The Barna Faith and Culture Report

01 | Faith Trends in America: Why Commitment to Jesus Is Rising

• Barna Group • Season 1 • Episode 1

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In this debut episode of the Faith & Culture Report, David Kinnaman and Ashley LaLonde explore a surprising shift in the spiritual landscape: 66% of U.S. adults say they’ve made a personal commitment to Jesus—and that number is rising. Drawing on new Barna research, this conversation examines growing spiritual openness, changing faith trends in America and what these shifts mean for the future of the Church. This episode sets the foundation for a new kind of conversation—one grounded in data, shaped by lived experience and focused on helping you discern what’s next for faith, culture and the Church.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to Varna's Faith and Culture Report. My name is Ashley Lalande, and I'm here with my co-host David Kinneman, and we are so excited to dive into the stats with you. On today's episode, we discuss the rising belief in Jesus and what that means for the church today. This is the Faith and Culture Report. Head on over to Barna.com/slash 10trends to download it today, or you can find the link in our show notes. Hey David, what's up?

SPEAKER_00

Hey, how's it going, Ashley?

SPEAKER_01

Good. Oh my gosh. First day brand new podcast. Here we are.

SPEAKER_00

I can't believe it. We've been talking about this for months.

SPEAKER_01

Truly. Well, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00

Well, uh, you know, so much is changing in our culture, and we are at a moment of great opportunity for Christian leaders and for the church. And so we've been talking about launching this new intersection of faith and culture, using research as the grounding of for what we talk about and like what's happening. But there's so many exciting trends that are taking place and also some real cultural chaos. So we need to be able to navigate that. So we want to be uh your guides for that change.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I cannot wait to dive into this journey with you at the top of each episode. We're just gonna start with some good news before we get into the data. Of course, this podcast is data driven, but we also bring our humanity to it in our different perspectives. So, David, what's some good news?

SPEAKER_00

Well, one of the things that I've been noticing is just how much there's been a lot of conversations around Jesus in our uh in our popular culture. And so you have things like the He Gets Us campaign, you have the Chosen.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, on Netflix and Prime, mainstream.

SPEAKER_00

Totally. Yeah, there's so much great entertainment, and uh we'll talk a little about your background here in just a minute. But um, I also noticed about a month ago there was a uh uh went viral, an interview with Stephen Bartlett, Diary of a CEO with Wes Huff, uh a great apologist. And this just like it so many of our friends were talking about it and just the the ways, the winsome ways that Wes was talking about, you know, the the plausibility, the believability of faith. And I feel like that represents something that is so important. It is good news that Jesus is in the popular conversation in a new way today.

SPEAKER_01

That is so cool. I know I I'm really on a high. We recently wrapped up our alpha chorus at my church in New York. And as you know, I've been leading alpha on and off for about six years, and it is one of the joys of my life. For anyone listening who doesn't know what Alpha is, it is a dinner series, a weekly dinner series for folks who wouldn't identify as Christian. So maybe they're atheist, agnostic, spiritual, but not religious, another religion, or perhaps they were in the church and have since walked away. It is a space for exploration, honest conversation, and community. So I've had the privilege and blessing of getting to run those, and truly I've met some of the most fascinating people and I've seen some of the most incredible, profound, encouraging testimonies come out of that. So I've personally had actually now over a dozen friends come to their own faith in Christ through Alpha, and many other folks walk away with just a better understanding of who they are, a better understanding of the Bible, the story of Christ. And it's just been such a highlight. So that's my good news this morning.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that is truly good news. Well, that's a great jumping off point for just a little bit more about this podcast and our hopes and dreams for it. And uh, and again, thanks for listeners to for joining in uh this new experiment. So uh I'm David Kinneman, I'm CEO of Barna. Just a little bit of background. Uh, I've been running this company now for um 17 years. I actually have been here at this company for 30 years. Wow, apparently it's the only thing I can do because uh it's my only job out of college. Uh but um lifelong. Yeah, I've got three kids. I'm a widower. Uh my wife Jill passed away about five years ago, and some people have uh joined me so so courageously in that journey. Um, and so I I run this great company called Barna. We have an amazing team. You are a senior research fellow here, and a lot of our job is to use research and insight to help us understand what's happening in our society. How do we understand the times and then know what to do? So you're uh love to have you talk a little about your background, how we intersected. In fact, uh Alpha was part of that story because Craig Springer, uh, our our friend, the late, late Craig Springer, passed away uh in 2025, but he introduced us. And about two years ago, you started uh doing some qualitative research for Barna. So uh just introduce yourself, a little about your backstory uh to our listeners today.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Well, thank you so much for having me, David. It's been so fun getting to collaborate with you on this new project and also just on the research work that we get to do. Um so for those who don't know me, I'm Ashley. I'm a born and raised New Yorker. Shout out New York City, lifelong Manhattan Knight. My parents are from the Midwest, sweethearts, college, or high school sweethearts. Oops, there you go. Um we can cut that little bit out. Um, born and raised New Yorker, and I've also had a career in the arts. So I've worked as a professional actor and singer in New York City and around the country. Uh, some people know me from the Broadway musical Hamilton. So I had the privilege of performing in that musical and bringing it around the country, getting to play all three Skylar sisters. Also worked on some TV and films. The latest was Netflix Black Rabbit. So that was super fun. Amazing. And in addition to my creative career, I've gotten to work in research, ministry, nonprofits, and consulting. So that's sort of the background that led me here. My training, as you know, I went to Harvard for undergrad, studied sociology, got in there early, graduated early, and kind of thrust into the workforce where God's allowed me to pursue both sides of this. And so, you know, from church internship to consulting big tech, I can see how the sociological research, which is what my degree is in sociology, how that has played into my work here today. So I'm so excited to bring that cultural knowledge and sort of boots on the ground experience to our conversations on faith.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you're already hearing, listeners, a bit of the contrast, which is that if I can only do one job, which is to run a research company, you are a person of many talents. But we did learn uh before we started this episode that there is one thing you can't do.

SPEAKER_01

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00

And you cannot snap. So let's just He's out in me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh Well, you go first. The listeners will not hear this. So if you heard anything at all, one, you've got great hearing. And two, David is enjoying this fun fact that I cannot snap, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00

There's only one thing she can't do, apparently. Um, so we are excited about this podcast because uh there's a moment of real opportunity, and we're here to talk a little bit about that. Um, in every podcast, we're going to anchor it with one number, one research finding, uh, and then we'll be often joined with a guest, but we'll be talking with some of the internal Barna people at times. We'll be talking with experts outside of Barna. We want to try to bring you like um like the report of what's happening in faith and culture. Um, we believe that technology, entertainment, uh, a lot of a lot of big forces are at work shaping the church. And we want to help the church be as faithful as it possibly could be in this moment. And again, this is why we've been dreaming about this a bit. Like, you know, people would experience you through the entertainment world. They experience me through the research world, uh, the faith and the culture side of this, but we want to help equip you. We want to be your guides to all this change. So should we dive in?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, let's dive in. All right. What is one number for today, David?

SPEAKER_00

66.

SPEAKER_01

66. All right.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, it is 66% of Americans who say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today. Hmm. Interesting. That was the same question that we've been asking for uh nearly 40 years here at this company. Uh George Barner, the founder of the business, uh, sort of invented all sorts of different ways to ask social research questions that uh were just like these conversations with people. So a little bit about Barn, if you don't know about it. Uh, we're a social research company, mostly quant quantitative, but some qualitative. And uh we're getting a chance to have these conversations through anonymous surveys, asking people about their faith and about what matters most in their life. So 66% of all American adults, two out of three, say they've made a commitment to Jesus. Now that just when I first started back in '95, 1995, uh, way back.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, to clarify. As opposed to 1895.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's it's uh it's a time machine. The number that just like shocked me because I grew up in a pastor's home in Arizona and I went to a Christian college. Uh, and I thought that most Americans just did not believe much of what I believed. And so I remember at that time it was 69% of Americans who said they'd made a personal commitment to Jesus. So that number like began rattling around in my brain just as an early, you know, straight out of college, early 20s. And so now here we are in 2026, and that number is 66%. And uh the really cool thing is that it had dropped down to 54% five years ago, and it is increased by 12 percentage points in the last five years.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, that is so cool because I think for so long the narrative was, you know, the de-Christianization of the West. And of course, we're gonna get into there are metrics that show the decline. And simultaneously, two things can be true at once. People are still caring about Jesus. Many people are still committed to Jesus, even if they're not attending church. And so, yeah, our one number is 66, but it's interesting in contrast with some of the numbers about church attendance. So, you know, we have a decline in church attendance over the last five years from 66% to only 59%, which is still substantial. You know, that's still the majority of Americans.

SPEAKER_00

And that's be people who consider themselves to be church goers. So they would have attended at least once in a six-month period of time. Um, so that's that's people who are, you know, they might even just come for Christ Christmas or Easter only. Yeah. Um, we could sometimes call them CEO Christians, Christmas uh Christmas or Easter only.

SPEAKER_01

And then we have Christian identity. It went from 83% in 2020 to 71% now. So that I find particularly interesting because in the last five years, people are more committed to Jesus now. By 12 percentage points, we have an increase, and yet they're less identifying with the Christian faith.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we're actually seeing we're seeing that a lot with Gen Zers that they're open to Jesus, but do not consider themselves to be a Christian. So this is part of this paradoxical moment, this moment that we're here to have this conversation. We have some of the data, but we don't necessarily have all the answers. But we want to try to help guide you through some of the challenges and opportunities where it's a reset moment for Christianity. Even even some of uh the sort of secular institutions that are measuring change are saying that some of the declines in Christianity have slowed or maybe even plateaued. And so this podcast is uh really designed to help us measure both revival, renewal, retreat, um, even deconstruction. What are some of these mega trends that we could better understand as Christians today?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Well, I'm thinking anecdotally. So I live in New York City, which is a huge cultural hub, extremely diverse. I grew up thinking actually, similarly to you, but in a different context, that there were very few Christians in the world. I thought, okay, at my little local church in Manhattan, those are all the Christians in the world, and everyone else is atheist, agnostic, Jewish, or otherwise not particularly religious. And so it was actually shocking to me. I remember as I was, you know, coming of age, learning, oh, wait, actually, most of the country identifies with the Christian faith. But I'll say just anecdotally, I think there's two interesting categories here. There are people who are newly experiencing Jesus, newly excited about Christ. Maybe they've, you know, done an alpha course, maybe they've had a friend introduce them to Jesus, and now they have that personal relationship with Christ. And then they maybe hear things about Christians on social media or in the news, or maybe it's in their real life. There's a sort of PTSD or church hurt, and they say, I don't want to identify with that. I'll identify with Jesus. I can get behind what I read about Jesus and the gospels and what I've experienced with him, but I just I can't identify with the church. I think some of that is also related to the politicization of the American church and that sort of hyperpolarized state that we're in right now. But I think the other group is actually folks who at one point were very deeply ingrained in Christian culture and had a relationship with Christ. They walked away, they deconstructed institutional Christianity, but they say, you know, I still love Jesus. When I look at Jesus, that's a man I could worship. That's a man I'm still committed to. So those two groups are, you know, they're distinct in their journey, but they're landing in similar places of identification with Jesus, but not with the Christian faith.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think you're hearing a little bit for the listeners as our first podcast, um, you're hearing a little bit of the possibility of what um Barna and Ashley and David could bring, which is, you know, I'm big quant guy, I've been studying this stuff for a long time. It's such a privilege to have these confidential anonymous interviews with tens of thousands. Some years we do more than a hundred thousand interviews in one given year just to hear from pastors and leaders and teenagers and adults. And then your expertise is really in qualitative and listening and sort of working in a local church, working in an alpha group. And so you're gonna be hearing a lot of these kinds of like, here's what we're hearing, here's what we're noticing, what might this mean? And I really want to emphasize I've been doing this for a little, a little while, 30 years plus now. And uh, I have never seen a moment quite like this where it feels like the answer to the prayers that many have prayed for for generations that we might have our kids and grandkids, the next generation, more open to Jesus. So there's something that's happening. And so I just don't want to miss this moment of opportunity as we launch this podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we want to steward it well, you know, to whom much is given, much is expected. And there's a responsibility for those of us who are alive in 2026 to say, how can I steward this? What does faithfulness look like? What is service and love look like? What does ministry look like? And to really get outside of our local context, we want to be boots on the ground in our local context, but we don't want to be stuck in bubbles. And that's the beauty of data. That's the beauty of research. It gives us that bigger picture, that bird's eye view. And of course, nothing is completely objective, but it is a more objective way to engage with truth than just our you know local context.

SPEAKER_00

That's one of the big reasons why I'm an evangelist for data because it is much better than the sum of all our stories. Stories are super important behind every statistic is a story. Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Um data captures stories.

SPEAKER_00

It does. Yeah. Uh my friend Joe Jensen talks about that behind every statistic is a story. So a little shout out to Joe, uh, who's who's helped uh orchestrate a lot of this podcast. But um recognizing that you're gonna hear a lot of data, but you're also gonna be hearing a lot of perspective and and really like this idea of like, all right, how do we navigate all this change? And uh, we want to be in the room where it happens.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. He loves quoting Hamilton. I love that I've got a fan across the table here. Um but it's true. We want to bring you the data with that discernment. And so, what are you discerning right now? Where's the church getting things right around revival, renewal, deconstruction, and where are we maybe missing the point?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think the one of the questions we could be talking about is whether we should call this revival. And um, a friend Ed Stetzer says, you know, if we're asking whether it's revival, we would we would know. And so, you know, we're probably not in a place of like social revival. It's really more of a reset. Yeah. So if as we look at the trends, you know, again, if you look over 25 years or so, we're actually still down.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Uh as Christians. Um, but I actually think there's a sort of renewal and a reset moment. And again, revival is as important as any individual. Remember, like even Jesus uses a story about ratios. He says 99 sheep might be lost or be in the fold, and then one might be lost. Um, I love all of you know, sort of the teachings of Jesus, but I have a special place in my heart for any time he uses numbers 70 times seven, or you know, 99 are there, but one is lost. So this is a moment where we really talk about like, all right, how would we recover the kind of plausibility, the believability and and the beautiful gospel? Um, because Jesus' life, death, and resurrection is, I believe, the central point in history. And how can we talk about that now in an era of AI and artificiality and a quest for truth and a search for meaning? And um, I'd love to hear what you're seeing about sort of this generation's search for meaning and truth with new age and witchcraft. I mean, like it seems like an interesting people are open, but they're open to just about everything, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01

Well, people want answers and we want meaning and purpose. And there's a loneliness epidemic. This has been well documented from many different research firms. We know it, you know, anecdotally and personally, that people are more lonely than we've ever been. We also know there's some new data that recently came out that loneliness, it is actually having a physical effect on our life and our bodies and our physical health and our longevity. So, what I recently read is that loneliness is as bad for your physical health as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day. And can you believe that that this is really the most isolated we've ever been in human history? And so, what many people are finding is that as folks started leaving church and leaving their sort of local congregations, they were left disconnected and you know, I would say probably disconnected from God and also disconnected from each other. And so that's where the power of tools like alpha and intentional deep community are so beautiful. We've talked about the three transcendentals, you and I, you know, truth, beauty, and goodness. And I think the Western church has been very hyper-fixated on truth as the best apologetic. I would say for our current cultural moment, beauty is actually going to be the most compelling apologetic to be able to be able to do that. Yeah, and what do you mean by that? Living a beautiful life, because that is a proper witness.

SPEAKER_00

Put some to put some flesh and bones on that. So, what does that mean to live a beautiful life?

SPEAKER_01

I think living a beautiful life is one deeply ingrained in community and love and service to others.

SPEAKER_00

And so that is So it's not just having like great art on the wall.

SPEAKER_01

No, I mean, I know you're a big art guy, and I believe in visual art. I have friends who are visual artists, but it actually is the fruit of your life, the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And if it is, people take note because there is so much animosity. If you are loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you, people take note. If you are not living in a spirit of shallowness and comparison, people take note. They see that there is a beautiful depth. And we would say that's the Holy Spirit, you know. When folks have uh made comments about my life or my approach to work, I'm just like, it's just God. Like, I swear to you, I am much more selfish. I swear to you, that I am much more shallow in all of these things. But by the work of the spirit in me, I have become more of who's got who God has actually created me to be. And so that beauty and that depth and that groundedness that the spirit, that life abundant that Jesus promised, Zoe, that Greek word, living in that life, is so beautiful and compelling. And I'll say, as a creative and artist, like the arts can reveal more of God's beauty.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's so interesting. Well, um, one one way my brain is going with that is that a lot of our data with Gen Z has shown uh that notion that that they want to see the goodness of the gospel and what it means for their friendships, for their community, that the gospel is true.

SPEAKER_01

Is it good news?

SPEAKER_00

Is it good news, yeah. And then uh and this notion of like beauty. And recently someone was telling me this, I hadn't really thought about this, but like if you if you haven't if you haven't been through trauma, you don't understand the power of beauty because like, and so you know, I I mentioned this earlier. I'm a widower, my wife passed away from brain cancer in 2020. And um, for me, you know, being able to be outdoors, hiking, uh, to be able to do art or collect art um or to be in beautiful spaces, like I can be in other places for sure, but like that has been part of the way God has ministered to me and my grief, my grief journey. So I think that beauty is also part of our path out of the chaos that can happen internally and externally in our society. Um so um, yeah, I think this idea of helping us navigate through the research, through the trends, you know, what it means to be um, you know, sort of um anchor ourselves in the truth of the gospel because it also is good and beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. And it there's something I love what you just shared. So thank you for that. Beauty also it surpasses our mind and it bypasses those sort of rational barriers that we have. And, you know, of course, I love rationality and numbers and the research and the data, but there is something about the Holy Spirit's ability through beauty. To just bypass that and speak straight to our hearts and minister to our souls. And I think even folks who are not Christians or even don't believe in God know that feeling of awe and wonder.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's so good. Well, um, this is part of the reason why we wanted to host this podcast, to invite you into this conversation between um all between Varna and you, between Varna and guests, um, really listening in, uh, gaining perspective with all of these incredible interviews that we're doing. I mean, like to be able to hear from this many, many people and to learn more about what is on people's minds, so we can really help to intersect their lives with a a better, a better gospel, a better way of understanding Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. Another friend of mine, David Ferguson, says uh that human flourishing uh is an apologetic for our time. Uh, if we can help people understand the John 10, 10 life, that Jesus has come uh for us to experience life and life abundant. Yeah. And so I think there's something about our hope here. Um, for me, when we think about our our hopes, for me, I'm hoping to inform you as listeners to help you get a little bit of perspective what we're learning here um at Barna. Um, we believe many of our listeners will be Christians who, you know, want to make put faith, put, put sort of faith in action. We also realize that some people will just be like, hey, this is kind of an interesting topic, and they'll want to understand a little bit more uh about how faith works, how our our conversations with Jesus. We'd love to talk about Jesus, you and I. Of course. So whoever you are, wherever you're listening.

SPEAKER_01

I'm so happy you're here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_01

You're welcome. We want you to join the conversation, and we even want to hear from you. What do you want to hear? Which guests do you want to see and learn from? But we're so excited to dive in. And, you know, even standing as two guides, we have so much to learn from each other, from you all, and certainly from the guests and the research.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. We can't wait to hear more from you uh in the days to come. Like Ashley said, even if you want to suggest some survey questions, we could throw in some of our polling. What would you be curious to know? This is a kind of format where, you know, maybe your questions could be amplified among uh thousands of people to try to understand a little bit more about what's happening in our society. So we want to ask those deeper questions and we want this place to be a safe place for that deeper conversation.

SPEAKER_01

Amen to that. Don't we need more spaces like that where there is depth and there is nuance versus just the hype and the drama? So I'm so excited to be on this journey with you, David, and with everyone listening. Thanks for tuning in. We have so much more for you. But just to wrap it up, David, what was our one number again for today?

SPEAKER_00

It was 66.

SPEAKER_01

66. 66% of US adults say they've made a personal commitment to follow Jesus that is still important in their lives today. So exciting, so encouraging, so much there about Jesus is still compelling. You know, in the scientific revolution, there were some who hypothesized in the during the Enlightenment that religion would completely be wiped from the face of the planet. And here we are in 2026 saying Jesus still matters today, at least to many of us.

SPEAKER_00

It's a reset moment. And so let's see where this is going to take us.

SPEAKER_01

Let's see where we go. Well, thank you all for tuning in today. It has been such a joy. We have so much more in store for you. So I hope you come back. If today's conversation resonated with you at all, if you learned something new, please subscribe to the Barna Faith and Culture Report wherever you listen to podcasts. Share it with a friend, send it to a coworker, a loved one, someone else who'll be encouraged, challenged, or who needs to hear it. Download today's episode to revisit later, and please leave us a review. Reviews are the number one way that will help other people find this podcast. We're so excited to keep discerning the data together, and we're so grateful you're here. So we want to give one final shout out to our amazing partner, Glue, for sponsoring today's episode. Glue is on a mission to shape technology for good, giving leaders the tools they need to trust and rely on to amplify their impact. So big thank you to you. Big thank you to Glue. And if you haven't yet, make sure to download our free resource, a free gift for you today 10 trends shaping faith, culture, and the future of the church. You can grab that online at barna.comslash 10 trends. We'll see you next time on the Faith and Culture Report.