The Quiet Revival
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
in Purgatory
The UK Bible Society has revealed that their "Quiet Revival" report was based on faulty data from YouGov (not something which the Society could know). They have withdrawn the report and produced a new one with some interesting conclusions. What might your responses be to these?
https://tinyurl.com/ys6eed7z
https://tinyurl.com/ys6eed7z
Comments
https://www.churchmousepublishing.co.uk/2025/05/confessions-of-quiet-revival-sceptic.html?m=1
https://www.churchmousepublishing.co.uk/2025/08/the-quiet-revival-under-microscope.html?m=1
[As an aside, much has been made recently of a YouGov poll commissioned by ITV Cymru concerning possible results of the forthcoming Senedd elections. But can one trust this?]
For social attitude surveys (of which, "do you go to church?" is an example) rarely get run by multiple polling agencies, so without any "ground truthing", or even cross comparison between polls, it's difficult to know something is fishy. For the Quiet Revival poll, people like Churchmouse did that ground truthing, comparing the poll results with robust church attendance data, and smelt a rat. Given that those church attendance figures are readily available there's a big question for the Bible Society when they claimed they had independently assessed the YouGov poll data, why didn't they do the same ground truthing to see there was a problem with what the polling data apparently showed? Though, we're all very bad at that, we're much more likely to simply accept something that seems to reinforce what we expect or hope to see and more likely to question something that's disappointingly worse than we hoped.
Based on?
It appears to be based on raw testimony this time rather than stats.
Based on raw testimony and anecdote then, yes, I could say there's 'something' going on.
We've got a goodly bunch of catechumens with several baptisms and chrismations lined up over the Easter period.
I know of various Orthodox and RC parishes here and in other pa6s of the world which are experiencing the same.
I have friends in evangelical settings who have seen a recent influx of young men.
It's not all young men, of course but most enquirers seem to be coming from that demographic.
Not all of them are right-wing misogynists but there's an element of that most certainly.
Is it revival?
Well, no.
We aren't talking vast numbers and the young people I've spoken to see themselves as a minority within their age groups but they do cite friends who are turning to more Pentecostal or charismatic expressions of Christianity.
It's anecdotal I know, but when I speak to them they cite Roman Catholicism and evangelicalism as the other forms of Christianity they are most aware of.
That's true too of the CofE who are trumpeting increased congregations year-on-year. While that's true, figures haven't returned to pre-Covid levels, so it's hardly revival.
The CinW doesn't dare to publish its data these days ... or so it appears.
Nevertheless, something does seem to be going on.
In fairness they are using some stats, not just ones that are necessarily complete, for instance the stat on average church attendance from the EA. There's also an ellision of things from the Global Attitudes survey being ripped out of context and then being recast about the UK.
Back to my original post, to get at what I meant, consider things like:
The new thing is that something that was culturally associated is being brought into mainstream attention because inclusion has worked to an extent, and football less unwelcoming to players from those backgrounds (and to the point where they feel comfortable to bring some of their cultural practices with them). A similar thing is true of the musical artists they mention.
Given the patterns on page 40; a similar thing is probably true of churches, they are less unwelcoming to people from other backgrounds to the point where people can choose to attend them instead of or as well as cultural specific churches.
Regression to mean?
On the RC angle, I was struck by some of the numbers cited by a lay Catholic in East Anglia as to how many 'new people' and those seeking reception across their particular diocese.
From my own observations within the Orthodox orbit, we do seem to be seeing people rolling up who've developed an interest online - with all the positive and negative aspects that entails.
Some of these have no church background whatsoever.
We also have late 20 and early 30-Somethings who have been involved in non-denominational or charismatic fellowships but who now say they want something 'deeper'. This doesn't surprise me as that was the age I was when I began to engage more widely with older Christian traditions having repudiated them in my youth.
So there's a fair bit of 'recycling' going on. Perhaps that's always been happening. I remember instances of that back in the '90s and early 2000s.
And the rapid 'growth' of the so-called 'house churches' during the '80s was largely 'transfer-growth' from other churches - although we did get unchurched converts.
Back then initial inflated estimates of the numbers involved were published before they were revised downwards to more realistic figures.
I remember Peter Brierley having to retract over-optimistic estimates and issue more realistic ones.
Yes, and there was a mistake in my post, that line should read "just not ones that are necessarily complete, for instance the stat on average church attendance from the EA", that one alone seems to be fairly selective and easily capable of hiding a lot of transfer growth,
Looking back, over the years since my conversion/active involvement with the Christian faith (since 1981) - there's always been transfers and churn.
There was always some church of grouping that seemed to attract attention and new or transfer members for a while.
That seemed to be the case whether it was some kind of neo-Calvinist preaching centre, a lively charismatic church with lots of young people or an Anglo-Catholic one with all the trimmings that attracted those who liked 'that sort of thing.'
The main difference now, I think, is that things are more multicultural.
I like being in a multicultural parish but that may be under threat to a certain extent as a new ethnically-defined Orthodox parish has been established close by.
Hey ho ...
It always used to be the case that more liberal forms of Christianity benefited from fall-out/defections from more conservative establishments.
I wonder if we'll see that in future?
Meanwhile, whatever is happening is happening against a background of overall decline.
I keep warning some of my co-religionists not to become smug, triumphalist or snarky towards other churches.
'We are growing but the Anglicans are declining nah-na-na-nah-nah!'
'If anyone thinks they stand, take heed lest they fall,' I remind them.
And remind myself too of course.
Lord have mercy!
https://www.google.com/search?q=RCIA+numbers+england+2026&rlz=1C1GCEA_en-GBGB1203GB1203&oq=RCIA+numbers+england+2026&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjE1MDEyajBqMTWoAgiwAgE&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
It suggests something is going on.
And this study might provide some insights as to motives
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/national-survey-explores-why-people-join-the-church/
Is it a revival if any growth in attendance at UK churches is from people who are already Christians moving into the area?
I would be very interested to see the gender breakdown for RC enquirers vs Orthodox ones. On the one hand, Orthodox churches don't have the same negative PR in the UK as the RCC does when it comes to the treatment of women and children. On the other hand, a lot of RC laity that work in evangelisation and pastoral care are women, eg pastoral staff in universities - and of course RC schools bring in a lot of families whereas I don't know of any Orthodox Christian schools in the UK. I wonder if such schools (following the existing UK faith school model) will become a thing in the UK.
Why couldn't they become linked to local authorities? I had assumed that there just wasn't the desire to establish local authority schools, but there are local authority faith schools for lots of different faiths and denominations (I used to live near a Methodist primary school for eg) so I don't see why Orthodox Christians couldn't start one.
There's a state-funded Greek Orthodox secondary school in Barnet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Andrew_the_Apostle_Greek_Orthodox_School
Wow, I had no idea! Thanks.
Returning to the topic, I do think that the "doctrinaire atheism" which made it very difficult to talk about matters of faith has largely ebbed away; however we must be very cautious of the way in which the far Right is adopting faith language and symbols with the aim of "restoring Christian Britain" (by which they seem to imply England).
Obviously there are unfortunately clergy fully on-board with such things - my local parish church's vicar is apparently a frequent guest on GB News, shockingly for an Anglo-Catholic and also quite strange as it's very much not the kind of area to attract such types. It's near the art college and is generally a very "woke" artsy area, and there haven't been any far-right protests in the city at all (which voted Remain and has a Lib Dem MP). The church in question is a conservative Anglo-Catholic church under alternative episcopal oversight and was in interregnum for a long time, so I think they were probably desperate for anyone they could get.
What we have to remember though, is that much vaunted revivals such as the 'Great Awakenings' of the 18th and 19th centuries generally affected populations which were already 'Christianised'.
As far as can be ascertained most converts of the Wesleyan revival were 'luke-warm' or nominal Christians rather than people who were completely unchurched - although there were undoubtedly converts who hadn't 'benefit of clergy' or who'd been disenfranchised by pew rents and so on.
Most written accounts come from literate middle-class converts so it's difficult to assess how many working class people were involved.
I've seen figures from 17th century Wales which suggest surprisingly low levels of church attendance even allowing for the higher than average proportion of 'recusant' families at that time.
The Welsh Revival of 1904-05 appears to have been a largely 'young people' thing with those loosely connected with church or chapel caught up in the revivalist fervour.
As far as figures for the RCs compared to the Orthodox go, I can't cite chapter and verse but I get the impression that the RCC has the edge in terms of numbers of people finding their way back in or engaging for the first time.
With some of our enquirers there seems to be a 'toss-a-coin' thing going on as to whether to come to us or go to the RCs.
Some have been to the RCs and eliminated them from their enquiries.
Some may do the same with us and go to the RCS. Who knows?
RC friends tell me that the enquirers they are getting are sane and sensible but do have a preference for more traditional RC styles of worship - but not obsessively so.
They do want the services to 'feel' Catholic rather than quasi-Protestant.
Anecdotally, we have 6 adults being chrismated or baptised this coming weekend. They are all relatively local I think and 4 are from the same family who encountered Orthodoxy on holiday in Cyprus.
I think there another 6 to 8 catechumens and enquirers waiting in the wings.
Two individuals,one from India and one from China
A young couple from Turkey (and their children also)
Two men,whose wives are RC and one whose girlfriend is RC
Two young individuals with some sort of Catholic background,
one of whom was not baptised and the other who was baptised but not confirmed.
(Every year there are always one or two with some sort of Catholic background,either a parent of a grandparent who have made some sort of impression upon them in their childhood.)
One of the candidates is very interested in the Latin Mass,but the others are keen to get to grips with the Roman Mass in its present form.
Meanwhile I was in Oxford a week ago and was greatly impressed at being present at an Anglican Eucharist on Saturday 21st March.
It turned out that it was the anniversary day of the execution at the stake of Thomas Cranmer and in Oxford itself,not far from the cathedral.
For me,used to hearing stories of Catholic martyrs, it made a deep impression to hear the story of this 'Protestant' martyr. It was only at the end of the service that it was drawn to my attention that the priest was wearing,not a Lenten purple chasuble, but rather red for a martyr.
To be fair, if Romans Catholic men didn't sometimes have girlfriends the history of France wouldn't make much sense.
Not really, except for a few standout examples. And obviously examing the structural forces behind such things is not going to happen while bits of the alt-religious right are not 6 degrees of separation from regular Christians (think CRECs influence in the home school movement, or Paul Marshall's closeness to HTB).
But surely a lot of regular Christians in the UK aren't involved with homeschooling or HTB at all?
Yeah, but those ties are illustrative rather than exhaustive, and the people who you actually want to speak out have plenty of others.
I've been chatting to some of the young enquirers and most appear a bit more nuanced politically than I'd assumed at first.
That said, some of them have views that are further to the right than I'd be comfortable with.
I don't have that much contact with the HTB end of things but the situation there seems fairly mixed. Probably some daylight between those who bank-roll the whole thing and the people in the pews.
In the US things are more polarised. I'm hearing of Trumpoid RC parishes and MAGA Orthodox and parishes grouping themselves along political lines, some consisting almost entirely of Democrat, some of Republican voters.
I think it would be too simplistic though to see the current influx of young people to RC, Orthodox and some evangelical churches, which is certainly happening, as a purely right-wing reactionary thing.
There is an element of that there though, most certainly.