Youth on the edge: a profile of American teens

Christian Century, Oct 4, 2003 by D. Michael Lindsay

THE CURRENT COHORT of American teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 is lonely, spiritually hungry and intensely aware of the threat of violence. That's the profile that emerges from a recent Gallup Youth Survey.

Young people fear for their safety at school more than ever, despite dramatic increases in security measures. Nearly one in two (48 percent) teens say they have had bomb threats in their own school since the 1999 Columbine school shootings in Colorado. Close to one in four (23 percent) say they are fearful of going to school because of school violence. Black students are twice as likely as white students to report that they fear for their physical safety (26 percent versus 13 percent).

Also, teenagers today express feeling pressured and lonely. Among high school leaders, these feelings can be intense. A Gallup study of student leaders in the nationally recognized Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership seminar found them three times more likely than other teens to express feelings of loneliness. In addition, while 30 percent of the general teenage population feels "pressured," over half (55 percent) of student leaders claim the same.

The spiritual hunger among teens is remarkable. Millions of teens attend church and youth groups regularly. Teenagers express a burgeoning interest in learning about other faith traditions, yet most remain faithful to their own orthodox beliefs. They are persuaded that faith is an important component in their lives, and many of them want to deepen their religious understanding. The challenge for churches is to help channel teenagers' free-floating, often vague interest in spirituality into sincere religious conviction that grounds a life of faith.

The Gallup survey showed that 92 percent of teens consider their religious beliefs important to them. A third say faith is the most important influence in their lives. That number goes up to 52 percent for African-American teens. Close to four in ten say they pray alone frequently (42 percent) and read the Bible at least weekly (36 percent).

Teens report a higher or comparable degree of Christian orthodoxy and confidence in the church when compared to their parents or other adults. Ninety-five percent express belief in God, and 67 percent have confidence in organized religion. Over half (55 percent) call themselves "religious," with an additional 39 percent referring to themselves as "spiritual but not religious."

American teenagers today more closely resemble their grandparents in church attendance. On average, the Gallup Youth Survey documents teen church attendance that is 10 percentage points higher than the national figures for all adults. In a recent study, 50 percent of American teens 13-17 report attending a local faith community within the past seven days. The statistic tumbles after high school with 35 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 reporting attendance within the past week. It then climbs steadily with age: 40 percent for ages 30-49; 45 percent, ages 50-64; and 56 percent among adults over 65.

The strongest showing of youth church attendance occurs among American Protestants; three in five of them report attending within the past week. Also, young people endorse the idea that parents and their children should attend church together. Only 27 percent of the teen population expressed reluctance to have parents and teens in worship services together.

Even more teens report being part of a church youth group. Sixty-five percent of teenagers today say they have been involved in a youth group at some point, and of those, close to half (46 percent) are still involved. When Gallup asks teens why they became involved, the answers reveal a surprising degree of depth. The top response (82 percent) is that they want to learn more about faith. Seventy-three percent got involved because of parental encouragement. Over seven in ten (71 percent) say they wanted a place to talk about what's important to them, and nearly two in three (65 percent) say they became involved because of a friend's invitation.

Although the American religious scene is slowly becoming more pluralistic and diverse, the number of non-Christian teens in this country remains relatively small. In fact, American young people are more likely to have no church preference than they are to prefer Mormonism, Judaism or Islam. While 9 percent of teens state that they have no religious preference, only a slim number assert that they are either atheist or agnostic.

Perhaps most pronounced about the religious lives of American teens is their spiritual curiosity. Over half of them want to learn more about Roman Catholicism (54 percent) and Protestantism (52 percent). A higher proportion of Protestant teens want to learn about Roman Catholicism than Roman Catholic teens want to learn about Protestantism. Even more intriguing is the finding that the third most popular faith tradition American teens express a desire to learn about is Native American spirituality (44 percent).

RECOGNIZING THE CULTURE of violence in which they live, over half (53 percent) of teens say "violence on TV and in movies sends the wrong message to young people." One in three teens says he or she watched a "particularly violent TV program in the past month." A similar proportion saw a strongly violent movie as well. Male teens report being exposed to more violence, but they are less contented about it than female teens.