The Barna Faith and Culture Report

05 | Dr. Frank Newport on the Religious Revival Among Young Men

• Barna Group • Season 1 • Episode 5

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In this episode, David Kinnaman sits down with Dr. Frank Newport, Gallup Senior Scientist and former Editor-in-Chief of the Gallup Poll, to explore new Barna and Gallup data on a striking rise in religiosity among young men — including a 14-point jump in those who say religion is "very important" and a 15-point rise in male church attendance. But perhaps the most surprising finding: the longstanding gender gap in faith among 18–29-year-olds has virtually disappeared. Together, they unpack what's driving this unexpected shift, how politics and religion may be influencing each other, and what church leaders should understand about reading, and misreading research in a noisy information environment.

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SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Barna 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 talk about some surprising statistics around church attendance for men, and we get to interview the incredible Dr. Frank Newport, senior scientist at Gallup. This is the Faith and Culture Report. Today's episode is brought to you by Glue, one of our core partners here at Barna Group. Their mission is simple: shape technology for good so leaders like you and me can have the tools we need and actually trust. Barna's teamed up with Glue for our State of the Church research initiative, and we've put together a free resource for you. It's called 10 Trends Shaping Faith, Culture, and the Future of the Church. Head on over to Barna.com slash 10trends, T N trends to download it, or you can find the link waiting for you in the show notes. Hey David, how you doing?

SPEAKER_01

Hey Ashley, how's it going?

SPEAKER_00

Great. Yeah, doing well. Excited to be shooting this episode today.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. We've had so much fun already on this uh on this program. So thanks for listening, everybody, and joining us on this journey as we try to understand what's happening in our culture.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we're so excited, especially for today's guest, which we'll get into in a moment. You know, research meets research. But before that, we always start with a little bit of good news. So, David, what's some great news you've heard?

SPEAKER_01

Some great news is my brother is coming to Dallas, Texas to visit my my sweet brother, Matthew. Um, I haven't seen him in a year and a half.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, FaceTime and phone calls. But he's does he live? He lives in Honolulu. Oh he's in the Navy.

SPEAKER_00

You should be visiting him.

SPEAKER_01

I know. Well, um, it's gonna work out. He's gonna be doing uh doing music school in Virginia during uh during this next season. And uh so he's gonna be coming through town, and so we're gonna be having a lot of fun. I haven't seen him in a year and a half. He's uh just about 10 years younger than me, one of my absolute heroes. We're gonna have so much fun just eating and having fun. Uh some of the best barbecue here in town in Fort Worth. Which is uh well, we'll do we'll do uh yeah, I suppose so. Um I always like going to this place called Panther City Barbecue, and then there's a great Mexican place called Maria's that I'm sure we'll have. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So it'll be a big food tour. And uh so I can't wait to give him a huge hug. So he's been in the Navy, he plays he actually plays trumpet in the Navy band.

SPEAKER_00

Oh.

SPEAKER_01

And uh so he's been deployed, he goes on different tours, a lot of like um, you know, sort of like public relations tours. One of the coolest things about my brother's uh career is that by playing trumpet, he plays taps um at different kinds of memorial services or ceremonies. Uh they'll do change of command ceremonies. But one thing that's interesting is that uh the U.S. military will spend a lot of money uh to recognize uh people who are who were killed in in uh in battle or conflict. And so they'll use more uh new technology like DNA testing to determine um sailors who were unknown at the time of their of their killing, of their of their death. And so he has played taps for sailors that were killed on uh on December 7th, 1941. Oh because they years later, you know, 70 plus years later, recognize okay, we actually now know this particular the remains of this of this sailor or soldier. And uh so it's pretty cool, you know, to sort of see how uh we get connected to the people who have fought for freedom for us and just the way my brother gets to honor, uh, honor those uh sailors that have lost their lives um in in defense of our of our nation. But anyway, Matthew Kinnaman, can't wait to hang with him. That's some good news for me. How about you?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, well, mine's on a totally different note. I got to go to the opening night on Broadway for Shmigadoon, which is a new musical. Have you ever heard of the TV show Shmigadoon? No. So yeah, I believe it's on Apple TV. Don't worry, we're not sponsored by Schmigadoon, but I guess the unintentional plug.

SPEAKER_01

Or Maria's Mexican TV.

SPEAKER_00

Maria's or or any of these spots, but uh Shmigadoon was a successful Apple TV show. Okay. And it is about two people, a couple who are struggling in their relationship. They go on a sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01

Are they struggling to pronounce struggling to pronounce Schmigadoon?

SPEAKER_00

Probably. That's part of the episode as well. No, I I don't know, but uh I might be struggling to pronounce it. The this couple goes off on this sort of woods retreat, and they arrive, they get lost, and they arrive at a town that is basically a golden age musical. So everyone's singing and dancing, and they're very confused. They're like, oh, is it a Renaissance fair? Is it a did we arrive at some sort of immersive performance? And no, they're just they somehow wandered into a musical. And so it's really a love letter to Broadway that they've now made it into a Broadway musical, and they're sort of a musical within the musical, within the musical. Super fun night, and you know, getting to support some friends who are doing really cool work on Broadway.

SPEAKER_01

That's really fun. Well, that is some good news.

SPEAKER_00

It is indeed. Well, with that, David, what's our one number for today?

SPEAKER_01

Our one number for today is 45. 45% of American men are attending church in uh 2026. Uh, they report that they have attended, um, which is uh sometimes over an overestimate, but that is the level of reporting up from 30% uh in 2024. And so that's a huge increase, 15 percentage point increase over two years. And uh this is tracking with some of the other uh somewhat controversial questions around like what is happening with younger generations, with young men, uh, the comparison to young women, but the number for today is 45, 45 percent.

SPEAKER_00

Wow. It is interesting because I think the cultural narrative for so long has been women are more engaged, married women, uh, moms are way more engaged, and it's hard to get men in, you know, to pews. But now we're seeing men in pews. What do you think is driving that?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I think that's the question of the day. And we're gonna be hearing uh from Dr. Frank Newport a bit in this episode about a brand new Gallup study that shows much of the same trend that young men 18 to 29 are attending at a greater rate uh in in their reporting in 2024, 2025 uh compared to previous uh years. And it's um if you if we'll put this link in the show notes to the Gallup article, but you know, if you look at all these different ages, most of the downward trends, I mean, almost every age segment over the last um 10 or 20 years has been steadily decreasing in their church attendance and their importance of faith. But the last couple of years with young men and a bit with young women, there's been this upturn, but especially among young men. And so the question of the day is like, what why is this happening? I don't think that we're as able today to talk about what the reasons are, although uh certainly we will ask that question. Uh you'll hear the answer shortly uh from Dr. Frank Newport. But you know, I think there's a political uh factor here. Um there's a correlation with uh political conservative, um, sort of as the people who are tending more are political conservatives compared to political liberals. Uh there's um you know just try to think a broader sense of a question, the best-selling book in America last year, uh in the in the in the late uh half of 2025 was Notes on Being a Man uh by Professor Scott Galloway. So there's a real set of questions, I think, about manhood, about what it means to be a man, about how to live as a man. Um, and I think people are turning to the church to try to find some answers to that.

SPEAKER_00

Hmm. It is interesting for me, you know, with a sociology background, I think about social capital, which is what is socially beneficial within certain circumstances and certain settings. And so for me, living in New York City, it is not particularly socially beneficial to be a Christian, to be someone who attends church. Whereas, say, here in Fort Worth, it may be more socially beneficial to be part of a church community. That's what people do on Sunday mornings. And so it is an interesting question as we think about men attending church, is of course, social capital is not the only reason that anyone does anything. However, it's a factor for all of us. Well, how no matter how genuine you are, no matter how sincere the desire is, that frames a lot of our decision making as humans. And so I appreciate what you said of sort of the political possible drivers, the social drivers, deeper questions about gender and gender roles that are certainly surfacing in our culture right now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And so I think the the work that we're committed to at the company here at Barna is to explore some of these trends, both among young, young people generally, but among young men versus young women. And um, I like to say this is a this is like these are the days we've been praying for uh because um Barna has been reporting now for a year and a half. Um, the Gallup study, which we'll talk to to Frank Newport about, um, is showing there's something that's bubbling up. And how do you measure it? How do you track it? What does it mean? And the fact that people are interested in the plausibility of Christianity, a lot of young people going back to Catholic communities. Um, there's a lot of been been a lot of reporting about the the the surge of attendance among young people and young men in Catholic communities. I mean, who would have guessed this?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Yeah, 10 years ago, we would not have guessed it.

SPEAKER_01

So there's something, there's something brewing, and we are here to talk about that here at the Faith and Culture Report.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited. And, you know, you're pointing out something important that we'll get into with Frank, but there's different metrics at play. And even, you know, for us as social researchers, how you ask the question matters. So are you asking about how often someone's attending a religious service? Are you asking about uh their personal commitment to Jesus and relationship with Jesus? Are you asking about belief in God, identification with a Christian denomination? There's so many different questions. So I'm so excited for this conversation with Frank. Well, to introduce Frank. If anyone is unfamiliar, Dr. Frank Newport is a Gallup senior scientist and visiting scholar at the Stanford Institute for Excellence and Survey Research within the Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, focused on giving voice to the collective opinions of all the people of our country using scientific survey methods. Public opinion provides direction and context for leaders under the assumption that the collective wisdom of the people is most often wiser than the opinions of the few. Dr. Newport focuses primarily on the American public attitudes relating to key policy issues facing the nation today, religion, and public perceptions of inequity and inequality.

SPEAKER_01

That is a mouthful, and that is an impressive, an impressive bio.

SPEAKER_00

And now let's go to David's interview with Frank.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I have the distinct privilege of sitting down here with uh Dr. Frank Newport. And uh, we've already uh talked a little about your bio, but uh behind the bio, I would just love to hear a little bit more about your story, Frank. And uh we were just talking about this before we started uh rolling. Uh but maybe just your your some of the the highlights of your research career. Fun for our listeners to hear.

SPEAKER_02

Uh fascinating story, I'm sure. Just joking on that. Well, um the family background, which is of interest, I think, to you and your listeners, is Southern Baptist uh all over the place. My father was a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, which is where I grew up. And my mother's family, her father was a fairly well-known Southern Baptist um uh leader who founded the Baptist Student Union, among other things. On both sides of my family was this large Southern Baptist background, and I went to Baylor University, the largest uh Baptist university in the world, um to continue that pattern. My father had taught there, my uncle was on the faculty there, my sister was there, so that's kind of a standard pattern to go to Baylor from where we were in Fort Worth at that time. But at any rate, uh I majored in broadcasting actually, um, and then also had sociology as a as a second major. And I went on and got a PhD in sociology at the University of Michigan. And then I was a professor, University of uh Missouri in St. Louis. And then I kind of got bored with that and I moved back to Texas to Houston and was a talk show host at KTRH Radio in Houston. And then from there I moved over to a public opinion and marketing research firm in Houston, which ultimately was acquired by Gallup. And in 1990, I moved to Princeton, the ancestral home of uh the Gallup poll, and that's where I became editor-in-chief, uh, which where I was until 2018, and now I'm a Gallup senior scientist.

SPEAKER_01

So that's the shorthand version. Well, it is uh it is a long and illustrious career. We're so honored to have you on the on the call today on the podcast. Um, we're we're here to talk about, especially, um, but we'll talk about a lot of different trends. Uh, the recent study that you put out uh about the rise in um religiosity among young people, especially young men. Um, we are in our podcast called Faith and Culture Report, we talk about one number. So the number for today is 45. And according to Barna, 45% of American men are attending church in 2026, which is up from uh 30% uh just a few years ago, a 15% 15 point percent increase. And your that your data, the Gallup data, shows a jump among young men uh from 28 to 42 percent in terms of the the measure religion is very important. So that's a 14-point swing. So, you know, I've been here at Barna for 30 years. You've been doing this for uh for many decades as well. That's a 14-point swing in your experience tracking public opinion. How unusual is this kind of movement in such a short period of time?

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's uh fairly unusual. We try trends, uh not totally depending on the measure. When you're tracking at least historically presidential job approval, uh we've seen after events like 9-11 or the Persian War for Bush the Senior, we've seen huge jumps, you know, almost overnight in terms of approval, uh, presidential approval. So it's it's not uncommon to find measures go up and down. But our majors, uh, and I've been you know tracking religion for a long time. Majors of religiosity are usually fair uh more stable. We've as we all know, we've seen a gradual decline over the decades in most measures of religiosity in general, but that that hadn't been extraordinary jumps and extraordinary jumps down or up. It's been a decline. So it's interesting when we see something like this. In fact, we aggregated uh data this uh for two-year periods to make sure it wasn't just a one-year phenomenon, which you have to be careful. We aggregated two years in our study, and in some places we looked at a five-year aggregate of data. So we we tried to be very careful to make sure that we're not just seeing a an uh abnormal glyph in the data, which will come back down. Not to to say, is probably your listeners are aware, it may come down, you know, changes occur. So what we're s can say is this is what we're seeing to this point. What will happen if we come back on your podcast in five or ten years? I don't think any of us know.

SPEAKER_01

That's right. Well, it's so interesting. I appreciate the way you you phrase that. I think one of the questions that I wanted to ask you, and uh was later later in what I planned to ask you, but because of what you described there, I'd love to ask it to you now. How when you when you uh aggregate data, when you're releasing data, for me at Barna, um I'm I'm when it's on trend, like when you see consistent years of decline, and then you test a new year, and it's like, well, there's another year of decline, it feels much easier. It feels more confident with it's easier to stay within confidence when it's on a particular whether it's going up or going down. Um, what do you do at Gallup when something feels different and the data begin to show a different story? Are there extra measures you take to sort of verify and and be sure you're not uh standing on thin ice?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's an excellent question, and absolutely we do. Uh, my co-author is Lydia Saad, who's director of Gallup's uh social uh research in the United States. And um, we spent a lot of time, Lydia in particular spent a lot of time going over the data very carefully. As I mentioned, uh, we looked at five-year aggregates and two-year aggregates and one year. We looked at various ways of combining data, and the more you combine data, the more stable you usually have is your estimate to make sure what we're looking at along those lines. We also looked across three different measures, uh, as we reported in the most recent study, not only importance, which you mentioned, but we did look at self-reported church attendance. And we did look at religious affiliation, kind of the obverse of the famous nuns that we hear so much about, the percent who have a self-reported affiliation. So that's another check to see what we're looking at there. And and we even we're mainly reporting on the last two years, which would be 2024, 2025. But and I think we mentioned this in the story, we looked at the first couple of months of data uh uh in this year, 2026, and we found it looked like it was fairly stable among young men. So we took all those measures uh to to try to provide those who use our data with the the most uh what I would say valid estimates possible of what's happening in the real population.

SPEAKER_01

That's so so interesting. Uh it's consistent with what we have done with some of our uh Jesus data. We've waited several years to release the rise of Jesus to see if there would be any uh any change. So um it's so helpful to see how you do that. Um when you think about the the conversation about young men, so you know the there's the loneliness epidemic, the meaning crisis, you have people like Jordan Peterson attracting large young men, male and male followings. Um, does the data allow us to say anything about why young men are turning toward religion? Um, spiritual hunger, social belonging, identity formation, is there something else? What do you think we might say as social researchers about uh about young men? We'll start there.

SPEAKER_02

Well, there's a lot we might say, but there's not very much, uh I'm willing to say, back by data. Uh in other words, there are many hypotheses out there, and you can Google it. Why are young men becoming more religious? And you'll see a bunch, I'm sure even Barnovich, you'll see a bunch of articles where people are opining on some of the reasons that you looked at there about why this might be occurring. But we really uh to this point haven't devoted a lot of our survey research where we asked the kind of questions which would probably be necessary to really try to get at that answer. We did look and control for some things like education and so forth that didn't seem to make a difference. And we reported in the report uh politics. Because as we all know, um being Republican in orientation is generally correlated with being more religious. So we and men, particularly young men, are more Republican than our young women. So there's some interactions going on with politics that may or may not have to do with the MAGA or the Trump phenomenon, which is hard to tease out. And it does look like we're seeing you know the change occurring among Republican men, and some change among Republican women. So politics may have something to do with it. The whole environment we're looking at with um what's happening with with Trump and conservatives in general, but it's difficult for me to really back up with research, say, aha, definitively now know exactly why this is occurring.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. One of the phrases that I use is uh that we can tell a lot about what is happening, but we cannot tell uh very uh accurately why that's happening. That's a a much more difficult uh thing for social research to point out.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and then when journalists call me up, they always say, why is it happening? That's what they really want to know. And and that's a much harder question to answer. Sometimes, by the way, we we ask an open-ended question. You know, we've asked that on presidential approval. Why do you approve and why do you disapprove? And then we had the people's own stated reasons, which is is nice, but uh we don't have that in this instance, in particular, we don't have the trend where we've asked people in their own words to say to talk about their religion. So it's a complex question. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01

Um, so so with young men, uh, is there anything else you'd want to say uh about the sort of the the effects or the the relationship between uh politics and uh some of these gender differences? So do we know anything about, for example, whether uh people are be are is there any kind of like which comes first? Is it conservativism or is it religiosity or anything else you'd want to comment as you analyze that data? Because it is something I noticed that in that article you you took some uh, you know, like as a again, as a research publisher, there's times where I'm like, oh, that's interesting, but I'm not gonna publish that. Uh you took some some you took some decision, you made some decisions to publish that. Anything else that is interest might be interesting about the political analysis?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm not sure if we mentioned it, but that's that's a tricky area. And social scientists and political scientists have spent a lot of time looking at it, not in relationship necessarily to young men, but just looking at general at trends over time and the relationship between politics and uh religiosity. And there, you know, one theory is probably the most common theory if you stop somebody on the street is um, oh, people are may change their religiousness up or down, and then they choose a political orientation that matches that. But there's some compelling evidence on the other way around that the most important thing is we choose our political identity and then we pick a either pick a religion or pick our level of religiosity or religious participation to match politics. And there's a third hypothesis that there's some third force that affects both simultaneously. So that's a complicated area. Uh I've got a book on my shelf even written by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where she just looks, you know, the that's her whole thesis in the book, and she ends up uh arguing for that uh second point I mentioned that political identity is so powerful today that religion, when there are changes in one's political orientation, changes in religion may follow that. So interesting. What's the name of the uh the book? Um It's uh From Politics to the Pews or From Pews to Politics, one or the other. I I I can get it to you. I'll I get it back from the professor Mark Dr. Margolis at the political science department at the University of Pennsylvania is the author. Author of the book. Actually, when I was doing a podcast myself a few years back, I had her on as a guest and we went through that. She would be a good guest.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we should have her on. She actually came to the barn offices uh more than a decade ago. Uh well, she researched data? Yeah, to get some data from us. So that's great. Great, great. Um, we'll put that book in the show notes. And um uh anything that you would add about like the the the it I mean when you look at the data, um it's such an interesting hockey stick because every other uh age segment and gender segment is declining, except for young men in the last couple of years, and women are up on a couple of the key the measures, young women uh as well on a couple of the measures. Um anything else to say about why um or what we're what we're learning about that this this moment because we've been reporting now for uh a a year or so uh some interesting changes in the trends that we have have seen. And um again, it's just it's been such an un unusual moment to see young young people in the midst of so much religious decline, uh sort of indicating openness in some new ways. Anything else that surprises you or you might you might add to that conversation about that?

SPEAKER_02

Well, one thing um I would add, which is a surprise, is the gender gap itself. When I wrote a book about religion a while back, I devoted a whole chapter to the gender gap, which is women more religious than men, and uh pointed out how that's as long as we've had survey data, that's been the case, and anecdotally maybe even before that, and there are a lot of work over the decades on theories about why women might be more religious, and that was just uh kind of accepted as a verity in social research and sociology. Women are more research uh more religious than men. So I think one thing to emphasize here is that that gender gap among 18 to 29s has basically disappeared across three measures uh church attendance, religious affiliation, and religious importance. Men are now as religious as women, basically, or on this one measure, importance more religious, it looks like. So that's a that's changed. We've not seen that in the older groups. Uh each of the older groups we look at, the women are still more religious than men. But so this is uh remarkable in that sense that we've seen the uh the gender gap disappear among 18 to 29 year olds, uh upsetting a you know half a century or longer trend in our data.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and and what can we say, if anything, about uh how the uh the US context compares to global context on any of these.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I don't have international research. Gallup Gallup does international polling, and occasionally religion is is a part of that and it can be looked at, but I have not analyzed those data. I stick mostly to uh domestic US data.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Um, what do you think uh church leaders uh in general? So we'll broaden, thank you so much for that uh excellent analysis of the of the recent study, and to broaden our conversation around sort of how pastors and uh faith leaders could best understand uh social research, uh, what do you wish they better understood?

SPEAKER_02

Well, uh that's kind of a broader question because I've devoted you know decades and decades of our life to reporting, survey research, and polling. So I guess the broader question is what would you want everybody to understand? Uh one of the big things is uh not to pay a lot of attention to anyone's study. That you want to maybe look at people like yourself or myself and have somebody who looks at the big picture in the context and looks across data and across time and across studies to be able to say what's really going on in the data. Unfortunately, in journalism today, there's a tendency for people who sponsor studies to just report that. Oh, a new study shows. And I think just like medical research, if one single study came out and says that eating apricot pits cured cancer, you would want to say, well, let's look at see if that's backed up by other research and do more long-term research. And I think it's the same thing in survey research. You want to be very careful. In fact, that's one of the reasons I'm working with Stanford now. We're actually developing a project, not on religion, mind you, but on policy research in general, where we're aggregating, synthesizing, reviewing, and summarizing public opinion on key issues so that we can say, okay, across all available data, where do Americans stand on deportation? Yeah, as one example. Or across all available data, where do Americans stand on banning assault weapons? So rather than just, oh, here's one study, we say that you know there's a lot of research on the two topics I just mentioned. So I would say for church leaders and others, in answer to your question, be cautious. Yeah. Yeah, that's so good.

SPEAKER_00

A quick pause in this amazing interview to say that today's episode is brought to you by Glue. If you're not yet familiar with Glue, Glue is a technology platform built specifically for the faith ecosystem, serving more than 140,000 faith ministry and nonprofit leaders committed to human flourishing. Their mission is simple and it's to shape technology as a force for good in our world. So leaders like you and I have the tools we actually need and trust to scale our impact. This partnership is also deeply personal to us. Varna's teamed up with Glue for an ongoing state of the church research initiative. And if you've been tracking any of our work, new data is dropping monthly, exploring everything from church attendance trends to discipleship and cultural relevance. And as a thank you to all of you, our listeners, we've made a free resource available together with Glue called 10 Trends Shaping Faith, Culture, and the Church. Download it at Barna.com slash 10trends or grab the link in the show notes. All right, back to the interview.

SPEAKER_01

I I wonder if uh you'd take this little uh this little thought experiment with me. Um sometimes I wonder if we had measured something different 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago. Barna Group uh was founded by George Barna. Uh, I know um he was friends with George Gallup Jr. And you know, sort of the polling industry is a relatively small one. It's gotten much larger and more crowded in recent years. But uh, do you think we might want different measures today? If we could go back in time, what kinds of things do you imagine could help us understand uh religion, religiosity, the spiritual side of life better? Um and and I'll say that part of my belief um is that maybe Gen Z and millennials are actually expressing their faith in some ways that we don't have particularly effective measures for for understanding. Uh obviously there's attendance and belief and behavior, other things, but um uh ident identity, um, affiliation. But you have any thoughts on like what we might measure in the future or uh to better understand the expression of faith and religion in people's lives?

SPEAKER_02

Well, it's it's a good question. And you know, a lot of things have been measured, just not reported as regularly. Uh a lot of discussion, as you well know, about uh spirituality versus organized religion and the difference between the two. So obviously, I think there's room for those kinds of measures, which I'm sure Barna does quite a bit of, but that's a big topic of conversations, and and Gallup has done some of that, but not a lot of that over the years. So our main focus has been on what I would call organized religion, but there may be other ways in which religion is being expressed through people that we're not picking up in these normal measures. So that's that's one thing I think is important. Um I also think if it were maybe back to my market research background, I wish we had more data on people's perceptions in organized religion of their church, synagogue or mosque, and what's going on there and the leadership there. Um I uh let me give you a point here. I used to do quite a bit of work for local television stations across the country. And we did market research and we asked people, what do you how would you rate the news anchors on the three stations? How would you rate the weather people, the sports casters, and so forth and so on, because that was vitally important for the ratings to get people that people like. So when I talk to seminarians and others about this, they always push back and say, no, no, we can't do market research and relate to religion, but uh I would like to understand more about how people perceive the worship experience in the leadership. Uh, not to get off tangent too much, but I have uh, you know, a strong theory that uh leadership is key in religion and in churches. And I think the hypothesis is we're not getting the best and the brightest into leadership positions in churches. And if somebody asks me what's one of the reasons for the decline in religion, they owe secularization and all these other things. One is we're not getting uh high-quality religious leaders uh to uh to run religion, organize religion, churches and so forth, in a way that makes people really want to come and participate.

SPEAKER_01

So there's my theory. Well, that is uh that's I'm glad you went uh uh I'm glad you had that thought because I'd love to ask you so what are ways you think we could improve that pipeline of leaders?

SPEAKER_02

Good. Well, I'm going back to my grandfather, Dr. Frank Leville, who founded the Baptist Student Union back in the uh it was a big part of it out of Nashville, where he worked for the Southern Baptist Convention, uh, was instrumental in Baptist student life there and forming the Baptist Student Union. And at that point, particularly through colleges in the South and religious schools, the BSU Baptist Student Union got a lot of the top leaders on the in the religious schools, as I understand it, would go to the BSU and then would go on to college and seminary and become the leaders uh of the future. And at one point, my father, who was a Baptist religious leader himself, said, you know, your grandfather had had quite a bit to do with the prominence and the rise of the Southern Baptist Convention as it rose in the in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, you know, as it still is, but has declined a lot for various reasons. But it was a real dominant, um, the dominant denomination in Protestantism at that point. So I think uh the question to me would be how do you encourage uh young people uh that going into the clergy, becoming a minister, serving God as a minister is something they want to do. And and get uh get people who don't view it simply as a way of exercising social justice or other kinds of things like that, but really have a commitment and a passion, uh, I think would be what I would think is one of the most important ways we might uh actually alter the pattern of church coin in this country.

SPEAKER_01

That's amazing. Well, I I I think that is uh a a really interesting thread to follow up on in some future interviews. Uh research is undergoing a lot of change. What is one thing that you're really encouraged about in terms of the state of research in general, uh, and one thing that you're a little cautious about.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, well, but caution is that the barriers to entry for doing survey research had dropped so precipitously now. Uh it's extraordinarily cheap for any individual to do research now and put it out and purport to represent the underlying population. And we have to remember, I used to teach this in Survey Research 101, that our whole purpose is using samples to be able to generalize to what we would find if we talked to everybody in the population of interest, like all national adults. Uh, and that's a lot of work on went into what we call probability sampling over the decades to be able to do that. But nowadays it's very cheap to assemble a group of a thousand people on the internet to various mechanisms, uh, pay them five dollars or what have you, and then give them a survey and then purport after the fact to weight the data. And some very well-established firms and very smart people say, aha, that that works. If you weight the data carefully to known census parameters, you'll have a sample that represents American. But the the research that I'm familiar with still says, no, no, probability samples are uh still the gold standard and the way we need to go. So what worries me is the prevalence of this kind of research. Yeah. Uh that it's so cheap to do, kind of, and people just throw out a poll and say, Oh yeah, I I just saw a poll that said X and Y. So the consumer has to be extremely cautious uh nowadays when they are uh absorbing, as it were, reading, seeing, hearing about survey research.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And what makes you hopeful about the future of the research industry?

SPEAKER_02

Well, we have smart people who are working all these issues. For example, the project we're doing at Stanford now, we're trying to, you know, only use high-quality polls and analyze and put data together so that we're not just relying on one poll. So there are smart people out there. I was president of the American Association of Public Opinion Research, APOR, our largest national group of pollsters in this country. In fact, they're meeting this weekend in LA or next weekend, one of the two, I will be able to be there this year. Uh, and that's encouraging because if you would go to those meetings, you would find a lot of earnest, smart people trying to uh work on our task of being able to measure uh public opinion and measure what Americans think, feel, and do. So that's encouraging.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's great. Well, that last question is um as you looked at this data and you you began to see some of the tracking back to where we we began, uh, this sort of unexpected rise of religiosity among young, younger uh segments of our adult population. Um, what was that journey like? Um just sort of the the discovery process of some of that data. It uh it must have been an interesting time as you worked along with your co co-researcher on that.

SPEAKER_02

In every single survey, we ask at least several basic religious demographics. So we have ongoing data that we look at. And and even like last year, I was starting to see this change among young men and discussed it with our, you know, the editors. I'm not in charge, I'm the senior scientist now, so I'm a I advise and consult. So I was pulling this to their attention. And so we we continue to analyze it. And so that's why we kind of waited, but by this uh winter and spring, uh, we made the decision it was time to go ahead and do a thorough analysis and go ahead and put it forth. So that's kind of the journey that we've gone through on this. And we'll continue. Yeah. You know, yeah, we'll see what happens the next year, the next two years, the next three years. Be interesting to see.

SPEAKER_01

Well, we are at a very interesting uh place, I think, culturally, on uh just about any measure that you use. I've been describing that the last 30 years of my history here at Barna has been one of uh a lot of predictability, but since COVID, um, all sorts of things feel like they're they're moving around in new directions. And and this this particular part of it, it doesn't mean that um I've sort of talked about them like a reset. Um the religiosity of young men is not higher than uh young men were two generations ago. But it's an unexpected finding over the last couple of years that certainly is not in tune with uh the previous things. So on that basis, it's an interesting moment for hope. Even if it doesn't even if it doesn't rewrite the entirety of our religious history or trajectory or future, it's an interesting, it's an interesting trend on its in its own right.

SPEAKER_02

Um and just you know, the a big question is the cohort versus generation effect. If these young men are becoming more religious, and as they age up through the population, will they retain that and continue to be more religious, or will it die out? So that's another big question. So we have to monitor, you know, it's the pig in the python. We've got these 18 to 29 year olds, but if we talk in 20 years, they'll be up in their 30s and 40s. What will they be doing then? And then what will the new people coming into the system who are 18 to 29 be doing? So all these are fascinating questions.

SPEAKER_01

Well, stay tuned. That's job security for those of us who are in the research business. Uh, I'm with Frank Newport, and uh thanks so much for joining us on the Barnes Faith and Culture Report. Matt Flancher, good to be with you, David.

SPEAKER_00

I just love uh getting to hear two different researchers who have been studying this for decades and decades. Different metrics, different approaches, both bringing so much to the table.

SPEAKER_01

I feel so honored to talk to Dr. Frank Newport. I've been following his work for such a long time. And of course, the Gallup organization uh is uh is the is the name in polling. So thanks so much again to Dr. Frank Newport for appearing. Um what that makes me think about is you know that we were talking a lot about sort of the traditional metrics of of religion and church attendance, which are so important. And even if people are just, you know, um aspiring to be more church oriented, that itself tells us something. Uh, but one of the things that we tracked um last year was the percentage of Americans who have made a commitment to Jesus, which is something that we care so much about here at at the on the podcast, you and you and I personally and and then uh uh the Caborna Company. But we found that a lot of the increase in people's commitment to Jesus has also increased among young men. So for example, among millennial men, uh the percentage of of Americans who've made a commitment to Jesus has gone from 52% to 71%. Wow since uh 2019, uh, to our most recent data in uh late 2025. So from 52 to 71 among millennial men, it's actually higher than among millennial women, which is only 58 to 64. And then Gen Z uh men went from 52% to 67%, um, also a much stronger, much higher uh rate of increase compared to young women, Gen Z women, which was 54 to 61. So one of the contributions uniquely that Barnacon make is this polling related to perceptions of Jesus. They're not just did they are they churchgoers or are they Christians, yeah, but how do they feel about Jesus? And so what are you experiencing in your in your context, um, you know, sort of qualitatively, uh, and how do you think about some of the rise of interest in Jesus today?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I think those numbers are really telling. And that's true. I think what we get to do at Barna that brings a bit of sort of unique flavor and I think edge to our work is that all of us here are people of faith. And so we are asking questions in a different kind of way. And I do think this question about commitment to Jesus that is still important to me today, that I mean, that covers so many bases. I'll say that in New York, there are so many people who have deconstructed the institutional church, um, whether they grew up in it or founded in adulthood, because of what is happening with the politicization of the American church, because of exposure of scandals and moral failures, um, even like, you know, some of the financial things that we're finding out about various churches and ministries. And so all of that is extremely disillusioning for anyone, Christian or not, to hear about certain really unthinkable things happening. And yet, if you've had a real encounter with Jesus, it is so hard to turn away from Jesus. And I've I've found that to be true in my own life, is even when things happen that I'm like, oh God, how is that possible? How could this be? Whether it's within the church or just in the world, wars, et cetera. Um, there is just something so compelling about the love of Jesus and that counter-cultural way that he draws us in and he cares for the least of these, and he sees you and he calls you by name. And so that is what I think is keeping people. Um, and it's to say that there are things that we will miss when we only measure church attendance and nominal affiliation. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01

You know, yeah, I think um it's so interesting because this moment is uh, I believe, inviting us to track and and look at this, examine it a little bit differently. Um, I think those traditional measures are still important, but they're but they're changing. One one example, um, I'm not gonna give you the stats because I'm gonna hold this as a little bit of suspense for a later, a later Barnett uh Faith and Culture podcast. But we asked this question are you open to Jesus um, but do not consider yourself a Christian? So I just want to put a pin in that. Yeah. The results were very surprising. Over the next year, we're gonna have so much to talk about in terms of polling we've done about Jesus.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, we will.

SPEAKER_01

And so we're excited to, to, to look at that together. Like, do people think Jesus is coming back? Um, when do they think he's going to come back? What do they think might cause the end of the world and end times and antichrist? But this particular question of uh do you are you open to Jesus but do not consider yourself a Christian? Surprising results on that. And I think we're in this time of like real reinvention of what it means to follow Jesus, to be a person of faith, uh, to be a sort of post-institutional Christian while still believing in the the need for that. So anyway, that lots of interesting things. I think for church leaders and those who are listening, um, you know, where is God inviting you into a new experience of of, you know, measuring what matters?

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

You know, how how do you measure whether growth and transformation is happening, whether people are uh journeying towards Jesus or away from him? And uh would love just to continue to to provoke our listeners to be thinking about, you know, what God is up to in a new way uh in our time.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Oh, well, I'm so excited. And yes, listeners, there's a lot more data here and so much more we could say. But I think we'll leave it there for today's episode. If today's conversation resonated with you, if you learned something new, make sure to subscribe, follow, and like our podcast, the Barn of Faith and Culture Report, wherever you listen to podcasts. Share it with a friend or a coworker who needs to hear it, someone who would be encouraged or challenged by it, and download today's episode to revisit later. And please, lastly, just leave us a review. Reviews are the best way that new people can find our podcast and hopefully join the conversation. So, one quick final thank you to our partner Glue for sponsoring today's episode. Glue is on a mission to shape technology for good, giving leaders the tools they can trust and rely on to amplify their impact. A big thank you to you all for listening and learning along with us as a token of our appreciation. We've partnered with the team at Glue to make a free resource available to you today. It's called 10 Trends Shaping Faith, Culture, and the Future of the Church. You can grab your copy at Barna.comslash 10trends, and we'll drop the link in the show notes for you. So let's keep discerning the data together. We're grateful you're here, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Barna Faith and Culture Report.