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U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie R-Ky.
Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie says that, come spring, Republican congressmen will increasingly buck the party line and defy President Donald Trump’s wishes.
“The margin is razor-thin, so on any given day, I would just need one or two of my own co-conspirators to get something done,” Massie told Politico when asked about Trump’s ability to prevent lawmakers from defecting on key votes.
Massie, a Republican with a stubborn libertarian streak, has consistently opposed omnibus spending packages, hemp regulation, and the use of military force without congressional approval.
He was one of just two House Republicans to vote against the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July, arguing it would increase the deficit.
Additionally, Massie introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation that compelled the Department of Justice to release millions of documents on the now-deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump was initially opposed to releasing the files before ultimately supporting the passage of the legislation.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle had few kind words for Massie, telling The Daily Signal in response to his remarks, “Thomas Massie voted against the largest middle-class tax cuts in American history, border wall funding, kicking illegals off of taxpayer-funded Medicaid benefits, and every other commonsense provision codifying President Trump’s popular Make America Great Again Agenda.”
Ingle added, “That’s because Thomas Massie cares more about peacocking for his radical Democrat friends and liberal media allies than delivering for the men and women of Kentucky’s 4th District.”
Republicans currently hold a 218-214 margin in the House of Representatives, meaning they can afford only one defection on legislation if all Democrats unite in opposition.
Should any Republican die, retire, or otherwise be unable to show up for votes, leadership’s ability to advance legislation could be put in jeopardy.
Massie explained he believes future defectors will mainly be retiring members and those who no longer need Trump’s backing after the spring primaries.
“The retirement caucus is growing, and primary days are coming up and passing,” said Massie. “Once we get past March, April, and May, which contain a large portion of their Republican primaries, I think you’re going to see more defections.”
So far, 30 House Republicans are not seeking reelection in 2026.
Last week, retiring Republican Reps. Dan Newhouse of Washington and Don Bacon of Nebraska both voted to rescind Trump’s declaration of a national emergency relating to drugs coming over the Canadian border, which the administration has used as a legal means of imposing tariffs on Canada.
Four other Republican members joined them in opposition: Massie, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Kevin Kiley of California, and Jeff Hurd of Colorado.
Massie is facing off against a Trump-backed primary challenger, and Kiley is deciding on which district to run in for 2026 after pro-Democrat redistricting in California.
Asked to describe the size of the group of Republicans currently willing to defy Trump, Massie said, “It’s really just the retirement caucus. And so, they have to weigh the cost of alienating the president of the United States in their future job.”
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that revenue from tariffs would not drop, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling against the authority President Donald Trump’ invoked to levy his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
The high court decided Trump exceeded his powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) in a 6-3 ruling issued Friday. Bartiromo questioned Bessent about claims made Friday by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that the deficit would increase due to the loss of revenue.
“Yes, so, Maria, let’s take a step back here. And Maya MacGuineas should be ashamed, and they should take the word ‘responsible’ out of her organization’s name,” Bessent responded. “Everything she told you was completely irresponsible and, look, where were they when the Biden administration blew out the deficit that we had a fiscal contraction last year? So she should be ashamed.”
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“So let me tell you what’s going to happen first, this ruling was a very narrow ruling in terms of the president’s ability to use IEEPA to collect revenues. The Supreme Court said the president can put in a full embargo, but he cannot collect one dollar,” Bessent continued. “So the president still has the most draconian measure for negotiations, and you know that under Sections 232, Sections 301, we’re already collecting substantial tariff revenue. The IEEPA tariffs are going to be replaced in three days with the Section 122, and I can tell you at Treasury, contrary to what the ‘Committee for an Irresponsible Budget,’ or whatever it’s called, says, tariff revenue will be unchanged this year and will be unchanged in the future.”
Trump announced reciprocal tariffs to address import duties and “horrendous imbalances” in trade with other countries during an April 2, 2025 Rose Garden event. He later took to Truth Social on April 9 to announce a pause, citing the willingness of other countries to negotiate trade deals. Bessent told Bartiromo those deals would remain in place.
“The president announced on Friday and amended over the weekend [a] 15% global tariff using a very robust authority from 1974. Those will be layered on with section 232, section 301, and the 122s; they run for 150 days,” Bessent continued. “And during that time, [the Department of] Commerce, USTR [United States Trade Representative] will be doing studies, and the studies will likely lead to increased tariff revenues.”
“We’ve been in contact with our foreign trading partners, and they like the tariff deals,” Bessent noted. “So, you know, they’re not going to be changed and the president remains undeterred in his determination to lower our trade deficit and bring manufacturing back to the U.S.”
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President Donald Trump delivers remarks in honor of the U.S. Navy 250th anniversary celebration at the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025, at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Virginia. (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok)
A judge in Virginia has blocked a scheme there by Democrats, who recently took control of the governor’s office and other parts of state government, to re-arrange the congressional districts so that Republicans would be removed from office and more Democrats would go to Washington for the state.
The ruling temporarily stops election officials from carrying out a redistricting referendum in April.
It was in response to complaints from the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and several GOP House members from Virginia.
It was Judge Jack Hurley Jr. of the state Circuit Court of Tazewell County who rule, for the second time, against the redistricting agenda there. Other states already have redistricted, such as Texas which set up boundary lines that are favorable to Republicans and California, which redrew lines to be favorable for Democrats, and several other states.
The goal is to be the majority in the U.S. House, now held by the GOP, after the 2026 midterms.
The judge’s latest order barred Virginia officials from taking steps toward the scheduled referendum until either March 18 or other court action.
Hurley found it was highly likely the referendum process violated commonwealth law and the state constitution, according to a report at Roll Call.
NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella called the decision a win.
“For a second time, the Virginia courts have ruled against Virginia Democrats’ partisan attempt to ignore their own Constitution and rig the system in their favor.”
An appeal of the judge’s decision is likely, because Democrats have made clear their plans to attack several Republican-held congressional seats.
But there are getting to be issues with the timing.
The lawsuit charges the referendum is illegal because it is into early voting, and it also is “misleading,” as it claims to restore “fairness.”
“If anything, it destroys fairness, is the product of unfairness and is intended to increase unfairness,” the complaint said.
Hurley earlier ruled the legislature broke its own rules in pushing the agenda, but the state’s highest court allowed the politicized move to continue.
One member of Congress being targeted, Rep. Ben Cline, said the Democrats’ plan would “disenfranchise millions of Virginia voters by reassigning them members of Congress from other parts of the [commonwealth].”

Nearly 20 intelligence reports from the CIA dating back to the administration of Barack Obama have been repudiated in a stunning move by CIA chief John Ratcliffe because they were influenced by political bias, or worse.
A report from Just the News said the other problem was simply “poor spy tradecraft.”
That included, stunningly, one analysis saying women who pursue traditional motherhood roles were “at danger of becoming violent extremists.”
The reports all had undergone extensive review.
“There is absolutely no room for bias in any kind of the CIA’s work,” one official told the publication. “So when we find instances where our tradecraft did not reach that high bar of impartiality, we must correct the record. And that’s why we’re taking steps to reinforce analytic integrity by ordering the public release, substantive revision or retraction of these products that do not meet CIA’s tradecraft standards.”
Seventeen of the 19 reports simply were deleted, permanently, and no longer can be reached by spy agencies.
Two others were revised.
The CIA confirmed the actions had nothing to do with politics, but the actions were taken “because they failed to meet rigid analytic standards that have been in place for years under a memo known as Intelligence Community Directive 203.”
“There are still objectivity standards and tradecraft standards that the intelligence community should always observe,” the official said. “Those standards in ICD 203, were not followed in the case of these products.”
The publication cited CIA criticism of several of the reports, dealing with political diversity, because they quoted from “liberal news sites.”
“One of the retracted reports made public by the CIA on Friday from the agency’s Counterterrorism Mission Center, while two of them come from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review (WIRe), which is described as a ‘daily publication’ at the agency and as the ‘flagship product’ of the CIA’s Directorate of Analysis,” Just the News said.
In earlier White Houses, one CIA official confirmed, “there was an inappropriate insertion of DEI issues and other distractions into aspects of CIA’s work, which undercut our mission of providing objective analysis on national security issues.”
The reports also failed by wading “into foreign political debates” and taking sides “in social and gender debates,” officials revealed.
They also were criticized for citing “unobjective” sources like Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Campaign.

An F/A-18 Hornet lands aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman during night flight operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Kilho Pa)
The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is forecasting U.S. military action in the coming days against Iran, predicting the Islamic Republic will not take an off-ramp proffered by American negotiators including Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
Appearing on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox News Channel, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., said: “I expect that No. 1, that diplomacy continues. You have Kushner, you have Witkoff meeting in Geneva trying to offer. Here’s the off-ramp. You have to end nuclear enrichment, you have to end ballistic-missile program, stop having the ayatollah kill your people, stop threatening the United States of America.
“I don’t think they’ll take that off-ramp. I think we end up using the capabilities of our two carrier battle groups that are in the region when that timeline hits to say the treat to America comes to an end. It’s destruction or diplomacy. It’s one or the other, and I think they choose destruction.”

Today on @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo, Florida Congressman Brian Mast @BrianMastFL reacted to the breaking news of an armed man shot outside Mar-A-Lago earlier this morning. Congressman Mast also spoke about President Trump considering military strikes on Iran. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/Q5lGJ9gw2A
— SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) February 22, 2026

President Donald Trump has voiced a deadline of the first week in March for Iran to accept American terms, but Mast added: “I expect that Iran does not take the diplomatic off-ramp, and that it comes to a strike from the president to protect the homeland of the United States of America, which absolutely this is, against an imminent threat against the American people.
“I can give one example of Americans literally killed at the beginning of 2024, three American service members were killed by the hand of Iran while they were in Jordan. That’s one example. Continual attempts to fly drones to our merchant-marine fleet, drones to our Navy vessels. You name it, they are constantly threatening America. The president says no more, this comes to an end. He is always about protecting the homeland and about protecting our people, and this is no different.”

He recalled “Operation: Midnight Hammer” last June in which U.S. forces “obliterated” Iran’s underground nuclear sites.
“The president told Iran, ‘End your nuclear weapons program.’ They chose not to do it,” Mast explained. “He gave them a certain number of days. Israel closed the skies over Iran and America brought in the B-2 bombers capability only we had and destroyed that infrastructure. Obliterated it.”
“Iran is doing what they’re always trying to do. Any place that they can use one of their proxies – the Houthis, Hezbollah – arm them train them and then direct them to kill Americans, they will do it.
“If they can attack our merchant-marine fleet or our Navy vessels, they will do it. They constantly chant, as we’ve all become so numb to, they’ll say, ‘Death to America.’ But they want to kill Americans at an even higher rate with ballistic missiles, with nuclear weapons, and that’s not going to be allowed … on top of which again they’re killing and imprisoning tens of thousands of their own people.”
“It’s time, I think, one way or another, for this regime to come to a close,” Mast concluded.
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Austin Tucker Martin
PALM BEACH, Florida – The would-be assassin shot dead by law enforcement early Sunday at President’s Donald Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, has now been identified as 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin from Carthage, North Carolina.
The Associated Press reports: “He had been reported missing by his family a few days ago, and investigators believe he headed south and picked up the shotgun along the way.”

Tucker “Austin” Martin was reported missing by his family in Carthage, NC this morning. The same name has been dropped as the deceased shooter at Mar-a-Lago. pic.twitter.com/x5FXWNAxYL
— Kim “Katie” USA (@KimKatieUSA) February 22, 2026

The box for the gun was recovered in his vehicle, said Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.
“The man drove through the north gate of Mar-a-Lago as another vehicle was exiting and was confronted by Secret Service agents,” Guglielmi added, according to AP.

“The agents confronted the armed man, and he was fatally shot. Investigators are working to compile a psychological profile and a motive is still under investigation.”

BREAKING: Man IDENTIFIED as 21-year-old, Austin Tucker Martin, who breached the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago and attempted to kill President Trump.
Tucker was reported missing by his parents and was LAST SEEN on Feburay 21st at 7:51pm pic.twitter.com/AZNVrvMsr3
— The Patriot Oasis (@ThePatriotOasis) February 22, 2026

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X: “In the middle of the night while most Americans were asleep, the United States Secret Service acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump’s home.
“Federal law enforcement are working 24/7 to keep our country safe and protect all Americans. It’s shameful and reckless that Democrats have chosen to shut down their Department.”

In the middle of the night while most Americans were asleep, the United States Secret Service acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump’s home. Federal law enforcement are working 24/7 to keep our… https://t.co/MYTsHqR4cx
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) February 22, 2026

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller noted: “Democrats voted to defund Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations (who partner with Secret Service) and all the intelligence and law enforcement functions that support Secret Service. Never before in history has federal law enforcement been purposefully defunded.”
“At 1:30 this morning, the security detail detected that an individual had made his way into the inner perimeter of Mar-a-Lago,” said Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.  “A deputy and two Secret Service agents on the detail went to that area to investigate.
“They confronted white male that was carrying a gas can and a shotgun. He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him, at which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position.
“At that point in time, the deputy and the two Secret Service agents fired their weapons and neutralized the threat. He is deceased at the scene.”
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Palm Beach County sheriff on man killed at Mar-a-Lago: “At 1:30 this morning, the security detail detected that an individual had made his way into the inner perimeter of Mar-a-Lago … they confronted a white man that was carrying a gas can and a shotgun. He was ordered to drop… pic.twitter.com/U4VbA5rhy3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 22, 2026

FBI Director Kash Patel indicated: “FBI is dedicating all necessary resources in the investigation of this morning’s incident at President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago – where an armed individual was shot and killed after unlawfully entering the perimeter. We will continue working closely with Secret Service as well our state and federal partners and will provide updates as we are able.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said: “I have been speaking with President Trump and coordinating with our federal partners throughout the morning regarding the intrusion and shooting at Mar-A-Lago. Grateful that @potus and our law enforcement agents are safe.”
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Armed man shot and killed scaling gate at President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago

Why assassination threats against Trump are increasing daily

President Donald Trump speaks to press before boarding Air Force One at Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida on Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, en route to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Official White House photo by Daniel Torok)
PALM BEACH, Florida – An armed man scaling the north gate of President Donald Trump’s “Winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, was shot and killed by law enforcement early Sunday.

An armed man was shot & killed by U.S. Secret Service agents & @PBCountySheriff after unlawfully entering the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago early this morning. A press briefing with additional details will be held at 9:00 a.m with @FBI and Palm Beach County. pic.twitter.com/jAXhdb1xEL
— Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) February 22, 2026

The president was not on the premises at the time.
“U.S. Secret Service agents and a PBSO deputy confronted the individual and shots were fired by law enforcement during the encounter,” the Secret Service said. “No U.S. Secret Service or PBSO personnel were injured.”

This is a developing story, click refresh for latest …
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The new and updated edition of Jamie Glazov’s seminal work “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas” could not have come at a more critical moment.
The first edition was published to great acclaim in 2009. Since then, Glazov’s analysis has proved prescient as the Left has grown ever more enamored with cults of death and destruction.
New York City is now led by a Hamas-supporting Muslim “Democratic Socialist” who has promised to “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism” and refuses to condemn the phrase “Globalize the Intifada.” Minnesota’s elected officials have embraced a Third World welfare state beset by billions of dollars in grift and fraud. Antifa operatives burn federal buildings and riot in the streets while the Left has thrown away every shred of moral principle to dedicate themselves to a Hamas death cult that promotes a medieval morality in which rape is a justifiable weapon of war, women are second-class citizens and homosexuality is punishable by death.
In a heartfelt and illuminating foreword, Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and current U.S. ambassador to Israel, sums up the essential question that Glazov’s work seeks to answer: “How could the most vocal advocates of an unrestrained, unbridled libertinism, one which embraces and even celebrates behaviors that have been stigmatized by virtually all cultures and religions up until the modern age, enter into a strong and apparently untroubled alliance with the adherents of a rigid and uncompromising code that would pronounce the death penalty upon many of precisely the behaviors that their allies celebrate?”
How indeed? “Queers for Palestine” comes instantly to mind.

In “United in Hate,” Glazov enables the reader to make sense of this apparently inscrutable contradiction. The child of Soviet dissidents who were lucky to escape with their lives, Glazov has a deeply personal understanding of the importance of the West’s hard-won freedoms and the horrors and deceptions of a totalitarian society.
During the Cold War, Glazov explains, the Left was able to “mask” its “true allegiance” to despots and dictators under the guise of supporting social justice and equality. Today, however, the pretense is gone. “The Left has torn off its own mask,” states Glazov. “Leftists have gleefully joined hands with those who perpetrated the horrors of October 7 in Israel – and who are infamous for strapping bombs around their waists and blowing themselves up next to women, children and infants in baby carriages, and then celebrating having done so.”
To understand this contradiction at the heart of the Left’s self-conception, it is essential to delve into the perverse psychology fueling their revolutionary crusade. Glazov’s analysis here will ring true for any observer of contemporary American society:
The believer’s totalitarian journey begins with an acute sense of alienation from his own society – an alienation to which he is, himself, completely blind. In denial about the character flaws that prevent him from bonding with his own people, the believer has convinced himself that there is something profoundly wrong with his society. … He fantasizes about building a perfect society where he will, finally, fit in.
Glazov astutely uses the term “believer” to describe disciples of the Left, as they are in the grip of a “progressive faith” that amounts to a “secular religion.”
“As history has tragically recorded, this ‘holy cause’ follows a road that leads not to an earthly paradise, but rather to an earthly hell in all its manifestations,” Glazov surmises. “The political faith rejects the basic reality of the human condition – that human beings are flawed and driven by self-interest – and rests on the erroneous assumption that humanity is malleable and can be reshaped into a more perfect form.”
Glazov cautions us that while the Leftist will never publicly acknowledge the depravity and bloodshed perpetrated to achieve the fantasy of utopia, this “carnage” is in fact “what attracts him in the first place.”
“The lust for destruction is at the root of Marxism,” writes Glazov. “In Marx’s apocalyptic mindset, catastrophe gives rise, ultimately, to a new perfect world.” This is equally true of radical Islam, whose adherents proclaim “We love death as you love life” as they prepare to commit mass slaughter in tribute to Allah.
Members of the Islamic terror group Hamas publicly execute their enemies on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025
Glazov takes us on a historical journey highlighting the horrors of the Left’s ongoing crusade to establish this revolutionary utopia and showing – over and over – their infatuation with tyranny, bloodshed and barbarism.
In the second section of his book, appropriately titled “Romance with Tyranny,” he showcases a compendium of atrocities, all perpetrated to achieve the elusive utopia, and all ending in monstrosity. The Bolsheviks followed by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev, Fidel Castro’s slave camps, Hanoi’s butchers, Mao’s deliberately engineered famine, and the Sandinista’s totalitarian spy networks in Nicaragua, among others.
Glazov then turns his considerable descriptive talents to the analysis of radical Islam to help the reader understand why – in the wake of communism’s fall – the Left has embraced Islam as the next revolutionary crucible.
“Like every other death cult, Islamism wages a ferocious war on the individual,” writes Glazov. “As we have seen in our examination of Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China, a human being’s pursuit of his own desires, passions and pleasures threatens the very foundation of a totalitarian structure. For the totalism to survive, the reality we know as love must be annihilated.”
Glazov’s insights allow the reader to make sense of the modern Left’s love affair with radical Islam and the spectacle of keffiyeh-wearing college students who defend Hamas’s rape, slaughter and torture of innocent Israeli civilians on October 7 as a glorious prison break toward freedom. By bringing insight to the tortured logic and bloodlust of the Left’s crusade, Glazov’s words serve as a beacon for those whose mission is to defeat them.
Order the new edition of Jamie Glazov’s “United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny, Terror, and Hamas.”
 

The decline of religion remains a fundamental reality in most Western countries, particularly in Europe, where over 50% of those under age 40 do not identify with any faith. Even in more religious America, some estimate that as many as 100,000 churches will close in the near future. Meanwhile, the ranks of “Nones,” those outside religious communities, have grown so large that their numbers rival those of Catholics and evangelical Protestants.
Yet, as we document in a new report for the Chapman Center for Demographics and Policy, there are signs that religion is enjoying more than a nascent revival. Data emerging from the 2020s suggest that we are witnessing a complex spiritual restructuring that intersects with economic mobility, demographic resilience, and a profound intellectual realignment.
For the first time in decades, Pew Research notes, in the U.S. at least, Christianity has stopped its nosedive as more people begin to see the efficacy, and the rewards, of religious faith and practice.
This fragile development is especially noteworthy as it exposes growing divides and fault lines in American politics and culture. Drawing on a vast array of longitudinal studies, interviews, and other sources, one startling finding in both America and abroad is that, contrary to past assertions, today the faithful are not poor and ignorant but increasingly from the educated upper middle class.
Even the cognitive elites are experiencing a growing trend to embrace religious activity. Indeed, in a rebuke of the aggressive New Atheism of the early 2000s advanced by thought leaders such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, a counter-movement appears to be growing among scientists, philosophers, and public intellectuals who view religious tradition not as a delusion to be eradicated but as a sustainable civilizational operating system.
As our politics splinter along gender – with women increasingly forming the base for Democrats and men, for Republicans – it is men who are leading the return to church. Reversing a 25-year-long trend, men reported higher church attendance than women in 2025. This growing divide may continue to separate men and women, with grave implications at a time when rates of marriage and parenthood are declining.
Even in places where religion continues to decline, the remaining faithful are shifting away from more liberal faiths to those hewing closer to traditional values. For many, more orthodox sects provide existential security and create a sustainable sense of community.
As our report makes clear, the budding religious revival taking place in the U.S. reflects a global trend, especially strong in Africa, which is now the most demographically robust place on the planet.
The implications and promise of this trend cannot be overstated. Data show that religious communities function as potent engines of human capital accumulation, risk mitigation, and social capital. These mechanisms effectively propel adherents up the socioeconomic ladder.
There is considerable evidence that faith is again gaining adherents, even in Europe. Last year, for example, there was a 45% increase in the number of people baptized in France. In the U.K., according to an April study by the Bible Society, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds saying they attended church at least monthly has jumped from 4% in 2018 to 16% today. Among young men, it’s increased 21%. Most of this growth is concentrated among Catholics and Pentecostals; the Bible Society suggests there are now more than 2 million more people attending church than in the last decade.
Spiritual Hunger
In the U.S., there are also signs of spreading spiritual hunger, according to Pew. Relatively few “nones” identify as either atheist or agnostic but consider themselves spiritual outside organized faith. One recent survey showed young people are increasingly embracing a higher power, often using the internet to access traditional beliefs. Research also suggests that most Gen Z teens are interested in learning more about Jesus, with younger cohorts leading the way in the growth of new commitments.
This is particularly marked among men, marking the closing of the so-called “God Gap” between the sexes. In both the U.S. and the U.K., Gen Z men are now retaining or adopting Christian identity at rates equal to or higher than their female peers. Many young men report feeling culturally dislocated or villainized by progressive secular discourse regarding masculinity. Traditional forms of Christianity, particularly Catholicism and Orthodoxy, offer a narrative of responsibility, sacrifice, and hierarchy that appeals to men seeking a defined role in a fluid world.
Public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson have played a crucial role in re-enchanting the Bible for a secular male audience. By framing biblical narratives as psychological maps for meaning rather than just metaphysical claims, they create an on-ramp for secular men to enter religious spaces. The internet has further facilitated this through the rise of digital orthodoxy, where the aesthetic of antiquity and rigorous discipline appeals to young men to the spiritual vacuity of modern life.
More surprising may be the nascent embrace of religion by scientists and other learned classes. In the early 2000s, the New Atheism gained traction for the view casting religion as a dangerous delusion. By 2025, this movement has largely exhausted itself, replaced by nuanced curiosity and, in some cases, a robust defense of religion among the epistemic elite.
Longitudinal research by sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund, based on surveys of scientists in eight regions, including the U.S., the U.K., Turkey, India, and Taiwan, reveals that scientists in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and India are often more religious than the general public. They view science and religion as overlapping or independent spheres, not enemies.
This perspective is emerging in the U.S. as well. Although still a distinct minority, younger scientists under the age of 35 are more likely to attend religious services than the older baby boomer cohort, suggesting that the rigid secularism of the academy is softening with the new generation. Even two decades ago, only 15% of scientists considered religion in conflict with science, while 70% did not see that conflict.
There are even signs of a revival in the technological heartland of secular America – Silicon Valley. Leading figures, including Pat Gelsinger, former head of Intel, Gary Tan, CEO of Y Incubator, and the venture capitalist Peter Theil openly embrace Christianity. The world’s most important innovator, Elon Musk, has recently become more public in his embrace of Christianity, which he described as “ a religion of curiosity” and “greater enlightenment.”
Membership at Our Lady of Peace Church and Shrine in Santa Clara has risen to more than 3,000 families, according to Father Brian Dinkel, who said the Catholic church hears an estimated 50,000 confessions a year. “People who may be doing well also want something more,” notes Father Dinkel. “Our people work at Google and Apple, but there’s a real search for the truth beyond tech.”
Orthodoxy Flourishing
Even amidst a fledgling religious revival, mainline Protestantism, once a primary cultural and political pillar of American life, is in freefall. Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and others now account for less than 11% of the population, down 40% since 2007, according to the Pew Religious Landscape Study. Since 1960, for example, the Episcopalian share of the population has dropped by two-thirds, the Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ by even more. Lutherans and even Baptists have seen their share shrink by 50%.
More recently, traditional faiths, such as Greek Orthodoxy, have done particularly well. A survey of Orthodox churches around the country found that parishes saw a 78% increase in converts in 2022, compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019. And while historically men and women converted in equal numbers, vastly more men have joined the church since 2020. The average age of attendees is 42, with 62% between 18 and 45. That’s significantly younger than other major traditions.
The appeal of Greek Orthodoxy, notes religious intellectual and convert Matt Mattingly, actually lies not in politics or race, but in ancient values. Mattingly, himself a convert, notes in conversations with recent American converts, “I have talked with, I would estimate, 100+ young men headed into Orthodoxy in the past decade or so. It is true that most are strong supporters of this ancient faith’s teachings on marriage, family, sexuality, and gender. Many of these single men are highly motivated to get married and start families. Yes, they are worried about trends in American life and many mainline pews.
Even more ascendant are the Pentecostals, who emphasize direct contact with God. Their numbers have swelled, particularly among immigrants and in the developing world, as well as in the U.S. By some accounts, it is the fastest-growing religion in the world, with over 600 million adherents today and projected to reach one billion by 2050.
Similarly, among Jews, reform and even conservative synagogues are struggling while those of Orthodox Judaism, particularly the thriving Chabad movement, have gained both members and influence. Critically, it has enjoyed the greatest growth in engagement since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. In contrast to Chabad’s assertive embrace of the Jewish state, some progressive reform rabbis have embraced anti-Zionism, even in the face of overwhelming support among Jews for Israel. Today, Orthodoxy represents one in seven Jews, but by 2040, that is projected to be one in five.
Elite Marker
A central tenet of secularization theory was that higher education would inevitably lead to lower religiosity. This pattern still holds in Europe, but the 2022-2023 Cooperative Election Study, which included nearly 85,000 respondents, indicates a positive correlation between educational attainment and religious attendance in the United States. High school graduates report attending religious services weekly at a rate of approximately 23%, whereas graduate degree holders report attending weekly at a rate of approximately 30%.
This suggests that religion is becoming an elite marker in America.[i] Increasingly, at least in the U.S., religious affiliation has become a form of elite social behavior associated with stability, community leadership, and bourgeois respectability. Indeed, a deep dive into the data shows that, over the past 15 years, religiously engaged people have become more likely to be well-educated, while atheists are less so. Generally, the nones tend to be somewhat less schooled than their more religious counterparts.
These findings shatter the notion that religious people are generally less curious, less ambitious, and less intelligent than their non-believing counterparts. Religious groups such as Jews and Hindus, as well as Episcopalians, also outperform atheists and agnostics, while many others, such as Mormons, Lutherans, and other Protestant groups, do as well.
Nowhere is the efficacy of religion more obvious than among poorer Americans. Inner-city boys who attend religious school are twice as likely to graduate from college as their socio-economic counterparts in public schools, notes Tulane sociologist Ilana Horwitz. Critical here, notes Horwitz, are the attributes of the religiously engaged, such as respect for elders and learning, with the deepest divergence felt among working- and middle-class children.
This may be one reason enrollment in private Christian schools has shot up across the nation in recent years. The K-12 enrollment at the Association of Christian Schools International, “one of the country’s largest networks of evangelical schools,” increased 12% between 2019-20 and 2020-21. Since then, particularly during and after the pandemic, private schools, mostly religious, gained 300,000 new students between 2019 and 2023 while public schools lost 1.2 million.
That jump mirrors other migrations out of public school systems, including a doubling in the percentage of kids being homeschooled. In the 2019-20 school year, 6% of all American students, some 3.5 million, attended religious schools. The rise of voucher programs, including in such large states as Texas and Florida, has largely benefited religiously oriented schools.
Pathway to Success
One subtle effect, most importantly for the poor, is that religious institutions provide a connection to the more affluent. This is a critical factor for success as outlined in the “Social Capital Atlas” project led by Harvard economist Raj Chetty. Utilizing privacy-protected data from 21 billion Facebook friendships linked to tax records and census data, the report found the degree of social interaction between low-income and high-income individuals as the single strongest predictor of whether a poor child would rise out of poverty. High exposure to wealthier peers increases lifetime earnings by an average of 20%.
Chetty’s team found that poorer people associate more with the affluent at religious institutions than at secular institutions like high schools, colleges, and workplaces. A low-income individual attending a religious congregation is significantly more likely to form a meaningful friendship with a high-income congregant than they would be in a workplace, school, or neighborhood group.
Perhaps most critically, religion provides a sense of community and ties that are more tangible than those found online, at school, or in the workplace. For instance, just 10% of religious observants say they have no close friends; the number almost doubles for those who have no faith. For young families, in particular, the religious community offers a village in which to raise children in an era of atomized parenting. This functional utility is a major driver of individuals returning to church in their thirties.
The church, notes Aaron Renn, a leading protestant intellectual, provides a mechanism, particularly for the young, to escape the loneliness and alienation associated with the “negative world.” Even though plagued at times by racial and ethnic division, the church’s role was “not merely socially useful but as “part of a gospel obligation.”
Three-quarters of those who attend church weekly give to the poor, compared with 41% of non-observants. Overall, 73% of all charitable contributions come from religious sources, while 60% of all beds for the homeless are from faith-based institutions.
Indeed, when volunteerism has been on a decline among the young, the young religious are more likely to perform community work than their nonreligious Gen Z counterparts. Data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 2,000 young adults ages 18 to 25 coordinated by Neighborly Faith reveals that half of religious Gen Zers report volunteering in the community often or very often, compared with 30% of slightly religious Gen Zers and just 21% of not religious Gen Zers.
In the end, our report finds that the growing evidence of religion’s basic utility, including its provision of a spiritual anchor, seems likely to grow, by offering a viable alternative to hyper-competition and individualism rife in secular-driven societies.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.