It’s not because we’re outcompeted by the “smells and bells” of Catholicism
“The Quiet Revival”: in UK church circles, everyone is talking about it. It has even caught the attention of the secular media. The recent Bible Society report highlighted a significant increase in church attendance amongst under 35s. For those predicting the death of Christianity in the UK, it has come as an unpleasant surprise. An exhausted secularism and a brittle New Atheism, it seems, have been tried and found wanting, incapable of offering meaning and roots to those who have come of age amidst the chaos — economic, cultural, political — of the early decades of the 21st century.
That Christianity should be rediscovered by the children of a very secular British culture is indeed good news. You might think that the Church of England would be the leading beneficiary of this. With a presence in every community, its role in education, and its place in national life, Anglicanism should be very well placed to benefit most from a “quiet revival”. This, however, is not happening. In the words of the report, “among 18 — 34s, only 20 per cent of churchgoers are Anglican (down from 30 per cent in 2018), with 41 per cent Catholic and 18 per cent Pentecostal”.
If the “quiet revival” is merely a matter of desiring the whiff of incense or a lively praise band, it will quickly pass
Some commentators have been quick to suggest that the reason for Anglicanism’s relative failure in attracting the converts of the “quiet revival” is due to an inherent inability to compete with the “smells and bells” of Catholicism and the worship experience offered by Pentecostalism. This is a rather unconvincing suggestion. To begin with, it is not at all difficult to find CofE parish churches in which Mass is celebrated in a manner which makes the average Roman Catholic parish church appear distinctly puritanical. And, on the other hand, there are well-known CofE parishes in which Sunday morning services are difficult to distinguish from Pentecostalist services.
More importantly, however, it is bad news indeed if the “quiet revival” is little more than a desire for either “smells and bells” or an intense worship experience for an hour on a Sunday morning. Both of these expressions can indeed accompany the mystery of the Christian Faith — but neither are this mystery. In the words of Saint Paul, “Without any doubt, the mystery of our religion is great”: and this mystery lies not in “smells and bells”, or high octane worship, but in the truth that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is our salvation.
If the “quiet revival” is merely a matter of desiring the whiff of incense or a lively praise band, it will quickly pass, offering nothing of substance to our culture. The next “vibe shift” will bring another new experience to be sought after.
The indications, however, are that the “quiet revival” is more significant than this. As theologian Sarah Coppin has said of the “quiet revival” converts, “They want to be stretched intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. Do not shy away from deep and hard conversations”. This points towards something of a recognition that the Christian mystery is not about externals, but about the faith confessed by the apostles and martyrs, what the New Testament calls “the faith once delivered to the saints”.
That we should be talking about such a rediscovery of Christianity in the year that churches are celebrating the 1,700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed — the basic statement of orthodox Christian belief — is providential. In the Nicene Creed we confess that “the mystery of our religion is great”: Trinity, Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection, salvation, eternal life. This is the faith the Church is called to proclaim and teach; the faith in which converts are to be instructed; the faith which brings to us all forgiveness, hope, grace, and life eternal.
If you are an Anglican, this should sound very familiar indeed: the Nicene Creed is said by many Anglicans every Sunday. As for that most Anglican of liturgies — Choral Evensong — it is also packed full of this mystery: the praises of the Holy Trinity, the truth of Virgin birth and Resurrection, the reality of sin and the gift of God’s forgiveness, and the hope that in “the world to come” we will dwell in “life everlasting”. If you open the Book of Common Prayer — or even its latter day alternative, Common Worship — you will find services for Baptism and Holy Communion that leave us in no doubt that these sacraments are “holy mysteries”, through which we are brought to share in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This should be what Anglicanism is known for. It is what you will encounter in those Church of England parishes which are growing and in which “quiet revival” converts are seen. Unfortunately, too often a different Anglican voice is heard in the public square. An entirely predictable list of progressive concerns dominate Anglican public discourse: net zero, racial justice officers, and the EDI catechism. As Church of England theologian Ian Paul has recently said, “The gospel expressed in these terms looks, to many people, like a humanist, political, and left-liberal project”. Therein lies contemporary Anglicanism’s weakness: when you sound like just another progressive NGO, with the latest fashionable cause — rather than the saving truth of the Christian faith — your animating focus, why should those seeking something deeper than what they hear from secular organisations come knocking? Why should those seeking God, truth, grace, hope, seek it in a church that sounds like it offers nothing meaningfully different from progressive influencers and opinion-formers?
That “quiet revival” converts are to be found in Catholicism, Pentecostalism, and Orthodoxy is a cause of great joy. But, mindful of the national role of the Church of England and of its place in the global Anglican Communion, all Christians should be hoping and praying, both for the sake of England and of wider Anglicanism, that the Church of England sets aside the transitory, partisan causes that currently dominate its public discourse, and finds a new confidence in the mystery of the Christian faith, proclaiming and teaching it to a generation of “quiet revival” believers.
