In 1976, 5% of high school seniors were 'straight edge' . No alcohol, no cigarettes, no marijuana in the prior month. In 2021, nearly 40% of high school seniors were straight edge.

I get a little (gasps) THEORETICAL in a new post today. Leaning hard on Smith and Emerson's American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. The movement managed to avoid the pitfalls of both fundamentalism and the mainline. The end result is a robust movement.

The % of Americans who are evangelical is the same today was it was in 1972. How’d they manage to do that?. A big part of it is that current evangelicals are actually more likely to be theologically orthodox and active in their local church than evangelicals from the 1970s

Okay. Sitting in the airport, waiting on my delayed flight. Let's do an AMA. Shoot me some questions about religion, politics, ministry or whatever. (And yes I did miss church today, but I'll be back next week!).

When I was working on my dissertation prospectus one of my potential research questions was:. It's understandable why white evangelicals are socially conservative. But why the economic conservatism?. I read the literature and the answer was boring. Because they are Republicans.

Here's a fact- . There's zero convincing evidence that there's been a large scale return to religion among Gen Z. Some media outlets (NY Post) have realized that cherry picking some anecdotes from a few religious traditions will get them lots of traffic.

"Nostalgia is the enemy of history.". In Colonial America - one third of all women gave birth to their first child less than 9 months after getting married. Meanwhile, 20% of New Englanders had a religious affiliation. Finke and Stark, Churching of America.

Enrollment changes in Illinois public universities since 2004. Eastern: -49%.Northern: -38%.SIU-Carbondale: -45%.Western: -53%.SIU-Edwardsville: -12%. Illinois State: +4%.U of I-Chicago: +33%.U of I-Champaign: 46%. The growing chasm between the haves and have nots.

New paid post today about religious change over the last fifty years. What generation can we blame for religious decline?. "The next one". Boomers were less religious than Silents. Gen X was less religious than Boomers. Millennials were less religious than Gen X. And so on.

Religious composition broken down by decade of birth. 13% of those born in the 1940s are nones.It's 44% of those born in the 2000s. Notice how little differences there are between the last two decades of birth. But, that's not evidence of 'revival'. It's plateau.

We have very good survey data back to 1972. There's never been a period in the last fifty years where the statement: . "Those with lower levels of education were more likely to go to church than those with graduate degrees." . has been empirically true. But you hear it often.

Here's a story that I've not seen covered at all in the media. The most active liberal 'religious' groups: atheists, agnostics, and Jews basically sat on their hands in 2024 vs 2020. Donations to candidates declined by double digits. Just not a lot of enthusiasm on the left

I think people very much overestimate how much proselytizing is really going on. This is a survey of CLERGY. Only 32% of Catholic priests and mainline pastors say that it's important to try and convince others to accept their religion. Evangelical pastors are at 82%.

The share of Americans who believe that "it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion if she wants one for any reason" . Was 45% in 2016. Today, it's 58%. That's the highest support for abortion on demand at any point since 1977.

Anyone who claims that there's a religious revival among Gen Z must explain this data from the General Social Survey. 38% of Gen Z never attend religious services . When Millennials were 18-29, only 31% never attended.

Overall, the data points to the fact that support for same-sex marriage has declined in the last few years. Those declines are more acute among Christians.

Share agreeing that homosexual couples should have the right to marry one another. 2018 vs 2024, by level of religious attendance. Never: 82% vs 80% (-2).Seldom: 77% vs 74% (-3).Yearly: 76% vs 70% (-6).Monthly: 65% vs 58% (-7).Weekly: 45% vs 34% (-11)

I probably get asked 10 times a week to talk about a religious revival among Generation Z. Well, it's time to address that possibility. I use 3 different datasets. Generate 8 graphs. 2500+ words. It's my longest post ever. On the Substack today. 🔒🔒🔒🔒

By the way #pcaga folks. I've got something just for you in a couple of weeks. #PCAGA25

And just to close the loop on this: . The share who think abortion should be legal up to 40 weeks. It's 10% of the entire sample. Atheists are the clear outlier here - 37% are in favor. That's 15 pts higher than agnostics.