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Gen Z most likely to identify as 'religious,' engage in spiritual activities, poll finds
Christian Post ^ | 09/26/2026 | Ryan Foley

Posted on 09/27/2026 9:43:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Generation Z adults are more likely than older Americans to describe themselves as “religious,” even as many also engage in practices at odds with Christian teaching, according to a new survey.

The Harris Poll released a survey Thursday based on responses from 2,136 U.S. adults collected July 1 to 4. The poll grouped respondents by generation: Generation Z (ages 18 to 29), millennials (30 to 45), Generation X (46 to 61) and baby boomers (62 and older).

Gen Z adults were the most likely to consider themselves religious and the least likely to describe themselves as neither religious nor spiritual. Thirty-three percent of Gen Z adults described themselves as “religious,” followed by 22% of Gen X adults, 19% of millennials and 18% of boomers.

Meanwhile, 19% of Gen Z adults considered themselves “neither religious nor spiritual,” followed by millennials (20%), Gen X adults (21%) and boomers (23%).

“Gen Z self-identifies as the most religious generation in America, with the practices to back it up,” Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll, said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. “But that doesn’t show you the whole story, because they aren’t choosing religion instead of everything else. They’re stacking it. Church on Sunday, manifestation on Wednesday, tarot on Friday. The old assumption was that each generation picks faith less than the last. Gen Z picked more of everything.”

Gen Z adults were more likely than older generations to engage in several spiritual activities.

A majority of Gen Z adults (54%) said they “read scripture or religious texts” regularly in the past year, as did a similar share of millennials (53%). Fewer than half of Gen X adults (48%) and boomers (43%) said they regularly read Scripture or religious texts.

Nearly half of Gen Z adults (49%) regularly attended religious services in the past year, compared with 44% of millennials, 43% of Gen X adults and 42% of boomers.

By contrast, boomers were the most likely to have regularly prayed on their own in the past year. Seventy-five percent of boomers regularly prayed, along with 72% of Gen X adults, 67% of Gen Z adults and 65% of millennials.

Eighty-eight percent of Gen Z adults said they regularly engaged in at least one of the following spiritual activities, including prayer, Scripture reading, religious services, meditation or ritual, manifestation, astrology or tarot, or energy work. Smaller shares of millennials (84%), Gen X adults (84%) and boomers (82%) said the same.

Fifty-seven percent of Gen Z adults agreed with the statement, “I’ve turned to manifestation practices or spirituality to feel I have greater control over my future.” Millennials were slightly more likely to agree (59%), while fewer than half of Gen X adults (46%) and 30% of boomers agreed.

"The generation expected to be the most secular is now the most likely to identify as religious," researchers noted.

Sixty percent of Gen Z adults agreed that “I belong to more real-world, in-person communities than I used to (e.g. run clubs, faith communities, hobby or volunteer groups),” along with 59% of millennials, 42% of Gen X adults and 32% of boomers.

Seventy percent of both Gen Z adults and millennials agreed that they “want to belong to more real-world, in-person communities (e.g. run clubs, faith communities, hobby or volunteer groups),” as did smaller shares of Gen X adults (62%) and boomers (48%).

The Harris Poll survey comes amid conflicting data on Gen Z’s religiosity.

Barna Group’s 2026 State of the Church initiative found that Gen Z was the most likely generation to believe a spiritual revival would occur in the next 12 months, and Barna research released in 2025 found that Gen Z includes “the most frequent churchgoers.”

But other Barna research from 2025 found that nearly 40% of Gen Z women identify as atheist, agnostic or having no faith.


TOPICS: Current Events; Ministry/Outreach; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: genz; religious; spirituality

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1 posted on 09/27/2026 9:43:50 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
Eighty-eight percent of Gen Z adults said they regularly engaged in at least one of the following spiritual activities, including prayer, Scripture reading, religious services, meditation or ritual, manifestation, astrology or tarot, or energy work

...ummmm...

2 posted on 09/28/2026 2:57:00 AM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.)
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To: Sirius Lee

Jmmmmm.....yup, all those things fall under spiritiual activities!

Now, dear churchgoers, during your ‘service’, is not “the bread and wine,” a manifestation?
Is not ‘the congregation flowing with songs of ethereal languages ‘ a manifestation?

Manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit?


3 posted on 09/28/2026 3:46:03 AM PDT by Terry L Smith
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To: Sirius Lee

Jmmmmm.....yup, all those things fall under spiritiual activities!

Now, dear churchgoers, during your ‘service’, is not “the bread and wine,” a manifestation?
Is not ‘the congregation flowing with songs of ethereal languages ‘ a manifestation?

Manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit?


4 posted on 09/28/2026 3:46:07 AM PDT by Terry L Smith
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To: Sirius Lee

Jmmmmm.....yup, all those things fall under spiritiual activities!

Now, dear churchgoers, during your ‘service’, is not “the bread and wine,” a manifestation?
Is not ‘the congregation flowing with songs of ethereal languages ‘ a manifestation?

Manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit?


5 posted on 09/28/2026 3:46:17 AM PDT by Terry L Smith
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To: Sirius Lee

Jmmmmm.....yup, all those things fall under spiritiual activities!

Now, dear churchgoers, during your ‘service’, is not “the bread and wine,” a manifestation?
Is not ‘the congregation flowing with songs of ethereal languages ‘ a manifestation?

Manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit?


6 posted on 09/28/2026 3:46:20 AM PDT by Terry L Smith
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To: Terry L Smith

Manifesting duplicate posts is retarded.


7 posted on 09/28/2026 4:48:19 AM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.)
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To: Sirius Lee
including prayer, Scripture reading, religious services, meditation or ritual, manifestation, astrology or tarot, or energy work

What's the old saying? When people cease to believe in God, they do not then believe in nothing — they believe in anything.

8 posted on 09/28/2026 5:40:09 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard (When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Meanwhile Communist China sell

:

9 posted on 09/28/2026 5:50:40 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)
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To: Sirius Lee
Eighty-eight percent of Gen Z adults said they regularly engaged in at least one of the following spiritual activities, including prayer, Scripture reading, religious services, meditation or ritual, manifestation, astrology or tarot, or energy work

...ummmm...

Indeed. That is muddy water. Thank God for what the very brief poll might indicate (not much) about a% of Gen Z being Christians, but the actual poll lists Boomers as last (18%) on describing themselves as "religious," but highest (31%) as "both religious and spiritual," then it also says that at 75% Boomers led on "prayed on their own"

10 posted on 09/28/2026 6:08:43 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)
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To: SeekAndFind
Hmmm.

What they are calling "religious" includes the kind of people who used to say they were "spiritual but not religious".

Basically anything but all hard atheism, which never was all that popular.

11 posted on 09/28/2026 6:52:09 AM PDT by Salman (US out of NATO or we might find ourselves fighting the next world war on the side of the Germans. )
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To: Sirius Lee

My post button did not respond properly so as with all things electronic that we do, I hit it, I hit it


12 posted on 09/28/2026 7:04:53 AM PDT by Terry L Smith
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To: SeekAndFind
What I see with many 20 and 30 somethings is that while they've abandoned the traditional Christianity of their parents and grandparents, they don't do so by becoming atheists, agnostics, or other skeptics.

Instead, they tend to gravitate towards all sorts of New Age mumbo-jumbo and pseudo-religions so that they can claim to be "against organized religion" but "spiritual". They might claim to be witches in a coven, worshippers of Gaia, subscribe to various pseudo-American Indian or pseudo-Buddhist beliefs (often in combination), play with "magic" healing crystals and aromas, or dabble in the occult. And yet they then turn around and criticize traditional religion as "irrational".

13 posted on 09/28/2026 8:51:22 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: SeekAndFind
USA generation discussions always omit one key feature...

Ethnicity.

50% of USA Generation Z are non-white.

Which means the USA moves politically Left - every year.

14 posted on 09/28/2026 9:19:04 AM PDT by zeestephen (2024 Trump Landslide - Kamala Harris Lost By 230,000 Votes In WI, MI, and PA.)
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