One of the most stunning outcomes from the Barna survey was the moral pattern among adults under 25. The younger generation was more than twice as likely as all other adults to engage in behaviors considered morally inappropriate by traditional standards. Their choices made even the Baby Boomers – never regarded as a paragon of traditional morality – look like moral pillars in comparison.
For instance, two-thirds of the under-25 segment (64%) had used profanity in public, compared to just one out of five Boomers (19%). The younger group – known as Mosaics – was nine times more likely than were Boomers to have engaged in sex outside of marriage (38% vs. 4%), six times more likely to have lied (37% vs. 6%), almost three times more likely to have gotten drunk (25% vs. 9%) and to have gossiped (26% vs. 10%), and twice as likely as Boomers to have observed pornography (33% vs. 16%) and to have engaged in acts of retaliation (12% vs. 5%).
Sounds like the new generation is a better mission field than the boomers. Sinless (or those who see themselves as such) people don’t need a Savior.
Don
Having spent my entire adult life under the direction and management of Boomers (i just missed that cohort), i really have to wonder if the “new generation” is more candid, open, and honest than Boomers. In other words, i don’t believe Boomer self-reporting any farther than i can throw this laptop. Not that the numbers for younger people are good or reassuring, but i’d bet existential cash that the actual objective numbers (not that there’s any way to get them this side of the Great White Throne) are lower for younger adults than for Boomers.
I’ve never found Barna to be a very good social scientist. Case in point:
[blockquote](Mosaics were) nine times more likely than were Boomers to have engaged in sex outside of marriage (38% vs. 4%)[/blockquote]
Of course we find this because the Boomers are much more likely to be married than the Mosaics!
What we are observing here is an age effect. As the age of a respondent increases, so does the likelihood of marriage. Those who are married are far less likely to have “sex outside of marriage” than those who are unmarried (who, by definition, are having sex outside of marriage if they are having sex at all). Thus the age of a respondent is the driving factor determining outcomes here not “personal morality.”
What he should do is control for age(marital status) by comparing married Mosaics with married Boomers and unmarried Mosaics with unmarried Boomers. He could also re-work the question and ask something like “Did you have sex outside of marriage before you were married?” and then compare the results on THAT question with the results of the Mosaics.
As it is, Barna is comparing apples (young people) to oranges (old people) and his result isn’t particularly stunning. There are many other problems with his study but this just gives you a flavor of what is wrong with his work. Unfortunately, as he is a fellow Christian, I have found this to be a common problem with his work. I think he is a sloppy social scientist.
Maybe, Knapsack. I have real doubts too. My experience is that the Boomers made lying and cheating into a national pastime. But let’s look at this as a whole. Not very encouraging, and yet, there are no surprises here. A Dionysian society is bound to see all common moral standards as shackles, something to be broken. And if they can be broken with impunity, why not? This is the racetrack, and the Anglican Communion geriatrics are in a heat for dead last, aren’t they? It’s not easy being dead first, and dead last at the same time. Anyway, the above is what happens when there are no standards save “What do I feel like doing?” Larry
Thanks St. C., you beat me to it. I was quite stunned at the attempt to make an obviously invalid comparison and the seeming failure to account for age differences. Now if there were historical data about how the boomers had acted in their early 20s with data using the exact same questions and methodology as to how the “Mosaics” acted in their early 20s, that would be of interest.
I got interrupted here at work and hit send before I’d actually finished writing my full comment.
I must admit this study did provide a good laugh. I mean check out these subheadings from the article:
Young Adults Ignore Traditional Morality
Liberals Differ from Conservatives
Men Behave Differently Than Women
Um, this is news?!?!?!? Seems like anyone could have told them these facts without the survey…! LOL!
Knapsack wrote:
[blockquote]i really have to wonder if the “new generation†is more candid, open, and honest than Boomers.[/blockquote]
As a Boomer myself, I have to agree. However, perhaps when Boomers were that age we were more ashamed to admit to ourselves let alone others what we were doing. Nowadays in the under-25ers, isn’t sex outside marriage, binge drinking, swearing etc pretty much considered culturally ‘normal’? (It certainly is in Sydney Australia where I live.) As for pornography, the advent of the Internet has made access to pornography almost irresistibly easy. I can’t believe that only 33% of current under-25ers have “observed pornography” even given that 50% of responders are presumably women.
I certainly don’t believe that only 4% of evangelicals engage in gossip! Make that 99%!
Barna:
[blockquote]The result is that without much fanfare or visible leadership, the U.S. has created a moral system based on convenience, feelings, and selfishness.
“The consistent deterioration of the Bible as the source of moral truth has led to a nation where people have become independent judges of right and wrong, basing their choices on feelings and circumstances. It is not likely that America will return to a more traditional moral code until the nation experiences significant pain from its moral choices.” [/blockquote]
Bingo! Should the Lord tarry, we will see a movement back to traditional morality, simply because immorality is so destructive. It may take a generation or more, but sin brings enough pain to a society that eventually it wants goodness again. The Church needs to offer both truth and love, regardless of how well they “sell.” (In a decaying world, truth is often perceived as a lack of “love;” but that is a misperception by those who love sin.)
#9 – I think you underestimate just how far a people hardened in sins can fall. More likely to me would be a slow collapse, from which it could take centuries to recover. It’s happened before. In fact, I can’t think any corrupt, decadent societies turning themselves around and becoming moral and restrained again.
Just to clarify, it would take centuries to recover, and the recovery would be a new society, people, civilization, not a restoration of the old.
Perhaps it might even be a Great Awakening ….
I was born in 1958.
Anyone who thinks that only 4% of boomers have had sex outside marriage took the brown acid. Seriously. I am not joking.
Ed, I think that the poll asked the question “in the past week.” If it had asked about behavior since the age of 16 or the like, the answer would be [i]much[/i] higher. As another commenter noted, many Boomers are married now (and are also cooling off a bit….)