Nearly half of Maltese youths believe in God, but not necessarily in organised religion, a new survey has found.
The split between belief and religion is a global phenomenon, said Rev. Prof. Paul Galea, Deputy Dean of the University’s Faculty of Theology.
“In the local scenario it seems that religion is not being replaced by anything. This could reveal an existential vacuum.
“There could be many explanations for this... the most important being a lack of interest in existential issues,” he said.
The EY Generate Youth Survey, published on Friday, asked Gen-Zs (16- to 24-year-olds) and millennials (25 to 39) about various facets of their life, from their financial worries to their opinions on the country’s worsening environment.
The survey also questioned the two age groups on their religious views and found a surprising contradiction in their theological positions.
What the survey found
Whether it is Gen-Zs (49 per cent) or their slightly older ‘millennial’ peers (46 per cent), just under half say that they believe in God.
Roughly a third of both age groups firmly do not believe in a Creator while the rest (19 per cent for Gen-Zs and 17 per cent for millennials) are unsure of what to think.
As for organised religion, people seem to have a harder time finding their faith.
Only 28 per cent of Gen-Zs described themselves as religious with millennials scoring even lower – 21 per cent.
The majority of youths do not consider themselves to be religious, 60 per cent of Gen-Zs and a whopping 71 per cent of millennials clarifying they do not feel connected to any one church.
The same contradiction can be seen in both generations’ belief in their commitment to religion.
While just over a quarter of Gen-Zs have faith in their own holy devotions, only a fifth of millennials are confident in their belief in something greater, most of both groups answering that they have little to no faith in higher powers.
“One has to ask if this is typical of the young and that perhaps they might come back to roost when they get older and wiser,” Galea said.
In a 2021 survey conducted by the University of Malta, various age groups were asked about their religious identity.
Only 36 per cent of youths – defined as 16 to 30 – said that they saw themselves as a religious person.
In the same survey, 42 per cent of youths said that their belief in God gave their life a sense of direction, compared to the combined 82 per cent of other age groups who answered positively to the same question.
“The two surveys suggest that more importance is given to material things, such as money, and to other worldly concerns, such as the environment,” Galea, one of the 2021 study’s authors, noted.
In 2003, a university student carried out a survey asking his peers from secondary and tertiary institutions whether they believe in God, Christ and the Church.
A vast majority of students believed in both Christ and the Church while a third had lost faith in the religious institution.
Surprisingly, only two per cent of students believed that God does not exist.
EY’s 2022 survey, on the other hand, shows an increase of 30 percentage points on the atheist mentality over the past 20 years.
EY’s 5th Generate Youth Survey had a total of 718 respondents and was conducted between September 30 and October 31.