Speaking on November 25, 2025, during the annual Thanksgiving turkey-pardoning ceremony at the White House, President Donald Trump cheered the revival of faith that is ongoing in America, as shown by more and more people praying and otherwise showing their faith, telling the crowd that he thinks that is a very good thing.
As background, while organized religion has been on something of a rocky decline for decades, it appears that such a decline has at least levelled off, and may even have started to reverse, with Americans, including younger Americans, returning to church in large numbers for the first time in a long time.
In fact, a report conducted by Pew Research found that while “78% of U.S. adults identified as Christians of one sort or another” back in 2007, and that number trailed off to 62% in the years since, the decline has bottomed out and is now levelling out at around 62-64%.
Even more positively, a recent Barna Research study has revealed that about 30 million Americans have become Christians in the last five years. It revealed, in fact, “66 percent of all U.S. adults say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus that is still important in their life today.” The study’s authors added, “That marks a 12-percentage-point increase since 2021, when commitment levels reached their lowest in more than three decades of Barna tracking.”
In a press release, Barna’s CEO, David Kinnaman, described the phenomenon as “renewed interest in Jesus,” saying, “Many people have predicted the growing irrelevance of Christianity. However, this data shows that spiritual trends have a dynamism and can, indeed, change. This is the clearest trend we’ve seen in more than a decade, pointing to spiritual renewal—and it’s the first time Barna has recorded such spiritual interest being led by younger generations.”
So, there are some very positive trends showing that Christianity is not dying in America, and may in fact be rebounding. Such is what President Trump highlighted in his turkey pardoning speech, saying that more and more people are praying and coming back to church, which he thinks is a big deal.
Doing so, the president said, “We have more people praying. The churches are coming back. I don’t know if you’ve been reading that story, but religion is coming back to America. Some people say, ‘Oh, why would you mention that?’ To me, that’s a big deal.” Watch him here:
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During the same speech, President Trump also poked fun at former President Biden’s autopen pardons, saying, “We have a Department of everything. You know what that is? I think that’s called the White House. Into a terrible situation caused by a man named Sleepy Joe Biden.”
Continuing, he joked about Hunter Biden and about investigating the turkey pardons, saying, “He used an auto pen last year for the turkey’s pardon. So I have the official duty to determine -and I have determined- that last year’s turkey pardons are totally invalid. As are the pardons of about every other person that was pardoned, other than… where’s Hunter?”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video