Plain English with Derek Thompson America's Religious Revival Is a Mirage
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Apr 8, 2026 
Ryan Burge, a religion-data researcher and author of Graphs About Religion, digs into why America’s supposed youth faith comeback may be mostly a statistical mirage. He explores the rise of the nones, how politics widened the God gap, why non-denominational churches are growing, and how anti-institutional culture can fuel both secular life and new forms of belief.
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Why America Became An Outlier In Religion
- America stayed unusually religious because it never had a state church, forcing denominations to compete for believers in a lively religious marketplace.
- Ryan Burge says circuit riders, revival movements, and new sects kept adapting religion while Europe’s state-linked churches grew stagnant.
Why The Nones Took Off After 1990
- The rise of the religiously unaffiliated after 1990 came from two shifts at once: atheism lost its Cold War stigma, and Christianity fused with Republican identity.
- Ryan Burge points to the Berlin Wall, the internet, and Newt Gingrich era polarization as forces that made liberal young Americans more likely to reject religion.
Why The Religious Revival Is Mostly A Mirage
- The recent halt in secularization is not a youth revival but a pause driven mainly by older Americans, especially older Republicans, saying they are religious again.
- Ryan Burge says many self-identified evangelicals rarely attend church, suggesting identity and tribal politics matter more than actual participation.
