Last year, a widely reported study commissioned by the Bible Society claimed there has been a ‘quiet revival’ of Christianity in Britain, with surprising numbers of young people attending church. The report has now been withdrawn because of concerns about its methodology, but it did seem to strike a nerve. While nominal Christianity might still be in decline, there does seem to have been a vibe shift. The days of ‘militant atheism’ seem behind us. No sooner had atheism become the default among educated people than it too began to lose its sheen. But what really comes next?

Zooming out historically, author and essayist Dolan Cummings argues it is no accident that non-belief first began to seem plausible in the Christian West. Especially in its Protestant forms, the teaching that Jesus died for our sins frees us from the deep human instinct to placate God or the gods through ritual, sacrifice or even good deeds. Christianity invented the secular, while urging people to continue worshiping God. For some, though, it was a short step from the existential freedom of Christianity to not believing in God at all. But what if the religious instinct won’t die? Might it be just as short a step back in out of the cold?

Is Christianity making a comeback, or are a few youthful church-goers just a blip in the steady decline of all religion? Does freedom from religion entail a loss of purpose? Or can we discover meaning for ourselves?

Speaker:

Dolan Cummings is a novelist and a freelance copywriter, speechwriter and editor. He also writes untimely essays on Substack at L’esprit de l’escalier​.

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