Dr. James Emery White

Quick: who do you think believes in hell the most – Baby Boomers or Generation Z? I’ll give you a few additional bits of information to work with: the study was conducted in the U.K., and there, Gen Z, more often than not, identifies as atheists.

Okay, got your answer? If you said, “Well, it’s obviously Baby Boomers,” you would be…

… wrong.

While only 18% of Boomers said they believed in the concept of the land of the damned, a whopping 32% of Gen Z said they did. If this leaves you scratching your head, prepare for more itching. Their belief stops at hell. They do not throw in a belief in heaven, much less God. Further, they continue to declare themselves irreligious.

All this from the “World Values Survey” conducted by the Policy Institute at King’s College in London. 

To try and sum it all up, Generation Z (and Millennials, the survey found) do not consider themselves religious, do not generally believe in God, but do tend to believe in life after death. At least in terms of a hell.

Now one would think this would betray some fairly significant spiritual confusion. Or at least, a lack of spiritual reflection. What is behind a belief in hell independent of some kind of justice-doling God? Further, why would a belief in hell rest so peacefully with a rejection of any and all religion that might spare you from that hell?

But let’s let stated beliefs simply be stated and draw the one clear conclusion about the theology of younger adults: they believe in something beyond this life. Or as Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute, put it:

Our cultural attachment to organized religion has continued to decline in the U.K. – but our belief that there is something beyond this life is holding strong, including among the youngest generation. 

While the youngest generations continue to have a lower attachment to formal religion, many of them have a similar or even greater need to believe that there is “more than this.”

It brings to mind a rather obscure essay C.S. Lewis once wrote on modern man and his categories of thought that I included in my book Meet Generation Z. Lewis argued that when the gospel first broke out, the evangelistic task was essential to one of three groups: Jews, Judaizing Gentiles and pagans. 

All three believed in the supernatural. 

All three were conscious of sin and feared divine judgment. 

Each offered some form of personal purification and release. 

They all believed the world had once been better than it now was. 

But now, Lewis argued, the average person shares none of those marks. In fact, he ended the essay by stating, “I sometimes wonder whether we shall not have to re-convert men to real Paganism as a preliminary to converting them to Christianity.”

Perhaps their belief in hell can be the starting point of that conversion.

James Emery White

Sources

“Belief, faith and religion: shifting attitudes in the UK,” The Policy Institute, May 2023, read online.

Moohita Kaur Garg, “What the ‘Hell’? Gen Z More Likely to Believe in Damnation After Death, Finds Study,” WION, May 19, 2023, read online.

C.S. Lewis, “Modern Man and His Categories of Thought,” Present Concerns (London: Fount Paperbacks, 1986).

James Emery White, Meet Generation Z (Baker), order online.

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Christian Headlines.

Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Romolo Tavani

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. 

His latest book, After “I Believe,” is now available on Amazon or your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org, where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. 

Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

As Yonat Shimron led off her report: “For American religion, the story of decline just won’t let up.”

She was referring to the recent findings in a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) published last week. As Shimron reported:

“A shrinking number of Americans – 16% – say religion is the most important thing in their lives, down from 20% in 2013. And nearly 3 in 10 – or 29% – say religion is not important to them at all, up from 19% 10 years ago…. The survey… finds that 57% seldom or never attend religious services (compared with 45% in 2019).”

There was another significant finding: 24% of Americans revealed that they now belong to a religious congregation that is different than the one they grew up in. This is up from 16% in 2021. The biggest losers in this transition seem to be Catholics.

Was there any good news?

Yes.

Most attendees across Christian traditions (59%) have attended their current church for more than a decade. Further, the vast majority (82%) are optimistic about the future of their church. An even higher number (89%) said that they were proud to be associated with their church.

The picture this paints of religion in America, though it is only a part of the picture and not the full portrait, is intriguing. “What struck me about the findings is the paradox,” noted Melissa Deckman, CEO of PRRI. “We see continued decline in the role of religion. But for those who attend regularly they seem pretty happy and satisfied, even proud of their congregation.”

There can be little doubt that people are choosing to bypass religion for their lives. But the good news is that those who have chosen to explore and, in the end, embrace faith find it to be deeply satisfying and essential to their lives.

The fault with religion seems, therefore, to be coming less from experience and more from assumptions made from a distance.

G.K. Chesterton once quipped: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” Today, it might be more apt to say, “The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting, it has simply been untried.”

Which evangelistically is very good news indeed.

James Emery White

Sources

“Religion and Congregations in a Time of Social and Political Upheaval,” PRRI, May 16, 2023, read online.

Yonat Shimron, “Poll: Religious Attendance Is Shrinking but Those Who Remain Are Happy,” Religion News Service, May 16, 2023, read online.

Jason DeRose, “The importance of Religion in the Lives of Americans Is Shrinking,” NPR, May 16, 2023, read online.

Scott Neuman, “The faithful see both crisis and opportunity as churches close across the country,” NPR, May 17, 2023, read online.

G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World.

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Christan Headlines.

Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Drew Buzz

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. 

His latest book, After “I Believe,” is now available on Amazon or your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org, where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. 

Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

I get absolutely no pleasure in relaying that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), America’s largest Protestant denomination, lost nearly half a million more people in 2022, adding to the three million lost since 2006.

It is their largest loss in more than a century.

At one time a denomination of 16.3 million, the SBC has declined by more than 1.5 million since 2018 alone.

One could point to numerous reasons: the rise of the nones, major sex abuse scandals, controversies over race, feuds over denominational leadership, the rise of Calvinism (yes, this has an outreach dynamic), debate over women in ministry and more.

It’s hard to know exactly where to point the finger.

But the one thing Southern Baptists shouldn’t do is deflect. As in blame the culture. Yes, we are living in a post-Christian world. Yes, the rise of the nones is real. 

But this didn’t stop the early church.

As I detailed in my latest book, Hybrid Church, following Pentecost, the early church faced a largely pagan culture. A combination of personal evangelism and service to the poor and vulnerable led to a numerical explosion. By 100 A.D., there were around 7,500 followers. By the mid-300s, more than 30,000,000 called themselves followers of Christ. 

So don’t tell me today’s pagan culture is a cultural roadblock.

Instead, there are two other roadblocks that can legitimately be claimed.

First, a methodological roadblock. There is simply a failure to do what needs to be done. To change where we need to change. I’ve often shocked conference audiences by saying that it is no secret how to grow a church. The problem is that churches aren’t willing to do what it takes to grow.

Which leads to the second roadblock.

The heart roadblock. 

Why don’t we change? Because we don’t care if lost people go to hell. We would rather cling to how things have always been done, rather than convert to what should be done. We aren’t willing to do what it takes to reach lost people because our hearts don’t truly beat for them.

I mourn that the SBC – once known for its evangelistic cage-fighting – is now better known for its evangelistic waltzing.

But make no mistake.

Unless things change, it’s going to be a half a million more, followed by half a million more, followed by….

James Emery White

Sources

Bob Smietana, “Southern Baptists Lost Nearly Half a Million Members in 2022,” Religion News Service, May 9, 2023, read online.

James Emery White, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, order here.

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Christian Headlines.

Photo courtesy: ©SparrowStock

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. 

His latest book, After “I Believe,” is now available on Amazon or your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org, where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. 

Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.