From Steph Curry to Patrick Mahomes, Caitlin Clark to Justin Bieber, some of today’s biggest icons in American sports, music and culture openly weave their Christian faith into their public identity on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and beyond. Worship music regularly breaks onto the Billboard charts, and Christian Instagram and Snapchat accounts draw millions of followers. Far from being niche, Christianity is, in many ways, at the center of Gen Z’s cultural world.
In a social media landscape driven by algorithms, the era of one message for everyone is over. There is no single audience anymore. When it comes to the digital conversation around Israel, the challenge isn’t whether Israel has a story worth telling. It’s whether we’re telling it in the language this generation actually speaks, and whether we’re reaching audiences shaping the culture of a new generation with authenticity and respect for their values.
dudlazov/Adobe Stock
Illustrative. Sunset view of a wooden boat floating on the Sea of Galilee, Israel.
The Pew Research Center’s most recent Religious Landscape Study found 45% of Gen Z (18-29-year-olds) identify as Christians. With faith-forward members of this cohort increasingly the drivers of Gen Z culture, the question is not whether young Christians matter but what actually works to engage them positively about Israel. To find out, BZ Media, with support from Maimonides Fund, commissioned research firm Makor Analytics to survey 1,200 young American Christians ages 18-39.
The results from the July 2025 study reveal that the narratives most likely to spark curiosity, resonance and “shareability” among this group are not geopolitical arguments or culture-war hot takes — they are biblical, covenantal stories rooted in faith.
Take, for instance, the top performing theme that was tested: “God keeps his promises.” Once respondents selected this theme as resonant, they were shown the expanded messaging: I believe in a God who keeps His promises. The greatest promise God ever made was to restore the people of Israel to the Land of Israel. So when I see that promise being fulfilled before my very eyes today, it gives me greater confidence that God will keep His promises to me in my own life.
Seventy percent of respondents found this message personally meaningful, and across every demographic — gender, race and political affiliation — they indicated they were likely to share it on social media.
The study was conducted shortly after Israel’s strike on Iran and included a control where half of the respondents were asked up front prior to the message testing whether the strike improved global security and half were asked that same question after they saw the faith messaging. When respondents were asked up front whether the strike improved global security, only 49% agreed, and their measured certainty was low. But for respondents who were exposed to faith-driven messages up front and the political question at the end, agreement jumped to 57% and, more importantly, certainty shifted from low to high.
Here is the crucial point: respondents received no new facts or information that would explain such a shift. The only difference was that the survey framed the issue within a context of faith by introducing key messages for testing. That alone shifted not just the numbers, but the certainty. It turned doubt into confidence, and tentative opinions into firm commitments.
Moreover, the study illustrated that religious narratives shape perspectives on Israel among Christians today regardless of political affiliation. In fact, the study found that young Christians are much more politically split than one might expect, with Republicans holding just a 4% lead over Democrats with this audience.
Many in the Jewish community might ask: Aren’t these young Christians just evangelicals? Haven’t they always been pro-Israel? The answer is no. The era when evangelicalism formed the backbone of American Christian identity is over, and our new study confirms it among young Protestants in particular: specifically, it found that today fewer than 8% of young Christians identify as evangelical, a precipitous decline from comprising roughly half of American Protestants as recently as 2008. Instead, more than 62% of our respondents identified as “Just Christian” or nondenominational. Far from a sign of religious tepidness, however, this cohort is extremely spiritually engaged.
The old infrastructure that once guaranteed American Christians’ connection to Israel — church networks, denominational leadership and evangelical media — is eroding. At the same time, a new generation of Christians is rising: central to pop culture, digitally native, spiritually hungry and open to seeing Israel through the lens of covenant and faith. We call them the “Steph Curry Christians.” They look like everyone else in Gen Z, but they carry faith into every part of their cultural life. And when exposed to faith-driven content about Israel, they don’t just consume it, they engage with, internalize, share it — and it can actually change their worldviews.
This points to the real opportunity for Israel engagement outside our community. For too long, the Jewish community has focused on fighting the most hostile, least persuadable audiences. Meanwhile, we have overlooked tens of millions of mainstream young Americans, namely Christians, whose problem is not that they are hostile to Israel, but maybe apathetic or wary — at least right now. While they may not know much about Israel, they do know the language of faith, community and culture; and as this new study shows, they are able and willing to recognize these elements as forming the core of Israel’s story. When we meet this vast, faith-driven audience where they already are — on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — and demonstrate real care for the questions that matter most to them, then Israel stops being a distant conflict to ignore and becomes a living story they can see themselves in. That’s the conversation where Israel resonates — and wins.
The stories that resonate most with this target audience are not about politics or power but about faith and promise. If we embrace that truth, then the next generation of young American Christians will not see Israel as someone else’s struggle or someone else’s cause, but as a reflection of their own unfolding story of faith, covenant and hope that they are called to carry forward.
Rabbi Ari Lamm is the chief executive officer and Zach Briton is the chief partnership officer of BZ Media, creating digital Israel content for young American Christians. If you are interested in receiving a briefing on this study, email research@bz-media.org.
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New research indicates how we should talk to young American Christians about Israel – eJewishPhilanthropy
ByEric Djirackor
Dec 4, 2025