Readers of the mainstream press will be familiar with a recurring staple of human-interest feature desks since the pandemic, heralding revival of Catholicism among Generation Z. As The New York Times announced in 2022, “New York City’s Hottest Club is the Catholic Church.” This week, The New York Post asserted that “Gen Z Catholic Influencers Make Church Look Cooler Than Ever.“ Certainly, among the chic crowds in the City and the Beltway, these journalists observe a real trend. Yet, away from major cities and largely out of media sight, another, quieter revival of evangelical Protestantism is underway among a young audience.
I study at a large land-grant state university on the East Coast. The movements and aesthetics of the Catholic revival in the metropoles are felt, but only softly. Our Newman Center has welcomed, for them, a record number of catechumens into the Church this Easter. Yet the figures from the Catholic Church are easily trounced by those students who have converted to evangelicalism while in university.
InterVarsity and other heritage parachurch ministries are bursting at the seams, hosting prayer meetings on our secular campus with hundreds of regular attendees. The death of evangelicalism, clearly, has been overstated. Yet these new Protestants differ from their older counterparts in a few key ways that will fundamentally reshape the face of the evangelical movement in this country.
Perhaps the most identifiable change are the diverse backgrounds of these new evangelicals. On our campus, this movement is racially and ideologically diverse, with notable amounts of black, Hispanic, and LGBT-identified people joining Christian ministries.
This new demographic makeup has strong implications for the political orientation of young evangelicals. Among those I regularly speak to, politics range from liberal to conservative, with many students simply preferring to ignore the political noise to focus on the Gospel. Israel, once a cause célèbre for dispensationalist evangelicals, draws mild consternation or complete apathy from these students, who see no connection between their faith and the contemporary State of Israel. Christian conservatism and Zionism alike appeal little to these youths.
Further, these students have little or no connection to denominational Protestantism. Many do attend Presbyterian or Assemblies of God churches at school and visit nondenominational or Baptist congregations during breaks. The idea of a denomination is unconvincing to the non- and inter-denominational crowds generated on our campus. That said, there is a palpable appetite for tradition. Students often know their theology to be, for example, Arminian, but have few opportunities to engage more deeply with the theological perspective they have adopted. This hunger for unity with the Christians of the past presents a unique opportunity for churches to catechize these young people in the historic Protestant tradition.
Despite their differences from their elders, the Gen Z Christians I interact with every day have a palpable zeal for the Gospel. They organize Bible studies outside their ministries and eagerly invite their friends to join them in studying the Word. They hold revival meetings in their campus apartments to pray for our school and our country. A good friend of mine has founded a homeless ministry in a nearby city, in cooperation with local churches, drawing dozens of volunteers to serve the community and share their testimonies.
For older evangelical Protestants, the flippancy of young people towards conservative politics, Zionism, and the denominations can feel like a threat. In some ways, it is. Generational change, as it always has, will profoundly change the way the Church expresses its faith to the world. Yet, more so, this quiet revival is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to invite young people deeper into the faith, into the historic deposit left in the Creeds and the Confessions, and into a Christian worldview that they will have a share in bringing about in the decades to come.
More from IRD:
Christian Revival Among the Young?
Drawing Gen Z Women Back to the Church
Comment by Salvatore Anthony Luiso on April 20, 2026 at 2:32 am
Thank you for this article. I’m happy to read all this good news about what is happening at one university campus on the East Coast.
It sounds like the author does not know that since last year one of the narratives of American secular right-wing media (especially Fox News) has been that there is a revival of Christianity in America, including evangelical Christianity, and especially among Generation Z. I see it as a part of the larger narrative that President Trump is making America great again. I’ve occasionally seen it said explicitly that the religious revival is due to the presidency of Trump. The notion that it is due to the late Charlie Kirk and his assassination seems to me to be much more common.
American Christian media has also been promoting the narrative of revival–especially CBN, which last year produced a documentary entitled *The Revival Generation: Gen Z Turning to Jesus*.
The question of whether there is in fact such a revival has been in the mainstream press–especially in reports and opinion pieces published by Religion News Service (RNS). For example, last October RNS published a report entitled “Is there religious revival among Gen Z?”, and last month they published an opinion piece entitled “The Gen Z revival being debated won’t happen in churches that talk but don’t listen”.
According to what I’ve read, the answer is that there is no statistical evidence to support the notion of a widespread revival in America, including within Gen Z.
In February, *The Hill* published an opinion piece by John Mac Ghlionn entitled “America’s Christian revival is a hoax”, in which he asserts the following about the quality of most of what is being called “revival”:
What we are seeing is not a return to shared worship, shared discipline, or shared belief, but Christianity detached from its roots and repackaged for mass consumption.
[…]
What we’re seeing is a shift from Christianity as a lived faith to Christianity as a loose identity.
Lastly, and with all due respect to the author, I do not agree with his statement that generational change will always “profoundly change the way the Church expresses its faith to the world”. That may be true in America during the last 50 or 60 years, but I do not consider it to be true anywhere during the preceding 1800 years. (I would like to say more about this, but will refrain because this comment is already so long.)
Comment by David on April 20, 2026 at 8:36 am
We have seen religious fads come and go. Remember the non-stop chapel services at Asbury and Southeastern? The tongues of fire seem to have been extinguished for the time being.
The reports of the increase in Christianity have been criticised. The surveys used have been shown to attract untruthful replies. As is typical of religious surveys, people tend to give “nice” answers and claim more church attendance (and giving more) than they actually do. People avoid describing themselves as agnostic or atheist when, in fact, they actually are. The wishy-washy “spiritual” is a very useful term to them.
Comment by Gary Bebop on April 20, 2026 at 5:18 pm
Commenters readily associate facts with what they see anecdotally. Reality is much more elusive. Even the histories of revival movements tend to retrace the ruts of earlier observers. “The Spirit blows where it will.” We don’t manage the Spirit’s intercessions. Let’s praise God for any signs of revival. Forget trying to divvy up credit for revival. Revival portents are weather reports. Read the signs and ponder mindfully. “Don’t quench the Spirit.”