Here’s What Faithful Churches Need To Do With The Surge In Young Parishioners

If the church hopes to see this youthful resurgence lead to lasting faith, it must prioritize deeper formation.

Young men flocking to Christianity in record numbers



Gallup has been asking Americans for decades about the importance of religion in their lives. For both sexes and across various age groups, the general trend since 2000 has been downward.

With the exception of an increase from 2010 to 2013, this was certainly the case among men ages 18-29, but no longer.

'A similar increase has occurred among young Republican women.'

A possible course correction athwart the forces of atomization and disenchantment appears to be under way, with young men stating en masse that religion is now "very important" to them.

Whereas in 2022-2023, only 28% of this cohort said religion was very important to them, that number skyrocketed to 42% in 2024-2025.

Women lag

Women in the same age group are plumbing new lows, with only 29% of respondents reporting that religion was very important to them in 2024-2025, down from 52% in 2000-2001. In every other age category, women lead men when assessing religion as very important.

Young men's sense of religion's importance has been more than rhetorical.

Church attendance shot up seven points between 2022-2023 and 2024-2025, hitting 40% — a virtual tie with young women and its highest level since 2012-2013. This year's data, showing that young men are continuing to attend places of worship weekly or monthly, suggests this was no flash in the pan.

RELATED: What Christians can learn from a high school musical

KEVIN WURM/AFP/Getty Images

Bipartisan boom

When broken down by party affiliation, the latest reported term-over-term increase for young men was seven points for Republican men— from 45% in 2022-2023 to 52% most recently — and 3% for Democrat men — from 23% to 26%.

Not only did 2024-2025 see a spike in religious attendance, it saw the highest recorded identification with a specific religious affiliation — 63% — since 2012-2013. Of course, there are higher records to beat, including the decades-long high of 80% in 2000-2001.

Religious affiliation among women in the age group also increased since the previous term, hitting 60% in 2024-2025 — the first increase since 2002-2003.

Record conversions

"The finding that Republicans have driven heightened religious attendance among young men — and that a similar increase has occurred among young Republican women — suggests political dynamics may be playing a role in religious changes among the nation's young adults," said Gallup.

Young men's turn to religion comes at a time of record convert baptisms both for the Catholic and Mormon churches in America. It also comes amid a period of relatively stabilized religiosity after years of decline and disaffiliation.

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How often do liberals attend church? New data has the answer



Secularity — the idea that people, beliefs, and activities can be void of all spirituality and religiosity — is a myth, says Steve Deace.

“Someone will always rule; something must always be worshipped. There's no secular realm,” he says. “Anyone who claims so is either willfully ignorant to naive, or they're lying to you in the hopes that you will take your faith and set it aside so that they can then replace yours with their own.”

As further proof, Steve points to some data shared by American political scientist Ryan Burge:

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The graph depicts a strong correlation between Protestant Christian church attendance and political affiliation. Simply put, those who identify as politically liberal, regardless of racial demographic, are far less likely to be frequent church attenders.

Why? Because what being a liberal has evolved to mean puts one in diametric opposition with biblical standards.

Co-host Aaron McIntire explains it like this: “What does liberal actually mean? Well, it used to mean being open-minded to new ideas … individual rights, things of that nature,” but today, it means “capital-P progressive.”

“Liberalism was ‘we want government to allow people to do things that God says are wrong.’ Progressivism is basically … ’we want the government to force people to do what God says is wrong,”’ he explains.

The “biggest idiots of them all,” McIntire says, are the small percentages of individuals who are both liberal and regular church attenders.

“Why are you going there? What's the point?” he asks.

Steve speculates that those small percentages are likely made up of people who attend “very left-wing churches” that operate outside biblical doctrine anyway.

The data, however, only depicts Protestant Christian church attendance. How do the numbers shift when it’s Catholicism, Mormonism, Judaism, Islamism, Hinduism, or Buddhism?

To find out, watch the episode above.

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