Is there a ‘Quiet Revival’ in the UK?

The Bible Society recently released a report titled ‘The Quiet Revival’ based on polling by YouGov. It received widespread media attention and generated great excitement amongst church leaders who, for many years, have overseen a steady decline in both attendance and influence in a post-Christian, secular society. How are its findings to be read, if we delve beneath the headlines?

Let’s start with what the authors have to say (these are quotes from the Bible Society website article, and they are certainly strongly worded):

Church decline in England and Wales has not only stopped, but the Church is growing, as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance.

Church attendance has risen by 50 per cent over the last six years, busting the myth of church decline. 

The Quiet Revival shows that the most dramatic church growth is among young adults, particularly young men. In 2018, just 4 per cent of 18–24-year-olds said that they attended church at least monthly. Today, says The Quiet Revival, this has risen to 16 per cent, with young men increasing from 4 per cent to 21 per cent, and young women from 3 to 12 per cent.  

Co-author of The Quiet Revival Dr Rhiannon McAleer says the report shows that what people believe about Church decline is no longer true. ‘These are striking findings that completely reverse the widely held assumption that the Church in England and Wales is in terminal decline,’ she said. 

Two potential reactions are equally inappropriate. One is to naively imbibe the headlines, as something church leaders desperately want to hear, so it ‘must be’ true. This aligns with the embarrassing lack of objectivity in the poster displayed behind the desk of Fox Mulder (extra-terrestrial investigator in the X-Files): “I Want To Believe.” The other is to view the report’s apparent findings with deep suspicion, if not cynicism (to which the first group’s likely response would be, “Why are you so set against believing this wonderful news about revival that we’ve so long been praying for?”).

What, then, to make of it? The first thing to say is that no one should be taking a firm view from the headlines (or the Bible Society’s ‘Key Findings’) alone. Only if someone has carefully read the full report and researched beyond the report itself can they draw valid conclusions.  

My first thought is that there appears to be a significant mismatch between the Bible Society’s interpretation of its poll’s findings and church attendance data over the past several years, which has continued to show steady decline for more than a century. Numerous recent articles have speculated on the reasons why this mismatch may be the case, none of which is easily verifiable. We should probably say that, at best, one swallow is not evidence that summer is here. Actual attendance-related data reported by a range of denominations and movements would need to be further correlated over a period.

My second thought is to question the extent to which the survey’s conclusions align with churches’ real-life experience. Is it really the case that more than one-in-five young men in the UK between the ages of 18-24 attend church at least once a month? Do half of young Black people aged 18–34? Is it the case that ‘More men than women go to church’? Ultimately, what matters is not what a survey says but what actual churches’ real-life experiences say. Are these true of your church? Is attendance booming?   

My third thought is that although evangelical organisations have for some years been fighting a rearguard action against what they see as ‘the enemy’ of postmodernity, had they paid more attention to its positives, they would already know that an interest in ‘spirituality’ is one of its features. In that sense, there is nothing new here, but it may be news to evangelicals focused on attacking its negatives.

It is important not to read an interest in ‘spirituality’ as an interest in organised religion as such, and especially not to assume that it equates to an equal interest in every ‘brand’ of Christianity. It’s rather too easy for church leaders to assume that the upsurge in interest ‘must be’ in ‘our kind’ of church.   

For example, despite taking great encouragement from The Quiet Revival, the FIEC (Federation of Independent Evangelical Churches) presciently observed in an April 11 online article that the church growth it reports has been disproportionate and has been significantly impacted by migration:

The growth in church attendance has not been uniform across denominations. The greatest growth has been within Catholicism and Pentecostalism. Catholics have increased from 23% of churchgoers in 2018 to 31% today, and Pentecostals from 4% in 2018 to 10% today. In contrast, Anglicans have dropped from 41% to 34%.

Much of the growth is also attributable to the effects of migration. There is currently a net migration rate of 728,000 per year to the UK, and the large rise in the number of Catholics and Pentecostals is almost certainly a result of migration from Africa and elsewhere bolstering the number of church attenders.

The overall statistics conceal the challenge of re-evangelising the indigenous population.

The churches that are growing fall into two broad categories.

On the one hand, some young people are turning to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. They are attracted by the solemnity and historical rootedness of formal ritualism. The more sacramental style fits with the zeitgeist of nebulous spirituality and the desire for transcendence that rises above the mundane.

The other growing churches are those that faithfully preach the apostolic gospel in all its depth and provide a warm and welcoming community to all comers.

The churches that are declining are the mainstream churches that have abandoned the biblical gospel in favour of a liberalism that reflects the progressive culture …

The lesson is that people want substance not superficiality.

It remains to be seen whether the turn to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy endures, or whether this is a natural swing of the cultural pendulum that will prove to have been a spiritual fad of the moment.

Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and to some extent Pentecostalism offer a brand of Christian faith that is characterised by long continuity with historic tradition (in the first two instances), contemplative spiritual practices, transcendence, sacramentality, and inner experience. These naturally align with a desire for a spiritual dimension to life, connecting with the divine. But whether the FIEC’s assumptions about the attractiveness of its own brand of Christianity are so clearly the case is another matter: what it describes as “faithfully preaching the apostolic gospel in all its depth,” “providing a warm welcome to all comers,” and offering “substance not superficiality.”

What comes as part of the package in this FIEC “apostolic gospel” that offers “substance” (contra the “liberalism that reflects the progressive culture”) includes forbidding women to teach or preach (or to serve as pastors or elders), recognising male ‘headship’ over women, opposing all forms of homosexuality (including same-sex marriages and civil partnerships), and declaring that any sexual activity (including heterosexual) outside of marriage is sinful. However, none of these would be viewed as self-evident truths by the vast majority of the unchurched young people whom The Quiet Revival believes are (or will be) flocking to churches. Receiving the gospel in an FIEC church will require affirming this package of beliefs as well.   

This is not to say that Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches do not also reflect such beliefs, of course, though they may be less visible (less visibly enforced). But if young people are, indeed, coming into the church because of a renewed interest in spirituality—a seeking after encounter with the divine—it will be interesting to see how they respond when they discover these expectations of belief and practice. I’m not sure that revival will mean they suddenly see them as self-evidently 'obvious truths’.   

Please note that I am not advocating for a position on these matters of belief and practice; I am simply pointing them out, as an observer and commentator.

FIEC churches are at the most conservative (even ‘fundamentalist’) end of conservative evangelicalism (they would probably see that as a badge of honour), so they are not fully representative of all conservative evangelical churches (many of which, for example, take a more inclusive approach to women’s involvement). But they nonetheless share many other conservative beliefs, cultural as well as theological (differing only in degree or manner of framing), so the underlying point is the same.  

Credit to FIEC, though—it’s completely up-front about those beliefs. Its website is crystal clear, presumably because it’s proud to be standing up for truth as it sees it.

Other evangelical denominations and movements are less forthcoming, not least when it comes to what, for the vast majority of young people, is a big one: acceptance of their gay friends and family members on equal terms—acknowledging that their same-sex attraction is a naturally occurring feature of who they are (rather than just a sinful lifestyle choice, or the result of trauma).    

Why are these other conservative evangelical churches not upfront in the same way as FIEC? Because they realise that aside from some young people who have grown up in church, young people believe that homophobia, as it’s called (except by conservative Christians), is directly equivalent to racism and sexism; and no wonder, since this is what’s taught in schools. They can’t believe in a God who is any of those things. To be told, “God accepts gay people provided they stay single and celibate” won’t wash for very long, because it’s seen as unkind and unfair for straight people (who wouldn’t understand) to insist upon that for reasons that will be perceived more as a conservative yearning to return to a 1950s-kind of society than essential dogma. They won’t see why a loving God wouldn’t just accept their gay friends and family members as they are.     

Credit is also due in a way to these other conservative evangelical denominations and movements, but for an entirely opposite reason. They realise how fundamentally unsaleable their position is to the unchurched audience they wish to reach with their gospel, so they astutely avoid publicising it! The hope is, presumably, that by ‘welcoming’ people to ‘come as they are’ in the first instance, the attraction of the other aspects of church will then be enough to enable them to live with these beliefs when, in due course, they find out about them. Perhaps the sugar coating of the welcome will be enough.     

In short, conservative evangelical churches who tell themselves that they are (or very will soon be) enjoying a renaissance thanks in no small part to ‘holding the line’ on traditional, conservative beliefs (not least, those concerning gay people)—and that this is actually a key reason for their kind of church being so attractive to young, unchurched people—may be guilty of wishful thinking. The easiest way to find out, of course, is by being totally up-front about those beliefs and seeing whether the explanations for them are saleable. 

I think FIEC is right in saying that “The overall statistics conceal the challenge of re-evangelising the indigenous population.” A revival in personal spirituality—desire for an authentic connection with God—is one thing. A revival in the attraction of conservative evangelicalism may be something else entirely.