“Compared with their elders today, young people are much less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition or to identify themselves as part of a Christian denomination.”1
As a Christian that believes that our beliefs matter, and that our willingness to identify with other believers matters, the opening sentence from the Pew Research Center makes me uncomfortable. Some Christians might say that I just need to get over it and accept the fact that the Church is in decline in the U.S. However accurate the numbers are, they might say, God is still God and there’s nothing we can do about what’s happening.
Though the trends are unsettling, I do not write with panic. There is truth to the reality that God is still in control, and that there is only so much any one church or ministry can do about the trends. And it’s not as though our campus ministry at OSU is coming on hard times (at least yet). Hundreds of students attended our weekly meeting and small group Bible studies every week this school year. We regularly see students experiencing immense life change as they come to faith in Christ. There were almost 175 Christian students that accepted roles to be volunteer leaders in our ministry beginning next fall. God is still on the move.
Yet, we would be fools not to expect greater challenges in the coming years. As recently as ten years ago I found that the average student that did not want to follow Christ in college would say something like “it’s not for me right now, but maybe someday when I get married and have kids and settle down, then I’ll check out church.” The average student just ten years ago respected Christianity enough to associate it with an ethical belief system for mature adults. A seed was planted that brought many people back to faith later in life (or later on in college for that matter as is what happened for me). Today, however, it seems there is greater hostility to faith for the average non-Christian student. A typical student might say “Why would I want to join the group of judgmental hypocrites?” Research shows that fewer young people are coming to church after “settling down”. For many young people, a Christian community is probably the last place they want to be.
Rather than pouting or giving up, I choose to see these challenges as an opportunity. Rather than fighting a culture war and trying to pressure non-Christians into submission, what if these pressures lead Christian churches and ministries to do some soul-searching themselves. There are reasons behind young people’s hostility towards the Church. As much as we might hate to admit it, in some cases those reasons are good reasons. Personally I want to grow into someone that is better at loving and respecting people different from me, people with whom I adamantly disagree. I want to be just one person that might be able to break down non-believing students’ stereotypes of Christians. In other cases, the reasons behind a student’s hostility are unfair. Nearly all of the places of power in American society (the university, Hollywood, the media, etc.) paint Christianity as an antiquated belief system that is irrelevant at best. Many are rejecting faith, not because of real negative and personal experiences with Christians, but because of how Christianity is negatively portrayed.
Now more than ever I hope folks in the Church accept what the research is telling us and are therefore motivated to make changes and to do what it takes to invest in young people. Not because God is somehow failing at His job and we need to put the future in our own hands, but because He is good and can bring spiritual renewal in and through university students to the world.
