There is a claim that this current generation is among the most post-Christian generation, according to CBN News reportage, on so-called Generation Z.
One recent study shows that as many as 35% of Generation Z, or the post-Millennials, identify with the worldview of either agnostic, atheist, or unaffiliated. Could this be the first and most non-religious generation in the history of North America?
The Christian leadership has concerns about this as there has been lots of brainstorming, meetings, and conversations around the best ways to bring the youngest generation into the ‘gospel truths’, according to CBN News.
The Christian Post reported that the youth groups and churches were told to “step up to the plate with common sense and relational response” by Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share.
“The youth groups trend of fun games and short Bible studies have resulted in frail youth groups and shallow young people. And spiritually immature teenagers will not lead their atheistic friends to Jesus,” Stier said to The Christian Post, “And if young atheists have doubled, we must double down, and the first step is to double our prayers.”
Recent information coming from the Barna Group on generation Z, or those born between the years of 1999 and 2015, shows that this generation “the percentage of teens who identify [as atheist] … is double that of the general population (13 percent vs. 6 percent of all adults).”
Some have termed them “the first truly ‘post-Christian’ generation.”
Stier continued:
We must program the priority of prayer into our actual church services and youth group meetings… Through prayer, we tap into the very power of the Trinity to turn the statistics around in a way that only God can get the credit for.
If we want to reach the lost we must pray for the lost. As it has been said, ‘Before we talk to people about God we must talk to God about people.'
For the Christian community, this appears to be a crisis. For the atheist community, this appears to be an indication of the future for the next two decades of an increasingly secular, non-religious – atheist, agnostic, and religiously unaffiliated – youth sector.
Photo Credits: CBN
