Baby boomers might not be that different from the Greatest Generation when it comes to religion. Like their parents, many boomers will attend religious services later in life. But unlike their parents, baby boomers are more likely to describe a deep, intense spiritual connection from a personal experience than a religious one from an institutional practice.

Many of them dont know it yet, said a researcher at the recent annual conference of the Gerontological Society of America in New Orleans, but growing old, regardless of what generation you belong to, brings on dramatic changes that can propel people to seek new meaning in religious services.

Vern Bengtson is the author of the recently published "Families and Faith with co-authors Susan Harris and Norella Putney. He based his findings and predictions on a 35-year longitudinal study of 350 Southern California families and interviews with a subset of 156 families. The studys scope spanned six generations from 1909 to 1988. The conversations explored spirituality, religious beliefs, intensities and practices.

Bengtson, 72, is a professor emeritus of gerontology and sociology at the University of Southern California. He discussed boomers, the rebellious group born between 1946 and 1964 and known for spurning institutional models, and religion with Religion News Service at the GSA conference.

Which part of the study made you think many boomers will end up attending religious services when they currently do not?

We now know that the oldest generations had an uptick in attending religious services after retirement. Its too early to have gathered that data on boomers because theyre just starting to retire, but Im willing to predict this will happen to them based on what weve observed in older generations and from what we heard in the interviews with boomers.

You list examples in your book of young boomers saying they reject religion. "I do not want anything to do with it (religion). " And "I believe in God but do not go to church." How then do you make the jump that they will eventually go to a church or synagogue when theyre older?

When people get older, they retire and have more time to think about moral, religious and spiritual things. Our study shows this. Its the life course. They will also face a serious illness or lose a loved one for the first time. The religious education of their grandchildren becomes a concern for some grandparents. Not all, but some are concerned the parents arent doing enough. They might have skipped a generation by not educating their own children, but they got older and discovered one of the most wonderful things in life and wont want to miss an opportunity with their grandchildren.

How do the religious and spiritual views of baby boomers set them apart from the other generations?

The oldest groups (1909-1931) were religious and went to church until a certain age set in when they found it physically too difficult to go anymore. When asked if they were spiritual, they said "Whats spirituality? They were more likely to link spirituality and religion to institutional practice.

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Expert on aging says boomers will return to church