Why is TIME magazine working so hard to convince you that young people aren't returning to church?
Gallup’s latest numbers show attendance at religious services among young men rising seven points to 40 percent — the highest level recorded since 2012–13. Attendance among young women rose three points and now stands at 39 percent.
The increase is larger among men, but the current rates are nearly identical. Roughly four in ten young men and women now say they attend religious services at least monthly.
Gallup found something else. The percentage of young men who consider religion “very important” in their lives jumped from 28 percent to 42 percent in just two years.
Those numbers are significant. They are also fascinating.
TIME seems irritated by them.
The magazine recently devoted nearly 2,000 words to throwing cold water on the possibility that something spiritually important may be happening among Gen Z. It didn’t disprove Gallup’s findings. It couldn’t. Instead, TIME gathered enough skeptical voices and competing measurements to give readers permission to ignore them.
PRRI found flatter numbers. Pew said there is no evidence that young men are “converting to Christianity in large numbers.” Other surveys measuring weekly attendance haven’t found the same increase Gallup reported among those attending monthly or more.
Fine. Put all of that in the story.
But none of it disproves Gallup.
Gallup wasn’t measuring mass conversion. It measured attendance, affiliation, and the importance people place on religion. Weekly attendance is not monthly attendance. Conversion is not affiliation. Affiliation is not spiritual interest.
TIME knows the difference.
Yet the article repeatedly answers one finding with another survey measuring something else. It’s a clever way to generate doubt without ever demonstrating that the original numbers are wrong.
This wasn’t curiosity. It was a conclusion in search of supporting quotes.
Then came the inevitable attempt to connect rising religious participation with Christian nationalism and MAGA politics.
Naturally.
A young man walks into church, and TIME goes looking for Donald Trump.
Gallup did find much of the increase concentrated among young Republicans. That deserves examination. But TIME treats the political correlation as if it makes the religious activity less legitimate.
Why?
Can Republicans not experience spiritual hunger? Can conservatives not sincerely seek God? Is a man who voted for Trump somehow incapable of recognizing his need for grace, forgiveness, or truth?
Perhaps young people who reject progressive politics are also reconsidering the secular worldview attached to it. That possibility should intrigue a journalist.
At TIME, it apparently requires a diagnosis.
For years, America’s cultural gatekeepers have treated religious decline as an established feature of human progress. Educated societies become secular. Young people abandon organized religion. Churches empty, faith recedes and enlightened people move on.
That theory wasn’t merely reported. It was welcomed.
Now Gallup has produced evidence that at least part of Gen Z may be moving in the opposite direction, and TIME’s instinct is to explain why readers shouldn’t make too much of it.
Perhaps the numbers won’t hold. Perhaps this is a temporary post-pandemic correction. Perhaps the increase is limited to particular churches, regions or political groups. We don’t know yet.
That uncertainty is the reason to keep reporting — not a license to dismiss what has already been measured.
There is another possibility TIME barely allows itself to consider.
Young Americans have spent much of their lives online and still feel profoundly alone. They possess instant access to more information than any generation in history, yet information hasn’t answered their deepest questions. They were told to invent themselves, define their own truth and look inward for fulfillment.
It hasn’t worked particularly well.
So perhaps some are wondering whether the culture sold them a fraud.
Perhaps they are entering churches because they want something older and sturdier than the latest social theory. Perhaps they want community that exists beyond a screen. Perhaps they are looking for answers that politics, entertainment and technology have failed to provide.
Maybe they are looking for God.
Is that really so difficult to imagine?
At TIME, evidently, it is.
No responsible person can declare a nationwide Gen Z revival from the evidence we have. Gen Z remains less religiously affiliated than older generations, and Gallup found the strongest movement among young men. We need more polling and more time.
But TIME’s article attempts a quiet sleight of hand. It moves readers from “we don’t yet know how large or lasting this is” to “this probably isn’t happening.”
Those conclusions are not remotely the same.
A serious treatment would have acknowledged the conflicting measurements and then investigated the question that matters: Why are measurable numbers of young Americans attending religious services more frequently and placing greater importance on faith?
Instead, TIME treated Gallup’s numbers like hostile witnesses and spent the article trying to impeach them.
Perhaps this becomes a revival. Perhaps it doesn’t.
Right now, the story is that young people are showing up.
TIME’s deal is that it really wishes they weren’t.