Gen Z might be more ‘spiritual’ than previous generations, but let’s be careful to understand what that means

Mark Twain famously said that “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” That’s not to say that all statistics are untrue but the way they are presented (for example through a headline) can change the way they are understood. Because of this I wonder if Twain had chosen a fourth kind of lie, he’d have said headlines! 

That might be a dangerous thing for me to say given this is an article about statistics that contains a headline, but hear me out. 

A recent story in The Times claimed, “Gen Z half as likely as their parents to identify as atheists.” Does that mean Gen Z are more likely to believe in God? That was how The Sun re-reported the story, with the headline: “Age Brits are most likely to believe in God revealed as expert claims ‘He’s making a comeback.’” 

And what about The Times’ sub-heading: “Those aged in their teens and early twenties are more likely to identify as ‘spiritual’ than older generations.” Again, is this good news for the church? Does this mean an increased openness to the church on the part of young people? Some online pundits with significant followings suggested that this was strong evidence of religious revival in Britain. But is it? What does the data actually say and how does it sit with other research on this subject? 

Who and what are we talking about? 

The Times article was based on a poll of Gen Z (teenagers and those in their early to mid-twenties). In short (and this was clear in the body of The Times article), this is essentially another piece of evidence that suggests that people in the UK and USA are becoming more ‘spiritual’ but not ‘religious.’ 

young people are both less Christian and less atheist

Spiritual But Not Religious (SBNR – yes it’s so common that it’s been given an acronym!) has been around for decades. SBNR simply means that, in general, emerging generations are subscribing less to traditional/institutionalised ‘religions’ but they are not all becoming atheists, many are maintaining some form of spirituality. Spirituality here means some sense of connection to someone or something outside of you, a sense that there is more to existence than you can test and see in the material world. This sense though is not specifically Christian. It can be as broad as interest in the New Age, witchcraft and Astrology. 

So, at one and the same time (and other research has shown this) young people in this country are increasingly both less Christian and less atheist. 

What’s this got to do with me?   

Part of the curse of being an adult is that you have some inkling of what it was like to be a teenager, but you were never that age in this age, in 2025. 

Let me explain what I mean. In the last few months, I’ve been re-watching Inspector Morse (I know! But in my defense, it was my teenage son’s idea). In the last episode I saw, Morse was blinded by the fact that he had been miserable as a teenager and assumed the teenagers in front of him were also miserable when in fact, they were happy (drug induced, but all the same). He struggled to understand because he was never that age in that age, he did not understand the age of raves. 

We are in danger of doing something similar with these statistics and the young people in our churches and communities. If we take the headline that Gen Z are less likely to be atheist without understanding the nuance around SBNR then we might be tempted to think that all we need to do is what we’ve been doing for the last 50 years because now, at last, it will work. 

What we need, however, is an openness to exploring what good Christian witness looks like to this generation in this age. We could take this in all sorts of directions but let’s think first of how SBNR generations will be open to hearing your story of faith. When I was a teenager in the 1980s/90s the last thing I wanted was my parents to embarrass me by telling my friends about their faith, but that doesn’t necessarily work anymore. I could tell my story in an embarrassing way of course but the fact of it is no longer necessarily embarrassing. 

In fact, the last thing I wanted when I was a teenager was my parents anywhere near my friends. We did not share any tastes in music, film, clothes, nothing. I was only too happy with the focus on highly contextualised events for young people. When Generation X (my generation) made a clear and definite distinction between themselves and the past, this posed very serious problems for the cultural connection to the church or the familial relationship with parents and carers. But again, does that hold today?  I’m not saying that all young people want to always be with their parents and carers or are happy with traditional approaches to worship but there is more of an openness to intergenerationality and a variety of cultural forms. 

Having spoken to those working with young people around the UK, there seems to be a slow but definite trickle of young people walking into churches asking to know more about the Christian faith or having become Christians online – something else that never happened in the 1980s and 90s. Those people are not necessarily looking for a youth group, they don’t come as a consumer seeking to be attracted, they are already attracted and are seeking the truth. As they seek the truth, we need to be ready to have different discussions from previously. Questions might not be so much about traditional ‘arguments for the existence of God’ but much more around why you feel Christianity is a helpful faith to follow or why it provides you with a good foundation for your life. 

Young people in our churches and communities today are more spiritual than you and your generation were, but that doesn’t just mean we can roll out old ways of doing mission and ministry, in fact it does mean thinking carefully about what is appropriate today given the rise in spirituality. Some young people are literally just walking through the doors of churches, and that openness exists in the life of young people in your community. Don’t miss that simply because you didn’t see it happen when you were their age.