Update on a Phenomenon
People are coming back to church, for better and for worse.
So it’s not just my imagination.
At a recent Dean’s Forum, our church leaders confirmed what I’d been suspecting: the church is growing. We’ve not only recovered our pre-COVID attendance, but surpassed it. Membership is up across demographics, but the fastest-growing age bracket is the 20s-30s cohort.
For someone who has attended Episcopal churches for the past two decades, it’s hard to overstate how surprising this is. The mainline denominations had been in a perpetual freefall. The data showed that attendance rates kept going down and down while the median age kept going up and up.
The idea that younger people are becoming interested in Christianity again is wild enough. But for them to be interested in the Episcopal Church? That feels downright miraculous.
I recently heard a podcast that confirmed these trends nationwide, across denominations, which was encouraging but also gave me cause for concern.
Back in February, I speculated that people might be looking to religion as an alternative to our ever-more-polarized political culture. But when I shared my optimism with a friend recently, he told me that a non-denominational, Evangelical, Christian Nationalist church near his home was also growing at a rapid clip. If more and more people were attending churches like this one, he thought, this rebirth of belief might not be such a good thing after all.
I’ve certainly fallen out of touch with “the youth,” but I used to think about how funny it would be if those of us who upset our conservative parents with our more liberal beliefs wound up with kids who ‘rebeled’ by becoming conservative, throwing it right back in our faces.
I had hoped The Evangelical Right’s influence would fizzle. But it’s still a significant force, it seems, and it’s making its case to young people across the country.
What makes my church good and these churches bad? Who am I to judge? Oh, I’ll tell you! But for the moment, I’ll just make one point. I think my church tends to attract people who don’t know what to believe anymore and offers them a different kind of hope to cling to, while these politically active rightwing churches attract people who already hold certain beliefs by telling them that God shares their opinions and is on their side.
So the things you were already passionate about now take on some kind of Cosmic significance. That probably feels pretty good, but to quote the great Anne Lamott, “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.”
With that being said, I love that our church is growing. We’ll need the numbers over here to balance things out and provide a compelling alternative. But more than that, I love what the church represents. The grounds are a refuge for the homeless, a meeting place for the addicted, and a gathering place for members with all kinds of backgrounds and perspectives.
Church is one of the few places where everyone is truly welcome. There are no prerequisites. You can just walk in and people kind of have to be nice to you. It’s one of the few places where people who just don’t seem to fit any place else are received with open arms and the love of Jesus.
One of the thoughts I’ve often had while observing the church body—before this influx of young people arrived—has been, “At least I’ll have some place to go when I’m old.” That may seem a little bleak, but it’s genuine. So few spaces really welcome the elderly. Loneliness is one of my biggest fears, and I am particularly afraid of how it will afflict me later in life, when I am not so healthy and mobile. They say when you are young, you spend most of your time with your friends; in middle age, with your family; when you are old, alone. To know there will always be church potlucks, Bible studies, and services for me to attend—a community for me to belong to—gives me comfort.
Lately, I feel more and more adrift politically. I don’t feel like I have a team to root for, and the inefficacy of my sad, little efforts becomes more and more apparent as the years pass and the culture moves in ways I find troubling. When you are adrift, you look for anything solid; anything that might endure beyond the next election cycle, etc. Our church is becoming more and more of that anchor for me, something that keeps me centered, grounded, and focused on my beliefs and values, not just my pleasure or financial well-being or displeasure with current events. I think we all long for such an anchor, and I’m glad to know a new generation is discovering it within these old, creaky walls.
Love that quote by Anne Lamott! “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.”
There is a crisis of identity, loneliness, and purpose in the United States--especially among the younger generation. My concern is that certainty and fundamentalism always seem to have a better sales pitch than "mystery" or "freedom within a framework of faith." And both liberal christian churches and fundamentalist/conservative ones have better sales pitches than any non-God-centered ethos. You even have the Jordan Petersons of the world arguing for some sort of bizarre abstract "living as though God exists."
I just don't see an increase in religiosity turning out well for the U.S. -- It seems like it will be more Jesus and John Wayne and less humility and service like the Jesus of the Bible. It will be more like Gilead and less like heaven on Earth.
I don't attend church, but I know and see its potential for good. I'm glad people like you and my other friends find true comfort and community at church. At the same time, I'm disheartened by all the overt Christian nationalism -- all the broad "they-ing" in reference to anyone who does not hold Christian conservative values. I know it's not true Christianity, but it doesn't matter because those voices have more power right now than the meek true Christians.
It's having a real impact on my vocation--education. There's a push for more federal dollars for "homeschooling" or for "school choice" (i.e. tax credits for a child to go to a private Christian school). There's more pressure on educators from PTA activists who want to curate or sensor certain voices/perspectives or books. There's threat of or actual loss of federal funding. There's xenophobia impacting exchange students from non-western/christian countries (some students at my school did not leave the country for fear of not being able to return for the fall school year). There's a real sense of "tread lightly" where there used to be more freedom of discourse and ability to qualify personal opinions while still teaching facts. It's all wrapped up in the culture war the Christian right has been waging for years, but now with the blessing of a very powerful P-resident T-rump.
I'm in a different part of the country, but I don't see a lot of young adults age 18-30 at the 2 churches within a stones throw of my house. I do see a few more "In God We Trust" bumper stickers next to American Flag and MAGA decals (They're not on the cars politely allowing me to merge into traffic). I'd like to believe as many people are joining a church like yours as are joining Christian Nationalist affinity groups, but I think it's not even close. As Bill Maher says, "I don't know it for a fact...I just know it's true." Resident Rump and MAGA made it possible to be a Christian without actually being like Jesus. Resident Rump likes messiah's who don't get captured and die with all that pussy turning the other cheek crap. The Turning Point U-S-A! crowd is about power and control and "traditional family values." That's particularly appealing to young males of a certain ilk. They're the ones feeling the most irrelevant, disenfranchised, and rudderless in the 21st century. They're not going to "church" per se, but they are using religion to justify their perceived right to power. The 18-30s males are looking for acceptance somewhere and so far the Conservative Christian Nationalist MAGAsphere seems to be offering them something more appealing than the Liberal Left.
So what? I hope that most of us are actually stuck in the middle somewhere. I hope that reason prevails over religion. I hope that kindness wins over cruelty.
Thanks for another great think piece!