Religious Hiders and Seekers

The other night I was reading about the baby boomers and religion in Newsweek. It talked about how pop culture and other current events shaped different religious and spiritual movements during our parent's generation. "So in addition to everything else the baby boomers were known for--poltical activism, sexual freedom, yuppie careerism and a taste for expensive imported cheese," they have also been deemed as the generation of "religious seekers," (Newsweek). Instead of looking for salvation in the afterlife, these religious and spiritual movements taught instant and right now salvation. Funny how that is the common thread between movements that seem so different, like the John Lennon popularized-Indian based "transcendential meditation," the Church of Scientology, and born-again "Jesus Freaks." While Newsweek admits that the religious movements that they wrote about were a minority, they were nonetheless a face or an image of the times.

So it made me think about what an article about religion and my generation would say. I feel like my generation has an overwhelmingly negative view on religion. I don't know if it's because I lived far away from the "bible belt" in California, but Facebook's "religious views" seem to indicate to me that a lot of my friends across the country are proudly athiest and/or have denounced whatever religion their parents brought them up in. Don't get me wrong, I don't look down on people who aren't religious at all. [Though as a random aside, I wish I could be treated with the same respect back. I don't tell you that you're going to Hell (mainly because I don't think that), so why do you openly bash on all Christians/religious folks in front of me?]

I'm Catholic. I go to church every week. And most of the time, I feel like I'm one of the very few young people like this. At UCLA, I only had one other friend like this (hi Lauren!) and when I go to church now, I feel like I'm the only person in the 18-30 range (well, maybe because I go at 9AM). And it really makes me wonder 1) is there a huge religious die-off or is my perception warped by the demographic I'm around, and 2) if so, what caused it?

I go under the assumption that there has been a decrease on religiosity, so why? My very unresearched hypothesis is that it has to do with politics (because really, I can link everything to politics). I think my generation has seen the Religious Right obtain dispropartionate power and try to legislate their religious beliefs through trying trying to ban abortion, ban same-sex marriage, teach creationism in school, put prayer in public schools, and more. And this really scares a lot of young people away. I just really want to yell, "Hey, it scares me too but not all religious people are like that, trust me!"

And while I may be speaking from a California-liberal point of view, I feel like the concerns about what the Religious Right are trying to do does indeed span across both sides of the aisle. While the Democratic party may have a lot of splits on a lot of things, most young dems I know are fiercly united on trying to preserve the sepearation of church and state. On the conservative end, the majority of my friends are economically conservative and socially moderate/liberal. They may agree with the Republican party's philosophy of small government, big defense, and laissez-faire economics, but tend to ignore/look past/disagree/be embarassed by their party's religon-fueled social policies. Not all my Republican friends, but most of them.

This again, is just a hypothesis. Some other theories include bad Sunday School experiences, church scandals, archaeic/male dominated church hierarchies, individual over group based activities because of technology, or all of the above. Nonetheless, it seems like people my age are hiding from religion or hiding the fact that they are religious because it has such a negative connotation. People no longer view religion as a personal belief system but rather as a force pushing a lot of policies that are less popular to the Millenial generation.