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PRINCETON, New Jersey — Millennials accept a general view of religious freedom as being important, but they struggle to understand what religious freedom really means.
That’s one major takeaway that Emily Hardman, president of Amicus Communications, highlighted in a presentation last week on results from a survey looking at millennial and religious freedom.
She said she was surprised by data showing millennials accepting religious freedom in an abstract way but considerably less supportive of religion and faith when presented in real-life terms.
“They think it (religious freedom) is merely just a choice, and it’s troubling to see that so many don’t know what it means more than just choosing — it means practicing that faith in a meaningful and authentic way,” said Hardman, herself a Millennial and a graduate of Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School.
Hardman presented at the 2017 Black Leadership Summit, sponsored by the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies and held at the Princeton Theological Seminary. Amicus Communications specializes in high-stakes communication strategies, including research and messaging related to religious freedom.
Millennials — the name given to the generation born roughly in the early 1980s to somewhere between the mid-1990s and the start of the 21st century — consider themselves religious, but often not to a particular religious organization. And data shows that overall, millennials are moving increasingly toward secularism, much more so than older generations.
To read the full article on the Deseret News, click here.
