The Black Church and Gen Z

While perusing through updates on my LinkedIn page last week, I came across a post highlighting a thought-provoking feature from The New York Times' national correspondent Clyde McGrady, who covers the influence of race and identity in American culture. The title of McGrady's piece is "The Black Church Has a Gen-Z Issue: 'They Don't Come Into the Building Anymore.'" I thought about my recent columns on Gen Z and the church as I read his article. In February, I wrote about the "Gen Z Faith Pivot," mentioning the 2023 revival at Asbury University in Kentucky. While I am hopeful that more Gen Zers will seek Christ in their lives, the observations of McGrady and other researchers indicate that many teens and young adults are leaving the institution of faith they grew up with. Many Protestant churches, not just those with a majority of African American congregants, are finding it extremely difficult to reach Gen Z. I think it is also noteworthy to mention that Gen Z — young people born between 1997 and 2012 — is the most racially diverse U.S. generation thus far, and the racial segregation that remains in numerous churches is probably a turnoff for many of them. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said over 50 years ago that "(w)e must face the sad fact that at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning, when we stand to sing 'In Christ there is no East or West,' we stand in the most segregated hour of America." Unfortunately, this is still true today for churches throughout the country. Regarding the Black church particularly, one significant point that McGrady mentions is that the decline of young members "has consequences for social cohesion and Black political power writ large." This is true when considering the history of the Black church's involvement during the civil rights movement. Churches like the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, were central meeting places for prayer and organization of nonviolent protests. However, the potential loss of political impact is not the most critical outcome of the lack of Gen Z membership in Black churches. Rather, it is the missed opportunities to nurture and strengthen young people in their faith in Christ. I'm not advocating that church folk dismiss civic engagement, which is important for the well-being of our communities, but churches with a heavy political emphasis have in many ways overshadowed the message of salvation through the gospel. Christ's primary objective through His ministry was to preach the Kingdom of God and draw people to repentance for their sins to inherit eternal life. In Matthew 22:17-21, religious leaders tried to scheme against Jesus and bait Him with a political question of whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not. Jesus simply replied, "Pay to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." In the Gospel of Matthew, you will find Jesus' teachings on the Kingdom of Heaven through the Parables of the Ten Virgins and the Talents. His miracles of healing a paralytic and a leper, along with feeding 5,000, are also recorded in Matthew. I believe that many Gen Zers who have left both predominately Black and White churches have not received in-depth teachings on who Christ really is through Scripture and how they can be empowered to live victorious lives through Him. If they have heard mostly sermons about political power but not the soul-saving power of Christ, then it is no surprise that they would question their faith or completely walk away from it. Soul-saving power is especially vital for Gen Z since this generation deals with severe mental health issues. Black Gen Zers are more likely to attempt suicide than their peers in other ethnic groups. The church should be a place of refuge and healing for them where they can learn how to have an intimate relationship with Christ and know that, as Hebrews 4:12 says, "the word of God is living and active and full of power (making it operative, energizing, and effective)." Black and White churches will continue to be confronted with the "Gen Z issue" in our present times. If we are to draw young people back "into the building," we must return to teaching them the truth of the gospel, which will also enable us to remove the longstanding barrier of segregation that still separates us on Sundays. Jessica Johnson is a lecturer in the English department at Ohio State University's Lima campus.