Is Faith Losing Its Grip On the Young?

That would be one way to read a new report by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which found that more than one-quarter of Americans age 18 to 29 have no religious preference or affiliation, and fewer than one in five attend services regularly. That makes them easily the least religious generation among Americans alive today, perhaps the least religious ever.

Or does it?

The Pew study found that, although young adults -- the so-called Millennial generation born after 1981 -- are shunning traditional religious denominations and services in unprecedented numbers, their faith in God and the power of prayer appears nearly as strong as that of young people in earlier generations.

``If you think of religion primarily as a matter of whether people belong to a particular faith and attend the worship services of that faith . . . then millennials are less religious than other recent generations,'' said Alan Cooperman, associate director of research for the Pew Forum, a Washington-based think tank run by the nonprofit Pew Research Center. ``But when it comes to measures not of belonging but of believing, they aren't so clearly less religious.''

Take college sophomore Allison Morgan: When she enrolled at the University of Miami in 2008, she sought out a spiritual home, but even though she was raised Methodist, the Fort Pierce native joined the Baptist Collegiate Ministry.

``I wasn't looking for a specific denomination, but somewhere where I fit in,'' the international studies and Spanish major said.

Morgan, who meets weekly for worship and discussion with about 30 students of various Christian denominations as part of the group, said she has seen examples of her generation's ideas on faith and spirituality first-hand.

``A lot of people feel really disconnected from the church. Especially our generation, we've made a really big distinction between religion and spirituality,'' she said.

``I don't feel like I have to go to church in a traditional setting to be Christian or spiritual. The most important thing for me was to look for people who were globally minded. Are they into social causes? Are they living what they are preaching?''

The Pew report, Religion Among the Millennials, relied on surveys that Pew and other research organizations have done since the 1970s, and compared the Millennial generation to four previous generations, which it defined as Gen Xers, born from 1965 to 1980, Baby Boomers (1946-64), the Silent Generation (1928-45) and the Greatest Generation (before 1928).

The report shows steady erosion in religious affiliation from generation to generation. All but 5 percent of the oldest group reported an affiliation with some religious tradition, whereas 20 percent of Gen Xers and 26 percent of today's young adults said they had no such ties.

``Millennials are coming of age less affiliated than any recent U.S. generation,'' Cooperman said. ``And . . . I would say there's no reason to think that they're going to become more affiliated.''

Jonathan Gordon, a Florida International University student who was raised in a nonreligious family and became active in the university's Chabad Jewish Center, said that while he studies weekly under an Orthodox rabbi, many of his peers have much looser religious boundaries.

``We're sort of becoming a society where everyone tries to blend in with other religions and people often have their own takes on religion. A lot of young people don't stick to the book,'' says Gordon, 21, a senior marketing major.

Pew's Cooperman added that although participation in religious activities and belief in God tend to increase with age, affiliation with a religious faith appears to stay largely the same.

The report does show sharp differences in religious belief among generations. In one 2008 survey, just 53 percent of young adults said they were certain that God exists, compared to 71 percent of the oldest group. And although faith tends to grow with age, recent generations have not reached the same levels of belief as their predecessors.

Interestingly, though, there is almost no difference among the generations when it comes to other markers of religious faith. Roughly three-quarters of Americans believe in an afterlife, for instance, with little difference among people of different ages. Even more people -- 79 percent -- believe in miracles, and again, young people are just as likely as their elders to hold that view.

The Pew study shows significant differences in belief and practice among religious denominations. It tracks a decline in younger members of mainline Protestant denominations such as Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Methodists, while African American and evangelical Protestant groups have stronger affiliation among the young.