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, is the deepest and truest heart of Christianity, but it is certainly not what Christianity has become synonymous with in a country where the government is openly trying to make this a Christian nationalist nation.”
Recent civil action by church leaders in opposition to the Trump administration’s policies has placed a spotlight on Christians who believe the tenets of their faith are not in line with the actions of the president, and of the Republican Party as a whole. After thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were installed in Minneapolis earlier this year, local Christian pastors—along with other faith leaders—took an active role in community organizing. Late last year, Christian clergy were also among those arrested for protesting ICE crackdowns in Chicago.
These types of activities by church leaders may appeal to civically minded, progressive young people looking for community. But data suggests that if any Gen Zers will be more inclined to attend church because they consider Christianity to be in line with their values, that increase would not have a significant statistical difference in church attendance among the younger generations.
“I think it might happen at the margins, but I don’t think it’s going to be happening en masse because of the other larger secularization trends that have emerged with younger people,” said Melissa Deckman, the CEO of PRRI and the author of a book on Gen Z political participation.
The church’s treatment of LGBTQ Americans writ large is a major factor in whether a young person identifies with a particular religion. According to a 2024 survey by PRRI, 60 percent of unaffiliated Americans under 30 say that they left their religious tradition because of its teachings regarding LGBTQ people. Fewer than four in 10 LGBTQ individuals identify as Christian; they are also twice as likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated as compared to straight people.
“There’s still a perception among many younger people that religion equates with negative treatment of LGBTQ individuals, despite the fact that a lot of these progressive clergy you see being arrested are really, frankly, far more affirming of LGBT individuals,” said Deckman.
Although they are a relatively small portion of Christians, LGBTQ Christians are, anecdotally, on the forefront of building relationships with other like-minded individuals. Many of the queer people Linnea encounters on campus have “religious trauma,” having grown up in households that held fast to a very rigid and conservative theology. But she’s trying to challenge those negative associations: She recalled working with church leaders to plan an event in protest when the CEO of a conservative Christian organization spoke at the City Club for Cleveland in January.
“We wanted something that was both very gay and very Christian, because … we’re just tired of it being seen as things that can’t coexist, because the voices of Christian nationalists are so loud right now,” Linnea said. Even though she can get “bogged down” with anger that Christian language can be used to discriminate against LGBTQ Americans, she believes the best strategy to counter that messaging is being vocal about the intersection between her values and that of her faith.
“I think the much more fruitful and helpful way that I frame it in my discussions with especially other LGBTQ people, is just that I have a very earnest desire for queer people to be able to feel safe in religious spaces like these,” said Linnea.
Some collegiate Christian organizations have become havens for LGBTQ students in the wake of the shuttering of diversity, equity, and inclusion offices in universities across the country. Carl Thomas Gladstone, the executive director of ZOE Progressive Christian Life on Campus, a network of progressive Christian campus communities, gave the example of “glitter blessings” on National Coming Out Day or Trans Visibility Day, where students can receive a blessing with glitter similar to one they might receive with ash on Ash Wednesday.
Gladstone said these sort of events aim to form relationships regardless of beliefs, and “bringing our whole selves as practitioners of a progressive Christianity to those moments, not to convert, but just to speak honestly about how we are present.” The message for students becomes: “You are wonderfully made and loved. Know that today, and put some amazing glitter on your forehead.”
Young people who grew up in the Christian faith are more likely to remain connected to church than those who were raised religiously unaffiliated. The overwhelming majority of Christian Gen Z teens follow the same religion as their parents, according to PRRI polling.
Even those who feel isolated from their faith may eventually return to it. Mick Atencio, the program and development director of the LGBTQ faith organization Q Christian Fellowship, grew up in the evangelical church. Atencio was isolated by the homophobia and transphobia apparent in its teachings but nonetheless was still drawn by the “centrality of Christ in faith” in the evangelical tradition.
“I couldn’t really let go of Christ,” they said. “So it was never really a question of, ‘Do I leave,’ but, ‘How do I reconcile this,’ and, ‘Where do I find the community that I’m looking for?’”
The basic trajectory of one’s life also plays a significant role. It is a common trend to see younger people stay away from church but then return to their faith community once they begin having children at a later age, said Deckman. This pattern has been observed by Lauren Grubaugh Thomas, who is the pastor of Holy Companion Episcopal Church in Sterling Ranch, Colorado. Her congregation is formed of several core families, many of whom are millennials who began having children in their thirties. Grubaugh Thomas said that many of her congregants are LGBTQ individuals who began “tentatively” returning to church as they got older, and felt safe to attend a “queer-celebratory parish in a county that historically has been a dangerous place for the LGBTQ community.”
“Something people have said quite clearly is, ‘I’m now looking for a church, having had no interest for some time in being part of a faith community. Now that I have children, I want to be in a community with shared values,’” she said, quoting what she has heard from members of her church. “I want my kids to have an experience of community, and for those values to be ones that I align with today, and I want my kids to be raised in and to have other adults who love them and are showing up in their lives.”
This dovetails with what research has shown about why people raised in the church stay faithful; polling shows that the reasons are generally not political but instead are spiritual. Eighty-seven percent of people ages 18 through 29 who attended religious services said they do so “to feel closer to God,” according to a PRRI poll.
But for those who aren’t raised by religiously affiliated parents, it may be harder to see church as a potential source of community. In 2025, PRRI found that only 39 percent of adults between ages 18 and 29 identified as religiously affiliated, remaining steady from 2024. Since 2013, young women in particular have grown less likely to affiliate with a particular religion, a trend led by nonwhite women. Only one in five young men and women reported attending church each week.
Attendance also is influenced by partisan affiliation: Recent polling has shown that Gen Z Republicans are more likely than their Democratic counterparts to attend church, and are more inclined to believe that participating in religiously affiliated events is an important way to build social connections. Gladstone, the executive director of ZOE, noted that the general public understanding of campus Christian ministry is synonymous with conservative faith groups like Campus Crusade or InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
Progressive Christians believe that creating connections between like-minded young people and local churches can help counter some of the narratives around Christianity in American life. Parishes participating in local social justice activity could, potentially, encourage young people to see the church as a haven both for community and activism. But for Christian leaders, the ultimate goal is not attendance—it is offering a different vision of Christianity altogether.
“I think protests can attract young progressives who aren’t involved with the church. But that’s not the foremost reason we do it. The foremost reason we do it is because that is what Jesus compels us to do,” said McManus-Dail.
