Why the 1970s Generation Walked Away From Pews

In 1957, about 69 percent of Americans said religion was gaining influence on national life. By 1970, only about 14 percent agreed. In just thirteen years, the national mood about faith turned almost upside down. This documentary explores why a generation of young Baby Boomers stepped back from church, and whether they ever truly returned. We take the decade apart one cause at a time: the collapse of trust after Vietnam and Watergate, the rise of expressive individualism and the so-called Me Decade, the clash between church teaching and a new ethic of marriage and sex, the pull of new spiritual options from Eastern traditions to the Jesus Movement, and the very practical pressures of money, work, and distance from the parish. Along the way, we draw on survey research, church records, papal documents, and the work of sociologists such as Robert Bellah, Andrew Greeley, and Wade Clark Roof, and we compare how Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant communities experienced the change. This is a fair, research-based look at a pivotal decade in American religious history, told without judging those who left or those who stayed. Did you come of age in the 1970s? Tell us what your church was like, and whether you stayed, left, or came back, in the comments. Subscribe to The Aevustra for more documentaries on religious history and the forces that shaped American faith. #babyboomers #1970s #churchhistory #religioushistory #AmericanChristianity #jesusmovement #ChurchDecline #vaticanii #TheNones #generations #faithhistory #historydocumentary #ReligionDocumentary #catholic #TheAevustra