43% of Millennials Either Don’t Know, Don’t Care, or Don’t Believe God Exists
The American Worldview Inventory 2021 is out and the results are neither good nor surprising. Among the notable statistics are that:
43% of millennials stated they either don’t know, don’t care or don’t believe God exists (compared to 28% of boomers)
Only 16% of millennials believe that when they die, they will go to Heaven only because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their savior
Fewer than 50% of millennials believe it’s important to treat others as you want them to treat you (compared to 90% of builders, born 1927-1945)
65% of teens and young adults believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life”
31% of teens and young adults “strongly agree” that what is “morally right and wrong changes over time, based on society”
44% of millennials believe Satan is real and influential (compared to 64% of boomers)
A Christian Post article that highlights the results of this survey ends with a quote from Jacob Bland, the new president and CEO of Youth for Christ, who said he is optimistic because, “Teens today are facing crises like never before, but it’s often in the darkness that light shines the brightest. To enter into a disciple-making relationship where you're introducing a kid to an unconditional love that maybe they've never even considered, showing them the goodness and love modeled in Jesus — there's a lot of hope in that.”
On the surface, this attitude sounds nice, yet it’s the same old ineffective thinking that we’ve seen fail for three generations now. This thinking says, “We’ll just love people into the Kingdom.” It says, “I’ll model kindness and love and goodness, and people will somehow conclude that the reason I display these behaviors is not because I’m kind, loving, and good, but rather because everything they’ve been taught in school about evolution and atheism is wrong, and miracles do happen, and God is real, and Jesus rose from the dead.” SERIOUSLY?!?!
It may have been reasonable to try to make a case for “loving people into the kingdom” one hundred years ago, but in 2021 the evidence is in and it doesn’t work—at least not in Western cultures, where there are competing ideas and where students are brainwashed to believe otherwise in their schools, from their friends, in entertainment, and by the media.
Atheists are making a case for what they believe. Agnostics and Muslims are making a case for their worldview. Radical feminists and socialists are making their case…and young people are eating it up. What they are spitting out is the worldview which has the strongest evidence by far and yet has very few people who are willing to learn it or share it.
One of the most common replies I hear to dismiss statistics such as those found in the American Worldview Inventory is, “They’ll come back to the faith eventually. Everyone goes through the rebellious college phase. Just give it time.” Well, millennials are now 20 to 38 years old, so my question for all the lazy optimists out there who don’t want to learn the evidence and make a case is, How’s that theory working out for you?
Another common rejoinder I hear is, “I just really don’t think it’s right to argue. I mean, I wouldn’t want someone to think I was trying to change their thinking.” My question for these people is, Why not? What are you afraid of?
Are you afraid some atheists might not like you if you disagree with them? They probably don’t like you already! If you make a case, they might at least respect you. Are you afraid atheists might conclude God isn’t real if you’re too “mean”? Atheists already believe that! Are you afraid God won’t be happy with you if you share the evidence? The Lord doesn’t call you to be popular; He calls you to declare the truth! And as Christians everywhere seek first and foremost to be nice and popular and accepted without offering a shred of evidence for our worldview, our freedom and opportunities to tell the truth are rapidly dissipating.
But if nice is what you really want, tell me this. Is it really nice to remain silent on the evidence that could lead people off the path to eternal separation from God and into His marvelous light? Is it nice to keep to ourselves the reasons for the hope that we have? Is it nice to leave our children and grandchildren to a culture which despises them, persecutes them, imprisons them, and silences them for believing what you and I freely believe today because we squandered our opportunities to show signs of intelligent life within the church out of fear of discomfort and unpopularity among wolves? Of course not!
We have abundant evidence for a Creator, for a fine-tuned universe, for the life and death of Jesus, for moral objectivity, for the Resurrection, for the historical reliability of the Gospels, and more. But as long as Christian parents and pastors dig in their heels and insist that we “just love people into the Kingdom”, the trends away from the truth and into darkness will continue. It’s your move.
