With guest host Ray Suarez.
A rabbi, imam, Episcopal priest and a Catholic priest. Millennial clergy on the challenges of reaching out to a country that’s redefining what faith means.
The numbers coming out of American houses of worship are daunting. Fewer people are religiously affiliated, more people are growing up secular, faith bodies are shrinking, merging, closing. The trend is particularly strong among millennials — so why would a young adult … get ordained? This hour On Point: Millennial clerics: How they made the decision to devote their lives to an uncertain future for religion in America. — Ray Suarez
Guests
Emma Green, staff writer at The Atlantic, covering politics, policy and religion. ( @emmaogreen)
Rev. Matt O’Donnell, pastor at St. Columbanus Catholic Parish in Chicago. Youngest-known pastor in the Chicago archdiocese’s history when he got the job to lead St. Columbanus. ( @FrMattODonnell)
Rabbi Alana Alpert, rabbi at Congregation T’chiyah in Michigan. Director of Detroit Jews for Justice.
Rev. Will Stanley, associate for pastoral care at St. Cross Episcopal Church in California.
Imam Omar Suleiman, founder and president of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. Adjunct professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Methodist University. ( @omarsuleiman504)
From The Reading List
CNN: Millennials leaving church in droves, study finds — “At its core, Christian life is set of sacred traditions linking generations of sacraments and Sunday school lessons, youth ministry morals and family gatherings sanctified by prayer. An unbroken circle, in the words of an old hymn. In modern America, that circle may not be completely shot, but it is wobbly and badly bent, according to a new landmark study conducted by the Pew Research Center.”
The Atlantic: Why Would a Millennial Become a Priest or a Nun? — “There are a few hundred young people across the country who have interpreted ‘calling’ in perhaps the most literal way possible: By devoting their lives to the Church. The decision seems radical in the context of common stereotypes about millennials, a generation often accused of lack of discipline, skepticism bordering on snark, preference for a hook-up culture, and only the vaguest spiritual impulses. These millennials defy those clichés, taking lifelong vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to God — and to the Catholic Church, which, especially in their lifetimes, has been regularly plagued by scandal.”
TIME: How Millennials Are Reinventing the Priesthood — “When 19 college guys go to Jamaica for spring break, they usually hit the bar and the beach. Not Nicholas Morrison and his friends. Their trip to Montego Bay this March was far more medieval. Every morning they rose at 5:30 a.m. and prayed. Then they visited abandoned children with disabilities and dug an irrigation trench to protect the kids’ homes from flooding in the coming summer rains.”
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