“Virtually anywhere in our culture right now, everyone is put in a binary: Us versus them. You pick your us, you pick your them. It’s opposing sides, it becomes about power, not understanding, and then they collide. That will have disastrous implications on culture, as well as the next generation and the health of our relationships.”
Moral relativism is the “majority opinion” of Gen Z, with most teens and young adults holding to the belief that many religions can lead to eternal life, a new study has found.
Gen Z: Volume 2, a new report from the Barna Group in partnership with the Impact 360 Institute, collected data from 1,503 U.S. teens and young adults ages 13 to 21 between June 15 and July 17, 2020.
Researchers found that two-thirds of teens and young adults (65%) agree that “many religions can lead to eternal life” compared to 58% of teens and young adults surveyed in 2018 for Gen Z: Volume 1.
“That’s a dramatic shift because as Jesus clearly taught and John 14:6, ‘I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me.’ So exclusivism in that way is part of historic Christianity. Yet the surrounding cultural context says, ‘No, many religions can lead to eternal life,’” Jonathan Morrow, director of cultural engagement and student discipleship at Impact 360 Institute, said during the unveiling of the study Wednesday.
Additionally, 31% of teens and young adults “strongly agree” that what is “morally right and wrong changes over time, based on society,” compared to just 25% in 2018. Another 43% agree “somewhat.”
Just 10% of young people surveyed “strongly disagree” that what is “morally right and wrong changes over time, based on society.” Morrow described this minority as a group of “convictional people in Gen Z who actually think that objective truth and morality really exist and don’t change depending upon people’s desires or feelings or society over time, but there is an ultimate reference point, there is an ultimate anchor to moral and spiritual reality.”
