The UK's 'spiritual openness' is both an opportunity and a challenge

In recent months, I’ve noticed something shifting. Church leaders across the UK tell me that political conversations are becoming more contested, pastoral pressures are continuing to grow, and more people are turning up at church. This doesn’t feel like a passing phase, but part of something bigger.

Some have described the larger cultural moment as a "polycrisis" – not one crisis, but many, colliding at the same time. War in Ukraine and the Middle East; persistent cost of living pressures; a political landscape fracturing in ways that feel genuinely new; and artificial intelligence arriving faster than most of us can process, raising real questions about work, identity and what it means to be human.

Each of these would be significant on its own. Taken together, they are reshaping the ground beneath our feet.