Ancient Babylon was the pagan-but-spiritual, hyper-stimulated, multicultural, imperial crossroads that became the unwilling home of Judean exiles, including the prophet Daniel, in the sixth century BCE. But digital Babylon is not a physical place. It is the pagan-but-spiritual, hyper-stimulated, multicultural, imperial crossroads that is the virtual home of every person with Wifi, a data plan, or—for most of us—both.

Christians whose understanding of the world is framed by the Bible can think about our experience as living in a shift from Jerusalem to digital Babylon. These are two of the ways human society is depicted in the Bible, and they endure today as helpful archetypes of civilization.

The pages of Scripture, and the annals of human history, suggest that there are times when faith is at the center and times when faith is pushed to the margins. In digital Babylon, where information (and any thing we could ever want or need) is instantly available at the godlike swipe of a finger, Almighty God has been squeezed to the margins. Those of us who long to keep him at the center of our lives constantly fight the centrifugal force of a world spinning us away from him.

This transition—from faith at the center to faith at the margins—is happening in North America and most other societies in the cultural West. Our data show widespread, top-to-bottom changes from a Christianized to a post-Christian society.

In Jerusalem, we had some semblance of success with mass-producing disciples. We had big rallies and crusades and whiz-bang events, and many young people came forward to pledge their lives to Christ. But as the growing dropout rate starkly reveals, that approach alone doesn’t seem to work here and now as well as it did there and then.

In digital Babylon, faithful, resilient disciples are handcrafted one life at a time.

We propose that the goal of discipleship today is to develop Jesus followers who are resiliently faithful in the face of cultural coercion and who live a vibrant life in the Spirit.

Let’s examine the component parts of this definition.

1. To develop Jesus followers. Our ultimate aim must be to make deep, lasting connections between young people and Jesus, “who initiates and perfects our faith” and endured the cross and its shame to joyfully redeem the world (Heb. 12:2). Those who follow him also undertake his joyful mission of redemption. As a community of faith, we sometimes miss opportunities to propel young people into the mission of Jesus. Millennials and Gen Z are often more willing to be challenged than we are willing to challenge them.

2. Who are resiliently faithful in the face of cultural coercion. Resilience is a hot topic in business circles, and for good reason; it’s what a person, team or company needs in order to emerge from inevitable challenges not only intact but also with refined skills and deeper wisdom. In the realm of faith, resilient disciples grow more like Jesus, not in spite of but because of their location in a society that exerts enormous coercive power, as in digital Babylon.

3. And who live a vibrant life in the Spirit. These Jesus-centered, culture-countering people adopt a way of life that is obviously different from the powerful norms of go-with-the-flow life in the screen age.

Here is the great news: Some of these disciples already exist.

For the research that undergirds Faith for Exiles, our focus is not those who leave but those who stick around, who find cause as they come of age to make faith a high priority—and find the inner and outer resources to sustain resilient faith in the face of long odds. This is what we did: Using the same survey parameters of the You Lost Me research—18- to 29-year-olds with a churchgoing background—we interviewed young adults about their past and present experiences of Christian formation.

To zero in on the most committed young adults, we started by looking for the significant basics of Christian life. These Christians are regularly involved in a worshiping community and have made a personal commitment to Jesus, whom they believe was crucified and raised to conquer sin and death. They also strongly affirm that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, which contains truth about the world. For this study, they also had to agree with one or more of the following “exile” statements:

- I want to find a way to follow Jesus that connects with the world I live in.

- God is more at work outside the church than inside, and I want to be a part of that.

- I want to be a Christian without separating myself from the world around me.

How many young Christians meet these criteria? There is a counter-cultural 10 percent of young Christians whose faith is vibrant and robust. Let’s sit with the good news for a minute: From a numbers point of view, this percentage amounts to just under 4 million 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. who follow Jesus and are resiliently faithful. But not only are the most engaged young Christians serious about personal faith and faithfulness; they are also concerned for and thoughtful about how their faith in Christ intersects meaningfully and missionally with the world around them. In spite of the tensions they feel between church and everyday life, they keep showing up. Three-quarters of them declare a commitment to “help the church change its priorities to be what Jesus intended it to be” (76%).

That’s resilience.

These are our “exemplars”—those who exemplify the kind of resilient discipleship we believe can flourish in digital Babylon. These sisters and brothers are young adults who model the outcomes hoped for by the community of faith. By getting to know these resilient disciples, we can find out what formation experiences and relationships are most effective for growing resilient faith in exile.