Dispatch Faith: Don’t Be a Cynic About Today’s Religious Revival, by Stephen G. Adubato (St. John’s):
The “quiet religious revival” spreading throughout the United States and England has been rapidly garnering attention. Statistics show that zoomers are increasingly identifying as religious and are attending religious services with more frequency than the generations before them. Roman Catholic dioceses the world over have reported record increases of adults seeking baptism this year, and Eastern Orthodox Christian and Muslim communities also report an uptick of adult converts.
This shift has not been lost on the mainstream media. Take for example the New York Times’ new newsletter dedicated to covering religion and spirituality, or headlines in USA Today proclaiming that “Gen Z is returning to Christianity. Data proves it.” and in CNN that “Faith is a hit among Gen Z.”
Some have called the hype into question, with more nuanced polls indicating that what’s happening is less a full-blown “revival” than it is a slowing of attrition rates and the intensification of piety among a still small fraction of the population. Others, like New York Times columnist (and former Dispatch writer) and practicing evangelical David French, have expressed reservations about the sincerity of these new converts’ zeal, claiming that what’s happening is more a reactionary swinging of the ideological pendulum, a performatively childish rebellion against “the Man”—which in our case is the liberal secularism of their parents.
Though the jury is still out on whether this new trend is positive or problematic, genuine or performative, the vibe has certainly shifted. And as much as my own experience has shown me that there are plenty whose interest in religion may indeed be shallow—whether motivated by a taste for the exotic or by an ideological agenda, I’ve also noticed elements of this shift that have seemed to fly under the radar of the media’s coverage of it, elements that I’d argue are quite promising. Indeed, for many of these young people, their coming to faith is the result of having discovered a precious treasure—what the late Pope Francis referred to in his first apostolic exhortation as “the joy of the Gospel”—which rather than being reduced to countercultural posturing, instead propels the believer to share her new joie de vivre with others around her. …
The comforts and conveniences many of our parents thought would promise a full, happy life turned out to be a dead end. Rather than opening the door to greater freedom, the lifting of the burdens of economic instability, of ties to extended family, place, and tradition, and of seemingly antiquated moral and religious precepts, seemed to shut the door to the possibility of pursuing a higher meaning that transcends the mundane.
Surely, not all of our parents shunned religion wholesale: Some retained at least a nominal tie with it, and some maintained much more. But while those whose relationship with the remnants of a fading spiritual foundation afforded them enough meaning to stave off total existential dread, their children—lacking any roots whatsoever in such a spiritual foundation—were forced to face the logical consequences of their parents’ haphazard relationship with religion. Upon being confronted with the empty promises of the bourgeois consumerist ideal, some young people attempted to escape the void via mind-numbing substances or political causes, while others turned to religion. …
French fears for young people for whom witnessing faith amounts to fighting for a set of ideological convictions in hopes of defeating their opponents, while downplaying traditional Christian teachings about empathy, love, and even giving one’s life for one’s enemies. Ironically, the attempt to rebel against “the Man” of secularism and progressive identity politics serves as a mirror-opposite form of play-acting, which, though different on the surface, is substantially the same. There is something drably self-referential, and perhaps even self-indulgent, about parading one’s newfound identity as a “tradcath” or “orthobro.” While religion can serve as an identity marker of sorts, it is above all a way of life and a transformative experience. …
As Catholic theologian Luigi Giussani often put it, faith is “something that happens” to you. It implicates “an event” both unmerited and unforeseen, which transforms one’s experience of daily life. This transformation or conversion is sustained not by the force of one’s intelligence or moral efforts, but by one’s fidelity to the places and faces through which God chooses to make himself present in one’s life.
Furthermore, this gift of faith is remarkable precisely because it “corresponds with the fundamental needs of the human heart.” God’s resonant presence in one’s life generates a new way of living characterized by a fullness, a gusto for things that one never knew to be possible. From God’s resonant presence in one’s life flow the secondary elements of religion—the rituals, dogmas, and ethical precepts. Such an outgrowth is what fueled the late Pope Francis’ emphasis on “the joy of the Gospel.”
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