Churches must “retake that mantle of raising up the next generation” from YouTube stars and other internet personalities, as more young men in the United States are flocking to churches and must be encouraged to engage with the culture, says prominent author and activist Katy Faust.
Faust, who leads the organization Them Before Us and is the co-author of Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement, was among several leaders who spoke at the Pray, Vote, Stand Summit last weekend, organized by the Christian conservative activist organization Family Research Council at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in California. Over 1,500 people attended the summit.
Faust spoke on a panel discussion about how Christians should engage in a culture hostile to biblical values and teachings. FRC President Tony Perkins, a Baptist pastor, moderated the panel.
Faust described a “huge swing towards traditionalism among the boys” of Generation Z, referring to the youngest group of American adults.
“They are absolutely flocking to churches. I think for the first time ever since we started measuring this, more young boys want to get married and have children than young girls do, which is crazy and it’s awesome,” she said.
“We have seen this shift in young men, and it’s not because the pastors were vocal and discipling their people on cultural issues. It’s because YouTube was,” she added. “And there happens to be some pretty fantastic influencers like Jordan Peterson and Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro and Michael Knowles.”
Faust expressed gratitude that there are “many good men that are speaking truth in a way that young men receive it,” saying it has “shaped them and it has changed them.” However, she maintained that young men “should be hearing that from their fathers and their pastors.”
“Charlie Kirk didn’t know their name and Ben Shapiro doesn’t know what’s going on at their school,” Faust said.
“They need somebody to process with them in real life,” Faust asserted. “And their pastor is supposed to be that guy. And … if they have a father in the home, he is really supposed to be that guy. They should be the source of truth. They should be the ones that are watching their life and their doctrine so closely, so that it’s shaping not just their boys but their girls as well.”
Faust had previously contrasted the embrace of traditionalism among Generation Z men with women in the same generation, who she said aren’t as likely to want to get married and have children, claiming it is because they are “much more susceptible to the social contagion of progressivism that they’re finding online and in schools.”
According to a Pew Research study released last year, among young adults without children, men (57%) are more likely than women (45%) to want to be parents someday. Data from the Barna Group shows that nearly four in 10 Generation Z young adult women say they are atheist, agnostic or say they have no faith at all. Other studies have shown that men (43%) are starting to outpace women (36%) in weekly church attendance.
“It’s time for the Church and the home to retake that mantle of raising up the next generation so we’re not outsourcing it to YouTube influencers,” Faust told the crowd.
During the panel, author and podcaster Natasha Crain reflected on the cultural hostility toward biblical values at the center of discussion. She warned that some Christians refrain from engaging with the culture.
“I feel like a lot of that pressure to hide because of that hostility comes from within the Church,” she said.
“We’ve seen a lot of leaders within the Church, a lot of pastors who are doing so much of the warning, the cottage industry of warnings that I was talking about, that it makes us shrink back and go, ‘Oh, I guess I shouldn’t want to impose my values on others’ or ‘I guess I shouldn’t be seeking the power to do things.'”
Crain pushed back on those “kind of matras” in the Church.
“When you pull them back, you realize that they’re really not logically consistent,” Crain said. “They’re not biblically consistent. We are called to be salt and light. We are called to follow Jesus’ command.”
“What are His commands?” she asked. “No. 1, to love God, and No. 2, to love others. Love your neighbor, right? So if we’re loving others, part of loving others, part of that job, not all of it, but part of it, is caring about their lives in the context of the societies in which they live.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
