By Skylar Landry

Izell Wright sits with a Bible open on his lap, listening to the 4:13 Christian Club in a quiet room on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. The sophomore business major recently began attending Bible Study and Second Baptist Church east of campus to help cope with a difficult period at home last summer. 

“I felt like everything I relied on was no longer there to support me,” he said. “I questioned what my purpose here was. The only thing that brought me off that ledge was my friend during that moment. I knew that there were people around me who kind of saw something in me that they felt I should live. After I went to church it felt like this was my chance to figure out if there really is a God.” 

Despite Wright’s search for religion, according to a 2025 report from the Pew Research Center, today’s young adults are less religious than young people were a decade ago. According to the report, the number of adults who affiliate with Christianity has remained stable at 60% over the past five years. Of those surveyed, 8% say they affiliate with another religion and 28% say they aren’t religious at all.

“I had always been around faith, but I never really understood it,” Wright said. 

Dr. Deborah Whitehead, associate professor and chair of the CU Boulder Religious Studies Department, said the Americans are not religious for different reasons.

“That’s an umbrella category, she said. “It includes people who are atheists. It includes people who just don’t identify with any particular religion. That could be caused by a temporary disaffiliation caused by a personal disruption like a move or divorce.”

A study from the Barna Group, a Christian research organization, found that Gen Zers were going to church on average twice a month last year versus once a month in 2020. But the Pew Research study shows no evidence of a resurgence of a religious revival among young adults.

“It’s not dramatic, but it’s significant in that it seems to be a change from the last 20 years of data collection, which shows that we’re seeing that number leveling out,” Whitehead says.

Whitehead says traditional gender roles for men and women may be a factor in who affiliates with the religion.

“We have some data and reporting from young men who are specifically embracing evangelical Protestantism and traditional forms of conservative Catholicism,” she said. “There’s something about the expression of gender in these Christian environments that are appealing to young men. Women are uncomfortable with these kind of gender roles, and they’re uncomfortable with Christian teachings around sexuality. They’re rejecting religious teaching because they see it as a cause for the discrimination and marginalization of these groups and these identities.”

Paul Bamlaku, a sophomore studying integrative physiology, attends Ethiopian Evangelical Church of Denver, a Protestant congregation. He says his faith has changed as he’s gotten older and he’s found meaning in religion. 

“The different things that we look forward to, like partying, drinking, this, that and the other, people try to decide what can fill this hole in their heart,” he said. “I believe it’s a God-sized hole.”