First Perils: The Temporary Majority

       Scanning the crowd as President Obama spoke late in the evening following his election victory the TV cameras showed  faces of a joyful audience dramatically younger and more diverse than the Romney crowds visible during the election campaign.   

       Recent data from the Pew Research Center tells us that this younger audience is also more distant than their parents from traditional institutions of American life such as the churches. Only 40 percent of these younger adults believe religion is very important compared to 75 percent in their grandparent generations. Twenty-six percent of the younger adult faces at the Obama victory rally will have no religious affiliation.  Fewer than 18 percent will attend church even once a month. That trend is growing:

Fully one-in-four adults under age 30 (25%) are unaffiliated, describing their religion as "atheist," "agnostic" or "nothing in particular." This compares with less than one-fifth of people in their 30s (19%).    

      So it is not only the Republicans toward whom growing numbers of younger generation adults have become disaffected, it is also the churches and the trend is growing!  The Pew studies:

Less than half of adults under age 30 say that religion is very important in their lives (45%), compared with roughly six-in-ten adults 30 and older (54% among those ages 30-49, 59% among those ages 50-64 and 69% among those ages 65 and older). By this measure, young people exhibit lower levels of religious intensity than their elders do today, and this holds true within a variety of religious groups.

      There are several serious questions here. What does it mean for the churches? What does it mean for President Obama? Quickly put, for the churches it means the graying of congregations, already obvious on Sunday mornings and it means many of the brightest and best young voices have left the churches in recent years if they were ever there at all.

      The meaning for the President is connected to this declining faith paradigm. Are President Obama's appeals in a language of  hope connected to anything more than his personal perspective? The President  came very close to losing these faces in the tragedy of the Great Recession and he could lose them in the not-distant future if there is no concrete relief. Where is this hope? Many people in any random crowd these days have suffered joblessness. Many remain on the streets today unemployed. Many others have had their jobs shifted off-shore and have lost their first homes. Even hi tech workers often find themselves suddenly obsolete. 

      No moral paradigm has been invoked to prevent this or slow it appreciably. Apple last month launched several new I-gadgets, selling them by the millions while hiring Chinese workers by the tens of thousands to assemble them. It has passed before the public eye with hardly a complaint. Apple hired very few assembly workers in American cities to build their stock value because--as its supporters are fond of putting it--"It's not a moral issue." 

       Inequality of opportunity and the grounds for hope are growing worse. The rich really are getting richer. The president's supporters are living mostly on the fumes of hope. If proposals for jobs and the economy do not become more concrete, if they fail to find support among both Republicans and Democrats, the election victory will pale very quickly as it did in 2008 when all of us were first faced with the Great Recession.

        The back story buried behind the new faces is another matter and, leadership aside for the moment, is a more serious question: What does the disaffection from Christian tradition mean for a country whose moral framework was largely built by it?  What intellectual roots and spiritual streams of nurture--broadly stated--can now feed visions of peaceable kingdoms in today’s culture?  What language can be spoken by faith communities that the new generation of leaders can understand? We’ll discuss this question in coming blogs, very soon.