To find it interesting how the UK is apparently having a 'Christian revival'?

[BonxBonx]

I was watching the news the other day and they were talking about how there has been a big increase in church attendance over the past couple of years, particularly among Gen Z. Anecdotally, I have seen a few friends (in our mid-to-late 20s) 'find God' and start going to church over the past couple of years. Not just passively attending either; actively engaging in Bible classes and retreats. My TikTok is also showing me a lot of this - British 20-somethings talking about their Christianity.

I find it really interesting, especially the timing of it. With the advances in science and us having been a pretty atheist society for a while now, I am surprised. Is it a consequence of being on the back end of the pandemic followed by a cost-of-living crisis that people are looking for answers outside of themselves? I know when things get hard I find myself praying, even when I don't believe in God. Is this an example of that kind of thinking but on a bigger scale?

I think you’ll find that people who think religion is total nonsense are generally rather better-informed than believers. It’s seldom ‘not having read the NT’ that makes someone an atheist.

Any rise in organised religion is generally a sign of a crisis in society. The UK is currently not in a great place. It’s hardly surprising people are clutching at straws.

Ok I acknowledge that my post was confusing there! I guess I was making two points -

1. Not many Christians you speak to will actually tell you the world was created in 7 days.

2. My personal view is that for something written 10,000 years ago it's not a terrible storybook style explanation - first came the universe, then the planet, then animals, then people. I'm not saying it's 100% correct but as a primitive explanation it could be far more off the mark.

There's also been an increase in ex-vangelicals. Those of us who were involved in evangelical Christianity and now see it for what it is. Thankfully greater awareness of spiritual abuse and sexual inappropriateness. Revelations of sexual abuse and other abuse of power within the church.

I saw this posted on Instagram and thought it was interesting re the perception Americans have of their lives (probably not too different here).

You could argue your chances of getting a home, kids and community increases markedly by joining a religion. Religious people tend to be more likely to marry so if you meet someone from church chances are you may fall in love and marry. Dual income means you are more likely to be able to move from your parents home in time and form your own household unit. You probably would have kids with time..you could have a community with the church. Otherwise you might just be a sad person swiping right on every girl he sees on bumble and barely getting any responses.

Yes you can join hobby groups but many of it involve money. Church is free. Also less of a guarantee the girl at salsa class is interested in marriage and kids. Maybe she wants to be single and never have kids which is perfectly valid. Maybe she is interested in marriage but not at 28, at 34 (so you will be ruled out in favour of better casual boyfriends). In a religious setting there would be more women interested in serious relationships and marriage in a shorter time frame.

Edit image being reviewed- basically it is a post that compared cost of various consumer goods and rent from 1980s vs 2025 and basically in today's world, average person's budget is in negative territory even if price of consumer goods have gone down as rent has gone up so much. It goes on to say that what's considered a luxury is having a home, kids, community, taste and health and no one has a normal life anymore (probably means lots of people can afford a iPhone and lots of expensive gadgets and holidays but they don't necessarily make us happy)..

I'm not saying that reading the NT will "make" anyone a believer. I just think lots of people ha e very strong opinions about the Bible without actually knowing what it's about.

As for atheists being better informed, that is quite a staggeringly arrogant position to hold. There are a great many highly intelligent and educated Christians. Of course the same is true of atheists, but please don't fall into the trap of believing all Christians are poorly educated or stupid people.

Trying to get their kids into church schools? Or am I on the wrong age 'gen', it's hard to keep up

I’m Gen X/millenial ( on the cusp). I think it’s just a late 20’s thing.

i remember a few people in my wider circle going through a ‘Jesus’ phase. The Alpha course was a thing about that age. It never lasted. They were back on the booze and fags before long.

I think we all reach a stage where we look for meaning in life and a lot were basically looking for a husband ( which was obvious at the time but few would admit it)

interestingly, this all happens around 28, which is your Saturn returns ( also a load of bs but maybe it’s just a stage where we question our direction etc)

I’d say Christianity covers a lot of bases. I’m not a fan of the ones where it’s a bit like a cult, but in fairness to the churches near me, it’s all about community and they do a lot for those in need.

Indeed.

The irony is though that religion won't get the UK into a great place. The USA is going through this - their middle class has been squeezed harder and longer than the middle class here, and evangelical churches have flourished. Over 80% of evangelicals voted Trump in 2016. Religion truly provides one with many ways to blight one's self.

Based on threads on here, Christians are woefully under-informed about basics like the dating and history of the Bible, the (probable) historical Jesus as one first-century Messiah among many, the splitting off of early Christianity from Second Temple Judaism. And thinking that the divinity of Jesus is ‘proven’ by him appearing to fulfil OT prophecies rather than the gospel writers being careful to construct his life so as to fit with those prophecies etc. Bible ‘study’ seldom seems to involve much ‘study’.

I would say it’s a lot to do with the need for a community and social interaction, plus a ‘meaning’ to life in a world that gets crazier and more depressing by the day.

They always do that.

I wonder if could be related to how online everything is now so people are seeking out a real life community

Ok I acknowledge that my post was confusing there! I guess I was making two points -

Not many Christians you speak to will actually tell you the world was created in 7 days.

But that's because we now know that it isn't true! Ask any Christian 300 years ago if the world was created in 7 days and 100% of answers would have been yes. Science has disproven it and countless other Biblical claims over that period, to the extent that what a Christian now believes is very very different, even though the source data, the fundamental basis of your religion, hasn't.

Which is why when my friend told me he was considering Christianity as a ex Muslim atheist, I encouraged him to attend the unitarian church lol.

Not all the denominations are the same.

As long as it stays that way... I'm Christian born & raised Gen Z myself & would all the issues for young people now, religion is a great anchor , giving spiritualuty, community & emcouraging charity work.I've heard of somilar in France & US. I think also w casual sex & trans ideology being pushed so much, young people nay be reacting against this, which is good as long as it doesn't start getting into sexist etc territory.

. At the same time, I worry a lot about the upswing in fundamentalist Christianity in America, which orgs like the Alliance Defending Freedom are trying to import over here w their anti abortion protests. Esp w the rise of reform & online misogyny/extremism. I've been keeping an eye on weird stuff like Trad Caths (Catholics who reject the second Vatican council) and Jonathan Pageau (v sexist Orthodox "symbolism interpretsr' on YouTube w a large following

. It is disturbing, the support extreme stuff is getting from young people online, esp w stuff like Reform who w probs encourage this & sexist influencers. Some manosphere pushes a return to traditional Christianity for instance, meaning women are obedient. A lot of the push is fine, but some not so much.

A lot of the upswing is apparently young men, which is v good for their mental health & will hopefully keep them off Tate & Company, but I just hope it doesn't mean they start pushing for traditional gender roles (as in women shouldn't work, myst have lots of kids and should obey) & believing gay relationships are sinful.

I know a number of people slightly younger than me, so early 30’s, who became involved in Hillsong during their 20’s and remain so. Know others who have been actively Christian all their lives.

I’m atheist I suppose, I simply do not believe at all however really I think it is more accurate to describe myself as “culturally Christian”. Christmas and Easter are things I loosely take part in, for example.

I do find religion interesting, the cultural practices which have sprung up around them, why people turn to them, why people are willing to be aggressive about their religion, the peace it brings to some people.

I don't really understand your point? Anyone you asked 300 years ago would have had a different response, Christian or not. Are Christians not allowed to change their minds about things in line with new scientific discoveries? There are many ways to reconcile religion with science.

@Kreisler

Well, I grew up with Christian parents (and identified as a Christian myself until I was about 19) but I was fortunate in that neither were forceful about it and, apart from a spell for about a year when I was ten years old of going to a nearby church once a month, church attendance/Christian practices weren't part of our family growing up. My parents were/are believers, but they never forced it upon me or my sister, so I was lucky to have had an overall positive experience.

Although I turned away from Christianity, I've simply ended up selecting a different religion (Celtic Paganism) as well as witchcraft and occultism. I'm more theist than Christians, since I'm a polytheist who believes in the existence of all deities from all religions/pantheons. (This is common in paganism and occultism.) I still believe the Christian God exists, but IMO, he's one of many, and one that I'm personally not interested in engaging with. So I leave him be and focus upon the deities that interest me and/or that I hope can help me out with certain things. So recently, for me, that's been Hekate (of the Greek pantheon) and Manannan Mac Lir (Irish Celtic.)

I'm an atheist but I think it's a good thing.

I have noticed a lot of random ‘god lives you’ stickers on lamp posts recently.
Not for me, I grew out of imaginary friends at a young age but not bothered what anyone else believes in.

My point is that the original response was to the claim that science doesn't disprove the bible. When given an example of where it does, she said Christians don't believe that bit anyway. My point is that they no longer believe it because it's been disproven. Christians used to believe that the Bible was the word of God and 100% true. Now they are able to pick and choose which bits are real and which bits are only stories because so much of the 100% true book has been shown to very wrong.

Yes, but (some, not the Biblical literalists) Christians have shifted their interpretation of the creation in Genesis from ‘literally true’ to ‘a poetic metaphor’. No reason, therefore to think that interpretations of the gospels shouldn’t shift to, say, Jesus only being metaphorically the Son of God in the sense that he was a good man, or the resurrection as a poetic metaphor for how long-lived his teachings were in the minds of his followers etc. Or the miracles as inventions inserted by the gospel writers to retrospectively make a man whose short life appeared to involve wandering around Galilee consorting with lowlifes and then being executed for sedition sound like an impressive figure.

You are underestimating how many of us grew up in religious backgrounds, studying the bible at school, church and home and still think it's a pile of shit.
It's very arrogant of you.
I grew up in a devoutly catholic family, attended catholic schools with compulsory RE GCSE, compulsory Christian Theology AS level (not your bog standard catholic high school, it was run by a religious order).
And of the people who I went to school with people are 50 50- either really quite religious or vehemently against it.
The fact that the school also taught classical civilisation so you could make your own links about how the church just overlaid customs, tales and holidays over what had come before didn't really help their cause tbh...

As I said upthread, I wad raised Christian but sadly this year after research I now find it impossible to believe the resurrection narrative, which wax always hard for me. I still hold Jesus' teachings v close but can no longer see him as divine. I had long considered converting to Judaism (Conservative) as in many ways I prefer the ethos and can no longer accept the NT narrative, yet I find the OT narrative of Sinai impossible to believe after research too....
I think the moral is to not dig to deep unless absolute necessary. I was happier when I believed whole heartedly