How often do Christians attend church? What do they believe about God? Do they regularly open their Bibles? Barna has been tracking religious values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors for 35 years, and in an increasingly secular context, it’s helpful to pause and take stock of the landscape of faith in America today. Drawing from FaithView, Barna’s new online database for city, state and national spiritual profiles, let’s take a fresh look at one of the questions we often hear as religion researchers: How do core metrics of faith look by generation, as Christians progress through age and stage of life?

Overall, though commitment levels are certainly higher among older adults in the United States, Christians who practice their faith do so in a remarkably similar fashion, regardless of their generation. And though, as other Barna data note, few Christian Millennials today are willing to share their faith with others (and in fact think it’s wrong to do so), their level of belief and practice is mostly on par with other generations.

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Older Generations Are More Likely to Identify with & Practice Christianity Reporting on a three-year average, FaithView shows us that Elders are the most likely generation of U.S. adults to self-identify as Christian (83%). This trends downward as we move through the generations: Boomers are close behind at eight in 10 (80%), followed by almost three-quarters of Gen X (73%) and a big drop among Millennials, with just shy of two-thirds claiming Christianity (64%). The same is true among the more committed category of practicing Christians (defined by Barna as self-identified Christians who attend church every month and say their faith is very important in their lives). Almost four in 10 Elders (37%) practice their faith in this way, again trending down from Boomers (30%) to Gen X (26%) and Millennials (22%). Accordingly, we see an overall 9 percent difference between Christian Elders (66%) who strongly agree that their religious faith is very important in their life and Millennials (57%) who say the same. (.)