do you know any young Christians

[zope]

MIL (in her 60s and religious) recently came to stay with us and I accompanied her to church when we got there i was really shocked by how few people under the age of 60 there seemed to be to the point where I (now in my mid 40s) felt young again. There were a number of small children with grandparents but virtually no one age 10-60. I haven’t been to church since I was a child myself so I was quite taken aback, is this what most churches are like nowadays or was this a one off. Do you personally know any young as in teenagers or in their 20s/30s Christians and do they have many friends who are also Christian? I would honestly be interested?

Yes, many, including my own young adult DC, who, contrary to the ideas of pp here, are intelligent and well rounded people with high grades. They are thoughtful, curious young people who do not blindly accept everything they taught or that we believe. In fact, they've always loved asking challenging questions and coming to their own faith positions. But we've always encouraged them to decide what they wish about their beliefs, and to ask all the difficult questions.

My church has many under 60s including a bunch of teenagers and 20s as well as families with young children. I know many more like it.

I know loads. Just go to ant playgroup at the church and tons of Christian families. The churches so busy they looking for new churches. I'm not involved. I just use the playgroups.

I go to a high Anglican. I am 48 everyone else is over 65 so I think it is probably the traditional church that has the biggest issue

My husband's whole extended family are committed Christians (he's lapsed, I'm atheist). From his parents and aunts and uncles in their 60s & 70s to his younger cousins in their twenties and thirties and their children in the preteens. His cousins in particular are hugely active in their respective churches and live the life fully.

@MasterBeth

There’s a strong correlation between education and atheism. As people learn more about the world, they are less likely to see religion as a valid way to interpret the world. More young people are educated for longer now than older people were. Religion is literally dying.

Not sure how this correlates with the thriving Christian Unions at Oxford and Cambridge. Please could your reference your sources for this?

[quote MasterBeth]@OMG12 Yes, there’s lots of evidence that backs this up. Look at the research The Pew Research Center had done in the US. In the UK, those who identify as Christian have the lowest percentage with a degree or equivalent qualification[/quote]
I couldn’t find that specific report on the Pew Center website, but I would be interested to see how they factored in race and geographical concentrations of poverty to their statistics.

Re the UK, it would be interesting to see how age would impact those results. If we say that older people are statistically more likely to identify as Christian and as a group be less likely to hold a degree than the younger generation this could be one explanation for the discrepancy. Has this been adjusted for? Holding or not holding a degree is in no way clear proof of intellect especially when comparing generations, of you take a group of 75 year olds you might be hard pressed to find more than one or two with a degree , the inverse would be true for a bunch of 22 year olds. Correlation is not the same as causation

I live in Northern Ireland and now know loads of church goers, however from England I struggle to think of five people I know who believe in God, I knew one person who went to church and she was around 50. I'm a mid 30s professional.

I'm probably one of the least qualified people in my church. I've got nothing past an access course. (Due to circumstance not intelligence)
The majority of the congregation are drs, teachers, uni lecturers, psychologists or retired very intelligent people.

Older people didn't always get the chance to go to university but a lot of older Christians like to read generally and study the bible. They are often from a middle class background and often work in professions I've

Ime

I’m in my 20s and an active member in my church. I am a Seventh-Day Adventist (which is a Protestant/evangelical denomination) and was baptised in my teens, which is how you become an ‘official’ member to put it this way.

My current church is young, multi-cultural and very international - as is the city I live in (I’m white European for reference) - with most members between the ages of 15 and 40. This is the current trend in most countries around the world, it’s a growing young church. although you do find ageing congregations in smaller rural communities. In my local church we have many young families, and every week the babies and children have their own ‘classes’ alongside the main study session for the adults. Everybody worships together during the main service.

I have two masters’ degrees and I’m an intelligent person working in a competitive industry. Some of my friends at church are working for the UN, as lawyers, journalists, nurses, doctors and/or studying a range of subjects.

Like PPs have said, it’s easier to know other young Christians if you already are one. Some of these people at my church I would call good friends, others are just acquaintances, but it does feel like a big family. With friends we try to meet up once a month or so for dinner, cinema or to do sports or go for walks in the summer. Hasn’t happened since Covid but once a year we’d also go for a weekend away all together - hiking or to the beach for example.

I was always encouraged by my own parents to challenge what I heard in church and research and decide for myself what I wanted to believe in. I’ve gone and still go through phases of doubting my beliefs or not understanding certain things. I have always been very privileged to be a member of open-minded churches who encourage discussion and don't judge you when you question certain doctrines or interpret them differently (the vast majority of people don’t judge, like everywhere else there is also the judgy type present). This is sadly not the case everywhere, in all denominations… it can be hard to find a community where you can fit in just as you are.

I'm a vicar in my late 20s, so I probably count - I don't feel especially young in my church, which has a good spread of ages. We're Liberal c of e.

Yes, I am one. I'm 23 and a Christian. And I go to church every Sunday (unless I'm sick or on holiday), not out of tradition or obligation, but because I love to go there to meet with God, so I make going a priority. I wouldn't describe myself as religious. My church is in a small town and is a non-denominational/charismatic church with people from all ages and backgrounds. A large percentage are families with parents in their 30s/40s and their kids, both younger and teenagers, but there are also some older people and a good number of adults in their 20s.

Quite a few of my friends (who I met at uni) are Christians too; some go to Anglican churches, some to other Protestant denominations and my best friend goes to a Catholic church. Another good proportion of my friends, who I also met at uni, do not have a faith and I'm glad I have that mix.

@mybookshelf, the presence of strong Christian Oxbridge student societies is statistically irrelevant to the finding that increased education leads to a decrease in religion.

OMG 12 who mentioned intellect? Not me.

@OMG12 But as you brought it up… Zuckerman, Miron; Li, Chen; Lin, Shengxin; Hall, Judith A. (15 October 2019). "The Negative Intelligence–Religiosity Relation: New and Confirming Evidence". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 46 (6): 856–868.

Posting to mark my place.

I'm 37; DP is 40, and our DD is 4; we are often the three youngest people in our congregation. But we are very rural, so it's not a surprise. I have attended churches where there were more young people. My understanding is that in my denomination (C of E), it's the 20-40 group that's the fastest-increasing group.

I don't think it's a surprise if congregations are ageing, though.

@MasterBeth

There’s a strong correlation between education and atheism. As people learn more about the world, they are less likely to see religion as a valid way to interpret the world. More young people are educated for longer now than older people were. Religion is literally dying.

That doesn't make sense. Historically, in the West, increases in access to education have tended to result in newer and/or more vigorous forms of Christianity. Think about the printing press!

We're currently seeing a narrowing of educational opportunities - fewer children from poorer families feel able to access higher education; there is a widening gap between rich and poor in terms of education access. It is not at all clear how this might correlate to numbers of people attending church, but I'd be really wary of assuming that it must be educated people don't believe.

My understanding on the education issue is that's it's complicated.
Some denominations are more religious and some less so.

Educated people are less absolutist (they don't believe the Bible is literally the word of God, or that other faiths are wrong) , but more likely to actually attend services.
It also varies a lot between professions.
Christianity and Judaism both regard education highly and they are the two most educated groups worldwide. (more so than atheists and agnostics). Many of the world's leading schools and universities were founded as Christian learning institutions.
It would be fair to say that people who say their church is full of highly educated young families are probably correct in their observation.
I've linked the wiki article in the topic, (not perfect, but has a lot of interesting points). There's a heading about age and religiousity/education in UK which is interesting - basically for younger generations religious observers match the wider population in education levels.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_education

@SarahAndQuack, you don’t need to assume anything, just look at the data that shows that people with more education are less likely to be religious.

Have I missed where you linked to your UK data source @MasterBeth? I'd be fascinated to read it.

[quote MasterBeth]@SarahAndQuack, you don’t need to assume anything, just look at the data that shows that people with more education are less likely to be religious.[/quote]
Unfortunately, there's no very reliable data on the subject. There are studies, and they are interesting, but it's incredibly difficult to find anything very reliable - you tend to find that in countries/demographics where religion is seen as respectable, it is correlated with high levels of education, and in countries/demographics where it isn't, the reverse is true.

I'm in my late 20s, raised atheist. None of my friends are churchgoers, though one has a girlfriend who is Irish Catholic and attends mass, but that's about it.

[quote MasterBeth]@OMG12 But as you brought it up… Zuckerman, Miron; Li, Chen; Lin, Shengxin; Hall, Judith A. (15 October 2019). "The Negative Intelligence–Religiosity Relation: New and Confirming Evidence". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 46 (6): 856–868.[/quote]
This analysis looks at intelligence as measured by psychometric tests, which, while it may correlate to education levels, isn't exactly the same question.
You cannot draw from this study that increasing the number of years of schooling will cause religion to wither off and die.
Studies observing behaviour confirm that the relationship is indeed more complex than that.
As is the case with sociological research, determining correlation and causation are risky, and not all conclusions can be extrapolated against all populations.

The trouble with having conversations with several different people at once is that the arguments get distorted one way or another. So, yes, I know the study immediately above this post isn’t about education but “intellect”, which is difficult/impossible/problematic to define, which was why I didn’t refer to it initially until somebody else suggested I had made a claim about intelligence rather than education…

But, the Pew Research Center studies show that, in the US, those with a higher level of education have a lower tendency to believe in God. In the UK, Christians are the religious group less likely to have a degree - (they are also more likely to be older. Younger (and better educated) groups are more likely not to believe in God.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/articles/religioneducationandworkinenglandandwales/february2020

www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39293/1_bsa36_religion.pdf