Generational Change in Religion and Religious Practice: A Review Essay
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Numerous studies have been done of the religious affiliations, beliefs, and practices of the Millennial generation (North Americans born between 1980 and 1995). Many of these studies assume that their findings will be useful to denominations and congregations wishing to attract more young people. But at least one influential social theory would imply the opposite: that religious decline is inevitable as societies modernize and secularize. Purpose The current essay suggests a useful addition to the religious decline theory, the work of Karl Mannheim and his followers on the sociology of generations, and applies it to the major studies of generational change and continuity in religious practice among young adults in present-day North America. Methods In total, 35 academic books, 43 articles in refereed journals, and 22 denominational research reports are included in the analysis. Only works studying the religious beliefs, practices, and affiliations of the Millennial generation in the United States and Canada, and based on data collected through approved social science research methods are included. Results The essay first summarizes the findings of the studies, noting similarities and differences in religious decline across the various social locations of race, gender, and country. Next, it summarizes the causes that the various studies have postulated for this decline, relating them to Mannheim's argument that the “fresh encounter” with one's childhood religious worldview which occurs in young adulthood is a key determinant of whether a person accepts or rejects his/her childhood religious socialization. A final section evaluates the effectiveness of the suggestions that some of the studies make for stemming or reversing religious decline in young adulthood, in the light of Mannheim's theory. Conclusions and Implications A key determinant of religious affiliation, belief, and practice in adulthood is the fresh encounter that young adults have with the culture and worldview transmitted to them in childhood. The lifecycle stage of emerging adulthood poses a challenge to denominations and congregations since it is often the age group that is least connected with organized religion. The essay concludes with suggestions for further research.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".