By Jean Hopfensperger, Star Tribune.
Click on chart to make it larger.
A Presbyterian glancing around the church would find lots of company — if they’re over age 50. With 70 percent of their churchgoers over that age, Presbyterians are the “oldest” religious group in the nation.
United Methodists, Anglicans and United Church of Christ come next, with more than 60 percent of members eligible to join AARP.
If you’re looking for youth, check out mosques, where nearly half the worshipers are under 30. So are 1 in 3 Buddhists and Hindus.
As religious groups across the nation grapple with ways to grow and sustain membership, new research underscores the pressure on mainline Protestants. They’ve watched the 50-plus crowd become an ever-growing share of membership, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, while emerging faiths in the United States and groups with no religious affiliation enjoy the largest share of young faces.
How to keep a church vibrant in this cultural landscape is a constant question facing religious leaders across the nation.
“A church’s age is important because it reflects its ability to pass its life to new generations,” said Dwight Zscheile, an assistant professor of congregation mission at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. “A faith community without that ability doesn’t have much of a future.”
The age statistics were gleaned from a survey of more than 35,000 Americans involved in Pew’s 2015 report on America’s changing religious landscape. Last month the Pew center highlighted the “oldest” and “youngest” groups in a separate report. The figures, including median ages, are just for adults.
The oldest were Protestants who emerged in Europe several hundred years ago, noted Zscheile. That includes the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has deep roots in Minnesota but just 1 in 10 adherents under age 30, according to the survey.
The youngest groups included newer faiths in the United States, as well as those categorized as no faith and agnostic. More than 80 percent of Muslim adults are under age 50, the survey showed, including 4 in 10 under age 30.
Related article: Which U.S. Religious Groups Are Oldest and Youngest?
3 Comments. Leave new
I find it peculiar that the Pew study neglected to identify the demographics of non-denominational church members, considering that that’s the largest segment of Protestant Christianity right now.
I will leave it folks far smarter than I to parse the issue related to the PCA.
As pertains to the PCUSA, demography is indeed destiny. And their demographics are the result of 2 cultural events of the last 50 or so years. Primary is the shift of the mainline PC to cultural and religious accommodation and moral relativism. Today there is nothing, and I mean nothing authoritative or unique about the PCUSA to distinguish itself from popular ,secular culture. At the end of the day you need to give people an over all compelling message as to why go to church, beyond the appeal to United Way programs with a per capita assessment and denominational baggage. There is nothing that the PCUSA has or says, or stands for that cannot be had or done in secular cultures and charities, far better run than the incompetency of the PMA/OGA matrix.
On the demographic side, the laws of nature, much like the laws of God are immutable and cannot be mocked. For the core demographic of the PCUSA, white females over 65, especially in its clergy, roles of family, marriage, child bearing and rearing were mocked, made fun of and devalued in their feminist push to power and equality. Sorry, but white liberals forgot to reproduce themselves 30, 35 years ago, and now it is what it is. And your millennial kids and grand kids may also have that clock ticking but will never produce the birth rate above replacement, let alone fill your church or pews. The PCUSA choose to commit demographic suicide and nobody even knew about.
Peter -Thank you for the insightful post. As we look at the track record of white liberals, even going back to the days of Emerson and Walt Whitman, it is amazing how one group can be so wrong so often. Because of this time span we can’t blame it on a single generation or two. Rather, it is a failed philosophy that we keep repeating, led by people who should know better. Humanity still has a hard time accepting God’s rules over their own.