold onto its own children as they reach adulthood.
And that should elevate the issue of Christian formation to the very top of our priorities.
Andrew C. Thompson
