An interesting new study in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion has hit the news wires. Philip Schwadel of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has looked into the reporting on religious affiliation and found that Boomers are the most likely age-cohort to disaffiliate from their religion. Overall numbers of people reporting no religious affiliation have shot up “from 6 to 8 percent in the 1970s and 1980s to almost 16 percent in 2006.” The dramatic rise is due to older generations dying off that those raised by Boomers without a religious affiliation are unlikely to acquire one.

Younger believers are more likely to retain some religious affiliation than their Boomer parents. Although Schhwadel speculates that much of the change can be explained by liberal Boomers exiling themselves from conservative-dominated religious groups, the other way is just as likely. The decline of Mainline Protestantism seems to track with the exodus of Boomers, and the rise of Evangelicalism tracks with the growth of their children.

All this was in mind as I read a recent article in Details suggesting that the hottest “pickup spot” in Los Angelas is a new, young, theologically Calvinist Church, Reality LA. Like Mars Hill in Seattle, Reality LA bills itself as a Church for those who never took to Church. Tattooed pastors, modern worship, traditional theology, and a heavy emphasis on Biblical exegesis.

It seems intuitive that as the elite becomes more secular, educated believers will identify even more strongly with their faiths and have a deeper intellectual commitment to them. Only a living thing can swim against the tide.