April 1, 2025 • 35 mins
What if everything you thought you knew about religion's decline in the West was wrong? Justin Brierley, award-winning broadcaster and author of "The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God," reveals the remarkable cultural shift happening beneath our noses.
After fifteen years hosting conversations between atheists and Christians, Brierley noticed something unexpected. The New Atheism movement that dominated cultural discourse in the 2000s has rapidly faded, with many of its former champions now focusing on culture war issues rather than critiquing religion. Meanwhile, secular intellectuals like Jordan Peterson and historian Tom Holland have begun publicly appreciating Christianity's cultural contributions, even as they personally struggle with belief.
Most surprisingly, younger generations—particularly Gen Z—are showing unprecedented openness to faith. Recent UK surveys reveal Gen Z are half as likely to be atheist as their parents and grandparents. Unlike previous generations who rebelled against a Christian upbringing, today's young people have no religious background to reject. For them, exploring Christianity represents something novel, even countercultural.
This spiritual renaissance emerges against a backdrop of what psychologists call a "meaning crisis." Despite material prosperity and technological advancement, rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide continue to climb. Many who've tried individualistic "spiritual but not religious" approaches find themselves still searching for something more substantive.
What makes this movement distinctive is that many seekers aren't looking for watered-down spirituality. Instead, they're drawn to traditional expressions of faith that offer rigorous community, challenging moral frameworks, and transcendent mystery. As Brierley observes, "they want something weird" that stands apart from secular culture.
For churches navigating this cultural moment, the opportunity is substantial but requires discernment. The communities seeing growth aren't necessarily those chasing relevance, but those confidently offering Christianity's distinctive alternative to a fragmented, increasingly dehumanized world. Share your thoughts using #Evangelical360 and subscribe for more conversations with Christian changemakers worldwide.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Stiller (00:05):
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
(00:25):
We'd love you to be a part ofthe podcast by sharing this
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is JustinBrierley, author and
award-winning broadcaster fromthe UK.
(00:47):
In his book, the SurprisingRebirth of Belief in God, justin
challenges our assumptions thatfaith in the West is on the
decline.
Through his examination of thenew atheism, he highlights the
surprising number of secularthinkers who are considering
Christianity once again.
(01:07):
How did this come about andwhat has reversed the perception
that the Christian faith is fornon-thinkers?
Listen in as Justin shares withus the remarkable story of how
the tides have turned.
Justin, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
(01:32):
The story of your research andpodcast and writing is
remarkable.
Your book, the SurprisingRebirth of Belief in God why New
Atheism Grew Old and SecularThinkers Are Considering
Christianity Again.
How did you come to thisconclusion?
(01:53):
What were you seeing in yourresearch and your writing?
Justin Brierley (01:57):
Well, I'd been in the privileged position of
hosting conversations betweenatheists and Christians here in
the UK for a period of over 15years, beginning in the
mid-2000s and on a show calledUnbelievable.
What I noticed was that in thattime there was a real shift in
the way that those conversationswere playing out.
It began in the heyday of NewAtheism, when characters like
(02:20):
Richard Dawkins, sam Harris,christopher Hitchens these
so-called four horsemen of thenew atheism were riding high in
the bestseller charts with theiranti-God books, and that was
very much the flavour and toneof the conversations and debates
that I was hosting from themid-2000s onwards.
But then I started to notice,as time went on, a lot more
people distancing themselvesfrom this new atheist movement.
(02:42):
I noticed a lot more secularpeople reconsidering the value
of Christian faith and theemergence of characters like
Jordan Peterson, a secularCanadian psychologist, but who
was not there, saying religion'sbad for you, but saying
actually maybe we need to lookat the Bible to find meaning and
purpose in life, and thenbumping into other similar
(03:03):
characters on this side of thepond, people like the historian
Tom Holland and his bookDominion, asking whether we can
make sense of the moralinstincts of the West without
the Christian story and so on,and I just increasingly noticed
that as quickly as this newatheist movement had gained a
head of steam, it waned veryquickly as well, and it left
(03:23):
behind a lot of questions,people asking the questions
about meaning and purpose andidentity.
Those hadn't gone away, andsuddenly I found that there
seemed to be a new openness toengaging the Bible again, the
Christian story, to the value ofchurch, and so I suppose this
idea for a book dropped into mymind around 2020, 2021, as I
(03:45):
started to realize thatsomething was changing the
culture.
The metaphor that I ended uppicking up for it was this idea
that the tide is turning.
For me, that seems to have beencontinuing to happen.
The tide seems to be continuingto turn.
We are living more and more inan era when people are taking
Christianity seriously again forvarious reasons, and so that
(04:08):
was really where the book andthen the subsequent podcast
documentary series came from.
Brian Stiller (04:12):
Justin?
Are there cultural factors thatare driving this new interest?
Justin Brierley (04:17):
Lots of them, I think.
I think one of them is the factthat the new atheism, as it
stood, failed to answer people'sfundamental questions, as I
said, but people still had thosequestions.
I think, when you put thattogether with the fact that our
culture is increasingly, itseems, coming apart at the seams
, with the culture, wars and theway in which technology, as
(04:38):
much as it can be a great help,can also be a great hindrance to
people's lives, the fact thatwe're living increasingly in
what psychologists call ameaning crisis, where people
don't have a rooted sense of whothey are through a tradition or
a community or a story, areligious story I think what
we're seeing is the culminationof all of these things coming
(04:59):
together in a way that'ssuddenly bringing about the
conditions that could catalyse anew interest in Christian faith
.
It's remarkable to me, forinstance, that having sketched
out this thesis and the book waspublished in 2023, suddenly all
kinds of factors seemed to fallinto place that seemed to
confirm the thesis, thatsuddenly people are ready to
(05:20):
hear this again.
There was the well-publicisedstory of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former
new atheist, herself declaringthat she had become a Christian.
Her story really did fit thethesis of my book that
essentially secular liberalismjust isn't enough for people now
.
They need something like theChristian story to make sense of
(05:41):
life.
Likewise, seeing the rise inreligiosity that we're seeing
now in the polls among youngpeople, especially Gen Z A
recent survey here in the UKshowed that Gen Z are half as
likely to be atheist as theirparents and grandparents there's
this sudden new wave ofopenness Now.
That could go in lots ofdifferent directions, because
(06:03):
spirituality does notnecessarily equal Christianity,
but I think it shows thatthere's a new kind of
opportunity that's been openingup and a sort of a possibility
that people are seenhistorically where there is a
rise of faith of inclinationtowards spirituality out of
(06:31):
atheism, or is this a fairly newphenomenon?
Well, the new atheism was asomewhat new phenomenon in as
much as it was a verydogmatically anti-theistic form
of atheism.
Obviously, atheism has existedfor a long time, you know.
Since enlightenment,essentially onwards, there has
been that sort of drive towardsa more rationalistic, atheistic
kind of way of looking at life.
(06:51):
I think the new atheism, though, was a slightly different
manifestation of it.
In the early 2000s, especiallydriven by 9-11 and some of the
concerns about religiousextremism, the mistake the new
atheist made was to sort of justtreat all religions as equally
dangerous, and clearly they'renot.
I think a lot of them haveactually changed their tune
(07:12):
quite significantly.
When even a new atheist likeRichard Dawkins starts calling
himself a cultural Christian,you realise the ground has
shifted quite a lot, and he'scome to possibly appreciate the
fact that Christianity is quitedistinct from other religions.
What I would say you do findcommonality with in terms of
previous occasions is thatwhenever the ground shifts
(07:33):
underneath us, whenever there'sinstability generally in a
culture, people do look forsomething solid to stand on
again, and one example I couldpoint to of this is and in the
UK especially, shortly afterWorld War II, a period of great
societal change and turmoil,there was a significant upturn,
like CS Lewis, dorothy Sayersand others, and so Bishop Graham
(08:08):
Tomlin, who I work with on apodcast called Re-Enchanting,
has sort of charted these sortsof moments in history, and I
just wonder whether we may beseeing something similar
happening.
We're living again in veryfractious, uncertain, divided
times on the edge of Europe,political convulsions.
And you throw into that whathappens when you suddenly throw
(08:33):
everything up in the air withthe internet revolution, social
media and the effect it's havingon young people, I think you're
creating the kinds ofconditions in which people start
to look for something solidagain, and many people, I think,
are actually, and I think it'snow being borne out by the
statistics.
Turning back to church,interestingly and that's perhaps
(08:56):
not well, I've called it thesurprising rebirth of believing
God.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised.
This does happen.
People look for something toground themselves in again.
Brian Stiller (09:01):
Justin, is this more of a personal spirituality
movement or is it anintellectual, philosophical
inquiry into the issues of faith, given our new understanding of
our global enterprise?
Or is it a combination?
Justin Brierley (09:21):
of both.
I'm going to say it's acombination, because I think
there's two different thingsthat I've been charting in this
surprising rebirth movement.
One is, yes, this extraordinarysort of phenomenon of a number
(09:43):
of others who are just seem tobe opening up to the value of
faith and saying, actually itturns, a lot of those voices,
whether they be Christian or not, starting to kind of, you know
(10:09):
sort of at this cultural level,starting to open up the
possibility that we might wantto reinvestigate the Christian
story.
But I think that's being met,as it were, from the ground up
by what I've described as thismeaning crisis, this idea that
people are feeling unhappy,unsettled.
We live in a moretechnologically, materially
prosperous age than ever beforeand yet the mental health crisis
(10:32):
is skyrocketing.
Suicide is the leading cause ofdeath among men.
It's extraordinary, isn't it,that the more we seem to add to
our knowledge and ability, theless we seem to be able to be
happy.
And I think what's happening isthe confluence of these two
things the people who aretalking about faith in a new way
(10:53):
again, and the emergence ofthis meaning crisis.
This dissatisfaction with theculture we find ourselves in, is
leading both people back toChristianity, to the story, that
kind of grounded Westernculture, the story that, from
generations of people, did givethem a sense of meaning and
purpose and identity.
And people are very surprisedand I bump into them all the
(11:13):
time now, people who are saying,well, I've just started going
to church and it turns out it'sspeaking to me in ways I never
expected and I find that veryexciting.
But it's it's.
It's not a simple picture,because there's all kinds of
mixed motives that go into that.
There's all kinds of politicalaspects to this.
(11:35):
There's an opportunity, but, asever, the church needs to be
very wise in the way it engagesthe harvest that's potentially
there in front of it.
Brian Stiller (11:42):
What are the demographics of this search?
Is it with the Gen Z or is itin the baby boomers?
Where does it rest primarily?
Justin Brierley (12:07):
the ones who are turning up for Joe Rogan and
Jordan Peterson and all of theYouTube and podcast influencers
who are opening the door toreinvestigating Christian faith.
There's been a huge surge ofthose, but I think that tips
quickly into the Gen Z categoryas well.
The thing with the Gen Z is,again, all of these polls that
have been coming out in the US,australia, the UK, showing, in
(12:31):
particular, a rise in the numberof young men who are going back
to church, taking religionseriously.
Not so much among young women,interestingly, and I think
what's happening there is.
It reflects the fact thatthere's been a separation
politically between young menand young women.
Again, this has come out invarious surveys that young men
(12:52):
are skewing more conservative onaverage than young women.
Well, one of the early episodesof the next season of my podcast
series is going to be lookingspecifically at this issue that
we're suddenly seeing thisinflux of young men, gen Z men,
who are looking for faith andquite traditional forms of
Christianity.
I think it's a lot to do with asort of male identity crisis
that's been brewing in the Westfor quite a long time.
(13:14):
Suddenly, young men who arefeeling rootless, dispossessed,
even sort of unwelcome to someextent they're going in lots of
directions, some of them prettyunhealthy, the Andrew Tate form
of very misogynistic, macho kindof you know influencers like
that, but also a certaindemographic bumping into're
(13:36):
seeing just this extraordinarywave of young men suddenly
turning up in their churches.
And these are Gen Z men by andlarge, young men who are willing
to give the Christian story ago.
(13:58):
And interestingly, the thingabout Gen Z is they haven't in a
way been inoculated againstreligion in the way that their
parents and grandparents havebeen inoculated against religion
in the way that their parentsand grandparents have been,
because they did exist the sortof Gen X and boomer generation
in a kind of broadly culturallyChristian culture.
(14:18):
I think they thought they knewwhat Christianity was and could
reject it.
Most Gen Z have never been setfoot inside church.
They've got barely any biblicalliteracy.
They really are genuinelyunchurched, but in an ironic way
that means they're not kickingagainst anything.
They missed the new atheism.
They were still in nappies whenthat happened that it's
(14:41):
actually become kind of cool togo in the other.
Whereas it was cool to rejectreligion when you were a boomer
Gen Xer, it's become cool in theopposite way to do something
weird like become a Christiannow.
So it's it's.
It's a really interesting sortof flip that's happening among
these, especially these Gen Zyoung men.
Brian Stiller (15:01):
My generation was faced the modernity.
Modernity meaning truth canonly be defined by scientific
methods.
It's got to be proven.
So we were living in oppositionto that kind of modernity and
finding a faith over againstthat kind of scientism.
(15:22):
But this new atheism that youdescribe seems to be something a
little different than that.
How do you understand that?
The Gen Z response to a newkind of spirituality, this
rebirth that you described?
How does that relate to themodernity, the use of science as
(15:44):
a way of defining truth?
Justin Brierley (15:46):
Well, I would say this was something that
marked new atheism.
It kind of took thatrationalist enlightenment way of
looking at life that everythingcan be essentially
scientifically investigated, andit sort of turbocharged it.
And it did result in thesecharacters like Richard Dawkins
and others believing that wecould essentially do everything,
(16:08):
we could build a sort of utopiaif we just looked to science
and reason and abandoned all ourreligious superstitions and so
on.
But in a funny way that was theend result of a sort of a long
period that began, as I say, inthe Enlightenment but it seems
to have, for me, imploded quitequickly as well.
(16:30):
The reason for that is thatmodernity kind of crashed into
post-modernity, while sciencehas benefited from the modern
revolution At the same time,this growing postmodern culture
(16:50):
that has especially acceleratedsince the 1960s has sort of
collided with the new atheistsand their love of science and
reason.
Because what it did was,instead of people embracing with
the abandonment as the newatheist story of the Christian
story, their hope was to bringin science and reason as the new
story that people would leavetheir lives by.
(17:12):
But that's not what happened.
What happened was that the voidthat was left was not filled by
science and reason, becausescience and reason can do lots
of wonderful things, but itwon't give you a meaningful
existence, it won't tell youwhat you're worth and that sort
of thing.
And so people startedinevitably to draw on all kinds
of other, often quasi-religious,stories to fill that void.
(17:33):
And so that's where you see,then, the extremes of both the
left and the right, with, say,on the progressive left, this
sort of sexuality and genderstories becoming those sacred
stories that people put in theplace of the God story to live
their life by, or politicalmythologies on the right about
save your figures in America,take your pick.
They all have been grabbed ontoin our general culture.
(17:57):
Those are the stories peoplehave tried to replace the
Christian story with, because weneed a story to live by and
these are the next best thing.
But of course, these storiesall compete with each other.
They create these culture wars,this tribalism, this toxicity
in our culture.
And what happened was that thenew atheists suddenly found
themselves, rather than usheringin this, having dismissed the
(18:20):
Christian story, rather thanwelcoming in this utopia of
science and reason, they foundthemselves battling all these
other stories, thesequasi-religious stories, and
this was what they suddenlyrealised was that you just can't
get.
People are just innatelyreligious, and if they're not
religious about the Christianstory, they'll become quite
religious about something else,and it wasn't science and reason
.
So, ironically, that postmodernturn sort of came to bite the
(18:46):
new atheists and it led to themcompletely changing direction.
None of the new atheists noware critiquing organised
religion.
They're all engaged in theculture wars Sam Harris and
Richard Dawkins, it's all aboutthe transgender wars and
everything else.
So we're in this very unusualmoment where suddenly the
(19:06):
postmodernism, it turns out, iswhat everyone had actually sort
of hitched their wagon to, butit flies right in the face of
(19:29):
defining sort of cultural marker, and I think they much
preferred, as it were, the oldenemy to the new enemies, if you
like.
That have now been introduced.
Brian Stiller (19:39):
Is this rebirth leading to a general interest in
spirituality or does it, morespecifically, focus itself on
transcendence, on god or a god?
How is this?
Justin Brierley (19:53):
unraveling.
Well, I think, inevitably thereare a lot of people who are in
that I'm spiritual but notreligious camp, and those are
the people who sort of, yeah,they, they have that yearning,
that sense that they wantsomething transcendent, but they
don't like organised religion,and there's quite a lot of those
still around.
What I think we're seeing theemergence of as another person
(20:16):
put it to me recently isactually a different thing, a
flip in that the people who arearguably religious but not
spiritual, and that's people whoactually want the structures of
religion, they want the churchgoing and they want the things
that religion can offer at itsbest in terms of community and
(20:37):
the values and so on, but whatthey struggle with is actually
believing it, believing in Jesusor the resurrection.
And you see this playing out inthe lives of some of these
secular intellectuals.
I've talked about Tom Holland,the UK historian, who has
absolutely, sort of, you know,become convinced that
Christianity, the church, is thething that gave us, you know,
(21:00):
all the benefits of moderncivilization essentially.
But he struggles at a personallevel to sort of believe in
Jesus as the son of God and theresurrection.
So he says to me, you know, inprivate conversations and public
ones sometimes that hecertainly has moments where he
can believe it, but then it sortof fizzles out again.
But the point is that he'sgoing to church, he wants to be
(21:21):
there and he knows that it doeshim some good and I'm sensing
that quite a lot you mightexpect.
Oh, people will just want sortof the kind of fuzzy
spirituality without any of thecommitments of religious
observance.
But actually I think that it'sshifting in the direction of
people realizing they really dowant something more rigorous,
(21:43):
more challenging.
They've realized that I can'tdo this by myself and there's a
real value in turning up andtrying to make sense of this
alongside other people on aregular basis.
They've had a good long whileto try the self-improvement,
therapeutic, dayism kind ofapproach that's been on offer
(22:07):
for a while in the culture.
But we're still drowning inanxiety, depression, addiction.
I think honestly thepornography addiction is doing
as much as anything for youngmen to eventually drive them
towards something in theirdesperation to have a better
life that might look a bit likechurch and like something quite
(22:27):
challenging.
So I think there's a lot ofthose factors.
People are realizing thespiritual but not religious
fuzzy kind of version ofspirituality just doesn't have
the strength, the structure toactually change my life, and so
I see a lot of people actuallyopting for something a lot more
religious in that sense.
Brian Stiller (22:47):
So do you see personal transformation as being
an attractive reason for peopleturning to God or turning to
Christ in a specific way?
Is personal transformation,more than intellectual resolve,
at the heart of much of thisrebirth?
Justin Brierley (23:04):
Yes, Well, I think, ultimately, there has to
be a personal spiritualtransformation, but I think
people arrive at that in verydifferent ways.
I think a lot of people aregoing on quite an intellectual
journey, becoming convinced thatChristianity is really good for
us, it's really useful in thatsense, but struggling to get to
(23:27):
the point of saying it's true,now I would say the only reason
it's ever been useful is becauseit's true, and you're not
hiding to nothing if you're justkind of interested in promoting
Christian values and so on,without affirming the truth of
the story.
What I'm encouraged by, though,is seeing a lot of people who
start at this place of sort ofvaluing Christianity for it,
(23:48):
sort of as a utilitarian thingand going to church is probably
good for you on average and thenactually bumping into Jesus
along the way, and for me that'smy hope is that people won't
just stay in this kind ofintellectual, utilitarian view
of Christianity, but thatactually, in starting to realize
(24:09):
the intellectual value andcultural value of Christianity,
they'll realize there's a goodreason for that.
There's a person behind it whostands behind the whole of
history, and I'm increasinglyencountering those people who
are going on that journey.
Brian Stiller (24:23):
How are churches responding to this rebirth?
Are they open to the kind ofquestions that this rebirth is
triggering, or are churchespretty much locked into their
ritual and into their form ofworship and way of thinking and
doing things?
Justin Brierley (24:42):
Well, I get to talk to a lot of church leaders
here in the UK and what I'mseeing on this side of the pond
is certainly a lot of excitementand a lot of people who
recognise what I'm talking about, who are seeing especially
these young men turning up intheir churches.
I've got a friend who is therector of St Alda's Church in
Oxford, where I was a studentmyself, and he's talking about a
(25:06):
huge wave of young people,unchurched young people coming
through the doors looking for abetter story.
And it's not that they'vechanged what they're doing
particularly.
It's just that the tide seemsto be turning in that city and
there's just this openness andthis desire to find out and to
look for an alternative.
I would say where churchescould do with, if you like,
(25:28):
thinking through theimplications of this is to ask
themselves well, what are thelessons we can learn from some
of these secular intellectualswho are obviously scratching an
itch among these young people,that they're building these huge
platforms around?
What are the questions they'reanswering?
It may not be the samequestions as 15 or 20 years ago,
(25:49):
when the new atheism waspredominant.
So I would say one thing forchurch leaders to be aware of is
that you may have kind of builta ministry around sort of
apologetics and an intellectualapproach to Christianity, and
there's obviously a place forthat.
But actually that's not wheremost people are beginning now,
because we're no longer in thatnew atheist phase where we were
having to respond to thosearguments.
(26:10):
I think a lot of people engagein Christianity in a very
emotional, directly experientialway, through the imagination.
So maybe it's time to thinkabout how do we address that
when it comes to reaching out topeople around us.
So I think there are somelessons to be learned there.
I think the church has to beready to adapt and to try to do
what it can to meet this growingwave of interest and these
(26:33):
meaning seekers.
But at the same time, a lot ofwhat the church has always done
is simply to be ready, you know,ready for when that tide turns,
and be faithful and have thedoors open and be willing to
invite people into the communityof the church, where we work
this all out together.
And that's what I'm seeing.
As I say, I've seen a number ofchurches who are reporting
(26:56):
quite interesting upturn incongregation.
People walk through the doors,but not because they've
particularly done anythingstrategically different.
It's just they're doing whatthey've always done well, and
now people seem to be ready tohear the message doing what
they've always done well, andnow people seem to be ready to
hear the message.
Brian Stiller (27:16):
Justin, are you seeing in this rebirth any
inclination towards issues ofjustice, the issues of poverty,
those factors?
Does that affect the interestthat people have in discovering
faith again?
Justin Brierley (27:29):
I think there is an important dimension of
that, because a lot of obviouslyGen Z, those are significant
issues for them, issues aroundjustice and poverty and so on.
And I think sometimes where theintellectual side of that comes
in is the question of where dowe ground this interest and
these values in justice andpoverty and so on.
(27:49):
And there's been some reallyinteresting conversations I've
had with people who have kind ofcome up short when it comes to
politics, being able to deliver,and have realised it's hard to
know how to take this forwardwithout getting burned out and
stressed out.
I think the church has animportant answer to that in
(28:11):
terms of of how you live as a,you know with those issues and
and, and, but do it through thepower of Jesus.
Having said all that, I thinkyou know my my.
In all honesty, most of thepeople I see in this surprising
rebirth movement it's thereasons why they're coming to
(28:32):
church are more, are more to dowith their own personal burnout
and the meaning crisis thatthey've encountered in their own
life.
And they've they've looked,they've tried to kind of adopt
the secular, the liberal secularkind of values of their culture
or they've tried to do it thatway and it just hasn't worked.
And so they're almost comingbecause they're looking for a
(28:55):
better way of structuring theirown life.
That's the thing that hasultimately driven them to step
into a church.
So I think it's probablyarguably more that personal
dimension of what people arelooking for that brings them
into the purview of the church.
Brian Stiller (29:13):
We've seen over the last few years the success
of Alpha as a program or as ameans of bringing people into
conversation on faith.
Does this align with theresponse to the new atheism in
the rebirth that you'vedescribed, to the new atheism in
the rebirth that you'vedescribed?
Justin Brierley (29:29):
Yeah, I think Alpha has been tremendously
influential and, again, fromwhat I'm hearing from friends
who run the Alpha courses,they're seeing a sudden uptick.
There may be churches that haverun Alpha for 20, 25 years, but
it's really only recently thatthey're starting to suddenly see
a real resurgence of interestand I'm very grateful for
courses like Alpha, which do agreat job, in my opinion, of
(29:53):
presenting people with theChristian story and giving them
the opportunity to talk itthrough over a meal with people
who become their friends.
I think that's one importantaspect of this.
I think taking people'squestions seriously is a really
important part of this.
Giving people the space to workit through is a really
important part of this.
Giving people the space to workit through.
(30:13):
There's a lot of confused andmessed up people who are going
to be coming in on this sort ofmeaning crisis, this wave, if
you like.
Brian Stiller (30:21):
How do you see this evolving?
You're at the beginning of thisrebirth, as you've described,
as it moves its way along.
What do you anticipate?
What are you seeing now?
Justin Brierley (30:34):
I'm not a great prophet of these things and I'm
sort of really just trying tokeep up with what is happening.
What's really interesting to meis that I do think the thesis
that I kind of published in mybook in the sort of summer of
2023, I've just seen it growingand being confirmed in lots of
interesting ways from all theinfluencers who are now showing
(30:55):
an interest in faith orconverting to a lot of these
surveys and polls showing arenewed interest in faith,
especially among Gen Z, and evenanecdotal and increasingly, I
think, real data to suggestactually that we're seeing a
turning of the tide when itcomes to churchgoing in the West
.
There's some really interestingearly signs, certainly a
(31:15):
stemming of the decline that hasbeen just the story for a long
time, certainly in the UK andelsewhere when this goes next.
There are lots of differentways there are concerning good
directions.
I think there's a significantpart that's tied into this
movement, where there are peoplewho have a political axe to
(31:36):
grind and who want to arguablyco does this.
I was just recently at the ARCconference in London, which is a
gathering of veryconservatively minded
politicians and culturalinfluencers with a lot of
(31:57):
Christians, who arguably allhave a lot of common cause in
some of the things they want tosee happen in culture.
But I think there is a greatdanger of this movement, this
spiritual awakening, beingconflated with a kind of
conservative cultural projectand we need to be very careful
about hitching our wagon, as itwere, to any particular
(32:17):
political party or movement inall of this.
So that's just one area where Isee things happening and I just
want to be a voice helping thechurch to navigate those kinds
of complexities.
Brian Stiller (32:31):
Justin, speaking to pastors and church leaders,
given what you've observed inthis rebirth of spirituality,
what would you suggest would behelpful in congregational life
to serve those that are insearch for a spiritual rebirth?
Justin Brierley (32:50):
I would say help people to wish the
Christianity were true.
Let's use the imagination again.
Let's lean into thatright-brained way of helping
people to encounter faith, theway that CS Lewis did, who was a
brilliant thinker but also awonderful storyteller, because
the Narnia stories were probablythe best way in which he
reached people and made themwish that Christianity were true
(33:12):
.
That's going to take lots ofdifferent forms, but we need to
be the storytellers and artistsagain of the gospel.
I would encourage churches todo that and also to embrace the
weird Keep Christianity.
Weird is something I've heardfrom a number of these secular
intellectuals showing aninterest in faith.
They're not looking for a sortof spiritual version of the
(33:33):
humanism they already encounterin the culture around us.
They're looking for somethingvery distinctive and different,
both in the worship, whichthey're not necessarily looking
for a super seeker-friendlyversion of Christianity.
They're looking for somethingquite mysterious and different
to their everyday.
I think they want to bechallenged.
Actually, they want somethingmore rigorous.
They don't just want to kind ofself-help class when they go to
(33:56):
church.
They want to be challenged withwhat it means to be a follower
of Christ and I think that'swhere you're seeing the most
growth, actually in churches,where they do hold out the
challenge of Christianity.
Hold out the challenge ofChristianity, I would say just
continue to be at its best whatthe church always is, which is a
community of people who arevery different but gather around
something that's bigger thanthemselves.
(34:17):
That in itself is right now, ina culture which is becoming
increasingly fragmented,increasingly dehumanised, where
increasingly relationships arebeing mediated through
technology and we can't eventell if we're talking to a human
being online anymore or not,the church, the gathered church,
will become an even moreimportant place for people to
(34:38):
find out what it means to behuman.
So let's keep making sure thathappens too.
Brian Stiller (34:42):
Justin, thank you so much for being with us today
, but also thank you for thisimportant book you've written,
the Surprising Rebirth of Beliefin God.
Thanks again, and we lookforward to having you again on
Evangelical 360.
Justin Brierley (34:57):
Thank you so much for the interview.
I was really glad to be withyou.
Brian Stiller (35:02):
Thank you, justin , for joining us today and
helping us see these newmovements of faith in our
society.
Thank you for being a part ofthe podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
(35:23):
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free e-bookand newsletter, please go to
brianstillercom.
Thanks again, until next time.
Justin Brierley (35:39):
Don't miss the next interview.
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical 360 on YouTube.
See you there.
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, brian Stiller,and I'm pleased to share with
you another conversation withleaders, changemakers and
influencers having an impact onChristian life around the world.
(00:25):
We'd love you to be a part ofthe podcast by sharing this
episode using hashtagEvangelical360 and by joining
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
My guest today is JustinBrierley, author and
award-winning broadcaster fromthe UK.
(00:47):
In his book, the SurprisingRebirth of Belief in God, justin
challenges our assumptions thatfaith in the West is on the
decline.
Through his examination of thenew atheism, he highlights the
surprising number of secularthinkers who are considering
Christianity once again.
(01:07):
How did this come about andwhat has reversed the perception
that the Christian faith is fornon-thinkers?
Listen in as Justin shares withus the remarkable story of how
the tides have turned.
Justin, thank you so much forbeing with us today.
(01:32):
The story of your research andpodcast and writing is
remarkable.
Your book, the SurprisingRebirth of Belief in God why New
Atheism Grew Old and SecularThinkers Are Considering
Christianity Again.
How did you come to thisconclusion?
(01:53):
What were you seeing in yourresearch and your writing?
Justin Brierley (01:57):
Well, I'd been in the privileged position of
hosting conversations betweenatheists and Christians here in
the UK for a period of over 15years, beginning in the
mid-2000s and on a show calledUnbelievable.
What I noticed was that in thattime there was a real shift in
the way that those conversationswere playing out.
It began in the heyday of NewAtheism, when characters like
(02:20):
Richard Dawkins, sam Harris,christopher Hitchens these
so-called four horsemen of thenew atheism were riding high in
the bestseller charts with theiranti-God books, and that was
very much the flavour and toneof the conversations and debates
that I was hosting from themid-2000s onwards.
But then I started to notice,as time went on, a lot more
people distancing themselvesfrom this new atheist movement.
(02:42):
I noticed a lot more secularpeople reconsidering the value
of Christian faith and theemergence of characters like
Jordan Peterson, a secularCanadian psychologist, but who
was not there, saying religion'sbad for you, but saying
actually maybe we need to lookat the Bible to find meaning and
purpose in life, and thenbumping into other similar
(03:03):
characters on this side of thepond, people like the historian
Tom Holland and his bookDominion, asking whether we can
make sense of the moralinstincts of the West without
the Christian story and so on,and I just increasingly noticed
that as quickly as this newatheist movement had gained a
head of steam, it waned veryquickly as well, and it left
(03:23):
behind a lot of questions,people asking the questions
about meaning and purpose andidentity.
Those hadn't gone away, andsuddenly I found that there
seemed to be a new openness toengaging the Bible again, the
Christian story, to the value ofchurch, and so I suppose this
idea for a book dropped into mymind around 2020, 2021, as I
(03:45):
started to realize thatsomething was changing the
culture.
The metaphor that I ended uppicking up for it was this idea
that the tide is turning.
For me, that seems to have beencontinuing to happen.
The tide seems to be continuingto turn.
We are living more and more inan era when people are taking
Christianity seriously again forvarious reasons, and so that
(04:08):
was really where the book andthen the subsequent podcast
documentary series came from.
Brian Stiller (04:12):
Justin?
Are there cultural factors thatare driving this new interest?
Justin Brierley (04:17):
Lots of them, I think.
I think one of them is the factthat the new atheism, as it
stood, failed to answer people'sfundamental questions, as I
said, but people still had thosequestions.
I think, when you put thattogether with the fact that our
culture is increasingly, itseems, coming apart at the seams
, with the culture, wars and theway in which technology, as
(04:38):
much as it can be a great help,can also be a great hindrance to
people's lives, the fact thatwe're living increasingly in
what psychologists call ameaning crisis, where people
don't have a rooted sense of whothey are through a tradition or
a community or a story, areligious story I think what
we're seeing is the culminationof all of these things coming
(04:59):
together in a way that'ssuddenly bringing about the
conditions that could catalyse anew interest in Christian faith
.
It's remarkable to me, forinstance, that having sketched
out this thesis and the book waspublished in 2023, suddenly all
kinds of factors seemed to fallinto place that seemed to
confirm the thesis, thatsuddenly people are ready to
(05:20):
hear this again.
There was the well-publicisedstory of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former
new atheist, herself declaringthat she had become a Christian.
Her story really did fit thethesis of my book that
essentially secular liberalismjust isn't enough for people now
.
They need something like theChristian story to make sense of
(05:41):
life.
Likewise, seeing the rise inreligiosity that we're seeing
now in the polls among youngpeople, especially Gen Z A
recent survey here in the UKshowed that Gen Z are half as
likely to be atheist as theirparents and grandparents there's
this sudden new wave ofopenness Now.
That could go in lots ofdifferent directions, because
(06:03):
spirituality does notnecessarily equal Christianity,
but I think it shows thatthere's a new kind of
opportunity that's been openingup and a sort of a possibility
that people are seenhistorically where there is a
rise of faith of inclinationtowards spirituality out of
(06:31):
atheism, or is this a fairly newphenomenon?
Well, the new atheism was asomewhat new phenomenon in as
much as it was a verydogmatically anti-theistic form
of atheism.
Obviously, atheism has existedfor a long time, you know.
Since enlightenment,essentially onwards, there has
been that sort of drive towardsa more rationalistic, atheistic
kind of way of looking at life.
(06:51):
I think the new atheism, though, was a slightly different
manifestation of it.
In the early 2000s, especiallydriven by 9-11 and some of the
concerns about religiousextremism, the mistake the new
atheist made was to sort of justtreat all religions as equally
dangerous, and clearly they'renot.
I think a lot of them haveactually changed their tune
(07:12):
quite significantly.
When even a new atheist likeRichard Dawkins starts calling
himself a cultural Christian,you realise the ground has
shifted quite a lot, and he'scome to possibly appreciate the
fact that Christianity is quitedistinct from other religions.
What I would say you do findcommonality with in terms of
previous occasions is thatwhenever the ground shifts
(07:33):
underneath us, whenever there'sinstability generally in a
culture, people do look forsomething solid to stand on
again, and one example I couldpoint to of this is and in the
UK especially, shortly afterWorld War II, a period of great
societal change and turmoil,there was a significant upturn,
like CS Lewis, dorothy Sayersand others, and so Bishop Graham
(08:08):
Tomlin, who I work with on apodcast called Re-Enchanting,
has sort of charted these sortsof moments in history, and I
just wonder whether we may beseeing something similar
happening.
We're living again in veryfractious, uncertain, divided
times on the edge of Europe,political convulsions.
And you throw into that whathappens when you suddenly throw
(08:33):
everything up in the air withthe internet revolution, social
media and the effect it's havingon young people, I think you're
creating the kinds ofconditions in which people start
to look for something solidagain, and many people, I think,
are actually, and I think it'snow being borne out by the
statistics.
Turning back to church,interestingly and that's perhaps
(08:56):
not well, I've called it thesurprising rebirth of believing
God.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised.
This does happen.
People look for something toground themselves in again.
Brian Stiller (09:01):
Justin, is this more of a personal spirituality
movement or is it anintellectual, philosophical
inquiry into the issues of faith, given our new understanding of
our global enterprise?
Or is it a combination?
Justin Brierley (09:21):
of both.
I'm going to say it's acombination, because I think
there's two different thingsthat I've been charting in this
surprising rebirth movement.
One is, yes, this extraordinarysort of phenomenon of a number
(09:43):
of others who are just seem tobe opening up to the value of
faith and saying, actually itturns, a lot of those voices,
whether they be Christian or not, starting to kind of, you know
(10:09):
sort of at this cultural level,starting to open up the
possibility that we might wantto reinvestigate the Christian
story.
But I think that's being met,as it were, from the ground up
by what I've described as thismeaning crisis, this idea that
people are feeling unhappy,unsettled.
We live in a moretechnologically, materially
prosperous age than ever beforeand yet the mental health crisis
(10:32):
is skyrocketing.
Suicide is the leading cause ofdeath among men.
It's extraordinary, isn't it,that the more we seem to add to
our knowledge and ability, theless we seem to be able to be
happy.
And I think what's happening isthe confluence of these two
things the people who aretalking about faith in a new way
(10:53):
again, and the emergence ofthis meaning crisis.
This dissatisfaction with theculture we find ourselves in, is
leading both people back toChristianity, to the story, that
kind of grounded Westernculture, the story that, from
generations of people, did givethem a sense of meaning and
purpose and identity.
And people are very surprisedand I bump into them all the
(11:13):
time now, people who are saying,well, I've just started going
to church and it turns out it'sspeaking to me in ways I never
expected and I find that veryexciting.
But it's it's.
It's not a simple picture,because there's all kinds of
mixed motives that go into that.
There's all kinds of politicalaspects to this.
(11:35):
There's an opportunity, but, asever, the church needs to be
very wise in the way it engagesthe harvest that's potentially
there in front of it.
Brian Stiller (11:42):
What are the demographics of this search?
Is it with the Gen Z or is itin the baby boomers?
Where does it rest primarily?
Justin Brierley (12:07):
the ones who are turning up for Joe Rogan and
Jordan Peterson and all of theYouTube and podcast influencers
who are opening the door toreinvestigating Christian faith.
There's been a huge surge ofthose, but I think that tips
quickly into the Gen Z categoryas well.
The thing with the Gen Z is,again, all of these polls that
have been coming out in the US,australia, the UK, showing, in
(12:31):
particular, a rise in the numberof young men who are going back
to church, taking religionseriously.
Not so much among young women,interestingly, and I think
what's happening there is.
It reflects the fact thatthere's been a separation
politically between young menand young women.
Again, this has come out invarious surveys that young men
(12:52):
are skewing more conservative onaverage than young women.
Well, one of the early episodesof the next season of my podcast
series is going to be lookingspecifically at this issue that
we're suddenly seeing thisinflux of young men, gen Z men,
who are looking for faith andquite traditional forms of
Christianity.
I think it's a lot to do with asort of male identity crisis
that's been brewing in the Westfor quite a long time.
(13:14):
Suddenly, young men who arefeeling rootless, dispossessed,
even sort of unwelcome to someextent they're going in lots of
directions, some of them prettyunhealthy, the Andrew Tate form
of very misogynistic, macho kindof you know influencers like
that, but also a certaindemographic bumping into're
(13:36):
seeing just this extraordinarywave of young men suddenly
turning up in their churches.
And these are Gen Z men by andlarge, young men who are willing
to give the Christian story ago.
(13:58):
And interestingly, the thingabout Gen Z is they haven't in a
way been inoculated againstreligion in the way that their
parents and grandparents havebeen inoculated against religion
in the way that their parentsand grandparents have been,
because they did exist the sortof Gen X and boomer generation
in a kind of broadly culturallyChristian culture.
(14:18):
I think they thought they knewwhat Christianity was and could
reject it.
Most Gen Z have never been setfoot inside church.
They've got barely any biblicalliteracy.
They really are genuinelyunchurched, but in an ironic way
that means they're not kickingagainst anything.
They missed the new atheism.
They were still in nappies whenthat happened that it's
(14:41):
actually become kind of cool togo in the other.
Whereas it was cool to rejectreligion when you were a boomer
Gen Xer, it's become cool in theopposite way to do something
weird like become a Christiannow.
So it's it's.
It's a really interesting sortof flip that's happening among
these, especially these Gen Zyoung men.
Brian Stiller (15:01):
My generation was faced the modernity.
Modernity meaning truth canonly be defined by scientific
methods.
It's got to be proven.
So we were living in oppositionto that kind of modernity and
finding a faith over againstthat kind of scientism.
(15:22):
But this new atheism that youdescribe seems to be something a
little different than that.
How do you understand that?
The Gen Z response to a newkind of spirituality, this
rebirth that you described?
How does that relate to themodernity, the use of science as
(15:44):
a way of defining truth?
Justin Brierley (15:46):
Well, I would say this was something that
marked new atheism.
It kind of took thatrationalist enlightenment way of
looking at life that everythingcan be essentially
scientifically investigated, andit sort of turbocharged it.
And it did result in thesecharacters like Richard Dawkins
and others believing that wecould essentially do everything,
(16:08):
we could build a sort of utopiaif we just looked to science
and reason and abandoned all ourreligious superstitions and so
on.
But in a funny way that was theend result of a sort of a long
period that began, as I say, inthe Enlightenment but it seems
to have, for me, imploded quitequickly as well.
(16:30):
The reason for that is thatmodernity kind of crashed into
post-modernity, while sciencehas benefited from the modern
revolution At the same time,this growing postmodern culture
(16:50):
that has especially acceleratedsince the 1960s has sort of
collided with the new atheistsand their love of science and
reason.
Because what it did was,instead of people embracing with
the abandonment as the newatheist story of the Christian
story, their hope was to bringin science and reason as the new
story that people would leavetheir lives by.
(17:12):
But that's not what happened.
What happened was that the voidthat was left was not filled by
science and reason, becausescience and reason can do lots
of wonderful things, but itwon't give you a meaningful
existence, it won't tell youwhat you're worth and that sort
of thing.
And so people startedinevitably to draw on all kinds
of other, often quasi-religious,stories to fill that void.
(17:33):
And so that's where you see,then, the extremes of both the
left and the right, with, say,on the progressive left, this
sort of sexuality and genderstories becoming those sacred
stories that people put in theplace of the God story to live
their life by, or politicalmythologies on the right about
save your figures in America,take your pick.
They all have been grabbed ontoin our general culture.
(17:57):
Those are the stories peoplehave tried to replace the
Christian story with, because weneed a story to live by and
these are the next best thing.
But of course, these storiesall compete with each other.
They create these culture wars,this tribalism, this toxicity
in our culture.
And what happened was that thenew atheists suddenly found
themselves, rather than usheringin this, having dismissed the
(18:20):
Christian story, rather thanwelcoming in this utopia of
science and reason, they foundthemselves battling all these
other stories, thesequasi-religious stories, and
this was what they suddenlyrealised was that you just can't
get.
People are just innatelyreligious, and if they're not
religious about the Christianstory, they'll become quite
religious about something else,and it wasn't science and reason
.
So, ironically, that postmodernturn sort of came to bite the
(18:46):
new atheists and it led to themcompletely changing direction.
None of the new atheists noware critiquing organised
religion.
They're all engaged in theculture wars Sam Harris and
Richard Dawkins, it's all aboutthe transgender wars and
everything else.
So we're in this very unusualmoment where suddenly the
(19:06):
postmodernism, it turns out, iswhat everyone had actually sort
of hitched their wagon to, butit flies right in the face of
(19:29):
defining sort of cultural marker, and I think they much
preferred, as it were, the oldenemy to the new enemies, if you
like.
That have now been introduced.
Brian Stiller (19:39):
Is this rebirth leading to a general interest in
spirituality or does it, morespecifically, focus itself on
transcendence, on god or a god?
How is this?
Justin Brierley (19:53):
unraveling.
Well, I think, inevitably thereare a lot of people who are in
that I'm spiritual but notreligious camp, and those are
the people who sort of, yeah,they, they have that yearning,
that sense that they wantsomething transcendent, but they
don't like organised religion,and there's quite a lot of those
still around.
What I think we're seeing theemergence of as another person
(20:16):
put it to me recently isactually a different thing, a
flip in that the people who arearguably religious but not
spiritual, and that's people whoactually want the structures of
religion, they want the churchgoing and they want the things
that religion can offer at itsbest in terms of community and
(20:37):
the values and so on, but whatthey struggle with is actually
believing it, believing in Jesusor the resurrection.
And you see this playing out inthe lives of some of these
secular intellectuals.
I've talked about Tom Holland,the UK historian, who has
absolutely, sort of, you know,become convinced that
Christianity, the church, is thething that gave us, you know,
(21:00):
all the benefits of moderncivilization essentially.
But he struggles at a personallevel to sort of believe in
Jesus as the son of God and theresurrection.
So he says to me, you know, inprivate conversations and public
ones sometimes that hecertainly has moments where he
can believe it, but then it sortof fizzles out again.
But the point is that he'sgoing to church, he wants to be
(21:21):
there and he knows that it doeshim some good and I'm sensing
that quite a lot you mightexpect.
Oh, people will just want sortof the kind of fuzzy
spirituality without any of thecommitments of religious
observance.
But actually I think that it'sshifting in the direction of
people realizing they really dowant something more rigorous,
(21:43):
more challenging.
They've realized that I can'tdo this by myself and there's a
real value in turning up andtrying to make sense of this
alongside other people on aregular basis.
They've had a good long whileto try the self-improvement,
therapeutic, dayism kind ofapproach that's been on offer
(22:07):
for a while in the culture.
But we're still drowning inanxiety, depression, addiction.
I think honestly thepornography addiction is doing
as much as anything for youngmen to eventually drive them
towards something in theirdesperation to have a better
life that might look a bit likechurch and like something quite
(22:27):
challenging.
So I think there's a lot ofthose factors.
People are realizing thespiritual but not religious
fuzzy kind of version ofspirituality just doesn't have
the strength, the structure toactually change my life, and so
I see a lot of people actuallyopting for something a lot more
religious in that sense.
Brian Stiller (22:47):
So do you see personal transformation as being
an attractive reason for peopleturning to God or turning to
Christ in a specific way?
Is personal transformation,more than intellectual resolve,
at the heart of much of thisrebirth?
Justin Brierley (23:04):
Yes, Well, I think, ultimately, there has to
be a personal spiritualtransformation, but I think
people arrive at that in verydifferent ways.
I think a lot of people aregoing on quite an intellectual
journey, becoming convinced thatChristianity is really good for
us, it's really useful in thatsense, but struggling to get to
(23:27):
the point of saying it's true,now I would say the only reason
it's ever been useful is becauseit's true, and you're not
hiding to nothing if you're justkind of interested in promoting
Christian values and so on,without affirming the truth of
the story.
What I'm encouraged by, though,is seeing a lot of people who
start at this place of sort ofvaluing Christianity for it,
(23:48):
sort of as a utilitarian thingand going to church is probably
good for you on average and thenactually bumping into Jesus
along the way, and for me that'smy hope is that people won't
just stay in this kind ofintellectual, utilitarian view
of Christianity, but thatactually, in starting to realize
(24:09):
the intellectual value andcultural value of Christianity,
they'll realize there's a goodreason for that.
There's a person behind it whostands behind the whole of
history, and I'm increasinglyencountering those people who
are going on that journey.
Brian Stiller (24:23):
How are churches responding to this rebirth?
Are they open to the kind ofquestions that this rebirth is
triggering, or are churchespretty much locked into their
ritual and into their form ofworship and way of thinking and
doing things?
Justin Brierley (24:42):
Well, I get to talk to a lot of church leaders
here in the UK and what I'mseeing on this side of the pond
is certainly a lot of excitementand a lot of people who
recognise what I'm talking about, who are seeing especially
these young men turning up intheir churches.
I've got a friend who is therector of St Alda's Church in
Oxford, where I was a studentmyself, and he's talking about a
(25:06):
huge wave of young people,unchurched young people coming
through the doors looking for abetter story.
And it's not that they'vechanged what they're doing
particularly.
It's just that the tide seemsto be turning in that city and
there's just this openness andthis desire to find out and to
look for an alternative.
I would say where churchescould do with, if you like,
(25:28):
thinking through theimplications of this is to ask
themselves well, what are thelessons we can learn from some
of these secular intellectualswho are obviously scratching an
itch among these young people,that they're building these huge
platforms around?
What are the questions they'reanswering?
It may not be the samequestions as 15 or 20 years ago,
(25:49):
when the new atheism waspredominant.
So I would say one thing forchurch leaders to be aware of is
that you may have kind of builta ministry around sort of
apologetics and an intellectualapproach to Christianity, and
there's obviously a place forthat.
But actually that's not wheremost people are beginning now,
because we're no longer in thatnew atheist phase where we were
having to respond to thosearguments.
(26:10):
I think a lot of people engagein Christianity in a very
emotional, directly experientialway, through the imagination.
So maybe it's time to thinkabout how do we address that
when it comes to reaching out topeople around us.
So I think there are somelessons to be learned there.
I think the church has to beready to adapt and to try to do
what it can to meet this growingwave of interest and these
(26:33):
meaning seekers.
But at the same time, a lot ofwhat the church has always done
is simply to be ready, you know,ready for when that tide turns,
and be faithful and have thedoors open and be willing to
invite people into the communityof the church, where we work
this all out together.
And that's what I'm seeing.
As I say, I've seen a number ofchurches who are reporting
(26:56):
quite interesting upturn incongregation.
People walk through the doors,but not because they've
particularly done anythingstrategically different.
It's just they're doing whatthey've always done well, and
now people seem to be ready tohear the message doing what
they've always done well, andnow people seem to be ready to
hear the message.
Brian Stiller (27:16):
Justin, are you seeing in this rebirth any
inclination towards issues ofjustice, the issues of poverty,
those factors?
Does that affect the interestthat people have in discovering
faith again?
Justin Brierley (27:29):
I think there is an important dimension of
that, because a lot of obviouslyGen Z, those are significant
issues for them, issues aroundjustice and poverty and so on.
And I think sometimes where theintellectual side of that comes
in is the question of where dowe ground this interest and
these values in justice andpoverty and so on.
(27:49):
And there's been some reallyinteresting conversations I've
had with people who have kind ofcome up short when it comes to
politics, being able to deliver,and have realised it's hard to
know how to take this forwardwithout getting burned out and
stressed out.
I think the church has animportant answer to that in
(28:11):
terms of of how you live as a,you know with those issues and
and, and, but do it through thepower of Jesus.
Having said all that, I thinkyou know my my.
In all honesty, most of thepeople I see in this surprising
rebirth movement it's thereasons why they're coming to
(28:32):
church are more, are more to dowith their own personal burnout
and the meaning crisis thatthey've encountered in their own
life.
And they've they've looked,they've tried to kind of adopt
the secular, the liberal secularkind of values of their culture
or they've tried to do it thatway and it just hasn't worked.
And so they're almost comingbecause they're looking for a
(28:55):
better way of structuring theirown life.
That's the thing that hasultimately driven them to step
into a church.
So I think it's probablyarguably more that personal
dimension of what people arelooking for that brings them
into the purview of the church.
Brian Stiller (29:13):
We've seen over the last few years the success
of Alpha as a program or as ameans of bringing people into
conversation on faith.
Does this align with theresponse to the new atheism in
the rebirth that you'vedescribed, to the new atheism in
the rebirth that you'vedescribed?
Justin Brierley (29:29):
Yeah, I think Alpha has been tremendously
influential and, again, fromwhat I'm hearing from friends
who run the Alpha courses,they're seeing a sudden uptick.
There may be churches that haverun Alpha for 20, 25 years, but
it's really only recently thatthey're starting to suddenly see
a real resurgence of interestand I'm very grateful for
courses like Alpha, which do agreat job, in my opinion, of
(29:53):
presenting people with theChristian story and giving them
the opportunity to talk itthrough over a meal with people
who become their friends.
I think that's one importantaspect of this.
I think taking people'squestions seriously is a really
important part of this.
Giving people the space to workit through is a really
important part of this.
Giving people the space to workit through.
(30:13):
There's a lot of confused andmessed up people who are going
to be coming in on this sort ofmeaning crisis, this wave, if
you like.
Brian Stiller (30:21):
How do you see this evolving?
You're at the beginning of thisrebirth, as you've described,
as it moves its way along.
What do you anticipate?
What are you seeing now?
Justin Brierley (30:34):
I'm not a great prophet of these things and I'm
sort of really just trying tokeep up with what is happening.
What's really interesting to meis that I do think the thesis
that I kind of published in mybook in the sort of summer of
2023, I've just seen it growingand being confirmed in lots of
interesting ways from all theinfluencers who are now showing
(30:55):
an interest in faith orconverting to a lot of these
surveys and polls showing arenewed interest in faith,
especially among Gen Z, and evenanecdotal and increasingly, I
think, real data to suggestactually that we're seeing a
turning of the tide when itcomes to churchgoing in the West
.
There's some really interestingearly signs, certainly a
(31:15):
stemming of the decline that hasbeen just the story for a long
time, certainly in the UK andelsewhere when this goes next.
There are lots of differentways there are concerning good
directions.
I think there's a significantpart that's tied into this
movement, where there are peoplewho have a political axe to
(31:36):
grind and who want to arguablyco does this.
I was just recently at the ARCconference in London, which is a
gathering of veryconservatively minded
politicians and culturalinfluencers with a lot of
(31:57):
Christians, who arguably allhave a lot of common cause in
some of the things they want tosee happen in culture.
But I think there is a greatdanger of this movement, this
spiritual awakening, beingconflated with a kind of
conservative cultural projectand we need to be very careful
about hitching our wagon, as itwere, to any particular
(32:17):
political party or movement inall of this.
So that's just one area where Isee things happening and I just
want to be a voice helping thechurch to navigate those kinds
of complexities.
Brian Stiller (32:31):
Justin, speaking to pastors and church leaders,
given what you've observed inthis rebirth of spirituality,
what would you suggest would behelpful in congregational life
to serve those that are insearch for a spiritual rebirth?
Justin Brierley (32:50):
I would say help people to wish the
Christianity were true.
Let's use the imagination again.
Let's lean into thatright-brained way of helping
people to encounter faith, theway that CS Lewis did, who was a
brilliant thinker but also awonderful storyteller, because
the Narnia stories were probablythe best way in which he
reached people and made themwish that Christianity were true
(33:12):
.
That's going to take lots ofdifferent forms, but we need to
be the storytellers and artistsagain of the gospel.
I would encourage churches todo that and also to embrace the
weird Keep Christianity.
Weird is something I've heardfrom a number of these secular
intellectuals showing aninterest in faith.
They're not looking for a sortof spiritual version of the
(33:33):
humanism they already encounterin the culture around us.
They're looking for somethingvery distinctive and different,
both in the worship, whichthey're not necessarily looking
for a super seeker-friendlyversion of Christianity.
They're looking for somethingquite mysterious and different
to their everyday.
I think they want to bechallenged.
Actually, they want somethingmore rigorous.
They don't just want to kind ofself-help class when they go to
(33:56):
church.
They want to be challenged withwhat it means to be a follower
of Christ and I think that'swhere you're seeing the most
growth, actually in churches,where they do hold out the
challenge of Christianity.
Hold out the challenge ofChristianity, I would say just
continue to be at its best whatthe church always is, which is a
community of people who arevery different but gather around
something that's bigger thanthemselves.
(34:17):
That in itself is right now, ina culture which is becoming
increasingly fragmented,increasingly dehumanised, where
increasingly relationships arebeing mediated through
technology and we can't eventell if we're talking to a human
being online anymore or not,the church, the gathered church,
will become an even moreimportant place for people to
(34:38):
find out what it means to behuman.
So let's keep making sure thathappens too.
Brian Stiller (34:42):
Justin, thank you so much for being with us today
, but also thank you for thisimportant book you've written,
the Surprising Rebirth of Beliefin God.
Thanks again, and we lookforward to having you again on
Evangelical 360.
Justin Brierley (34:57):
Thank you so much for the interview.
I was really glad to be withyou.
Brian Stiller (35:02):
Thank you, justin , for joining us today and
helping us see these newmovements of faith in our
society.
Thank you for being a part ofthe podcast.
Be sure to share this episodeusing hashtag Evangelical360 and
join the conversation onYouTube.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guest, be sure to
(35:23):
check the show notes for linksand info, and if you haven't
already received my free e-bookand newsletter, please go to
brianstillercom.
Thanks again, until next time.
Justin Brierley (35:39):
Don't miss the next interview.
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical 360 on YouTube.
See you there.
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