Generational Transmission Of Religious Views In The U.S.

"Dogmatic" sects and firmly secular worldviews persist from generation to generation more strongly than "moderate" religious denominations.

“[D]echurching” is particularly prevalent among Buddhists and Jews, with nearly half not attending worship services regularly, and around 30 percent of most Christian denominations and around 20 percent of Mormons and Orthodox Christians. (There weren’t enough Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in the sample for statistical certainty.) . . . self-described atheists and agnostics . . . had the highest rate of dechurching of all: 94 percent for atheists and 88 percent for agnostics. . . . 

One of the main qualifications readers seem to be looking for in their new spiritual communities is something that is less exclusionary than the denominations they were raised in. But it’s precisely the more “dogmatic” denominations and religious sects that are better able to keep adherents, according to Merril Silverstein, a sociologist at Syracuse University who has studied five generations of the same Southern California families since 1971. 

Mormons and evangelical Christians were able to recreate themselves more strongly across generations in their sample than Jews, mainline Protestants and Catholics, Silverstein said. Meanwhile, “the secular, the anti-religious or nonreligious people are producing nonreligious, anti-religious children,” Silverstein told me. It’s creating a new and more polarized religious landscape in our country than what we’ve had before.

Graham, a co-author of “The Great Dechurching” and a program director for the Keller Center, used the analogy of a wall: If you have a “high wall” tradition, it’s a higher barrier to entry, but also a higher barrier to leave. He thinks the religions with clear visions of the kinds of ethics they expect, clarity of doctrine and strongly encouraged in-person worship will be stickier.

I asked whether he thought the trend of falling away from regular attendance at traditional houses of worship would continue at its rapid clip. He said he thinks it eventually has to slow down, because so many people will become dechurched that there won’t be enough traditionally observant Americans left to keep up the pace. And he agreed with Silverstein that dechurched Americans will have “unchurched” or fully irreligious children. He summed it up this way: “I think the religious disaffiliation as a cultural phenomenon will continue.”

From the New York Times.

This analysis misses some key points, however. The ranks of the non-religious are growing rapidly, especially from the ranks of mainline Christians, Jews, and Catholics. 

But even Mormons and Evangelical Christians are, at best, holding steady, with Evangelical Christian congregations, in particular, losing ground over the last half of a century and rising in average age. As I noted in a previous post:

In 2006, 23 percent of Americans were white evangelical Protestants, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. By 2020, that share was down to 14.5 percent. 

In 2020, 22 percent of Americans 65 and older were white evangelical Protestants. Among adults 18 to 29, only 7 percent were.

About 1% of Americans are Mormons. 

Furthermore, on a variety of issues from the environment, to feminism, to interracial tolerance, to LGBT tolerance, to cultural affinities in music and formality of personal appearance, the youngest generation of Evangelical Christians and Mormons are much more liberal than the previous generation. They are culturally more in tune with the elite establishment culture of the United States than the older generation within these faiths.

In another post, I noted that:

the religious breakdown of Biden voters (using the Votecast numbers) is:

White Evangelical 8%

Mormon <1%

Catholic 22%

Other Christian 26%

Non-Christian 45%

The religious breakdown of Trump voters (using Votecast numbers) is:

White Evangelical 39%

Mormon 2%

Catholic 23%

Other Christian 16%

Non-Christian 20%

See also here (from 2019) which includes this image: