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Let us ponder what is wrong with this picture. There is nothing wrong per se with an "informal survey" of a convenience sample of a few hundred people—we can often learn a lot of value from such exercises. However, it is impossible to make accurate inferences about a huge generation of youth at a national level from only 211 of even the best of samples, much less from an "informal," non-probability, most likely convenience sample.
Furthermore, even if the numbers were somehow nationally representative, they still tell us absolutely nothing about "present trends." Trends have to do with changes observed over time. The numbers presented in the book have to do with differences in generations measured at one point in time. Without knowing whether the observed cross-sectional differences reflect a cohort effect (what the author assumes) or a life course effect (a more plausible alternative), we are no more able to project the claim that we are on the verge of losing a generation eternally than we can predict that all babies today are going to grow up to wear diapers as adults because we see that they are wearing diapers now.
And even if the differences represent a cohort (not life course) effect that will remain stable as this young generation ages, it still makes no sense to think that "we are about to lose" an entire generation. About to? Like, real soon? In fact, it would take many decades for the projection to play itself out, even if all of the assumptions behind it were correct, which they are not. The claim to imminent demise is silly on elementary logical grounds. Thus, the book's author is guilty of making some unwarranted inferences about national representation and future events based on limited data and faulty logic. This is not a crime. But it has problematic consequences.
Namely, based on such erroneous conclusions, a national movement is now being organized to re-educate 20,000 youth pastors in 44 cities around the nation. Tickets for the three-hour event are $39 each, $99 for a church's entire pastoral staff. Pastors who attend this "high level briefing" in which "top voices" will "present the hard facts," the ad states, will be doing their part to avert the catastrophe of dwindling church attendance, increase in peer pressure, a growth in porn and violence on tv, and the decay of "our Christian nation." By implication, those who don't attend are enabling the catastrophe. How do we know that this national catastrophe is imminent, that this "crisis" "demands our response," and that "this generation is depending on our attendance"? Again, because a seminary ministry professor conducted an "informal survey" nine years ago with 211 young people in three states, selected by methods about which we know nothing, asked questions we know almost nothing about, and then made the logical error of drawing an unwarranted inference from a small and non-representative sample about trends and future faith conditions of entire generations.
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