{"id":1296,"date":"2013-07-29T10:31:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-29T10:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church.html"},"modified":"2013-07-29T10:31:00","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T10:31:00","slug":"why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
At 32, I barely qualify as a millennial.<\/span><\/div>\n
I wrote my first essay with a pen and paper, but by the time I graduated from college, I owned a cell phone and used Google as a verb.\u00a0I still remember the home phone numbers of my old high school friends, but don\u2019t ask me to recite my husband\u2019s without checking my contacts first.\u00a0<\/span>I own mix tapes that include selections from Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but I\u2019ve never planned a trip without Travelocity.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Despite having one foot in Generation X, I tend to identify most strongly with the attitudes and the ethos of the millennial generation, and because of this, I\u2019m often asked to speak to my fellow evangelical leaders about why millennials are leaving the church.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/span>Armed with the\u00a0latest surveys<\/a>, along with personal testimonies from friends and readers, I explain how young adults perceive evangelical Christianity to be too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.\u00a0<\/span>I point to research that shows young evangelicals often feel they have to choose between their intellectual integrity and their faith, between science and Christianity, between compassion and holiness.<\/span><\/div>\n
I talk about how the evangelical obsession with sex can make Christian living seem like little more than sticking to a list of rules, and how millennials long for faith communities in which they are safe asking tough questions and wrestling with doubt.\u00a0<\/span>Invariably, after I\u2019ve finished my presentation and opened the floor to questions, a pastor raises his hand and says, \u201cSo what you\u2019re saying is we need hipper worship bands. \u2026\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
And I proceed to bang my head against the podium.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 32, I barely qualify as a millennial. I wrote my first essay with a pen and paper, but by the time I graduated from college, I owned a cell phone and used Google as a verb.\u00a0I still remember the home phone numbers of my old high school friends, but don\u2019t ask me to recite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Millennials Are Leaving the Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"At 32, I barely qualify as a millennial.I wrote my first essay with a pen and paper, but by the time I graduated from college, I owned a cell phone and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At 32, I barely qualify as a millennial.I wrote my first essay with a pen and paper, but by the time I graduated from college, I owned a cell phone and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/07\/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-07-29T10:31:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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