A significant and surprisingly broad phenomenon has emerged: a quiet revival of faith among young people in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
My latest on American Thinker.
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In recent years, a significant and surprisingly broad phenomenon has emerged: a quiet revival of faith among young people in both the United States and the United Kingdom. At the same time, a parallel rediscovery of God is taking place among many leading intellectuals. Together, these two trends deserve careful attention and serious reflection.
Let’s begin with the “ordinary people” before turning to the maîtres à penser.
England and Wales: Young People Are Returning to Church
According to The Quiet Revival report published by the Bible Society, the share of young people aged 18 to 24 who attend church at least once a month in England and Wales has risen from 4% in 2018 to 16% in 2024, with men driving much of this growth. Many of these young churchgoers are also gravitating toward Catholicism: among those aged 18-34 who are active in church life, over 40% identify as Catholic, surpassing Anglicans.
Paul Williams, CEO of the Bible Society, summarizes the findings this way:
“The Quiet Revival is a hugely significant report that should reshape perceptions of Christianity and religious practice in England and Wales. Far from sliding toward extinction, the Church is alive, growing, and making a difference for individuals and society.”
This favorable trend is also reflected in a rise in adult conversions and baptisms. Many parishes now report record numbers of adults entering the Catholic Church -- typically motivated by a search for authenticity, truth, and community.
A Similar Trend in the United States
The same dynamic is unfolding in the United States. According to Pew Research, about 1.5% of American Catholic adults today are converts. Many of these younger adults say they are seeking a “stable moral order” and a spiritual depth they no longer find in contemporary secular culture. For a growing number of them, the structure, ritual, and aesthetic beauty of Catholic liturgy are decisive factors.
In other words, a generation is rediscovering in God not only a transcendent ideal but also a concrete community and a form of stability that secular society struggles to provide.
A Leadership Roundtable study notes that young adult Catholics in the U.S. are among the most engaged parishioners -- attending Mass, confession, and eucharistic adoration -- while also feeling tension between their personal dedication and the institutional fragility they perceive in parts of the Church.
This is not a series of isolated conversions. It is a demographic and cultural shift -- and a profound one.
…And the Intellectuals Are Returning to God
Alongside this youth-driven religious revival, a comparable phenomenon is unfolding among intellectuals.
For the past two decades, a large portion of the western cultural elite embraced the paradigm of the “New Atheism.” The formula seemed obvious: economic progress + science + technology = final emancipation from all religion.
But that season is over.
Philosophers, writers, commentators, and even high-profile figures in the tech world are now moving in the opposite direction: returning to God -- or at least to the religious dimension as an indispensable cultural foundation.
This time the trend does not originate with the masses, but with the people who shape ideas. And that matters: cultural currents often begin at the top and filter downward into public opinion.
Though the personal stories differ, they share a common thread: the realization that hyper-rationalism no longer explains the world -- and no longer helps people live well within it.
Here are some emblematic cases, drawing on an insightful Free Press article by Peter Savodnik.
Matthew Crawford: From Academic Agnosticism to the Anglican Church
Matthew Crawford -- long seen as a symbol of secular intellectual life -- found faith through a human encounter: meeting Marilyn Simon, a scholar and believer. His story is simple yet revealing. It wasn’t doctrine he lacked, but meaning. A higher moral order became, for him, a response to today’s radical individualism and fragmentation.
Paul Kingsnorth: The Environmental Novelist Who Found Orthodoxy
Once a leading figure in European environmentalism, Kingsnorth explored several spiritual paths before embracing Orthodox Christianity. His reasoning is partly sociopolitical: the ecological crisis, he argues, is at its core a spiritual one -- the result of a rupture between human beings and the natural world. Orthodoxy, with its mystical depth, offered him a restored sense of the sacred.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Faith as a Response to Inner Emptiness -- and to Islamism
A former Dutch MP, survivor of genital mutilation, and for years a fierce critic of political Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali converted to Christianity for two reasons:
• her personal battle with depression
• the West’s inability, in her view, to confront aggressive religious ideologies with purely secular tools
Her conversion is perhaps the most overtly political: she argues that a culturally disarmed Europe needs Christianity as an anchor of identity and resistance.
Richard Dawkins and “Cultural Christianity”
The father of New Atheism has not converted, but he has retreated. Dawkins now describes himself as a “cultural Christian,” openly worried that abandoning the Christian tradition will create a dangerous ideological and religious vacuum.
Jordan Hall: The Anti–Silicon Valley Conversion
A former tech pioneer, Jordan Hall discovered God not in some futuristic spiritual forum but in a small rural church. His diagnosis is sociological before it is mystical: the West is undergoing “cultural termination,” marked by demographic decline, loneliness, and digitized relationships. Religious community, he argues, provides something no technology can replace.
Conversions are Sweeping Through the Young
Across the U.S., conversions among young men are rising, traditional liturgies are making a comeback, and seminaries are seeing increased interest. In a period of economic insecurity, relational instability, and cultural uncertainty, religion reemerges as a form of social capital.
Not a Folkloric Revival -- and Not a Fashion Statement
The return to faith among both intellectuals and the young reflects a deep unease with a cultural model that has lost its normative power. For Europe -- and for the West more broadly -- where debates over identity, welfare, birth rates, and social cohesion are intensifying, these developments deserve close attention.
Religion may be returning not only as a legacy of the past, but as a resource for the future -- a striking challenge to the atheism and agnosticism that once appeared firmly in command.
