Emerging Adults Faith Transition Trends

A big thanks to Scot McKnight for his summary of the excellent book, "Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults" by Christian Smith and Patricia Snell.

This book and Scot's summary back up some of the information we heard from Chap Clark, professor of Youth, Family, & Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, who led a seminar at our church on the same topic. His point was that adolescence is now a much longer process for most young people lasting from age 13 to the mid 20s. It used to be a shorter period concluding around age 18.

This book by Smith and Snell offers reasons why faith for emerging adults can be a difficult time of transition. Here are those reasons.

First, disruptions in life negatively impact religious commitment.

Second, distractions in life negatively impact religious practices.

Third, personal and psychological differentiation (separation from parents) negatively impact religious commitments.

Fourth, postponed family formation and childrearing retard religious commitment.

Fifth, keeping one's options open creates obstacles to making religious commitments.

Sixth, the code of honoring diversity hampers religious commitment.

Seventh, the self-confidence and self-sufficiency, which are vital codes for emerging adults, negatively impacts religious commitments.

Eighth, self-evident morality prevents the need for religious authorities encoding morals.

Ninth, partying, hooking up, having sex and cohabitating block connection to religious groups.

Two other important findings from the book:

First, religion is a resource for stability and recovery

Second, ongoing relations with parents, at least those who are believers, can sustain a connection with faith.

What can the church do to address these trends that emerging adults are facing with regard to their faith development? I'd especially like to hear from our young adults.

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