Young men are returning to church — and it could reshape America’s future
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If you’ve been to church recently, you may have noticed an interesting sight: people in their twenties again in the pews. It’s been a long time, but they’re back. And why they returned can tell us about the times we are in as a nation and where we are going next.
The revival of faith among young people has been remarkable and rapid. A Gallup poll this year found that 42 percent of young men now say religion is “very important” in their lives; That’s the highest rate in a quarter-century and up 14 percent since 2023.
According to the Barna Group, Generation Z churchgoers now attend church more frequently than other generations; this amounts to a “historic reversal” and “Barna noted that for the first time such spiritual interest was being driven by younger generations.”
SURVEY FINDS A SHARP INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF YOUNG MEN SAYING RELIGION IS ‘VERY IMPORTANT’
Sociologists are confused. Something is happening but they don’t know what. I have an idea because my own faith journey mirrors the faith journey of these young men.
I grew up in a Catholic home and attended Catholic primary schools. But while most of my high school classmates enrolled at Holy Cross or other Jesuit schools, I chose the secular playground of Williams College and left my faith behind.
Like many rebellious children of the early 60s, I was seduced by the idea of breaking the shackles of religion to live a self-indulgent life. For a while, the questions of the age seemed more interesting than the answers given to me.
I remember Father Anthony McHale, the principal of my Catholic high school, telling me, “We will get you eventually.” And he was right. I returned to Catholicism in my mid-twenties – largely for the same reason as young men today, I suspect.
The past decade was not very different from the 1960s, marked by progressive excesses, cultural secularism, moral bankruptcy, and political turmoil. Like my generation, today’s young people have come to believe that meaning can only be found in self-expression and political activism. But it left them rootless and empty.
Many began to ask the same question I asked: Is that all? And in their search, they found the answer.
The chains of religion are not restrictive but liberating. Thanks to secularism, we find communities that meet our every desire. Through faith we find communities that call us to be better. And that’s what every young man desires: purpose forged through struggle, sacrifice, and service to something greater than himself.
FAITH REVIVAL IS GROWING AFTER CHARLIE KIRK’S DEATH AS MORE PEOPLE ATTEND SERVICES AND READ SCRIPTURES
My prayer today is that this will be the excitement of a new Great Awakening in America. If it takes hold, it could take us back to the politics my generation discovered during the Reagan years; to a politics that replaces progressive relativism with the search for a moral society based on tradition and common belief.
This is not an unfounded hope. A generation that regains its sense of transcendence will not accept the idea that the state is the highest authority. They are likely to value family, resist the politicization of childhood and education, and defend religious freedom not as a private interest but as indispensable for a free society. They may also prove less susceptible to the despair and anger, and even violence, that have characterized much of recent discourse.
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Following the murder of Charlie Kirk last September, Bible sales increased 36% in a month. Sales will reach a 21-year high in 2025, double what they were in 2019. The reason for this is not surprising. Kirk’s courageous testimony of faith and the callousness of his murder inspired questions about mortality and meaning that social media could not answer.
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These signs encourage me. I believe that today’s young people can not only match my generation’s loyalty, but surpass it. Because the dark clouds of their time (artificial intelligence, democratic socialism, gender ideology, and more) are much more ominous than those that hovered over the 1960s. The greater the darkness, the brighter the light can shine.
History shows that the hunger for God never completely disappears. It can only be suppressed for one season. When it reawakens, its political and cultural ramifications can be profound and, with God’s help, extremely hopeful.
