An article in yesterday’s Sky News, reported a recent YouGov study that found that a greater percentage of Gen Z believe in a higher power than for any other generation, including we in the 65+ group. It also referenced data that showed a rise in church attendance among young people.
Dr Edward David, a lecturer at King’s College London, who researches the religious behaviours of young people and partly attributes to social media, was quoted in the article, thus: “Priests and clerics are telling researchers that they are seeing an influx of young people knocking on their doors because they have encountered a religious idea on Instagram…..They might see a 30-second video and then they are hungry for more.”
A related theme was picked up by the Guardian the day before, relating to an upturn in Bible sales in the UK, which reached a record high in 2025, increasing by 134% since 2019 – the highest since records began – according to research Christian publisher SPCK Group. Last year, total sales of Bibles in the UK reached £6.3m, £3.6m up on 2019 sales.
The Guardian quoted, Aude Pasquier, retail sales director at Church House bookshop near Westminster Abbey: “We’ve seen an increase in people coming to the Bible from scratch… They have no Christian background whatsoever. They have no grounding from their parents or from their school. Whereas most people in prior generations would have….It’s definitely younger people who are seeking some sort of spirituality – they want to understand the world and themselves better,” she said.
Apparently this upward surge in Bible sales correlates with growth in church attendance according to a report published last April by the Bible Society, which found that the number of people attending church in England and Wales had risen by 50% since 2018, with young people leading the charge. Sam Richardson, CEO of publisher SPCK Group, noted something of a counter-cultural force at work here when compared with older generations: “The rebellious thing to do was to be an atheist and follow people like Richard Dawkins and the new atheism which used to be very popular. Now, I think things are reversed. For the next generation it’s more interesting to be a Christian, they’re open to exploring that rather than being automatically closed against it”.
Read the Sky News article here. Read the Guardian article here.