For years now, young people have become less and less religious and more skeptical about the existence of a higher power, but a new poll shows that this may have started to change in the post-Covid era.
The Wall Street Journal reported on a study showing that the belief in a higher power among young people has shot up from around 25% to 33%.
The Springtide survey uses the term "higher power," which can include God but isn't limited to a Christian concept or specific religion, to capture the spectrum of believers. Many young adults say they don't necessarily believe in a God depicted in images they remember from childhood or described in biblical passages, but do believe there is a higher benevolent deity.
Over the last two centuries, the Western world "deconstructed" God, tearing down everything that was taught about the person of our Creator in the name of intellectualism.
Now, in the massive empty void of meaninglessness that was created by that movement, young people are taking the deconstructed strands and trying to put them back together. They don't want to call this higher power "God," but like every human who has ever looked up at the stars and wondered about the meaning of it all, they are at the beginning of creating a new religious order.
Woke beliefs are the core of this new theology.
At the same time many young adults say they feel disconnected from organized religion over issues like racial justice, gender equity and immigration rights. And belief in God or a higher power doesn't necessarily translate into church attendance or religious affiliation.
A Wall Street Journal-NORC poll published last month found that 31% of younger Americans, ages 18 to 29, said religion was very important to them, which was the lowest percentage of all adult age groups. A Pew Research Center study also released last month found that 20% of 18-to-29-year-olds attend religious services monthly or more, down from 24% in 2019.
We are still in a world of the "spiritual but not religious." While young people are open to a "higher power" they still reject God and they are more interested in an empty, label-less spirituality.
Hope springs eternal, however.
The woke religion has no message of salvation – just a vague "do better" that assigns people their worth based on the color of their skin and their sexuality. Even the ancient pagans would laugh at this empty, meaningless cult of "social justice" that has plenty of saints, martyrs, and sinners, but no savior, no forgiveness, and no eternal life.
Soon, those who are hurt by this shallow new faith will be hungry for real answers about who God is.
Believing in God "gives you a reason for living and some hope," said Becca Bell, an 18-year-old college student from Peosta, Iowa.
Those who profess to know God should be ready to give an answer for the hope that they have.
