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By Tyson Thorne

May 23, 2019
 

MillennialRedux Large

Previously we've reported information from Pew Research that Millennials are less religious than the generations before them. According to Pew, a third of the millennial generation doesn’t pray and only a little over a quarter of them attend at least one religious service per week. The majority of those surveyed also claimed that religion isn’t very important to them, identifying with the statement that it is “not too” or “not at all” important in their lives. We stated then that we had no reason to question the survey, and that Pew is normally a reliable polling service. That was then.

A Texas-based marketing firm named Dunham+Company had WPA Intelligence do a survey for them, and the results were markedly different from the Pew Research study. The reasons for the large discrepancy are unknown, but if I had to guess it had to do with the location of the surveys and the way the questions were phrased. For instance, whereas Pew asked Millennials to identify the importance of religion in their life, WPA asked how they identified themselves. Among them a large portion identified as "evangelicals".

In fact, 53 percent of respondents identified as evangelical and claimed to attend church at least once a week. This is higher than older generations reported, making Millennials more faithful, not less. Not only do they attend church services, they are more engaged as well. 71 percent claim to donate to charities, which is also higher than Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. So what are we to make of this contradictory information?

The takeaway is that Millennials are not yet defined well enough to predict their faith-tendencies. This is good news as it means they are open to, well, the good news. While MSN may desire the younger generation to abandon faith and identify as "religious-nones" Millennials are less inclined to be pigeon-holed as such. We who identify as Jesus-followers shouldn't give up on them, and they should never be considered a lost generation.