College students fall into three camps when it comes to faith, according to a recent study:
Some are true believers.
Some are spiritual but not religious:
And some could care less.
Researchers from Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., asked students nationwide a series of questions about their spiritual, political and moral values, ranging from belief in God and worship attendance to climate change and same-sex marriage.
They found the students fell into three distinct worldviews.
About a third (32 percent) were religious, a third were spiritual (32 percent), and just less than a third (28 percent) were secular.
About 70 percent of the religious students were Christian as were about 43 percent of the spiritual students.
Most of the secular students, and about a third of the spiritual students, were so-called “nones” – those with no religious identity, said researchers Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar.
While very few Americans identify as atheists or agnostics, a growing number fall into the “none” category. The survey, conducted with the Center for Inquiry, a secular nonprofit, was done in part to help understand that group.
Polling from the Pew Research Center found that the number of “nones” among all Americans grew from about 15 percent in 2007 to just less than 20 percent in 2012. The nones include the 6 percent of Americans who call themselves agnostic or atheists. The number of nones younger than 30 rose to 30 percent.
In the Center for Inquiry’s student survey, researchers said the nones show a “remarkable degree of indifference to religion.”
“This finding is a challenge to the notion that the nones are just ‘religiously unaffiliated’ or religious searchers who have not yet found a religious home,” Kosmin and Keysar wrote. “This survey clearly revealed that today’s students with a secular worldview, who are mainly nones, are not traditional theists.”
Daniel Jansouzian, a junior at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, runs a start-up Pentacostal ministry at the school. He said many students grew up going to church but no longer attend.
Being religious now, he said, is a conscious choice. His group runs 4 Bible studies and a weekly worship service.
“We want to reach those who lost their faith or who are looking for something to believe in.”
Each group or brand of students in the survey had a distinct worldview, researchers said.
Religious students go to church, are more likely to believe in creationism or intelligent design, and to oppose assisted suicide, adoptions by same-sex couples and gun control. Secular students do not believe in God, endorse evolution, accept assisted suicide as moral, say gay couples should be able to adopt and want more gun control.
The spiritual students were split. They sided with the religious students on questions about God and with secular students on questions about politics and science.
Students from all three groups were worried about global warming, including 96 percent of the secular students and 80 percent of the religious students.
Ron Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, said the survey shows that nonbelievers are here to stay.
Many secular college students eventually will become community leaders, he said.
“Clearly, secular Americans are a constituency on the ascent, one that both political and cultural establishments can no longer afford to ignore,” he said in a statement.
The online survey of 1,800 students was conducted in April and May. Researchers contacted students using email address directories from 38 colleges and universities nationwide.
Mark Forrester, chaplain at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said the survey reflects changes he has seen in more than 20 years of campus ministry. He said when he started at Austin Peay University in 1991, most students had some religious identity.
“They were either Protestant or Catholic,” he said. “The biggest question was, what kind of Protestant are you?”
Now, Jewish, Muslim and other non-Christian students are as common as those with no faith.
“All of our assumptions are out the window,” he said.
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