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{"id":3998,"date":"2013-04-18T09:30:20","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T14:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/blackwhiteandgray\/?p=3998"},"modified":"2013-04-18T09:31:43","modified_gmt":"2013-04-18T14:31:43","slug":"are-we-losing-the-young-evangelicals-by-age-since-1972","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/blackwhiteandgray\/2013\/04\/are-we-losing-the-young-evangelicals-by-age-since-1972\/","title":{"rendered":"Are We Losing the Young? Evangelicals by Age Since 1972"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Are these claims of imminent disaster true? Well, there are various ways of looking at age and religion, and I\u2019ll start with a rather simple analysis. Again using data from the General Social Survey, I divide Americans up into three age groups: Age 18-29, 30-49, and 50+. Then, I calculated how many people in each of these groups affiliate with Evangelical Christianity, and plotted it in the figure below.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>As you can see, there are some\u00a0similarities\u00a0by age. Evangelicalism increased among all age groups from 1972 through the early 1990s, and it has decreased in all groups since then. The differences exist in rates of change, namely it\u2019s dropped among young people faster than older people. It\u2019s worth noting, however that the biggest drop of faith in young people happened in the 1990s, and that current levels are about the same as the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

Should Evangelical Christians be worried about this? It\u2019s a judgement call. From my perspective, given the dramatic rise of religious unaffiliation (the \u201cnones\u201d) among young people since the 1990s, there are far more young Evangelicals than I would have thought. Still, I can understand Evangelicals being concerned about future and the young.<\/p>\n

However, the data so far don\u2019t support the disaster narrative so prominently featured in popular Christian writing.<\/p>\n

(Part 3 in a series on Evangelicals in America. Previous post in series<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"