While most young people ages 13 to 25 say they are religious or spiritual, a majority have no formal ties with any particular religious community and are choosing instead to create self-driven pathways of faith for themselves using multiple religious and non-religious sources. Those are the findings of a new study from the Springtide Research Institute.
The data from the study reflects a full year of research, including more than 10,000 surveys asking questions about young people’s beliefs, practices, behaviors, relationships, and qualitative interviews on those themes.
The study found that many young people who identify with a religion aren’t members of any spiritual or religious community and many were constructing their own religious or spiritual pathway through unbundling.
Unbundling is likened to a playlist on pandora. The user decides for themselves what they like in music by mixing and matching artists and styles. Gen Z is doing the same with faith.
White religious young people were more likely than any other racial cohort to not participate in any kind of organized religion.
While 71% of respondents consider themselves to be at least slightly religious or spiritual, the data show that many young people prefer to confide in their family and friends first, not religious institutions during times of uncertainty or difficulty.