Young People Express Views on Religion, Politics

CHARLES MITCHELL: I was sitting on a plane across the country, and I was all of a sudden just really taken up with everything that was waiting for me when I got home. All this stuff that I'd been hearing in this Christian fellowship finally resonated.

I have no idea what I said but, "Dear God, I want a personal relationship with you. Please help me," or something. That was it. Got off the plane, told my friends. They all cried. So I was converted.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Charles Mitchell's turn away from Catholicism to an evangelical church may be part of a larger pattern for this generation, according to a recent study by Baylor University. Byron Johnson helped lead the research team.

BYRON JOHNSON, Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion: Among young people in this most recent survey that we've done, we do see -- I'm hesitant to use the term "polarization," but clearly we see an over-representation of evangelicals among the young and a significant over-representation of the young in the unaffiliated category.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That gain by evangelicals and the unaffiliated has come at the expense of the mainline Christian and Jewish religions, according to the Baylor study.

SARAH MCGARITY: Yes, I mean, I go to synagogue. It's tradition, and it's a great way to be with my family. My religion has been more of a community-type thing.

But as far as seeing God in my day-to-day life and things like that, I don't really -- I mean, I know I came from somewhere, and I know I'm going to end up somewhere. But, you know, religion and the structure that comes with religions doesn't really play a big role in my life, I don't think.

Church every Sunday, twice a week?

ADORA MORA: Every Sunday, but it's not the same. I believe in personal relationships with God; I don't really believe in church. My mom doesn't like me to say that, but it's the truth.

I believe my church is sitting in my house, writing a letter to God about what he's done for me, or about good and bad things that have happened with my life and how we'll overcome them together.

JUDY WOODRUFF: As we traveled across the country, we often heard young people talk about their "personal relationship" with God, which was more important to them than congregational loyalty or the structure that it provides.

DAISY COOPER: I'm not into religion. I have a relationship. Religion is -- that's what's like -- that's what sparks confusion, and God is not the author of confusion. So a religion is what blocks people from getting the real.

Byron Johnson of Baylor.

BYRON JOHNSON: I think a lot of people assume that they all vote Republican. I think a much better predictor of who's going to vote on some of these issues, we have found, is attendance. People who really attend frequently are much more likely to march lock-step.

I would say that younger evangelicals tend to be more open-minded and more tolerant on some of these critical dimensions. That doesn't mean that they all think that way. Some of them are, you know, just as conservative as the older generation, but there clearly, I think, has been shift there.

CHARLES MITCHELL: Chris and I call ourselves evangelicals. I don't like to say conservative Christian, because that tends to imply -- when you say "conservative," people think politics. I believe what the Bible says, but, you know, that doesn't mean, you know, I'm a conservative Christian, and so I'm a Republican.

JUDY WOODRUFF: In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, nearly 60 percent of young adults feel that conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to impose their religious values on the country.

And even young evangelicals sometimes question their elders when it comes to issues like abortion and gay marriage. Support for Democratic candidates by young, white evangelicals jumped 10 percent this past election, a bigger increase than any other age group.

LISA HIGAKI: I used to be very pro-life, but I don't know if I can really take a strong stance on it, just because it's just such a heated issue.

LAUREN HIGAKI: It's hard, because I think, personally, I want to just say, like, OK, abortion is wrong, you know, it's not right. But then I've had friends that have been in situations where that became a really real part of their lives, you know?

And I know what they've been through and the reasons why they would have to make, you know, a choice. And I think, in certain situations, it might be appropriate, you know?