Glendale, AZ (January 22, 2025) — With Donald Trump returning to the White House and Republicans holding majorities in both chambers of Congress, 2025 is poised to be a year of profound political shifts. But Dr. George Barna—veteran researcher and Director of the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University—believes the most transformative changes may extend far beyond Washington, D.C.

In a newly released report, Barna identifies a dozen key trends set to redefine life in America this year, including five faith-related shifts and seven social transitions. Drawing on six years of research from the Cultural Research Center (CRC) and more than 40 years of tracking religious trends, Barna’s analysis is rooted in data from the CRC’s annual American Worldview Inventory—the nation’s only worldview tracking survey—and a series of other national surveys conducted in the recent past.

Today’s forecast from Barna analyzes trends in 12 major areas of American life—from our spiritual beliefs and the nation’s religious landscape, to shifting views of higher education and public schools, to our rapidly growing mental health crisis. The wide-ranging analysis even contemplates the ongoing redefinition of the family, as well as major shifts in the nation’s political conversation and new patterns of media consumption.

Although the magnitude of these emerging trends is staggering, Barna notes that they have been developing for some time, fueled by the steady decline in the faith and biblical worldview of Americans.

“The American public has been adrift for more than a decade, trying to figure out who we are, why we’re here, what success looks like, and if there is a bigger source of authority to relate to than ourselves or the government,” Barna explained.

In this time of social and cultural change, Barna said the coming five years represent a prime time for biblical Christians to add direction and value to culture by strategically and intentionally introducing God’s ways and truths into what is presently a turbulent cultural moment.

“These are all central worldview questions, pointing us back to the importance of identifying what we believe, why we believe it, and how we will integrate those core perspectives into a complementary lifestyle,” he explained. “In the end, it’s all about worldview.”

One example of how biblical Christians can influence and shape this cultural moment is in the area of higher education. Barna identified a key trend for 2025 to be “rethinking college education.” He predicts that conditions in the American and global economy “will magnify the escalating disenchantment with the quality and cost of a college education.”

The likely result of this “escalating disenchantment,” according to Barna, include a steeper decline in college enrollment, increasing financial pressures on colleges to close, and a shift toward trade schools and technology training centers.

Bucking the prevailing cultural trends to move away from the biblical worldview, more than a decade ago Arizona Christian University committed to developing and increasing the biblical worldview of its students—the prescription for Christian cultural engagement Barna suggests in this “turbulent cultural moment.”

And despite the prevailing negative trends Barna identifies on the horizon, ACU has remained biblically faithful in the educational space—and has flourished.

As ACU President Len Munsil notes, “College enrollment peaked in 2010, and has declined 15 percent since then. In that same time, ACU has grown more than 350 percent.”

As Munsil explains, “There are very few schools like ACU, which is committed to discipleship of students in a biblical worldview. Because we provide support for authentic Christian commitment to biblical truth and the importance of transforming culture with God’s truth, we will continue to grow despite enrollment declines elsewhere.”

“What ACU provides is what so many students and families are looking for, and that’s why we are the 9th-fastest growing university in America over the past decade,” Munsil said.

Higher education is just one of 12 key areas outlined in the new report. Looking to the near future and his list of emerging trends in America, Barna emphasized the importance of faith and worldview in shaping a balanced and viable society.

“Because a culture is a reflection of people’s choices, and those choices are a reflection of people’s worldview, and the fact that worldviews are founded on the faith perspectives held by the public, attending to the worldview of the citizenry must be a central focus of family, government, educators, and journalists,” he explained.

“The fact that most of the leaders in those groups allow the nation’s worldview to develop rather randomly and without balance and comprehensiveness helps to explain why America has been stumbling the past couple of decades,” he said.

Barna encouraged churches and leaders in the Christian community to see these 12 emerging trends as opportunities to influence the long-term direction of the nation with God’s truth. He also said Christian parents and churches could play a crucial role in helping the nation get back on track spiritually and morally.

2025 Faith and Culture Trends

The five faith patterns Barna forecasts will shape 2025, based on CRC’s extensive vault of data and insights into America’s evolving spiritual landscape are:

  • Reshaping God to Our Liking – Americans are shifting from the biblical characterization of God toward a more accepting, less demanding deity. Over the past 30 years, belief in the God of the Bible—a loving, omnipotent, and morally unyielding being—has sharply declined. Currently, about half of U.S. adults believe in the biblical God, but fewer worship or follow Him. The fastest-growing faith segment, the “Don’ts,” includes those who don’t know, believe, or care about God’s existence.
  • The Syncretism Train Will Keep Rolling – Since Barna began measuring worldview in the 1990s, the incidence of a biblical worldview in America has steadily declined, with just 4% of adults, 2% of parents of preteens, 1% of teenagers, and only 37% of Christian-church pastors holding a biblical worldview. Meanwhile, Syncretism—a worldview blending multiple philosophies for personal satisfaction—dominates, with 92% of Americans adhering to it—a trend that is likely to grow as biblical teaching loses cultural influence.
  • Discipleship Drops Off the Radar – Although discipleship claims by churches and parachurch ministries are man, biblical mentoring is uncommon—and our research provides no basis for expecting an upturn in serious discipleship activity, fueling the continuing decline in the influence of the Christian faith in American life.
  • Organized Christianity Takes a Hit – CRC projects a significant decline in the number of Christian churches and full-time pastors by the decade’s end, driven by shifts in faith commitments triggered by COVID-era changes. Paradoxically, regular and intentional Bible exposure, largely driven by Gen Z, is expected to increase, reflecting new dynamics in religious engagement.
  • Signs of Backbone – The return of Donald Trump to the White House will initiate a period of greater political awareness among a small but noteworthy segment of conservative churches. Most of these churches will make this shift without public fanfare.

Likely Cultural Trends

While the religious landscape continues to evolve, American culture will also bloom in some new and unexpected ways. This societal evolution is neither novel nor inexplicable: every culture constantly recalibrates itself, altering its identity and conduct in ways large and small. Barna addressed seven realignments that he believes are coming and are especially noteworthy.

  • Rethinking College Education – The reshaping of the American economy and the enduring move toward a globally integrated economy will magnify the escalating disenchantment with the quality and cost of a college education. One ramification will be a steeper decline in college enrollment. Expect several dozen colleges and universities to succumb to financial pressures to close their doors for good. Meanwhile, trade schools and technology training centers will experience a resurgence as the international economic war heats up and America reinvigorates its manufacturing base.
  • Mental Health Issues Escalate – Bombarded by news of institutional collapse, corruption, climate turbulence, financial chaos, crime, disunity, and social alienation, Americans face skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression, fear, and addictions. This mental health crisis will escalate in the coming year to unprecedented levels.
  • Reinventing the Senior Life – As they age, Baby Boomers (the largest generation in history) will redefine senior living by turning hobbies into businesses, integrating technology into predictable lifestyles, advocating for affordable healthcare, and influencing political policies on Social Security and Medicare. They’ll also impact community engagement, assisted living models, and faith practices. Expect to see  significant contributions from Black Americans and first-generation immigrants in shaping elder life.
  • Altering the Political Conversation – In the wake of the 2024 election, a new slate of social issues will emerge, including diminished focus on abortion and continued decline in political party affiliation, along with a redefinition of climate change and expansion of gender issues, moving beyond “transgenderism” to new frontiers in the gender rights and sexual autonomy battles, all of which will be discussed in the absence of the Christian faith and churches as the basis of America’s moral conscience in public policy.
  • Public Schools Will Suffer – COVID-era school closures and online education sparked widespread concerns about public school quality and content, fueling a significant decrease in public school enrollment and a rise in private and homeschooling—a trend that shows no signs of slowing. Public schools face serious challenges in 2025, including teacher shortages and lowered qualification standards, along with parental concerns about classroom substance and safety. These issues will likely bolster the incoming president’s agenda to reimagine the federal government’s role in public education.
  • Reimagining the Family – In 2025, the family will emerge as a contested and maligned social construct. After decades of debate over biblical family standards, a confused population will likely settle for inclusive solutions over biblical definitions, which will have significant negative, long-term consequences for our nation.
  • Reconfiguring the media universe – As mainstream media’s ideological bias became clear over the past decade, millions of Americans sought alternatives, prompting the rise of new media options and a realignment of preferences. Legacy media will continue losing market share, audience reach, and influence, while audiences increasingly blend podcasts, streaming platforms, niche news sites, and social media to create personalized media worlds. This shift will foster fragmented information echo chambers, reinforcing isolation, diminishing shared news perspectives, and deepening national division.

The full report from Dr. George Barna, “2025 Trends Outlook: CRC’s Barna Describes Faith and Cultural Trends Likely to Emerge in 2025,” is available here.

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George Barna is a veteran researcher of 40 years and author of 60 books, including his most recent, Raising Spiritual Champions: Nurturing Your Child’s Heart, Mind and Soul, which immediately became a bestseller on Amazon when it was released in late 2023.

Raising Spiritual Champions, published by Arizona Christian University Press in collaboration with Texas-based Fedd Books, covers a variety of topics helpful to parents and Christian leaders, including research-based descriptions of how a child’s worldview develops; the relationships between worldview and discipleship; how parents can develop a simple plan to guide their child to a biblical worldview, and to become a disciple of Jesus Christ; the role churches and godly church leaders can play in that process; measuring the worldview of children; and more.

For more information about Raising Spiritual Champions—including discounts for quantity orders—visit www.RaisingSpiritualChampionsBook.com.