God is dead, the youth have killed him.
So says a study from King’s College London, which found that 49 per cent of Brits say they consider in God – down from 75 per cent in 1981 – with young people leading the atheistic charge.
It’s not only a British thing, either. In 2023 only 39 per cent of Americans said religion was necessary to them, in comparison with 62 per cent in 1998. In Ireland faith has waned too – a casualty of the country’s recent and precipitous liberalisation.
As the West veers chaotically towards an imagined secular utopia, it’s unsurprising that a number of theological inconsistencies are starting to arise. Young people may not consider in God, but they are only as more likely to consider in some type of afterlife as their older counterparts.
They are also more more likely to consider in hell. How’s that for some despairing incoherence? Like believing shadow can exist independently of sunshine, or accepting the existence of night while refusing to acknowledge day. Hell is just not a standalone concept.
Nevertheless, “Believe in hell but not in God!” is a troubling epitaph for a relatively miffed-off generation. But is it hardly any wonder for a cohort whose character is formed and shaped by environmental anxiety? The relentless doomerism of climate change rhetoric – literally replete with the rhetoric of fireplace and brimstone – would make anyone think the flames of everlasting damnation are each very real and about to devour us.
It could be terribly unbecoming of a young liberal to consider that an amazing patriarch within the sky goes to supply salvation. That would seriously derail their arduous trek towards a progressive nirvana.
Waning Christianity, irrespective of its genesis, could possibly be an era-defining moment. But if it is absolutely happening, what’s going to the world appear like? Do cultural Catholics and faithless Anglicans and proud atheists seek – knowingly or not – something else to consider in? A type of Christianity-redux? Or is there a version of Britain that might be completely irreligious?
Polling figures can only capture a lot about society’s true religiosity. Even probably the most faithless amongst us may find it hard to disclaim that the architecture of this country is itself very Christian: observing weekends and divinely appointed monarchs are only two examples of God’s imprint.
Humans will likely all the time crave the ephemeral; a better power; an explanatory and organisational force outside of themselves; a lode star. These are things which have informed society so long as society has existed, whether or not it’s the Greek and Roman pantheon, the Sumerians of Mesopotamia, the Zoroastrians. None of this goes away just because a poll ordains it.
God himself may not loom large within the lives of Britons. But it’s perfectly reasonable to suggest that his presence has been replaced by something else: the lure of the occult, perhaps.
Young millennials and Generation Z have reincarnated and reimagined astrology for the twenty first century – speaking on to a necessity for order amid uncertainty. Celebrity worship could also be a shallow imitation of real faith; but it surely actually sounds similar. Try taking a look at a Swiftie and tell me that they don’t worship a God. They do, in fact, but their version has bangs and a rhinestone bodysuit. Think of those that kneel on the altar of the market. The invisible hand sounds relatively godly to me.
God continues to be present, but his shape and appeal is different. Organised religion is actually transformed, and its influence significantly diminished. But any generation that believes in hell must accept the divine as well.
Forgive us, Father. We still consider in you. We just don’t realize it.
