Today’s young people are, apparently, uniquely godless. Studies released this week by the Pew Forum have revealed that 25% of young Americans born after 1980 self-define as “atheist”, “agnostic” or “nothing in particular”, as opposed to 19% of the previous cohort. A similar decline is taking place in Britain, with the British Humanist Association reporting a 10% decline in religious faith among young people in less than 10 years. Across the west, fewer young people than ever are attending church services and other religious ceremonies. This reported lack of formal religious belief chimes with the dominant stereotype of the millennial generation as amoral, directionless and self-obsessed – but my generation is nothing of the kind.

In fact, I would argue, those of us who are reaching adulthood in the 21st century are in many ways more conventional than our parents. Generational theorists Strauss and Howe have identified the millennials, born between 1980 and 1999, as a “hero” generation: orthodox, driven, a little boring, and with a deep desire to save the precarious world that we are about to inherit, as opposed to the more chaotic and cynical adults of “generation X”. The last batch of “heroes”, according to Strauss and Howe, was the “great” generation who fought the second world war. A hero generation comes into its own in periods of social crisis, and the shadow of global recession and climate change has convinced today’s young people that it will be down to us to fix the mistakes of our parents and grandparents. We just don’t require God to help us do so.

Tamsin Omond, 25, who was in training to be an Anglican priest before she became a climate activist, has said: “I didn’t feel like there was any energy for change in the church – I knew I could do so much more. When I left university, I felt that it was my calling to be a priest, but I was also terrified of climate change. I wanted to get Christians to realise that their faith was relevant to climate change, but the response was very complacent. It was so frustrating.” Omond left the priesthood and went on to found the activist group Climate Rush. She says environmental activism is now her top priority: “Our response to climate change is going to define the future.”

Like many young people, Omond has a deep sense of moral and social justice, but does not trust ancient spiritual and political institutions to deliver the change she wants. That change is specific and, compared with the ambitions of previous generations, surprisingly restrained: most millennials do not dream of vast riches or a utopian new world order, but of the chance to hold down a decent job in a world that isn’t on fire.

Continues: http://www.u.tv/News/My-generation-need-to-be-heroes/51ff3feb-9839-4ba6-8c0e-af80e2412aab