Is Gen-Z Really Coming Back to Church?

You might have heard the news: Gen-Z is leading a quiet revival and coming back to church.

After decades of gloomy headlines, empty pews, and a cultural tide pulling faith into irrelevance, The Quiet Revival (QRR), a recent report by the Bible Society, tells us what we’ve wanted to hear for so long: church attendance in highly secular England and Wales is on the rise again. And not just slightly—up by more than 50% since 2018, with young adults, especially young men, leading the surge.

And the news is spreading like wildfire. USA Today, The Independent, New York Post, The Guardian, New York Times… even the Australian Broadcasting Network are all reporting on this incredible and exciting new phenomenon.

At first glance, this feels like the tide is turning. And that’s good news.

But before we get too excited and start believing the struggle is over, there are three things we need to wrestle with.

First, this revival is primarily masculine which means while men are coming back, the women aren’t. We need to understand why.

Second, this revival is taking place predominantly in Catholic and Pentecostal churches. It’s not happening among Adventists. We need to understand why.

Third, this revival isn’t just happening among dechurched youth. It’s taking place among the secular. This is music to my ears, but nevertheless, we need to understand why.

In this article, I want to tackle the first item. I’ll come back to the others next week. Let’s dive in.

What’s up with the masculine revival?

I’m not here to hate on what is otherwise really good news. I get pumped anytime I hear that young people are giving their youth to Jesus and I actively advocate for doing church in new ways that disciple younger generations.

But there’s something fishy about this latest revival. Although its true that Gen-Z is coming back to church, the resurgence is being led predominantly by young men, not young women. In fact, as men start filling the pews, the women are leaving in droves. According to the QRR:

“Over a fifth of men aged 18–24 (21%) now say they are attending church monthly... far higher than their female peers at 12%.”

But why am I saying these stats are “fishy”? I mean, men have been absent from the church for decades. We’ve begged them to come back. And now they are. Shouldn’t I be celebrating?

Here’s my struggle with the Bible Society’s report. It tells us that young men are coming back in droves. But it doesn’t tell us why.

To be fair, its probably too soon to know the exact why. In fact, these sorts of phenomenon can rarely be reduced to a single factor. There are likely many “why’s” fueling this masculine revival. But while it might be too early to have a birds eye view, there are early signs backed by research that are worth considering.

The first sign is found inside of the QRR’s own Quiet Revival report which cites Ruth Graham’s September 2024 New York Times article, “In a First Among Christians, Young Men Are More Religious Than Young Women”. And while the QRR cites this article as supporting evidence of its findings, it fails to mention the main premise of that article in which Graham argues that young men are outpacing female church attendance for the first time in history because they are drawn to the promise of power conservative Christianity is offering them.

To be fair, I don’t think (and neither does Graham) that young Gen-Z men are out there just thirsting after power like a bunch of one-dimensional comic book villains. They aren’t turning up to church because they are driven by a desire for domination and control. The most likely scenario is that they are searching for meaning and purpose. There are genuine conversions taking place. There is real longing being met. This generation is wading through a meaning crisis left in the rubble of postmodern cynicism and a full-blown loneliness epidemic fueled by social media, economic instability, and increasing political polarization. And churches are a great place to turn to when searching for beloning, transcendence, and to be part of something bigger than yourself. But there’s no denying that Christianity’s power-centred worldview has a role to play here. It may not be the driving force of this generation, but power has a way of promising to give us the meaning, purpose, and significance we long for like nothing else can.

Sociologists Paul A. Djupe and Brooklyn Walker argue this same point in their research, “The Reactionary Religious Reengagement of Young Men,” revealing that “young Christian men have stronger Christian nationalist worldviews (measured using the Whitehead and Perry scale), and higher concentrations of apocalypticism (as measured by Djupe, Neiheisel, and Lewis).” This, they argue, is a demonstration that “younger Christians are more engaged with a very particular form of Christianity that seeks to exert control…” Medium contributor Eric Sentell summarized Djupe’s and Walker’s research best in, “Why Gen Z Men Are Flocking to Church” when he wrote, “Gen Z men are coming to churches and small groups that nurse their anxieties about being male in the 21st century and promise them top spot in the social hierarchy.”

And this isn’t just something left-leaning thinkers are suggesting. This same point is echoed in Phil Mitchel’s counter-article, “Why Are Young Men Returning to Church?” when he writes, “Young men have lived their entire lives listening to a negative, destructive narrative (from the liberal left) about who they are as human beings…. Young men hate this and are sick of it.”

In fact, this cultural war seems to be at the epicenter of this faith revival. According to NBC news report, “Young men and women are taking the 'gender gap' to staggering new levels”, “The gulf between Gen Z men and women on political and cultural issues is far wider than it is in older generations.” In fact, the report goes on to state that Gen Z women are more likely to lean left than the men are. The translation is clear: Politically conservative, right-wing leaning Gen Z men (the ones who are likely to reject post-modernity and its relativistic views) are the ones who are coming back to church, no doubt infleunced by the likes of Jordan Peterson, Russel Brand, Charlie Kirk and Candace Owen (among others). Politically progressive, left-wing leaning Gen Z women… (The ones who represent the continuing post to metamodern cultural mileu)? Not so much.

As already stated, its too soon to make any absolute claims. But there is enough data to show us that at the very least, this so called revival isn’t a simple resurgence of the way of Jesus. It is a resurrection of Rome with Christ as its mascot.

Which means as great as it is to see young men coming back to church, the “who gets to be on top” ping-pong game that cultures, nations, and empires always recycle is deeply in play here… and the church is in the middle of it. Rather than introducing the world to a new game altogether - a “who gets to be at the bottom” game, the church is joining the imperial one and then celebrating when we start scoring points.

In short, when churches preach that women can’t lead, can’t teach, must submit without question, and should submit their bodily autonomy to a man, is it any wonder they’re leaving? And when these same churches turn around and say to men: “You were made to rule, to lead, to take back control”, is it any wonder they are flocking back? Conservative Christianity has become appealing in this context because young men are being told Jesus can make them strong. Dominant. Unapologetically alpha. They’re trading a sense of far left emasculation for the promise of far right religious control. The secular left robbed them of purpose—and the Christian right said, Come home, son. We'll make you a king.

Which means, as Adventists we have work to do in remembering that our prophetic identity calls us to protest and challenge this hierarchical, imperial appropriation of Jesus. We have a mission to share the character of God and the truth about his heart in a way that pushes back against the excesses of both the left and the right. As Christendom finds itself locked in a cultural war over who gets to have power, the way of Jesus calls us to walk a different road. An ancient road. A forgotten path of servanthood, rooted in the servant heart of God, the foundation of a new kingdom which will be inherited, not by the powerful, but by the meek. In other words, our mission as Adventists in this context is to let the world know they don’t have to play the systems game. There’s a whole other way of walking in the world. There’s a whole other game.

Yes, we can be excited about what’s happening…

But two things can be true at the same time. We can be excited that young men are coming back to church. And we can be weary of the cultural forces that are likely to be driving that resurgence. Not to reject it, but to meet it with authentic discipleship and a healing theology that empowers the pursuit of love, not power. Because if young men are truly finding themselves in the vortex of a meaning crisis and desperately looking for hope, welll… thats that sort of environment in which militant, imperial Christianity starts to look like salvation.

Which means this is our moment—not to repackage the same toxic version of Christianity with an Adventist twist—but to unveil the upside down alternative. A vision of the world built on the eternal, sanctuary-rooted, self-emptying love of a God who laid down power to lift us into new humanity. A humanity that walks in a new rhythm. A humanity that will birth a new civilization—one shaped by justice, servanthood, and true belonging.

And in doing so, we can reveal to frustrated young men that there is a true masculinity rooted in Jesus. And its more than masculinity. It’s humanity. It’s servanthood. It’s laying your power down to lift others up. it is in this context that we must stand, even if we stand alone, to declare: there is a healing way.

Part 2 next week!

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