According to sections of the media, Britain is experiencing a Generation Z-led Christian revival. Over the past year, opinion columns, online reels and news reports have pointed to a surge in faith, with young people expressing a renewed interest in religion. This has led to the term “revival” being used with growing confidence, particularly in a post-Christian Britain where non-religious affiliation remains the dominant trend.

However, a Times article this week has cast doubt on this interpretation. Analysts and global researchers, including figures from the Pew Research Center, have argued that much of the revival narrative rests on questionable data. Yet can the many eyewitness accounts of people coming to the Christian faith simply be brushed aside?

A survey published last year found that regular churchgoing among 18-24 year olds had increased from 4% to 16% between 2018 and 2024. Not only that, but in March last year it was also reported that Bible sales had surged. This fueled the revival narrative. Yet Pew analysis from last week suggested these figures should be treated cautiously. Many such surveys draw on opt-in panels, introducing selection bias. By contrast, random-sample surveys, such as the British Social Attitudes Survey, continue to show decline or stagnation. According to the BSA, the share of young adults who are Christian churchgoers has not risen above pre-pandemic levels. Taken together, there seems to be little evidence of a large-scale revival.

Historical revivals have typically been marked by mass conversion, rapid institutional growth, and measurable increases in religious commitment. This is not what we are witnessing today. Instead, there appears to be growing cultural openness among young people to metaphysical and spiritual questions. The present moment is therefore better understood as an awakening: a pre-revival shift in worldview rather than an endpoint. Many young people are attending services, discussion groups, and theological events — which all fall outside traditional metrics — without converting at scale. Surveys, naturally, do not capture the full picture.

When analysts rely solely on attendance figures and identity labels, they risk overlooking the cultural and imaginative shifts that typically precede renewal. Different subgroups within Gen Z show varied patterns: not a monolithic rise in Christianity, but diverse expressions of spiritual engagement.

What is being reshaped is moral anthropology, the underlying assumptions about what it means to be human. As deeper questions of meaning, purpose, and human flourishing return to the center of public consciousness, the worldview that underpins society begins to shift. Secular liberalism has largely framed modern Britain’s sense of itself. And yet it has failed to buttress people in an age characterized by anxiety, depression, increased inequality and technological disorientation. A renewed openness to spirituality does not simply add religion back into public life; it alters how people think about the human person — and, ultimately, how society is ordered.

Universities and urban centers played a significant role in the rise of the so-called “woke” movement in the early 2010s, despite this demographic representing only a minority of wider society. It would therefore be naïve to dismiss the present shift simply because it is not yet reflected in national numbers.

This is not a revival in the classical sense. But neither is it mere media hype. It reflects a reconfiguration of Britain’s moral and spiritual imagination after decades of confident secularism. Historically, renewal begins not with crowded pews, but with small subjective changes in perception. If that is what is now underway, its significance should not be underestimated.

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Jide Ehizele writes on faith, culture, and belonging in modern Britain.

OBEhizele

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