The Gen Z Dilemma and Challenge for the Church

Springtide Research Institute, a newly formed research center that is focused on Gen Z, recently released a study on attitudes of adolescents and young adults toward religion.  The results were somewhat predictable while also quite startling.  Gen Z’s lack of affinity for organized religion is old news, but its level of comfort with uncertainty was quite surprising, as were the implications for the future of Christianity in the US.

The Springtide report found that almost 75 percent of Gen Z considers itself religious, yet only 16 percent claim that they would turn to their faith community in time of crisis or uncertainty.  Further, more than half of the Gen Z population has little to no trust in organized religion.  While these statistics may seem dismaying for clergy and faithful alike, they are nothing new.

Smith and Lundquist’s 2005 book, Soul Searching, that coined the term Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, made clear more than fifteen years ago that American youth adhered to a vague spirituality that passed principally for Christianity or Judaism and that young Americans were not particularly attached to faith communities.  In this sense, the Springtide study just added statistics to what was already known.

Normalized Ambiguity

But beyond the numbers, the Springtide report reveals a generation that seems to accept uncertainty and ambiguity as normal and that is fully comfortable searching for some sense of meaning.  On many levels, this is understandable.  Gen Z’s entire lifespan to date has been a time of uncertainty and incredible change.  Its collective first memories were mostly of the September 11^th attacks. It has endured the deepest recession since the Great Depression, massive social dislocation, and a pandemic that almost certainly has made impossible a return to a pre-Covid world.

Compared to earlier generations, Gen Z has received almost no religious education and thus has had to figure out for itself what it believes.  All the while, it likely has no memory of religious institutions that were not mired in scandals ranging from tawdry to horrific in their scope and scale, or that were not involved in divisive politics.  Thus, like much of the public, Gen Z has little faith in religious, governmental, or academic institutions.

Certainty as Anathema

But unlike earlier generations that may have found solace in the simplicity and security of fundamentalism, or the dogma of Catholicism, Gen Z apparently sees certainty and the attempt to convey it as an affront.  It seemingly does not believe that there is any black and white in the world, but at best shades of gray.  With this perspective in mind, the Springtide study reveals that Gen Zers do not want to be given answers; rather they want adults to listen and to help them work through their uncertainty and doubts.

As much as it might seem that Gen Z bears the uncertainty of the world, and its own existence, in a sanguine state, the Springtide report reveals that American youth are plagued by anxiety and isolation, perhaps more than any previous generation.  Having lived almost entirely in anxious times and never having been given the anchor of faith in the form of religious education, it is little wonder.

Interestingly, the historian Alec Ryrie suggests in his recent book, Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt, that collective anxiety and anger have been the principal drivers of atheism during the past five hundred years.  He argues that there have been no great philosophical or sociological developments that would challenge belief and even that many of the most convincing cases against religion of the nineteenth and twentieth century have been soundly disproved.

Matters of Salvation

Beginning with the Reformation, Ryrie draws on historical documents to show how the split in Christianity caused deep generalized anxiety about the extremely weighty matter of eternal salvation. The ambiguity and uncertainty caused by competing creeds caused collective agita that led to anger and the beginnings of secularization as groups looked to ethically- rather than religiously-based value systems.

Ryrie also argues that the decision to believe or doubt is not typically one that is based on logic and rational analysis but rather on emotion.  Does it feel right?  Does it feel easy or hard to believe?  This is an extremely important observation when looking at how Gen Z sees the world.

While the current youth of America were born at the very end of the twentieth century, they inherited the twentieth century framework, which Ryrie argues was born of the horrors of the Holocaust and the Second World War.  The enormity of the crimes committed means, according to Ryrie, that the twentieth century compass no longer had Christ as its true north, but Hitler.  Instead of pointing toward absolute good, the compass now takes its bearing from absolute evil.  Rather than seeking to move toward the light, the compass is used to avoid complete darkness.  Not surprisingly, with this true north, faith for many feels difficult.  It must feel especially so for young people who have spent their lives in such anxious times.

The Church’s Response

So how should the Church in America respond?  Given that most of the youth in this country have little understanding of Christianity, it would seem that it needs to re-missionize or re-convert a large portion of the nation.  For most of its history, the Church made the Gospel understandable to people around the world by using language that was relatable and by incorporating as much of the existing culture as possible.  Perhaps this is the right framework for the current moment in America.

American youth seemingly want their anxieties and doubts to be recognized.  They want religious leaders to listen rather than speak. If Ryrie is correct, Gen Z will make an emotional choice to believe or not, but it also, paradoxically, wants to rationally arrive at this decision on its own.

Regardless of how the decision is made, the fact that a generation is apparently struggling so much with its beliefs potentially means that the faith at which it arrives will be that much deeper and more genuine.  So it would seem that, rather than hearkening the end of Christianity in America, the current moment is an incredible opportunity for renewal.

Truth and Beauty

Understanding that Gen Z is facing a crisis of anxiety and isolation, yet is distrustful of communities that seemingly exude certainty but lack authenticity, there is potentially an opening to gently show the truth and beauty of Christianity.  St. Paul wrote to the Romans that Christ’s followers should “Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15). It would seem that at this moment, Gen Z really just wants someone to sit with it and listen – not much more.

It would seem that much more than hearing its problems would smack of the shallow hypocrisy of the untrue Christian that St James describes in his letter, who says, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed” (James 2;16), but does nothing to help the one in need.  In this case, words tantamount to “Jesus is the answer” without anything more that actually addresses the problems that it faces would apparently seem to young Americans to be a twenty-first century version of what James admonishes followers not to do.

This is not to state that the faithful of the US should keep silent when encountering American youth and say nothing more than “I feel your pain,” lest religion cause offense.  But perhaps the witness most needed is that of St. Francis, real or imagined.  Francis likely never said, “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.”  But the joyful and peaceful certainty of Franciscan spirituality may be what is needed at the present moment of anxiety.

Francis lived in times that were likely far more anxious than our own.  Existential threats of Mongol or Muslim invasions and tales of unspeakable things happening in the east would have permeated his world.  Yet in it, Francis exuded joy and peace.  Through his absolute faith in Christ, he was able to convey the depth and beauty of Christianity in very uncertain times.  Equally importantly, he did not judge and he did not create more anxiety, while also not discounting the cost of discipleship and the sacrificial nature of faith.  His was an honest witness that made clear that Christianity is not without cost, but it is a faith that is worth the expense, like the pearl of great price.

Time for Witness

Perhaps this honest and true witness is what Gen Z needs.  It clearly has not found happiness or meaning in social media or virtual reality or in life lived in relative material comfort.  It could be that through a process of the witness of St. Francis, over time, that it will discover the truth and certainty of the faith.  It seems to have already discarded the cheap grace that Bonhoeffer described.

Few individuals are so fortunate as to have Paul’s road to Damascus experience.  Christ almost warns against them in the parable of the sower (Matthew 13).  The believer who quickly, and perhaps thoughtlessly, receives the faith finds it quickly choked off or withered.  True faith requires deep roots and it seems that Gen Z is seeking to be deeply rooted and is testing and trying what is on offer.  Roots take time to grow and develop; they require nurture and patience.  But as Christ states, the deeply rooted plant yields fruit a hundred fold.

It may be that the most fruitful plants are slowly rooting against their wishes. C.S. Lewis makes clear in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, that he reluctantly and inevitably came to belief in God and in the truth of Christianity. Yet he became possibly the greatest Christian apologist of the twentieth century. His arrival at faith was a process that took more than a decade.  At crucial moments witnesses were there in the form of friends and writers whom he respected. They walked with him, proverbially, or literally and gently helped him to find the truth and to rediscover the joy that he experienced as a child with his brother.

Lewis states that he almost had no other choice.  Perhaps this is a way of saying that the decision to believe, in Ryrie’s terms, felt right, or felt correct.  He knew it in his bones.

Gen Z seems to be seeking, perhaps against its will and wish, to feel right, in a faith that it has yet to reach.  It appears that its collective journey will be a long one, but the faithful should pray that silently, those roots are taking hold and will produce fruit a hundred fold.  Like St. Francis, whose mission and command was to restore the Church, so also the faithful can join in this restoration by true, and perhaps silent, witness to the depth and beauty of the faith.