u/Future_Interest_3649

Source is this blog post which was written to debunk a claim made by Candace Owens.

There was a book written in 2001 called From Slogans to Mantras, which chronicled the rise of “alternative” spiritualities among members of the 1960’s youth counterculture, particularly those who had earlier been involved in political and student protest movements.

While these people were disaffected with “mainstream“/established religions (which in that era, in the US, primarily meant mainline Christianity), they weren’t completely uninterested in all forms of spirituality and/or mysticism. In particular, as the protest movements they were part of either failed or succeeded at achieving the social changes they wanted, they turned inward and embraced new forms of religion.

Some of them eventually found their way back to Christianity (via the Jesus Movement), while others became interested in Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, or pre-Christian European ones like Druidry. Still others used psychoactive drugs as a form of spiritual awakening (a practice that still continues to this day in the form of ayahuasca retreats). There were also a lot of straight-up cults that originated in that era.

Generation Z (and to some extent Alpha, already) has often been compared to the youth of the sixties. (I myself am a millennial, which makes me a “square”, I suppose). They have a tendency toward extremist/radical politics and share a few sentiments in common, although there are a lot of ideological divides, so that “Zoomerism” is not a coherent ideology. But they do tend to share a dislike of a lot of the same things.

It seems high unlikely that the Zoomers will see all the political and social changes they want (and, if they do get their wish on some things, they might start regretting it and decide that things had been better before and the “squares” had a point all along). When this happens, the history described in From Slogans to Mantras will likely repeat itself.

What could a new, Zoomer-centric religion look like? Some who are more rationalistic or technologically-literate might be drawn to religions focused on transhumanism, the Singularity, or simulation theory.

However, there is also a widespread neo-Luddite tendency among some members of Gen Z, related to the backlash against data centers. These people aren’t going to embrace anything that deifies tech, but they might be drawn to belief systems that demonize it. That kind of thing has been around for millennia (there is a non-canonical text from the biblical era, the Book of Enoch, that blames fallen angels for giving technology to mankind; Luddites understandably love it).

I also suspect that pro-Palestine student protests will end up spawning a new religion at some point. I initially had a hard time understanding why so many youth in Western countries were getting so emotionally invested in a relatively small territory to which they didn’t have any family ties. But then I remembered seeing the phrase “we are all Palestinians now” used on some conspiracy-focused website. That idea—disaffected young people in Western countries seeing themselves as “Palestinians”, meaning that they believe they are oppressed by a shadowy, Jewish-coded ruling class—seems like it could easily mutate and lend itself to a new religion.

In the 19th and early 20th century, there were movements such as the Black Hebrew Israelites and Christian Identity who claimed to be the true descendants of the biblical Israelites (with the implication being that modern Jews are imposters). Back in those days, people were more likely to take the Exodus narrative at face value, and to view the ancient Israelites as an oppressed and persecuted people (so that identifying as their descendants could provide a historical backdrop to their own—actual or perceived—oppression in the modern era).

In the 21st century, under the influence of New Atheism and the general anti-Zionist sentiment, there is far less sympathy for the biblical Israelites among today’s young people. So instead of appropriating their history like those older sects did, you might see cults claiming to be Palestinian, although they are not. They might either claim actual Palestinians are distant relatives of theirs (as in Anglo-Israelism) or even that actual Palestinians aren’t who they claim to be (as in Christian Identity).

Sects that do this could go two different routes; the first one is claiming a connection to Islam (“we are the true descendants of the first Muslims; modern Arabs aren’t”).

There are already people who believe this; I remember seeing a website a while back that insisted the Arabs of Muhammad’s day were Black (like today’s Somalis), and that the modern lighter-skinned Arabs are in fact Turks. Besides, the Nation of Islam (NOI) already teaches something similar.

The second option is claiming a link to the Canaanites, and attempting to revive worship of the old Canaanite gods such as Molech and Baal. Such a group would probably not bring back human sacrifice (they would be more likely to deny that the Canaanites ever actually practiced it, and claim that the Biblical authors lied about it to slander the Canaanites). Besides, people who are interested in sacrificing humans already have their own religion.

But a neo-Canaanite cult might, at some point, attempt to launch a pagan “crusade” to retake the land of Canaan in the name of the old gods. It certainly won’t be succesful, though.

There might even a cult that tries to identify the Indigenous peoples of the Americas with the Canaanites; there is already a lot of rhetoric comparing the two. Actual Indigenous people are unlikely to fall for this (and, frankly, there aren’t very many of them to begin with).

But it’s possible there could be “pretendian“ groups who claim to be an Indigenous tribe, which in turn is claimed to be the descendants of the Canaanites. So, such a cult can claim they were victims of two genocides at the hands of Abrahamic monotheists. I could see this narrative appealing to ex-Mormons (given that Mormonism already claims Indigenous Americans came from the ancient Near East, albeit in a different way). The sect might argue that Joseph Smith was a false prophet who tried to trick his own people into identifying with Israelites rather than with their actual Canaanite heritage, but that certain parts of the Book of Mormon are still semi-accurate history nonetheless.

Yet another possibility is there could be a revival of Marcionism (an early, heterodox Christian sect that claimed there were two gods—a false one whom the ancient Israelites followed, and the true one who sent Jesus to offer salvation from the corrupt material world). Marcionites believed that Jesus wasn’t actually Jewish, or even human, but a purely spiritual being. There already is at least one neo-Marcionite church with its own website and subreddit, so it may end up attracting more young followers in the future.

Finally, among young people who are disaffected with Western Christianity but wish to remain some form of Christian, Eastern Orthodoxy is likely to continue gaining converts. This is already happening to an extent, particularly among those with a more sympathetic view of Russia. However this wouldn’t actually count as a new religious movement since it’s just conversion to an existing one.

Here is the source.

Even the very first Chick tract was already ridiculously over-the-top.