Stadiums vibrating with thousands of twenty-somethings raising their arms, eyes closed, singing to god. International pop stars posing in nun’s habits on the covers of their most anticipated albums. And, as a backdrop, an incessant barrage of headlines announcing the unthinkable: the massive return of the youth to the church pews. Over the past few months, the world seemed to witness a fascinating twist in the script. Generation Z, the most secular and secularized demographic cohort in history, was re-embracing Christianity.
However, when you scratch the surface of this apparent spiritual awakening, what emerges is not a collective epiphany, but a trap. A gigantic demoscopic mirage. What they sold us as the great rebirth of faith is, in reality, a monumental miscalculation where the armies of artificial intelligence, the mischief of paid online surveys and the desire to believe in a revival have completely distorted the true—and much more complex—religious transformation of young people. We believed that faith was returning to the streets, but the fault was in the method.
The spark that ignited the narrative of the great Christian revival jumped in the United Kingdom with the publication of the report The Quiet Revivalcommissioned by the Bible Society. Based on survey data YouGov, The study showed a spectacular figure: monthly church attendance among English and Welsh young people aged 18 to 24 had quadrupled, going from a marginal 4% in 2018 to a resounding 16% in 2024.
The news spread like wildfire. Entire dioceses held conferences to “turn up the volume” on this revival, and politicians in the British Parliament used the report as proof that “Christianity is neither oppressed nor decayed,” as reported by BBC.
However, demographic experts were quick to raise alarm bells. Surveys considered the “gold standard” of sociology for using random probability samples—such as the British Social Attitudes wave Labor Force Survey— showed a diametrically opposite film. According to these rigorous metersthe percentage of practicing Christians between 18 and 34 years old had not only not risen, but had fallen from 8% in 2018 to 6% in 2024.
The danger of surveys opt-in
If young people are not filling the churches, where do the miracle figures come from? The answer lies in the architecture of the internet itself. The report of the Bible Society was based on surveys opt-inthat is, panels where users voluntarily register in exchange for financial rewards or points.
Demographer Conrad Hackett warns that this format suffers an “existential threat.” Those who respond to these surveys usually seek to maximize your profits filling out questionnaires at full speed, lying about their age to access more surveys, or using Virtual Private Networks (VPN) from other countries to get paid in hard currency.
Worse still, Artificial Intelligence has come into play. The researchers have detected armies of chatbots programmed to imitate humans and fill out surveys en masse. The fake young people in these polls are so unreliable that, in similar studies carried out in the USA12% of those surveyed opt-in under 30 years old even stated that he had a license to pilot a nuclear submarine. The “great awakening” was largely an algorithmic hallucination.
The situation in our land
In Spain, the optical illusion is similar. Phenomena like Hakuna Group Music They managed to bring together 12,000 young people at the Vistalegre Palace, while events such as Calls They gathered 6,000 people at the Movistar Arena. Both are betting on Contemporary Worship Music (CWM), an evangelization format of Protestant and evangelical heritage, full of giant screens, pop-rock and raw emotions.
But the noise of the stadiums clashes head-on with the silence of the parishes. The comparison of the official reports of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) is devastating. If we analyze the transition from the previous exercises to the most recent data, the fall of the sacraments is an undeniable constant:
- Baptisms: They fell from 152,426 registered in 2023 at 146,370 in 2024which represents a year-on-year decrease of 3.97%. The magnitude of the collapse is better understood if we look in the rearview mirror: in 2007the Church celebrated no less than 325,271 baptisms annually.
- Communions and weddings: Inertia drags the rest of the life cycle. First communions fell by almost 5% (standing at 154,677), and Catholic marriages fell by 6%, remaining at a reduced 31,462 ecclesiastical unions.
Institutional collapse has other profound social consequences. Given the collapse of baptismal prayers, more than 150 Spanish town councils now offer “civil baptisms” or lay welcome ceremonies to celebrate the arrival of newborns. At the same time, the bleeding of vocations has left Spain with only 15,285 priests, whose average age is around a worrying 65 years. The problem It’s so pressing that has forced bishoprics like that of Tui-Vigo to make lay women official to lead “Celebrations of the Word” in the villages in the face of the total lack of priests.
The only discordant note—the small statistical lifeline to which the Church clings—is the baptism of children over 7 years of age. This figure experienced a reboundrising from 11,835 in 2023 to 13,323 in 2024. A figure that suggests a paradigm shift in Spanish Catholicism: conversions that are much more thoughtful, personal and less conditioned by “cultural” inertia.
The great gap between Spirituality and Religion
To understand Generation Z in Spain, two concepts must be drastically separated: the Catholic institution and the search for the transcendent. Here comes into play what my partner in Xataka defined as: “The 29-59% paradox.” According to the Barometer on Religion and Beliefs in Spain (BREC) of 202561% of young people between 18 and 24 years old declare themselves indifferent, agnostic or atheist. Only 29% define themselves as Catholic, a figure much lower than the 46% national average.
However, just because they don’t set foot in a church doesn’t mean they are pure materialists. That same report reveals that 59% of young people firmly believe in the existence of the soul and 45% in “energies.” As the sociologist Mar Griera explainswe are not facing a return to dogma, but rather a “religion à la carte.” Young people consume spirituality autonomously, unapologetically combining Christian mysticism with astrology (in which 29%) and tarot (23%) believe. They seek solace, but not in traditional institutions. In fact, when asked what gives meaning to their lives, religion comes in last place (31%), overwhelmingly surpassed by family (90%), friends (79%) and even their pets (47%).
If the data is cold, why is the public perception fervent? Because religion has emerged from the vow of silence to become an aesthetic, identity and cultural element. The Catholic It’s trendy in pop culture. Rosalía, in the prelude to her album Luxposes in a Cistercian-reminiscent habit and quotes spiritual philosopher Simone Weil (“Love is not consolation, it is light”). Directors like Los Javis in The Messiah or Alauda Ruiz de Azúa in Sundays They explore faith without the irony or fierce criticism of decades past.
In the public sphere, figures such as the actor Jaime Lorente openly confess that going to mass is his “brutal refuge” to deal with pressure and ego, admitting that before it was scary to say it because it positioned you “in an ultra-conservative political place.” At the same time, businessmen like Álvaro Moreno they have made the blessing of its stores and the motto “Let it be for the glory of God” a business model and branding that connects with an audience thirsty for companies with a purpose.
As Professor Ricardo Calleja points outyoung Catholics “have come out of the closet” and live their faith with an identity tone and without complexes. For this generation, wearing a rosary around the neck is today, paradoxically, an almost outsider.
The mystery of the youthful “Christian awakening” is resolved in the nuances. Polls inflated by bots and greedy users led us to believe that Generation Z was crowding Sunday masses. Rigorous data shows that churches continue to empty and sacraments collapse.
However, this statistical error uncovered a latent truth. Young Spaniards are immersed in a deep crisis of meaning. They have rejected the structures of traditional religion, but have embraced a fragmented and individualistic spirituality. They believe in the soul, they sing praises with festival aesthetics indiethey consume mysticism on TikTok and claim their faith as a shield against modern noise. Christianity has not returned to the numbers of the 1980s; It has simply mutated to survive in the 21st century.
Image | freepik
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