Young Anglican: A Gen Z Voice in the Digital Wilderness

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In an era marked by rapid change and a pervasive sense of cultural unease, many seek a deeper understanding of their place in the world, often turning to faith for answers. Among the rising voices in this search for meaning is Joe Colletti, known online as “Young Anglican.”

Colletti’s journey is far from typical; his path to Anglicanism is a fascinating blend of intellectual rigor, personal experience, and a deep engagement with faith and the challenges of the modern world. Through his YouTube channel and other online platforms, “Young Anglican” offers a compelling perspective on faith, tradition, and the relevance of Anglicanism for a new generation. From my time spent interviewing Joe, he impressed me with his entire approach to apologetics ministry, deeply informed by his personal and unique journey towards faith in Christ.

A Journey of Faith and Intellectual Exploration

Collettiโ€™s early life was characterized by a mix of religious and secular influences. His mother was raised Jewish, with her father being an orthodox Jew. His father was an ex-Roman Catholic-turned-atheist. He describes his upbringing as “more Jewish than anything else,” attending conservative synagogues. Joe says he was a “true believer” as a child, recalling a moment when he prayed for rain to get out of an art class. When it did rain, he felt that was proof of God. However, he felt his faith challenged as he approached his Bar Mitzvah, particularly when his rabbi told him that some biblical stories were more about lessons than โ€œreality,โ€ a perspective that shook the faith of then-13-year-old Joe.

Atheism, Marxism, and an Encounter with Jesus

At this crucial moment, the reintroduction of Collettiโ€™s father, a “very skeptical atheist,” only reinforced this skeptical turn in his thinking. This led Colletti to eventually trade his Judaism for Communism, becoming a “very avid Marxist” in high school. This phase, however, “totally destroyed” his mental health, leading Joe to seek therapy and eventually resolve to grapple earnestly with the problem of “meaning” that his Marxist literature couldnโ€™t satisfy. This renewed search received dramatic help from a miraculous experience where Joe and his friends felt seized by the image of Jesus when seeing a homeless woman. Jesus instructed them to buy food and help the homeless woman, which they each followed without any deliberation between themselves.ย 

Although Colletti initially joined his friends in attributing this experience to a โ€œsocial constructโ€ based on some vague sense of guilt they were experiencing, it had a profound effect on him. This prompted Joe to explore various โ€œJesus-respectingโ€ religious traditions, including a mosque, a Greek Orthodox church, and a Roman Catholic church. It was at the Roman Catholic church, though, that Colletti says he recognized the face of the man who had appeared to him and his friend in the image of Jesus on the crucifix.

Finding the Messiah

Joeโ€™s search for truth led him to read the Bible seriously, and with the help of Jordan Petersonโ€™s lectures, he came to see the powerful social value of religion. He returned to Judaism for a time, teaching Hebrew school, but he found the Old Testament difficult. In fact, useful as the popular psychologist’s perspective was to Joe, he says Peterson can only really lead one to an โ€œOld Testamentโ€ mode of belief. He realized he was not living up to the standards he felt he should be, feeling “like a wretch.”

A pivotal moment occurred when Joe listened to Isaiah 7 on audiobook, which describes a messianic figure โ€œborn of a virginโ€ (Isaiah 7:14). This led him to investigate the translation of the word “virgin” and the concept of Emmanuel, meaning โ€œGod with us.โ€ This resonated with a conversation he had with a Catholic priest, who had said, โ€œGod is Jesus, and Jesus is God with us.โ€

Searching for a Sign

Colletti came to believe that the Messiah described in Isaiah had already come, leading him to conclude that Christianity must be true. He explored Jewish apologetics that attempted to answer his questions about Isaiah 7, but Isaiah 52 and 53, which describe Jesusโ€™ life, death, and ministry, further solidified his conviction. Joe engaged with 19th-century apologists like Adolf Safir. To Joe’s surprise, the same arguments Safir made then still hold true now, which led him to accept Christianity intellectually. However, he was hesitant to convert. Joe says he โ€œprayed for an undeniable sign.โ€

While studying abroad in England, he met a woman who was a serious Christian and who would later become his wife. Joe says this meeting felt like an answer to his prayer. He later received an Alpha course pamphlet, and, reading and praying alone in his room, Joe Colletti became a Christian.

The Path to Anglicanism

After his conversion, but not yet an Anglican, Colletti started attending church with his now-wife, who had grown up Episcopalian but had an evangelical awakening in high school. He was initially hesitant about Christianity’s internal divisions and considered becoming Roman Catholic at one point. However, after reading the New Testament (at his wifeโ€™s insistence), Joe concluded that some Catholic interpretations simply didnโ€™t make sense of the text.

Joe turned his analytical mind to examining the differences between Christian traditions, with infant baptism becoming a significant issue for him. He was attending an evangelical church that did not practice infant baptism. Colletti realized he might need to find another church when he became convinced of infant baptism. However, to his surprise, his pastor technically believed in infant baptism, but the church didnโ€™t practice it. One particular problem regarding authority in Protestantism had already become apparent. After briefly considering Presbyterianism, Joe became persuaded of the importance of episcopal polity, which narrows the Protestant playing field quite a bit.ย 

Ultimately, Joe was convinced that Anglicanism was the right path because it combined episcopal polity with the Protestant understanding of biblical authority and the biblical doctrine of justification. When the Collettis relocated to their current home, Joe found an Anglican church and was baptized there.

Anglican Distinctives and How to Reach Gen Z

Before you can fully understand Joe Collettiโ€™s apologetics ministry, you need to understand who exactly his primary audience is. No generation is a homogenous blob, and Colletti has been reaching out to a specific subset of โ€œGeneration Zโ€ (sometimes called โ€œZoomersโ€) who seem to share some very particular traits. These young folks, many of them men, have taken an important step that sets them apart from many of their peers. Joe directly engages with a segment of Gen Z that has specifically chosen to walk away from the values, sentiments, and habits of the majority secular-liberal culture.

Colletti says that the lectures of Jordan Peterson were helpful for him at a time when he needed to understand the social value of Christianity, but Peterson also taught him to appreciate the intellectual and cultural value of the West. Of course, both of these messages fly in the face of that de facto โ€œreligionโ€ that our thoroughly secularized culture pushes so hardโ€”in schools, many of our public institutions, and especially some of the major sources of narrative, media, and entertainment.

A Generation Seeking Stability

The โ€œseekersโ€ that Young Anglican appeals to today are young, and theyโ€™re not motivated by the blitz of โ€œcreature comfortsโ€ so many of their generation have been conditioned to consume. Rather, theyโ€™re desperate for more enduring sources of stability, ones that happen to be missing in the sea of cultural chaos they find themselves in.ย 

Unafraid of robust intellectual engagement, these โ€œdetachedโ€ young people want:

  • a sense of transcendent beauty,ย 
  • the rootedness that tradition provides, andย 
  • legitimate and authoritative ordering of life.ย 

What theyโ€™re suspicious of are pat answers, emotionalism, or any indication that the person theyโ€™re engaging with lacks the clarity of their own conviction. Joe Colletti knows these people well; heโ€™s one of them, and he wants to show them Christ.

Enter โ€œYoung Anglicanโ€: An Online Apologist

Joe Collettiโ€™s baptism marked the end of one journey and the beginning of another. He started having theological discussions with his priest and soon after began his YouTube channel, “Young Anglican,” as a personal vlog. He wanted to raise awareness about these issues and thought Anglicans happened to be correct on their distinctives.

Joe had some hard conversations with family members who wondered why he had to stop being Jewish, even if Christianity is true, and he felt the need to explain his convictions. When he went to law school, people were not used to religious people being honest about their beliefs, which led to more conversations about faith. Ultimately, Joe created videos he could share as a way to answer the questions people were asking him.

Initial Apologetics

At first, Young Anglican focused on general Christian apologetics. Joe felt the Christian argument from history, for example, was being underrepresented.ย  His online presence eventually led to him connecting with fellow apologist “Redeemed Zoomer,” who has been making a big splash lately. Colletti says that, for all the interest and engagement he gets with his content in this space, there are precious few people really contending for these souls in the name of orthodox Christianity.ย 

One notable exception to this Colletti gives is the Eastern Orthodox Church, and young people online appear to be heading towards the Orthodox Church in droves because it appears to offer a wealth of beauty, tradition, and authority. More importantly, perhaps, in this space, Orthodox priests and internet apologists are making their case in no uncertain terms. Of course, all of this would be fine, except that Eastern Orthodoxy is in error on some really important points, says Colletti.

Biblically Ordered Tradition and Authority

One significant area where Anglicanism and the other catholic forms of Christianity like Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism agree is that โ€œtraditionโ€ plays an important role. The belief in continuity, not just an adherence to the creeds of the ancient Church councils, but also a general affirmation of the polity (bishops in apostolic succession), worship (the historic liturgy), and sacramental character of church life (Holy Communion, infant baptism) is shared by all three, but Colletti says Anglicans have one advantage the others lack. We uphold the Bible in its rightful place in relation to tradition and authority.

Colletti says that Anglicanism rightly orders things, with Godโ€™s word at the top. Where the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist down the street has little room for tradition or authority (and so little appeal for intellectual Gen Z), the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic have failed to submit their traditions and teaching authority to the rightful authority of Sacred Scripture. The rest of the differences are downstream from this basic point, a catholic โ€œwinโ€ for the Protestant Reformation, but one that is rarely upheld in careful relation to the importance of tradition and authority (outside of Anglicanism, that is). This is a message that Young Anglican is desperate to get out to Gen Z, and one that Joe Colletti insists that the Anglican Church will boldly adopt in order to provide them an ecclesiastical home.

Young Anglican Showcase

Of course, the best way to get to know Young Anglican is to see him in action. Here are some of Collettiโ€™s favorite and most popular videos. Check them out for yourself, and feel free to share one with somebody you know who might them:

Why Be Anglican?

Why Did Jesus Have to Suffer and Die on the Cross?

The Stakes of the Debate Around Baptism

Why the Trinity?

Joe has also done several interviews with prominent Anglicans, including some names our readers would recognize from Anglican Compass.

Anglican Renaissance

Colletti says Gen Z people must be doing two things at once: listening to a podcast while checkingย Instagram, etc… He also notes how many Christians will repeat โ€œthe Church Fathers say Xโ€ because they heard someone say so but rarely bother to read the original source for themselves. Joe is trying to address the need for firsthand familiarity with the shared resources of Christianity. He started a second YouTube channel called โ€œAnglican Renaissance Libraryโ€ where Joe reads audiobooks on relevant apologetical topics so people can consume the content while doing other things. Joe believes that if you donโ€™t put your hat in the ring, others will, and they may very well misrepresent the data.

Joe also believes passionately that everyone should have a pastor, not try to live out their faith journey alone or follow their whims online.ย  In fact, he got so many requests for help finding โ€œa good Anglican churchโ€ that he created a map on his resource website, Anglican Renaissance, to help people find an Anglican church. He says that long-term apologists should be trained theologians, which he is not. Colletti speculates that most people with theological degrees donโ€™t have a ton of technological literacy, so for now, Young Anglican is staying the course. However, he encourages people to attend a local parish once they have become convinced of Anglicanism so a priest can answer their questions.

Conclusion

Joe Collettiโ€””Young Anglican”โ€”represents a fresh, compelling voice for a new generation seeking meaning, tradition, and intellectual depth in their faith. His journey from Judaism to skeptic, through various religious and philosophical perspectives to faith in Christ andย  Anglicanism, has provided him a unique and valuable lens through which heโ€™s assessing and facing the challenges and opportunities facing young people today. No doubt older and more experienced leaders in the church can learn something from Joe and will find ways to support and utilize โ€œYoung Anglicanโ€ as he seeks to be faithful with the gifts and experiences that God has provided.


Image courtesy of Young Anglican.

Published on

January 31, 2025

Author

Jesse Nigro

Jesse Nigro is Sales Coordinator at Anglican Compass, serving as the primary contact for ads, books, and event listings. He is also Editor-in-Chief at The North American Anglican. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with his wife and children.

View more from Jesse Nigro

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