The New American Religion

About twenty years ago, a landmark study was published by sociologists Christian Smith and Melina Lundquist Denton, who set out to describe the religious attitudes and beliefs of American teenagers. The book they wrote, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers,1 contains remarkable findings about the state of Christianity in America. My purpose in this editorial, however, is not to do a book review. Instead, the point I hope to make for readers is that confusion...