Is there a religious revival in Britain?

Is there a religious revival happening in Britain? This was certainly the message of a recent report from the Bible Society. After years of a seemingly inexorable decline in religious identity and participation, data from two large polls conducted for the society by YouGov suggested that the proportion of adults who describe themselves as Christian, and who attend a church service at least monthly, had increased from 8% in 2018 to 12% to 2024. The increase was said to be particularly marked – from 4% to 16% – among those aged 18-24. Meanwhile, how some younger people in Britain have come to embrace Christianity in recent years has also been the subject of a widely publicised book.

However, data from the Church of England (CofE) have painted a more nuanced picture. Although average adult weekly attendance at CofE services rose by 4.5% between 2022 and 2023, and by a further 1.5% between 2023 and 2024, this was not sufficient to reverse fully a 19% fall between 2019 and 2023 in the wake of the COVID pandemic, let alone suggest any reversal of the long-term decline in church attendance. Still, even the Bible Society report acknowledged that the apparent recent growth in attendance had occurred among Catholics and Pentecostalists rather than in the churches of England’s established church.

Since its first survey in 1983, British Social Attitudes (BSA) has regularly asked its respondents three questions about religious identity and practice. First, they are invited to state with which religion/denomination, if any, they identify. If they say, ‘none’, they are then asked in which religion, if any, they were brought up.  Finally, those who name a religion in response to either of these two questions are asked, ‘Apart from such special occasions as weddings, funerals and baptisms, how often nowadays do you attend services or meetings connected with your religion?’.

In this briefing paper, we use the data from BSA to examine whether there is, indeed, evidence of a religious – and more specifically Christian – revival in Britain.

As already indicated, over the years BSA has charted a sharp decline in religious identification and Christian practice. Voas and Bruce showed in the 36th BSA report that the proportion saying they do not identify with any religion or denomination increased from 31% in 1983 to 52% by 2018. Nevertheless, the proportion who said they attended a religious service once a week had only dipped slightly from 13% in 1983 to 11% by 2018. But whereas in 1983, 97% of those saying they attended once a week identified with a Christian denomination, by 2018 only two-thirds did so (66%). In a reflection of the increased diversity of Britain’s population, nearly one in ten (9%) now identified with a religion other than Christianity, compared with just 2% in 1983 – and they were much more likely to attend a religious service on a regular basis. Regular attendance in Christian churches was undoubtedly in long-term decline.

Religious identity

Still, there is some good news for the churches in the most recent BSA data – the long-term decline in the proportion who identify as Christian, or indeed with any religion, has seemingly come to a halt. Indeed, as Table 1 reveals, there has been a slight increase in the proportion who claim a Christian identity other than Anglican or Catholic. Most of this group say they are Christian but that they do not belong to any particular denomination. This increase has helped ensure that, at 40%, the proportion who identify in one way or another as Christian is the same as in 2017 – a finding that mirrors the data collected on behalf of the Bible Society. Meanwhile, the proportion who identify with a religion other than Christianity – over half of whom say they are Muslim – has held steady at around 8%. In combination, these figures mean that, for the time being at least, the proportion who say they do not identify with any religion seems to have steadied at around a half.

^{Source: British Social Attitudes Survey}

Attendance

But what about the key issue of attendance in the wake of the COVID pandemic? Table 2 shows the reported level of attendance at any religious service in the years immediately before, during, and since the pandemic. Although many religious organisations responded to the COVID-19 lockdown by broadcasting their services online, unsurprisingly reported attendance fell markedly; only just over one in ten (11%) reported attending a service once a month, compared with 16-18% in the years immediately beforehand. At the same time, some of this drop has subsequently been reversed. But at 14% in the last two years, the proportion attending once a month or more is still well down on the pre-pandemic level.

^{Source: British Social Attitudes Survey}

If religious identity has largely remained steady, but attendance is now lower than before the pandemic, it must be the case that those who identify as religious are nowadays less likely to attend a religious service than they were before lockdown. Table 3 therefore analyses how the level of weekly attendance among those who have a religious identity has evolved in the wake of the pandemic. (The picture would be much the same if we were to examine the trend over time in monthly attendance.)

^{Source: British Social Attitudes Survey}

The first key finding is that the COVID-19 lockdown had most impact on the level of attendance among those who identify with a religion other than Christianity. At 20%, the proportion who in 2020 said they attended a service or meeting at least once a week was just half what it had been beforehand. Recovery since the pandemic has seemingly been slow, but the most recent data suggest the level of attendance may now have returned to its pre-pandemic level. In contrast, whereas one in five (20%) of all Christian identifiers were saying in 2018 that they were attending a service once a week, now little more than one in eight (13%) are doing so. That means just 5% of all adults now say they are attending a Christian service once a week (and just 9% at least once a month), compared with 8% (and 12%) in 2018.

So far then we have found little evidence of a religious – or more specifically a Christian – revival in Britain. True, the decline in religious identity appears to have comes to halt. In addition, all religions have recovered to some degree from the adverse impact of the pandemic on regular attendance at their services or meetings. However, attendance at a religious service or meeting has, in some instances at least, not returned to pre-COVID levels. But what of the specific claim that there has been a religious revival among younger people?

Has Generation Z turned to Religion?

Table 4 shows the proportion who report attending a religious service at least once a week, broken down by age group for each year since 2017. In every year, those aged 70 and over have been far more likely than those in other age groups to say they attend at least weekly, though apart from this there is little relationship with age. However, every age group reported a lower level of attendance during lockdown – though in the case of those aged 70 and over it appears to have been falling already before the pandemic. Meanwhile, for the most part there has been little or no reversal of the falloff – with the singular exception of those aged under 35. But even in this group weekly participation is lower than before the pandemic; there is little sign here of a marked religious revival among younger people – a picture that does not change if we look only at those aged 18 to 24 or at attendance once a month rather than once a week.

^{Source: British Social Attitudes Survey}

Indeed, the lack of any apparent sign of a religious revival among younger adults is even more evident if we exclude from the data those who identify with a religion other than Christianity. In sharp contrast to those who identify with a Christian church, the proportion who identify as Muslim, Hindu, etc., is highest among the under 35s (13% of whom identify in our latest survey as Muslim, Hindu, etc.) and lowest among those aged 70 and over (3%). Consequently, as Table 4 shows, we can now see that attendance at a Christian service is clearly lowest among the under 35s, and while the proportion who do attend may not be markedly different from before the pandemic, it certainly does not emerge as significantly higher. Moreover, if we look at those who attend at least once a month, the age gap in the level of participation is even wider.  In our latest survey, only 7% of under 35s attend a Christian church that frequently, compared with 15% of those aged over 70. The age profile of those who attend a Christian service still looks like one that suggests the prevalence of practising Christianity is facing the likely prospect of further long-term decline.

^{Source: British Social Attitudes Survey}

Conclusion

The BSA data do not replicate the Bible Society’s finding that there has been a revival of Christianity in Britain. Intriguingly, the data on identity with Christianity and attendance in church collected before the pandemic are similar to those obtained by the poll conducted for the Society in 2018. The two sources also agree that the proportion who identify as Christian is much the same now as it was before the pandemic. The divergence between the two sources lies in the reported level of attendance in 2024, including not least among younger people, for reasons that are not immediately obvious. Rather than pointing, as the Bible Society data do, to a reversal of the long-term trend towards declining church attendance, the BSA data simply suggest that some, but probably not all, of adverse impact of the pandemic on church attendance has been reversed in the last two or three years.

In any event, what is clear is that Britain’s religious landscape is now much more diverse. One in three of those attending a religious service on a weekly basis are to be found in a mosque, mandir, gurdwara, temple, or synagogue rather than a church. Moreover, among those aged under 35, less than half of those attending a religious service on a monthly basis are to be found inside a church. Rather than pointing to a revival of Christianity, the patterns of religious observance among Generation Z seemingly point to Britain becoming an increasingly more religiously diverse country, albeit one that is still largely secular in its everyday practice.

A note on methodology

Respondents to BSA are selected at random from those living in private households in Great Britain, using the postcode address file as a sampling frame. Until 2020, interviews were conducted face-to-face with adults aged 18 plus in respondents’ own homes. Since 2020, respondents have participated online, but with the option of being interviewed by phone. (In 2024 the age range was extended to 16 plus and the coverage extended to Northern Ireland, but the data reported here for that year are for those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain.)  In all years, the data have been weighted to reflect the known characteristics of the adult population. The unweighted number of respondents who were asked the initial question on religious identity in each year reported here were: 2017: 3988; 2018: 3879; 2019: 3224; 2020: 3964; 2021: 6250; 2022: 6699; 2023: 5578; 2024: 3878. For further technical details see the Technical Details in the 42nd British Social Attitudes report and in previous reports in the series.