After recently reading a report on the book ‘Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity: And Why It Matters’, there have been several questions which I feel need addressing.

The basic premise of the book is a review done by the Barna Group study, that was done a few years ago, which looks at what a younger generation think of Christianity. The study was focused on people ages sixteen to forty one with particular focus on the younger end of that spectrum, between sixteen and twenty nine. The idea was to find out what these young people thought about Christianity and its various beliefs and what sort of people were Christians. The young people in question were also labelled as ‘outsiders’, which meant they had either a non-Christian upbringing, or had be brought up Christian but had since moved away from the church towards a more secular lifestyle. The views of these outsiders was then compared to the views of people of a similar age who had moved to, or remained in the faith.

The study was partly conducted to address the decline in church membership by young people. This is not however a purely Christian phenomenon. All religious beliefs have falling numbers of younger members. This new enlightenment has, in my opinion, been brought on and exacerbated by the digital revolution. People are now sharing information more readily and being open to more worldly views, which often exclude religion.

The book says that of the people surveyed, 55% had a bad or very bad impression of Christians. They believed that it was a very negative religion, choosing to focus on the things that they thought were wrong and sinful, rather than a more positive message.

They also thought that Christians were overly concerned with morality and thought of them as very judgemental. This was backed up by 53% of the believers agreeing that Christians were very judgemental.

Many questions were also raised about double standards and hypocrisy. Many people felt that people in the church led a very ‘do as I do and not as I say’ lifestyle which was very disagreeable and fundamentally morally wrong.

Whether the ideas of these secular youngsters’ questions are true or not, it is clear that there is a big problem in the Christian church today. Though I don’t believe it is the Christian church in particular which is struggling to appeal to these people. I think religion in general is struggling to adjust to the modern world and it’s difficult to see in what direction things could be taken to make a real difference. It is anyone’s guess as to what the state of religion will be in 50 years and if you will still see people thumbing over wooden rosary beads in prayer. It’s not something which can really be predicted, however I would suggest holding onto the wooden rosary beads just in case.