Join me, Toby Young, on Wednesday the 18th of February for another installment in the Spectator's Speaker series.

I'll be joined by the star of Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones, John Reese Davis.

We'll be covering his fascinating childhood in Tanzania, the secrets behind his lasting success,

and what he sees as the challenges facing Western civilization.

Join us in the library at Old Queen Street Cafe at 7pm on Wednesday the 18th of February.

Book your tickets at spectator.com forward slash book now.

Welcome to Holy Smoke, the Spectator's Religion podcast.

I'm Damien Thompson.

The religious geography of the whole world, not just the West, is changing fast, but the evidence can be difficult to interpret.

Here in London and in other major cities, we've seen young people flocking to Christian services offering traditional worship. But does this really amount to the quiet revival of Christianity

that we've read about in the media.

Meanwhile, the growth of so-called nuns, people who say they have no religious affiliation,

is borne out in survey after survey. But is that also being exaggerated? Is it partly explained

by the methodology?

And what happens when we examine global data for all the world's religions?

Is the rise of secularism mostly confined to the West?

Are we seeing evidence of growing disenchantment with religion, even, for example, in Africa?

Here to answer some of those questions is Dr. Conrad Hackett,

Associate Director of Research and Senior Demographer at the Pew Research Centre,

whose work, in my opinion, represents the gold standard

in this fascinating and vast-changing area of human activity.

Conrad, great pleasure to have you on Holy Smoke.

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