Last semester I assigned the students in the community college World Religions course I teach a series of writing exercises that (I hoped) would help them personalize and internalize the subject matter we were reading about and discussing in class. There were four assignments total, one every four weeks or so. And each was a little more probing. My goal was simply to get these students from diverse religious backgrounds thinking about their experience with religion, assumptions about religious claims, how they understand the role religion plays in their lives.

The projects were enlightening for many of them. Several told me they'd never thought about these things before, and they're glad they did. What I hadn't expected was how enlightening their responses would be for me.

Discussions about why young folk leave the faith and how to get them back continue to generate a lot of heat. My observations here are anecdotal, not scientific. But I found it useful to reflect on the general trends ...