London's calling for God

Christianity is staging an unlikely comeback in Britain, driven by a wave of young converts who are “filling up our churches” in defiance of decades of decline, reports James Marriott in The Times.

At London’s Smithfield meat market, the ancient Anglican church of St Bartholomew the Great now attracts a “thronging and startlingly youthful crowd” for its 11am service. Where once the congregation might have numbered 50 or 60, today “more than 200” pack the pews.

Far from grey-haired traditionalists, these new worshippers are in their twenties and thirties. “The young converts look purposeful. They carry Christianity as if it were an idea for which they had made a considered and conscious choice.” Most were “on their knees with their hands clasped together and eyes squeezed shut.”

Many are drawn not by nostalgia but by “cultural Christianity”, a search for belonging amid what The Times described as “global turmoil and a search for lost meaning and connection.”

Church leaders say the “spirit that presides has changed,” with Sunday services once dismissed as “terminally boring” now buzzing with youthful enthusiasm. In central London, evangelical congregations such as St Helen’s Bishopsgate are also seeing pews crammed with students and young professionals.

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