Reports of a dramatic rise in British church attendance have been challenged, but N.T. Wright says something significant may still be happening. From the decline of New Atheism to unexpected newcomers walking into churches, he asks what genuine Christian revival actually looks like.
Is Christianity really disappearing from Britain, or could something unexpected be happening beneath the surface?
Claims of a “quiet revival” have generated considerable excitement among Christians, particularly reports suggesting a significant increase in church attendance. Questions have subsequently been raised about some of the data behind those claims.
But N.T. Wright believes it would be a mistake to conclude that nothing is happening.
Speaking on Ask N.T. Wright Anything, Wright told Mike Bird that clergy he knows in Oxford have noticed something surprising.
He has heard colleagues speak “with surprise and even awe” about increased attendance, including people who have little previous understanding of Christianity.
Some, he said, are simply “vaguely aware that there might be something in it for them”.
And this is not confined to one particular wing of the church.
Wright says newcomers are appearing in evangelical and charismatic congregations, but also in Anglo-Catholic and even liberal churches, with people coming through the doors thinking “there might be something going on that they need to connect with”.
Has New Atheism lost its appeal?
Part of the change, Wright suggests, may be connected to the fading cultural power of New Atheism.
“Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens, they had their day,” he says.
For a generation, confident predictions of Christianity’s disappearance were common. Wright remembers the intellectual climate of the 1950s and 1960s, when influential voices assumed Christianity had effectively been disproved and its churches would soon become redundant.
Seven decades later, those buildings remain in use.
“We’ve lived with the myth of decline,” Wright says, arguing that the story has often been reinforced by journalists, politicians and others with their own assumptions about religion.
That does not mean Britain is on the verge of becoming overwhelmingly Christian. Wright readily acknowledges that vibrant Christian faith has generally remained a minority phenomenon.
But he thinks the cultural story is more complicated than an uninterrupted collapse.
“Actually, the church has quietly come back.”
What would real revival look like?
Wright is also cautious about defining revival simply by counting people in pews.
He recalls the remarkable revival in the Outer Hebrides in the late 1940s, when people unexpectedly began attending churches and prayer meetings and seeking God.
But revival does not always look like that.
“I would see a quiet revival going on when two or three are meeting together to study the Bible and to pray,” he says, “even if nothing outwardly happens for 10 years.”
At the same time, Christianity cannot be reduced to an entirely private spiritual experience.
“Christianity is a team sport,” Wright says.
“It is by definition about being together as a community,” including caring for those who are most vulnerable.
And ultimately the test of renewal is not simply whether Christians can point to growing numbers.
If revival is real, Wright argues, we should expect Christians to be visibly living out the gospel in public life.
“If there is any such thing as a revival today, whether quiet or noisy or any other sort, then we ought to expect to see people actively working for justice and peace in the world.”
So is Britain experiencing a Christian revival?
Perhaps the answer depends on what we mean by revival in the first place.
