For decades, there has been a cultural narrative that the church is a declining institution, which has been backed up by data that shows fewer and fewer British people are attending services. You might expect churches to be busy over festivals like this past Easter weekend, or Christmas, but with otherwise sparse crowds and aging parishioners for the rest of the year.
However, a recent survey entitled The Quiet Revival, commissioned by the Bible Society and conducted by YouGov, shows that church attendance in England and Wales has actually increased by 50% over the past six years, and that young people aged between 18 and 24 are the second largest demographic in attendance (behind those who are 65 and over). The trend is especially strong with young men, with 21% aged 18 to 24 saying they attend church at least once a month, compared with 12% of young women. The data also shows that generation Z are particularly drawn to Roman Catholicism, which accounts for a significant rise in the number of Catholics in England, almost closing the overall gap between those who identify as Catholic and those who identify as Anglican.
England and Wales are not alone in seeing more young men attending church, with the New York Times religion correspondent, Ruth Graham, reporting that the same trend can be seen across the US. Graham is blunt in her proposed reason for this, stating that men are less educated than their female peers, while also placing a higher value on traditional family structures, meaning that they find encouragement and reinforcement in conservative church communities.
This is a somewhat unsympathetic reading of the circumstances, but when attempting to locate the possible influences on these young men, the landscape does look bleak. Thanks to the recent Netflix show Adolescence, there has been much public reckoning with the radicalisation of young boys and men through online spaces and podcasts that are overtly misogynistic – and plenty of these masquerade as platforms of Christian, specifically Catholic, values. The Instagram page warrior.4.christ acts as a Catholic “meme page”, with openly homophobic, antisemitic and culturally conservative content, posting quotes about anti-abortion movements and generally being against “liberalism”. There is very little interaction with actual biblical scripture or Catholic practice, beyond using a vaguely defined idea of it to justify a celebration of rightwing ideas and talking points.
Tristan Tate, brother of the infamous male lifestyle influencer Andrew Tate, has also been vocal about his conversion to Christianity. The Tate brothers reside in Romania (where they are facing charges of human trafficking, which they deny), and Tristan has spoken about the strong belief in God among Romanians that encouraged him to convert. He also identifies abortion as one of the topics that he now “takes seriously”. Tristan Tate and other influencers place emphasis on the real misogynistic or reactionary elements of some Christian movements, and make them part of their wider ecosystem of influence on young men and boys.
The Bible Society’s report states that more research is needed to fully discern where a desire to join Christian faith communities has stemmed from. The murkier corners of the internet are very probably a factor, but I can’t help but remain cautiously optimistic about the findings. The report also highlights how a significant concern for all of the gen Z participants interviewed is social activism, with far more churchgoing interviewees recording that they do frequent community and charity work compared to those who are not church members. This work is recorded as donating to food banks, financial donations to charities, voting in elections, writing to local representatives and communal work such as litter picking. These are hopeful statistics that demonstrate a positive participation in society that is encouraged by churchgoing.
What both of these possible influences highlight is an overriding wish for community, whether in the more rigid boundaries of the Catholic church, or in the collective work that English and Welsh churches of all denominations encourage and facilitate. An instinct towards a collective with a solid foundation is understandable in an age bracket that has had its education, whether in secondary school or university (or both), disrupted by a global pandemic. Where school or university should have provided a social outlet for young people alongside their education, necessity meant that they instead had isolated experiences.
On top of this, years of austerity in England and Wales has meant that community centres and public halls have drastically declined in numbers, with spending on libraries, theatres and museums falling. Young people looking for community may find that a local church or cathedral is the only place close to them with regular opening hours and people ready to talk and listen. That these same churches and cathedrals very often organise group charity work is a clear plus. In my own constituency area of Liverpool Riverside, Micah is the charitable arm of Liverpool Cathedral and other churches, providing food and financial aid to local people in need, and it was a big reason for my own initial interest in joining the church.
As a regular churchgoer, it would be lovely to celebrate the findings of The Quiet Revival and to leave it at that. However, the data is so unusual and unexpected that it invites analysis – and when digging for clues, not all of them are positive. What can be discerned is that more people are searching for meaning in an ever-changing and demonstrably politically unstable world, and they are finding this in multiple forms of Christianity. This is good and should be celebrated – but as people who have a vested interest in our neighbours, we should also look out for signs of possible online radicalisation and tendencies towards hateful speech in the guise of Jesus’s influence.
Jessica White is a writer based in Liverpool
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