The vibe shift has lowered the conscious barrier of hostility for many toward the claims of more traditional faiths, especially around the subjects of nature, gender, sex, and the family. There’s greater awareness of Christianity’s culture-shaping force. I have no problem seeing some of it as a sort of praeparatio evangelica. But we must recognize the need for a concrete call to repentance in response to the same gospel we had to preach to their progressive pagan neighbor.

For months now, since before the latest economic upheaval, much cultural conversation has revolved around a “vibe shift” in the United States and other corners of the world.

What exactly is this vibe shift? It’s hard to identify a single factor.

Some point to political shifts: Donald Trump’s second election, rising anti-woke and anti-DEI sentiment, the growth of conservative politics among young men, and legal backlashes against some of the trans movement’s excesses.

Others point to shifts in popular culture: the appearance of Christians and even apologists on podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience (and the popularity of these podcasts over and above legacy media), X’s transformation under Elon Musk, and backlash and controversies around prominent voices from the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements and the waning deluge of ad campaigns from Woke Capital.

There’s even a religious component to the vibe shift: the rise of Bible sales in the United Kingdom and the “surprising rebirth’” of belief in God among celebrities and intellectuals, the (temporary) plateauing of the “nones” and of religious decline, and the upward trend among Christians of traditional views on marriage.

In a nutshell, the vibe shift is seemingly rightward, masculine, semi-religious or semi-Christian, and institutionally unregulated.

As a campus minister at a large University of California school, I can perceive this shift, even though the effects on campus haven’t been as sharp due to institutional, ideological entrenchment and the gendered dynamics of universities becoming increasingly female/feminized spaces. Five years ago, when I met a student who wasn’t explicitly Christian or a traditional Muslim or Jew, I could rightly assume his or her moral orientation and challenges to faith leaned left on every major issue. Now, when I sit down with a student—especially a young man—I can’t. Even assuming the university selects for and creates more left-leaning male populations, the shift right means I’m as likely to be talking to a closet conservative or someone who’s close friends with one.

What does this mean for ministry in a post–vibe shift age? I can’t offer a comprehensive assessment. Instead, I’ll make a few practical and theological observations that can help orient us as we seek to understand and navigate the shift for the sake of God’s kingdom and glory.

Rebellion Against Imposed Chaos

We must grapple with the vibe shift’s moral orientation and impetus. We’re seeing neither a turn from darkness to light nor a regression to the Dark Ages. Instead, we’re seeing rebellion against what I’d call “schoolmarming anarchy.”

In brief, over the last decade, expressive individualism and LGBT+ progressivism have teamed up with increasingly bureaucratic and technocratic attempts at social control. In the name of protecting various classes from oppression and harm, the mechanisms of social opprobrium via cancellation, legal enforcement through state and federal measures (e.g., Title IX shifts), and overwhelming social messaging (look at movie scripts and plot lines from about 2017 to 2022) have aimed at socially engineering a progressive consensus that “liberates” and “affirms” us all in our particular diversity.

This movement has two ironies.

First, this attempt at control has been socially corrosive and morally chaotic. When we deny biology in favor of ideology, family bonds aren’t strengthened but further dissolved. Insisting on poring over every nook and cranny of every social relation to ferret out injustice and oppression hasn’t had the desired effect of increasing justice, peace, and harmony—and this is according to some leftists.

Rather, the result is an ingrained, isolating hermeneutic of suspicion, a tax worked into the most basic social interactions. Kids have been told they can be whatever they want, but this hasn’t led to improved mental health—instead, it has caused paralyzing levels of anomie and anxiety, metastasized by the smartphone and social media.

Second, many champions of this movement managed to do all this in morally censorious, punitive ways. Folks who alleged themselves to be the advocates of social liberation against entrenched structures of oppression ended up looking like Dolores Umbridge wearing a rainbow flag pin.

As a result of these ironies, rebellion looks like the pursuit of order, of conservative or right-leaning values. In this environment, campaigning against pornography can be viewed as edgy or transgressive. Pushing for traditional family values is punk rock. Those of us ministering to the spiritually searching today can’t ignore this phenomenon.

One young man from a couple of years ago comes to my mind. He came to my group not as a believer nor a skeptic, but as spiritually curious. What intrigued him was a clear sermon on God creating the world with natural rhythm and order, including a law about human nature and about men and women that’s not mere social construction, as he heard in class. Studying education, he was appalled by how he was taught to handle potentially nonaffirming parents of trans students (by hiding and lying). But he didn’t know where to go for moral guidance. He feared for his grades and standing in class if he dissented. A theologically conservative pastor was about the only help he could find.

This shift has created an opportunity to clearly present the truth of the law revealed in nature and in Scripture, as well as the gospel that has the power to reform hearts and restore order from chaos. The law isn’t the gospel of Christ crucified and risen, and we must be clear about that in our preaching.

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