PRINCETON, N.J. (RNS) — As increasing numbers of young people postpone marriage and children, other life choices — like returning to church — are affected as well, according to a leading scholar of American Protestantism.
As a result, Princeton Univer-sity's Robert Wuth-now said, religious groups need new ways to lasso these strays from the flock.
“Where young adulthood used to mean one's 20s, it can now last into one's 40s,” said Wuthnow, author of the new book, After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings are Shaping the Future of Religion.
“As result, young adults get married in their 30s and even 40s, have children later and change career paths more often.”
This is significant, Wuthnow said, because single young adults traditionally are less likely to go to church than their married peers.
“There's always been a gap, where people tend to leave the church after high school and come back to get married,” said Wuthnow. “Where in the past this period lasted maybe five years, it now can easily last 15. If marriage had not been delayed as it has, I estimate that there would be 6 million more religious participants than there are now.”
As a result, Wuthnow observed, people tend to wander, and explore longer — a tendency encouraged by globalization, multiculturalism and the information age.
“It's less and less common that a particular young person will choose a religion based solely on their parents' beliefs, or say that ‘this is a creed I read and I believe it and that's it,'” Wuthnow said.
“People shop around; they talk to their friends, who are now often of diverse religious backgrounds and even foreign-born. They read and look on the Internet. They put resources together.”
According to Wuthnow, today's young adults tend to be more open, retaining looser relationships with their congregations. Many subscribe to some kind of agnosticism, falling into the category of “spiritual, but not religious.”
Only Catholics, Muslims and Hindus — replenished by large immigrant populations — have maintained, if not grown, their membership in America, Wuthnow noted. Groups with aging populations and fewer children, such as Protestants and Jews, have declined, leading to a marked increase among those unaffiliated with a religion.
Churches, which often place too much focus on the elderly and children, need to adapt and reach out to America's young adults, he said.
“Religious leaders should focus on providing support for dealing with big life decisions,” Wuthnow said. “People used to make decisions about things like marriage and career paths in high school, whereas now these decisions are put off until after college, sometimes until one's 30s.”