"The men who pray most, read most, attend most, and mentor most are the men most likely to take their hardest questions to a machine.”
Gallup reported earlier this year that 42% of men ages 18 to 29 now call religion very important, up 14 points in two years. The Center for Scripture Absorption has just completed a study of the spiritual fitness of American men, drawing on a national sample of more than 6,000 adults. The new study tells a different story.
According to the research, in every age group of American men from 18 to over 65, roughly two out of three are not yet following Christ. The men who are making disciples, passing their faith to another man, are one or two in a hundred.
Further findings show that men 25 to 34 are more likely than women their age to identify with a religion: 49% to 43%. But they are less likely to say they are saved by grace: 28% to 33%.
Arnie Cole, CEO of Back to the Bible and Director of the Center for Scripture Absorption, says this study offers a clearer insight into the Gallup numbers.
“We did not ask men whether religion matters to them,” says Cole. “We measured what they believe, what they practice, how much Scripture is getting into them, whether it is changing them, and whether they are connected to other believers. Then we sorted them by where they actually stand with Christ. Identification is going up. Conviction isn't keeping pace. These are men more connected to the institution than to Jesus.”
Cole says there was one statistical finding he did not expect.
“I assumed the most active men would be the most protected,” says Cole. “Men 35 to 44 are the strongest cohort in our data by every visible measure: 64% pray, 48% are active in a church, 41% mentor another man. They are also the cohort most likely at 25.7% —the highest number we recorded— to have asked an AI chatbot ‘speaking as Jesus’ for guidance on a spiritual or moral decision. The men who pray most, read most, attend most, and mentor most are the men most likely to take their hardest questions to a machine.”
The Wheatley Institute found that 31% of men ages 18 to 30 have chatted with an AI designed to simulate a romantic partner. Nearly one in three, and double the rate of men over 30. Ask men why, and the top answer is not romance or physical intimacy. It is conversation and feeling less lonely, at 52%.
A review of 80 published studies shows that among young American men, using AI for emotional support is associated with more loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Using it to learn is associated with less. Over 12 months, more chatbot use predicted more emotional isolation. In one four-week trial, nearly a quarter of users developed a dependency pattern: wanting more while enjoying it less. And the mechanism that makes these apps work is simple: users feel heard.
“Feeling heard is not a technology the church lacks,” says Cole. “It is the ministry the church was given. The man asking AI Jesus about his marriage and the man talking to an AI girlfriend at 2 a.m. are, in the data, the same man: connected to the institution, distant from other men, lonelier than he looks, and more comfortable confessing to a machine than to a brother.”
According to Cole, the older men who could help are going quiet. Mentoring peaks at 35 to 44 and collapses after 45. By 55 to 64, fewer than one in five men mentors anyone. Men over 65 are almost immune to AI Jesus, but 60% read the Bible zero days a week, and 28% say they don't know what happens when they die. The men with the most decades of faith mentor the least.
Cole says there are a few things churches and ministries can do.
“First, measure maturity, not interest,” says Cole. “Attendance and affiliation are what we measured in 1996, when men filled stadiums. Thirty years later the pipeline of disciple-makers sits at 2%. What a church measures long enough becomes its mission. Second, build rooms where a man can ask out loud. Every man needs one relationship where a private question can land without costing him his standing. Until the church has that room, the app on his phone will keep winning the questions he cannot afford to lose. Third, teach men a simple rule: AI for information, people for formation. Use it to study and to work. Don't use it to be understood. And put the men over 50, settled and convicted and sitting on the sidelines, back in the game as mentors to men half their age.
“The polls say a thaw is underway among young men," Cole continues. "I believe them. But a thaw is not a harvest. Interest that doesn't become conviction will be gone in two polling cycles. Conviction that gets measured and discipled will still be here in 30 years. Honest measurement is stewardship. So is honest response. The men in our care deserve both.”
About Arnie Cole:
Arnie Cole, Ed.D., is CEO of Back to the Bible and Director of the Center for Scripture Absorption in Lincoln, Nebraska. He is the creator of the SALT Index, a spiritual-formation instrument used globally. His white paper, "The Spiritual Fitness of the American Male," was prepared for the National Coalition of Ministries to Men. For further information visit https://www.backtothebible.org/.