RUMOURS OF AN AMERICAN REVIVAL: holding two truths simultaneously
America is currently experiencing what many describe as “new dimensions of a Christian revival and a spiritual awakening,” a moment marked by public baptisms, campus worship gatherings, and large-scale prayer events. Or is it?
This article presents two contradistinctive interpretations of Christianity in America–two truths standing face to face, each presenting a distinctive truth that contradicts the other: one proclaiming revival, the other describing plateauing
The first perspective is by Faith Evans Pearson, the AWAKE AMERICA Community Manager, who shares documented examples from beaches to universities, quantifying revival in real numbers and sharing stories of changed lives and public baptisms.
The other is by Ryan Burge , a political scientist at EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY and a Baptist pastor. Burge has spent more than a decade qualifying revival and making sense of religious numbers and data. In his new book The Vanishing Church, he argues the moderate middle of American Christianity has not just shrunk. It has largely disappeared.
Both these perspectives converge around a major national event on May 17, 2026, which reignited the debate.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED ON MAY 17?
On 17 May a national prayer event was held at the National Mall to “rededicate America as one nation under God” as part of yearlong celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary.
Trump announced this event during a prayer breakfast in February 2026 declaring that “on May 17, 2026, we’re inviting Americans from all across the country to come together on our National Mall to pray and to give thanks.”
“We’re going to rededicate America as one nation under God.”
he added, drawing long applause from the crowd that prompted a response from the president. “That’s what I mean by the spirit ‒ so incredible to see it.”
The event — officially titled “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” — ran from morning to evening at the National Mall. President Donald Trump appeared via pre‑recorded video, reading Scripture and calling the nation to prayer. The program included worship, testimonies, and a collective moment of national “rededication.”
Notably, the program included prominent Jewish representation. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, a leading Orthodox rabbi who serves on the administration’s Religious Liberty Commission, participated alongside high-profile Catholic figures, including Bishop Robert Barron and retired New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.
Yet, this raised the central question: Does such an event—however large or symbolic—constitute revival? Revival, biblically and historically, is marked not only by gatherings but by repentance, transformation, and sustained spiritual fruit. The remainder of the document explores two competing interpretations of America’s current spiritual climate.
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SIGNS OF REVIVAL
The first perspective highlights a growing movement of public baptisms and evangelistic unity across the United States, particularly in California. Faith Evans Pearson of AWAKE America reports “countless examples from beaches to universities,” describing changed lives and public baptisms as evidence of revival.
A major example is the movement led by Pastor Mark Francey of Oceans Church. What began as a regional baptism initiative has expanded into a national and now global effort. On April 26, 2026, organizers announced a worldwide event titled “Baptize the World,” scheduled for May 24. This initiative aims to unite churches across nations in a synchronized call to salvation, repentance, and water baptism.
The movement’s growth has been dramatic:
- 12,000+ baptisms across California on Pentecost Sunday 2024
- 28,000 baptisms nationwide in 2025 across 600+ churches and 1,000 events
- Massive beach baptisms drawing thousands at Huntington Beach
Organizers emphasize that the movement is not about numbers but about long-term discipleship. Each participant is connected to a local church to ensure spiritual growth. Francey describes the movement as divinely inspired, saying, “We just want to organize the nets… We will leave the catch up to Jesus.”
This perspective sees the May 17 event and the baptism movement as part of a broader spiritual awakening—evidence that God is stirring hearts across America and beyond.
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SIGNS OF PLATEAUING
The second perspective, represented by political scientist and Baptist pastor Ryan Burge, challenges the revival narrative. Burge has spent more than a decade analyzing religious data, and despite headlines proclaiming “Gen Z Is Coming Back to Faith” and “Campus Revivals Sweeping America,” Burge insists the data does not support claims of a nationwide spiritual resurgence.
According to his research and data obtained, he argues:
- Gen Z is less likely than millennials to believe in God with certainty.
- Gen Z is more likely to never attend church.
- 43% of Gen Z identifies with no religion, compared to the upper 30s for millennials.
- No major surveys show a “massive return to religion.”
Burge emphasizes that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
A true revival would produce unmistakable shifts across multiple datasets—attendance, prayer frequency, religious importance—not just viral moments or megachurch growth. Burge calculates what a revival would require:
- The current weekly church attendance throughout the USA is about 25%.
- A rise to 28% would require 12 million additional weekly worshipers.
- With 300,000 churches in the U.S., each would need to add 35–40 consistent attendees.
- The average church has 70 people on a Sunday.
He asks: How many churches have grown from 70 to 110 and stayed there? His answer: “I’ve not heard any.” Growth stories, he argues, come from the top 1% of churches, not the middle where most congregations live. Burge insists this is plateau, not revival. He compares it to a company losing $15 million for four years straight and breaking even in the 5th year: “No one would say, ‘What a revival your company’s having.’”
Burge’s most troubling finding is the political homogenization of white Christianity, which he says has become more uniformly Republican than at any point in recent memory. This has erased the moderate middle that once made churches “genuine mixing spaces.” He argues that:
- Churches have become echo chambers.
- People drift away because church feels inconvenient or ideologically irritating.
- Belonging—not theology—is the engine of faith retention.
He challenges pastors to invest in community-building rather than stagecraft: potlucks, dinners, school visits, YMCA volunteering. These relational spaces, he argues, are where “the magic happens.”
Burge believes in the future America will settle into:
- 45% Christian
- 45% nonreligious
- 10% other religions
This would still make America unusually religious by Western standards, but far from its mid-20th-century baseline.
He concludes that the impulse to believe the most hopeful version of the story is understandable. The harder move is to accept what the data is actually saying, then build with clear eyes. Burge thinks the future of the Church will not be won by better stagecraft. It will be won by the slow work of rebuilding community, creating spaces where people with different politics and different lives still sit close enough to recognize each other as neighbours.
https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/is-america-experiencing-a-spiritual-revival-not-so-fast/
THE TENSION: TWO TRUTHS IN ONE MOMENT
As Christians we should be able to embrace the tension that both perspectives “bear the marks of truth.” God works at all times, in all places. This is an undeniable truth. This applies to America as much as it does to Iran where spiritual hunger, uncertainty, and evangelistic momentum are drawing people into the Kingdom.
On the other hand, a different reality proves that the season for revival in America might be in preparation, but has not come to fruition yet. Data shows a long-term decline, political polarization, and the erosion of communal belonging. Young people testify of peers leaving the church in large numbers due to politicization of Christianity – a trend that will take generations to reverse.
The May 17 event symbolizes this tension: a powerful moment of national prayer, yet not necessarily evidence of widespread repentance or transformation.
The call is for wisdom and discernment—to rejoice where God is moving, but also to respond realistically to the challenges facing the American church.
According to Jesus and the Bible, revival is not a quantifiable event, measured by numbers or short term and sporadic occurrences but a divine awakening where God brings His people from spiritual sleep to spiritual life, as a process and over time. Revival is always marked by repentance, renewed obedience, and a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit that results in transformed lives and communities.