Why are so many young people turning away from religion?

Mostly because the generation before them lost interest in God first. Parents preach piety without living it, and children see through that.

It is often said that young people choose the comfortable, materialistic life because it is easier. But looking only at the young misses the point. The greater concern should be for the older people who brought these young people up.

Interest in God is usually lost first among the parents. It happens quietly and unnoticed. Children know exactly what really matters to their parents. They see where their parents spend their time, money and energy, and they adopt that attitude, whatever they are told.

Many parents think their children do not notice. They tell them to be good, pious and God fearing, while living differently themselves. The children see this contradiction at once. The first verse above asks precisely why anyone would say what they do not do.

In this sense young people are simply following the natural course. They become what they experience at home. So the way back to religion does not begin with lectures to the young, but with the parents themselves. Whoever wants their children to love God must first live that love, in prayer, in honesty and in the way they treat others. Children learn more from what they see than from what they hear.