After years of emptying pews and declining membership, some New Jersey churches are seeing things they haven’t witnessed in a long time: newcomers filling seats, the number of baptisms growing and young people showing up with questions.
But while many clergy members describe a renewed spiritual thirst — particularly among young men and those with little religious background — experts say the numbers do not point to a nationwide religious revival. Instead, the United States may be experiencing something more nuanced: a pause in the decades-long decline of organized religion.
Still, the anecdotal evidence is powerful.
At St. Paul Lutheran Church in Ridgefield, the Rev. Patt Kauffman said she has been delighted by the influx at Sunday Mass.
“There’s been new people in the pews every week,” Kauffman said.
Later this month, the church plans to welcome 10 new families and hold three baptisms. Kauffman believes that growing "anxiety about politics, the economy and an uncertain future" is bringing people through the church doors.
Other clergy members across New Jersey report similar observations.
Ryan Baitzel, pastor of Emergence Church in Totowa, said roughly 1,000 people have joined his non-denominational, Gospel-centered congregation over the past three years.
“They are largely people who grew up with no religious background, some people returning to faith, and young men under 25 years old,” Baitzel said.
During that same period, he said, the church baptized about 900 people.
Catholic dioceses across New Jersey have also reported growth, with 1,701 people joining the Archdiocese of Newark, 1,095 in the Diocese of Trenton, 230 in Camden and 177 in Paterson over the past year.
Nationally, there are other signs of renewed religious interest. Bible sales in the U.S. rose 12% last year to nearly 19 million copies, according to publishing data. An April Gallup poll also found that 42% of young men said religion is “very important” in their lives, up from 28% in 2023.
The anecdotes and headlines have fueled speculation about whether America is entering a religious era after decades of decline.
But experts say the evidence reveals a far more intricate reality.
“Hard data doesn’t point to a widespread return to religion,” said Ryan Burge, an ordained minister, professor at Washington University in St. Louis and author of “The Vanishing Church.”
“The long-term trend is for more secularization,” Burge said. “Certainly not as fast as we observed between 1990 and 2020, but there will be a slower, more deliberate rise of the ‘nones’ in the decades to come.”
He added that there's "a mountain of evidence that says that we will be a lot less religious in 20 years than we are today."
For decades, organized religion in the United States has been shrinking. As the younger generations have become less religious than their predecessors, the share of nones, or those who don't identify with any religion, has continued to grow.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many of those trends. Houses of worship closed, attendance diminished in 2020 and many congregations never fully recovered.
Recent studies suggest the decline may now be stabilizing but not necessarily reversing.
Research from the Pew Research Center found that the decades-long plunge in religious affiliation has plateaued in recent years, though younger Americans remain significantly less religious than previous generations.
Similarly, the Public Religion Research Institute’s 2025 Census of American Religion found little change from recent years. The survey of 40,000 adults found that 66% identified as Christian, 28% as religiously unaffiliated and 6% affiliated with non-Christian religions — nearly identical to 2024 findings.
That leaves religious leaders and researchers wrestling with a more complex reality: While churches in some communities are showing significant growth, the vast majority are stable or declining.
Scott Thumma, a professor of sociology of religion and co-director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, said the recent increases are real but should not be overstated.
“The growth is real,” Thumma said, “but not a significant enough shift to warrant being called revival.”
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Newcomers flock to NJ churches. Is a religious revival brewing?
Reporting by Deena Yellin, NorthJersey.com / NorthJersey.com
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