Daniel Hofkamp, Evangelical Focus. (photo: Amy Orr-Ewing / Facebook)
Dr Amy Orr-Ewing reflects on the changes in Europe’s questions about God in recent years, as well as the current approach to faith among many young people in countries like the UK.
The context of conversations about faith has changed in Europe in recent years. With the decline of radical atheism, new generations are actively seeking transcendence and spirituality.
Likewise, apologetics—the art of defending and arguing for the Christian faith—also explores how to respond to concerns that arise in universities, the media, and on social media, in a context of widespread polarisation.
A leading voice in Europe is Dr Amy Orr-Ewing, author of several books on suffering and transcendental questions, who attended the European Congress on Evangelism in Berlin in May 2025.
She is the president of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics (OCCA) and the co-founder of REBOOT, a youth initiative designed to encourage young people to deeply reflect on their faith.
While in Berlin, Spanish news website Protestante Digital had the chance to talk briefly with her about the changes in apologetics and the ‘silent revival’ taking place in the UK.
Question. For many years, it seemed that apologetics were focused on addressing the challenges posed by New Atheism. But perhaps the landscape is changing. Do you think things are different now compared to 10 or 15 years ago?
Answer. Yes, absolutely. I started in apologetics in the late 1990s, and at that time the focus was very much on postmodernism, questions about other religions, the idea that no one wanted to be seen as intolerant, that sort of cultural debate.
Then, from around the early 2010s for about eight to ten years, the focus shifted to the New Atheists, and their claims that science had disproved faith, or that the God of the Bible is malevolent or evil in some way.
But just before the pandemic, I believe the landscape in Europe really began to change. Now, we are engaging with a cultural context shaped much more by identity politics, where people are dealing with deep grievances and anger about injustice in the world.
Big questions have emerged around what it means to be human, and the prevailing idea is that we construct our own reality, often based on the intersectional injustices we have experienced.
Our apologetics, how we speak about who Jesus is and why the gospel is true, needs to connect with that deep longing for justice. It must even be able to withstand the rage people feel around things like cancel culture and broader societal issues.