Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back, by Naomi Schaefer Riley
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Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back, by Naomi Schaefer Riley
Free Ebook Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back, by Naomi Schaefer Riley
Why are young people dropping out of religious institutions? Can anything be done to reverse the trend? In Got Religion?, Naomi Schaefer Riley examines the reasons for the defection, why we should care, and how some communities are successfully addressing the problem. The traditional markers of growing up are getting married and becoming financially independent. But young adults are delaying these milestones, sometimes for a full decade longer than their parents and grandparents. This new phase of “emerging adulthood” is diminishing the involvement of young people in religious institutions, sapping the strength and vitality of faith communities, and creating a more barren religious landscape for the young adults who do eventually decide to return to it. Yet, clearly there are some churches, synagogues, and mosques that are making strides in bringing young people back to religion.Got Religion? offers in-depth, on-the-ground reporting about the most successful of these institutions and shows how many of the structural solutions for one religious group can be adapted to work for another. The faith communities young people attach themselves to are not necessarily the biggest or the most flashy. They are not the wealthiest or the ones employing the latest technology. Rather, they are the ones that create stability for young people, that give them real responsibility in a community and that help them form the habits of believers that will last a lifetime.
Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back, by Naomi Schaefer Riley - Amazon Sales Rank: #1605821 in Books
- Brand: Templeton Press
- Published on: 2015-10-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .50" w x 5.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 176 pages
Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back, by Naomi Schaefer Riley From Booklist The millennial generation is stuck in a condition called emerging adulthood; that is, these twentysomethings are delaying the traditional markers of growing up, leaving home, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having children. The reasons for this condition are varied—the new technology, the economic downturn that has affected them disproportionately as well as a combination of radical individualism and a general distrust of institutions, and, some believe, the intransigent attitudes of organized religion. One of the primary by-products is low church attendance or little to no religious affiliation among millennials. Unlike other people who have studied this group, though, Riley is more optimistic. In this short but compelling volume, she adopts an ecumenical approach, profiling religious communities—Jewish, Mormon, Catholic, Evangelical, Muslim—with an emphasis on how religions can work together to bring young people back into the fold. Millennials, she insists, are looking for a community with a sense of purpose. A thoughtful and appealing book that addresses an important topic with commonsense solutions. --June Sawyers
Review “Naomi Schaefer Riley is an astute cultural observer and critic, and a very good interpreter of the larger meanings and implications of social science research. For those concerned about the religious live of emerging adults, Got Religion? will be essential reading.” —Christian Smith, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology and principle investigator, National Study of Youth and Religion “In researching and writing Got Religion? Naomi Schaefer Riley has accomplished a difficult task. She has managed to make fairly dense millennial generation demographic material both interesting and understandable. She has also connected the dots in illustrating how such material is relevant and instructive to those who seek to ‘bring young people back’ to their various faith traditions.” —Dr. Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary“The precipitous drop in religious affiliation among young people in the United States has been covered to the point of exhaustion—often generating more heat than light. In Got Religion? Naomi Schaefer Riley weaves together a compelling counter narrative that focuses on the best examples of how various communities—Judaism, Catholicism, non-denominational Christianity and Islam—are successfully engaging young people. It is a study in American ingenuity, insight and reinvention as it applies to faith communities and it should be read by anyone in the field who believes that studying what works is the best way to fix what's wrong.” —Bill McGarvey, author of The Freshman Survival Guide “Got Religion? offers two reassuring messages to those worried that the under-thirty generation is running away from religion. First, it shows that the problem is not confined to particular faiths. Mormons and Muslims turn out to be as concerned as Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Second, it demonstrates that creative programs can succeed in luring young people back to religion. There is reason for hope. Chocked full of ideas and insights, this is a book that anyone interested in ‘youth engagement’ should read.” —Jonathan D. Sarna, president, Association for Jewish Studies; the Joseph Engel Visiting Professor of American Jewish Studies, Harvard University; the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History; and chair, Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program, Brandeis University“No one writes about the religious experiences, beliefs, and practices of contemporary Americans more astutely or with great insight than Riley. In Got Religion? she explores the factors that tend to draw young adults into, or alienate them from, communities of faith. This is far from an exercise in merely academic sociology of religion. It contains valuable lessons for faith communities and their leaders—from Catholics and Jews to Mormons and Muslims—about what they can do to give young people, including young couples with children, stability and responsibility, helping them to deepen their spiritual lives and form habits that will serve them well in every dimension of their lives.” —Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University “If you want a book with pat answers to the "problem" of millennials and organized religion, you've come to the wrong place. If, however, you want to consider the many ways that adults in their 20s and 30s engage with religion, God, and peoplehood, if you want a book that holds just as many questions as it does answers, then pull out your highlighter and get comfortable. Riley takes us on a fascinating journey that traverses religious, geographical, racial, and cultural boundaries. Learn from those who may share a different understanding of God but a similar drive to create a meaningful life. I know I did.” —Rabbi Shira Stutman, director of Jewish programming at Sixth & I “Naomi Schaeffer Riley is one of the keenest analysts of American religious life today. In this book, she takes up a question that every religious community is asking. Not everyone will agree with everything in this book, but everyone who cares about American religious life will find a provocative and fruitful catalyst for conversation and action.” —Russell D. Moore, president, Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission
About the Author Naomi Schaefer Riley is a weekly columnist for the New York Post and a former Wall Street Journal editor. She is the author of Til Faith Do Us Part: How Interfaith Marriage Is Transforming America, God on the Quad, and The Faculty Lounges. She lives with her husband, Jason, and their three children in suburban New York City.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Sociology as a Handmaiden to Young Adult Evangelism By George P. Wood “All young people, newly come into an urban environment, and living for the first time outside of the family group and the association of old acquaintances, constitute an element of gravest spiritual and moral dangers as well as one of untold possibilities.”Is this the latest warning from the Barna Group about the problem of young people leaving the Church? No, these are the words of University of Chicago sociologist H. Paul Douglass in The St. Louis Church Survey published in 1924. Anxiety about the spiritual fate of young adults is evergreen.And so, it seems, is the solution to the problem: “It is urged that all religious forces keep steadily in sympathetic touch with all these groups,” Douglass went on to write, “and that agencies particularly designed to serve them receive united support.”Naomi Schaefer Riley concludes Got Religion? with these words in order to remind readers that passing on the faith to the next generation has always been a challenge, even if the contemporary age adds unique twists to that challenge. Her book outlines the strategies some American evangelicals, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, historically black churches, and parachurch organizations are utilizing to attract and retain young people—defined as people born after 1980—within their respective religious communities.In the Introduction, Riley identifies three reasons why the intergenerational transmission of faith is especially difficult at the present moment: “the trends of family formation, the cultural acceptability of not belonging to a religious institution, and the steady decline of attendance” at religious services. In other words, young adults marry later, if at all, identify themselves as religious nones, and are standoffish to religious institutions—indeed, institutions more generally. Since family, religious identity, and religious participation are crucial to each of the religious groups Riley surveys, a decline in those three factors spells trouble for all of them.Obviously, there are theological differences between these various religious groups that will color how they reach out to young adults. There are also sociological differences. Historically, the Church has played a much larger role in the African American community than in the Anglo American community, for example. Jews have a unique attachment to the State of Israel. Muslims come to America as immigrants from many countries. And Mormons are concentrated in certain regions of America.Nonetheless, how these various religious groups reach out to young adults shares much in common too, sociologically speaking. After profiling some of these outreach efforts, Riley concludes her book with this statement:"Religious leaders who are successfully connecting with young adults realize that sleek advertising is not going to bring people into the pews. The barriers to entry are not matters for public relations firms to tackle. Young adults want community. They want a neighborhood. They want a critical mass of people their age. But they want to see older people and younger people in their religious institutions, too. They want a way to serve, and many of them want a way to serve sacrificially for longer periods of time. They want the racial and ethnic diversity of the country reflected in their religious community. They want a message (in English) that resonates and helps them tackle the practical challenges they face, of which there are many. They want to feel welcome whether they are single or married. And while they may appear to be experiencing an extended adolescence, when they are given responsibility, they are often inclined to take it."Multigenerational community, service opportunities, ethnic diversity, relevant religious instruction, hospitality regardless of marital status, and leadership responsibilities: Religious groups that offer these things to young adults are more likely to attract and retain them than those who don’t. Frankly, as an “older” American, such a church would be more likely to attract and retain me too.From the standpoint of Christian theology—or Muslim or Jewish theology, for that matter—Riley’s sociological account of young adults’ participation raises questions she neither asks nor answers. As a Christian minister, I want to ask questions such as: What is the role of the Holy Spirit in drawing people into the Church? Are a religious group’s doctrinal claims true or false? Is Jesus Christ the way of salvation? Were I writing a book about Christians attracting and retaining young adults in the faith, I would explore those theological questions alongside Riley’s sociological ones.Regardless, Riley’s book is a valuable one. Sociology, it turns out, can be a handmaiden to evangelism. A church that preaches the gospel but ignores what attracts and retains young is not likely to accomplish its mission very well.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Perceptive and Personable By Michael Philliber Where have the college and post college crowd gone? This question engages my cerebral energies often, because I work with the teenagers of our church who are about to head to college, and co-pastor a congregation that has a noticeable number of middle aged men and women. So, where have the college and post college crowds gone? Naomi Schaefer Riley, an accomplished author who is also a weekly columnist for the New York Post and a former Wall Street Journal editor, delves into this difficulty and how to interest them, in her newest 174 page hardback, “Got Religion? How Churches, Mosques and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back.” This easy-to-read volume walks through the storied approaches of diverse groups attempting to touch the twenty and thritysomethings in their world.In “Got Religion?” we are privileged to listen, with the author, to the anecdotes and narratives, feats and failures, of Presbyterian, Muslim, Jewish, Mormon and Black Baptist institutional leaders who are succeeding in reaching the college and post college crowd in some way. But we are also favored to hear the yearnings and longings, along with the turn-ons and turn-offs, of the younger people who have become involved in these establishments. The importance of community and neighborhood, the “sense of belonging” (142), rings out clearly in many of the accounts, and sundry ways. Similarly, that this is a generation “particularly suspicious of bureaucracy and slick advertising” (13) that is looking for authenticity in both leadership and laity, surfaces often. Likewise there are also indications that “service – serious, long-term sacrifice requiring service” (144) is alluring to this age group. Based on these traits, Riley also points up the importance of making a place for the twenty and thirtysomethings in leadership, that they are “often inclined to take” the responsibilities offered to them (154).In working through “Got Religion?” various emotions and cogitations were triggered in me. Everything from sheer frustration over the obvious and subtle self-centeredness exhibited in some of the statements from this younger group, to gloomy disappointment at the misunderstandings they voiced. And yet, their stories and concerns have prompted me to reconsider what can be done in our particular setting as suburban church where parishioners are splattered hither, thither and yon. Riley’s work has given me reason to pause, ponder and pray.“Got Religion?” will challenge several of your personal prejudices and preconceptions, and confirm others. Nevertheless I doubt it will be possible to examine this book and remain unaffected by it. Riley’s material would make an ideal read for congregational leadership, Christian educators, service agencies, and denominational committees concerned with attracting this age group. I readily recommend the book.(Thanks to Templeton Press for the free copy of the book made available for this review. Feel free to repost or republish this review. But as always, please give credit where credit is due. Mike)
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Don't count churches, mosques, and synagogues out of the game. Here's hope! By Wally Mees Really great survey of what churches, mosques and synagogues are actually doing with the younger generation. Inspiring. Encouraging. Easy to read. Ms. Riley really knows this "church" business remarkably well. Great job, Naomi!
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Got Religion?: How Churches, Mosques, and Synagogues Can Bring Young People Back, by Naomi Schaefer Riley
