by Connor Tomlinson, Courage Media
It will come as a surprise to many that, this Easter, young men made up the majority of Britain’s catechumens: those receiving the sacrament of baptism and joining the Catholic Church. In France, 10,384 adult catechumens were baptized: the largest cohort since records began. This 45% annual rise is driven predominantly (42%) by 18-25-year-olds. New polling by YouGov and the Bible Society found church attendance was up from 4% in 2018 to 21% in 2024 among young men, compared to 3% to 12% for young women. Pessimists have suggested that this is solely attributable to large volumes of African migration into Europe over the last five years, but 18% of white Britons aged 18-34 are now attending church monthly, up from 3% in 2018. Anecdotally, this is the case: most of the young men I know in politics are turning to full-fat Christian denominations, like Catholicism or Orthodoxy. Catholics outnumber Anglicans among Zoomers 2-to-1; a disparity which will only grow, in accordance with birth-rate trends.
With the moral decay in Western civilization so severe, and imported Islam imposing itself on our political system, many are returning to tradition. But these same politically engaged Catholic men are the same who read acerbic satirist Bronze Age Pervert, and despise social justice for its worship of weakness. This Nietzschean strain of rightwing thought considers Christianity the precursor to socialism and the civilizational corrosive of Woke progressivism. The Bible has little to say about the state owning the means of production, so when Christianity is accused of being socialist, its critics are using the term synonymously with Marxist. But Christianity bears no likeness to communism when you compare the history of socialism to scripture.
Because hypocrisy is a grave sin for Christians (Matthew 23), socialists and progressives cherry-pick passages to convince Christians that their ideology is what Christ would have wanted. Were this the case, they would have already converted; and would not feel the need to colonize churches with Pride flags, or set up Racial Justice Sunday following the death of George Floyd. This is a manipulation by bad-faith actors for whom, like Pontius Pilate, there is no truth but power, and therefore hold no prohibition against lying. It is a Pharisaical attempt to trip up Christians with their own standards, while having nothing but contempt for Christianity, and no attempt to abide by its standards themselves.