A Time of Revival

The winds of Christian renewal are gathering strength. The Bible Society in Great Britain recently conducted a longitudinal study of Christian practice in England and Wales. The results are published and discussed in “The Quiet Revival.” Researchers found an increase in the proportion of the general population saying that they attend church at least monthly, going from 8 percent in 2018 to 12 percent in 2024. 

To some extent, the pews are being filled by immigrants. But that’s not the entire story. Young people, native and non-native born, are returning to church. “In 2018, just 4% of 18-24-year-olds said they attended church at least monthly. Today this has risen to 16%, with young men increasing from 4% to 21%, and young women from 3% to 12%.” 

The striking rise is evident in a U-shaped graph that charts church attendance by age cohort. Sixteen percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds report attending church monthly. Break out the male and female statistics, and at 21 percent of the general population, young male Christians today are the largest cohort of church-goers. Seventeen percent of twenty-five- to ­thirty-four-year-old males attend regularly. Church­going drops dramatically in middle-aged cohorts, until it rises sharply among those sixty-five and older, with male and female churchgoers accounting for 19 percent of the general population.

This data indicates that the notion that Christianity is doomed to age-out in Europe is false. The Catholic Church in France brought more than ten thousand catechumens into the fold at Easter, a 45-percent increase from 2024. The eighteen- to twenty-five-year-old cohort constituted nearly half of the total. Adolescent baptisms are up as well. Earlier this year, Famille ­Chrétienne reported a dramatic upsurge in Ash Wednesday attendance.

The situation in Germany is less promising, which is no surprise, given efforts of church leaders there to transform Christianity into political progressivism with a vaguely transcendent horizon. Yet even in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands—deeply secular countries that have seen dramatic declines in church attendance over the last half-century—I would not be surprised to learn that the Holy Spirit is moving among young people. I predict that we will see growth trends in those countries.

The Quiet Revival” reports high levels of religious engagement among Gen Z churchgoers. The eighteen- to twenty-four-year-old cohort is the one most likely to report reading or listening to the Bible at least weekly outside of church services (80 percent). Gen Z Christians are significantly more likely than older generations to say that they’re confident they can answer questions about the Bible from ­non-Christians (80 percent), and they have the strongest desire to know more about scripture (90 percent). They also appear to take the Bible more seriously than other cohorts. Forty-two percent report that they find the content of the Bible challenging, compared to 24 percent of those over fifty-five. Perhaps Gen Z Christians are reading the Sermon on the Mount through something other than a therapeutic lens.

Another set of data reinforces my supposition that Gen Z churchgoers seek “strong religion,” as I’ve called it (“The Return of Strong Religion,” April 2025). Among nineteen- to thirty-four-year-olds in England and Wales, rising church attendance skews toward Catholicism and Pentecostalism, while Anglican attendance has declined among members of this cohort. Young people seem to be looking for high-demand Christianity.

As “The Quiet Revival” suggests, one reason for the upsurge in church attendance among the young is cultural. Sentiment has shifted. In 2018, 28 percent of English and Welsh eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds reported belief in God or some “higher power.” In the short compass of six years, that number has risen to 45 percent. Re-enchantment is real, especially among the young. 

The rise in church attendance among the young throughout the West does not betoken a broad movement toward Christianity, however. “The Quiet Revival” reports the well-known trend toward religious disaffiliation. The percentage of those in England and Wales who identify as Christians continues to decline, especially among those aged eighteen to thirty-four. At this juncture, only 29 percent in this cohort call themselves Christian. We’re witnessing a spiritual polarization.

The report also conveys additional data we already know: Young people in England and Wales are far more likely than other generations to report isolation, ­anxiety, and depression. The same holds in the United States and elsewhere. Put simply, the young have inherited a broken, dysfunctional world that a sane and reasonable person would reject.

Today’s toxic world—one of lockdowns, antiracist and “decolonizing” hysteria, social media cancellation, sour male–female relations, and impotent, cynical political leadership—was not ­created by Catholic priests and Pentecostal preachers. Throughout the West, the status quo has been constructed by ­secular progressives who deem Christianity a superannuated vestige of an oppressive past. Some people retreat ­into cynicism or left-wing political activism. But some young people who are saying “no” to today’s ugly and spiritless culture are saying “yes” to Christ’s call to discipleship.

God’s ways are not our ways. We wring our hands over the damage that polarization is doing to our societies. We fight against the excesses of woke ideology. We’re not wrong to do so. Yet it seems that the Almighty in his providence has been preparing the ground to be sown anew. The progressive assault on our natural loves is becoming unbearable. The West is being convulsed by an agony born of utopian ambitions for liberation that have curdled into ignoble and debasing failures. But the Greek root for crisis also means decision. A growing minority—especially men—are searching for the solid foundations on which to build a new and very different future.