A new survey has found that 43% of millennials in the US ‘don’t know, care, or believe that God exists’.
The American Worldview Inventory is an annual survey that inquires about religious beliefs and perspectives among US persons over the age of 18.
According to this year’s survey, nearly half of Millennials don’t believe in God, don’t know and/or care if God exists, while 57 percent of this age group identify as Christians.
Leading on from these statistics, it’s said that Millennials are ‘significantly less likely to embrace key traditional biblical teachings, including the nature of God, “original sin”, salvation, creation, life after death, human purpose, and biblical morality’.
in light of these findings, the American Worldview Inventory has said that the younger generation’s views ‘threaten to reshape the nation’s religious parameters beyond recognition’.
Meanwhile, 70% of people born between 1965 and 1983 considered themselves Christian, alongside 79% of Baby Boomers. The highest percentage of Christians were in the Builder Generations (born between 1927 – 1945), with 83% considering themselves as Christian.
Retrospectively, 31%, 28%, and 27% didn’t ‘know, care, or believe that God exists’, Breitbart reports.
The survey also asked people about some of their perspectives on life; for example, it asked the question of whether you should ‘treat others as you want them to treat you’.
In this instance, 48% of Millennials agreed that people should do this, while 53% of Gen Xers and 81% of Boomers said that people should do this too.
Other perspectives Millennials were much more likely to agree with were: defining success in life as happiness, personal freedom, or productivity without oppression; considering an abortion performed to reduce personal economic or emotional discomfort to be morally acceptable; considering premarital sex with someone expected to be their future spouse to be morally acceptable; and deeming reincarnation a real possibility.
The most unpopular belief with Millenials was the idea that there’s a ‘universal purpose for all people is to know, love, and serve God with all heart, mind, strength and soul’, which saw only 19% of this generation agree.
Sociologist George Barna, CRC director of research, said of the survey’s findings:
Gen X and the Millennials have solidified dramatic changes in the nation’s central beliefs and lifestyles. The result is a culture in which core institutions, including churches, and basic ways of life are continually being radically redefined.
He added he believes this shift began around 60 years ago with progressive changes among Boomers but described Millennials as having ‘aggressively cut ties with core biblical views and lifestyle values’.