Why the young are flocking to church

There’s a bit of a media narrative at the moment claiming that churches are seeing more young worshippers flocking to their congregations. It’s perhaps a bit overblown – the numbers aren’t all that high in the UK – but there is certainly something to it.

There is also a concurrent narrative: Gen Z (those born between 1997 and 2013) is becoming socially conservative, or at least more questioning of progressive orthodoxies. Naturally, plenty are drawing a link between the two – people are becoming more socially conservative and so are going to church, or people are going to church and therefore becoming more socially conservative. It’s as though church pews are simply another step on the road to voting Conservative, Reform or (heaven forbid!) Restore.

I submit that causation in this instance is a bit overdone. I would rather simply look at the correlation, at each element separately. Young people perhaps aren’t turning to Christianity because they are becoming increasingly politically conservative, nor vice versa. Rather, they are turning to both in many instances because each offers something that modern Western culture and progressive politics struggle to provide. And I think it’s well worth looking at exactly what those things are.

For all its advantages, modernity has left many young people spiritually homeless. Today’s young adults have inherited a pretty cold world without any ready remedies to nihilism. Traditional institutions – like the church – have been collapsing for years. We are increasingly atomised, with lifelong friendships growing fewer and farther between. Fewer people are marrying, or able to afford to marry, and fewer are able to afford to have children.

Social media seems to be replacing real communities, and doing a bad job of it. Work is increasingly precarious and hard to get into, and when you do get it, it’s not like you can afford to buy a house, or even rent a flat to yourself. Young people don’t go out drinking much, meaning fewer trips to the pub for quiet pints with friends. Our towns don’t look or feel like they used to, high streets are dying, communities are fractured, and we have had our senses of self – both our personal and national identity – undermined on various fronts.

Is it any wonder people are despairing, or simply giving up? And is it any wonder that some people might look to yesterday for the answers?

In many ways, modern individualism is good at giving people freedom, but it struggles to tell them what that freedom is for, or to give them the grounds to make something of it. Well, what are we giving people to believe in? How are we showing them how to orient themselves?

We can’t. Not really. But religion has always excelled here. Christianity has given us a sense of national and individual purpose for centuries, so is it any wonder it’s being called on again to do so?

Christianity offers far more than a set of abstract beliefs, metaphysics and ontology. Its rituals and liturgy give shape to the working week. Its music, the beauty of its architecture (in a modern world in thrall to concrete), and the divine feeling in worship uplift what we might once have called the soul. Its festivals mark the passing of the year. The moral framework and centuries-old prayers bind individuals into something much older and greater than themselves – Christianity is in many ways an ongoing story that invites you to be a part of it. There is a sense to it all of permanence and continuity – a sense increasingly difficult to find in the modern world.

Contrast this with much of modern culture. The endless scrolling and algorithmic feeds, the dating apps that streamline the mating process while divorcing it from so much that is actually romantic. It prioritises the convenience of remote working for ease over being part of a team, and replaces dignity and loyalty with disposable relationships and identity politics.

The church offers and asks something that feels radically different, though it was the norm just a few short years ago. It asks you to belong – to actually, truly belong, rather than simply be a number on a spreadsheet. It asks you to serve rather than to consume, which speaks to something primal and vital within us all. It asks for sacrifice above indulgence, for forgiveness rather than cancellation. It asks you to remain faithful rather than endlessly chasing novelty and hedonistic satisfaction. At its core, it requires you to be selfless as opposed to self-centered. This is quite a profound counter-offer in an age defined by flux, individualism and the soulless ontology of the new atheist.

Conservatism answers many of the same needs. To be clear, conservatism is not Christianity. Far from it. One is a political philosophy, the other a religion with transcendent claims. And plenty of Christian denominations very plausibly use Christ’s teachings to argue for left-wing ideals. However, both appeal to similar instincts because they recognise many of the same truths about human nature. Both value tradition, inherited wisdom, family, local community, duty, restraint, gratitude and continuity. Both are sceptical of the idea that society can simply reinvent itself from scratch.

Modern progressivism typically looks askance at inherited tradition. It’s guilty until proven otherwise, or often simply guilty, with no hope of reprieve. It employs an oppressor-oppressed narrative that fails to ask the fundamental conservative question: why have these traditions survived? Why are these the ways that have organically evolved over millennia? What needs have these traditions and their attendant institutions been meeting? And what, to borrow from GK Chesterton, have the fences of tradition been built to contain?

For young people exhausted by relentless social, technological and cultural upheaval, a more conservative outlook can be reassuring. It helps explain why some are rediscovering both conservatism and the church at the same time. They are searching for roots – for something that modernity does not offer.

Ultimately, though, it’s not about left versus right. As above, there are plenty of left-wing Christians in the world. I grew up in a congregation full of them, and they were glorious people. Why would they not be? Rather, it’s about something much deeper: a growing sense that material prosperity and individual freedom, valuable as they undoubtedly are, are far from enough to sustain a life of meaning and belonging.

Gen Z – and to a fair degree millennials like myself – have grown up sandwiched between unprecedented choice and unprecedented limitations. They can buy whatever they want on Temu and have it delivered the next day, while never being able to afford more than a hovel in which to live, and only in rare instances know what it’s like to wander down a thriving high street that’s unbeholden to curiously empty vape shops and barbers. At the same time, they have been confronted with unprecedented levels of loneliness, anxiety, depression and social atomisation. These are not simply economic problems. They are social, cultural and, in many cases, spiritual ones.

This is the background against which the church is seeing rising numbers, and in which young people are exploring political ideas outside of the current liberal orthodoxies. These are the reasons underpinning it all. For goodness sake, is there any wonder people want change?

James Dixon is a Glasgow-based novelist, poet and playwright.