April 29, 2025 • 31 mins
For decades, the trend across Western countries seemed one-way: away from faith in Jesus Christ. But could the tide be turning?
Evangelist and author Glen Scrivener outlines signs of a "quiet revival" emerging, particularly among young people in the United Kingdom (and how things are different in Australia).
Drawing on new research from the UK Bible Society and reflecting on wider cultural shifts, Glen discusses why the story of secularisation may not be as inevitable as once thought — and why a surprising number of young adults are returning to church.
We also reflect on influences like Jordan Peterson, the role of community in a hyper-individualistic culture, and the opportunities — and challenges — now facing churches in both the UK and Australia.
Is this the beginning of a new movement towards Christ?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
sure, okay, big movements towards faith in jesus
christ, but very different inthe uk and australia.
It is the pastor's heart,dominic steel.
Glenn scrivener is with us.
It has felt for 20 years thatall the movement in the west has
been essentially in onedirection, away from Jesus
Christ, and then more recentlyit's begun to feel like
(00:30):
something is changing.
Glenn Scrivener in the UK,along with Justin Briley, have
been at the forefront of drawingour attention to these changes
and recently Glenn has drawn ona new report from the UK Bible
Society.
They call it the Quiet Revival,but really it's quite
extraordinary.
Glenn works with Speak Life.
(00:50):
He's the author of this book,the Air we Breathe, and he's
been in Australia speaking atthe Katoomba Christian
Convention, to the west ofSydney, in the Blue Mountains.
Glenn, it does feel like itdoes our pastor's hearts good to
see this change in the wind100%.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
But I've always been a bit sceptical about you know.
Revival is just around thecorner, and you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I just kind of thought oh, justin Briley he
sounds.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I want what he says to be true but is it really is
he clutching at straws yeah andJustin's from a more charismatic
kind of background in whichthat kind of language of revival
is just around the corner andthat kind of thing is a lot more
common.
And so I think to begin with Iwas quite sceptical, just
thinking this is an intellectualversion of that, because in his
(01:38):
book the Surprising Rebirth ofBelief in God, he doesn't have
any statistics to kind of backup this sense and he's been
pushed on that.
He's been very much pushed onthat and he's been very open to
say look, all the statisticsthat I cite in the book are
statistics that go in theopposite direction, that
actually talk aboutdechristianization and greater
secularization and all that kindof thing.
And yet there was just thissense that he had, especially
(02:00):
because he had a front row seatto some of the great
intellectual debates of our timeand saw the rise and fall of
the new atheism and he saw therise of a figure like Jordan
Peterson and he saw more andmore people kind of taking faith
seriously and at leastentertaining the idea of faith
in an intellectual sense.
And so that was really where hewas coming from in the book.
And then he wrote an articlelast year for the Spectator
(02:23):
magazine.
It was the most read articlefor the Spectator.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Super viral.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Super viral in terms of revival in the United Kingdom
and at that stage my skepticismwas still there because I was
like, oh okay, but you know,justin's a great mate of mine.
But I just thought, you know, Ican see why if you've got a
book, then you want to make thisthesis work.
We still don't have the databehind it, but now the Bible
Society, together with YouGov,have put out this survey based
(02:47):
on 13,000 respondents, and thedata is in.
I think A Quiet Revival is apretty good description of
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It almost sounds like it's downplaying it looking at
some of those statistics.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They are unbelievable from one point of view, but
then quite believable if you'vegot your ear to the ground, if
you're talking to a whole bunchof other pastors and you're
figuring out what's going on indifferent churches.
And we had all been noticingthere are a heck of a lot more
young guys, in particular youngwomen as well, but young guys in
the 18 to 34-year-old bracket.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
I mean, some of those stats on young people are
breathtaking.
Give us some of those.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I mean, some of those stats on young people are
breathtaking.
Give us some of those.
So churchgoing is up.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So the decline it's not just up against the bottom
point of COVID.
It's up on the pre-COVIDfigures in the UK.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So the two surveys that were done by YouGov, which
is the survey people who do allthe surveys in Great Britain.
It's very respected.
This is not just the BibleSociety pushing an agenda.
In 2018, they asked a wholeraft of questions to 19,000
English and Welsh people andthen they asked the same
questions to 13,000 English andWelsh people.
(03:54):
It's a very robust study.
But churchgoing was reportedand this is all self-report and
churchgoing is defined as atleast monthly, and so 8% back in
2018, and then up to 12% in2024, which is extraordinary
enough.
But then you dive down into the18 to 24-year-old bracket and
churchgoing is 16%.
(04:15):
You dive down into malechurchgoing of 18 to
24-year-olds and it's 21%.
Wow, up from under 4% in 2018.
So this is just extraordinary.
So, from one point of view,it's 21% up from under 4% in
2018.
So this is just extraordinary.
So, from one point of view,it's unbelievable.
From another point of view,it's like oh yeah, that's why
this guy and this guy and thisguy are showing up in my church.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I've made the observation that our Introducing
God course and we've runroughly one a quarter for 10
years or something, one a termfor 10 years, 10 years or
something won a term for 10years and pretty much it's been
equal numbers male and female,or maybe slightly often,
slightly more, just slightlymore women than men, but
(04:54):
suddenly last term, 70% male,right, yeah, yeah.
And that's what we're seeing inyouth groups, that's what we're
seeing in youth groups as well.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Like all of a sudden, there's more guys than girls in
youth groups.
This is unheard ofunprecedented.
But you start to think.
You know, if there will be moreguys, there'll be more girls as
well, and the data in the UK isthat it's not at the expense of
female churchgoing.
So female churchgoing is alsoup, just not quite as up.
So female churchgoing is up toabout 10%.
(05:25):
It's just that male churchgoingis at around about 16%, so
averaging out to the 12%.
So extraordinary times.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
What I mean, why.
That's the big question, isn'tit?
I mean, and I don't think it isthe same here.
I mean I feel like there's.
I mean we don't have.
I don't think it is the samehere, do you know?
I mean I feel like there's, Imean you.
Well, we don't have the data tosay it's the same.
I mean the?
Uh, you've got a very robuststudy from the uk.
We've just had the mccrindlereport and we talked about that
(05:56):
here on the pastor's heart acouple of weeks ago.
I've been trying to do someanalysis between the two and I
can't make the same claims aboutyoung people but anecdotally,
talking to my friends, there issomething going on amongst young
people and so I feel like thereport just hasn't been done yet
(06:17):
on what's going on here.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, one point of similarity, I think, is I think
the MacRindle report was veryhopeful about the sort of the
over 55s and over 65s.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And that was very interesting, wasn't it?
You saw that same U shape.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Well, I guess if you were to imagine what the shape
of churchgoing looks like, ifyou've got the sort of 18 to 24s
on the left-hand side of thegraph and the 65 plus at the
right-hand side of the graph,you might imagine a sort of an
incline from very low churchattendance to very high church
attendance.
We'll put that up on the screenas you speak.
Yeah, and that pretty much wasthe shape of 2018.
The shape in 2024 is a youright With the people like a man
(06:56):
in his 40s like me, I am theleast likely to go to church.
Under 4% of people like me arein church, as opposed to 18 to
24-year-olds, 21%, and almost ashigh figures for the retirees,
and so the retiree populationagain is rediscovering faith.
(07:16):
It's just these jaded Gen Xerslike me, you know All these 90s
kids listening to Nirvana.
We're just not in churchanymore.
You're the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I'm the problem, it's me.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Let's come back to why, mm-hmm well, I think that
has well one thing to say is wehad the wrong paradigm in our
head if we thought thatsecularization was inevitable,
right, if we thought that theratchet was always in the
direction of greatersecularization and and less and
(07:48):
less church attendance.
Um, that is not the way thatchurch attendance ever operates
and in fact you, you know,justin Briley's analogy
throughout his book is of hightide and low tide and we might
be at a low ebb, but tides don'tonly go out, and that's one way
of looking at it.
It's been a very popular way ofthinking about the sea of faith
(08:08):
, going back to Matthew Arnold'spoem on Dover Beach back in
1851.
Another, more biblical kind ofa directly biblical analogy is
the moon, you know, I think themoon getting brighter and dimmer
.
People like Jonathan Edwardswould point to that when he was
sort of talking about revivals.
You know, sometimes the moonwhich is meant to be reflecting
(08:30):
the light of the world into theworld, sometimes the moon is
bright, sometimes the moon isdim and it goes through phases
and there's waxing and there'swaning.
And I think, if we had this ideain our heads, that church going
kind of, you know, the kingdomgot going with Constantine in
312 and it kept going as aplateau and then it dropped off
a cliff in the 1960s and it'sbeen all downhill since then.
(08:53):
I think that kind of is thethumbnail sketch that I have in
my head about the way in whichthe fortunes of the kingdom go.
But I think the tide coming inand out is much more true to
history actually, and I've readabout it a little bit in the Air
we Breathe.
But the idea of the waxing andthe waning is the way that the
fortunes of the church have gonethroughout the time.
So one thing we need to do isget rid of that old paradigm,
(09:18):
and another thing to do is Ithink the story of the West has
kind of run out of steam.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I mean, that's really what Joe Rogan was observing,
wasn't it?
I mean, these people have got abetter life than me.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yes, yeah, yeah, and you can't deny that it works.
And that was Joe Rogan's kindof line to Wes Hough when Wes
Hough went on to Joe Rogan atthe start of the year.
And so it's very interestinghow history is playing a role in
(09:53):
Joe Rogan's thinking aboutthings, because you know he's
let slip on the podcast that youknow he's been going to church
and that sort of thing.
And I think when he was askedby Wes Huff, what do you make of
Jesus?
He said well, isn't itinteresting that that's even a
question to ponder?
The fact that that's a questionto ponder in the year 2025 is
extraordinary when you thinkthat this guy got crucified and
all that kind of stuff.
And so the historical growth ofChristianity has made Joe Rogan
think the pragmatic success ofChristianity in being able to
(10:15):
order our lives and and give usa sense of sanity and gravity
and groundedness in the midst ofthe swirling culture wars I
think that's been somethingthat's that's really resonated
with Joe Rogan and reallyresonated with the sort of
people who kind of listen to JoeRogan, and so that sense that
the story of the west has runout, the story of just limitless
(10:37):
potential and justself-invention every other five
minutes.
Um it is.
It's a little bit like theprodigal son, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
you know, we've, we've gone into the far country
and the money is finding thatthe pig food doesn't taste that
good.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
And then a figure like jordan peterson steps
forward and, um, jordan petersonis very much like we'll clean.
And Jordan Peterson is verymuch like well, clean your room.
Yeah.
He's very much like you've gottoo much chaos in your life
because you've gone for too muchhedonic pleasure and that sense
of freedom and you need moreorder in your life.
And so he then.
I kind of think the voice ofJordan Peterson, which has been
(11:11):
phenomenally powerful in gettingpeople into church so many of
the young guys in our churchthey'd been listening to Jordan
Peterson that was.
He was the gateway drug.
They're leapfrogging him intothe kingdom.
But I think his message is amessage essentially of become a
hired servant right, go frombeing the younger brother to
(11:31):
being the older brother.
And that's the little pep talkthat I do with all the young men
that are coming into our church.
Jordan Peterson, he might giveyou 12 sensible rules for life,
but the way of the kingdom isquite different.
That Christ kind of invites youin.
Still stinking of pig, you weredead and now you're alive again
.
That's the story of Luke 15.
(11:53):
And then the next day after thecelebration, you might want to
put those 12 rules for life intoeffect in your life, and so I
think that the message of JordanPeterson, which is essentially
a message of law, isn't it?
It is interesting how it hasmade people think I really
should get into church, and it'sinteresting how he's used the
(12:14):
Bible in order to do that.
It's really interesting how hehas made people pay attention to
these ancient texts.
And the people who show up in myBible, the people who show up
in my church, are people whohave ordered a Bible from Amazon
.
They've started in King Jamestranslation.
They've started in Genesis.
They arrive in church, they'vegot all sorts of questions about
(12:42):
Leviticus and the sacramentsand what they want is something
deep and rich and old andtethered and challenging.
And the strangeness ofChristianity is actually an
attractive thing.
The ancientness of Christianityis actually an attractive thing
, and I think we need to beclever about how we respond to
this surprising rebirth, becauseI think the sort of things that
(13:02):
I learned at Bible college 20years ago was kind of to get rid
of anything challenging, to getrid of anything that was a
barrier to faith, to get rid ofanything that made Christianity
look ancient, and we wereconstantly trying to let's do
cafe style church right.
Let's have, you know, chairs ina circle rather than in rows,
and let's get rid of sacramentsand we won't do a weekly
(13:25):
communion, because that mightnot be good for mission.
The people who show up inchurch now, they're like where's
your communion?
Why have you got kneelers andnobody's kneeling?
And like, like, where's yourcommunion?
Why have you got kneelers andnobody's kneeling?
And like why are we not readingthe Bible more?
And so I think the things thatwe thought of.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I mean, are you genuine?
I mean, I just want to push youon that.
You're genuinely hearing thatfrom a 22-year-old.
I'm not from a kind of one ofour peers who kind of remembers
College Chapel and thinks thatwould be kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Oh, no, and even before these stats were coming
out, you know pretty much theonly growing part of the Church
of England was Evensong atcathedrals and again that's
driven by younger people.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
We've just seen that here.
I was talking to Sandy Grant,the dean here, and he said
they're having their biggestnumbers on Thursday night
Evensong in years.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Well, of course, and you know, Cranmer was
evangelising us the whole timeand I think a lot of us
Anglicans kind of got rid ofthat because we thought it was
holding us back.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Okay, so let me be devil's advocate.
Why is it then in the UK thatthe Anglicans are still going
down the toilet and theCatholics and the Pentecostals
are?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
going up.
Yeah, and I donentecostals aregoing up.
Yeah, and I don't think theyare going down the toilet.
I think they're kind of almostjust about holding their own in
the midst of a lot of othergrowth.
So against population growth,against population, I think,
even against population growth.
What these stats would suggest,if we dive into them, is that
the C of E is just about holdingits own but being totally
(14:57):
outshone by, interestingly,roman Catholics and Pentecostals
.
So between 18.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Roman Catholics who are believing in creedal
Catholicism, or Roman Catholicswho have kind of gone off into
Francis, kind of.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Really hard to say with this data.
Really hard to say.
But one thing that'sinteresting is between 18 and 34
years old.
If you're a churchgoer, um, youare just as likely to be roman
catholic as you are to beanglican, which is no one would
have thought that 30 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and the pentecostals areare coming up right behind,
(15:30):
snapping on the heels of theanglicans at about 18 as opposed
to 20, um, who are anglican?
So what people?
I mean, what's similar betweenPentecostals and Roman Catholics
?
One is immigration, yeah, andwe can't sidestep that.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
And you very interesting.
The big increase in the UK hasbeen migrants going to church,
which is not seen in theMacRindle report in Australia,
that they're essentially goingto church at the same rate as
the general population.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I guess it will depend on from what nations your
immigrant populations are beingdrawn.
So one common denominatorbetween the Pentecostals and the
Roman Catholics is you mightexpect from certain countries to
have larger numbers of those.
You might expect from certaincountries to have larger numbers
of those.
But also we're talking aboutpeople who embrace the weird,
(16:23):
the strange, the non-modern,Like if we're living in the West
and we're all very late modernpeople who just have a very
scientific mindset, In one senseevangelicals, especially
evangelicals who are notcharismatic.
We press into the plainness ofit.
(16:43):
Let's explain everything.
Our preaching is explanationand we don't want to do anything
in church to kind of spook thehorses, and so we explain, even
whatever minimal liturgy we do.
Let me just explain when we saythis word.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Prayer is talking to God Prayer is just talking to
God.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It's nothing weird.
It's nothing weird.
And yet I think people arelooking for weird.
They're looking for prayer,they're looking for the
transcendence, they're lookingfor something strange, something
they can't get elsewhere.
And so isn't it interestingthat Pentecostal churches are
doing better and Roman Catholicchurches are doing better
because they, in their differentways, are strange, a little bit
(17:22):
weird.
And it's interesting that TomHolland kind of says that one of
the things that we should do,having read Dominion and if we
get on board the sort of theDominion thesis and my book is
basically Dominion for Dummiesand I'm the Dummy, but if you
get on board with this thesisthat we have come from, uh,
christianization over the overthe past 20 centuries, actually,
(17:44):
what we should do is becausechristianity has become so
secularized and it is now theair we breathe, it is now the
water that we swim in.
Um, christians shouldn't try toblend in with western culture
and Western civilisation.
We should be weird and weshould embrace the weird stuff.
And isn't it interesting thatit's the Pentecostals and the
Roman Catholics that seem to bedoing very well in this
(18:04):
environment.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
You've talked about coming to Christian faith,
coming through theJordan-Peterson gate you and
Justin Briley also, and brightly, I think, expressing concern
and worry about Andrew Tate andother people like that.
What's your take on this?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Well, in this cultural moment, I think there
are a lot of lost boys, thereare a lot of questions about
what masculinity is, if we onlyever hear the word toxic, that's
, that's attached to the wordmasculinity.
Well, what does it mean for ayoung boy to kind of grow up in
in this age?
And, uh, the the dramaadolescence on netflix is kind
(18:46):
of a real grappling with thatkind of thing and it offers no
answers whatsoever.
Um, it does name check andrewtate in episode of Adolescence,
this wildly popular Netflixseries, and I think what's going
on?
There is a bunch of lost boysand his audience is
(19:07):
overwhelmingly preteen and teen,like young teen looking up to
this caricature of a toxicmasculinity essentially.
Caricature of a toxicmasculinity essentially.
But I think what we can offer inthe church is a kind of a
healthy masculinity where we can, from a biblical point of view,
kind of say, yes, there is adifference between male and
(19:27):
female and there's a goodness tobeing a man, just as there's a
goodness to being a woman.
But let us shape our vision ofmasculinity through Jesus Christ
and through the scriptures, inwhich a real man lays down his
life for his bride in order tobring about new life and you've
got a very yes from strength,but that strength is to be used
(19:49):
in sacrificial service of others.
And when you see that lived outin church communities, when you
see that lived out in Christianmarriages, I think there's
something incredibly attractiveto a population that really
doesn't know what a woman is anddoesn't know what a man is
either.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Hmm, and I'm looking for somebody who will tell me
what a woman is and tell me whata man is.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, and at that point you realize that what
they're looking for when theycome into church is a kind of
does this work?
Is this grounded in real life?
Is this livable?
What does this mean for the wayin which I carry myself in the
world?
And again-.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
How does that change your preaching?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Well, exactly I think we can learn from Jordan
Peterson.
There's lots of things that Icaution about with Jordan
Peterson.
If people go to the Speak Lifechannel on YouTube they'll see
there's probably a couple ofdozen videos I've done on Jordan
Peterson and all of them arelike this.
I say here's what I appreciate,here's what we need to critique
.
What I appreciate is he canstand on a stage in Toronto and
(20:53):
preach his way, verse by verse,through Genesis, and thousands
will come and he will take histime over it and he will get
people interested and engaged inthe Bible.
And the way he treats the Bibleis interesting and he treats it
as a human text.
That is sort of the process ofgenerations and eons, of kind of
evolution.
And here's the wisdom.
It's a very bottom-up vision ofthe Bible and so he treats it
(21:14):
as a human text.
That is the greatest source ofwisdom for humans.
Okay, so it's a human text thathumanizes us, and we might look
at that and think, nope, that'snot what the Bible is, and that
would be true.
But in another sense, that kindof is what the Bible is, but
it's so much more.
There is a top-down vision ofthe Bible, but it is not less
(21:38):
than a human text that is thereto humanize us, just as the Lord
Jesus.
He is fully human.
He's not less than human, right, he is more than human.
And I think that the scriptures, in that same way, the word of
God written, has a humanity toit.
And Jordan Peterson preaches ahuman text in order to humanize
humans.
I think my danger as a preacheris to teach the Bible, as this
(22:03):
is a super spiritual text forsuper spiritual Christians to
fine tune their discipleship.
And on a Sunday I will pitch mypreaching to the super
spiritual Christian and kind ofalmost assume okay, there is
what makes you human, and that'soff to one side, and I'm just
going to deal with yourdiscipleship.
How can you pray a little bitmore, evangelize a little bit
(22:24):
more, give a little bit moreright?
And I think I have fallen intoa danger of preaching in that
sort of sense.
And I think Jordan Petersongives us a good challenge.
In what sense does the passagethat I'm preaching this Sunday,
how does it humanize humans, howdoes it speak into the human
condition?
He's very good at that and Ithink he can teach us lots.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
On the issue of individualism versus community
what do you?
Think is going on there that ishelping us in the ministry of
Jesus.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Well, interestingly, in the data from the Bible
Society a couple of weeks ago,those who are churchgoing have
well over two times more senseof continuity and commitment to
their locality.
So when you ask somebody, doyou feel connected to your local
area, something like 25% ofnon-churchgoers say yes.
(23:20):
Something like 63% ofchurchgoers say they feel a
connection to their locality.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I know people here, whereas in the block of flats I
live in.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
You know nobody, yeah , and there is no third space
anymore.
You know, maybe the gym is yourthird space that you go to.
You're not at work, you're notat home, where else are you?
Or maybe the gym, buteverybody's got their headphones
in and nobody's likeinteracting there.
Whereas, my goodness, everySunday we've got this pilot plan
to the kingdom, we've got thisfamily of God, brothers and
(23:51):
sisters, meeting together intheir locality, eyeballing one
another, carrying one another'sburdens, breaking bread together
.
This is incredibly powerful fora generation that has just been
hitting the self button and justbeen hitting the freedom button
and the individualism buttonand the self-creation button and
realizing that it leads youagain and again, more and more
(24:12):
into the far country and downinto the pigsty, and all of a
sudden, we're invited to a feastin which we're face to face
with one another, in which webear burdens, break bread.
It's, it's, uh, it's exactlywhat gen z say they want.
Okay, gen z say they wantauthenticity.
Um, but the price ofauthenticity is actually that
(24:33):
kind of vulnerability andsacrificial kind of service of
one another, and I think peoplewho have had enough of a fake
authenticity and a kind of avirtue signaling authenticity
online, those who have hadenough of that and see that it's
shallow.
They're ready to dive in withboth feet to an actual community
where I know and am known, andI think this is a real
(24:55):
opportunity for the gospel.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Crystal ball what's going to happen?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, interestingly, tom Holland talks about where we
are in this cultural moment andhe says there are three kind of
directions we could go in fromhere.
If we have come to see that ourvalues are largely Christian,
even that secular people, theircritiques of the church, are
essentially Christian critiques.
(25:21):
Right, you know, we are bigotedand cruel and coercive and
unenlightened and anti-scienceand restrictive and regressive.
Right, those are the critiquesthat the secular world has for
the church.
But we can only make thosecritiques if we think that the
highest values are compassion,equality, consent, enlightenment
, science, freedom, progress,all these things that have come
to us from the kingdom.
(25:41):
So Tom Holland says you know,people are starting to wake up
to that.
We can go in three directionsfrom here.
We could jump onto theprogressive train and just say,
all right, maybe Christianitygot us this far, but we don't
need it anymore and we will tryand forge a kind of progressive
(26:01):
future without being held backby the shackles of Christianity.
And that's one route that theculture might go down.
Another route that we might godown is to say, okay, all these
values that we prize, like humanequality and human rights and
human dignity, all these thingswere Christian myths, so let's
get rid of the myths, you know,get rid of Christianity and get
(26:23):
rid of human rights, you know,and you might get a whole bunch
of Andrew Taits out of this, andso you get a kind of an
anti-woke backlash right.
They think the progressives arewoke and they are happy with
the label anti-woke and theyhate virtue signaling, which
means they end up hating virtueas well in the end, and so
(26:43):
that's a quite stark andunattractive vision.
But then he says you know, thethird vision is revival.
The third vision is thatactually the church regains
confidence to tell its own storyand people are converted and
the church is strengthened and,you know, there's a sense of
return to Christ in that way.
(27:05):
Those are the three options,and I remember him laying this
out to me in an interview he didfor our channel a couple of
years ago, and I remembersitting there thinking to me in
an interview he did for ourchannel a couple of years ago,
and I remember sitting therethinking it's going to be all
three, isn't it?
And I think it is, it's goingto be all three.
It's a glorious mess, but Ithink in the data that the Quiet
Revival puts there's like 35%of young people are really
(27:28):
interested in the Bible, but aneven greater number think that
the Bible is dangerous.
49% of people really want tohave a spiritual conversation
with you, but 51% don't.
And it's going to be this messand there will be those who will
absolutely persecute the churchbecause we are the ones holding
us back from our greatprogressive future.
(27:49):
And I don't see any of thatslowing down, nor do I see
anything slowing down from theanti-woke crowd.
But then we've got this revivalthing happening at the same
time, and so what I don't thinkthere's any room for as we look
at some of this encouraging datais triumphalism or kind of high
(28:10):
fives and we are so back, and Idon't think any of this means
that we won't be persecuted.
I think we'll be persecuted alot more in the future and we'll
see a lot more gospel growth inthe future, and if we don't
want to make that trade, thenI'm not sure we really know
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Thanks so much for coming in.
Bless you, glenn Scribner aboutto hop on a plane back to the
UK.
He's from Speak Life Channel inthe United Kingdom.
My name's Dominic Steele.
This has been the Pastor'sHeart.
We'll look forward to yourcompany next Tuesday afternoon.
Thank you very much, sir.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Thank you.
Sorry I got a bit excited.
sure, okay, big movements towards faith in jesus
christ, but very different inthe uk and australia.
It is the pastor's heart,dominic steel.
Glenn scrivener is with us.
It has felt for 20 years thatall the movement in the west has
been essentially in onedirection, away from Jesus
Christ, and then more recentlyit's begun to feel like
(00:30):
something is changing.
Glenn Scrivener in the UK,along with Justin Briley, have
been at the forefront of drawingour attention to these changes
and recently Glenn has drawn ona new report from the UK Bible
Society.
They call it the Quiet Revival,but really it's quite
extraordinary.
Glenn works with Speak Life.
(00:50):
He's the author of this book,the Air we Breathe, and he's
been in Australia speaking atthe Katoomba Christian
Convention, to the west ofSydney, in the Blue Mountains.
Glenn, it does feel like itdoes our pastor's hearts good to
see this change in the wind100%.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
But I've always been a bit sceptical about you know.
Revival is just around thecorner, and you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I just kind of thought oh, justin Briley he
sounds.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I want what he says to be true but is it really is
he clutching at straws yeah andJustin's from a more charismatic
kind of background in whichthat kind of language of revival
is just around the corner andthat kind of thing is a lot more
common.
And so I think to begin with Iwas quite sceptical, just
thinking this is an intellectualversion of that, because in his
(01:38):
book the Surprising Rebirth ofBelief in God, he doesn't have
any statistics to kind of backup this sense and he's been
pushed on that.
He's been very much pushed onthat and he's been very open to
say look, all the statisticsthat I cite in the book are
statistics that go in theopposite direction, that
actually talk aboutdechristianization and greater
secularization and all that kindof thing.
And yet there was just thissense that he had, especially
(02:00):
because he had a front row seatto some of the great
intellectual debates of our timeand saw the rise and fall of
the new atheism and he saw therise of a figure like Jordan
Peterson and he saw more andmore people kind of taking faith
seriously and at leastentertaining the idea of faith
in an intellectual sense.
And so that was really where hewas coming from in the book.
And then he wrote an articlelast year for the Spectator
(02:23):
magazine.
It was the most read articlefor the Spectator.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Super viral.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Super viral in terms of revival in the United Kingdom
and at that stage my skepticismwas still there because I was
like, oh okay, but you know,justin's a great mate of mine.
But I just thought, you know, Ican see why if you've got a
book, then you want to make thisthesis work.
We still don't have the databehind it, but now the Bible
Society, together with YouGov,have put out this survey based
(02:47):
on 13,000 respondents, and thedata is in.
I think A Quiet Revival is apretty good description of
what's going on.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It almost sounds like it's downplaying it looking at
some of those statistics.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
They are unbelievable from one point of view, but
then quite believable if you'vegot your ear to the ground, if
you're talking to a whole bunchof other pastors and you're
figuring out what's going on indifferent churches.
And we had all been noticingthere are a heck of a lot more
young guys, in particular youngwomen as well, but young guys in
the 18 to 34-year-old bracket.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
I mean, some of those stats on young people are
breathtaking.
Give us some of those.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I mean, some of those stats on young people are
breathtaking.
Give us some of those.
So churchgoing is up.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
So the decline it's not just up against the bottom
point of COVID.
It's up on the pre-COVIDfigures in the UK.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So the two surveys that were done by YouGov, which
is the survey people who do allthe surveys in Great Britain.
It's very respected.
This is not just the BibleSociety pushing an agenda.
In 2018, they asked a wholeraft of questions to 19,000
English and Welsh people andthen they asked the same
questions to 13,000 English andWelsh people.
(03:54):
It's a very robust study.
But churchgoing was reportedand this is all self-report and
churchgoing is defined as atleast monthly, and so 8% back in
2018, and then up to 12% in2024, which is extraordinary
enough.
But then you dive down into the18 to 24-year-old bracket and
churchgoing is 16%.
(04:15):
You dive down into malechurchgoing of 18 to
24-year-olds and it's 21%.
Wow, up from under 4% in 2018.
So this is just extraordinary.
So, from one point of view,it's 21% up from under 4% in
2018.
So this is just extraordinary.
So, from one point of view,it's unbelievable.
From another point of view,it's like oh yeah, that's why
this guy and this guy and thisguy are showing up in my church.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
I've made the observation that our Introducing
God course and we've runroughly one a quarter for 10
years or something, one a termfor 10 years, 10 years or
something won a term for 10years and pretty much it's been
equal numbers male and female,or maybe slightly often,
slightly more, just slightlymore women than men, but
(04:54):
suddenly last term, 70% male,right, yeah, yeah.
And that's what we're seeing inyouth groups, that's what we're
seeing in youth groups as well.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Like all of a sudden, there's more guys than girls in
youth groups.
This is unheard ofunprecedented.
But you start to think.
You know, if there will be moreguys, there'll be more girls as
well, and the data in the UK isthat it's not at the expense of
female churchgoing.
So female churchgoing is alsoup, just not quite as up.
So female churchgoing is up toabout 10%.
(05:25):
It's just that male churchgoingis at around about 16%, so
averaging out to the 12%.
So extraordinary times.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
What I mean, why.
That's the big question, isn'tit?
I mean, and I don't think it isthe same here.
I mean I feel like there's.
I mean we don't have.
I don't think it is the samehere, do you know?
I mean I feel like there's, Imean you.
Well, we don't have the data tosay it's the same.
I mean the?
Uh, you've got a very robuststudy from the uk.
We've just had the mccrindlereport and we talked about that
(05:56):
here on the pastor's heart acouple of weeks ago.
I've been trying to do someanalysis between the two and I
can't make the same claims aboutyoung people but anecdotally,
talking to my friends, there issomething going on amongst young
people and so I feel like thereport just hasn't been done yet
(06:17):
on what's going on here.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, one point of similarity, I think, is I think
the MacRindle report was veryhopeful about the sort of the
over 55s and over 65s.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And that was very interesting, wasn't it?
You saw that same U shape.
Tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Well, I guess if you were to imagine what the shape
of churchgoing looks like, ifyou've got the sort of 18 to 24s
on the left-hand side of thegraph and the 65 plus at the
right-hand side of the graph,you might imagine a sort of an
incline from very low churchattendance to very high church
attendance.
We'll put that up on the screenas you speak.
Yeah, and that pretty much wasthe shape of 2018.
The shape in 2024 is a youright With the people like a man
(06:56):
in his 40s like me, I am theleast likely to go to church.
Under 4% of people like me arein church, as opposed to 18 to
24-year-olds, 21%, and almost ashigh figures for the retirees,
and so the retiree populationagain is rediscovering faith.
(07:16):
It's just these jaded Gen Xerslike me, you know All these 90s
kids listening to Nirvana.
We're just not in churchanymore.
You're the problem.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
I'm the problem, it's me.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Let's come back to why, mm-hmm well, I think that
has well one thing to say is wehad the wrong paradigm in our
head if we thought thatsecularization was inevitable,
right, if we thought that theratchet was always in the
direction of greatersecularization and and less and
(07:48):
less church attendance.
Um, that is not the way thatchurch attendance ever operates
and in fact you, you know,justin Briley's analogy
throughout his book is of hightide and low tide and we might
be at a low ebb, but tides don'tonly go out, and that's one way
of looking at it.
It's been a very popular way ofthinking about the sea of faith
(08:08):
, going back to Matthew Arnold'spoem on Dover Beach back in
1851.
Another, more biblical kind ofa directly biblical analogy is
the moon, you know, I think themoon getting brighter and dimmer
.
People like Jonathan Edwardswould point to that when he was
sort of talking about revivals.
You know, sometimes the moonwhich is meant to be reflecting
(08:30):
the light of the world into theworld, sometimes the moon is
bright, sometimes the moon isdim and it goes through phases
and there's waxing and there'swaning.
And I think, if we had this ideain our heads, that church going
kind of, you know, the kingdomgot going with Constantine in
312 and it kept going as aplateau and then it dropped off
a cliff in the 1960s and it'sbeen all downhill since then.
(08:53):
I think that kind of is thethumbnail sketch that I have in
my head about the way in whichthe fortunes of the kingdom go.
But I think the tide coming inand out is much more true to
history actually, and I've readabout it a little bit in the Air
we Breathe.
But the idea of the waxing andthe waning is the way that the
fortunes of the church have gonethroughout the time.
So one thing we need to do isget rid of that old paradigm,
(09:18):
and another thing to do is Ithink the story of the West has
kind of run out of steam.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I mean, that's really what Joe Rogan was observing,
wasn't it?
I mean, these people have got abetter life than me.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yes, yeah, yeah, and you can't deny that it works.
And that was Joe Rogan's kindof line to Wes Hough when Wes
Hough went on to Joe Rogan atthe start of the year.
And so it's very interestinghow history is playing a role in
(09:53):
Joe Rogan's thinking aboutthings, because you know he's
let slip on the podcast that youknow he's been going to church
and that sort of thing.
And I think when he was askedby Wes Huff, what do you make of
Jesus?
He said well, isn't itinteresting that that's even a
question to ponder?
The fact that that's a questionto ponder in the year 2025 is
extraordinary when you thinkthat this guy got crucified and
all that kind of stuff.
And so the historical growth ofChristianity has made Joe Rogan
think the pragmatic success ofChristianity in being able to
(10:15):
order our lives and and give usa sense of sanity and gravity
and groundedness in the midst ofthe swirling culture wars I
think that's been somethingthat's that's really resonated
with Joe Rogan and reallyresonated with the sort of
people who kind of listen to JoeRogan, and so that sense that
the story of the west has runout, the story of just limitless
(10:37):
potential and justself-invention every other five
minutes.
Um it is.
It's a little bit like theprodigal son, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (10:44):
you know, we've, we've gone into the far country
and the money is finding thatthe pig food doesn't taste that
good.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
And then a figure like jordan peterson steps
forward and, um, jordan petersonis very much like we'll clean.
And Jordan Peterson is verymuch like well, clean your room.
Yeah.
He's very much like you've gottoo much chaos in your life
because you've gone for too muchhedonic pleasure and that sense
of freedom and you need moreorder in your life.
And so he then.
I kind of think the voice ofJordan Peterson, which has been
(11:11):
phenomenally powerful in gettingpeople into church so many of
the young guys in our churchthey'd been listening to Jordan
Peterson that was.
He was the gateway drug.
They're leapfrogging him intothe kingdom.
But I think his message is amessage essentially of become a
hired servant right, go frombeing the younger brother to
(11:31):
being the older brother.
And that's the little pep talkthat I do with all the young men
that are coming into our church.
Jordan Peterson, he might giveyou 12 sensible rules for life,
but the way of the kingdom isquite different.
That Christ kind of invites youin.
Still stinking of pig, you weredead and now you're alive again
.
That's the story of Luke 15.
(11:53):
And then the next day after thecelebration, you might want to
put those 12 rules for life intoeffect in your life, and so I
think that the message of JordanPeterson, which is essentially
a message of law, isn't it?
It is interesting how it hasmade people think I really
should get into church, and it'sinteresting how he's used the
(12:14):
Bible in order to do that.
It's really interesting how hehas made people pay attention to
these ancient texts.
And the people who show up in myBible, the people who show up
in my church, are people whohave ordered a Bible from Amazon
.
They've started in King Jamestranslation.
They've started in Genesis.
They arrive in church, they'vegot all sorts of questions about
(12:42):
Leviticus and the sacramentsand what they want is something
deep and rich and old andtethered and challenging.
And the strangeness ofChristianity is actually an
attractive thing.
The ancientness of Christianityis actually an attractive thing
, and I think we need to beclever about how we respond to
this surprising rebirth, becauseI think the sort of things that
(13:02):
I learned at Bible college 20years ago was kind of to get rid
of anything challenging, to getrid of anything that was a
barrier to faith, to get rid ofanything that made Christianity
look ancient, and we wereconstantly trying to let's do
cafe style church right.
Let's have, you know, chairs ina circle rather than in rows,
and let's get rid of sacramentsand we won't do a weekly
(13:25):
communion, because that mightnot be good for mission.
The people who show up inchurch now, they're like where's
your communion?
Why have you got kneelers andnobody's kneeling?
And like, like, where's yourcommunion?
Why have you got kneelers andnobody's kneeling?
And like why are we not readingthe Bible more?
And so I think the things thatwe thought of.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
I mean, are you genuine?
I mean, I just want to push youon that.
You're genuinely hearing thatfrom a 22-year-old.
I'm not from a kind of one ofour peers who kind of remembers
College Chapel and thinks thatwould be kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Oh, no, and even before these stats were coming
out, you know pretty much theonly growing part of the Church
of England was Evensong atcathedrals and again that's
driven by younger people.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
We've just seen that here.
I was talking to Sandy Grant,the dean here, and he said
they're having their biggestnumbers on Thursday night
Evensong in years.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Well, of course, and you know, Cranmer was
evangelising us the whole timeand I think a lot of us
Anglicans kind of got rid ofthat because we thought it was
holding us back.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Okay, so let me be devil's advocate.
Why is it then in the UK thatthe Anglicans are still going
down the toilet and theCatholics and the Pentecostals
are?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
going up.
Yeah, and I donentecostals aregoing up.
Yeah, and I don't think theyare going down the toilet.
I think they're kind of almostjust about holding their own in
the midst of a lot of othergrowth.
So against population growth,against population, I think,
even against population growth.
What these stats would suggest,if we dive into them, is that
the C of E is just about holdingits own but being totally
(14:57):
outshone by, interestingly,roman Catholics and Pentecostals
.
So between 18.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Roman Catholics who are believing in creedal
Catholicism, or Roman Catholicswho have kind of gone off into
Francis, kind of.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Really hard to say with this data.
Really hard to say.
But one thing that'sinteresting is between 18 and 34
years old.
If you're a churchgoer, um, youare just as likely to be roman
catholic as you are to beanglican, which is no one would
have thought that 30 years ago.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and the pentecostals areare coming up right behind,
(15:30):
snapping on the heels of theanglicans at about 18 as opposed
to 20, um, who are anglican?
So what people?
I mean, what's similar betweenPentecostals and Roman Catholics
?
One is immigration, yeah, andwe can't sidestep that.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
And you very interesting.
The big increase in the UK hasbeen migrants going to church,
which is not seen in theMacRindle report in Australia,
that they're essentially goingto church at the same rate as
the general population.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I guess it will depend on from what nations your
immigrant populations are beingdrawn.
So one common denominatorbetween the Pentecostals and the
Roman Catholics is you mightexpect from certain countries to
have larger numbers of those.
You might expect from certaincountries to have larger numbers
of those.
But also we're talking aboutpeople who embrace the weird,
(16:23):
the strange, the non-modern,Like if we're living in the West
and we're all very late modernpeople who just have a very
scientific mindset, In one senseevangelicals, especially
evangelicals who are notcharismatic.
We press into the plainness ofit.
(16:43):
Let's explain everything.
Our preaching is explanationand we don't want to do anything
in church to kind of spook thehorses, and so we explain, even
whatever minimal liturgy we do.
Let me just explain when we saythis word.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Prayer is talking to God Prayer is just talking to
God.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It's nothing weird.
It's nothing weird.
And yet I think people arelooking for weird.
They're looking for prayer,they're looking for the
transcendence, they're lookingfor something strange, something
they can't get elsewhere.
And so isn't it interestingthat Pentecostal churches are
doing better and Roman Catholicchurches are doing better
because they, in their differentways, are strange, a little bit
(17:22):
weird.
And it's interesting that TomHolland kind of says that one of
the things that we should do,having read Dominion and if we
get on board the sort of theDominion thesis and my book is
basically Dominion for Dummiesand I'm the Dummy, but if you
get on board with this thesisthat we have come from, uh,
christianization over the overthe past 20 centuries, actually,
(17:44):
what we should do is becausechristianity has become so
secularized and it is now theair we breathe, it is now the
water that we swim in.
Um, christians shouldn't try toblend in with western culture
and Western civilisation.
We should be weird and weshould embrace the weird stuff.
And isn't it interesting thatit's the Pentecostals and the
Roman Catholics that seem to bedoing very well in this
(18:04):
environment.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
You've talked about coming to Christian faith,
coming through theJordan-Peterson gate you and
Justin Briley also, and brightly, I think, expressing concern
and worry about Andrew Tate andother people like that.
What's your take on this?
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Well, in this cultural moment, I think there
are a lot of lost boys, thereare a lot of questions about
what masculinity is, if we onlyever hear the word toxic, that's
, that's attached to the wordmasculinity.
Well, what does it mean for ayoung boy to kind of grow up in
in this age?
And, uh, the the dramaadolescence on netflix is kind
(18:46):
of a real grappling with thatkind of thing and it offers no
answers whatsoever.
Um, it does name check andrewtate in episode of Adolescence,
this wildly popular Netflixseries, and I think what's going
on?
There is a bunch of lost boysand his audience is
(19:07):
overwhelmingly preteen and teen,like young teen looking up to
this caricature of a toxicmasculinity essentially.
Caricature of a toxicmasculinity essentially.
But I think what we can offer inthe church is a kind of a
healthy masculinity where we can, from a biblical point of view,
kind of say, yes, there is adifference between male and
(19:27):
female and there's a goodness tobeing a man, just as there's a
goodness to being a woman.
But let us shape our vision ofmasculinity through Jesus Christ
and through the scriptures, inwhich a real man lays down his
life for his bride in order tobring about new life and you've
got a very yes from strength,but that strength is to be used
(19:49):
in sacrificial service of others.
And when you see that lived outin church communities, when you
see that lived out in Christianmarriages, I think there's
something incredibly attractiveto a population that really
doesn't know what a woman is anddoesn't know what a man is
either.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Hmm, and I'm looking for somebody who will tell me
what a woman is and tell me whata man is.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, and at that point you realize that what
they're looking for when theycome into church is a kind of
does this work?
Is this grounded in real life?
Is this livable?
What does this mean for the wayin which I carry myself in the
world?
And again-.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
How does that change your preaching?
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Well, exactly I think we can learn from Jordan
Peterson.
There's lots of things that Icaution about with Jordan
Peterson.
If people go to the Speak Lifechannel on YouTube they'll see
there's probably a couple ofdozen videos I've done on Jordan
Peterson and all of them arelike this.
I say here's what I appreciate,here's what we need to critique
.
What I appreciate is he canstand on a stage in Toronto and
(20:53):
preach his way, verse by verse,through Genesis, and thousands
will come and he will take histime over it and he will get
people interested and engaged inthe Bible.
And the way he treats the Bibleis interesting and he treats it
as a human text.
That is sort of the process ofgenerations and eons, of kind of
evolution.
And here's the wisdom.
It's a very bottom-up vision ofthe Bible and so he treats it
(21:14):
as a human text.
That is the greatest source ofwisdom for humans.
Okay, so it's a human text thathumanizes us, and we might look
at that and think, nope, that'snot what the Bible is, and that
would be true.
But in another sense, that kindof is what the Bible is, but
it's so much more.
There is a top-down vision ofthe Bible, but it is not less
(21:38):
than a human text that is thereto humanize us, just as the Lord
Jesus.
He is fully human.
He's not less than human, right, he is more than human.
And I think that the scriptures, in that same way, the word of
God written, has a humanity toit.
And Jordan Peterson preaches ahuman text in order to humanize
humans.
I think my danger as a preacheris to teach the Bible, as this
(22:03):
is a super spiritual text forsuper spiritual Christians to
fine tune their discipleship.
And on a Sunday I will pitch mypreaching to the super
spiritual Christian and kind ofalmost assume okay, there is
what makes you human, and that'soff to one side, and I'm just
going to deal with yourdiscipleship.
How can you pray a little bitmore, evangelize a little bit
(22:24):
more, give a little bit moreright?
And I think I have fallen intoa danger of preaching in that
sort of sense.
And I think Jordan Petersongives us a good challenge.
In what sense does the passagethat I'm preaching this Sunday,
how does it humanize humans, howdoes it speak into the human
condition?
He's very good at that and Ithink he can teach us lots.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
On the issue of individualism versus community
what do you?
Think is going on there that ishelping us in the ministry of
Jesus.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Well, interestingly, in the data from the Bible
Society a couple of weeks ago,those who are churchgoing have
well over two times more senseof continuity and commitment to
their locality.
So when you ask somebody, doyou feel connected to your local
area, something like 25% ofnon-churchgoers say yes.
(23:20):
Something like 63% ofchurchgoers say they feel a
connection to their locality.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I know people here, whereas in the block of flats I
live in.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
You know nobody, yeah , and there is no third space
anymore.
You know, maybe the gym is yourthird space that you go to.
You're not at work, you're notat home, where else are you?
Or maybe the gym, buteverybody's got their headphones
in and nobody's likeinteracting there.
Whereas, my goodness, everySunday we've got this pilot plan
to the kingdom, we've got thisfamily of God, brothers and
(23:51):
sisters, meeting together intheir locality, eyeballing one
another, carrying one another'sburdens, breaking bread together
.
This is incredibly powerful fora generation that has just been
hitting the self button and justbeen hitting the freedom button
and the individualism buttonand the self-creation button and
realizing that it leads youagain and again, more and more
(24:12):
into the far country and downinto the pigsty, and all of a
sudden, we're invited to a feastin which we're face to face
with one another, in which webear burdens, break bread.
It's, it's, uh, it's exactlywhat gen z say they want.
Okay, gen z say they wantauthenticity.
Um, but the price ofauthenticity is actually that
(24:33):
kind of vulnerability andsacrificial kind of service of
one another, and I think peoplewho have had enough of a fake
authenticity and a kind of avirtue signaling authenticity
online, those who have hadenough of that and see that it's
shallow.
They're ready to dive in withboth feet to an actual community
where I know and am known, andI think this is a real
(24:55):
opportunity for the gospel.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Crystal ball what's going to happen?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Well, interestingly, tom Holland talks about where we
are in this cultural moment andhe says there are three kind of
directions we could go in fromhere.
If we have come to see that ourvalues are largely Christian,
even that secular people, theircritiques of the church, are
essentially Christian critiques.
(25:21):
Right, you know, we are bigotedand cruel and coercive and
unenlightened and anti-scienceand restrictive and regressive.
Right, those are the critiquesthat the secular world has for
the church.
But we can only make thosecritiques if we think that the
highest values are compassion,equality, consent, enlightenment
, science, freedom, progress,all these things that have come
to us from the kingdom.
(25:41):
So Tom Holland says you know,people are starting to wake up
to that.
We can go in three directionsfrom here.
We could jump onto theprogressive train and just say,
all right, maybe Christianitygot us this far, but we don't
need it anymore and we will tryand forge a kind of progressive
(26:01):
future without being held backby the shackles of Christianity.
And that's one route that theculture might go down.
Another route that we might godown is to say, okay, all these
values that we prize, like humanequality and human rights and
human dignity, all these thingswere Christian myths, so let's
get rid of the myths, you know,get rid of Christianity and get
(26:23):
rid of human rights, you know,and you might get a whole bunch
of Andrew Taits out of this, andso you get a kind of an
anti-woke backlash right.
They think the progressives arewoke and they are happy with
the label anti-woke and theyhate virtue signaling, which
means they end up hating virtueas well in the end, and so
(26:43):
that's a quite stark andunattractive vision.
But then he says you know, thethird vision is revival.
The third vision is thatactually the church regains
confidence to tell its own storyand people are converted and
the church is strengthened and,you know, there's a sense of
return to Christ in that way.
(27:05):
Those are the three options,and I remember him laying this
out to me in an interview he didfor our channel a couple of
years ago, and I remembersitting there thinking to me in
an interview he did for ourchannel a couple of years ago,
and I remember sitting therethinking it's going to be all
three, isn't it?
And I think it is, it's goingto be all three.
It's a glorious mess, but Ithink in the data that the Quiet
Revival puts there's like 35%of young people are really
(27:28):
interested in the Bible, but aneven greater number think that
the Bible is dangerous.
49% of people really want tohave a spiritual conversation
with you, but 51% don't.
And it's going to be this messand there will be those who will
absolutely persecute the churchbecause we are the ones holding
us back from our greatprogressive future.
(27:49):
And I don't see any of thatslowing down, nor do I see
anything slowing down from theanti-woke crowd.
But then we've got this revivalthing happening at the same
time, and so what I don't thinkthere's any room for as we look
at some of this encouraging datais triumphalism or kind of high
(28:10):
fives and we are so back, and Idon't think any of this means
that we won't be persecuted.
I think we'll be persecuted alot more in the future and we'll
see a lot more gospel growth inthe future, and if we don't
want to make that trade, thenI'm not sure we really know
Jesus.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Thanks so much for coming in.
Bless you, glenn Scribner aboutto hop on a plane back to the
UK.
He's from Speak Life Channel inthe United Kingdom.
My name's Dominic Steele.
This has been the Pastor'sHeart.
We'll look forward to yourcompany next Tuesday afternoon.
Thank you very much, sir.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Thank you.
Sorry I got a bit excited.
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