In this week’s briefing

Consider the challenges facing Gen Z and those who love them, discover the stories we live by, and beware the edgelords.

Last month the emotions of millions rose and fell with the fortunes of young men and women whose names we didn’t know until they appeared on the ice of Italy for the Winter Olympics. My family watched live on a Friday afternoon as Ilia Malinin’s hope for an individual gold medal collapsed due to nerves. After traveling for work on a Thursday evening I watched Alysa Liu’s free skate over and over, marveling at the joyful ease of her routine. Before church on a Sunday morning I agonized over every missed shot from the United States against Canada. After church my son and I resumed the recorded broadcast and screamed with joy as Jack Hughes scored the winning goal in three-on-three overtime.

For a couple weeks in Milan and Cortina, Gen Z gave us thrills to last a lifetime.

As staff leaders for The Gospel Coalition recently met in Orlando, we discussed trends among Gen Z in an ongoing effort to serve this rising cohort. As an elder Millennial with Gen Alpha children, I mostly encounter Gen Z in my seminary classroom and church small group. Most of my staff colleagues belong to Gen X, or else they’re fellow Millennials. We strive, however, to hear from this generation born roughly between 1997 and 2012, the young adults currently making their way through classrooms and professional sports and church leadership.

To help orient us toward the hopes and fears of Gen Z, I’ve compiled 10 observations from reading, discussing, and talking with this cohort. Each of these points could merit a long discussion. For now, however, I’m keeping commentary brief. This week I’ll share five concerns. Next week I’ll share five encouragements.

Please forgive the generalizations. Every generation includes many exceptions and resists neat-and-tidy summaries. Nevertheless:

1. Gen Z is following Millennials in the “slow life strategy” of delayed adulthood. A young group at my church last Sunday confirmed what I’ve heard and seem from others: compared to earlier generations, these teenagers aren’t itching to drive. They’re certainly not expecting to get married or have children anytime soon, even in their 20s. Don’t look for the dangerously low fertility rate to bounce back in this generation.
2. Gen Z is also following Millennials in preference for extrinsic over intrinsic identity. Rather that pursuing meaning through faith and family, Gen Z is more likely to pursue fame and fortune. And where did they receive this encouragement? From their Boomer parents, who value their children’s financial independence and job satisfaction more than anything else.
3. Gen Z women are accelerating the “great dechurching,” leaving the false impression of more Gen Z men in the church. Similarly, it’s not that young men are becoming more politically and socially conservative. It’s that they’re not becoming more politically and socially liberal, like their female counterparts. Given that women are more likely to demand political alignment in spouses, you can see a major reason marriage is declining.
4. Gen Z men have fewer inhibitions about transgressive behaviors. Nancy Pearcey isn’t the only person to tell me how many Christian young men look up to the misogynist Andrew Tate. Teachers tell me about the return of slurs directed against gays, ethnic minorities, and peers with mental handicaps. The death of Charlie Kirk, a hero to many young men in Gen Z, has opened the door to worse alternatives fanning the flames of grievance and division.
5. Gen Z are the early adopters—and victims—of generative AI. As Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt have argued, technology drives the divisions between generations. Millennials are divided from Gen X by social media and smartphones in their college and high school years. Gen Z will be divided from Millennials by AI. A friend who teaches Gen Z in college recently told me that some of his students insist they’ve written an essay if they’ve written the prompts for AI. (Yikes.) You won’t need to teach AI to Gen Z. They’ll be teaching you, just as Gen X taught older generations about the internet, and Millennials (much to their regret) signed up their parents for Facebook. At the same time, Gen Z is already losing entry-level, white-collar jobs to AI. Their adoption, and sometimes rejection of AI, will largely determine the terms this technology’s impact on older generations.

Come back next week when we’ll explore five encouragements for where and how God is working among Gen Z. For a head start on the good news, check out the latest deep dive, narrative podcast from TGC senior writer Sarah Zylstra. Hear directly from Gen Z about what God is doing.