Christianity – Family Council

How Adults are Rediscovering Christianity Through Baptism: CBS Reports

Oct 7, 2025Jerry CoxChristianityChristianity, Religious Freedom, Religious Liberty

CBS Mornings recently reported that since the COVID-19 pandemic, a large number of adults — particularly Gen Z men — have been baptized into the Christian faith.

During its news segment, CBS highlighted a massive baptism service recently held on the California coast.

We have shared before about the “quiet revival” taking place in America and the U.K.

Bible sales in America skyrocketed in 2024, and this year the American Bible Society released its annual “State of the Bible” report that examines Bible use and scripture engagement. The report found, “Millennials are leading the way in this move toward greater Bible Use, and in every generation men are using the Bible more.” The report also found a little more than one in three Gen Z adults (36%) qualify as Bible Users.

While pollsters have reported for years about the decline of weekly church attendance, Gallup announced in June that a growing share of Americans actually see religion’s influence increasing.

It’s good to see more Americans coming to faith in Jesus and engaging with scripture. As President Reagan said during a speech in 1984:

The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality’s foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive. . . .

Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we’re mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

Hopefully this “quiet revival” is one that will continue to spread.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

The Quiet Revival of Gen Z: Guest Column

Oct 3, 2025John StonestreetChristianityChristianity

Back in April, The Bible Society of the U.K. issued a report describing a “quiet revival” across England and Wales. “Church decline in England and Wales has not only stopped,” read the subheading, “but the Church is growing, as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance.” Though the report has its fair share of critics, it launched an essential conversation.

Last Sunday, James Marriott continued that conversation with an article in the U.K. publication The Times entitled “Full-fat faith: the young Christian converts filling our churches.” Marriott, who labels himself “a dry and desiccated materialist,” described what he called “a comeback for Christianity.” At least part of this comeback is, Marriott thinks, due to a widespread and growing disenchantment with atheism. Once, he wrote:

[I]t was widely held that the world was soaring ineluctably along an arc of enlightened progress. We were all destined to become richer, more democratic, more just, more rational and more secular. But those optimistic beliefs have been sorely tested in difficult recent years. Anyone tempted to simply dismiss the idea that religion could ever revive may not grasp how dramatically the cultural and economic landscape inhabited by young people has changed.

Instead of the utopia that was promised, the post-9/11 reality included economic disruption, Covid, wokeness, and thought police. As a result, many young people are rebelling to a more traditional form of the Christian faith. According to Marriott:

If you’re young, the establishment is obviously secular. Nowadays, it is precisely Christianity’s marginal status that lends it glamour and charisma, comparable perhaps to the appeal of exotic-seeming eastern religions in the 1960s. 

Last week, I spoke about the “quiet revival” in the U.K. with podcaster, author, and apologist Justin Brierley. He was among the first to identify what he called “the surprising rebirth of belief in God.” For example, according to a recent poll of non-Christian, Gen-Z students, 75% said they’d consider attending church if invited. And though church attendance is typically higher on Easter, this past Resurrection Sunday broke records all over Europe. According to one poll, the number of 16– to 24-year-olds in the U.K. attending church at least once a month jumped from 4% in 2018 to 16% in 2024.

There’s still much to learn about this phenomenon, and it remains to be seen how sticky this new-found faith will be for these young people raised in such highly secular environments. It’s fascinating how, merely a decade ago, we were focused on the rise of “the Nones,” who often claimed the church had let them down. Today, we are talking about the rise of the religious who were let down by secularism.

One more factor worth mentioning, as Marriott put it (perhaps channeling John Calvin)— humans are inescapably religious:

I suspect the supernatural side of life—not much catered for in secular rationalist democracies—is a constant of human nature, even if only for a minority. It has more room for expression now. If man is a religious animal, God may never really be banished.

Indeed, secularism as a worldview is simply not big enough for the God-shaped hole in the human heart. As more young people realize this, the Church has an incredible opportunity to help them find the One who can. You can hear my entire conversation with Justin Brierley about the “quiet revival” on a special bonus episode of the Breakpoint podcast.

Remembering Voddie Baucham

Oct 1, 2025Charisse CampChristianity, In MemoriamChristianity

This year marks the 12th year of attending the Caring Hearts Pregnancy Resource Center fundraiser.

And while there, I was reminded of how I came to do this work.

Twelve years ago, I was working part-time as an Admissions Representative at Agape Bible College. I would often listen to sermons in the background while I worked, and one day I heard a black man speaking boldly about being pro-life and he arrested my attention. He gently shared how his mother was an unwed teenager who chose life for him in spite of the hardships she knew they would face. Then he passionately spoke about how black women have been targeted by abortionists and the resulting black genocide happening in our country. And he ended by describing the inherent value of every unborn life regardless of whether they were an unexpectant pregnancy or even the result of rape or incest. His name was Voddie Baucham and I had never heard anyone speak the way that he did and say the things that he said. I thought to myself, “I’ve got to hear him in person!” So, I Googled him and found the website of Grace Family Baptist Church in Spring, TX, where he pastored and learned from their event page that he was actually the keynote speaker for a fundraising banquet in Little Rock the next day. I went into Dean Ron Swager’s office and mentioned in passing conversation that I wanted to hear the speaker at the Caring Hearts Pregnancy banquet, but I didn’t know how to get a ticket on such short notice. By divine providence, he said that his wife, MaryAnn, had been a long time volunteer there and was a table sponsor. He made a phone call and later called me into his office to say, “Wear something nice. You’re going to the ball!”

That night, I sat with the Swagers and listened to Pastor Baucham speak about a crisis pregnancy in a way I had never heard before: He described Mary as the unwed pregnant teenager carrying Jesus Christ. As he spoke about the value and purpose of every life and the importance of every stage of life, from conception until death, I wept uncontrollably. His words were so passionate and powerful that they were like swift, well-aimed arrows hitting me in my chest. I knew the Lord wanted me to do something in the pro-life field, but I had no idea what it was. So, as I wrote what was a large check for me at the time of $50, I said to the Lord, “I don’t know what you want me to do, but I say yes to whatever it is.” That night was my first and only encounter with Voddie Baucham, but it was one that changed me forever because God used him to have an encounter with me. That night started me on a road that led to me Family Council and to the work I do today for pregnancy resource centers through ARFuture Foundation.

My story is just one of many of the lives that Dr. Voddie Baucham has changed. Dr. Baucham was a husband, father, pastor, author, professor, and church planter whose global ministry touched countless lives, but I believe the core of his faith is best shown in the family that he created over the last 36 years with his wife, Bridget, and their blended family of two biological and seven adopted children. Like myself, he and his wife decided to homeschool their family to deliberately provide a Christ-centered education that was oriented by their faith. For them, it was a form of daily discipleship, taking on the responsibility of shaping their children’s spiritual foundation and character development. He not only taught that parents, in particular fathers, should take primary responsibility for disciplining their children, but he lived it out in everyday life. This was a point brought out in his 2007 book, Family Driven Faith, where he argued for the importance of worship and participation in familial churches.

The passing of Dr. Voddie Baucham leaves a significant silence for future generations. But his legacy of faith and family will be enduring and carried on through his children, grandchildren, and those whose lives, like my own, who have been forever touched by his passion and ministry. Our prayers are with Bridget, Jasmine, Trey (Voddie III), Elijah, Asher, Judah, Micah, Safya, Amos, and Simeon.

Charisse has worked with Family Council since 2014. She helps with lobbying efforts, oversees projects and events like Pastors Day at the Capitol, and leads the ARFuture Foundation.

Photo Credit: Hope Reformed Baptist Church, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.