>Some Christian conservatives have framed the Sept. 10 assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as a potential inflection point for a religious “awakening” and for Gen Z to revitalize churches.
>Reality check: There is no widespread academic or mainstream evidence of a large-scale national religious awakening
>Despite anecdotal and media reports about Gen Z men returning to church, there’s little evidence it’s happening beyond scattered examples to reverse the overall decline, she said.
No_Celery_5373 on
Well, some of America’s biggest advertisers for Christianity are a drunken murderer,
A pedophile, murderer and felon,
A low grade house speaker who covers for pedophiles and shares porn habits with his son
Just to name a few, you just have such good role models. Why wouldn’t you be sending out a good message here?
flyover_liberal on
People like Charlie Kirk are one of the biggest reasons that Americans started staying away from churches in the first place.
If churches became community centers again, places where all are welcome, places where the actual words of Jesus are taught and practiced, then I bet they’d do a bit better on attendance.
Dizzy_Industry1287 on
Is this really about religion — or about institutions losing credibility?
sedatedlife on
Good religion is at the root of most the problems in the US. I hope the trend continues.
bensquirrel on
Gallup Jun 11, 2025
>More Americans See Religion Increasing Its Influence in U.S.
> Though still the minority view at 34%, it is up from 20% a year ago
Being a “Christian” in America no longer has much to do with actually practicing the tenets of Christianity. It’s more of an ethnic and political marker than a religious marker. That’s a big part of why the founding fathers made sure that separation of church and state was an explicit part of the Constitution. They knew that commingling politics and religion was bad for both.
I think the story arc of Jesus in South Park this season kind of sums it all up. A lot of “Christians” in America couldn’t care less about the actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They are just looking for something to use as an excuse for treating other people like shit.
StrigiStockBacking on
Tax them. It’s a free campaign platform for the right.
Rfun2024 on
Sane people are offended by religions that use Jesus and God as a weapon of hate. Certainly smart enough not to give 10% + of their income to finance hate.
CelticSith on
Good, keep it up
Aggressive-Will-4500 on
Finally, some good news about the USA.
Tokie-Dokie on
>And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
— Matthew 21:12–13, King James Version
Krillins_anus on
Great, Christianity has almost ruined the country
Dayspringg on
This is the religious equivalent of brick and mortar stores finding out that people can just order it online.
freakdageek on
America really starting to have a hard time making its foundational lies make sense.
daddyneedsadrink on
Organized religion is a giant grift
mkfandpj on
This is great news!!!
Aggressive-Foot4211 on
Churches covering up the abuses their leaders do is rampant and unchecked. and because their emotional abuse works so well, they use the threat of being labeled a bad Christian to coerce their followers into bad decisions, it’s not even a crime you can build a case against in court. All the donors to Kenneth Copeland’s ministry failing to ask the critical question of why they need to donate when he’s clearly a multimillionaire, and they are on food stamps, are making the choice. Religion is a perfect grift.
stonedhillbillyXX on
Im fucking tired of Abrahamists. I wish they would stfu and stop shoving their beliefs down my throat
They have their church, temple, mosque… yet they invade every other space
This article is not explicitly about politics. It is off topic. It shouldnt be here.
But it has to be here, because their internicene disputes threaten he world
Fuck all of them…. God, Yahweh, Allah
Tossawaysfbay on
I wish religion would just disappear. It has and continues to be one of the worst things ever dreamt up by man.
Social media gives it a run for its money but we don’t have millennia of effects to study yet.
TlocCPU on
Hard to believe in a higher power watching over you when everything sucks all the time and evil wins every time
astrozombie2012 on
I used to go to church every Sunday, tithe 10% of my income, volunteer, etc… then Trump and the MAGA crowd somehow infested the church, or maybe they were always there waiting for a chance to show who they really were without fear. Either way, back before Covid during one of the pastors sermons he started talking about how great a Christian Trump was and how Democrats don’t represent Christian values were demonic and such. I literally called him out on his lies right there in front of everyone, told him he was the demonic one and walked out and have not and will never go back to church.
Edit: this wasn’t the first time they had made statements like this, I had just gotten sick of it and couldn’t take it anymore… pretty sure that church is on hard times last I heard
Kioskwar on
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” – Seneca
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” – Voltaire
“If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” – Marcus Aurelius
PrefersEarlGrey on
If Christians were more Christ-like maybe, instead they are the poster childs for exactly why to stay away.
Also how many church leaders get caught in child sex crimes time and time again?
No thanks, I’ll keep enjoying my Sundays.
JakeTravel27 on
Maybe, just maybe, rational people see the right wing christians as fake christian fascists that worship an orange pedo. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, Christian about the right wing evangelical churches. It is a sea of hate, bigotry, sexism, anti gay bigotry and especially anti trans hate and bigotry. Evil people all of them
Coracoda on
Good. If they were half as pious as they pretend, they’d have been insisting on paying taxes. They make use of roads and infrastructure repair but pay *zero* into the communities they profit off.
encrypted-signals on
I moved to a Bible Belt state for three years, in an area where people had 2-3x the average salary, and yet the roads were shit, there weren’t a lot of parks, and whatever parks there were were poorly kept, the public schools were terrible, everything looked rundown…and there was a tax-exempt church on what felt like every corner. Needless to say it was a relief that I could easily get the fuck out of that shit hole.
I hope America becomes majority atheist sooner rather than later. It’s the only way this country will survive.
KatMakes69 on
Hold on while I cry for the tax free grift machine that is religion. Tax churches.
totalkpolitics on
I left a long time ago due to the Prosperity d
Doctrine. Since then other family members have left due to the Christian Nationalist Doctrine.
Churches in America haven’t been teaching/preaching the bible for a loooong time.
Chemical-Reward1644 on
Wow! So the current church of hatred and a complete rebuttal of the teachings of Christ can’t seem to maintain attendance? Color me shocked.
snakelygiggles on
almost every person i know who thinks of themselves as “a christian and a patriot” is a bigoted selfish sexist. why would i want to stand with people who hate me and mine.
everything_is_bad on
The easiest moral question of the last 5 years was vote Trump or Kamala. There was a clear right and wrong answer. Looking at exit polls the demographic most likely to get that question wrong was Christians (but especially white Christians). Which is truly ironic because their main argument for what Christianity provides people is a set of morals.
This leaves us with the conclusion that Christianity counter indicates morality.
It’s funny cause for years we go through the motions, expose our kids, and keep up the pretense that Christianity=morality. But not anymore now you have to protect your kids from Christian influence lest they get the wrong idea.
dterran on
Christians clearly wanted to destroy their own brand.
You can’t make a worse association than electing a person who embodies the exact opposite of virtually every tenant of Jesus and the bible.
An adulterous bearer of falsehoods about his neighbors who supports predatory lending, turns away the poor and the immigrant, preaches taking your wealth into heaven and shelters child predators.
I’m agnostic and this ‘builder of towers’ creep checks so many boxes that he makes even me consider believing in the antichrist.
I’m convinced my mother is stupid or senile to have studied the bible for a lifetime and then backed this maskless, unashamed barbarian.
fy1sh on
Just as everyone suspected, the church is just a money-making grift trying to overthrow the government. They couldn’t have picked a lower example of human depravity and moral bankruptcy than Trump.
NotTheRightHDMIPort on
Look.
One of the things churches, Evangelicalism specifically, could do is adapt to the losses and take the message that adheres to the values. At the very least emphasize values that exist in the Bible that parishioners care about.
Instead, they are deciding to hold on to their current flock and are radicalizing them in this great gambit to overtake the entire social, cultural, and legal center of the United States.
Rather than change they are deciding to take control.
Its a huge gambit. From their perspective it is the only thing they can do.
Everything is a hail Mary and they are kind of winning. Align with capital interest and you have all the levers for a Evangelical Christian Government.
yosarian_reddit on
Given the lead role of christian nationalism supporting fascist politics, uplifting sociopathic billionaires, and the inhumane treatment of non-whites, this is good news. If I was a devout Christian I’d suspect Trump is the anti-Christ.
The true teachings of Jesus are: compassion, moderation, and respect for all people. James Talarico is showing how it should be done.
AManHasNoShame on
Since Emperor Constantine, Jesus’s teachings have been co-opted for political machinations and systems of influence over the masses.
Certain contemporary churches in the United States are some of the most blatant abuses of those teachings and especially with its application for greed or political power.
I still believe in Jesus’s teachings of radical love of one another. I just won’t be a part of any churches.
tomdurk on
This is not frightening.
What is really frightening is that so many “self proclaimed Bible followers” have no idea what is in the Bible.
Nihiliste on
In the long term, mass secularization may be inevitable unless we slide all the way back into a new Dark Age. Any religion ultimately conflicts with reality in some respect, and people aren’t going to abide by worldviews that arbitrarily limit their freedom and happiness. It’s why even conservative Christians don’t really follow all the rules of their faith.
gcalfred7 on
As a Bible believing Christian, I’ll tell you exactly why people stop going to church because I’m one of them. I’ve gone to four different churches in the last 12 months and the people that go to these churches do not act like Christians or anything close to it. so I don’t blame people for not going to church
KuronFury on
But I just saw of Faux News the other day that there was a 200% increase in church attendance amongst Gen Z and younger people… surely they can’t be lying, right? (/s)
DarkstarWarlock on
The faster the churches disappear and we start funding and backing science again, the faster we will become a better nation.
There is zero proof of any Gods or omnipotent beings ever existing. It is all hearsay, or oral history. The Bible is not the word of God. It is the word of humans, that are cosplaying God.
I used to be a devout Christian but after the Maga Christian Nationalist took over the majority of churches I dipped away from that nonsense. Churches in the United States just want to preach politics and enjoy their tax exemption (just like the rich they pay no taxes) I mean they aren’t worshipping anything but the fat, disgraced, pedophilic President of the United States now. Who, by the way, has no idea about how the government works. He is an absolute moron with dementia creeping in his already child-like brain like his father. If he died tomorrow the world would rejoice, (except for his racist redneck cult, they would move on to the next great genius leader; whoever the GOP tells them to endorse.)
walkallover1991 on
It’s wild to me that articles like this never really hone in on that some people might just not believe in God or a higher power?
I was “raised” (if you could call it that) Catholic. Parents sent me to religious education classes so I could get my first Holy Communion, get Confirmation, etc., but mostly because that’s what they thought was “expected” of them.
But I never believe it God – I remember walking into class one day (which was on Wednesday night at 7PM – I remember having to go cold and wet after swim team practice) and telling the nuns straight up that I didn’t believe in God…I remember them telling me that I was going to go to purgatory after I died and I was like ok?
FrankAdamGabe on
The absolute worst people I know in life go to church and use it as an excuse to keep being shitty people.
ClownMorty on
Churches inability to see what they’re doing wrong is so funny to me. I lost my faith long before I encountered anything atheistic in nature.
I’ll give you a clue churches; the problem is what you think you’re doing the most right, is actually pissing people off.
45 Comments
>Some Christian conservatives have framed the Sept. 10 assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as a potential inflection point for a religious “awakening” and for Gen Z to revitalize churches.
>Reality check: There is no widespread academic or mainstream evidence of a large-scale national religious awakening
>Despite anecdotal and media reports about Gen Z men returning to church, there’s little evidence it’s happening beyond scattered examples to reverse the overall decline, she said.
Well, some of America’s biggest advertisers for Christianity are a drunken murderer,
A pedophile, murderer and felon,
A low grade house speaker who covers for pedophiles and shares porn habits with his son
Just to name a few, you just have such good role models. Why wouldn’t you be sending out a good message here?
People like Charlie Kirk are one of the biggest reasons that Americans started staying away from churches in the first place.
If churches became community centers again, places where all are welcome, places where the actual words of Jesus are taught and practiced, then I bet they’d do a bit better on attendance.
Is this really about religion — or about institutions losing credibility?
Good religion is at the root of most the problems in the US. I hope the trend continues.
Gallup Jun 11, 2025
>More Americans See Religion Increasing Its Influence in U.S.
> Though still the minority view at 34%, it is up from 20% a year ago
https://news.gallup.com/poll/691424/americans-religion-increasing-influence.aspx
Gallup November 13, 2025
> Drop in U.S. Religiosity Among Largest in World
https://news.gallup.com/poll/697676/drop-religiosity-among-largest-world.aspx
Being a “Christian” in America no longer has much to do with actually practicing the tenets of Christianity. It’s more of an ethnic and political marker than a religious marker. That’s a big part of why the founding fathers made sure that separation of church and state was an explicit part of the Constitution. They knew that commingling politics and religion was bad for both.
I think the story arc of Jesus in South Park this season kind of sums it all up. A lot of “Christians” in America couldn’t care less about the actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They are just looking for something to use as an excuse for treating other people like shit.
Tax them. It’s a free campaign platform for the right.
Sane people are offended by religions that use Jesus and God as a weapon of hate. Certainly smart enough not to give 10% + of their income to finance hate.
Good, keep it up
Finally, some good news about the USA.
>And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
— Matthew 21:12–13, King James Version
Great, Christianity has almost ruined the country
This is the religious equivalent of brick and mortar stores finding out that people can just order it online.
America really starting to have a hard time making its foundational lies make sense.
Organized religion is a giant grift
This is great news!!!
Churches covering up the abuses their leaders do is rampant and unchecked. and because their emotional abuse works so well, they use the threat of being labeled a bad Christian to coerce their followers into bad decisions, it’s not even a crime you can build a case against in court. All the donors to Kenneth Copeland’s ministry failing to ask the critical question of why they need to donate when he’s clearly a multimillionaire, and they are on food stamps, are making the choice. Religion is a perfect grift.
Im fucking tired of Abrahamists. I wish they would stfu and stop shoving their beliefs down my throat
They have their church, temple, mosque… yet they invade every other space
This article is not explicitly about politics. It is off topic. It shouldnt be here.
But it has to be here, because their internicene disputes threaten he world
Fuck all of them…. God, Yahweh, Allah
I wish religion would just disappear. It has and continues to be one of the worst things ever dreamt up by man.
Social media gives it a run for its money but we don’t have millennia of effects to study yet.
Hard to believe in a higher power watching over you when everything sucks all the time and evil wins every time
I used to go to church every Sunday, tithe 10% of my income, volunteer, etc… then Trump and the MAGA crowd somehow infested the church, or maybe they were always there waiting for a chance to show who they really were without fear. Either way, back before Covid during one of the pastors sermons he started talking about how great a Christian Trump was and how Democrats don’t represent Christian values were demonic and such. I literally called him out on his lies right there in front of everyone, told him he was the demonic one and walked out and have not and will never go back to church.
Edit: this wasn’t the first time they had made statements like this, I had just gotten sick of it and couldn’t take it anymore… pretty sure that church is on hard times last I heard
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” – Seneca
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” – Voltaire
“If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” – Marcus Aurelius
If Christians were more Christ-like maybe, instead they are the poster childs for exactly why to stay away.
Also how many church leaders get caught in child sex crimes time and time again?
No thanks, I’ll keep enjoying my Sundays.
Maybe, just maybe, rational people see the right wing christians as fake christian fascists that worship an orange pedo. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, Christian about the right wing evangelical churches. It is a sea of hate, bigotry, sexism, anti gay bigotry and especially anti trans hate and bigotry. Evil people all of them
Good. If they were half as pious as they pretend, they’d have been insisting on paying taxes. They make use of roads and infrastructure repair but pay *zero* into the communities they profit off.
I moved to a Bible Belt state for three years, in an area where people had 2-3x the average salary, and yet the roads were shit, there weren’t a lot of parks, and whatever parks there were were poorly kept, the public schools were terrible, everything looked rundown…and there was a tax-exempt church on what felt like every corner. Needless to say it was a relief that I could easily get the fuck out of that shit hole.
I hope America becomes majority atheist sooner rather than later. It’s the only way this country will survive.
Hold on while I cry for the tax free grift machine that is religion. Tax churches.
I left a long time ago due to the Prosperity d
Doctrine. Since then other family members have left due to the Christian Nationalist Doctrine.
Churches in America haven’t been teaching/preaching the bible for a loooong time.
Wow! So the current church of hatred and a complete rebuttal of the teachings of Christ can’t seem to maintain attendance? Color me shocked.
almost every person i know who thinks of themselves as “a christian and a patriot” is a bigoted selfish sexist. why would i want to stand with people who hate me and mine.
The easiest moral question of the last 5 years was vote Trump or Kamala. There was a clear right and wrong answer. Looking at exit polls the demographic most likely to get that question wrong was Christians (but especially white Christians). Which is truly ironic because their main argument for what Christianity provides people is a set of morals.
This leaves us with the conclusion that Christianity counter indicates morality.
It’s funny cause for years we go through the motions, expose our kids, and keep up the pretense that Christianity=morality. But not anymore now you have to protect your kids from Christian influence lest they get the wrong idea.
Christians clearly wanted to destroy their own brand.
You can’t make a worse association than electing a person who embodies the exact opposite of virtually every tenant of Jesus and the bible.
An adulterous bearer of falsehoods about his neighbors who supports predatory lending, turns away the poor and the immigrant, preaches taking your wealth into heaven and shelters child predators.
I’m agnostic and this ‘builder of towers’ creep checks so many boxes that he makes even me consider believing in the antichrist.
I’m convinced my mother is stupid or senile to have studied the bible for a lifetime and then backed this maskless, unashamed barbarian.
Just as everyone suspected, the church is just a money-making grift trying to overthrow the government. They couldn’t have picked a lower example of human depravity and moral bankruptcy than Trump.
Look.
One of the things churches, Evangelicalism specifically, could do is adapt to the losses and take the message that adheres to the values. At the very least emphasize values that exist in the Bible that parishioners care about.
Instead, they are deciding to hold on to their current flock and are radicalizing them in this great gambit to overtake the entire social, cultural, and legal center of the United States.
Rather than change they are deciding to take control.
Its a huge gambit. From their perspective it is the only thing they can do.
Everything is a hail Mary and they are kind of winning. Align with capital interest and you have all the levers for a Evangelical Christian Government.
Given the lead role of christian nationalism supporting fascist politics, uplifting sociopathic billionaires, and the inhumane treatment of non-whites, this is good news. If I was a devout Christian I’d suspect Trump is the anti-Christ.
The true teachings of Jesus are: compassion, moderation, and respect for all people. James Talarico is showing how it should be done.
Since Emperor Constantine, Jesus’s teachings have been co-opted for political machinations and systems of influence over the masses.
Certain contemporary churches in the United States are some of the most blatant abuses of those teachings and especially with its application for greed or political power.
I still believe in Jesus’s teachings of radical love of one another. I just won’t be a part of any churches.
This is not frightening.
What is really frightening is that so many “self proclaimed Bible followers” have no idea what is in the Bible.
In the long term, mass secularization may be inevitable unless we slide all the way back into a new Dark Age. Any religion ultimately conflicts with reality in some respect, and people aren’t going to abide by worldviews that arbitrarily limit their freedom and happiness. It’s why even conservative Christians don’t really follow all the rules of their faith.
As a Bible believing Christian, I’ll tell you exactly why people stop going to church because I’m one of them. I’ve gone to four different churches in the last 12 months and the people that go to these churches do not act like Christians or anything close to it. so I don’t blame people for not going to church
But I just saw of Faux News the other day that there was a 200% increase in church attendance amongst Gen Z and younger people… surely they can’t be lying, right? (/s)
The faster the churches disappear and we start funding and backing science again, the faster we will become a better nation.
There is zero proof of any Gods or omnipotent beings ever existing. It is all hearsay, or oral history. The Bible is not the word of God. It is the word of humans, that are cosplaying God.
I used to be a devout Christian but after the Maga Christian Nationalist took over the majority of churches I dipped away from that nonsense. Churches in the United States just want to preach politics and enjoy their tax exemption (just like the rich they pay no taxes) I mean they aren’t worshipping anything but the fat, disgraced, pedophilic President of the United States now. Who, by the way, has no idea about how the government works. He is an absolute moron with dementia creeping in his already child-like brain like his father. If he died tomorrow the world would rejoice, (except for his racist redneck cult, they would move on to the next great genius leader; whoever the GOP tells them to endorse.)
It’s wild to me that articles like this never really hone in on that some people might just not believe in God or a higher power?
I was “raised” (if you could call it that) Catholic. Parents sent me to religious education classes so I could get my first Holy Communion, get Confirmation, etc., but mostly because that’s what they thought was “expected” of them.
But I never believe it God – I remember walking into class one day (which was on Wednesday night at 7PM – I remember having to go cold and wet after swim team practice) and telling the nuns straight up that I didn’t believe in God…I remember them telling me that I was going to go to purgatory after I died and I was like ok?
The absolute worst people I know in life go to church and use it as an excuse to keep being shitty people.
Churches inability to see what they’re doing wrong is so funny to me. I lost my faith long before I encountered anything atheistic in nature.
I’ll give you a clue churches; the problem is what you think you’re doing the most right, is actually pissing people off.