David Kinnaman
Yes, the data is telling us that among people under 30, women are less likely to attend church and to be religiously affiliated in the same ways that they were, like the “nones” that we just were talking about. There’s a higher proportion of religiously unaffiliated among young women,18 to 24 and among the 13 to 17 age range. So that is the first time in our history, and in a lot of social history, that you would experience women being less religiously active in the traditional ways than men. Now if you go into a traditional church, you have to think like a researcher. And if you’re just looking for men versus women, there still will be more women than men. But there will probably be on average, fewer younger women than there would be 20 years ago in that church.
And that, I think, is the really important thing for us to be paying attention to. Is there’s some key about young women being less likely to volunteer for churches and for nonprofits? There’s something about their disaffiliation from church. They’re skeptical in some important ways that we have to pay attention to. And it really is a unique just stop the presses moment. There’s not been a time in our social history, where we see young women being less religiously inclined. And I think that’s going to have a huge “canary in the coal mine” significance in the coming years for how women think about, engage as
mothers and working women and as singles. There’s going to be a big, important question for how the church can make the meaningful connections with women and young women that it needs to for the future.
David Capes
Is there any distinction in the data between those who are married and those who are single?
David Kinnaman
You know, that’s a good question. I don’t have data for that. We know that men and women are delaying marriage longer. So, one of the clear implications is that we need a strong and robust theology of singleness, which the scriptures both provide us and encourage us towards. But you know, singleness is a more common reality for young adults in their 20s and even into their 30s. 30 years ago, 50 years ago, the majority of Americans were married, had experienced marriage, had experienced partnership. Today, that has absolutely flipped with younger generations.
The majority by age 35 are still wondering whether they want to be married. So you recognize that there’s a real different experience of being a 20 something. They are going into the work world. They’re going in to figure out what they want to do. They’re doing it in a different way. Maybe a simple analogy is if you build puzzles. Some people build it with the edges first, and then work their way in. And then some people are real hardcore. They don’t even look at the box top to figure it out.
David Capes
I start with the edges myself. That seems simpler to me.
David Kinnaman
I think with this generation, they don’t put the edges of marriage and children around their life. Instead, they’re kind of working from the inside out and kind of pulling it together. And I don’t suggest that any one way is better than the other.
David Capes
It’s just observational, right? This is what people say about their lives.
David Kinnaman
One generation tended to put the edges of their life, with the boundary of marriage. Another generation, the younger generation today, is putting a different kind of boundary around their life in terms of what they want to experience. Happiness, contentment and financial stability. And it’s true that younger generations have had a harder time finding the kind of economic, social, relational, institutional, political stability compared to previous generations.
That may hit the ears of a “Boomer” in an interesting way, because if you went through the 60s, you will know that was a very tumultuous time. But the simple answer to that, or simple observation, is that what was mostly fringe activities– sexual exploration and liberation, protests and rioting, the kinds of questions around drug use and experimentation– is all very mainstream now. Sex and sexuality, gender, gay-lesbian relationships, was all very, very fringe. It was becoming part of the public consciousness, but it was not part of the public expression. You look at younger generations now, and
they really are trying to assemble their lives without the box top and without the puzzle edges in place.
David Capes
Let’s say you are writing the book unChristian again, or you’re doing an unChristian 2.0. The subtitle of that book was What a New Generation Really tTinks about Christianity and Why it Matters. Let’s say you’re writing that book again, you and Gabe Lyons. What’s going to be different about it now?
David Kinnaman
I think there’s some things that have stayed similarly. We predicted, in a manner, that Christianity would be ushered off the main stage of our collective life. We believe that was already happening, and we think that has happened. But even more than we probably would have predicted, You saw, especially in the last number of years, the pendulum swing in terms of how much Christian conviction would be welcomed in the public square, on all sorts of things. I think that’s been similar, and also that acceleration has happened pretty expansively, especially through the power of social media and technology. Even though the platform itself is neutral, the people on it and the powers of our present age, are certainly advancing certain kinds of ideas antithetical to Christian belief and practice. And the kind of flourishing life I think that Jesus has for us.
The ideas that Christianity is still irrelevant and extreme are even more the case with certain segments of the population. There’s even greater skepticism towards evangelicals. I have mixed feelings about that, that word and brand. I actually think that the kinds of core concepts of what it means to be an evangelical are more important than ever. Of being faith forward, of wanting to be adaptive into our society, trying to bring the gospel and the good news into people’s hearts and into our culture, being persuasive about the gospel, caring about both people’s salvation and the community that we live in. And the flourishing life. But I think we would see a lot of little periods at the end of the sentences. While some of the trends that we predicted in the book actually, some of those things have been probably truer than we expected. We took a lot of arrows for predicting some of those things.
The truth is that the last two or three years, we’ve seen a really interesting upsurge in the percentage of Gen Zers who believe that they made a commitment to Jesus. There’s a kind of a spiritual openness.
It’s almost as though secularism is running out of gas with many, but not all, of this generation. They’re open to just about any spiritual answer in a way that they probably weren’t before. Gen Z is a really interesting generation and the kinds of questions that are asked. They’re very positive on the person of Jesus, they’re very savvy though about the business of the church. They’ll look back on their church experience, and they’ll even say the chord progression, the music was just perfect, the worship experience was good. But I feel like I might have been emotionally manipulated to become a Christian. The trend toward deconstruction in our time is quite widespread and quite profound. So we’ve got to be very careful to convert people, heart, mind, body and soul, not just a raising of the hand or coming forward in a service. But we need to show people this matters in all of our lives, to our mind, to our heart, to our soul, to our relationships. One way we’ve said this is that people need to be convinced of the apologetic of, not just the truth of the gospel. But also the goodness of the gospel and the beauty of the gospel. And so following Jesus is not just a series of truthful propositions, but also about the kinds of lives we lead, the kinds of good we can do in the world, because Jesus calls us to that.
David Capes
The true, the good and the beautiful. This sounds like some great stuff that you and Ed Stetzer and John Plake and Nicole Martin are going to be sharing when you come to Houston in just a few weeks.
David Kinnaman
I cannot wait. Yeah, this is the kind of stuff we will be talking about. We will be talking about, the “State of the Church,” some of the trends that are defining some of this upsurge. It’s an unpredictable moment of spiritual change, and the fact that young people are leading the way, what great news. What a privilege it is to see God moving in some fresh ways in our society today.
David Capes
Yes, well, I’m excited, and it’s a real pleasure to meet you David and have a chance to talk. I look forward to seeing you face to face as we welcome pastors and church leaders to our place here at the Lanier Theological Library on June the 21st 2025. Thank you so much, David for being with me today here on “The Stone Chapel Podcast.”
David Kinnaman
My pleasure, David, thank you so much.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
