Millennials are bending the knee to religion
by James Marriott, The Times:
Faith in God is enjoying a resurgence in a sign that our culture is less secular than we assume.
If I were a believer, the baptism of Russell Brand in the Thames this week might lead me to question, if not the Almighty’s existence, then at least His good judgment. Though the Lord’s summons to the devilish Brand is a perplexing development in the unfolding of the divine plan, it belongs to a discernible cultural trend. God is in fashion with the shapers of public opinion.
A couple of weeks ago Joe Rogan, the ex-martial arts commentator who is probably the most popular broadcaster in the anglophone world, surprised his listeners with the reflection that “we need Jesus”.
Jordan Peterson’s forthcoming book We Who Wrestle With God seems to indicate a career-long flirtation with the divine is reaching its final consummation. The viral misogynist Andrew Tate is a recent convert to Islam. Ben Shapiro, America’s most popular conservative commentator, speaks vehemently about his Jewish faith.
Each of these men commands an audience in the tens of millions. Their influence is a sign that our culture is less straightforwardly secular than we commonly assume. When I watched Peterson — looking as gauntly prophetic as an early desert father — thunder away to a young, diverse and raucously appreciative audience at a crammed O2 arena last year, his principal subject was God. But the event was not reported as a religious one.
Liberal commentators — unused to treating religion seriously — tend to interpret Peterson’s biblical preoccupations as so much nostalgic conservative cant. But they are missing something obvious, blinkered, I think, by the assumption that the advance of secularism is a historical inevitability and faith axiomatically a thing of the past. In fact the future may be more religious than we suspect.
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