Nearly half of Generation Z says one political factor is making them less likely to attend church, according to newly released survey data.
The research found that 48% of Gen Z adults say Christian support for President Donald Trump makes them less likely to attend church.
Political scientist and religion researcher Ryan Burge highlighted newly released data from the Billy Graham Center Research Institute examining barriers that keep young adults from embracing Christianity. The survey included 2,365 Gen Z adults ages 18 to 28 and was led by Rick Richardson of Wheaton College.
Overall, nearly one in five respondents said they “strongly agreed” that Christians’ support for the president discourages them from going to church services.
“So, it’s fair to say young adults are pretty evenly divided on this idea,” Burge and Richardson wrote. “But these results are confounded by a few variables: Younger adults tend to be more left-leaning in their politics, and a significant share of Gen Z claims no religious affiliation, which means a lot of these respondents wouldn’t be going to church much anyway.”
Digging deeper, the survey found a sharp partisan divide. Among Gen Z Democrats, 67% said they “strongly,” “somewhat,” or “lightly” agreed that Christian support for Trump makes them less likely to attend church. Fewer than half of independents shared that view. Republicans, however, broke sharply in the opposite direction, with 74% saying they disagreed.
About 72% of Gen Z atheists said Christians’ support of Trump has made them less likely to attend a church service. For agnostics, the figure fell slightly lower to 65%. Gen Z Protestants were least likely to feel that way, according to the report, which was highlighted by Religion News Service.
“But even among Gen Z Christians, there’s a significant share who said Trump made it harder for them to attend at all: 44% of those who identified as a generic Christian, 42% of Catholics and 30% of Protestant young adults said they were turned off by the Christian-Trump alliance,” the report stated.
White evangelicals have played a pivotal role in Trump’s electoral success, forming the backbone of the Republican coalition and backing him by overwhelming margins in all three of his presidential campaigns. In 2024, Trump captured 82% of the white evangelical vote, according to exit polls. Catholics also broke decisively in his favor, with nearly 60% backing Trump after narrowly supporting Joe Biden in 2020.
At the same time, other recent surveys suggest religion may be gaining traction among some segments of younger Americans.
About 42% of men aged 18 to 29 now say religion is “very important” in their lives, up from 28% two years earlier, according to a recent survey from Gallup. The 14-point jump was the largest recorded among any demographic group in the poll’s recent history and returned young men to levels of religiosity not seen since the early 2000s.
Vice President JD Vance has hailed the numbers as a rebuke to the expert class that has long predicted the demise of American Christianity.
“Defying predictions, the experts said that religion and faith were dying. Today, a wave of young Americans is returning to the pews, and we know that they’re looking for meaning, for authority, for direction, and of course, for closeness with God,” Vance said. “That should give all of us hope for our future together.”
A Pew Research poll in May showed 37% of U.S. adults believe religion is gaining influence in America, the highest share since 2002.
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