What just happened?
YouGov’s Chief Executive Officer Stephan Shakespeare has personally apologised to the Bible Society after it emerged that the 2024 survey sample on which its report The Quiet Revival was based was, in fact, faulty.
Remind me what this was all about...
The Church Times summarises it succinctly: "When it was published last April, the report suggested that churchgoing among young people, particularly men, in England and Wales was growing, but not in the Church of England (News, 8 April, 2025)."
What does the Bible Society now say?
In a statement on its website, the society said: "Earlier this month YouGov informed Bible Society that the 2024 survey sample on which our report The Quiet Revival was based was faulty, and it can no longer be regarded as a reliable source of information about the spiritual landscape in Britain.
"We recognise that this news may feel discouraging and we share that sense of disappointment.
"Over a 15-month period, Bible Society repeatedly sought and received assurances from YouGov, regarding both the robustness of the methodology and the reliability of the report’s conclusions. It was only at the beginning of March that YouGov confirmed that it failed to activate key quality control technologies that protect the sample from a wide range of errors and this undermines the reliability of the results.
"We are therefore deeply disappointed that YouGov not only made an error but also that it only discovered this so recently. We are grateful that YouGov’s Chief Executive Officer Stephan Shakespeare has personally apologised. "
What did YouGov say?
"YouGov take full responsibility for the outputs of the original 2024 research, and we apologise for what has happened. We would like to stress that Bible Society has at all times accurately and responsibly reported the data we supplied to them."
So what went wrong?
The Bible Society says: "Before the [initial "quiet revival"] report was published, Bible Society asked for repeated checks to be made and also undertook its own checks on issues such as coherence and consistency.
"YouGov repeatedly assured us in private before publication, and several times in public following publication, that the results were reliable. Following intense scrutiny of the findings and of YouGov’s survey methodology, YouGov asked its Data Science team to conduct a review, which was delivered at the beginning of March 2026.
"We have been told that this internal review discovered that significant parts of YouGov’s quality control technologies had not been used because of human error. These technologies aim to exclude people who are not based in the UK, who try to complete the survey more than once, or who give inattentive or random answers to questions. It is impossible now to establish after the fact how many and which respondents should have been excluded from the survey results. This means that YouGov is no longer able to give full support to the findings, and neither is Bible Society."
Does this mean there is no "quiet revival"?
Not necessarily. The Bible Society also says: "The reason we commissioned this research in the first place is that we want to understand what is truly happening on the ground. We would wish to stress that YouGov's error does not mean that all of the findings were wrong – it means that we cannot reliably support those findings on the basis of this survey."
What can we say for sure?
In an updated report, the Bible Society still says:
- The culture’s changing – from footballers to philosophers, believers are talking openly about their Christian faith
- Religious identities are more important – nominal Christianity’s declining, but younger Christians are far more likely to practise their faith
- Young people are a more spiritual generation – widely engaged in spiritual practices and open to faith
- There’s a Bible boom – sales have soared, and Google searches for it have overtaken searches for Harry Potter
- There’s a rise in conversions – the Catholic Church, the CofE and others have all reported increased numbers of adult converts
What reaction has there been?
Graham Nicholls of evangelical umbrella group Affinity said: "It was disappointing to read that some of the data behind the Bible Society’s The Quiet Revival report was unreliable and so its conclusions are less certain.
"However, we welcome the clarity, openness and generosity of the Bible Society in publishing a full correction on their website and their commitment to further study to obtain more accurate results. They have also published a new report which indicates that, while more precise data is needed, there are still very encouraging signs about changes in Britain's spiritual landscape."
Broadcaster, writer and speaker Justin Brierley wrote: "It’s... important to remember that Quiet Revival was just one data point among many pointing towards a reawakening of faith in many parts of the West. The ‘rebirth’ is by no means disproved by one flawed set of data."
Pete Lynas of the Evangelical Alliance said: "This is big news and Bible Society have been badly let down by YouGov [YG]. But it is important we are clear what has happened. Because YG didn’t put their normal quality controls on correctly, the data is unreliable and so BS has rightly withdrawn the report.
"What we don’t know (and YG doesn’t know) is how much data is unreliable and in what way - the numbers could be lower or just the same or even higher. Only a re-run will tell us. Until then, other stats and plenty of stories tell us something is happening. It’s a shame as the Quiet Revival had the best data sets, but let’s not panic!"
Journalist and churchgoer Tim Wyatt, who had voiced concerns about the research for some time, wrote on his Substack blog The Critical Friend: "I do wonder if it might be better if the Bible Society took a back seat for a while and tried to rein in their relentless boosterism for church growth, having had their fingers very badly burned."
What now?
The Bible Society says: "We'll be running another survey with YouGov at the same scale as the 2024 survey (around 13,000 respondents), later in the spring, and we will also run further surveys – including probability surveys – with other companies, with a view to gaining as accurate a picture as possible of Christianity and the Bible in England and Wales. We hope to report back in the autumn."
Anything else to say?
On social media platform X, Adam Thomas wisely writes: "I think the best response to this update is to pray earnestly for a revival that's so noisy that we won't need a YouGov survey to tell us it's happening."
