Opinion piece published Barking & Dagenham Post, Docklands & East London Advertiser May 2025
News of a ‘Christian revival’ has recently featured in the media. Some churches in East London have reported being inundated with worshippers. Humanists are among those wondering what to make of all this.
Interest was sparked by a Bible Society report, The Quiet Revival, released in April. It concludes that ‘the Church is in a period of rapid growth, driven by young adults and in particular young men’. It is based on robust YouGov polling which shows that monthly church attendance between 2018 and 2024 rose from 8% to 12%, and from 4% to 16% for 18–24-year-olds. In a Guardian piece (26 April) Father John Armitage described how his church, St Margaret’s in Canning Town, has been bursting at the seams.
However, what people tell pollsters doesn’t match all national attendance figures. While some congregations in East London are clearly thriving, head count figures, recorded respectively by the Church of England and the Catholic Church, show overall numbers declined up to 2023. Church attendance was, of course, impacted by Covid. It has increased since then, but not to pre-Covid levels.
One explanation for the discrepancy between polls and actual attendance is so-called “social desirability bias.” Church attendance is one of those areas, like drug use or number of sexual partners, where surveys are skewed through people trying to look ‘good’ or not ‘bad’ to others. This might explain the high reported uptick in ‘spirituality’ by young men. Younger people are likely to spend more time online and attend virtual services. Young men are also more likely to come under the sway of forceful Christian nationalist influencers like Jordan Peterson.
The reported upsurge in East London, and elsewhere, may simply reflect the higher proportion of residents hailing from more religious countries. The Quiet Revival acknowledges that 60 percent of the population as a whole does not identify as Christian, and nearly 90 percent do not go to church. Most young people are still atheists, although the number who think there is some sort of higher power has increased.
Today’s belief landscape is diverse, and not particularly Christian. Our laws and institutions need to catch up so all beliefs enjoy a level playing field. The case for reforming archaic institutions such as compulsory Christian school assemblies, and the automatic right for Bishops to sit in the House of Lords, is as strong as ever.
Paul Kaufman
Chairperson East London Humanists
