For the first time in decades, Christianity is rising again.
Since the 1970s, the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Christian has steadily fallen, mirroring a trend seen all over the Western world. There was no indication that this course would cease, and many religious groups spoke of these developments as existential crises heralding a darker and more impious world ahead. Since 2019, however, the Christian population of the United States has leveled off. In many ways, this demographic shift appears driven by a rise in Christianity among Generation Z, who appear to be no less religious than Americans born in the decade prior.
These findings align with what we have always known about what drives people to religion, — as far back as the initial explosion of Christianity in the Roman Empire. A world in turmoil is one in which people yearn for the comfort of faith. And yet the strain of Christianity rising in America feels worlds away from the one that comforted masses in the face of societal collapse in the 3rd century — one of equality, salvation and redemption.
The increasing religiosity of Gen Z surprises my parents' generation, but it makes perfect sense to me. Americans born in the early 2000s grew up in the aftermath of 9/11, when war felt eternal; they watched the election of Donald Trump in 2016 usher in a new kind of brash, macho Christianity; they were teenagers and young adults when a deadly pandemic upended our lives and triggered a massive global recession.
I have often remarked to my friends — mostly since the genocide in Gaza began, and especially since Trump assumed his second term in January — that it feels more than ever to me that death is all around. I open my phone and see bodies blown apart under a curtain of bombs, an unvaccinated child in Texas dead from measles which was once declared eradicated in the U.S., planes diving into the Potomac River. In the face of so much death, what could be more comforting than eternal life?
By the end of the fourth century AD, the Christian population of the Roman Empire had risen tenfold to over 30 million despite waves of persecution that had killed thousands. Ancient texts give us some clues as to why. In the mid-to-late third century, the Cyprian Plague tore through the empire, killing some hundreds of thousands in a slow and excruciating manner.
St. Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, described the hope given by Christ in the face of such suffering: “What room is there here for anxiety and solicitude? Who, in the midst of these things, is trembling and sad, except he who is without hope and faith?” He addresses specifically parents who have watched their children die suffering, and he comforts them with the knowledge that they are assured of “future blessings” of an eternal life.
In all of “On the Mortality,” Cyprian’s text on the plague, hell is never mentioned. This stands out to me so much because though Christianity may be rising for the same reasons, it is expressing itself with an ideology that constantly references hell and lacks empathy for many of our siblings in Christ — immigrants, refugees, Palestinians. Our Catholic vice president J.D. Vance has specifically cited Catholic doctrine to justify the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, earning him a rare rebuke from Pope Francis.
I understand the draw to Christianity — I’m feeling it too. What I ask of my generation is to see their newfound religion, however, as a way we can be more loving, more empathetic, more redemptive — not a way to justify our domination or cruelty. In this, the words of Pope Francis have helped me. “What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is.”
