Why Millennials Are Leaving Religion—But Not Spirituality: A Decade-Long Study Offers Clarity
Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
A generation is quietly rewriting the rules of faith.
Millennials, long portrayed as apathetic or irreverent when it comes to religion, are not so much turning their backs on the sacred as they are walking out the side door of the church.
According to a sweeping longitudinal study published in Socius, this cohort—tracked from adolescence into adulthood over a ten-year period—has been steadily disengaging from organized religion.
But they aren’t becoming wholly secular. They’re reimagining what it means to be spiritual in a world where institutions often feel more judgmental than just, more performative than prophetic.
From Pews to Personal Paths
The study, titled “Breaking Free of the Iron Cage: The Individualization of American Religion,” followed over 1,300 souls born in the late 1980s using both survey data and in-depth interviews from 2003 to 2013.
Led by Cornell sociologist Landon Schnabel and colleagues Ilana Horwitz, Peyman Hekmatpour, and Cyrus Schleifer, the research reveals a consistent story: formal religious participation—especially church attendance and institutional affiliation—has dropped off sharply.
At the start of the study, more than 80% of participants reported attending religious services with some regularity. A decade later, nearly 60% said they never attend at all. Formal religious identification also plunged, from nearly 89% to just 60%.
And yet, belief in God only declined modestly—from 83% to 66%—and personal spiritual practices, such as meditation, actually rose.
Meditation use nearly doubled, from 12% to over 21%. For Millennials, the story is not one of wholesale abandonment, but of transformation.
Religion Without the Institution
The data tell one part of the story, but the interviews fill in the emotional color.
For the 54 participants whose religious involvement declined most dramatically, the reasons were clear: hypocrisy, exclusion, and moral dissonance.
Many spoke of institutions that preached love and humility while practicing judgment and discrimination—particularly on issues like LGBTQ+ rights, gender roles, and reproductive freedom.
One participant, Chris, raised Catholic, left the Church after struggling with its stance on same-sex marriage.
Another, Daniela, who was active in her church and a school LGBTQ+ alliance, couldn’t reconcile her inclusive values with the rigid doctrines she was expected to follow. Like many others, they didn’t stop believing in something greater—they just stopped believing the institution had a monopoly on that sacred something.
Spirituality as Personal Integrity
What emerged from these stories was not spiritual apathy but moral agency.
Millennials weren’t simply rejecting dogma; they were crafting alternative ways of living with integrity. Many expressed their faith through personal ethics, compassion, mindfulness, or a sense of connection to something bigger—without the trappings of clergy, doctrine, or brick-and-mortar sanctuaries.
The study found that the steepest declines in institutional religiosity occurred among those who strongly supported same-sex marriage, reproductive rights, and progressive social values.
Political ideology played a role—liberals were more likely to disengage—but even conservatives showed notable drops in attendance. The common thread wasn’t partisanship. It was a desire for congruence between beliefs and behaviors.
As Schnabel put it:
“People aren’t just becoming secular due to reason or rationality. They’re becoming fed up with religious organizations that don’t seem to live up to the values they teach.”
The Rise of DIY Religion
Sociologists have a name for this phenomenon: the individualization of religion. It’s a shift from communal, hierarchical faith to personal, fluid spirituality.
Instead of accepting handed-down dogma, young adults are mixing and matching beliefs—often combining elements of Eastern philosophy, mindfulness practices, social justice ethics, and inherited religious traditions to create customized spiritual frameworks.
In some ways, this mirrors other cultural shifts: the decline in civic organizations, the retreat from traditional workplaces, the skepticism toward large institutions of all kinds.
Millennials are the generation of the personalized playlist, the curated newsfeed—and now, the bespoke spirituality.
The study’s use of growth curve modeling showed that while institutional engagement declined rapidly, more private markers—such as belief in a higher power or occasional prayer—tapered off more slowly, or in some cases, held steady. The difference? Institutions were optional. Meaning was not.
Institutions Losing Their Moral Authority
For many participants, the disillusionment wasn’t abstract—it was personal.
They recalled sermons that shamed rather than inspired, churches that prioritized politics over pastoral care, and leaders who failed to embody the values they professed.
Some described acute moral conflict during adolescence that led them to question everything they'd been taught.
Others pointed to exposure to diverse communities or college environments that broadened their perspectives and deepened their doubts.
And yet, almost no one in the study described their spiritual departure as a gleeful rebellion.
Rather, it was often marked by grief, ambivalence, and a yearning for something truer.
Some became agnostic or atheist.
Others drifted toward alternative forms of spiritual expression—nature, meditation, astrology, or simply the sacredness of human connection.
They were not running from religion. They were walking toward meaning on their own terms.
A Mirror of Broader Cultural Change
This isn’t just about religion.
It’s also about how modern Americans relate to authority, tradition, and moral identity.
As institutions struggle to maintain legitimacy—whether they be churches, governments, or media platforms—individuals are increasingly claiming the right to define values for themselves.
In this sense, the decline of organized religion among Millennials is part of a larger social story: a preference for authenticity over authority, for horizontal networks over vertical hierarchies, for lived experience over inherited dogma.
Some smaller, less bureaucratic faith communities—especially those that embrace inclusivity and moral flexibility—may still appeal to younger generations. But many are choosing to build spiritual meaning outside the traditional bounds of organized religion altogether.
What This Study Can—and Can’t—Tell Us
It’s worth noting that the study focuses on a single cohort of Americans born in the late 1980s. The authors are careful not to overgeneralize, acknowledging that future cohorts may follow different patterns and that cross-cultural dynamics remain unexplored.
Still, the findings resonate with broader demographic trends: the rise of the “nones,” now more than a quarter of the U.S. population, and growing global skepticism toward religious institutions. What makes this study unique is its intimate window into how and why these shifts unfold—not as political statistics, but as human journeys.
Final Thoughts: Leaving the Church, Keeping the Fire
In the end, this isn’t a story of rejection. It’s a story of reformation.
Millennials aren’t abandoning faith; they’re refining it.
They are looking for meaning without control, community without conformity, and spirituality without shame.
They are seeking a way to live as “people of integrity,” in Schnabel’s words—even if that means breaking from the very institutions that once promised to guide them.
This is not the death of religion. It’s the birth of something still unnamed, still inchoate—something that values compassion over creed, autonomy over authority, and sacredness without strings.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
RESOURCES:
Schnabel, L., Horwitz, I., Hekmatpour, P., & Schleifer, C. (2025). Breaking Free of the Iron Cage: The Individualization of American Religion. Socius. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231241256678