There will not be a Christian revival, but Britain’s traditional churches aren’t doomed

In the identical week that a recent archbishop of Canterbury was installed, YouGov admitted that a poll suggesting there was a “quiet revival” of Christianity was a dud. It had been inflated by fraudulent results and must be ignored. To those of us who study the larger picture of faith in Britain, this comes as no surprise. There are good reasons to doubt that Britain is experiencing a Christian revival today – but that doesn’t mean it’s dying out.

To understand what is occurring in Britain, it is useful to match it with the US, which has has long been viewed as exceptionally religious as compared. Recent evidence suggests something less clear-cut.

In a major recent study, sociologist Christian Smith assembles the info. In the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s, only around one in ten Americans identified as “nonreligious”. But from 1991, the proportion of people that discover as such has risen steeply, reaching 29% in 2021.

Today, 43% of young American adults aged 18-29 say they’re nonreligious, and only 1 / 4 of generation Z are regular church attenders.

In Britain, being nonreligious was rather more common, much earlier. Today, around half the population say they’ve “no religion” – a proportion that has remained slightly stable for the reason that 2010s, based on the reliable British Social Attitudes survey.

By contrast, the proportion saying they’re Christian has fallen steadily to around 40% today. Levels of normal weekly churchgoing are around 5%.

In other words, the decline of Christianity began later within the US than in Britain, and has not yet gone as far. But in America, it has been swifter, more dramatic and shows no sign of slowing down.

American-style Christianity can now not be assumed to be the longer term for the churches in Britain. Such religion has at all times been more enthusiastic, congregational and separate from the state.

When Christianity last experienced a revival within the US, with the rise of the New Christian Right and televangelism within the Nineteen Eighties, conservative and fundamentalist churches were distinguished, and megachurches did well. Some blamed the decline of churches in Britain on the actual fact that they weren’t more like American ones. They were said to be insufficiently enthusiastic and self-promoting.

Megachurches never really took off in Britain, aside from a couple of examples in big cities that are inclined to serve diaspora communities. And though the last archbishop, Justin Welby, hoped that an evangelical revival would reverse church decline, this did not materialise.

The resilience of old churches

But Britain’s churches usually are not doomed. In light of the recent Christian decline in America, the stately power and traditional ways of the UK’s older churches may become an asset.

Though few people attend often, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland are still the most important and strongest of the UK churches. Institutional embeddedness matters.

The Church of England is constitutionally established, and all these churches play a central role in the varsity system by means of state-supported faith schools. Although the Church of England just isn’t funded through taxation like a few of its sister churches in Scandinavia, its considerable wealth – around £11 billion – protects it.

If generation Z show an interest in religion, it’s traditional forms that appeal to them as much because the trendier forms that seek the eye of youth. We see this not only in Christianity, where each the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches are reporting recent interest, but additionally in Orthodox Judaism and, to some extent, in Islam.

Still, the standard churches are unlikely to return to a position like they held in society as recently because the Nineteen Eighties. Today, revival is virtually inconceivable. When American evangelist Billy Graham won converts in Britain, he was not winning over individuals who had grown up nonreligous, he was talking to individuals with a Christian background.

It is usually suggested that war or social collapse may lead to a revival of Christianity. That is feasible, but history suggests that a plethora of various intense, sectarian kinds of faith and spirituality emerge in such situations.

Others argue that the Holy Spirit stirs individual hearts and minds, no matter the state of the churches. That is how Protestant Christians have often considered revival, perhaps recalling Methodist enthusiasm or the chapel movement in Wales.

The striking thing about such revivalism, nevertheless, is how quickly it will probably fade. The chapels are mostly closed now. The Methodists are dying out. “Nonconformity” as an entire, still a serious force in England within the Fifties, is almost forgotten.

Though the Christian nationalists on the American right are currently very loud, they’ve had no impact on the continued decline of Christianity within the US or the alienation of young people. Attempts by some on Britain’s political right to talk up Christianity are even less more likely to succeed. They are reviving words, not religion.

What now we have in Britain today is a landscape wherein the historic churches appear a bit stronger than once thought, and revivalist types of Christianity weaker. Overall, nevertheless, Christianity occupies a much diminished space. Other world religions, especially Islam, are stable or growing.

“Nonreligion” is the largest affiliation after Christianity, but that label hides diversity. Some of the nonreligious are atheist, some agnostic, and a few are actively thinking about recent types of spirituality, magic and supernaturalism. Although old landmarks remain, like church steeples on the horizon, the religious landscape of Britain is greatly modified.

Linda Woodhead is F.D. Maurice Professor of Religion at King’s College London. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.