Gen Z & Faith in 2026: Part 2

Two Trends at Once

In the bigger picture of the United States, there is a reported resurgence of church attendance among Gen Z. I believe it because I have former colleagues I trust who have witnessed it firsthand. Some say it’s the first spiritual swell since COVID, filling campus ministry Fall Conferences. Still, the overwhelming majority of kids raised in the pews are more like the university students my daughter described, averse to organized religion and not wanting to approach the Christian club table. Two-thirds raised in church don’t stick. How do we explain the stark contrast she and I discussed in the car that day?

In 2019, I attended a summit where we heard predictions about Gen Z. Our guest speaker, who video-called us from Australia, named old practices such as Benedictine rhythms and the “rule of life” as a possible draw for Gen Z in the coming years. Predictions are only that, and none of us anticipated a worldwide pandemic within the year. But perhaps the surge of faith is partly shaped by this prediction about structure—to be in formal groups with meaning, as well as to adopt some comforts of a bygone era. Rapid change in society always carries with it a resurgence of something that feels more traditional, a subgroup’s attempt to keep things as they were or get their chance at the old “good life.”

Pop culture is also having a 90s-nostalgia phase. It shows up in fashion and television, where current shows are set in the 90s and shows filmed for 90s kids are streaming with a new cult following. This past holiday season, I even saw multiple social media posts proclaiming, “All I really want is a 90s Christmas.”

The 90s harken back to a simpler time. No internet or cell phones. The last remnants of an analog life. Gen Z’s 90s throwback culture was my generation’s 1950s. They stream Gilmore Girls on their devices via Netflix; we gathered in the living room as a family to watch black-and-white classic TV programs on Nick at Nite.

Gen Z faith observers did not go as far as the Benedictine rule, but perhaps joining a third space, like the church, which has historically been a major part of American life, has a comforting and grounding appeal. The impulse to recapture something lost will always attract a percentage of society, including young people in the faith space.

Formation vs. Indoctrination

Gen Z’s backdrop is one of the most culturally and politically divided times in our country’s history. One of the areas where this division wreaks havoc the most is in the area of education, an area demonized by particular streams of faith in America. This is unfortunate because secular education is the space where the majority of young people in our country spend the majority of their time.

While I don’t deny that there can be valid concerns about forms of indoctrination in public education, those concerns have too often been coupled with a fear of exposure to ideas and critical thinking altogether. This fear keeps our culture war raging. It has become so absurd that even Biola University, a notoriously conservative Christian college, has come under attack by some ultra-conservative circles for being too “liberal.”

In these critics' implied view, education at a Christian university is meant to directly transfer truths and worldview from teachers and administrators to students. This view leaves little room to broaden students' exposure or expression. The claim is that Biola has gone too “woke,” even though I know multiple former professors who left the institution claiming the exact opposite. These controversies and the ensuing battles do not seem concerned with appropriate young adult development — the need to experience the world guided by trustworthy adults and teachers while trying things out and making mistakes. Instead, it sounds as though we must protect, control, and win arguments around truth, ensuring that young people receive the version we find the purest.

I do believe in 2 Timothy 1:14 and the charge to “guard the good deposit,” entrusting it to trustworthy people who will entrust it to other trustworthy people (2 Tim 2:2). But there is a difference between training up Bible teachers, theologians, and seminarians who are called to do just that and controlling the process of faith development for emerging young adults. We can’t reduce human development, which includes spiritual development, to a simple input-and-output process.

The truth for young people, whether educated in a secular or Christian environment, is this:

If you can’t question Christianity, you can’t become a Christian. If you cannot explore what a faithful response is, you cannot have a response that comes from faith.

If you don’t have the freedom to engage books that question or even challenge the Bible and see if they have any merit, then you can’t willingly choose the word of God and find it to be a lamp unto your feet. If you cannot encounter a Christian who expresses their faith differently from you, then you cannot discern a faithful response. No one is born a Christian believer or inducted into it. No new convert has immediately honed their spiritual discernment.

The Spirit opens our eyes, enlivens our hearts, and lets us see the truth of Jesus amid the falsehoods of the world, including the Christian subculture. This does not come from strictly avoiding the whole world to become a Christian. Jesus is not afraid to go to Samaria or send his disciples to the Gentiles, so why are we so narrow and suspicious in our practices? Jesus demonstrates that he can both adhere to the truth of who God is and go to places that do not fully understand it.

This means my daughter can go to college in the Northwest with the foundation she received from us and begin to expand her horizons. Christ is there. This means students at a Christian university can comfortably expand their horizons too. Not every exploration has equal merit, but that doesn't mean we have to belittle and fret about exploration altogether.

Letting Them Drive

Some forms of control and groupthink demand submission because “we said so.” More subtle forms of control also slip into our day-to-day lives. As a parent, it’s easier to set strict parameters and information sources so my maturing kid has no choice but to align with my standards.

My husband will tell you that, in his years as a college pastor, the families who took the hardest line had kids who secretly had no alignment with the parents. But I confess, it’s hard not to employ these tactics even subtly. I have the power to manipulate, instill fear, and create narratives to gain more submission from my kids to my ideals. I’ve been tempted, and at times I have succumbed.

As a child, I had an unusual arrangement: I rode the public school bus to my private faith-based K-8 school. This meant stopping first at the local public elementary school, where almost everyone got off the bus. Then 2-3 of us headed to our own private drop-off.

“The public-school kids” had foul mouths, with expressions I had never heard. To my young mind, they represented bad things and bad kids. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking can become a deeply entrenched form of othering. It’s easy to live in a bubble rather than engage the world with the love of Christ. It can nurture hostility toward people outside the bubble, exchanging a faithful, loving mission for our sense of group safety.

There’s no right answer here, but this is why we chose to put our kids in public schools. However, I admit that after having my daughter in an arts high school outside LA, deeply influenced by entertainment culture post-COVID, I felt like we were living at the bottom of a cultural cesspool. I deeply regretted our choice for a season, but only because we were midway in a longer trajectory of her life. Some things came at us out of nowhere, with little time to prepare, especially given the fracture of moving from middle school remote learning to engaging with new peers at a new age and stage.

The truth is, you must get out of the driver’s seat altogether and let your emerging adult drive if you want them to become a capable driver. Faith formation is like driver’s ed. They must begin by learning the rules of the road, practice with you and other teachers, and then, ultimately, drive alone. Eventually, they will be a full-fledged adult with a car, title, and insurance.

Kids need a lot of formation at a young age, and we should work hard at it. But you can’t feed them Cheerios or Sunday School lessons forever. Adults must experience the world and find that Jesus is still the best news.

The more we fear that process, the more our fear brings about bad news for the culture and this generation. I’m excited that Gen Z kids in Manhattan Beach want to talk about the Bible like it’s 1999 all over again, but I am not going back to 1999. I also have to hold space for kids in the Pacific Northwest who want to study what is out there and engage in complex conversations, because they are living in a new space where the Spirit is doing a new thing (even if they don’t know it yet).

I’m convinced the Holy Spirit does both a new thing and brings us back to ancient, forever-true things. Renewal is the meeting of the new and the old, the future and the past. It’s not making the past the future. It’s not making everything new. It’s renewing all things—a perfect ring of continuity of the One Truth.

The worst thing we can do is create a false equivalency that being a faith-filled person requires adherence to a certain bygone era or political reality. Gen Z has lived through more change and trauma in their formative years than some generations in a lifetime. Some of them will find comfort in something that feels old and traditional. Others will journey to a new place.

Jesus welcomes their questions, has mercy for their mistakes, engages their curious minds, and loves them wholeheartedly.

I celebrate the resurgence of faith for some, while still waiting for the new thing the Spirit is doing, so that those on the outside can know Jesus. In the end, I believe we will see it as two points on one circle, where God renews faith in every generation and time.

Adapted from Lisa Haller Liou's original post on “Woman on the Front Line.”