Highlights:Young adults today have grown up far less likely to have participated in formal worship services or observed religious behaviors in their parents.The well-being of young adults has dramatically declined compared to older age groups—a decline that is much larger for age than for any other variable, including gender or race.Religious participation in adolescence is associated with greater psychological well-being, character strengths, and lower risks of mental illness.

For decades, well-being across adulthood has followed what social scientists call a “U-shaped pattern:” higher well-being in young adulthood, a dip during midlife, and increased well-being in older age. But earlier this year, the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University released troubling findings showing that there has been a complete flattening out of the left side of this U-curve. The well-being of young adults has dramatically declined compared to older age groups—a decline that is much larger for age than for any other variable, including gender or race.
As reported in JAMA Psychiatry, “Our findings support evidence of a mental health crisis and increase in loneliness in the U.S. that has disproportionately affected young adults” and extends “to multiple additional facets of well-being beyond mental health.” Happiness, physical health, meaning, character, social relationships, and financial stability have all significantly declined for young adults. In Vanderweele’s words, this goes beyond a mental health crisis, with “potentially dire implications for the future of our nation.”
Potential causes for the mental health crisis among youth and young adults have been part of an ongoing cultural discussion. As the National Alliance on Mental Illness recently suggested, social media’s “constant comparisons and challenges to keep up with the pressure to perform,” the expectation that you need to “always be on” that is part of a technological world, the grief and fear resulting from a global crisis, and constant access to troubling news cycles surely all play a role.
But the decline across so many aspects of well-being suggests something even more fundamental is at work. Vanderweele calls it a crisis in meaning and identity, and with it, a crisis in connection. His conclusions parallel those of Columbia University’s, Lisa Miller, whose extensive work as a clinical psychologist and brain researcher led her to conclude that it is “the absence of support for children’s spiritual growth”—the innate set of perceptual capacities through which we experience connection, unity, love and a sense of guidance from the life force within in and through us—that has contributed to alarming rates of depression, substance abuse, addictive behaviors, and decreased well-being.
As Vanderweele and Miller both note, religion has traditionally supplied this essential support with significant implications for adolescent development and health. In fact, evidence suggests that religious involvement may have even more profound health effects for adolescence than for adulthood, with far reaching implications across the life course. A 2003 review of research on the role of religion in the lives of American adolescents attempted to summarize what was known up to that time. Among other positive effects, the report found striking and consistent relationships between adolescent religiosity and healthy lifestyle behaviors, a modest relationship between religiosity and self-esteem and moral self-worth, and “modest protective effects” against alcohol, smoking, and drug use. Stronger effects were reported for sexual activity with multiple facets of religiosity, including attendance, the importance of faith, and denomination, typically predicting later sexual engagement and less risky behaviors.
Recent research incorporating more robust methodological designs has confirmed what these other cross-sectional studies found: religious participation in adolescence is associated with greater psychological well-being, character strengths, and lower risks of mental illness. For example, a recent longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents found that religious observance reduced probabilities for drug use, risky sexual behaviors, and depression. Lisa Miller similarly found that adolescents who had a positive, active relationship to spirituality were significantly less likely to use and abuse substances (40% less likely), experience depression (60%), or engage in risky or unprotected sex (80%).
Understanding the mechanisms through which religion positively impacts adolescent and young adult development further clarifies the expanse of its influence. Previous research suggested that religion was largely about social control—encouraging adolescents “not do something they otherwise might have done.” But it quickly became clear that a more multi-faceted theory of religious influence was necessary, including how religion shapes them through the families in which they grow up. As noted in the 2003 review of research, research consistently confirms the “common sense notion” that parents and their own religious practices are among “the strongest influences on the religious behavior of adolescents.” That means, of course, how parents model and teach religious behaviors. But it also means that religion shapes how parents relate to their children, whether in more authoritarian, authoritative, or permissive ways, influencing the quality of the relationship through which their religious beliefs are transmitted.
Christian Smith’s extensive research of adolescent religiosity led him to articulate three additional mechanisms through which religion positively impacts adolescent and young adult well-being. First, religion provides a set of moral orders that delineate good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable ways of being, and a focus on “virtuousness,” including self-regulation, a strong sense of self, and compassion for others. Second, religious participation builds competencies, including coping skills, knowledge, and cultural capital, that strengthen health, social status, and “life chances.” Finally, religious participation opens relationship ties with adults and peers who provide helpful resources and opportunities, emotional support and guidance in development, and models of demonstrated life paths from which to pattern their own lives.
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A large church outside Boston wants to open a new school, but it is facing off with a local government committee it says is hostile to its religious beliefs. Vida Real church in Somerville, Mass., says the committee is prepared to reject its proposal for a Christian school because of its views on creationism, among other things.

A large church outside Boston wants to open a new school, but it is facing off with a local government committee it says is hostile to its religious beliefs. Vida Real church in Somerville, Mass., says the committee is prepared to reject its proposal for a Christian school because of its views on creationism, among other things.
At a meeting on Monday evening, the school committee did not take a vote on the matter, but it requested additional material from Vida Real. The committee plans a vote for its next scheduled meeting on April 25. School committee officials say the review will be fair, but the church’s lawyers say there is evidence of anti-religious bias.
In Massachusetts, elected local school committees are responsible for approving private schools that wish to instruct students ages 6 to 16. Vida Real, a large, predominantly Hispanic, multisite church northwest of Boston, contacted the Somerville School Committee in September 2021 about its desire to open a private Christian school this spring. After several delays, a subcommittee presented the church with a battery of 35 questions to be answered at a February 2022 meeting, during which the church said several members expressed hostility to its religious beliefs.
A subsequent report issued by the subcommittee contained some troubling statements, according to a March 30 letter sent to the school committee by First Liberty Institute and the Massachusetts Family Institute.
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The next decade is going to be a challenging time, as we face continued cultural pressure, and as the cadre of Gen-X leaders approach retirement and will need replacing. We need to learn the lessons of mistakes made in the past, but also to continue to sustain and develop our strengths. 

I enjoyed listening to Kevin DeYoung, Justin Taylor and Colin Hansen reflecting on the Young, Restless and Reformed movement on Kevin’s podcast (you can find it here). They did not just have a ring-side seat watching the events that they discuss but were key participants. They set out to explain what the movement was, what it achieved, why it has fragmented and to assess the current context in the US. Although YRR was a US phenomenon, it has had a significant impact in the UK, and there are parallels with our own evangelical context.
In large measure they are positive. They regard the YRR movement as a period of revival which became institutionalised over time, as all revivals in history have done. I was especially struck by the comment that the Great Awakening only lasted 3-4 years. They point to the recovery of Calvinistic theology and a lasting publishing legacy of good books, especially by Crossway.
They acknowledge a number of weaknesses, including the fact that some leaders rose to prominence too quickly, or were accepted on the basis that they seemed to be on the right trajectory – although they also point out that the key leaders (eg Piper & Keller) were in their 50s before they came to greater prominence.
They make several astute observations, including identifying YRR as a Gen-X movement, that reacted against the Boomer-led ‘Seeker Sensitive’ movement. Some of the fragmentation has occurred as new generations (Millennials, Gen-Z) have emerged.
They also note the key role played by digital technology. YRR gained momentum because the internet has enabled sermons and resources to be widely shared, but before social media had taken centre stage. They rightly chart the subsequent difficulty of leadership in a social media age and the way in which any leader or movement that gains success is likely to be attacked and critiqued by its detractors. This has led to a growing reluctance of the younger generation to become leaders because they fear the toxic environment they will inhabit.
The YRR movement fostered a wide unity amongst reformed evangelicals from numerous streams and managed at points to maintain a broad tent, stretching from a John Macarthur to a Mark Driscoll. The unity was rooted in a Calvinistic soteriology and a commitment to complementarianism, which were perhaps key issues in the evangelical sub-culture at the time. The movement also addressed the reality of suffering, for example, in the way that it responded to Matt Chandler’s cancer diagnosis. People joined together on platforms at T4G and TGC.
There is no doubt that there has been significant fragmentation, and this is in part because of the difficulties the YRR movement has faced in dealing with new cultural and political challenges. They date the fragmentation as starting from 2015, and key issues that have caused it are the rise of Trump, race issues, Wokeism, COVID, the hyper-speed social change on eg LBGT issues and evangelical leadership scandals and implosions.
Kevin DeYoung makes the interesting observation that there was a presumption within the YRR that they were not just conservative in theology but also politically conservative and that this presumption has been shown to be false as the political divides in the US have become more sharply polarised. He refers to the way that black leaders were drawn into the YRR movement and its institutions, but did not fit because they had different political views on, for example, race. I found that incredibly sad, as it amounts to saying that the gospel unity was only superficial and that what really brought people together was an assumed political congruence. The lack of unity on culture and politics has been exposed by events.
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