Young People Are Leaving Religion Behind

Years and years after Barry Goldwater warned the Republican Party about entangling with religious fundamentalists, it looks like it’s the religious who are now paying the price. The L.A. Times has a story today about just how high a price evangelical Protestants are now paying for becoming so entwined with Republicans:

During the 1980s, the public face of American religion turned sharply right. Political allegiances and religious observance became more closely aligned, and both religion and politics became more polarized. Abortion and homosexuality became more prominent issues on the national political agenda, and activists such as Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed began looking to expand religious activism into electoral politics. Church attendance gradually became the primary dividing line between Republicans and Democrats in national elections.

The number one issue for these young people? Homosexuality. Having grown up in a tolerant environment, they are sick and tired of the gay-bashing that comes from the religious right:

Just as this generation moved to the left on most social issues — above all, homosexuality — many prominent religious leaders moved to the right, using the issue of same-sex marriage to mobilize electoral support for conservative Republicans. In the short run, this tactic worked to increase GOP turnout, but the subsequent backlash undermined sympathy for religion among many young moderates and progressives. Increasingly, young people saw religion as intolerant, hypocritical, judgmental and homophobic. If being religious entailed political conservatism, they concluded, religion was not for them.

That young people see religion as “intolerant, hypocritical, judgmental and homophobic” should come as no surprise to anyone. It is not evangelical Protestants alone who should be worried. The decrease in church and synagogue affiliation among young people extends also to liberal and moderate religious groups. To a certain extent they are victims of guilt by association.

Then again, in many cases it is their own fault. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I reiterate my call to the hidden humanistic rabbis and ministers. Holding onto “God” is not going to help you in the long run. Your complex, serpentine theologies will be your undoing in the end. Every time you talk about God you are invoking the same personage as your traditional colleagues. To those reactionaries you sound wishy-washy, to progressives you sound reactionary.

I await the day when you are less interested in an inter-religious dialogue with Catholics and evangelicals than you are with non-theists. It is the latter who actually share your values. We just don’t need to pretend they come from a deity.

If you will just join us, we can create viable secular humanistic churches and synagogues that might very well bring those young people back into spiritual communities.