We are often told we are in the midst of a Gen Z religious revival, but is that true? I spoke to scholar of religion Dr Andrew Henry (@ReligionForBreakfast) to find out if the data backs up the hype.
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00:00 What’s going on with Gen Z and religion?
13:30 What makes religions sticky?
20:50 Why is there so much hype for a Christian revival?
26:05 What is atheist religion?
37:30 Why do some people just not care about religion?
40:30 Why can’t we be religious like a medieval peasant?
48:11 How do we get Eastern religions wrong in the West?
56:23 Why are so many things called “religions” now?
01:06:22 Does religion fill a gap?
01:18:25 Why pigs?
01:22:15 How does religious cultural exchange work?
01:36:40 What is the best idea you’ve heard in the past year?
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LINKS AND CORRECTIONS
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GenZ will no stomach the religious dogma and watereddown version of God ! They are a very truthful generation and questions everything .
Religion in wrong hands is evil and deadly bring wars and greed to humanity !
"42% of men aged 18–29 now say religion is “very important” in their lives, a +14-point jump from just 28% in 2022–2023", per Gallup poll.
"Religion" is a Western, post-Enlightenment invention used to categorize (and often marginalize) certain ways of being, while exempting others for instance: Scientism, Secularism, Humanism etc. There are no people without belief systems.
This was a beautifully done video. Great video, talk and enjoyed the flow of the vid
I went from being an atheist to a Christian, it's working somewhere
1:01:34 Religión is “spiritual significance”, sports and music are “entertainment”. The eras tour and game day appear almost spiritually significant for som people, and this is weird. It would be weird if Christians found mass and a pastor traveling to different churches entertaining, certainly. But we don’t really see that. If we did, certainly flipping that on its head would be revelatory. But we don’t see that. So.
Dawkin's comments about being a cultural christian is innocuous if we take him out of context. however, he was clearly making a case that islam is worse than christianity, and to leave that out and pretend others blew it out of proportion is crazy. iirc, he was making a case for limiting muslims somehow, and he's pro-israel. therefore, he wasn't just explaining his personal upbringing but making a heated political statement about society at large.
When you mix relegion with politics it grow very fast.
This is an example of an unrelated field with a surprising insight, but when you were talking about the "narcissism of small differences" it reminded me of a large study of twins. They looked at identical twins and studied the differences between the pairs and a lot of them had a major aspect of their identity that differed seemingly in opposition to their twin. As a twin myself, when you are individually being compared to someone, establishing a sense of self to make yourself exist in the eyes of others feels like a matter of urgency. If you can imagine a world where everyone compares you to their buddy Matt, to the extent where they assume you agree with all of his opinions, you will find yourself instinctively hostile to new information about him.
I went to church from 5 to 10 years old then didnt go back until last year at 29 years old. And idk… when i was little it was pure old people. Now, at least at my church there are more younger people than old. Like I'm talking 19-25 year olds are the majority. So hesring about a boom in GenZ going to church I didn't question it.
Im a churchgoer since I was 14, Im 38 now and live in Russia. This year on Easter night I saw so many young ppl, I had never seen so many in church (the service is at night and it is standing almast 4 hours, mind u). Is it hype? I don't think so. It might be realisation that psychology is quite shallow millennial stuff and phylosophy is just intellectual wanking. It s more like love for poetry, love for art. Not in academic sense, but longing for beauty, for touch of everalsting
I wholly disagree. Gen Z is making a large push back to Christiancity, and Nationalism.
data is king but data is not God. data isn’t omnipresent and it only represents what the context is for that sample set. we have this practice of taking data and making it the end all be all as it’s congruent amongst all variations within the topic that’s being tested. But I think that we have to start considering the variables that get missed when you’re testing a hypothesis. I think that a lot of people have a very hard time understanding many people do come to Christ, in silence, in their secret place. Many people go back to Christ, but never go back to the church. I stopped attending church so frequently but I still consider myself more in relationship with Christ even before maybe. But the numbers would be skewed because I’ve never taken a test or a poll to clarify that it’s just something I do in my secret place with my spiritual nature. Not all numbers are being gathered. I think we try to apply these hard logistics on people’s relationship with religion when that’s just not the case. I understand the intention to want to track religiosity, and I don’t know all the schematics of how churches track their demographic information but I just don’t think it’s something that’s ever going to provide the most accurate results on a mass scale.
1:05 Animals mourning a death is not relgious. It is mourning. Agnostics/non–religious people mourn.
I’m too conflict avoidant to be a good philosopher.
Ohh maybe not yet. But dont count us out yet.
There is definitely an uprise but its more of an alignment with christian values over true conviction in belief hence it appears like its insignificant or media/rightwing propaganda
Later in the video they talk about societies that "meet" eachother and Joe asked about groups that seem to do a thing where they exaggerate their differences. No one brought it up, but this is called "schismogenesis," and anthropologists study it. It's mentioned a lot in "The Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow.
1:28:30 I'm pretty sure the Eucharist came from the passover, not the Greco-Romans. Consider its timing on the calendar, the elements involved, and the account of its origin given by at least five writers within a century of its initiation. (Matt, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul)
1:34:20 Gog and Magog are mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39. That predates the dead sea scrolls.
I hope this doesn't come across too much as an "um, actually". I just think it's baffling that you look so far afield for non-scriptural explanations of scripture. I'm a Christian, so I am biased, nevertheless, if you will hear my opinion, I've heard many scholars forgetting that religious documents are just as historical as whatever scraps of non-religious documents have been found. If you're gonna speak confidently about these texts, please study them.
Perhaps Gen Z isn’t getting more religious, but the ones who do believe in a higher power are certainly taking their beliefs more seriously and being more vocal about it (which is a good thing, at least when it comes to Christianity)
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I can tell you yes more and more Gen z are turning to Christianity because it can give you hope and a serious morale compass and the people who don’t believe just don’t want to admit that they might be wrong
Somewhat pertinent here: I think the Christian Nationalists in America should be careful what they wish for. People who experience repression by religious authorities may throw off their religion as well as the repressive regime. Québec is a case in point. In 1950, regular attendance at religious attendance was 98%+. Today it is 4%. In 1950, the Church controlled French language schools, hospitals, welfare, orphanages, institutions for the blind, deaf, disabled. The labour unions were Catholic, there were Catholic newspapers, Catholic collèges Classiques, Catholic universities. The Church decided which entertainments were permitted, and told the parish which political candidate to vote for. The governments of Québec supported the Church out of necessity, and because the Church supplied all social services for nothing. Taxes were low. Successive governments cooperated with the Church’s conservatism by not requiring school attendance (until 1943), supporting small family farms, and enticing American companies to build company towns that offered long term employment for semi-skilled and unskilled.
In 1960, a Quiet Revolution commenced. The province is now officially secular. There are no more public confessional schools.
Today, teenagers only know the vocabulary of the Catholic faith and its mass as “sacres”—cuss words.
Evangelicals who repress freedom too much may find themselves without a congregation.
New church building permits should require designs that allow the buildings to be repurposed and sold for profit. Tell your city or town council.
In Québec, we went from 98% church attendance (1950) to 4% today. We had 2746 churches remaining in 2003: we have closed 762 (28%) as of 2025. Tremendously expensive to maintain or re-purpose, they are usually demolished, and in cities, replaced with commerce or condos. The neighbourhood loses community space.
My priest uncle’s church was designed to be repurposed as an office (presbytery), warehouse (church). Visiting, you would never know: it is a proper church, but with adaptable bones. (Architectural bones: not the altar stone relics). It can be sold for a profit, and the community’s money spent elsewhere.
You would not believe how many of my circle is becoming Catholic, myself included. But I guess that’s a little on the nose.
Watching Joe Folley’s very animated hands, jumping narratives contrasted with Andrew Henry’s calm, impassive, complexly structured prose (including citations: Joe is exhausting. I myself am worse than Joe.
O know it must be only my perception. But I’m 35 yo i have Brent attending to mass every week since 2016. In the past couple of years I’ve had to go to mass very early like 8 am or 9 am.. because every hour from 12:00 pm is PACKED.
I don’t just attend to the same temple, my wife and I like to go to different ones all over the city .
I am a GenZ guy. If anything I have seen a massive Atheism uptick among my peers. Most of these Christians just go into it because it gives their lives some sort of structure which they lack.
Most churches in my area have an increase of attendees
I think the algorithm has discovered religion
29:14 I would disagreed. S.S.O.T.B.M.E the author talks about the difference between religous and magical thinking. Those types of atheist are thinking magically not religiously. So they are not religious in being and spirit even though one may conduct ritual or whatever.
bro, mute yourself when he talks xd
i dont mean to be rude, i love your videos <3
Atheist churches make no sense. Why create a community around something you don't believe in? There are so many other communities to join or create, based on pursuing common interests or causes, that would fulfill the same function.
religion is how you enslave a population without chains.
It's not a religious revival it's a white supremacy Nazism revival
So many protests from “triggered” or flustered Christians of all sects!
Uniformly, the comments read, “The statistics must be wrong, because the catechism class at my church is over-flowing! The young are gripped by the Holy Spirit!”
Those who comment thus offer textbook examples of “anecdotal reports”. They explain why undergraduates find their statistics courses so hard! They explain, if fact, why statistics was one of the late applications of maths, emerging only in the mid-nineteenth century. Often, people find statistics “counter-intuitive”, or at least uncongenial!
If you want to know what is actually happening, consult Pew Research, PRRI, David Voas, Ryan Burge —though he has a paywall. Google “decline in religious affiliation” and enter the nation, region, continent.
The Roman Catholics lose 8 to disaffiliation for every 1 new “convert”. Poor odds.
The only faith that is growing, not declining, is Islam. And who wants to join that mess?
In my experience as a Gen Z Christian, it seems more people are becoming open to the idea, which in fact does lead to some converting. Allthough we arent where we should be, God willing, more people will find the true faith soon <3
I still maintain my religious belief despite my acknowledgement of agnosticism being my preferred "label."
I believe religion always has a place in the world and that some people certainly benefit from it (I mean that in a completely non-cynical way)
That said, especially in America, I'm kinda glad to see fewer people listen to the church.
34:49 ooooh thats interesting!
Theory of mind would also explain CREDs I guess, as you use CREDs to reinforce beliefs about the internal state of others
"Why would the Apostles have died for their beliefs if they didn't believe them"
I attend a Catholic Church in Park Slope Brooklyn and our church is well packed. We have many children w families and young people getting married. It’s wonderful to see. There’s definitely a movement happening in the Catholic community in NYC. There’s definitely an increase in Islam. It feel this trend is all over now – Europe for example.
Personally, I am converting to Christianity and a number of close friends are as well 5-10. Even my girlfriend and many people in her life are. When I go to mass about half the people are 60+ and almost half are under 25. There is definitely a Christian revival happening where I am…
Im no american but i have only witnessed as orthodox in sweden that Orthodox christianity is growing everywhere in the west because of its stability and comservatism. There is a genuine increase in people searching for God but i dont think its as big as articles claim it to be.
It just makes me happy to see more people interested in Eastern Orthodox christianity