Generation Z adults are more likely than older Americans to describe themselves as “religious,” even as many also engage in practices at odds with Christian teaching, according to a new survey.
The Harris Poll released a survey Thursday based on responses from 2,136 U.S. adults collected July 1 to 4. The poll grouped respondents by generation: Generation Z (ages 18 to 29), millennials (30 to 45), Generation X (46 to 61) and baby boomers (62 and older).
Gen Z adults were the most likely to consider themselves religious and the least likely to describe themselves as neither religious nor spiritual. Thirty-three percent of Gen Z adults described themselves as “religious,” followed by 22% of Gen X adults, 19% of millennials and 18% of boomers.
Meanwhile, 19% of Gen Z adults considered themselves “neither religious nor spiritual,” followed by millennials (20%), Gen X adults (21%) and boomers (23%).
“Gen Z self-identifies as the most religious generation in America, with the practices to back it up,” Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll, said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. “But that doesn’t show you the whole story, because they aren’t choosing religion instead of everything else. They’re stacking it. Church on Sunday, manifestation on Wednesday, tarot on Friday. The old assumption was that each generation picks faith less than the last. Gen Z picked more of everything.”
Gen Z adults were more likely than older generations to engage in several spiritual activities.
A majority of Gen Z adults (54%) said they “read scripture or religious texts” regularly in the past year, as did a similar share of millennials (53%). Fewer than half of Gen X adults (48%) and boomers (43%) said they regularly read Scripture or religious texts.
Nearly half of Gen Z adults (49%) regularly attended religious services in the past year, compared with 44% of millennials, 43% of Gen X adults and 42% of boomers.
By contrast, boomers were the most likely to have regularly prayed on their own in the past year. Seventy-five percent of boomers regularly prayed, along with 72% of Gen X adults, 67% of Gen Z adults and 65% of millennials.
Eighty-eight percent of Gen Z adults said they regularly engaged in at least one of the following spiritual activities, including prayer, Scripture reading, religious services, meditation or ritual, manifestation, astrology or tarot, or energy work. Smaller shares of millennials (84%), Gen X adults (84%) and boomers (82%) said the same.
Fifty-seven percent of Gen Z adults agreed with the statement, “I’ve turned to manifestation practices or spirituality to feel I have greater control over my future.” Millennials were slightly more likely to agree (59%), while fewer than half of Gen X adults (46%) and 30% of boomers agreed.
“The generation expected to be the most secular is now the most likely to identify as religious,” researchers noted.
Sixty percent of Gen Z adults agreed that “I belong to more real-world, in-person communities than I used to (e.g. run clubs, faith communities, hobby or volunteer groups),” along with 59% of millennials, 42% of Gen X adults and 32% of boomers.
Seventy percent of both Gen Z adults and millennials agreed that they “want to belong to more real-world, in-person communities (e.g. run clubs, faith communities, hobby or volunteer groups),” as did smaller shares of Gen X adults (62%) and boomers (48%).
The Harris Poll survey comes amid conflicting data on Gen Z’s religiosity.
Barna Group’s 2026 State of the Church initiative found that Gen Z was the most likely generation to believe a spiritual revival would occur in the next 12 months, and Barna research released in 2025 found that Gen Z includes “the most frequent churchgoers.”
But other Barna research from 2025 found that nearly 40% of Gen Z women identify as atheist, agnostic or having no faith.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
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