I wrote back in December about the distrust, by Christians of all people, of the present working class movement towards Christianity.
The veritable Who’s Who of Christian opponents to this groundswell, as it was manifested in Tommy Robinson’s Christmas carol concert in Whitehall, is typical of this distrust. I think I showed in my piece on the latter that there is no evidence whatsoever of cynical racist motivation, though of course pockets of almost any kind of corruption will be seen somewhere in any mass-movement.
No, the real question, it seems to me, is whether the undoubted rekindling of popular interest in Christianity is predominantly a cultural phenomenon, or truly a spiritual one.
There is no doubt that British people have been shocked into cultural reality by the trampling of civil liberties beginning at the time of COVID, and by the blatant Islamification of our institutions that has now become obvious, along with uncontrolled immigration of Muslim men and the ongoing rape-gang scandal. The recognition that, after all, our nation’s Christian heritage is what made it worthwhile – in other words, that the term “Christian nation” actually means something – has become commonplace now at all levels of society. Though of course the institutions themselves, including much denominational church leadership, remain captured by cultural Marxism.
And so there have been warnings from many commentators that, if this “Christian Britain” is even to survive, let alone return to dominance, the primary Christian institution, the Church, must be physically supported and not simply acknowledged.
The observation that may give support to this “cultural bolstering” view is that numbers attending church have, for the first time in many decades, ceased to decline and may even have increased. Furthermore, the principle demographic responsible for this is young men, and the beneficiaries appear to be predominantly the traditional churches. So perhaps those who hanker after the old societal order are simply voting with their feet.
All this might well, then, indicate an angry and disenfranchised generation of young, working-class, men asserting their Englishness by sitting through formal church services for the same reasons they wrap themselves in the St George’s cross. On the other hand, the phenomenon is equally compatible with the explanation that the same disillusioned generation is recognising Christ as the only answer, and choosing traditional churches because it has had enough of trendy religious “relevance.”
Perhaps they choose traditional churches because they have seen through fake miracles and contemporary Christian music and hanker after the tried and tested expressions of faith that actually built the country, and which might have the depth, not to mention the militancy, to ward off the Caliphate. After all, Christianity began moulding this people six centuries before Arab warlords invented Islam as a tool of conquest.
A new report casts light, I think, on which of these two explanations is more likely. And that is the statistic that annual Bible sales in the UK increased in volume by no less than 106% between 2019 and 2025. That is a highly significant trend, which is also seen in America, and maybe in Europe if only we had the numbers.
For Britain no longer has a population fond of reading, especially amongst the working class. You might start attending church if you want to add your weight to a cultural movement, or even if you want to buy into that culture more yourself. You return to the traditions of your own ancestors, be they Anglicans, Catholics or Nonconformists. You might be seeking nostalgia more than God.
But to buy a Bible is a personal act unlikely to demonstrate anything to other people. You buy it with the intention of reading it, and you want to read it because you have some idea that the ultimate source for the lost Christian culture is in that book. In fact, you’re attempting to bypass the traditional culture, recognising that it might not accurately reflect the Bible. At some level, you hope to find God through the message of the book, and you’re prepared to put effort into the quest.
So in my view Bible sales are the strongest current indicator of spiritual revival, and a doubling of sales in seven years indicates strong revival. It seems to me that the churches’ task – meaning of course the task of every Christian – is to reap this harvest before it, potentially, spoils.
For the Lord has chosen to institute the proclamation and teaching of the inspired written word, by believers empowered by the Holy Spirit, as the means by which the harvest is reaped. Jesus tells his disciples to pray for more labourers in the field, not just to send out more Bibles. The reasons are obvious – unschooled people can misunderstand the Bible, or get bogged down in Leviticus when trying to read it cover to cover. Furthermore, there are many wolves prowling around to lead the reader astray, from the Mormons on the doorstep to the NAR church promising miracles and personal revelation. And of course, the gospel message is about joining a spiritual Kingdom and a Temple, not simply about individual faith.
I guess we cannot do much about those seekers after life who are unfortunate enough to wander into churches where they are fed only the sawdust of lifeless tradition or postmodern heresy – or both. But we can do what we can to make sure that any sheep straying into our own pasture are going to find good quality grass. That, after all, is our pastoral role.
