New Research Examines Where Teenagers Turn When They Doubt Their Religion

Religion researcher Ryan Burge is examining a Fuller Youth Institute survey of nearly 3,000 American teenagers ages 13–17, conducted in 2025. The newly published analysis explores how adolescents handle religious doubts and how relationships shape their responses.

Burge emphasizes that most national religious surveys exclude people under 18, leaving an important gap in understanding the next generation. The publicly accessible summary does not yet establish which people teenagers consult most frequently or how often they change beliefs.
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Contrary to what some folks might think, there are lots of young people who aren’t rejecting Christianity. Instead they’re just asking questions churches aren’t answering – difficult questions about suffering, biblical reliability, morality, science and the meaning of life.

Church poohbahs and youth pastors that treat sincere questions as rebellion are missing opportunities to provide real answers from the Bible to real questions that matter.

So What?

Acts 17:11 commends people who examined religious claims carefully rather than accepting them without investigation. Skepticsm isn’t rebellion.

Acts 17:11
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

Biblically based faith should never shy away from the hard questions, because the answers are in God’s Word, even if those answers don’t agree with the traditions of churchianity and the doctrines of men disguised as truth.