by Bijan Omrani, Spectator
Secularists are cock-a-hoop at the news that the “Quiet Revival” in British Christianity may just be a thing of nought. On Thursday, YouGov announced that a survey they had conduced last year which had found a striking increase in Christian observance, particularly amongst the young, had been flawed. Controls to filter out fraudulent responses had not been properly put in place. Thus, the results, which have driven a debate about a national return to faith, could not be trusted.
Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK, was swift to chide: “This is both validation and vindication. We need to be absolutely clear: there is no revival of Christianity in Britain…Much of the damage has already been done. Global media reports have too often and wrongly jumped on the bandwagon of a supposed Christian revival in the UK. That must stop.”
There is something of the holier-than-thou and doth-protest-too-much in this secularist sermonising. Secularists’ constant refrain that “The UK is not a Christian country” is undermined by them having no answer to the cold fact that our ideas of nationhood, law, education, time, and culture have all been profoundly shaped by 1,400 years of Christian observance. Besides this, they are out of touch with the data about the present. Although the YouGov survey is not reliable, there are a host of others from different pollsters showing a gentle growth in engagement with Christianity amongst the young. Harder to measure, but still perfectly visible to anyone involved in the field, is a change in the attitude of the young towards religion.