A turn toward faith in America?

Has the rise in secularism waned? That’s one conclusion to draw from the findings of the annual Pew survey, which gathered the religious views of over 35,000 people from across the country. Sixty-two percent of Americans identify as Christians. This number is consistent with surveys going back to 2019, when the precipitous decline in Christianity began to stabilize. What’s more, adherence and interest in non-Christian religions has started to rise.

These findings seem consistent with anecdotal evidence, such as high-profile conversions and new conversations about religion in popular media formats, suggesting a new interest in the transcendent and a rejection by many of secularism. Nobody should mistake these numbers for revival, but followers of Christ can find slivers of hope in a society seeming to question the atheism of what Charles Taylor labeled “The Secular Age.” Perhaps a world riven by war, natural disaster, an epidemic, and political upheaval has caused people to confront their own mortality and seek the divine.

There is opportunity here for the church, especially among younger cohorts, where Christianity is still lagging significantly behind older generations. While 28% of Boomers share no religious affiliation, 42% of Gen Z are among the so-called “nones.” While disavowing religion, many describe themselves as spiritual. Eighty-two percent of Americans believe humans have souls, while 76% believe in a universal God or spirit. Christians can boldly and beautifully share, like Paul on Mars Hill, about the “Lord of Heaven and Earth” to those who “seek him and reach out for him (Acts 17).

The church should not hesitate to embrace our mission field. In Romans, Paul reminds us: “And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news" (Romans 10:15). To a world around us freshly put off by the false promises of secularism, by the dissatisfied pleasures of modernity, and by the lies of the sexual revolution, Christians must joyfully proclaim that there is a better way to orient our lives. We must show that a relationship with God through his Son is the gateway to fulfillment and true spirituality, not the cheap substitutes on offer.

This survey might also help dispel persistent myths that often rise in opposition to faithful Christian life and practice. While contextualization is important for our witness, a Christianity stripped of its symbols and shorn of its distinctives is off-putting to those who seek alternatives to the world’s false ideologies. The Pew survey also found that church attendance, which had been dropping, continues to stabilize.

Another shattered myth is that conservative political ideologies drive away those seeking God. In reality, it is progressivism that has both emptied out the mainline churches and correlates heavily with a decline in Christianity and a decline in religiosity overall. This doesn’t mean conservative believers should avoid prudence in politics, but it cuts against the perennial shibboleths that blame conservative voting patterns for religious indifference. It is left-wing Christianity that ends up keeping the political ideology but losing the gospel.

For the people of God, our response to the findings of this survey should be to double down on both faithfulness to our local churches and faithfulness in our families. Given that the next generation seems less Christian than our own, we should not hesitate in our commitment to evangelizing our children, taking them to church weekly, and teaching them the key doctrines of the Christian faith. This and other surveys demonstrate a link between family structure and Christian faith. The decline of marriage results in a decline of faith, generationally.

And we should not rest from the task of evangelism. The bloody cross and triumphant resurrection of our Lord is still, as it has always been, both foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18) to the world and the hope for a lost and dying world (Galatians 6:14). In a world increasingly rejecting secularism, we must not hesitate to proclaim this good news.