With the world of young consumers what it is today -- violent video games, nakedness on the Internet and booty shakin' on MTV -- a reasonable adult could assume that this generation of teens has strayed from religion.

Not necessarily, according to research into the relationship between young people and faith.

Based at UNC-Chapel Hill, the National Study of Youth and Religion has spent the past several years collecting and interpreting data on teens. What did the researchers learn? That teens follow the adults in their lives.

The initial phase of the study included phone interviews with more than 3,300 teens ages 13 to 17 across the country, followed by lengthy in-person interviews with more than 260 of them. The data were published in a book, "Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers."

Teens are fairly conventional when it comes to religious beliefs, says Melinda Denton, the study's project manager and a sociology Ph.D. candidate at UNC-CH. The distribution of religious identity among teens mirrors that of parents. More than half -- 52 percent -- attend services regularly.

Those who do tend to have better relationships with their parents, get better grades, wear their seat belts more regularly and have a higher percentage of civic involvement than their peers who don't. For instance, 88 percent of those classified as religiously "devoted" reported that they got along extremely or very well with their mothers. That number dropped to 66 percent of kids defined as "disengaged" from religion.

Even the kids who aren't religious don't seem to think poorly of those who are.

"We heard very, very few teens who had anything negative to say about religion. Most of them, even if they themselves are not religious, think religion is a good thing and a positive force in our society," Denton says.

Because this was the first large-scale study to look at teens and religion, it is not known how these results might compare with prior generations of teens. But Denton doesn't think there have been dramatic changes. "We don't believe that youth are leaving the church in droves," she says.

That doesn't mean, however, that those who attend grasp all the concepts presented, Denton says.

"When we asked teens, 'Where do you go to church? How often do you attend?' They can tell us. When asked, 'What do you believe religiously?' they were often at a loss to even begin to articulate what they believed or what their religious beliefs meant to them."

The thing is, Denton and her research partners don't think this is just a teenage issue. Teens are reflections of the adults in their lives, so if the kids can't articulate their beliefs, it's probably because their parents can't, either.

In other words, if there's blame to be laid, don't put it on the Xbox.

For more information about the study based at UNC-CH, go to www.youthandreligion.org.

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