Three years ago I wrote a comment piece for Evangelicals Now suggesting that there was a quiet work of God taking place in the churches and we had not noticed it.
Imagine my delight when the Bible Society published “The Quiet Revival”, a survey by YouGov showing that church attendance in the UK had risen by 50% in the last six years and that the main growth was among young people. Only 4% of young people attended church at least once a month in 2018, now the figure is 16%.
The Bible Society’s numbers raised questions though. Writing for en, Rebecca Chapman pointed out an important problem: “Data from the denominations themselves indicates a decline over the period between 2018/19 and 2023 in both Catholic and Church of England attendance.” She was not the only one to point this out, Humanists UK commented: “Where is this quiet revival? It is so quiet we can’t see it!”
The problem of bogus behavioural research
One of my catchphrases is, "Psychology and theology can be friends." We have the truth in Christ, but we also …