Note: The Banner has a subscription to republish articles from Religion News Service. This interview by Yonat Shimron was published on Oct. 1, 2026, on religionnews.com. It has been edited for length and Banner style.
(RNS) — A 120-year-old United Methodist Church in rural Michigan shutters. A traditional Catholic church in New York’s Greenwich Village is packed with young people in their 20s and 30s. And a network of house churches meeting in people’s living rooms is growing across the country.
These are among the many snapshots of American Christianity featured in a four-part documentary series that began airing Oct. 1 on public television stations across the country.
Christianity at a Crossroads, by documentary filmmaker Martin Doblmeier, tells the story of congregational church life in the United States at a critical moment when growth has flatlined, younger generations are less religious, and a raft of scandals have overtaken almost every Christian denomination.
Doblmeier is no stranger to the subject. His “Journey Films” production company has specialized in religious subjects with PBS-style documentaries on theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Catholic activist Dorothy Day, and philosopher and theologian Howard Thurman, among others.
The new series, funded by Lilly Endowment, which also provides funding for RNS, features interviews with leading experts: sociologist Ryan Burge, writer and ethicist Russell Moore, and pollster Melissa Deckman. But it’s the portraits of half a dozen churches and how they’ve weathered change that provide a glimpse of the variety of Christian church expressions today. There’s even a segment on virtual-reality churches.
RNS talked to Doblmeier about the making of the series, which is also going to be available for free on the website journeyfilms.com. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Q: What prompted this project, and how long did it take to film?
A: Well, the answer to the second part is about 20 months. It was originally conceived as two hours, and then we found we had such good material we asked for, and were allowed to go four hours with it. We were keenly aware there was lots of data about the decline of Christian life in America, and our objective was not to challenge that, but to understand better what did that mean and who’s impacted by it? We tried to do it in a balanced way. If you’re patient enough to look, you can see there are plenty of signs of hope, plenty of signs of vitality. Our argument is, these are challenging moments. Christianity is at a crossroads. It’s going to have to make some decisions, and I think it’s doing that. There may be a decline in numbers. But I think what’s going to be left is going to be the foundation of something unique and possibly even stronger.
Q: The series addresses a lot of challenges facing U.S. Christianity: the decline in churchgoing, a younger generation that’s less religious, a loss of trust in institutions, the sex abuse crisis, especially in the Catholic Church, declining infrastructure. What’s the biggest?
A: We presented the argument that the biggest factor is people no longer believe in religion. It’s not the priority that it was maybe two generations ago. In past generations your faith tradition was passed on from one generation to the next. The comment we have in the film from one person is, “It’s just not happening anymore.” I think that’s a big factor in all of this. The numbers show that if you’re not raised in a family where religion is practiced and given a priority, the likelihood of you getting into that practice and maintaining it later in life declines.
Q: You end the series on a hopeful note about the future of churchgoing in America. Am I reading that right?
A: Yeah, I mean, I don’t think reimagining, recalibrating, reevaluating where we are right now at this moment in history is a bad thing. There are thousands of churches across this country that are, kind of, on an edge. They have to rethink what they’re doing, and yet some people are forward-thinkers. (One church) said, “Look, we don’t want to be burdened by the building that we have. So we’ll sell the building. But we’re gonna stay together as a community. So if we have to meet for two years in the basement of a neighbor’s church, we’re going to do that.” I thought that was a great model.
Q: When you talk about hopeful signs, we thought St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village, N.Y., was an interesting hopeful sign.
A: The Catholic church is completely packed, and the pastor will say, “We’re not doing anything different. We’re not trying to cater to this younger generation. We’re presenting what we think are the Catholic teachings, and we’re preaching out of the Catholic texts, and yet the (young) people are coming.” So just when you think you’ve figured out a formula, what’s working here, this church presents itself and says, sometimes the old formulas still hold value. These people want something they can think about and hold on to and they can value because they believe there’s so little they can actually trust. I think that’s the most important message right now: Give me something I can believe in and trust.
About the Author
Yonat Shimron, Religion News Service