Missing the Meaning of Easter

A new study released last week by the Barna Group reveals that a majority of Americans see Easter as a religious holiday, but fewer identify the resurrection of Christ as the underlying meaning.

From February 7-10 of this year, 1,005 adults were interviewed by telephone regarding their opinions relating to Easter and what the holiday means to them. The research discovered that:

• Two out of three Americans (67%) view Easter as a religious holiday.
• Only 42 percent linked Easter to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• Two percent said that Easter was about the "birth of Jesus."
• Three percent described Easter as a celebration of spring or a pagan holiday.
• Eight percent said that Easter means nothing to them or that they do not celebrate the occasion.

The study also revealed that members of the Boomer generation (age 45-63) were more likely to describe Easter as a religious holiday than other age groups — 73 percent compared to 58 percent of Mosaics (age 18-25) and 66 percent of Busters (age 26-44). Interestingly, only 66 percent of Elders (age 64 and over) described Easter as a religious holiday.

Profiling the Millennials

A new report published last month by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life® shows that young adults today are less religious than former generations were when they were in their 20s. Of the so-called Millennials — those born after 1980 — only 74 percent have a religious affiliation. The research also revealed that the rate of religious affiliation increases with age:

Eighty percent of Generation X (born 1965-1980)
Eighty-seven percent of Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964)
Ninety-two percent of the Silent Generation (born 1928-1945)
Ninety-five percent of the Greatest Generation (born before 1928)
While "religious affiliation" seems high, only 18 percent of Millennials say they attend worship services every week, and only 21 percent of Gen Xers. Just 26 percent of Boomers said they attended worship services weekly when they were in their 20s.

Other characteristics of Millennials are: confident, liberal, upbeat, open to change. They embrace multiple modes of self-expression: three-quarters have created a profile on a social networking site; one-in-five have posted a video of themselves online; four-in-ten have a tattoo (for most who do, one is not enough — half of those with tattoos have two to five and 18% have six or more). They treat their hand-held gadgets almost like a body part with eight-in-ten sleeping with a cell phone glowing by their bed.