Some emerging religious leaders like Rev. William Barber or Rev. Osagyefo Sekou offer a new understanding of morality that is intrinsically linked with social justice, which might appeal to religiously unaffiliated people seeking a greater meaning in these troubling times.
I've been hearing variations on this argument all my adult life. To be fair, Kaya Oakes qualifies her remark with a "might". Still, those religious organizations that have invested heavily in social justice have not succeeded in attracting many members. If anything, they are losing members even faster than other, less political groups. The Catholic religious orders that heavily directed themselves towards social justice in the last few decades are all headed for extinction.
The article Oakes writes is based on a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service. And if you read that survey first and then her article, I think you will concluded that she has precious little to add. And neither do I.
The mistake she makes, and many have made before her, is that she considered things that she believes young people are interested in and then suggested that religious groups should offer these same things. As others have pointed out before me, if people can already get this stuff outside religion, why would they look to religion for it. Beyond that, I wonder if young people are much committed to social justice? I haven't seen any evidence that there is anything there but a lot of virtue signalling.
The thing religion seems to offer less and less, it seems to me, is a way of life. It's become something you do at certain moments in life. For some only when they are baptized, get married and die. But even for those whop go to church every Sunday (or even every day) religion is something they do separately from the rest of their life. And what would they do if they were being religious all the time?
Is it even a good idea to "be religious"?
The mistake she makes, and many have made before her, is that she considered things that she believes young people are interested in and then suggested that religious groups should offer these same things. As others have pointed out before me, if people can already get this stuff outside religion, why would they look to religion for it. Beyond that, I wonder if young people are much committed to social justice? I haven't seen any evidence that there is anything there but a lot of virtue signalling.
The thing religion seems to offer less and less, it seems to me, is a way of life. It's become something you do at certain moments in life. For some only when they are baptized, get married and die. But even for those whop go to church every Sunday (or even every day) religion is something they do separately from the rest of their life. And what would they do if they were being religious all the time?
Is it even a good idea to "be religious"?
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