Franke: The ‘Rechurching’ of America
by Mark Franke
In unsettled times people of faith turn to prayer. This phenomenon can be seen in history, such as the number of revival meetings in American Civil War army campsites. There are no atheists in foxholes, so the saying goes.
Given the constant bad news about violence and killings, it is not surprising that public statements about prayers for the victims and their families are also in the headlines. Prayer vigils seem to spring up spontaneously, especially on college campuses among young people.
Is this simply a visceral reaction to today’s most egregious violent acts or is something else going on here?
The trend for church attendance and formal religious affiliation has been steadily downward. A study by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djup was published in 2023 under the title “The Great Dechurching.” I’m no sociologist but I can attest to observing this during my lifetime.
This dechurching phenomenon is due more to drifting away than to outright rejection. No doubt COVID encouraged this. Then there is the general cultural deemphasis of permanent commitments to most everything such as jobs and residences but also church membership.
More recent data gives hope that this trend is reversing. Pew and Barna research studies have borne this out. A recent Barna study showed that 66 percent of adult Americans now respond that their Christian faith commitment is important in their life. Compare this to 52 percent just five years ago.
What may be the most significant finding is that this increase is largely in the younger generations, millennials and Gen Z. Boomers are essentially flat, although there is evidence of an increase among men.
This same trend reversal can be seen in Europe, a continent that has been almost entirely secularized in the last century. The increase in church attendance in Britain is 50 percent, mostly among young men. Especially notable is the church attendance surge at parishes located near college campuses such as in Oxford.
Other studies have found increasing numbers of people who pray regularly, suggesting that statements of prayer support for victims is not simple posturing. Again, this is more prevalent among younger adults as an IPSOS survey documented.
A third datapoint is Bible sales. Twenty plus percentage point increases in sales have been reported by the major Bible publishers. Bible reading has increased but at a lower rate. Perhaps this is a trailing indicator for the primary behavioral change.
Even during the dechurching years, the number of people who said they were spiritual but not religiously affiliated rose. Could this be the group that has triggered the increases in the more traditional religious activities such as church attendance and Bible reading? Is self-professed spirituality just another way of describing someone seeking answers to transcendent questions?
A Family Research Council survey of young people attempted to delve into the reasons why these generations are leading this reawakening. What the survey found is that young people “are tired of being lied to.” They are “yearning for the truth,” a truth that they certainly won’t find in Washington DC or Hollywood.
One can sympathize with their disillusionment about the world they are inheriting. They are confronted with the futility of expecting the world to get better but it always seems to get worse. We Boomers rebelled against our parents’ generation, quick to criticize their shortcomings but never articulating an achievable route to our dream of a better society. What we left was a landscape of spiritual decay and helplessness, an open invitation for a self-centered nihilism to blanket all.
This can’t be all there is, our young adults rightly ask. They intuitively sense that the only sure outcome from pursuing a lifestyle focused on pleasing oneself is misery. It seldom turns out the way we want. What is left is an aimless pilgrimage through a spiritual wasteland, seeking but not finding.
It is during the most challenging times that a flight to faith can be observed. This is especially true during periods of intense persecution as history instructs us. The fact that there were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in any previous one tells us something about the world in which we live.
The perceived disconnect between Bible sales and regular Bible reading could be resolving itself as the need for spiritual comfort has never been greater in my lifetime. It takes no intellectual stretch to anticipate that the two indicators will come together. It just makes sense; as one Bible publisher asked, “Why buy the book and never read it?”
St. Augustine, in the conversion account in his “Confessions,” tells us it began with an encounter with a child’s voice commanding him to “Take up [the Bible] and read.” Fortunately for the Christian church. Augustine did just that.
Americans, and Europeans, are increasingly finding that advice pertinent in these unsettled times. Are we on the cusp of another Great Awakening?
Mark Franke, M.B.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and its book reviewer, is formerly an associate vice-chancellor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
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