Why young evangelicals are leaving church

http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/opinion/stepp-millennials-church/index.html

Republican conservatives should be worried. Evangelical churches that frequently support conservative candidates are finally admitting something the rest of us have known for some time: Their young adult members are abandoning church in significant numbers and taking their voting power with them.

David Kinnaman, the 38-year-old president of the Barna Group, an evangelical research firm, is the latest to sound the alarm. In his new book, "You Lost Me: Why Young Christians Are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith," he says that 18- to 29-year-olds have fallen down a "black hole" of church attendance. There is a 43% drop in Christian church attendance between the teen and early adult years, he says.

I'm not surprised. These young dropouts value the sense of community their churches provide but are tired of being told how they should live their lives. They don't appreciate being condemned for living with a partner, straight or gay, outside of marriage or opting for abortion to terminate an unplanned pregnancy.

This doesn't mean that they necessarily will vote for President Obama in 2012. Jobs and higher wages are their priority just as they are for everyone else; the nominee who convinces the millennials that they'll be better off financially will get their vote. But if neither party is persuasive, the former evangelicals may vote Democratic because of that party's more moderate stance on social issues. Or they could simply sit out the election.