He believes the pattern is partly a reaction against the stigma toward religion in older generations, with gen Z now able to customise their belief systems in online spaces.

"For people who identify differently or who feel like they wouldn't belong normally, it's cool to see space carved out," he said.

He said there's still a yearning and hopefulness that we can remake institutions or traditions that suit who we are now in time. So yeah, a reclamation." Read more

God is trending]]> 164726 https://cathnews.co.nz/2023/06/12/god-lover-kyle-edgy-internet-catholicism/ Mon, 12 Jun 2023 07:59:29 +0000 https://cathnews.co.nz/?p=159929 A person named Hugo Byrnes, who goes by the online name God-lover Kyle, has become a notable advocate for Christianity in the digital world. He is the co-creator of the Instagram meme account called "I Need God In Every Moment Of My Life." Byrnes has observed that there is growing curiosity about Catholicism and Christianity. Read more

Young Catholics are left with the two-edged sword of an exciting increase in the exploration of faith amongst peers, mixed with the risks of social media dominating their faith formation.

Despite the growing dissociation of young people from the Church, Gen Z are open to spirituality, with 46 per cent seeking weekly guidance on TikTok, according to data from a recent McCrindle Research report (Changing Faith Landscape in Australia).

Confusion rises, with some users knowing how to utilise TikTok for quality Catholic content, while others are unaware of how to sift through the vast range of opinions about Faith.

The pressing question is how the beauty of Christ is being shone into the ugliness of contradiction as we navigate the new landscape of mission.

Despite the growing dissociation of young people from the Church, Gen Z are open to spirituality, with 46 per cent seeking weekly guidance on TikTok, according to data from a recent McCrindle Research report (Changing Faith Landscape in Australia).

Good news

In a social media-dependent world, Catholic videos are helping to ground the Church's identity within apps and broader culture. Some Catholics currently use TikTok and Instagram as personal sources for faith formation, claiming helpful effects.

Prayer prompts, inspirational testimony, and Catholic answers for contemporary topics are some of the benefits accessible throughout one's day.

Generation Z recognises TikTok as an appropriate place for discussing spirituality according to the McCrindle report.

TikTok's potential reach for evangelisation is great, with the ability to spread the kerygma instantly.

TikTok is an opportunity for our modern age, allowing Catholics to meet peers where they currently stand with faith, and share truth in a familiar space.

Videos promoting Jesus's love and compassion are popular among those searching for faith online.

Data shows an increase in identification with Jesus and a decline in alignment with the ‘Church', reaffirming an openness to Jesus and ‘spirituality' without comprehension of the role of the Church.

Not so good news

TikTok is an uncensored platform with the potential for addiction, confusion, disordered secularisation, and uncontrolled opinion.

The app exists for entertainment and engagement without justification - populating fake news.

For the average person seeking clarity about Catholicism, there is little-to-no distinction between personal grievance towards the Faith and genuine Catholic teaching.

Some of the mixed and negative Catholic representations on the app are even found under hashtags #catholic and #priests.

These range from complaints and mockery of a personal Catholic experience, to outright slander or heresy regarding Catholic teaching.

Frequently, Protestant creators discuss apologetics without reference to what the Catechism says as they promote anti-Catholic views to gain traction.

These trends are contrasted with the more positive content associated with the hashtag #jesus, reinforcing how people may be open to ‘spirituality' and connect with Jesus, but do not resonate with anything ‘Catholic'.

Generation Z recognises TikTok as an appropriate place for discussing spirituality according to the McCrindle report.

And downright ugly

Comical videos of Catholic ‘in jokes' circulate on the platform and, although humorous and unifying for the formed Catholics, do not provide answers for the unchurched.

Other Catholic content is increasingly cringe-worthy and lacking in tasteful execution, reinforcing the perception of the Church as outdated. More complexities arise in bridging the gap between spiritual content online and participation in the life of Christ.

Shifting the culture beyond the parameters of TikTok's 10-second content duration and towards an active Catholic life may become a point to consider in the longevity of this digital evangelisation.

In a world thriving on relativism, the ability to navigate truth, beauty, and goodness is already difficult. With conflicting content, TikTok offers few favours to assist the searching mind.

Without comprehension for discerning between hurt and teaching, truth and lies, misinterpretation and trusted wisdom, TikTok lacks a pastoral regulation in guidance about Catholicism.

The silver lining and hopeful fact among such complexities is that Gen Z is searching for truth, purpose and God.

How are we representing Christ and His Good News in the digital world, whilst encouraging people to move beyond dependency on social media for prayer?

Are we encouraged to become creators ourselves, avoid the app altogether, or spread awareness for the better videos that already exist?

The landscape of digital evangelisation comes with all sorts of new questions and concerns, as the uncensored space has the potential to cause personal damage.

Yet, the Church has an opportunity to capitalise on the current openness and offer searching souls a witness and invitation to the good, the true, and the beautiful Church of Christ.

• Anna Harrison is a Youth Officer for Sydney Catholic Youth and holds a Liberal Arts degree
• First published in Catholic Weekly. Republished with permission.

Half of the more than 10,000 young people surveyed said they don't think religious institutions care as much as they do about issues and movements that matter deeply to them — like Black Lives Matter, gender equity, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, reproductive rights, environmental causes, income inequality and gun control — according to a recent study by Springtide Research Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.

The survey also found that Gen Zers have felt exceptionally alone dealing with increased isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still present more than a year after the first lockdowns.

Meanwhile, 23% said they attend weekly religious services — below the 31% average attendance for adults in 2019, according to Pew data.

Also, 78% of young people said they were "spiritual" without identifying with a particular religion.

"At the exact moment when young people were looking around trying to find guidance, they were trying all kinds of rituals and traditions — everything from tarot card readings, prayer, rosaries to crystals," Springtide's Executive Director Josh Packard told ReligionUnplugged.com.

Packard, who holds a doctorate in sociology from Vanderbilt University, believes houses of worship are more diverse than young people realize, but religious leaders often turn off young people with rhetoric that seems disrespectful or not inclusive of diverse social identities.

In the study, 54% of young people expressed frustration that religious communities want to solve their problems instead of "just being there" for them.

"I'm gay," said Ethan, a 21-year-old participant. "And I know that the conservative Christian community doesn't necessarily support people who are LGBTQ+.

And a lot of the beliefs were written by members of the religion who don't necessarily respect these people.

"And so it's made me question to what extent can I really trust that this is what I should believe, that it is ethical or proper. And for that reason, I've kind of lost faith because I just feel like there's not a lot of trust I can place in the religion when there's a lot of hypocrisy and contradictions."

Gen Z's saving grace may have been social media spirituality.

On social media platforms like TikTok, teen uploaders shared their collective fears and existentialist thoughts in unprecedented times. Some users even expressed how the pandemic was a time meant for spiritual awakening.

Some Gen Zers are even creating their own religions through unorthodox combinations of beliefs and practices, Springtide reported.

Teens on the web showed videos of themselves practicing Buddhist meditation with elements of Wiccan nature worship.

"Young people are turning to other people of faith to find out what is worthy and valid out of that tradition," Packard said.

When young people choose spirituality over organized services, they tend to incorporate their values into their practices, Springtide reported.

For example, nearly 4 out of 5 young people indicated concern for environmental issues, and half said that being in nature is very much a spiritual experience for them.

"I like to shut everything off for a moment," said Collette, a 23-year-old participant. "So I'll either meditate, I'll do yoga, I'll listen to music — like self-care, maybe take a bath or just go on a walk, anything to stop thinking about whatever stressed me out. I know that doesn't fix the problem, but it does help momentarily."

Young people who called themselves "very religious" said that they were flourishing significantly more than those who identified as "not religious at all."

On the other hand, Gen Z respondents who said religious leaders and trusted adults from a religious institution reached out to them reported feeling less anxiety.

But only 10% of young people said a religious leader personally reached out to them in the last year.

Twice as many young people said they turned to family and friends in hardships rather than religious leaders, and 16% said they turned to "no one" when they felt overwhelmed this year.

Half of the young people surveyed told Springtide they don't turn to faith communities due to a lack of trust in the people, beliefs and systems of organized religion.

Last year, Springtide's 2020 report found that simply attending religious programs did not increase young people's trust in religious institutions, but its data didn't reveal a loss of interest in the depth of religion or spirituality — only a loss of trust.

Packard said Springtide aims to heal generational gaps so that young people do not feel left alone in their spiritual journey. They say want mentors who practice listening, integrity and transparency instead of judgment.

• Anna Carlson is a student at The King's College in New York.
• First published by Religion Unplugged. Republished with permission.

Rather, we should all be looking for ways to help them experience "the new normal."

That's the argument from Springtide Research Institute, which surveyed 2,500 members of Generation Z (ages 13 to 25) in February 2021 about their experiences of, and attitudes about, the pandemic.

It's not going to be easy for young people to merely pick up where they left off, said Josh Packard, Springtide's executive director.

"There's just a whole lot of things that they missed," he said.

"They're not getting back to some sort of normality. And they need help processing that, to make sense of it and understanding their lives now."

The first step in helping them process is just to catalogue it all unflinchingly: Graduations. Proms. Summer camps. Athletic competitions. Dates. College orientations. Religious youth group retreats. School concerts. First jobs.

The list goes on and on.

And that's to say nothing of the fact many young Americans count loved ones among the nearly 600,000 U.S. citizens who have died so far in the pandemic.

Part of what religion can do is help young people grieve these lost milestones and relationships. "We have lots of really great and rich rituals and traditions that can and should be employed here to help young people,"

Packard said. Religious leaders can draw upon those rituals to help teens and young adults name and mourn their losses.

For example, they might have youth write down their missed milestones, talk about their feelings and then burn the papers to ash.

But here's a problem: Nine out of 10 young people say they didn't hear from a religious leader during the pandemic.

"We were hearing lots of news stories about religious leaders scrambling to put services online. And at the same time, we're hearing from young people that nobody was really checking in on them, especially religious leaders."

• Only 10% of the young people surveyed said a clergy member had checked in to see how they were doing.
• And only 14% reported turning to a faith community when they felt overwhelmed and didn't know what to do.

On the other hand, faith communities scored higher than other institutions in how young people thought they handled the pandemic.

The study found 50% agreed their faith community had done "a great job navigating the pandemic" — which was higher than the report card they gave to the government.

In fact, two-thirds (65%) said the government did not do its best to protect people during the pandemic. And more than half (57%) said they're going to have a harder time trusting others, even their own family and friends, after seeing how they handled the pandemic.

Packard was intrigued that half of young people thought their faith communities had done well managing the COVID pandemic even though 90% reported receiving no personal contact from clergy.

He was also heartened by the study's finding that young people's personal faith more or less held steady despite all the upheaval.

Roughly half (47%) said their faith stayed about the same in the crisis, just over a quarter (26%) that it had grown stronger, and just over a quarter (27%) that they were doubting or had lost their faith.

The Springtide report identifies eight areas to care for Generation Z, including the advice above to help them grieve.

Packard said the data showed not all young people are impatient to go back out into society; remember, it's been a year not just of pandemic uncertainty but also racial protests and a dangerously divided electorate. It has all taken a toll.

"I think coming out of the pandemic, religious leaders and trusted adults would do well to remember that it's going to be stressful coming out just as it was going in," Packard said. "Lots of people told us they were uneasy about coming out of the pandemic, that they felt like they might be asked to be in groups quicker than they were ready to be in."

But here's a silver lining.

Nearly 7 in 10 young people surveyed said they have a new appreciation for relationships, and they "won't take for granted relationships and opportunities the way they did before."

• Jana Riess is a senior columnist at RNS. She has a PhD in American religious history from Columbia University.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permssion.

Data shows that many millennials leave the church during their college years, and some never return.

The fastest-growing religious identifier among this generation is "spiritual but not religious."

But as millennials age, get married, and start families, they are no longer the only "young people" that churches must consider.

A new cohort has risen: "Generation Z" or individuals born between the mid-1990s and early 2000s.

Generation Z diverges from millennials in many ways and presents unique challenges and opportunities for churches who hope to capture their attention.

For this reason, I decided to speak with Pastor James Emery White about his new book, "Meet Generation Z: Understanding and Reaching the New Post-Christian World."

Here we discuss what sets these young people apart from their elders and what he believes it means for modern ministry, evangelism, and apologetics.

What do you mean when you say that the church is at the beginning of a 'seventh age?'

White: During my studies at Oxford, I was introduced to the writings of a Catholic historian named Christopher Dawson.

He had an intriguing thesis he introduced just after WWII that I have come to appreciate: that the history of the Christian church can be divided into segments of 300-400 years, and that each of these "ages" began — and then ended — in crisis.

The nature of each crisis was the same: intense attack by new challenges, if not enemies, from within and from without the church.

Apart from new spiritual determination and drive, the church would have lost the day.

Dawson accounted for six such ages at the time of his writing. I believe we are now living at the start of another — a seventh age.

Everyone keeps talking about millennials, but you've chosen to talk about Generation Z. Who are they, and why are they so important?

White: They are the youngest generational cohort on the planet — and the largest.

This means that in the coming years they will not simply influence culture, but be culture.

Added to this is the fact that they are the first post-Christian generation in American history. I would argue that this makes them the most pressing generation to study.

They will be the most influential religious force in the West and the heart of the missional challenge facing the Christian church.

You say that Generation Z is the first truly post-Christian generation. Yet more than 70 percent of Americans are Christian and more than a third of Americans attend church regularly. How are they 'post-Christian?'

White: I would push back a bit on 70 percent being "Christian," at least in light of how the majority of that 70 percent are self-defining and self-designating the term.

If we mean Bible-believing, heaven-and-hell existing, Jesus-resurrecting Christians, the number would drop rather precipitously.

If you are going to contend for 70 percent of the American population being Christian, the majority of that number would be "Christian" in name only.

The latest research shows that for those between the ages of 18-29, 39 percent would actually place themselves in the "nones" or religiously unaffiliated category.

As for a third of Americans attending church regularly, that means that two-thirds (again, a majority) do not.

The word "post" means "past" or "after," so "post-Christian" means "after" the dominance of Christian ideas and influence. To my thinking and observation, this is where we are culturally.

What are the unique concerns and questions Generation Z has about faith?

White: I'll give you three, though there are many more.

First, they have a strong desire to make a difference with their lives and are attracted to what will enable them to make that difference. A faith that is privately engaging, but socially irrelevant, will not attract them.

Second, traditional morality will be a tricky conversation, as they are not only sexually fluid themselves, but consider relational acceptance and lifestyle affirmation to be synonymous. Individual freedom is simply a core value.

Third, a final faith question will revolve around their amazingly deep sense of awe and wonder about the universe. More than any other generation, Generation Z has an openness to spirituality via cosmology.

How well equipped are most churches to meet the needs of Generation Z?

White: Sadly, the majority are not well-positioned at all.

On the most superficial of levels, most churches are divorced from the technological world Generation Z inhabits.

But on the deeper level, they are divorced from the culture itself in such a way as to be unable to build strategic bridges — relationally, intellectually, aesthetically — to reach Generation Z.

The church simply has too many blind spots.

What are the church's biggest blind spots when it comes to Generation Z?

White: The first one that jumps to mind is how truly post-Christian they are.

They really are biblically and spiritually illiterate.

I've often described how most churches have an "Acts 2 mindset," referring to Peter speaking before the God-fearing Jews of Jerusalem, as opposed to an "Acts 17 mindset," which is Paul on Mars Hill.

Two radically different contexts and two radically different approaches.

Unfortunately, we have churches with an Acts 2 approach in an Acts 17 world.

Added to this is the "curse of knowledge": once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it's like not to know it.

Too many Christians have forgotten what it's like to be apart from Christ. Generation Z needs us to remember.

How will evangelism need to change when it comes to Generation Z?

White: It must move from being event-oriented to being process-and-event-oriented.

For the last several decades, evangelism capitalized on a unique state of affairs.

Namely, a culture filled with people who were relatively advanced in their spiritual knowledge and, as a result, able to quickly and responsibly consider the event of entering into a relationship with Christ as forgiver and leader.

In light of today's realities, there must be fresh attention paid to the process that leads people to the event of salvation.

The goal is not simply knowing how to articulate the means of coming to Christ, but how to facilitate and enable the person to progress to the point where they are even able to consider accepting Christ in a responsible fashion.

RNS: What about apologetics?

White: I often talk of "old-school" apologetics as opposed to "new-school" apologetics.

The old-school apologetics was very evidentialist in mindset.

Think Josh McDowell or Lee Strobel answering Enlightenment-era questions about whether you can believe the Bible or whether God exists.

This is all well and good and still needed, but new-school apologetics answers different questions.

Instead of, "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" the question is now, "So what if he did?"

Instead of asking, "Does God exist?" the question is now, "What kind of God would call for the killing of an entire people group?"

Instead of testimonies about lives changed through Christ, their question would be why lives currently lived by Christians aren't more changed but are instead marked by judgmentalism, hypocrisy, and intolerance.

• Jonathan Merrit
• First published in RNS. Reproduced with permission.
• The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CathNews.

This bombshell finding sent us running for other datasets.

Like all good scientists, we trust, but verify.

In this post, we run through evidence from the General Social Survey, 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (a RIP favourite), and the recent release of the Voter Study Group panel.

The takeaway is that the finding is validated - the rate driving up the religious nones has appeared to be slowing to a crawl. We then discuss some reasons why the rate might be slowing.

It is conventional wisdom at this point that the incidence of religious nones is on a steady rise after 1994.

Driven by a mix of politics, scandal, and weak parental religious socialization, non-affiliates have risen from about 5 percent to 30 percent.

That trend appears to be accelerating by generation, so the rate of being a religious none is much greater among Millennials than it is among Greatest, Silent, and Baby Boomer generations as the figure below shows using the General Social Survey time series.

Those older generations are still experiencing some secularisation (the rates are rising across time), but not nearly as rapidly as the young.

From this evidence, we expected that the rate of being a none among Gen Z might be even higher, leading to a bump above Millennials.

The initial, small sample estimate from the General Social Survey, however, suggests that Gen Z is not outpacing Millenials and may have even fallen behind.

Even though it is highly reliable, the GSS is just one dataset and needs to be confirmed, especially with data sources with a larger number of cases.

Therefore, we turned to the 2018 CCES, which has 60,000 cases and 5,000 Gen Zers - plenty with which to generate reliable estimates.

The figure below shows the probability of being religiously unaffiliated for each generation in the data (we combined the few remaining Greatest with the Silent generation).

The lesson is clear - the rate has drastically increased with each generation through to Millennials and has since slowed so that Gen Z is so far no more unaffiliated than Millennials.

In 2018, 42.8% of Millennials were nones (combining atheists, agnostics, and those ‘nothing in particular'), while 42.9% of Gen Zers were nones. Continue reading

"Millennials (born 1981-1996), Gen Z (born after 1996) and younger generations are far more supportive than older ones of the freedom to practice religion in the workplace," the report states, which is surprising after other studies have shown millennials don't value religion as much as previous generations.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty released its first "Religious Freedom Index: American Perspectives on the First Amendment"on Wednesday, which surveyed a sample of 1,000 American adults and their take on religion.

"Over the last 25 years, Becket has made a name for itself as the premier religious liberty law firm in the nation, representing people of all faiths and political views. We are eager to contribute a new tool for understanding Americans' sentiments towards our first freedom," Mark Rienzi, president and senior counsel at Becket, told Fox News.

"Over time, we hope the Religious Freedom Index will become an essential resource to anyone who studies attitudes about religion and religious freedom in America."

The report lists three key findings: "Consensus in a polarized society, preference for hands-off government approach, and support for a culture of accommodation."

The Index concludes that despite culture wars, religious freedom is still important to a vast majority of Americans, well above 70 percent, across political and religious divides.

More than 87 percent of Americans support the right to practice religion in daily life without facing discrimination or harm. Even on views on marriage, 74 percent said individuals and groups should not face discrimination, fines or penalties from the government for those beliefs.

The overall score given for the first Index is 67 (out of 100) which the firm calls "strong support for religious freedom protections" in the United States and will serve as a baseline for future reports.

The number comes from the six dimensions covered in the report (Religious pluralism, Religion and policy, Religious sharing, Religion in society, Church and state and Religion in action), with strongest support for religious pluralism (80 percent) to the lowest scores (63 percent) for religion in society and 58 percent for church and state.

While the findings may not surprise Americans, Becket points out that, when compared to other countries, these results "would certainly be outside the norm." Continue reading

But ask a teenager themselves about religion, rather than the parent or guardian filling in the census form, and the picture is slightly different.

According to our new national survey, at least half of teens say they are "religious nones" - those who do not identify with a religion or religious group.

Digging deeper, we found a more complicated picture of faith and spirituality among young Australians.

Most Gen Z teens have little to do with organised religion in their personal lives, while a significant proportion are interested in different ways of being spiritual.

Migration, diversity, secularisation and a burgeoning spiritual marketplace challenge the notion that we are a "Christian" country.

More than any other group, teenagers are at the forefront of this remaking of Australian religion.

Their daily experience of secondary school and social media sees them bumping into all kinds of difference.

Teens are forming their own strong views about existential matters.

Our national study by scholars from ANU, Deakin and Monash - the AGZ Study - comprises 11 focus groups with students in Years 9 and 10 (ages 15-16) in three states, a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,200 people aged 13-18, and 30 in-depth, follow-up interviews.

So what do we know about the religious and spiritual lives of Generation Z teens?

We deployed a powerful form of statistical analysis to identify six different "types" that move beyond conventional understandings of religious or nonreligious identity.

The categories take into account religious and spiritual beliefs and practices, self-understandings and attitudes to the universe.

To ensure the types were more than computer-generated assumptions, we interviewed at least five teens from each group, checking that it all made sense.

The six spirituality types found are

• This-worldly
• Religiously committed
• Seekers
• Spiritual but not religious
• Indifferent
• Nominally religious Continue reading

• Image: The Conversation