According to Rabbi Howard A. Addison, author of Show Me Your Way, a survey that tracked a large number of adults who were confirmed in a variety of churches during the 1960s revealed that twenty years later only one-third had remained within their denomination. Eight out of ten respondents thought one's religious beliefs should be arrived at independent of any religious institution, while seven out of ten felt that all religions were equally valid ways to find ultimate truth.

In other words, twenty-first century seekers revere the past but aren't held hostage by it. Almost half of all Americans under thirty, and one-third of those over seventy, think the best religion is one that borrows from all religions. We are on many paths these days other than the ones inscribed and sanctified by institutionalized religion.

Frances Sheridan Goulart, God Has No Religion by Frances Sheridan Goulart, editor