Christian Smith (a Christian and a sociologist) has a new book focusing on “emerging adulthood” (the period of time between ages 18 and 29): Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults. It’s a follow-up to his study of American teenagers: Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.
Collin Hansen has a post today about the book. He summarizes some of the characteristics of emerging adults: “Emerging adults are delaying marriage, enrolling in college and graduate school in record numbers, hopping from career to career amid economic instability, and relying on financial support from their parents.”
But there are also several myths about the spiritual lives of emerging adults:
- Emerging adults serve out of concern for the common good.
- Emerging adults reject their parents’ religious influence.
- Emerging adults behave similarly, whether seriously committed to religion or not.
- Emerging adults have abandoned liberal Protestantism.
- Emerging adults tend to fall away from faith in college.
Read Collin’s whole post for a brief explanations of each.
Scot McKnight blogged his way through the book here.
