More than Tolerance Required

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Luke Olliff, a 30-year-old resident of Atlanta, says he and his wife gradually shed their religious affiliations throughout their marriage.

“My family thinks she convinced me to stop going to church and her family thinks I was the one who convinced her,” he said. “But really it was mutual. We moved to a city and talked a lot about how we came to see all of this negativity from people who were highly religious and increasingly didn’t want a part in it.”

Olliff is quoted in an article entitled “Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church Behind” by Anastasiya Cernei of Missouri State University writing in the online site, Study Breaks.

Tend to Be Negative

Cernei writes that Olliff’s belief that highly religious people tend to be negative is shared by a whopping 57 percent of millennials, “who believe that religious people are generally less tolerant of other people.”

Millennials, by the way, is the generation born between 1981 and 1996. They’re the demographic following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. I know, it’s hard to keep them straight.

Anyway, I know I’ve written a lot in these blogs about the extent to which young people are leaving religion, but I think believers should be cognizant of the fact and concerned, not because we want more people around us at church but because religious belief and practice can be, literally, a Godsend for a genuine “good life.”

It’s somewhat like when you discover a new restaurant, product or show that you like and want to share it with others, especially those you love, because you want them to enjoy it as well. I say “somewhat like” that because there’s much more at stake in regard to faith.

The view that religious people are less tolerant or more negative than others is not part of my experience, but I wouldn’t argue with anybody who says it’s part of theirs.

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In an article entitled, “Learning to Be a Better Church” in a recent issue of America magazine, author Cecilia Gonzalez-Andrieu reports that over half of young people who do say they are religiously affiliated also report low levels of trust in religious institutions.

I’m not surprised. In the case of the Catholic Church, to which I belong, I believe the scandals involving abusive priests is much to blame and probably boils over into other religions. Although according to the only comprehensive study of the issue only 4 percent of priests have been accused of abusing young people, the perception is that many more priests were involved, if not all, and that the church is corrupt.

Again, that’s not my lifetime experience of dealing closely with Catholic priests (I was a priest, my brother and brother-in-law, both deceased, were also priests.) and the Catholic Church. Despite all its flaws, I still believe it faithfully carries out Jesus’ mission.

Ironically, the study quoted by Gonzalez-Andrieu notes that millennials “continue to wrestle with pressing questions about the meaning of life…but find no link between their concerns and religious faith.”

These data, combined with the evidence that this cohort of young people see believers as “negative,” presents a challenge not just to church leaders but to all believers, at least those in the Christian/Jewish traditions.

Our Reaction?

Almost all of us who are believers have experienced first-hand family members and friends who have given up on God and/or religion. What should our reaction be?

First, we should let go of any guilt we may feel because of their choices. Guilt solves nothing. Second, remember that people who have left are God’s children first and that as father, God is always with them. Third, and most important, more than tolerance is required. We can never stop loving them and showing them by our lives the beneficial effects of faith.

“If we attune our hearts to our present reality,” writes González-Andrieu, “we must grieve with those who have left the church or are trying to find a reason to remain in the church. …The heart of these efforts is not about filling the pews, but about learning to be a better church precisely because we dare feel the sting of collective loss we are experiencing.”