Signs & Wonders

Gladwell’s tipping point, AI wisdom, Gen Z revival, and Buc-ee’s

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Signs and Wonders” is a column that shares thoughts on news items that either do not rise to the level of a news story for MinistryWatch or are slightly (perhaps even significantly) outside of our normal charity and philanthropy “beat.” My goal is to be punchy, opinionated, and slightly off-brand. If that is not for you, no hard feelings. But if it is…read on.

Malcolm Gladwell Confesses. In a remarkable conversation, best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell expressed his true thoughts on trans athletes, saying biological males should not compete against females. That, though, was not the most remarkable part of the conversation. He said he has had that position for a while, but he felt intimidated to keep quiet. Speaking specifically about a panel discussion on the topic he moderated several years ago, he said: “The reason I’m ashamed of my performance of that panel [is] because I share your position 100%, and I was cowed. I was objective in a dishonest way.”

AI Wisdom. Artificial intelligence is shaping how ministries do their work. MinistryWatch has written more than 40 articles that at least mention AI, and all that in the past three years.

I recently came across a couple of non-MinistryWatch articles I commend to you. The first comes from Patrick McNamara, writing for The Dispatch. He notes that Pope Leo XIII, writing in the 1890s, spoke powerfully into the moral and ethical issues related to the Industrial Revolution. He thinks Pope Leo XIV, his namesake and the current pope, should do the same thing regarding the AI revolution. Whether you are Catholic or not, this article should interest you. McNamara makes a good point, and that is that AI is not morally neutral, and Christians should be a part of the conversation if we do not want amoral tech-bros to control its direction.

Another recent article on AI appeared this week in WORLD. This article is a bit more optimistic than I am about the future of AI, but Nathan Leamer nonetheless makes the excellent point that AI is here to stay, and Christians should embrace its capabilities, while remaining skeptical of its dangers. You can find that article here.

The Quiet Revival of Gen Z? A lot of Christian writers are saying there is a quiet revival going on among Generation Z (born roughly 1997-2012). My friends John Stonestreet and Tim Padgett make the case here. I certainly hope and pray they are right. However, my own survey of the landscape causes me to be more guarded in my assessment.

The positives are real. Recent data show Gen Z attending religious services more frequently than millennials, with young adults’ churchgoing doubling since 2020 and Gen Z Christians averaging 1.9 weekends per month—higher than previous records. Events like the 2023 Asbury Revival drew massive youth crowds, indicating a hunger for spiritual experiences amid cultural dissatisfaction.

On the other hand, Gen Z is still the generation most likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated (“none”). A 2018 study by Impact 360, a Christian group I respect, says only 4% of Gen Zers hold a biblical worldview, less than previous generations. Of course, if this Gen Z trend is recent, it might not yet be showing up in the data. Again, I hope and pray for revival, not just for Gen Z, but for all generations. I just do not yet see it.

The Cult of Buc-ee. I will admit it: I was enamored with Buc-ee’s for a while, ever since I stopped at one between Houston and Austin 15 years ago. I have a Buc-ee’s T-shirt that I wear more often (and more proudly) than I should. That said, I have almost quit stopping there in recent years — in part because it has been too crowded. A Buc-ee’s in east Tennessee along I-40 used to be a compulsory stop on my road trips to Nashville. No more. It often backs traffic up onto the interstate. A quick 10-minute bathroom and gasoline break (and a brisket biscuit, of course) can now take an hour.

Why and how has Buc-ee’s become so popular? It could be that in an increasingly secular age, it offers religion-lite. Or so says G.B. Rango in the online magazine “Pirate Wire.” He writes that Buc-ee’s, “a near-highway megachurch and pilgrimage destination for the uniquely American blend of comfort, commerce, spectacle, and hometown folksiness, stands unrivaled. It singlehandedly creates family memories, feeds our most desperate attempts to fill various God-shaped and antisocially created holes, raises up some of our most disavowed and disaffected, hooks us on sugar and stupid white-labeled landfill filler, and puts smiles on millions upon millions of traveling American faces.” Some of this is obviously tongue in cheek. Or is it?