The Tin Gods Have Failed Us
The failure of secularism, consumerism and hedonism is prompting Americans and others to begin embracing traditional religion
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “[M]an everywhere appears as a worshiping creature.” This applies not only to the faithful, but to the unbeliever as well. A person who rejects the divine merely redirects his worship to something else: money, politics, ideology, romantic love, knowledge. The list goes on.
In a peaceful, prosperous nation, it’s easy to live that way. But what happens when the West’s centuries-long experiment with secularism proves each of these replacement faiths to be tin gods? Look to Europe, where it all began.
This Easter, the Catholic Church in France baptized 10,384 adults, along with about 7,400 new members aged 11 to 17. This is the highest number of entrants in more than 20 years, and a 45% increase in adult catechumens compared to last year.
Father Benoist de Sinety, a parish priest in Lille, noted that this year’s Ash Wednesday masses “shattered attendance records,” with many congregants being “young people attending for the first time.”
In the United Kingdom, the long, slow decline of church-going has been reversed, with Generation Z leading the turnaround. According to an April study by the Bible Society, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds saying they attended church at least monthly has increased from 4% in 2018 to 16% today. Among young men, it’s 21%.
Dr. Rhiannon McAleer, a co-author of the study, expanded on the findings.
“While some traditional denominations continue to face challenges, we’ve seen significant, broad-based growth among most expressions of Church – particularly in Roman Catholicism and Pentecostalism,” she said. “There are now over 2 million more people attending church than there were six years ago.”
One of the first to notice the trend was Justin Brierley, an Oxford-educated Christian broadcaster who used to spend hours intellectually sparring with “new Atheists.” Over time, his opponents began lauding the value of “cultural Christianity.” Then others became believers in earnest.
In the introduction to his 2023 book, “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God,” Brierley explains that “people need a story to live by, but the stories we have been telling ourselves in the last several decades have been growing increasingly thin and superficial.”
The tin gods failed us, a fact that’s no longer possible to hide—especially among struggling young adults. The quick route to financial success collapsed in the 2008 housing bubble and hasn’t recovered since. Those who once placed their faith in politics have been served a rogue’s gallery of mediocrities or worse; meanwhile, adherence to progressive ideologies literally makes people crazy.
Romantic attachments have plummeted with the rise of online hook-up culture, and a lifetime of seeking academic knowledge has been interrupted by screeching protestors chaining themselves to university doors.
The chaos only intensified in the 2020s. The pandemic lock-ups; violent protests focused on race and the environment (and now Teslas); assassination attempts; wars and rumors of wars. Nothing feels stable and no one’s in control.
It’s no wonder Gen Z is looking for an anchor. Secularism, consumerism and hedonism haven’t provided answers, so the young are looking at the older ways. And now, an awakening similar to those in France and England has arrived on the American side of the pond.
Barna research found that 66% of all U.S. adults have “made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life today.” This is a 12-percentage-point increase since 2021.
Last year saw a 22% jump in Bible sales from 2023, while millennials increased their use of the Bible by 29% between 2024 and 2025.
While finding no increase in religiosity, Pew Research Center recently discovered that the share of Americans who identify as Christians finally stopped its years-long decline.
A big reason for this, again, is Gen Z men, who are now more likely to attend church than their female counterparts. After a lifetime of being blamed for everything wrong with the modern world, they’re more likely to worship in premodern forms.
Many have headed to old-school Catholicism, attending masses in Latin, participating in frequent confession and seeing women donning mantillas. Similar reports come from Orthodox parishes, which have experienced explosive growth since the pandemic. The long liturgies, rigorous fasting and spiritual discipline have proved to be features, not bugs.
A survey by the Orthodox Studies Institute showed that conversions were fairly stable from 2013 to 2021, with an average of about 89 per year, per parish. In the 2022-2023 period, this jumped to an average of 155 catechumens accepted into each congregation.
The COVID church closures were a turning point, leading many believers to venture out of the online-only megachurch to find something more eternal.
In decades past, nondenominational evangelical congregations dispensed with ecclesial hierarchy and holy tradition, drifting instead toward “seeker-friendly” sermons and a contemporary “worship experience.” The goal wasn’t reverence but relevance.
Soaring architecture was replaced with warehouse-like theaters. Icons and vestments were swapped out for PowerPoints and sports apparel. Who needs candles and incense when you can have synchronized stage lights and fog machines?
This worked pretty well when times were good. If the world around you is stable, every Sunday can feature new songs, new buzzwords and a new multimedia experience. But when real suffering enters the picture, shifting sands won’t do. Breezy TED-talk sermons and light-rock concerts don’t provide an anchor in a stormy sea. They bring only more chaos.
In an interview I conducted last year, Fr. Josiah Trenham of St. Andrew Orthodox Church in Riverside, Calif., explained that “COVID showed us the face of death which the Western secular world tries to hide constantly.”
The pandemic also demonstrated the failure of nearly all our secular institutions—academia, government, healthcare and law enforcement.
“So many who had found themselves numbered among the ‘nones and dones’ are now awaking spiritually to God and to repentance,” Fr. Trenham said.
In a world of blithe answers, feel-good psychobabble and 24/7 distraction, there’s something refreshing about groping toward the big-T truths despite the struggle traditional faith demands. To put the cross on our backs and keep walking up that mountain.
Christ promised we will endure hardship: from pandemics to wars to economic uncertainty. But He also shares wonderful news for the church: The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
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