The Collapse of Cultural Christianity—And the Rise of Cultural Queerness
by Jonathon Van Maren, The European Conservative:
Around 25% of Gen Z in America now identify as LGBT, compared to 3% of the general population.
How do nations become post-Christian? To quote Ernest Hemingway: Gradually, and then suddenly.
For decades, the United States has been a bastion of religiosity, bucking the trend of secularization, but in recent years, the needle has begun to move. According to a 2019 poll, between 20% and 25% of American adults now identify as ‘nones’ (meaning that they do not identify with any religion), a percentage that is higher among younger adults than older adults and likely indicative of a long-term trend. According to a 2020 Politico/Morning Consult poll, 49% of voting-age Gen Z (those born after 1996) respondents identified as either agnostic or atheist—a sea change in religious identification.
To unpack those numbers a bit further, consider that a 2017 survey found that only 11% of Americans claimed to have read the entire Bible—meaning that a whopping 89% have not. Thus, it is no surprise that even Americans who still identify as Christian are abandoning any semblance of orthodoxy, with 40% of American Christians claiming that the Bible is ‘ambiguous’ on abortion, 34% rejecting the biblical definition of marriage, and another 34% claiming that abortion is morally acceptable.
There are many reasons for the ‘rise of the nones,’ but one is that many who had merely identified as Christian as a nod to their heritage or culture without actually believing any of its tenets are now abandoning the label as it becomes socially inconvenient. Until recently, identifying as some sort of Christian was a net positive; that’s why elites such as Barack Obama did so. But as it becomes a net negative, many are switching their allegiance to the new cultural elites. This is especially true of younger Americans, who have come of age cut off from their civilizational inheritance and deformed by the public education system.
For example, around a quarter of Gen Z identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or ‘genderqueer’—while just a few years ago, less than 3% of the population identified as on the LGBT spectrum. Politico reported in 2020 that “a third of Gen Zers say they know someone who uses gender-neutral pronouns to refer to themselves and nearly 6 in 10 say forms or online profiles should allow more options than ‘man’ or ‘woman’” and that consequently, “religious liberty, particularly as it relates to discrimination against LGBTQ people … does not at all resonate with younger Americans.”
In short, the upcoming generation of Americans increasingly views religious freedom as overt bigotry. Identification with the LGBT movement is undergoing an astronomical rise; identification with Christianity is plummeting.
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