More Americans are leaning into their Christian faith in what some religious leaders and scholars are calling a “fourth Great Awakening.”
Bible sales in the United States have skyrocketed in 2024, religious colleges are seeing enrollment boosts despite overall declines in higher education attendance and several states are pushing for Bible-based curriculum in public schools. Some Bible scholars believe this may mark a significant cultural shift.
“While it has been apparent to a few of us for some time, millions are now realizing that ‘woke’ ideologies are, in fact, destructive attempts to re-found the nation according to a new civic religion which both parodies and persecutes Christianity,” Chad Pecknold, theologian and professor at The Catholic University of America, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Despite overall book sales increasing by only 1% compared to 2023, Bible sales in the U.S. have reached an impressive 22% increase as of October 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Cardinal Newman Society in October reported that enrollment at Catholic colleges has risen in 2024 despite an overall enrollment decrease at other institutions, with several schools such as Ave Maria University in Florida and Benedictine College in Kansas seeing record growth, increasing attendance by more than 20% over the last 10 years.
“There is a resurgence of Christianity among young people,” Wade Burleson, retired pastor and president of Istoria Ministries, told the DCNF. “I see what is happening [as] more of an Awakening. An Awakening occurs when the irreligious come to faith in Christ.”
Burleson pointed to several instances of young people coming into faith in droves in recent years, with hundreds of students being baptized on campuses across the nation, including several members of the four-time national champion Oklahoma University women’s softball team.
“There have been three Great Awakenings in America, and a few smaller ones,” Burleson continued. “I believe we are in the beginning of a fourth Great Awakening and it is a response to inflation (financial panic), pandemics (Covid), wars (global), and the sudden death of stability in America. There is no anchor in life better than the Anchor of Hope, and when the ship of life is tossed to and fro, faith awakens.”
Pecknold shared this sentiment, arguing that far-left politics have driven Americans towards Christianity.
“Democrats, and the corporations and institutions they controlled, embraced this pseudo-civic religion in their attempt to take total control over the American republic,” Pecknold said. “The American people saw their totalitarian appetites on display in everything from forced vaccinations to extreme racialism to the redefinition of marriage and the denial of sexual difference, all under the ever-evolving banner of ‘the Progress Flag.’”
“This is when the Democrats were defeated so thoroughly on November 5th, it was not only seen as a political victory, but also as a religious victory: it was a repudiation of the ersatz civic religion that Democrats had used to re-found the country.”
Catholic voters played a pivotal role in the 2024 presidential election, making up approximately 25% of the vote and overwhelmingly siding with President-elect Donald Trump, with other Christian voters following suit.
This was a surprising revelation considering tens of millions of Christians were expected to refrain from voting, citing a dislike of both candidates and general uninterest in politics, according to Relevant Magazine. Some religious organizations, however, made efforts to warn voters prior to the election that the Democratic ticket was “patently anti-religious.”
Greg Boyd, theologian and Pastor at Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota is less convinced of this religious revival.
“My concern is that a lot of it seems to be wrapped up with nationalism,” Boyd told the DCNF. “And it concerns me because whenever the Christian faith has gotten too close to political power, it’s been transformed by the political power, and we have Christians trying to control others and conquer others, the same as we’ve had throughout history. And in my opinion, that doesn’t look anything [like] what we find in the Gospel.”
Boyd pointed to examples of states like Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma approving the implementation of Bible lessons into public school lessons. Texas’ law is meant to help “students to better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature, and religion on pivotal events” in history and Oklahoma’s is similarly meant “as an instructional support into the curriculum.”
“Where did Jesus ever impose himself on others?” the pastor asked.
“I mean, I would love to see a revival in the country,” Boyd said. “The evidence of that would be, I would think, people become more Christ-like, they become more loving. They would be trying to turn the other cheek, trying to reach out across the aisle and build bridges instead of walls. And I don’t see any of that happening with the church as a whole. Seems like it’s kind of gone deeply into political polarization.”
Boyd agreed that many issues in politics have driven people to view current affairs through a religious lens.
Cultural issues such as abortion, gender ideology and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have been hot topics dividing Americans’ opinions, especially religious Americans. The ongoing war in Gaza, as well as the hundreds of protests that spanned the U.S. in response, also impacted Christians’ perspective, with many viewing the apparent prosecution of Jews on college campuses as an infringement on religious freedom as a whole.
Church attendance among Christians remains relatively low in the United States, with only 30% of Protestants and 23% of Catholics attending church every week, according to a March Gallup poll. However, more Americans than ever are consuming religious content, with the Hallow prayer app becoming the first religious app to top Apple’s App Store in 2024 and Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Bible In A Year podcast consistently topping charts in recent years, according to National Review.
Young men in particular are maintaining their devotion to faith, with more Gen Z men identifying as Christian than women for the first time, according to the New York Times.
“We are currently seeing a kind of clarity about the civilizational conflict that ‘woke’ ideologies provoked,” Pecknold told the DCNF. “In brief, the people are fed up with this fake religion, and even if they aren’t Christian themselves, they’re realizing that Christianity provides a far better ‘unwritten constitution’ for the nation than anti-Christian wokeism can supply. There’s a simple realization at work here.”
“Christianity is an ordering principle which elevates and ennobles souls, families, and societies — it’s inherently public, and cannot be ‘privatized,’ relegated to the margins, or separated from questions of education, heritage, public morality, family policy, law, or the aspirations of nations,” Pecknold said. “We still date time by the Incarnation because, deep down, everyone knows that Christianity is objectively true and good for all people — it roots us in reality, it helps us to promote the truly good, and avoid those evils which cause so much suffering — it elevates us by the Light of Christ. Public Christianity is literally what makes civilizational renewal possible. The fact that Americans are remembering this, and having the courage to state it, is a sign of great hope for the nation.”
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