The Myth of “Vibes” Conversions: Why Gen Z Is Actually Starving for the Hard Pills of Dogma

"We are told that the youth are starving for beauty, that they are fleeing the beige banality of modernity for the high-definition aesthetic of Tradition….but the rise of young converts amid a dearth of beautiful liturgies proves otherwise."

From Crisis

By Luke J. Ayers

Most Gen Z converts weren’t compelled to conversion by liturgical lace and incense; they were escaping the desert of safe spaces that said they were okay, when it was clear they definitely were not.

Around 2015, at the age of 18 and having been Catholic for almost a full year, I was sitting in the pew of my large, suburban parish, reflecting on the readings and waiting for the homily. The presiding priest was one I always enjoyed hearing preach. Instead, the pastor (who was not the celebrant) walked in from the back of the church in a hard hat. In place of the homily, and after putting the hard hat down on the altar, he read The Little Engine That Could and gave an update on the state of the parish’s capital campaign to raise money for a new parish hall. He exhorted us to continue giving and push the engine of the parish up the mountain of the capital campaign goal. Father left, and Mass continued.

If the popular “way of beauty” theory is the whole story, that moment should have been my exit ramp. The aesthetic of the proposition was not merely lacking; it was actively repellant. The liturgy had been commandeered by the mechanisms of finance. It didn’t sit right with me, but I didn’t have any other real options in front of me at the time. I sure wasn’t going back to the mainline Protestant denomination I had converted from, and I didn’t have any reason to think that the other parishes around me would be substantially different.

The narrative surrounding the Gen Z convert often focuses on the “vibes”—the smell of incense, the intricate lace of the fiddleback chasuble, the Gregorian chant that fills the feeds of even secular TikTok users. We are told that the youth are starving for beauty, that they are fleeing the beige banality of modernity for the high-definition aesthetic of Tradition. This is absolutely true, but it misses the whole truth. Put another way, mere aesthetics will not sustain us. The rise of young converts even amid a dearth of beautiful liturgies proves a more complicated reality.

My conversion, like that of many in my generation, did not happen in a candlelit sanctuary or after some profound experience. It came about through the glow of a laptop screen and the buzz of Catholic radio. I had been engaged in an intellectual wrestling match—mostly with myself—trying to understand the arguments and reasons for Catholic belief as best I could. I came to believe in the truth of the Catholic Faith before I even set foot in a Catholic church as a congregant or signed up for RCIA. 

The primary agents of this conversion were not artists, architects, or liturgists. I found professional apologists, whose relentless charity and pursuit of logical consistency, well sourced with Scripture and the Church Fathers, was like water in a desert of ahistorical emotionalism. I read the early essays of Marc Barnes, who framed Catholicism not as a safe harbor for the weak but as the only rebellion left worth fighting. These figures did not offer me a “religious experience,” but they did show me that Catholicism could be serious. 

The modern world offers a buffet of soft truths—spiritualities that affirm us where we are and demand nothing of us. The Church offered harder pills to swallow, to be sure: the prohibition of abortion, the all-male priesthood, the indissolubility of marriage, the reality and eternity of Hell, the terrifying claim of the Real Presence. These are most definitely not just aesthetic flourishes. For me, they were real stumbling blocks, and I resisted most of them for a long time. I did not accept them because they felt good. I accepted them because, after arduous investigation, I concluded they were true.

This submission to an authority other than one’s own whims is the necessary precursor to true worship. If one enters the Church because the chant is pretty, one will leave when the choir takes a week off. But if one enters because the dogma is true, the hard hat does not become a deal-breaker.

There is a profound irony in the early days of a Gen Z conversion. We are often the most rigid about doctrine while attending the most aesthetically loose liturgies. This period, which I call the Beige Honeymoon, is crucial proof of the primacy of truth.

Because I had accepted the dogma of the Real Presence, the symptoms of the suburban parish (the bad hymns, the carpet, the interruptions) could not touch the substance of the Sacrament. I was able to kneel in that beige sanctuary and adore Christ because my faith was independent from the liturgical context I was in. Let me be clear—we should attend and demand access to beautiful liturgies, celebrated according to the rubrics, that honor Our Lord and enrich our faith, but it needs to be paired with a personal and robust assent to the truths of the Church. 

The danger of beauty unanchored by truth is real—we might call it the vibe-chaser. The “Trad” profile with the marble statue avatar, posting slow-motion videos of thuribles and crusader memes, looks like the real thing, smells like the real thing, probably even prays and fasts like the real thing. But it is a gilded surface without much underneath. 

When beauty precedes truth, the convert can become unstable if truth doesn’t take root quickly. The aesthetic of “high church” can become just another dopamine hit, a way to feel superior to the secular monoculture without submitting to the moral demands of the Gospel. This leads to a pinball effect: the young man bounces from the FSSP, to Eastern Orthodoxy, then perhaps to high-church Calvinism, then to Islam, and, finally, into a cynical nihilism. 

He is not seeking God; he is seeking an identity that feels “based.” He is chasing the friction of counterculture rather than the friction of the Cross. He loves the incense because it smells like rebellion—not because it carries his prayers to a God who might command him to forgive his enemy. 

Most of these young men and women do find a more solid foundation for their faith, eventually. The via pulchritudinis—the way of beauty—is a real path to lasting conversion for many. But without the corresponding via veritatis—the way of truth—something more rebellious and more appealing will inevitably appear. 

Eventually, I did find my way out of the beige and into the heritage of the Church. For me, this meant crossing the Tiber and then heading toward the Catholic East. When I finally stood in a liturgy that was ancient, chanted, and obscured by icon screens and incense, something did happen. But it wasn’t a conversion; it was a “click.”

It wasn’t just that it was prettier. Rather, it was that the lex orandi (the law of prayer) finally matched the lex credendi (the law of belief) I had fought so hard to acquire. The weight of the liturgy finally matched the weight of the dogma. When the beauty of the Byzantine Divine Liturgy or the Traditional Latin Mass is the hook, it needs to become the habitat too. 

For those of us in parishes that do have beautiful liturgy as a selling point, it is critical that we invite the new converts and reverts that inevitably show up week after week into a more profound encounter with Our Lord in the sacraments and a sincere love of His dogmas. We must not be tempted into complacency by that initial fervor. 

For those of us trying to reach the next generation, stop trying to curate a “vibe.” Lead with the hard stuff. Challenge the intellect. Present the dogma not as a list of rules but as the only map that corresponds to the territory of the human soul. 

If you give us the truth, unvarnished and arduous, we will stay—even if the roof leaks and the music is bad. We can build the beauty later, with our own hands, as an offering of gratitude for the truth that saved us. But if you give us only vibes, even the most beautiful liturgy will become just another scroll on the screen, swiped away when the mood shifts.