Lecture to Share Findings of Largest Survey on Faith Across Generations

Vern Bengtson, faculty research associate with the Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging at the University of Southern California, will give a lecture titled “Millennials, Parents and Grandparents: Are families still passing on the faith?” at the College of the Holy Cross on Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. in the Rehm Library. The lecture, presented by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, is free and open to the public.

In the largest-ever study of religion and family across generations, Bengtson and his colleagues followed more than 350 families for nearly four decades to find out how religion is, or is not, passed down from one generation to the next. His findings were published in the 2013 book, "Families and Faith: Generations and the Transmissions of Religion" (Oxford University Press).

“From the media as well as from religious leaders, we frequently hear messages that families are in a precarious position and that young adults are increasingly leaving the faith of their parents. Is this true?” Bengtson asks. “The results [of the study] suggest that the ‘faith generation gap’ is a myth, and that most churches are woefully blind to the opportunities and challenges of intergenerational ministry.”

Bengtson is the former AARP/University Chair in Gerontology at USC, past president of the Gerontological Society of America and a MERIT awardee from the National Institutes of Health. He has published 17 books and 260 research papers on gerontology, theories of aging, sociology of aging and family sociology.

The lecture at Holy Cross is his only East Coast appearance.

Bengtson’s talk is the first of two Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity this month exploring the theme of “Keeping, Changing and Choosing Religious Faith.” On Thursday, Oct. 23, at 7:30 p.m., Wake Forest sociologist David Yamane will give a lecture titled “Why do people become Catholic?” Yamane contends that while the focus is generally on Americans leaving the faith, there are a significant number of adults converting to Catholicism.

To learn more about these events and to find lectures online, visit www.holycross.edu/mcfarlandcenter.

About the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:

Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College's commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the McFarland Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope.  The McFarland Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.