Reflections on Religion, Community, & Meaning
reflections on the state of religion, community, and meaning in modern America
Two weeks ago, I went to church for the first time in years.
My return coincided with the conclusion of a religious revival in Kentucky that went viral on social media.
The “Asbury Revival” took social media by storm. Driven largely by gen-z at a time when young people are increasingly spurring organized religion.
As someone that grew up in the church, these events spurred a few thoughts about religion, community, and meaning in our modern culture. Disparate threads that I’ll attempt to tie together today.
This is a bit different from the kinds of things I usually write about so feel free to skip if you’d rather read pontifications about venture or startups.
I ended up in church because a good friend was in the city and asked me to join him in attending a service on the Upper West side.
So I decided to give it a shot. Why not.
Partially out of curiosity. Partially to see my friend.
For background, I spent the majority of my childhood and teenage years steeped in a deeply religious, Midwestern community.
My father was (until recently) a baptist pastor.
Our entire lives revolved around and tied back to our faith.
We went to church a minimum of three times a week – Sunday morning (including Sunday school before Sunday morning service), Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening.
Our social and community activities revolved around church – from small groups working in our local community to visiting the elderly in nursing homes.
What friends I had, I generally met at church.
Our vacations were revival meetings and church conferences. Mostly attempts to bring back the movements like the great awakening or Billy Sunday’s crusade for prohibition. All of these have historically failed when it comes to engaging young people.
Church attendance and religious identity have been declining for years. Making what happened with the Asbury Revival all the more surprising.
The Asbury Revival
I’ve never seen anything quite like what happened at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. Many things go viral. But not involving something religious. Especially not when it’s positive.
It blew up on TikTok. Trended on Twitter. People I grew up with attended in person, live streaming on their Instagram stories.
Social media shows that this thing really moved people.
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According to the New York Times, the revival drew 50,000+ people from all around the country to this small university town.
It led to similar outbreaks across other churches and Christian universities around America.
My Church Experience
So coming back to my first church experience in years – I was surprised at what I witnessed at Church of the City in the Upper West Side.
There were so many young people. 70-80% of those attending were modern 20-somethings.
The typical negative stereotypes regarding Christianity were almost completely absent.
The church was very diverse. Support for the LGBTQ movement was apparent.
People weren’t weird. They weren’t prejudiced. They weren’t cultural outcasts.
What I saw was young people seeking community, connection, meaning, and even worship.
It prompted reflection about what this says about the state of culture in our country.
Modern American Culture Today
There are lots of folks smarter than me that have grand pontifications on the state of culture.
I don’t have a grand theory of everything. All I have are some observations.
A lot of folks are struggling. They’re anxious.
The CDC recently released a study stating that sadness and hopelessness are at all-time highs. Suicide rates are up 60% amongst Gen-Z.
To many, our country feels increasingly divided by culture wars and politics.
Amongst my peers, I’d wager that many of them are quietly battling or have recently battled their own fights against anxiety, depression, and the like.
Social media proliferation and pandemic lockdowns have exacerbated many of these feelings.
We are connected to everyone and no one at the same time.
These all help explain why a religious revival briefly struck a cultural zeitgeist in an increasingly secular society.
The Asbury revival went viral because people around this country are seeking. Seeking something that they feel is missing from their day-to-day lives.
Religion used to provide the answers to the big life questions for many people.
Christianity and other religions offer something that speak to fundamental human needs. That’s why they’ve outlasted empires, nation-states, and nearly every other institution.
These human needs don’t just disappear because we live in a “post-religious” society.
Community
The church used to be our local tribe. Our local community.
Where we found our people. Others that shared our desires and values. People that were there for us when we needed it. When at our lowest.
A particularly striking scene from the revival was that of several students stepping up to financially support an immigrant student who is currently unable to work due to visa restrictions.
During the multiweek service, Brown said he witnessed goodwill, radical humility, compassion and a renewal of faith amongst visitors and students. One example was when an international student gave a testimony on stage and explained he could not work in the United States due to his immigration status.
Audience members were touched by the confession and flocked to the stage to offer the student money. According to Brown, the unnamed student never asked for financial assistance but was deeply moved by the generosity of his peers.
This is what our communities provide us.
People that are there for us when we need it. People we can be vulnerable with.
It’s incredibly sad how many people I know – living in one of the most populated cities on earth – lack community.
They don’t have people they can confide in.
Their relationships are superficial.
They know many people but still feel isolated and alone.
Connection
Part of why we feel so alone is that our society has become increasingly isolated.
Social media and the internet connected the world, but in many ways, it has also disconnected us from the people around us.
Connecting with a friend over facetime is not the same as having coffee or a meal together. There are a plethora of studies that back this up.
Man’s Search for Meaning
The desire to be a part of something greater than ourselves is a fundamental human desire.
On a conscious or subconscious level, we all crave it.
We all crave meaning in our lives. Transcendence.
That there’s something more out there. Something more to live for.
One college student described her generation’s search as a hunger “for something deeper”
I think people of my generation are hungry to know the truth and are hungry for something deeper,”
I’ve always loved how Viktor Frankl describes man’s need for purpose in his classic book Man’s Search for Meaning.
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”
Seeking
Asbury happened because people are seeking.
Seeking answers. Seeking things that are deeper. Seeking something greater than themselves. Something transcendent. Something communal.
Nietzsche famously said that God is dead. The question that has yet to be answered is what comes in his place.
Clearly, rational secularism has not been a sufficient answer for many.
There probably is not one answer. But many are seeking one.
I don’t pretend to know the answers to what that something is, will be, or should be.
But I hope those that seek find what they’re looking for.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Scripture.
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. – Matthew 7:7
Thanks to Evan McCracken for feedback on this essay.
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