A Comeback for Faith in the UK

Jonathan Aitken

New spiritual interest emerging from the rubble of arrogant materialism

Atheists won’t like to hear it but there is growing evidence that faith may be making a comeback in contemporary Britain. This is not a rush to religion. It is a more subtle trend often outside the footprint of traditional churchgoing. But as we come towards the end of the 21st century’s first decade, with the old power structures of arrogant materialism and political authority crumbling, there are unmistakable signs of rising spiritual interest—particularly among the thoughtful and the young.

What are these signs? Where, how and why are they surfacing? They will not be detectable to anyone looking for the magic religion of Woody Allen’s quip, “If only God would give me a clear sign: like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank”.

Maybe this is because banks, like so many other former landmarks of reliability, have become part of tomorrow’s problem. As tomorrow is the age of anxiety it is natural that many people should have begun their own processes of questioning today’s failing certainties. What is being discarded is the aggressive secularism, political correctness and militant materialism of the-me-and-my-bonus mindset. The search is on for deeper meanings, better values, and that “need for something more” which seeks a spiritual dimension to life.

To assess the reality of such searchings this Christmas, here is a personal portrait of recent events, conversations, faith-based works and signs of spiritual optimism which I have encountered just in the last few weeks. I understand this territory because, since coming out of prison almost ten years ago, I have myself been searching for and finding stronger spiritual foundations. At first bucketfuls of cynicism were poured over my Christian journey.

Privately I was more sympathetic towards those cynics than I let on. For my early weeks as a mature theology student threw up many self doubts about “getting religion” and “foxhole conversions”. Today I am much more a failed-again than a Born-Again Christian. But after a painful process of stumbling, doubting and even wondering whether I had lost my marbles, the seeds of faith slowly took root and grew in me, just as they seem to be growing today in many other searchers. So from that same path, here are some snapshots which provide evidence in support of the trend towards greater spirituality in today’s Britain.

On November 12 I took part in a debate at the Oxford Union where a packed chamber of 19 to 22 year olds argued over the resolution Britain should return to Christian values. Before the evening began I bet one of my fellow guest speakers that in the prevailing climate of secularism, the faith side of the motion was likely to be defeated by at least a two thirds majority. Absolutely wrong! After a passionate four hour debate, the Oxford students voted 245-235 in favour of values based on Jesus’ teachings. “Tonight the Christians have eaten the lions”, joked one astonished older agnostic. He also said how impressed he was by the intellectual vigour of the pro-faith student debaters, particularly by the 21 year old proposer of the motion Shengwu-Li, a Balliol College philosophy scholar and a grandson of Lee Kwan Yew, the founding President of Singapore.

If this Oxonian result could be dismissed as a quirky flash in the pan, (like the Union’s notorious 1939 vote in favour of “This house would not fight for King and Country”) it could be easily forgotten. But in a city where the matrix between young atheists and young believers produces plenty of both heat and light, it is clear that some forms of spirituality are back in fashion.

I teach or talk at Oxford quite frequently so I see the green shoots of faith appearing there in encouraging numbers. Who would have believed that the three leading evangelical churches of St Aldate’s, St Ebbe’s and St Andrew’s would now be packing in congregations of well over 3,000 a week—most of them undergraduates? Who would have expected that 56 Rhodes Scholars of all faiths—nearly a third of the entire student body of Rhodes House—would have taken part in an all-day seminar of spiritual readings organised by the Trinity Forum in November? Who would have predicted that Oxford’s favourite monk, the Dominican Friar Timothy Radcliffe, should have become an iconic figure to many students? His current bestsellers What is the Point of being a Christian? and Why Go to Church? have respectively sold 66,000 and 34,000 copies in the past year.

The spiritual energy at Oxford and several other universities is not an elitist phenomenon. At the other end of the social scale there is a renewal, unequalled since Victorian times, of activity by faith based action groups within deprived communities.

Take prison ministry, which was an unfashionable and underpowered cause when I first encountered it (from the inside!) ten years ago. Today it is estimated that there are at least 20,000 dedicated volunteers whose inspiration for their rehabilitation work among offenders is derived from their spirituality. A recent Home Office research paper Believing We Can reported that there was a core group of over 6,000 faith based volunteers doing 16,300 hours of work each month at our prisons on tasks such as resettlement, literacy teaching, drug rehabilitation, family counselling, running visitor centres, providing hostels and generally supporting the prevention of re-offending.

One interesting sign of this growth in prison ministry was last month’s Caring for Ex Offenders national conference held at Holy Trinity Brompton church in Knightsbridge. It drew a record breaking attendance of over 450 charities and voluntary groups. The event was opened by Iain Duncan Smith MP who readily acknowledged that his groundbreaking Breakthrough Britain campaign has its roots in faith-inspired voluntarism.

Surveys now suggest that over a million people are motivated by their spiritual beliefs to do some form of voluntary community service each year. This is one of several new statistics suggesting that Britain is becoming an increasingly faith observant nation.

After declining for at least three decades church attendances are rising by over 2 percent annually. According to the Tearfund annual report 7.3 million people now attend church once a month and 4.9 million each week.

The most spectacular growth has come from Spirit-filled churches, i.e.: Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Elim, Pioneer, Kings, New Wine, Hillsong, Reedeemer of God, Kensington Temple, Emmanuel Centres, Jesus House and Kingsway International. The last six are newcomers to Britain’s religious scene. Their huge and largely immigrant congregations run into many tens of thousands, holding mass prayer meetings in theatres, warehouses and public arenas like Excel or O2.

Some older churches have also risen to the challenges of the 21st century. Holy Trinity Brompton, which used to serve sherry to its ageing flock after Matins in the 1980’s, has become the youthful powerhouse of the Alpha Course, recently described by Tony Blair (no slouch at spotting a rising trend) as “the most incredible thing going on in our Christian world”.

Alpha has had remarkable success in attracting over 2 million mainly younger participants to its 10 week Introduction to Christianity course in Britain. Inevitably some fall by the wayside. Others move to happy but less clappy churches. I am a grateful Alpha course completer but have moved to the Anglo-Catholic St Matthews, Westminster.

In 2009 our congregation has grown by over 10 percent and is getting visibly younger; our financial giving is up by 25 percent despite the recession; our junior or children’s group has almost doubled; and we have started a network of cell or prayer groups. We have also created a new theological discussion society, the Westminster Forum, which this week attracted a 70 strong audience to hear David Trimble, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Nigel Biggar, Oxford’s Regius Professor of Theology, on Forgiving Enemies in Northern Ireland.

Not a bad record of spiritual vitality for one small church. But it fits the growth pattern in the Diocese of London where overall congregations went up by 4.4 percent in 2008-9, midweek churchgoing is rising sharply, and St Mellitus’s, the capital’s newest theological college, founded last year, is exceeding all expectations in its student enrolment.

In the wider CofE, candidates for ordination are at or close to record levels. A new electronic Advent calendar has had 35,000 site visits in the last three weeks. Cathedrals are reporting full house attendances for carols, particularly the Catholic mother church Westminster Cathedral, which has doubled its Christmas celebration services to cope with popular demand.

Beyond the churches, are there spiritual reasons why Handel’s Messiah should be having 400 performances (a record) this Christmas? Or why the number of A-level students taking Religious Studies should have been rising for the past six years, making it (at 21,000 candidates) a more popular subject than French, Politics, History, Geography and Law. And how come Selfridges has announced that its sales of religious Christmas cards and religious ornaments are up by 30 percent this December?

Why are these signs of an apparent upsurge in spirituality happening? One reason could be that Britain is just catching up with a worldwide trend. Faith has been climbing in many other nations for some time. Two writers on The Economist, John Mickelthwaite and Adrian Wooldridge have reported the details of this development in their fascinating 2009 book God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World.

Another more domestic reason is the strange paradox that Britain’s Muslims and Atheists seem to have stimulated new levels of spiritual commitment and curiosity among the 72 percent of our population who call themselves Christian. The seriousness with which some young Muslims pray and talk about their religion has challenged many of their British contemporaries to explore their own faith more deeply.

As for the atheists, their comically ambivalent advertising slogan “There is probably no God” has been an own goal. “Richard Dawkins and his book The God Delusion has helped the cause of faith enormously”, explains Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer network of new churches. “Our meetings are fuller than ever with young people who have examined and rejected the atheist arguments”.

Like so much to do with faith, the present portents of spiritual renewal have a touch of mystery about them. They are not susceptible to simple explanations produced by discontent over troubled times. Economic recessions, banking crises, fears about Afghanistan and the widespread disillusionment with Parliament and government are merely the superficial symptoms in the deeper malaise of a society that has lost its spiritual compass.

At this time of the year there can be movements of our personal compasses, steering us to listen again to the message of Christmas. When there is no room at the inn we instinctively search. But, for what? A five star hotel we can’t afford anyway? A champagne party which will leave us flat and dissatisfied?

Or should we try to find the 21st century equivalent of a manger—a humbler, quieter environment where we can listen for, and perhaps start the search for a spiritual meaning to our lives. The signs are that more and more people are trying this second and deeper option.  

Jonathan Aitken is Executive Director of The Trinity Forum in Europe. This article was written for the Saturday essay page of the Daily Mail (read the published version here).

Features, Faiths and Worldviews, Tue 05 Jan 2010