How Progressive Christian Activism Might Bring Gen Z Back to Church

Liberal faith leaders are hoping to show through community participation that they are a safe haven for young people interested in exploring religion.

When Linnea was younger, she would attend a Christian summer camp in western Michigan, far outside of the liberal bubble of her Shaker Heights neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. Now a 19-year-old student at Case Western University, Linnea had grown up attending a progressive, mission-oriented Protestant church active in the local community. She remembered the summer camp as being “politically neutral,” but given its location in a deep-red region, many of Linnea’s peers had a more conservative understanding of the teachings of their mutual faith.

“It was in those moments where I would see, Wow, we’re both Christian, but we’re moving through the world in completely different ways,” recalled Linnea, who is a member of her university’s branch of the progressive faith network United Protestant Campus Ministries.

As a faithful Christian and young woman who identifies as queer, Linnea is among a relatively small number of Gen Z Americans who are both religiously affiliated and politically progressive. Gen Zers are less likely to identify as Christian than older generations, and less likely to regularly attend church, according to the most recent Census of American Religion by the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI. Progressive Christians thus have the burden of convincing ideologically aligned young people that worship is a meaningful way to engage in society.

In the current political climate, the term “Christian values” is often equated with conservative values, both by those who support that ideology and by those who do not. The Trump administration’s efforts to embed Christian nationalism—the belief that the United States was founded on and should be governed by Christian principles—into the fabric of the federal government have further cemented this perspective into cultural consciousness. Polling has also shown that Americans who identify themselves as adhering to or sympathizing with Christian nationalist beliefs remain overwhelmingly supportive of Trump.

Progressive Christians don’t necessarily like to align themselves with any particular political term—to them, they are simply following Christ’s teachings. However, there is a distinct ideological difference between them and their conservative or Christian nationalist counterparts—which makes “progressive” a clean shorthand for the way they apply their religious beliefs to everyday life.

“Jesus was also executed by the government in the street and called us, multiple times, not just to love our neighbors but to stand in deep and profound solidarity with the most oppressed amongst us,” said Lizzie McManus-Dail, the pastor of Jubilee Episcopal Church, a church in Austin, Texas with several LGBTQ members. “That, I think,........

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