Atheists wont like to hear it but there is growing evidence that

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ARTICLE FOR DAILY MAIL                                Filed: 17 12 09

Saturday Essay Page                                   Version 3

By Jonathan Aitken




  Atheists won’t like to hear it but there is growing evidence that

  Faith may be making a comeback in contemporary Britain. This is

  not a rush to religion. It is a more subtle trend often outside the

  footprint of traditional churchgoing. But as we come towards the

  end of the 21st century’s first decade, with the old power structures

  of arrogant materialism and political authority crumbling, there are

  unmistakable signs of rising spiritual interest – particularly among

  the thoughtful and the young.



  What are these signs? Where, how and why are they surfacing?

  They will not be detectable to anyone looking for the magic religion

  of Woody Allen’s quip, “If only God would give me a clear sign: like

  making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank”.



  Maybe this is because banks, like so many other former landmarks

  of reliability, have become part of tomorrow’s problem. As

  tomorrow is the age of anxiety it is natural that many people should

  have begun their own processes of questioning today’s failing

  certainties. What is being discarded is the aggressive secularism,
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political correctness and militant materialism of the-me-and-my-

bonus mindset. The search is on for deeper meanings, better

values and that “need for something more” which seeks a spiritual

dimension to life.



To assess the reality of such searchings this Christmas, here is a

personal portrait of recent events, conversations, faith based works

and signs of spiritual optimism which I have encountered just in the

last few weeks. I understand this territory because, since coming

out of prison almost ten years ago, I have myself been searching

for and finding stronger spiritual foundations. At first bucketfuls of

cynicism were poured over my Christian journey.



Privately I was more sympathetic towards those cynics than I let

on. For my early weeks as a mature theology student threw up

many self doubts about “getting religion” and “foxhole conversions”.

Today I am much more a failed-again than a Born Again Christian.

But after a painful process of stumbling, doubting and even

wondering whether I had lost my marbles, the seeds of faith slowly

took root and grew in me, just as they seem to be growing today in

many other searchers. So from that same path, here are some

snapshots which provide evidence in support of the trend towards

greater spirituality in today’s Britain.
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On November 12 I took part in a debate at the Oxford Union where

a packed chamber of 19 to 22 year olds argued over the resolution

Britain should return to Christian values. Before the evening began

I bet one of my fellow guest speakers that in the prevailing climate

of secularism, the faith side of the motion was likely to be defeated

by at least a two thirds majority. Absolutely wrong! After a

passionate four hour debate, the Oxford students voted 245-235 in

favour of values based on Jesus’ teachings. “Tonight the Christians

have eaten the lions”, joked one astonished older agnostic. He also

said how impressed he was by the intellectual vigour of the pro-

faith student debaters, particularly by the 21 year old proposer of

the motion Shengwu-Li, a Balliol College philosophy scholar and a

grandson of Lee Kwan Yew, the founding President of Singapore.



If this Oxonian result could be dismissed as a quirky flash in the

pan, (like the Union’s notorious 1939 vote in favour of “This house

would not fight for King and Country”) it could be easily forgotten.

But in a city where the matrix between young atheists and young

believers produces plenty of both heat and light, it is clear that

some forms of spirituality are back in fashion.



I teach or talk at Oxford quite frequently so I see the green shoots

of faith appearing there in encouraging numbers. Who would have

believed that the three leading evangelical churches of St Aldate’s,
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St Ebbe’s and St Andrew’s would now be packing in congregations

of well over 3,000 a week – most of them undergraduates? Who

would have expected that 56 Rhodes Scholars of all faiths – nearly

a third of the entire student body of Rhodes House – would have

taken part in an all day seminar of spiritual readings organised by

the Trinity Forum in November? Who would have predicted that

Oxford’s favourite monk, the Dominican Friar Timothy Radcliffe,

should have become an iconic figure to many students? His current

bestsellers What is the Point of being a Christian? and Why Go to

Church? have respectively sold 66,000 and 34,000 copies in the

past year.



The spiritual energy at Oxford and several other universities is not

an elitist phenomenon. At the other end of the social scale there is

a renewal, unequalled since Victorian times, of activity by faith

based action groups within deprived communities.



Take prison ministry which was an unfashionable and underpowered

cause when I first encountered it (from the inside!) ten years ago.

Today it is estimated that there are at least 20,000 dedicated

volunteers whose inspiration for their rehabilitation work among

offenders is derived from their spirituality. A recent Home Office

research paper Believing We Can reported that there was a core

group of over 6,000 faith based volunteers doing 16,300 hours of
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work each month at our prisons on tasks such as resettlement,

literacy teaching, drug rehabilitation, family counselling, running

visitor centres, providing hostels and generally supporting the

prevention of re-offending.



One interesting sign of this growth in prison ministry was last

month’s Caring for Ex Offenders national conference held at Holy

Trinity Brompton church in Knightsbridge. It drew a record

breaking attendance of over 450 charities and voluntary groups.

The event was opened by Iain Duncan Smith MP who readily

acknowledged that his groundbreaking Breakthrough Britain

campaign has its roots in faith-inspired voluntarism.



Surveys now suggest that over a million people are motivated by

their spiritual beliefs to do some form of voluntary community

service each year. This is one of several new statistics suggesting

that Britain is becoming an increasingly faith observant nation.



After declining for at least three decades church attendances are

rising by over 2 per cent annually. According to the Tearfund

annual report 7.3 million people now attend church once a month

and 4.9 million each week.
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The most spectacular growth has come from Spirit filled churches

ie: Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Elim, Pioneer, Kings, New Wine,

Hillsong, Reedeemer of God, Kensington Temple, Emmanuel

Centres, Jesus House and Kingsway International. The last six are

newcomers to Britain’s religious scene. Their huge and largely

immigrant congregations run into many tens of thousands, holding

mass prayer meetings in theatres, warehouses and public arenas

like Excel or O2.



Some older churches have also risen to the challenges of the 21st

century. Holy Trinity Brompton, which used to serve sherry to its

ageing flock after Matins in the 1980’s, has become the youthful

powerhouse of the Alpha Course, recently described by Tony Blair

(no slouch at spotting a rising trend) as “the most incredible thing

going on in our Christian world”.



Alpha has had remarkable success in attracting over 2 million

mainly younger participants to its 10 week Introduction to

Christianity course in Britain. Inevitably some fall by the wayside.

Others move to happy but less clappy churches. I am a grateful

Alpha course completer but have moved to the Anglo-Catholic St

Matthews, Westminster.
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In 2009 our congregation has grown by over 10% and is getting

visibly younger; our financial giving is up by 25% despite the

recession; our junior or children’s group has almost doubled; and

we have started a network of cell or prayer groups. We have also

created a new theological discussion society, the Westminster

Forum, which this week attracted a 70 strong audience to hear

David Trimble, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Nigel Biggar,

Oxford’s Regius Professor of Theology, on Forgiving Enemies in

Northern Ireland.



Not a bad record of spiritual vitality for one small church. But it fits

the growth pattern in the Diocese of London where overall

congregations went up by 4.4% in 2008-9, midweek churchgoing is

rising sharply, and St Mellitus’s, the capital’s newest theological

college, founded last year, is exceeding all expectations in its

student enrolment.



In the wider CofE, candidates for ordination are at or close to record

levels. A new electronic Advent calendar has had 35,000 site visits

in the last three weeks. Cathedrals are reporting full house

attendances for carols, particularly the Catholic mother church

Westminster Cathedral which has doubled its Christmas celebration

services to cope with popular demand.
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Beyond the churches, are there spiritual reasons why Handel’s

Messiah should be having 400 performances (a record) this

Christmas?   Or why the number of A level students taking Religious

Studies should have been rising for the past six years making it (at

21,000 candidates) a more popular subject than French, Politics,

History, Geography and Law. And how come Selfridges has

announced that its sales of religious Christmas cards and religious

ornaments are up by 30 per cent this December?




Why are these signs of an apparent upsurge in spirituality

happening? One reason could be that Britain is just catching up

with a worldwide trend. Faith has been climbing in many other

nations for some time. Two writers on The Economist, John

Mickelthwaite and Adrian Wooldridge have reported the details of

this development in their fascinating 2009 book God is Back: How

the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World.



Another more domestic reason is the strange paradox that Britain’s

Muslims and Atheists seem to have stimulated new levels of

spiritual commitment and curiosity among the 72 per cent of our

population who call themselves Christian. The seriousness with

which some young Muslims pray and talk about their religion has
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challenged many of their British contemporaries to explore their

own faith more deeply.



As for the atheists their comically ambivalent advertising slogan

“There is probably no God” has been an own goal. “Richard

Dawkins and his book The God Delusion has helped the cause of

faith enormously”, explains Gerald Coates, the leader of the Pioneer

network of new churches, “our meetings are fuller than ever with

young people who have examined and rejected the atheist

arguments”.



Like so much to do with Faith, the present portents of spiritual

renewal have a touch of mystery about them. They are not

susceptible to simple explanations produced by discontent over

troubled times. Economic recessions, banking crises, fears about

Afghanistan and the widespread disillusionment with Parliament and

government are merely the superficial symptoms in the deeper

malaise of a society that has lost its spiritual compass.



At this time of the year there can be movements of our personal

compasses, steering us to listen again to the message of Christmas.

When there is no room at the inn we instinctively search. But, for

what? A five star hotel we can’t afford anyway? A champagne

party which will leave us flat and dis-satisfied?
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Or should we try to find the 21st century equivalent of a manger – a

humbler, quieter environment where we can listen for, and perhaps

start the search for a spiritual meaning to our lives. The signs are

that more and more people are trying this second and deeper

option.



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