Ep. 62 / Gen Z 's Quiet Renewal and Return to Religion with Daniel K. Williams

Headlines keep telling one story, but the numbers point somewhere else: a growing percentage of Gen Z is finding their way to church—and staying. In this episode we sit down with historian Dr. Daniel K. Williams to unpack fresh data, campus anecdotes and the cultural undercurrents drawing young adults toward a faith that feels rooted, communal and transcendent.

We trace how pandemic isolation and a performance-driven culture left many young people hungry for more than achievement, sparking renewed interest in communities with clear beliefs and embodied practices. Dr. Williams connects the dots across Barna, Harvard and Pew, then reaches back to the Second Great Awakening and the 1950s boom to show how spiritual renewal often springs up when it defies elite expectations. 

Along the way, we confront a notable twist: more young men are returning than young women, and many are landing in Catholic parishes and charismatic evangelical spaces. We explore why authority, liturgy and a global church identity resonate in a moment of rapid change. If you’re curious about why young adults are seeking God again, how to welcome them without losing the plot to politics, and what it takes to sustain renewal, this conversation offers clarity, hope and a roadmap. 

If you'd like to learn more from Daniel K. Williams you can go to his website and purchase his latest book.

And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube! 

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Transcript

A Surprising Stat On Gen Z Faith

Brian Stiller 0:10

Welcome to Evangelical 360. I'm your host, Brian Stiller. If someone told you that Americans aged 28 or younger are more faithful in attending church than their parents or grandparents, you'd roll your eyes, smile, and say of course not. Well, here's the rub. You'd be wrong. The Barner Group, a US-based pollster, has found that people aged twenty-eight and under are indeed currently more faithful in attending church than their parents or grandparents. We've been saturated with the assumption that our secular society is taking over. That our historic Christian faith is going by the wayside, that science has disproved the Christian faith. Material well-being matters more than religious belief and liberation from religious restrictions is better than having a bedrock of virtue or a trustworthy scaffolding of ethical living. Those attending reporting a real encounter with the divine, reports of young people returning to faith sprouted up everywhere. He's author of books related to the recent history of Christianity and politics in the U.S., which includes God's own party, the making of the Christian Right, and the Politics of the Cross, a Christian alternative to partisanship. What he is observing in North America is so far outside the mainline media's anti-religious preoccupation that at first it may seem beyond reality. But I ask that you hear him out. And to you, my friend, thanks for joining. Please consider sharing this episode with a friend, and if you haven't done so already, hit the subscribe button. You can also join the conversation on YouTube in the comments below. Now to my guest, Daniel Williams. Daniel Williams, thanks for joining us on Evangelical 360.

Introducing Historian Daniel K. Williams

Daniel Williams 2:33

Thanks for having me.

Brian Stiller 2:34

Dan, I'm just going to read part of a quote in your article that came out in September, and you quoted a uh uh a report from the Barna Group, which is a pollster, and you said that Americans 28 years or younger, and I quote, are more faithful in their church attendance than are church members of their parents or grandparents' generation. Now that is a shocker. Were you surprised when you saw that?

Corroborating The Trend With Multiple Studies

Daniel Williams 3:08

In to a certain extent, yes. Uh, but I think I had also read enough uh in the months leading up to that to let me know that maybe there was something new going on with Generation Z, as this younger group is often called. So I think for the previous five years or so, we've been hearing a steady stream of negative reports, that is, negative reports from a Christian perspective, on the prospects for Christianity among Gen Zers and millennials. We've been hearing about the rise of what are called the nones, uh, that is, people with no religious affiliation who simply say they have none when uh asked what their religion is. And we've been told that Christians are likely to be a minority uh in the United States within another uh generation or so, uh, that by 2070, we can expect uh Christianity to be a fairly small, beleaguered group in a mostly secular nation, just like uh has occurred in in much of Europe. And so then uh this year we've been hearing some very different reports. And I think the turnaround is astonishing. I mentioned uh in one place where I wrote recently that the ink was barely dry on books such as uh Christian Smith's Why Religion Went Obsolete, which by the way is a good book, uh, despite the bleak title. But uh that's what we had been told, even leading up to the very beginning of this year. But now we're getting several reports, not just from the Barna group, but from other places as well, that indicate a very rapid turnaround in Generation Z's embrace of Christianity. Not only are more people under 28 becoming Christians, sometimes really discovering faith for the first time. Not only is that happening, but when they become Christians, they are gravitating toward theologically conservative communities. They're becoming more devout uh than their parents or or grandparents, and they they seem to be longing for church community and embracing both both the beliefs and the behaviors that one would expect of church members.

Brian Stiller 5:23

Now, Dan, these number numbers are fairly reliable. They are indicative of a of a wider sweep, a shift, a change.

Why Young People Are Turning To Church

Daniel Williams 5:31

Yes. So I think we always need to be skeptical when we see a report in isolation that doesn't seem to match the rest of the data, because any study can be flawed. But I think if you compare the Barna Group's study to a study uh that Harvard University produced in 2023 that didn't get a whole lot of press at the time, but but was out there showing uh an increase of perhaps even hundreds of thousands, possibly even a couple million people coming into the Catholic Church from Gen Z between uh 2022 and 2023, with the the percentage of Gen Zers identifying as Catholic changing from only 15% in 2022 to uh bopping 21% uh only a year later in 2023, uh indicating that six percentage point increase there. When you compare it to that study, uh when you look at some other work that Ryan Burge has done, Ryan Burge's numbers tend to correspond to uh the numbers that I'm I'm seeing uh from the Pew Center as well. Uh, what we're seeing is that while uh while a sizable percentage of Gen Zers are non-religious, and while the percentage of non-religious Gen Zers outnumber those that are conservative Christians, nevertheless, there is a thriving and growing number of Gen Zers who are who are Christian. And those those Gen Zers who are Christian are overwhelmingly identifying with more theologically conservative groups, uh, mainly Catholic, uh, some parts of evangelicalism rather than with mainline or liberal Protestantism. And so I I think what we're seeing going forward, the all of the studies together seem to indicate that while Gen Z Generation Z is not necessarily going to be majority religious in, say, the way that the World War II generation was in the United States during the 1950s. That was a generation that was just overwhelmingly churched. Nevertheless, Christianity is thriving among Generation Z, and it is likely to account for a significant minority of Gen Zers going forward. That is, we're not moving toward a society like uh secular Europe has been for the previous half century. Instead, we're likely to see a continuation of the type of country that the United States was in the 1980s and 1990s, uh, with the variations, of course, appropriate for this generation, but we can expect Christianity to remain a strong, viable option going forward.

Brian Stiller 8:18

Now, as you observe those numbers done given to you by the pollsters, what are you seeing at the very heart and base of the American culture that is fueling this rise? To use another metaphor, what are the cultural winds that are blowing that are creating this draft, a very strong movement, it seems, uh, of a younger generation that doesn't seem to have much of a of a Christian rooting, at least? Or do those who come to faith, or those that are moving towards uh an expression of Christian faith, do they come from families that were expressively Christian, like Catholic or evangelical? Or what is I guess what is what's brewing in the in your culture that is producing this?

Asbury Revival And Personal Conversions

Daniel Williams 9:09

Well, there are some unusual features of this revival, and I think it's important to recognize the complexity of it, so that uh, you know, as as evangelical Christians, we of course would like to celebrate faith and and always do, uh, but it's important not to exaggerate what we're seeing or expect something of it that it's not delivering, but nevertheless be honest uh about its complexity. So one of the unusual features of this revival is that there are more young men who are coming to faith than young women. That's a reversal of uh centuries of a pattern in American Christianity, and I guess to a certain extent, uh global Christianity as well, that we tend to think of uh churches as being more appealing to to women. Uh certainly that has been true of the Catholic Church uh in the United States in the past and of most evangelical churches. But this religious revival is a little bit different than that. It's also very closely associated with political conservatism, which I think is something that uh needs to be acknowledged. And uh it's associated with particular wings of Christianity rather than than others. So, particularly the charismatic wing of evangelicalism and uh Catholicism. So I think it's important to note that because that may give us a clue as to what is going on. It seems that in the aftermath of COVID, uh, which was really quite devastating to Generation Z, uh, nearly all uh Gen Zers in the United States were affected to one degree or another by the COVID shutdowns, uh the social isolation. And of course, that was hard for pretty much anyone that experienced it. But I think, especially for people who were in middle school or high school at the time, uh that's a vulnerable time of life. And it's difficult to be away from your friends, uh to be socially isolated for months, even in some cases for more than a year, depending on the particular COVID protocols that were in place. I think also among young men, there's there's a reaction against uh what's pejoratively called the woke culture, uh, particularly uh young white men, but even uh young men of color who are who feel like this culture doesn't really have anything to offer to them as men, uh, are sometimes looking for something that they're not finding in secular liberalism on America's college campuses. And I think there's kind of an emptiness of contemporary values, even for people who embrace uh the secular values around us. Uh that is, when I read Christian Smith's book, Why Religion Went Obsolete, which is essentially about why uh millennials and Gen Xers, so people slightly older than Gen Zers, have rejected organized religion. When I read that, I was struck by the emptiness of what they've replaced it with. Uh, there's not a whole lot of hope in the philosophies that they've embraced. It's mainly a philosophy of self-empowerment, of fulfillment through career, of working hard to get into the right college and then get into the right career. Uh, but there's a real sense of loneliness uh that seems to be pervasive. And of course, that's not particularly new. Uh, it was exacerbated, of course, by COVID. But uh as early as 2000, we were reading books like uh Bowling Alone, uh, which were describing the emptiness of modern life and the lack of community connection. And so Gen Zers have been raised for their entire lives in this world of meritocracy, of individualism, of a very strong pressure to find yourself by looking within yourself and a lack of connection to others. And so I think for on the part of a lot of people who feel like this is just not offering them anything, they're looking for community, but they're looking for more than just a social club. They're looking for something transcendent, they're looking for something ancient, uh, something that is going to ground them, that's going to rise above the moment. And for those of us who are older than Gen Zers, we've observed the culture shifting very rapidly. Uh, Gen Zers, of course, have seen less of that because they've lived in this moment. But even within their own moment, uh, even within their own lifetimes, they've seen changes. Uh, they've seen changes in how people talk about gender, for example, and they they've seen other cultural changes. And I think even for people in their 20s, they've lived long enough to see that there's there's something very transitory and not uh very grounded in all of this. And so they're looking for some sort of authority in their life that deserves to be authoritative. And for some people, either the Catholic Church or some form of Christianity that uh is connected with eternal truth claims and that also offers a sense of purpose and meaning, a sense of identity that comes from something larger than the self. That's what they're looking for.

Brian Stiller 14:41

Some months ago, the Asbury uh school in in uh the university in in southern U.S. had a remarkable uh uh extended chapel service that went on for days and weeks. Some would call it a um a mini revival. Is that the kind of thing that you're thinking about, or is that a an anomaly in the religious life of universities and young people in America?

Minority Momentum And Campus Networks

Historical Parallels: Awakenings And 1950s Boom

Daniel Williams 15:13

I think it's one manifestation of it. It's probably not the most common manifestation. So most converts are from Gen Z or not coming to Christ in the context of a revival. But the fact that this revival occurred, I think, is a sign that Generation Z is indeed looking for a connection with God. And so for those particular students and for the thousands of people who came from from outside of Asbury, who just wanted a piece of this revival, who wanted to pray even for a few hours or or sometimes a few days with these students uh and to experience something of the Holy Spirit, that that's one manifestation of this spiritual hunger. But the more frequent story is of just individual conversions. So a few weeks ago, I was at an event where there was a Catholic priest uh who was also in attendance at this academic event, and I happened to be uh sitting next to him at the at the dinner table. And so I had a chance to talk to him a bit about what he was experiencing in in his church, which is located in uh a college town. And he was talking about how many young people are coming to him uh in numbers that he's just never seen before. Uh, and that's that confirms what I've heard from others as well in that situation. This is this is widespread anecdotal evidence that fits the data, uh, but it just provides his personal story. And so I asked him, well, what is the background of these people? Why, why did they why did they walk into a Catholic church for the first time? Did they, were they raised as cultural Catholics, or did they did they talk about uh finding an a Catholic apologetic website online that convinced them? What was their story? He said, well, he said, you know, some of them have had some experiences with the Catholic Church in the past, but uh the most common uh denominator there that tends to characterize almost everyone is that they've had some sort of supernatural experience. They've had some uh aspect of the transcendent that cannot be explained, they think, with a secular framework. And they they know there's something out there, there's something beyond. And so they want to find out more. Uh, and so they walk into a church and want to talk to a priest. And so I think that's probably more often the way that these conversions occur. There's not necessarily uh a revival at a specific place where we can see the Holy Spirit moving. It's rather there are a lot of individual people who are moved to connect in some way with what is beyond them. And if Christians are in the right place, they can tap into that. Now, some of these people, I think when they first start looking for the transcendent, have such a vague idea of what that is that if they're in the wrong place, you know, they could meet someone with a new age philosophy or they could, they could tap into the spiritual but not religious. But I think if Christians are in the right place, they can have conversations with people that will lead to something. And certainly on college campuses, the larger the contingent of Christians there is in that place, the more likely it is that they'll be able to bring people into a community, to bring people into a network so that they can invite their friends to uh events, perhaps from a campus ministry. Uh, they can they can connect with others. And I think Gen Z is ideally suited for that right now because, as I said, it's still a Christianity is still a minority option. That is, faithful uh Christian living among Gen Zers is still a minority option. But it's a it's a sizable enough minority. Uh, when you have about a quarter of Gen Z now uh going to church every week, uh, that's a sizable enough minority that that most Gen Zers in the United States in most places are going to know other Christians their age. And it's small enough, it's a small enough contingent that it can still be countercultural uh and still retain that that edge of being a challenge to the to the dominant culture that feels so empty to people and yet uh large enough and and potentially vibrant enough that people will come into contact with it. And that's what I think is going on.

Brian Stiller 19:45

Dan, do you see any historical examples of of of the of reviving of church attendance, of, of Bible reading, of confession of faith publicly? Do you have any examples? Historically, in your country, that might give some insight as to what this is leading to.

Guarding Faith From Partisanship

Daniel Williams 20:07

There are several examples. The one that I think is perhaps most inspiring is what occurred at the very end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century. So the Revolutionary War generation in the United States was not a universally religious generation. It was a generation that was less churched than the previous generations had been in American colonial history. And among educated people, the rational deism of people like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin was really gaining ground. It was not necessarily a majority option, but it was large enough to be influential. And it seemed like that's where some of the colleges were heading. At Harvard, for example, as Harvard was becoming more Unitarian and would become officially Unitarian in the first decade of the 19th century, that that seemed to be, if you were making predictions, it seemed to be in the 1780s, 1790s what you would expect for the future of Christianity among educated people. And when Lyman Beecher came to Yale in 1795, he said that there were hardly any Orthodox Christians that he he met, that the there was uh you know widespread partying and and profanity and and a lack of interest in spiritual things. And when people shared their religious beliefs, they seemed to be to have very heterodox uh ideas that were leaning toward deism or Unitarianism. And but then there was a religious revival. Uh and at Yale, it started with the presidency of Timothy Dwight in the late 1790s, where he he wanted to make what was at the time called Christian evidences. Today we might call it apologetics, uh, but Christian evidences are required part of the curriculum. So every student would take classes in a class in natural theology and another one in Christian evidences. Uh he preached revival sermons trying to cultivate faith uh in people by the preaching of the gospel. And beyond the halls of Yale, there was a revival that spread across the frontier. Uh, and it it manifested itself in a variety of things, some of which were maybe uh a little more heterodox than others. So out of what's called the Second Great Awakening of the first few decades of the 19th century, we have uh some groups that that many Christians might consider um outside the bounds of Orthodoxy, like Joseph Smith and the rise of the Mormons. But in much larger numbers, we have expressions of true evangelical Christianity. So by the 1850s, the Methodist Church was by far the largest church, the largest denominational family in the in the United States. And second to that were the Baptists, both very evangelical at the time. And the Methodists preached so many sermons across uh the American frontier with these circuit writing preachers that the average American uh I've read in the 1840s played more Methodist sermons per year than uh received letters in the mail. Uh it was an astonishing turnaround. And the percentage of Americans who were church members doubled uh between the time of the Revolutionary War and 1850. So by 1850, twice, uh not just twice as many in terms of number because the country was, of course, so much larger in population, but the but the percentage of Americans who were church members was twice as high as it what it what it had been in the 1770s. So, you know, that's an encouraging story of revival. There's another story that I'll share uh a little bit more briefly, uh, that's also a story of revival of sorts, um, but is a little bit more uh problematic from uh from a political angle, and that is in the 1950s, uh the United States reached its highest rate of church attendance ever uh in recorded American history. The country had seemed to be going toward a more secular direction in the 1920s and 1930s, but in the early years of the Cold War, in the aftermath of World War II, there was this sudden surge in church tendons and in a hunger for spiritual things. I mean, Billy Graham was, of course, reaching the height of his early ministry at that point with his crusades attracting thousands of people across the country, and and of course finding allies in high places like uh President Dwight Eisenhower and Vice President Richard Nixon. Uh that revival, though, does have a uh a civil religious dimension that that needs to be noted. And and I think the same caution could be applied to whatever we're seeing today in American uh conservative Christianity. That that revival was very closely associated with ideas of Americanism in the and opposition to communism. So none of these revivals exist in a vacuum. And the the Second Great Awakening, of course, gave rise to its own political movements, including uh both temperance and anti-slavery, the abolitionist movement and was in some ways connected with that second great awakening of the early 19th century. Uh, but the the revivals of the 1950s uh were often connected to a bipartisan, uh generically American way of life. Uh and ultimately that would break down for many people, that that that that perhaps was not strong enough to hold people. And so at this current political and religious moment in American history, we we need to ask the question as well what it is this revival connected with uh some larger political trends, and and if so, are those helpful for the cause of Christianity or or not? Uh there are political trends that can produce conversions, but that also undermine a movement uh in the long term, and and those questions need to be asked.

Brian Stiller 26:06

And as you as you see this surge of spiritual interest, uh how can that the essence of that spiritual surge isolate itself from being overtaken by the dominant cultural moves of set of of materialism, of political identity, and so forth, and contain and retained its own spirit spiritual purity uh and uh intensity.

Pastors Discipling A Politically Split Flock

Daniel Williams 26:39

I think that's a great question. And unfortunately, in the US, we haven't had a very good track record on that. Uh I think it's very easy for us to uh confuse Christianity with other things that fit in, we think, with this worldview. And that's especially true at this particular moment, because I think one of the things that has given rise to this religious revival is a reaction against some of the politics of the left, as it's often called in the US now, uh, but but progressive uh Democrats who have over the last 10 years, in the name of equality, moved toward uh a more aggressive stance on issues like abortion rights and even more on uh LGBTQ issues uh such as transgender uh equality and uh other matters. And so as we see this religious revival occurring, it seems to me, based on the uh close association, the unusual association with young men rather than young women, and also with a very strong gender divide in American politics, uh, where young women are much more likely to vote Democratic, young men far more likely to vote uh Republican and to support uh President Donald Trump and his agenda. And so as we see this, we are, of course, as we know, in a very uh hyperpartisan polarized moment in the United States. And so it the temptation will be overwhelming for people to confuse Christianity with some aspect of that partisanship. My hope is that the people who are finding Christ in this moment are going to realize that Jesus offers something that's a lot greater than a uh particular political platform. And I think the forms of Christianity to which people are converting could potentially offer that antidote to partisanship, but only if people are sensitive enough to realize that. So, for example, if people are becoming Catholic, they are entering a global church, uh, which of course long predates not only the current American political moment, but the the formation of the United States entirely. It's it's a it has roots in something that's far larger than America. Also, if people are converting into charismatic uh forms of evangelicalism, charismatic Christianity is a global movement, and it's largely associated in certain places with uh people who are poor, people who are marginalized. It's very interracial, uh, even in the United States. And so I think the more the people can realize that what they've entered into is both a community of faith that's far older than the United States and far more, far larger and more diverse than the United States, the more they're going to see uh that Christianity cannot be reduced to a political slogan or a political agenda. That said, Americans over the past few decades uh have had a problem, as I think we both know, with confusing Christianity both with the American flag and with a particular party. That's occurred on both the right and the left, but among uh white evangelical Christians, it's been much more pronounced on the right uh than on the left. That is, uh American evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics, but especially American uh evangelical Protestants, have tended to equate their Christianity with a uh particular set of issues that are commonly associated with the Republican Party. And there are reasons for doing that. Uh the global church historically has not been in favor of abortion. Uh, and so many Christians have believed, and I think with good reason, that they need to they need to speak out in defense of life and the and the value of God's uh image bearers. But one problem with that in a political context is that whatever political agenda that you adopt, it's always going to simplify matters and and confuse a particular application with a theological principle. And I think that's one of the problems with churches that have become very closely associated with uh with a political agenda, it it tends to uh shortchange the gospel in all of its complexity.

Brian Stiller 31:42

Dan, in your book, Politics of the Cross, uh you suggest alternatives to spirituality, one's own religious belief, becoming aligned with a political side. Now, of course, in America, because you have you have a a division between basically two, you have a bipolar political landscape. In most of the other countries, in Canada, for example, we have at least five political options. But regardless of whether you have two or five, what are some of those alternatives as uh as church leaders guide and as young people look for their own spiritual well-being, what are alternatives to that political alignment that one's faith can uh assert?

Global Signals: A Quiet Revival Abroad

Daniel Williams 32:33

First of all, what we need to realize as Christians is that uh regardless of the political options that we have in front of us, there's no political option that's going to perfectly equate with uh Jesus' standard of righteousness or with the gospel. So our identity is always going to have to be rooted in Christ, not in a political party, even if we happen to find a political party that's actually pretty good, that that lines up with a lot of what we believe. And the other thing I think I would add to that also is that parties are applications of theological principles at their best. Uh, at worst, of course, they might be forms of political uh of Christian heresy. But uh if even the best sort of party is going to advocate for a particular application of a theological principle that should not be confused with the with the theological principle itself, there might be an evangelical denomination, for example, that would say that it's very clear based on their understanding of the Bible and based on their understanding of Christian theology and the church's record over the past 2,000 years that uh the church should be speaking out in defense of unborn human life. And I think one can make a compelling case for that. Certainly uh that's what the Catholic Church uh has said, and that's what a number of evangelical denominations have also said. But when it comes to particular abortion policies, we're looking at applications of that principle. We're not looking at the principle itself. So uh that particular policy is not going to tell you, for example, whether you should uh treat uh abortion as murder under the law and you know, imprison doctors for life who who perform an abortion or whether it's best to fight abortion by providing uh positive alternatives uh to abortion, that is maybe expand the social well, social welfare uh safety net to care for people in need, to deter women who are facing uh poverty from perhaps terminating a pregnancy that comes at an inconvenient time in their lives. Both of those stances could, in the minds of some people, be considered pro-life, and yet they're very different stances and likely taken if if a party takes them at all. They'd be different political parties that would take those stances. Uh, and that's just, of course, one principle. There are so many other principles uh that one could look at. And so I think as Christians, we need to give each other the benefit of the doubt, to treat each other with love, that a healthy congregation can have people of multiple political perspectives who share a belief in the same uh the same essentials, not just the creeds, the historic creeds and confessions, but but even a statement of faith that might go beyond that, that might actually include things like abortion or things like sexuality. And yet the way they're going to apply those principles in the political sphere will differ from individual to individual. And once we have that view, I think we'll we'll have what we need to prevent the church from becoming simply an arm of a political party. The church will remain relevant, the church will talk about issues of political concern, but it will do so in a way that doesn't simply sign on to a political agenda. And in the United States, because uh we have what I think is an unfortunate situation where we do only have two viable options, so many Christians will make the argument that, well, the other party we know is worse. So regardless of what our party does, we have to accept it. We have to accept behavior from people who are leading this party, no matter how reprehensible that behavior might be, because as long as we believe the other party is worse, we are obligated to support this. And that's really a terrible idea. I mean, an individual Christian may take that position legitimately in a particular election and based on their own conscience say, I know this is not the ideal option, but I'm going to vote for the lesser of two evils. But if we then start mandating that as a standard for everyone and linking the church to this agenda and criticizing people who criticize the leaders of our side, that's a that's a serious problem, I think. Uh it it really hinders our gospel witness.

Brian Stiller 36:51

Now, Dan, if you're a pastor or priest and you're leading your congregation and you you have this surge of young people coming into your congregation, and yet you're you're dealing with an adult population that may be very politically persuaded in one way. Uh, how do you nurture young people into an authentic walk with Christ rather than simply have this cultural hangover of being Christian because it suits a particular political point of view or cultural point of view?

Theology, Zeal, And Enduring Renewal

Daniel Williams 37:25

One thing that I think is true for this generation and has been true uh for most young generations for some period of time, going back decades, is that young people are looking for a way to be different. Uh that is, they're they're they're willing to uh be countercultural, uh, as long as they have other people of their own generation, perhaps who are going to be countercultural with them. But uh that that characterized the baby boomers in the late 60s and early 70s with the Jesus people movement, especially that was very strong in California for a few years in the early 70s. These were people who who knew they wanted Jesus, but didn't want uh the sort of Jesus that might have been uh part of suburban America uh before this. And so, in the same way, I think Gen Zers are hungering for something that will make a difference. And one of the reasons that there was such uh widespread identification with Charlie Kirk among uh conservative young people and especially young men on college campuses was because here was a man that they identified with courage. Uh, they identified him with speaking truth uh in difficult situations. Now, whether the whether that adulation was merited or not is you know another question that could be debated at another time. But uh, but in any case, it was very clear, I think, from the remarks that were made at Charlie Kirk's memorial service and remarks made elsewhere online that people were looking for a set of beliefs that was so powerful that someone would be willing to die for those beliefs. And so unfortunately, a lot of people have equated that now, I think, with with a conservative political movement. But I think a pastor or priest could speak into that Moad and could say Christianity, of course, is worth dying for, uh, to a much greater degree than any political movement would be. Uh, it's based on, of course, someone dying for us, and then we in turn uh are asked to follow in Jesus' steps. And there is in Christianity a call to die. Uh that's that's powerful. That's like that's something that I think could resonate with people who are disappointed with the political system. There's a there's a deep sense of Of uh emptiness and frustration and cynicism among Gen Zers and to a certain extent, even millennials and Gen Xers too, uh, but but a sense that that something is not working in society. And so this is this is a moment that is poised to be a countercultural moment. And if we can insist that Christianity is countercultural, that Christianity is not linked to the agenda of a political party, that Christianity offers something that's much more powerful than anything that people can find outside of Christian spaces, then I think that's a message that actually is going to be very appealing.

Brian Stiller 40:42

Dan, the Bible Society in England have produced a report called calling what's going on today a quiet revival. Also, in France, recently there was a public television documentary which warned the French people that evangelicals were taking over and they were to be feared. And the Catholic Church recorded the the greatest number of baptisms in France that they've had have in decades. So you see this kind of movement that's beyond America. But as you look at it as a historian, uh what things are you looking for as a sustaining factor in this, what we have seen currently as a spiritual move among young people?

Daniel Williams 41:31

We should not be surprised at all by revivals of religion, because uh, like uh a number of other historians like Rodney Stark and others, I I think that religion will always be part of who we are as as humans, that people can suppress their religious impulses for a while, they can find substitutes, they can find causes, for example, that can can substitute for any organized religion. But but sooner or later there's going to be a turn to some sort of religious faith on the part of every society, really. Uh, that secularism cannot sustain itself uh forever. And and from a Christian standpoint, I I would explain that theologically, by the way that God created us, to look for something beyond ourselves. Uh empirically, as a historian, uh leaving God out of the picture for the moment uh in this analysis, I would say that it seems obvious if you look at societies throughout recorded history for thousands of years, that that each society tends to gravitate toward toward some sense of of the divine, some sort of religion, some sort of organizing structure, which which includes, uh, if not the supernatural, at least something very close to it, uh, in the case of some places that have organized themselves around a philosophy like Confucianism. But but most of the time it actually is explicitly theistic. Most of the time, people are actually worshiping something very directly. And so what we're seeing in France and England is probably what uh I would have expected to happen sooner or later, that the the secular predictions that that Europe's uh rejection of organized religion in the 1960s that has sustained itself for the better part of half a century or more would just continue forever, I think uh were really based on a misunderstanding of religion as a passing force. And so I'm I'm not surprised at all that people are looking to religion. Now, the question of whether it's going to whether this is going to stay is a good one because we do know that religious revivals not only come, but they also go. And in American history, the Second Great Awakening sustained religion for about a generation or two. And then uh after the Civil War, after uh the rise of new intellectual critiques of Christianity, like uh higher uh biblical criticism coming from Germany or Darwinian evolution, things that people found difficult to fit into the framework of the pre-Civil War evangelicalism, uh, as well as evangelical evangelicalism's failure to really prevent the Civil War, to provide a unified moral consensus on the question of slavery, you know, all those things took their toll on Christianity. And so this religious revival that had seemed so strong, say in 1840, uh ultimately uh ended. And and the same with the Christian revivals of the 1950s, the the 1960s seemed to bring a different sort of story. So I think it is something that we need to worry about, uh not panic over, but but be concerned about that that especially as Christianity gets wrapped up in in other things of this world. And if it's if it fails to meet the moment, uh the political moment uh of the next generation, then there probably will be a counter-reaction against it. Uh and in general, around the world, what I could say is that uh Christianity tends to be strongest when people see it as liberating and as an alternate alternative to the emptiness of secularism. And it tends to face a counterreaction when it's viewed as authoritarian or outmoded. So, for example, in in Europe, over the past generation, the highest church tenants rates in Europe have been uh in Poland, because Poland was uh, of course, the place where the Catholic Church in the 1980s took the lead in resisting against communist totalitarianism. And on the other hand, what has happened in Ireland, I think, is really uh a good uh warning for the for the church in general. Uh Irish church attendance rates had been remarkably high uh for decades after much of Europe secularized, because it was associated, Christianity in in Ireland, particularly Catholicism in in uh the Irish Republic, tended to be associated with resistance to uh English control and with Irish identity. But once scandals broke out that caused people to lose faith in the Calvin Church, to feel like they had been lied to over the years, that they had been betrayed, then church attendance rates in Ireland plummeted. And today, Ireland is about as uh secular-minded on the hot button issues of abortion and sexuality. Uh, and church attendance rates now are about as low as they are in in much of the rest of Europe. And that's that's a phenomenon that's less than 20 years old because of this reaction. So I think that's a warning to churches, it's a warning to Christians. We can lose people's trust uh through poor leadership or other matters, and certainly making the church uh political carries with it particular dangers uh that can result in in counterreactions.

Brian Stiller 47:20

Then I'm often asked uh as an evangelical, what's an evangelical? And I often will respond, a Protestant who's enthusiastic about faith. And I as I look at the current mood and the the shift with young people and having worked with young people all my life, I realize that while the apologetic of faith, the evidences of the Bible being true, Jesus being the Christ, those are all factors that really matter because it provides a platform. Yet what calls me to walk with Christ is a connection to him and to the church, where my life is taken up by who he is and his promises and his presence, rather than simply an intellectual apologetic that says this is true and that's not true. And so when I look at the younger generation in given the cultural context of today, I I see an enthusiasm for following Christ. And yet I'm concerned that this can be taken over by cultural and political self-interests.

Daniel Williams 48:35

I think that's right. I mean, and and that's I think an argument for good theology, uh, that we want we want people to be passionate in their walk with Christ, but passion without knowledge, without theological grounding, uh can quickly lead people astray. And that that probably happens in any religious movement. I mean, uh, the second great awakening is a case in point. There were some there was some really good gospel preaching that emerged from the Second Great Awakening, and there were itinerant, uh self-proclaimed prophets and people starting new religions with some very strange ideas. Uh, both of those coexisted in the same cultural moment in American history. And I think we'll probably see the same thing uh today. Uh not every religious movement is a movement of the Holy Spirit. Uh, but I'm also struck that God can use even imperfect theologies. So none of us perhaps have fully figured out everything uh that we need to, that we could, could know theologically. It's always a work in progress. And so today, when we see uh members of Generation Z coming to the faith, uh we can applaud that. And we can try to uh work and pray so that that people will be focused more on Christ and less on the extraneous material, and yet uh at the same time as Paul said in the book of Philippians, he could rejoice that Christ is preached in in any circumstance. And I see a lot of opportunity here, uh, even as I would issue some of these cautions.

Brian Stiller 50:26

Dan, this has been a rich conversation. Thank you so much for your historical research and your writing and your commentary today. Thanks so much for joining us on Evangelical 360.

Daniel Williams 50:38

Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Closing Thanks And Listener Invitation

Brian Stiller 50:42

Thanks, Daniel, for helping us see beyond the current headlines and understanding the vitality of faith in our world. And thank you, my friend, faithful listener, for being a part of the podcast. Remember, you can share this episode or join the conversation on YouTube. And if you'd like to learn more about today's guest, just check the show notes for links and info. Thanks again for joining me. Until next time.