THE national media are failing to look beyond “traditional streams” of the Church and struggle to explain “contemporary” expressions of Christianity, a recent report suggests.
There is “still a deep misunderstanding of up to date expressions of religion and the worth those inside the Christian community can add to meaningful public discourse”, it says.
The report, Christianity within the Media 2025, published on Wednesday, was commissioned by Jersey Road, a communications agency that works with Christian organisations. During the 12 months from December 2023 to November 2024, it used the skilled media-monitoring platform Agility PR Solutions to discover and collate online news articles from UK media specifically regarding Christianity. Each week, the 100 articles with probably the most impressions or potential views was chosen, and this produced a complete of 5200 stories.
The Roman Catholic Church was the topic of 1247 articles and the Church of England 846. The Pentecostal Church was mentioned in fewer than one per cent of the stories. The statistician Dr Peter Brierley has estimated that Pentecostal attendance grew by a couple of third between 1980 and 2015, while attendance greater than halved within the Church of England.
Among the report’s recommendations is that national journalists should look beyond more established churches and “uncover recent stories of individuals finding meaning and purpose in those settings”.
“Ironically, there does appear to be greater literacy around more ancient and traditional Christian practices, but find out how to describe more contemporary expressions appears to be tougher. Finding a syntax to explain these wouldn’t only present the stories more accurately, but would also honour those for whom these practices are deeply intrinsic to their lives.”
Both the RC Church and the Church of England received about twice as many negative mentions as positive ones within the sample of articles studied. The report says that “politics and culture war issues were key sources of stories,” and that stories about Christianity and politics were “twice as more likely to be negative than positive”.
In total, greater than 20 per cent of the 5200 stories conveyed a positive impression of Christianity, just a little greater than 30 per cent were negative, and the rest were “neutral”.
The most typical theme across all 5200 articles was “personal faith” (1635). More than one quarter of those referred to the religion of public figures, and the report speaks of a “significant trend in celebrities being joyful to talk publicly about their faith”.
Analysis concluded, nevertheless, that 350 of the stories under this theme were negative in tone. They included reports on “controversial Christians” comparable to Russell Brand and folks recounting stories of “personal experiences of the damage the Christian faith has caused their lives”. In total, 420 stories mentioned abuse.
In 2023, Jersey Road was employed by Soul Survivor after allegations were made against Mike Pilavachi (News, 7 September 2023). The report published this week acknowledges that the media have been been “instrumental in exposing abuse and institutional failures inside the Church”. It says that the Church must commit itself to “good governance, prioritising ethical leadership and robust safeguarding structures to forestall future scandals and abuse”. It also needs to “lead with transparency and prioritise constructing trust over protecting ‘the brand’”.
In an introduction to the report, the chief executive of Jersey Road, Gareth Russell, writes that the aim of the research was to not demand that the media present an “unrealistic representation of the Christian faith within the UK.
“The conjecture (that has been found to be in most parts accurate) was that the total picture, the lived reality of Christians and the impact they’re having within the UK, is commonly under-reported. Our hope is that going forward the media will proceed to carry those that abuse power to account, but that additionally they have fun and elevate the stories of those making an actual difference and who’re motivated by their faith.”
