This may be a letter for the numbers people, but it is what is on my mind. It is also going to be a bit long…… so: be warned. This week, a study and some data was released regarding Gen Z adults (ages 18–28) and church involvement. Within this survey (conducted Aug 9 – Sept 26, 2024), one of the statements included was: “Christians’ support of Trump has made me less likely to go to church: strongly agree, agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree.”
In the full sample, nearly half (48%) of these young adults agreed with the statement in one way or another. In other words, nearly half of 18–28 year-olds say that support for Donald Trump by professing Christians keep them from going to church.
Before I go on, let me tell you who conducted this research. It was not a progressive denomination or some “liberal” think-tank. The research was conducted by the Billy Graham Center Research Institute and the lead investigator was from Wheaton College — both solidly from the conservative side of the religious and political worlds.
People who are better than me at parsing meaning from this sort of data are already clarifying what it means and what it does not. In the following, I am relying on Ryan Burge, a preeminent religious demographer, whose article I will link below.
- One would expect political leanings to play strongly into this data, and it does. But there remain 42% of independents and over 22% of Republicans who agree that Trump support has kept them from the church.
- Similarly, given that much is reported on the lack of religious commitment among younger generations, one might be tempted to dismiss this high number as involving many who have no interested in church whatsoever. But while there are the predictably high percentages among those in Gen Z who identify as atheist, agnostic, and “nothing in particular,” the percentages remain high among Protestants (30%), Catholics (42%), and “generic Christian” (44%).
If that seems clear and significant, it is. Numbers like that — especially about this subject produced by conservative organizations — should be taken seriously. But as a former colleague asked in response to all of this: “There are countless churches that openly advocate against Trump. Do they just have a marketing problem?”
While I do believe many churches have exactly that — a marketing problem — I also recognize a complexity to the issue of Gen Z involvement that can never be captured by the “right answer” to a single survey question.
In my opinion, there are two deeply significant factors that come into play in addressing my colleague’s question (criticism?) of this dataset. To see the first, we have to go back to the data itself, with the help of Ryan Burge.
When he charts this data across how frequently Gen Z currently are attending church, it does not appear that young Christians are completely staying away because of the embracement of Trump by other Christians. He concludes that “staying away” is a matter of “more”: 40% of young adult Christians (a subset of the larger dataset) see Trump supporting Christians as an impediment to becoming more involved. This brings to my mind the often-offered wisdom by the minds at Barna Group and the Alban Institute and others who research and write about formation and development: that it is never about moving someone immediately from the “bottom” category to the “top”; rather, the goal is to help people move one category at a time. In terms of something like attendance, this means not expecting the “never attended” to become the “never miss.” Rather, we work to help the “rarely attends” to become a “once-a-month”; or a “once–a–month” to become a “three-or-more-times–a-month.
Right now, this data from the Billy Graham Center Research Institute seems to suggest to me that Trump support by Christians is a factor that can and does move young adults one category away from engagement. Changing that dynamic overall in the public sphere might shift them one category towards engagement. But to expect more than that may be unrealistic.
But perhaps more significantly is the impact of all this for those not participating in a church in any way — and especially those “generic Christians” (of whom 44% say Trump support keeps them from the church) who may be second generation or more “away from being rooted in a local church.” This is the second significant factor I believe needs to be kept in mind: for these individuals, there may not be any real differentiation between a church and The Church…… between that church on the corner and the people calling themselves Christian on TV. We may have forgotten how, throughout Christian history, one Christian has always been seen to represent all of Christianity. This continues to be the case, even and especially among those who identify as Christian but do not have firsthand experience of a healthy church community.
This is the same mental mechanism that used to get me horrified looks when I mentioned to seat-mates on airplanes that I was a Baptist pastor in Kansas. They frightfully assumed — and usually could not avoid voicing — a connection to the Westboro Baptist Church; was I like that? How could I be like that? Donald Trump is the Westboro Baptist Church of American Christianity, and the support he maintains from the Republican Party disallows any notion that he and they are just one wack-job church in flyover country.
So what does all this mean for Community Baptist Church? You’ve read all of this, so you deserve something, right?
Here are some initial thoughts:
- Unsurprisingly, there are no easy answers. Getting young adults into the door is not going to be as simple as doing one thing. We knew this already.
- Being a progressive, social-justice oriented church with a history of advocating for such causes does give us a leg to stand on that others may not. We have already walked the walk, while others may just be talking the talk. Gen Z have good BS detectors, and that can work in our favor too.
- Being more open about our own orientation and history (working to fix our “marketing problem”) may well yield some results, but we cannot put all our eggs in that basket. One church cannot overcome national stigma, and mere marketing does not build trust. But if we are not active and visible and relevant in ways that matter to the community, we will not be their Community.
- Once again, I come back to the questions I have been asking all of us for some time now: Who are we? Who will we become? How are we going to choose to invest ourselves in the present and for the future?
If you make it through all of this, I’d love to hear your thoughts too.
Remember, we’re all in this together,
Pastor Michael
PS: Ryan Burge’s article is available here: Half of Gen Z Says Trump Support Keeps Them Out of Church