If someone asked you whether you believe in God, what would you say? The answer is, of course, complicated, rarely a yes/no. When I was in school, it was one of those things you were quizzed on by classmates, like your favourite colour. Later, some of my friends began to say things like, “I believe in a supreme power but I don’t believe in religion". I don’t remember what I used to say then, though I was never a believer. These days, no one asks, but on the rare occasion it comes up, I say I wish I did. It would have been nice to believe in God in difficult times.
Then there are the Arab nations. A recent survey done by the BBC and the Arab Barometer Research Network shows that the number of people in this region who said they were not religious has risen sharply from 8% to 13% in the last five years. The number was as high as 18% among those under 30. This survey of 25,000 people in 10 countries did not include the GCC nations (the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar), which reportedly refused to cooperate.
These findings might surprise those who think of all Arabs as a homogenous mass of extra-religious Muslims. But data indicates that in most parts of the world today, age is a reasonable predictor of whether you lean towards or lean on God. If you are young, you are less likely to be religious. In 2018, the Pew Research Center analysed data of over a decade in more than 100 countries and found that in most of them, people under the age of 40 were less likely to say religion is important to them, less likely to be affiliated with a religious group, and less likely to pray every day or attend weekly worship.
Over half of young Indians care about religion, and religious feelings increase with age, according to data collected in a YouGov-Mint Millennial Survey. A9 April Mint story noted, “The slightly lower levels of religiosity among younger adults could merely be a rite of passage for young adults before they turn religious again." This is the conclusion many psychologists and cultural observers have come to as well, that around the world a young person who has nothing to do with God is highly likely to find her way to church eventually. Or as the poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra wrote in his poem Approaching Fifty, Sometimes/ In unwiped bathroom mirrors/ He sees all three faces/ Looking at him: His own/ The grey-haired man’s/ Whose life policy has matured/ And the mocking youth’s/ Who paid the first premium.
No surprise that demographics and actuarial data is as important to religious organizations as it is to insurance companies. In 2014 in the US, one of the most religious nations in the global north, one-quarter of Americans declared themselves religiously unaffiliated, nearly four times more than in 2007, according to the Pew Research Center. Even the Mormons, a tiny minority in the US who have enjoyed much greater loyalty in comparison to bigger churches, are mildly panicked (women can now wear pants, missionaries can call home once a week rather than twice a year, services are shorter, there is no shunning of children born to queer Mormons and so on). The Mormons might still be anti-caffeine but they have decided to get on Instagram because presumably they have heard that that’s where everyone is hanging out. Why so much tension? Because the Mormons, like everyone else who has skin in the mortality game, are concerned that quite apart from the “natural" atheism of young people, there is also a larger trend of less religious observance. The religious and the laity are thinking hard about this problem. They are trying everything. Strictness, chillness, peer pressure, fitness, kindness and so on. Nevertheless, young people are leaving religion in higher numbers than previous generations at the same age.
I was intrigued to see the Pew data that being married and having children is likely to increase your chances of religious affiliation. In this context, one can almost but not quite feel sorry for China, which wants its citizens (everyone but the Uighur Muslims) to marry and procreate. However it also wants its citizens to reject religion. Millennial and Gen Z Chinese, born to affluence years after the Cultural Revolution, are currently undergoing a brand new experience: a harsh crackdown on all religious activities.
If history has anything to offer the Chinese state, it is this. You can remove term limits of presidents but when people begin contemplating their own term limits, they most often turn to religion.
Cheap Thrills is a fortnightly column about millennials, obsessions and secrets. Nisha Susan is the editor of the webzine The Ladies Finger.
She tweets at @chasingiamb
