by Rev. Mark Creech
RevMarkCreech.org
Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z college students in America now hold a neutral or positive view of socialism. That finding, reported by SMG News Wire on January 29, 2026, draws from multiple polling sources. An Axios–Generation Lab study found that 67 percent of student respondents expressed a positive or neutral association with the word “socialism,” compared to just 40 percent for “capitalism.” A separate Cato Institute/YouGov survey found that 62 percent of adults under 30 viewed socialism favorably, and 34 percent of those aged 18–29 said they had a favorable view of communism. On some campuses, according to conservative student activist Jackson Heaberlin in an interview on The Todd Starnes Show, socialist sentiment is not theoretical—it is pervasive. “People just don’t understand the real risks of socialism and communism,” he said, urging conservatives to speak clearly and confidently.
Those numbers should not be dismissed as a passing trend. Nor should they be met with panic. They should be met with thoughtful reflection and moral clarity.
Young people are rarely drawn to systems because they crave tyranny. They are drawn to systems because they crave justice. They see student debt, housing costs, and corporate excesses. They hear promises of fairness, security, and collective care. Socialism, as it is often presented, sounds compassionate and seems to address these concerns. It promises protection for the vulnerable and restraint on greed. In a generation suspicious of institutions and weary of hypocrisy, such promises resonate.
The problem is not the desire for justice. Scripture affirms justice. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). The problem is the assumption that centralized power can manufacture righteousness.
The Bible consistently warns about the dangers of concentrated human authority. “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help” (Psalm 146:3). That warning does not target one political party or one ideology; it addresses human nature itself. The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). The belief that a system of power will remain benevolent and planners will remain incorruptible, or that the state can replace moral virtue with administrative control, rests on very, very fragile ground.
History reinforces the caution. The twentieth century witnessed regimes that promised equality and delivered oppression. They began with rhetoric about justice and ended with repression of dissent, curtailment of liberty, and, in many cases, mass death. Not every policy proposal with some socialist dynamic necessarily leads to totalitarianism. But when economic life, moral authority, and enforcement mechanisms converge in the hands of a centralized state, the risk seriously escalates. The pattern is not difficult to trace.
The deeper issue is not economic theory; it is anthropology. Christianity teaches that man is made in God’s image and yet fallen. That dual truth requires both freedom and restraint. Free markets without virtue can become predatory. Governments without limits can become oppressive. The Christian vision has never been naïve about either danger. It insists that lasting justice flows from transformed hearts, not merely redistributed resources, which is the core of socialist and communist systems.
The early church shared generously, but only voluntarily. “Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity” (2 Corinthians 9:7). That distinction matters a great deal. Biblical charity is compelled by love, not enforced by decree. When compassion becomes coercive, it is neither compassion nor love, but theft masquerading as virtue.
If many young Americans are warming to socialism, the response cannot simply be denunciation. It must be discipleship. It must be an honest acknowledgment of where capitalism has been corrupted by cronyism and moral indifference. It must be a robust presentation of a biblical worldview that affirms work, property, generosity, responsibility, and limited government under God.
The rise in favorable views toward socialism among Gen Z is not merely a political statistic. It is a cultural signal. It shows that many young people are seeking coherence and justice in a world that feels increasingly unstable and unfair. The church must show them that justice divorced from truth does not endure, and that compassion without moral guardrails can empower the very forces it hopes to restrain.
The lesson of Scripture and history is steady and unchanging: when nations place ultimate trust in systems rather than in God and His Word, freedom erodes. The task before us is not to fear a generation, but to form one that is grounded in truth, animated by virtue, and wary of any promise that asks them to trade liberty for an empty promise of utopia.
