The new year has begun, and it is a perfect time to take that magical crystal ball out from the old trunk once again and find out what the future holds for religious faith, LGBTQ+ community, and younger generations. But in our conversation, let’s not look at 2024 but rather the next 20 years of religion and what we might expect by 2044. If you ask about the future of religion in the Worldbuilding chatroom on Reddit, Religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism still exist, although the number of religious people might fall dramatically. If you ask Pew Research, it states something similar. Depending on whether religious switching continues at recent rates, speeds up, or stops entirely, the report says, Christian faith representation could drop by more than 20 points to 35% by 2070. As far as the religious queer population is concerned, Pew conducted research showing LGBTQ+ adults are less religious than the general public. About half (48%) have no religious affiliation, compared with 20% in the general public. Also, a third (33%) of religiously affiliated LGBTQ+ adults say there is a conflict between their religious beliefs and their sexual orientation or gender identity. Researchers predict that those numbers will dramatically increase in the next two decades. And most important of all, the Queer Crystal Ball looks at Gen-Alpha. Coming next after Gen-Z culture experts predict it will be the most liberal, technology embracing, climate driven, sexual identity fluid population in history. Gen-alpha will be the first antithesis to Baby Boomers. And statistics show church going numbers are overwhelmingly dominated by baby boomers. As we can clearly see in our queer crystal ball that the future is going to be in favor of a younger population with more inclusive and open values, the real question is, will the church as an organization survive?
