Saying he was “fed up with hearing all these stories about a real religious revival happening in America,” Dr. Ryan Burge explained that “many casual observers are overinterpreting some short-term shifts in survey data.”
In a Jan. 5 article titled “What Data Really Says About Religious Revival and Generation Z,” the professor, author, and former pastor used “math and not vibes” to examine whether revival has replaced “dechurching” among young people.
“As someone who looks at data on American religion nearly every day,” Burge wrote, “I can say without equivocation that there’s no clear or compelling evidence that younger Americans are more religious than their parents or grandparents.”
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Burge, whose new book “The Vanishing Church” releases next week, acknowledged that the public, religious denominations, and the media are looking for a “narrative” about revival—especially after the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. But he said recent surveys don’t offer proof of that, due to “generational replacement.”
“If a real revival was happening you wouldn’t need any survey data to tell you about it,” Burge posted on X. “You would see very tangible evidence of it happening in tens of thousands of churches across America. Not just a handful.”
Ryan Burge: ‘There’s No Sign’ of Religious Transformation
Ryan Burge, author of “The Nones,” served as a pastor in the American Baptist Church for more than 20 years. He publishes the Substack newsletter “Graphs About Religion.” Burge is now a professor at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Although U.S. Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and members of Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) may yet turn to God, “it would require a transformation unlike anything seen in modern times,” Burge wrote this week. “Roughly 10 million millennials would have to reaffiliate with religion, followed by another 18 million Gen Zers. There’s no sign of that happening in any dataset.”
Burge explained that about one-quarter of Americans attend worship services each weekend. “If that rose by even three points—a small but noticeable increase—that would mean 10 to 12 million more people in church today than just six months ago,” he wrote. Burge continued:
That’s hard to imagine given that there are only about 350,000 houses of worship nationwide. Evenly distributed, those 12 million new attendees would add roughly 35 people to every congregation. And since the median church in America averages just 65 attendees, each one would have to grow by nearly 50% just to move the national number by three points. And remember—that’s a modest increase.
Burge pointed to occasional upticks in religiosity but said data indicated “no lasting change.”
Growth trends are evident in some Protestant denominations and among nondenominational Christians, he added. “However, the sources of growth in American Christianity are still outweighed,” he said, “by the decline of older denominations like the United Methodist Church and The Episcopal Church.”
Although revivals are spiritual movements, Burge argued that statistical evidence is required to make claims about faith trends. In social media comments, some people said Burge is focusing on growth percentages rather than the phenomenon of “already existing lukewarm Christians strengthening their faith and becoming more active in following the Bible.”
Franklin Graham is among the figures who have spoken publicly about a resurgence in church attendance among Millennials and Gen Z Americans. On Fox News, the evangelist recently said he believes that young people are rejecting the “lie of socialism,” which is “basically anti-God.” Bible sales also reportedly surged following Kirk’s assassination.
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Saying he was “fed up with hearing all these stories about a real religious revival happening in America,” Dr. Ryan Burge explained that “many casual observers are overinterpreting some short-term shifts in survey data.”Click to Post
