Present and Future Generations and a Dying Church

Recently Wheaton College’s Billie Graham Center published a survey of the next generation of young people to enter adulthood (Gen Z). What they found was that 40% of respondents said that the church’s support for Trump was a factor in keeping them away from church. It’s also telling that of the respondents only 20% claimed that they attended church weekly. This trend follows that has been a trend for several generations now, the abandonment of religion in general, but the rejection of Evangelical Christianity in particular. Gen X church attendance has fallen to below 30% while millennials have posted similar numbers. The amount of “nones”, people who claim no particular religious affiliation is now at least 2:1 over American Evangelicals.

On one hand there have been those trying to argue that this is just a factor of those who would have never gone to church anyway. Yet I would argue that there is a through line between generations rejecting/leaving the church and what much of the American Evangelical church has become. What’s more, the culture appears to be showing signs of “MAGA fatigue” and these things are themselves proof that much of what the American Evangelical church has rallied around as “timeless and eternal” was, in reality, a fad.

Reckoning with the Influencer Class

One of the things that makes our current culture difficult to handle is really how much influence and power some people really have. Charlie Kirk was a great example of this dichotomy as we saw with his death within conservative, Evangelical, and online communities Kirk’s effect was powerful, yet outside of those spaces many Americans were unaware of who he was. The same goes for many “trad wife” or Evangelical voices out there as well. I’ve argued that say Douglas Wilson’s “influence” is not as broad as it seems because outside of a very far-right Evangelical culture where he has considerable sway he’s an oddity and an unknown.

Yet there are some trends that are happening within the conservative “influencer” sphere that suggest the narrative that MAGA and Evangelicals have operated under are being undermined by their own actions. The first and obvious example is Charlie Kirk’s own decision to reposition TPUSA from a MAGA forward “conservative” political organization to a “Christian” one. I would suggest that Charlie knew that the “safe” money ultimately lies in Evangelicals. Apparently, this is being evidenced by the reality that many of the MAGA influencer class appear to have peaked and are on the decline. Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly and more have seen drop offs in viewership, likes, and revenue. The reality is that the audience they primarily cater to is, by all appearances, only 30% of the American population at best. That means there will always be a ceiling for growth and a necessary schism as the same people seek to attract the same resources.

This I believe is one of the reasons you find Evangelical “pastors” more and more branching out into overtly political commentary. Guys like Mark Driscoll and Josh Howerton are becoming increasingly political not just because their religion effectively IS politics (more on that later), but they are chasing the same piece of the pie as Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes. This is in part because the overtly nationalistic (and misogynistic and racist) are a loyal and steady source of income. I would argue that we are seeing some radicalization towards outright racism and fascism only in part because the underlying ideology leads towards that eventually. Rather, many creators are seeking reliable income streams understanding that the audience they have historically pursued is in decline.

This trend is being seen in the “trad wife” influencer space but almost in reverse. Recently Hanna Neeleman (Ballerina Farm) and Nara Smith have tried to pivot saying they aren’t “trad wives”. Of course, this is telling because they both are extremely successful and also very much a part of Mormon culture. However, there is a growing acknowledgement that the “trad wife” movement may have run its popular course. There is firstly the fact that most of the successful “influencers” are wildly wealthy and accomplished. It is almost constantly pointed out that most of the women “selling” the “trad wife” life are multi-millionaires, highly educated, and essentially CEO’s of their own businesses. What I think I’m observing is another dynamic at work and that is most of the wildly successful “influencers” are in their mid-thirties-to-forties. The only other one’s that are pushing that esthetic and message are almost ridiculously young. It matters that at TPUSA’s women’s conference you either had ultra successful women in their thirties or an “influencer” who is twenty, what they are selling doesn’t work for the majority of people.

Thousands of words have been written about how much of what patriarchal influencers prescribe simply isn’t practical for most people who are barely surviving on two incomes let alone one. What is telling is the discourse of women around maintaining patriarchy is almost exclusively directed at young and either unmarried or newly married women. This, in all probability, is because there simply isn’t a growing market for the 30–50-year-old “trad wives” (as it appears there really are none). So, you either have hypocrites who are baldly advocating for others to embrace what they obviously are not, young influencers who don’t know better, or women who know they have to pivot their “message” in order to grow their audience.

When the Market Dries Up for What You Have to Sell

One of the biggest things that needs to be understood is what conservative media has sold people for the last 50 years. One cannot get millions of followers/views on pillows, reverse mortgages, and questionable investments in gold or silver. What conservative media has sold people for decades is a simple concept, “You are right”. This is why conservative media is an ouroboros eating its own tail- they have to tell people what they want to hear while not necessarily having the truth on their side. This was seen most obviously in the aftermath of the 2020 election where Fox News lied about the election in order to keep viewers.

Of course, the problem with this “business model” is first there are just so many people who need that kind of ongoing validation. There is always going to be a ceiling to the amount of people who hold to certain beliefs, much less who need to go to a meeting every week to have their egos soothed. Secondly, there is always going to be a moving target when it comes to the self-validation crowd. You have to be constantly “vibing” with your audience and pursuing what lands with them. This is seen now in the coming schism within MAGA between the Evangelical pro-Israel crowd and the “America First” white supremacists. You can watch in real time who is chasing which audience. Finally, it must be mentioned that selling people’s self-righteousness back to them is ultimately boring. People can feed themselves on outrage for only so long until it becomes detrimental and also repetitive.

This last point is an excellent reason why MAGA forward churches are no longer growing and in some high-profile cases declining. If the “message” is always “it’s the gays”, “it’s the immigrants”, “it’s the liberals”, “it’s the feminists”, and “you should feel better about being right” you can only do so many sermons on those topics. This is one of the things where real life simply isn’t the internet, there are online communities that exist to offer constant and continual affirmation (I call them mutual mental masturbation circles). You can get a dopamine hit daily and even hourly with thousands of likes, clicks, and reposts. Why then would you go to a building once a week just to hear the same?

It’s not Just About Trump, it’s the Narcissism

I believe it would be a mistake to take the repulsion of younger generations to the church’s embrace of MAGA and Trump simply as a repulsion towards Trump himself (though the contrast between his odiousness and Evangelical’s continued support is mind boggling). I think the lesson is about that a self-centered and pathetic religion is being rightly rejected in part because of the false persecution.

A good rule about any movement is that the movement itself will eventually reflect the character of the leader that movement follows. Within MAGA Evangelicalism Trump’s false persecution complex has taken over in a particularly notable way. As a friend has recently written there is a constant underlying refrain, “You have been wronged! You’re the one who is right! You deserve to be heard. You deserve for people to know you’ve been wronged! You deserve the power and influence to right the wrongs done to you!” This of course is even more pathetic when you consider the one’s saying this. Like the multimillion-dollar women CEO’s complaining about “feminism”, there is something pathetic about people who have incredible wealth, status, and power constantly whining that they don’t have enough. Even recently Congressman Thomas Massie pointed out that Republicans and Trump are complaining about “election fraud” when they currently hold the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and effectively the Supreme Court! There is a legitimate question to be asked as to why people who have won, who literally hold all the power currently, act like they are somehow “oppressed”.

Not only is this “Cult of Self” (Bonhoeffer’s Child’s term and a good one) very transparent but the lies that are used to perpetuate it are just easily disputed (particularly when they are repeated by the ignorant). “Pastor”/influencer Josh Howerton recently exemplified this with a post on X about “How you ruin a nation in 200 years”. It wasn’t just that most of his points were tired and repeated propaganda, every point revealed a remarkable ignorance and even stupidity. Howerton’s first point is simply ridiculous

There was such a thing as the Great Depression which occurred in part because of the kind of laisse faire ideology Howerton is spouting! Also the “Immigration Surge” Howerton is bemoaning were almost entirely white Europeans at the time. The American government was intentionally making it ridiculously easy for people like my great grandparents (from Germany) to immigrate. It isn’t just that Howerton’s talking points are bad but anyone with a middle school understanding of history sees right through it. It’s also that this is the age of the internet and a less than 10 second search reveals how stupid it is.

This is a key issue for why people are rejecting religion in America and that is the performative falsity of it all. Howerton’s post perfectly encapsulates this false narcissistic narrative- in order to justify the current support of an immoral President doing illegal and immoral things let’s concoct a false narrative with lies to give a false sense of self-righteousness for being apathetic to evil.

People are Rejecting the Church Because They Are Not Encountering God

Call it the “Cult of Self”, call it “Religious Narcissism”, call it “MAGA Christianity” people are off put by two main things about this heretical perversion, and the decline has simply been evident. The first is that the “God” of this movement is, quite frankly, sad. This is because despite all religious trappings their “God” is themselves. If your God needs validation, needs to be in power, needs to be in a society where no one is different, can’t deal with opposition or unbelief it’s obvious your “god” is you not the God of the Bible. People are rejecting the god and “gospel” of American Evangelicalism because it is as pathetic as they are. If the only thing you have to offer people is fear and self-validation, they can get that from ANY other source than your supposed “church”.

The second thing that is causing people, particularly young people, to reject religion and specifically American Evangelicalism is they can see the fruit. They don’t see love, joy, peace, patience, goodness; they see fear, selfishness, violence, anger, and indifference. Why would anyone want to join any group where “loving your neighbor” means hurting them until they obey? Why would anyone want to join anything where God ends up only loving the married, with children, and successful?

What too many people encounter when they go to an American Evangelical church isn’t “sinners in need of a savior”, its privileged people worshipping that their privilege somehow comes from God. In too many contexts it’s praising their receipt of “unfavored grace” while simultaneously knowing their lifestyle, social position, and “obedience” have made them “blessed”. The reason the American Evangelical church is dying a slow death in America is too many churches are dedicated to worshipping the people in the pews. And we’re seeing on a societal scale what happens when generations start rejecting that.

Welcome to the Resistance

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