Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Back in April, the Bible Society of the UK issued a report describing what they called a quiet revival that was sweeping across England and Wales.

Quote, church decline in England, and Wales has not only stopped, the subheading

read, but the church is growing as Gen Z leads an exciting turnaround in church attendance,

and quote. Though the report did receive its fair share of critics, it also launched an essential

conversation. And last Sunday, James Marriott joined that conversation in a large article in the UK publication

The Times, which chronicled what he called a comeback for Christianity. And what made his article

entitled Full Fat Faith, the young Christian converts filling our churches, even more interesting,

is that Marriott describes himself as a dry and desiccated materialist. At least part of the renewal,

Marriott thinks, is due to a growing disenchantment the young are having with atheism. After all,

during the peak of the new atheism, he wrote, quote, it was widely held that the world was

soaring in electably along an arc of enlightened progress. We were all

destined to become richer, more democratic, more just, more rational, more secular. But those

optimistic beliefs have been sorely tested in difficult recent years. Anyone tended to simply

dismiss the idea that religion could ever revive may not grasp how dramatically the

cultural and economic landscape inhabited by young people has changed, end quote. Instead of the

utopia that secularism long promised the world, the post-9-11 realities included things like

economic disruption, COVID, whokeness, thought police. As a result,

many young people are now rebelling toward a more traditional form of the Christian faith.

As Marriott put it, quote, if you're young, the establishment is obviously secular. Nowadays,

it's precisely Christianity's marginal status that lends it glamour and charisma, comparable perhaps to the

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