In the past, the younger generation tended to rebel against the religious norms of their parents. Young people’s resistance to the rules and institutions of religion was assumed and expected. But that’s not the case anymore. According to a recent article from Axios, members of Gen Z—which includes people born between 1997 and 2012—are actually more likely to go to weekly religious services than millennials and young Gen Xers. According to some reports, church attendance has quadrupled among Gen Zers in recent years.
America witnessed a steady decline in Christianity from the 1970s through the 1990s, with only about 46 percent of Americans born in the ’90s identifying as Christian. Yet that falling trend has abruptly halted, likely because of a surge in religiosity among young Americans, particularly young men. Some Catholic dioceses, for instance, have reported a 70 percent increase in converts this year compared with last year, and many of these new converts are people in their teens and 20s. The winds have changed.