Is There a Religious Revival in America?

In the early 2020s, secularization stopped: After rising for 15 years, the nonreligious share of the American population suddenly stopped growing. Ever since, there’s been a vigorous debate over whether this plateau is a precursor to religious revival or just a leveling off preceding a further fall from faith.

The revivalists tend to have vivid anecdotes — Bible sales climbing, young American men storming the doors of Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholic baptisms surging in France. The no-revivalists tend to have deflating data. No, Gen Z isn’t more religious than the millennials. No, evangelical churchgoing didn’t surge after Charlie Kirk’s murder. Yes, church attendance is ticking up in some traditions, but it might just be churches regaining people who stopped going during the pandemic.