In Defence of the Christians-Part 3

Super Bowl Sunday Edition

During his now famous acceptance speech for the Templeton Prize in 1983, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made a remarkable claim. “More than half a century ago, while I was still a child,” he said,

I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.

Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.

Solzhenitsyn went on to contend that the West, too, had become Godless and was “slipping toward the abyss:”

Unnoticeably, through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West ceased to stand for anything more lofty than the pursuit of ‘happiness’, a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short-lived value. It has become embarrassing to appeal to eternal concepts, embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system… Western societies are losing more and more of their religious essence as they thoughtlessly yield up their younger generation to atheism.

Although Solzhenitsyn’s work is widely credited with contributing to the downfall of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, he must have felt as if he was shouting into the void when it came to his warning to the West. In the decades following his famous speech, church attendance continued to decline and Christian faith became increasingly marginalized and scorned, culminating in the “New Atheist” movement of the mid-2000’s. Moral relativism—underpinned by the postmodernist assertion that there is no such thing as objective truth—became the norm, at least among the intellectual classes.

But about 10 years ago, something began to change. As we pointed out in Part 2 of In Defence of the Christians, there are signs that the tide may be starting to turn for Christianity, at least among our cultural elites. The intellectual class seems to be losing confidence in its assertion that religion is — and should be — a thing of the past. Perhaps in response to the surprising popularity of figures like Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland, the intelligentsia seems to be acknowledging that religion will never go away and that we need to take it seriously as a cultural and psychological force, if nothing else.

Although there is still a great deal of anti-religious (and particularly anti-Christian) sentiment among intellectual “elites” (especially those on the political left), the casual mockery of religion which characterized the peak of the “New Atheist” era seems to have faded. What proof do I have of this? Forgive me if you are not an NFL fan, but with today being Super Bowl Sunday, I couldn’t help using a football story to illustrate my point.

A Tale of Five Quarterbacks

On January 8th, 2012, Denver Broncos’ quarterback Tim Tebow completed an 80 yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas—in overtime—to cement his team’s win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round of the NFL playoffs. Tebow then went down on one knee (in front of 45 million people!) to give thanks to God, a move that had by then become his signature and which came to be known as “Tebowing”. Tebow was an unapologetic Christian, who was known to wear eyeblack with bible verses etched into it. For this, he was mercilessly mocked. Even hated. As Catholic writer George Weigel noted at the time:

Tim Tebow is a target of irrational hatred…because he is an unabashed Christian, whose calmness and decency in the face of his Christophobic detractors drives them crazy. Tim Tebow, in other words, is a prime example of why Christophobia – a neologism first coined by a world-class comparative constitutional law scholar, J.H.H. Weiler, himself an Orthodox Jew – is a serious cultural problem in these United States.

It is simply unimaginable that any prominent Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Sikh quarterback, should such a fantasy of anthropology exist, would be subjected to the vileness that is publicly dumped on Tim Tebow. Tolerance, that supreme virtue of the culture of radical relativism, does not extend to evangelical Christians, it seems.

Tim Tebow Tebowing, circa 2012

Tim Tebow had the misfortune of being both a devout Christian and a star athlete around the time that the “new atheist” movement was reaching its peak. A time at which the mocking of devout Christians had become not just acceptable, but fashionable.

Fast forward to the 2025 NFL playoffs, though, and a funny thing is happening. Not only is (the now long retired) Tim Tebow turning up in good natured TV ads, but all four of the quarterbacks who made it to the semi-finals this year are devout Christians—and not afraid to talk about it.

Kansas City Chief’s QB Patrick Mahomes, who is trying to win an unprecedented third straight Super Bowl, wears a Psalm 121 bracelet on his wrist (I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.) After winning a hard fought AFC Championship game on January 27th, Mahomes began his CBS post game interview with this statement: “First of all, I want to give all glory to God. Without him, none of this is possible, and I truly mean that…”

Patrick Mahomes, looking up to where his help cometh from

After wining the NFC Championship game, Mahomes’ opponent in Super Bowl LIX, Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts, made similar comments, thanking God for giving him "focus and resilience".

Jalen Hurts, who apparently gets help from the same place as Mahomes

Three time NFL MVP and Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson (beaten by Mahomes in the NFC Championship game) has this posted on his X account:

And the youngest of the “final four” quarterbacks, Houston Texans’ phenom CJ Stroud, makes sure to thank Jesus almost every time he’s interviewed—although in the interview below, Christophobic NBC editors apparently tried to cut Jesus out (double click on the image below to watch this short “before and after editing” video. It’s quite something!)

All of these remarkable young men talk openly about their Christian faith—yet none has attracted the vitriol and mockery that plagued Tim Tebow in 2011-12.

And it’s not just NFL football players talking about Jesus. Is it just me or does it seem like religion is in the air these days? On “X” this week, for example, one of the top trending debates—sparked by comments made by US Vice President JD Vance—was around what it means for a Christian to love his neighbour. A theological debate trending on Twitter! Christopher Hitchens must be rolling over in his grave.

Meanwhile, Bible sales are soaring in the USA, with a remarkable 22% increase in sales between 2023 and 2024:

Still, we keep seeing stories like this one in the mainstream media:

So what, exactly is going on? How can we reconcile a huge increase in Bible sales (and NFL Quarterbacks who love Jesus) with churches having to close their doors for lack of attendance? Is Christianity experiencing a revival? And if so, what does this revival look like?

Here are three main trends I’ve noticed:

1. Church Attendance is falling in the West but growing in the Global South

Although 66% of Americans still call themselves Christians, church attendance and formal religious affiliation continues to decline, with only about 30% of Americans indicating that they attend services weekly or almost weekly, compared to 42% two decades ago. In Canada the numbers are even lower, with about 53% identifying as Christian and only about 23% attending religious services regularly.

Church membership is also on the decline in both countries, while the number of people who consider themselves religious “nones” — meaning that they identify as either atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” — is on the rise, now comprising about 28% of American adults. When you look at the make-up of the “nones”, though, it gets more interesting. The majority of these people believe there is a God (or some form of higher power) and about half consider themselves to be “spiritual.” Only about 17% of the “nones” (or less than 5% of the total population) identifies as atheist. Take that, Richard Dawkins! (Could it be that some of these “nones” are buying Bibles?)

In spite of its apparent decline in the West, Christianity continues to grow worldwide, with the total number of Christians expected to top 3 billion by 2025. In Africa, Christianity is growing at a phenomenal rate, from less than 10 million Christians at the turn of the 20th century to more than 734 million Christians in 2024.

We should all be as tough as Nigerian Christians….

2. In the West, young men are becoming more religious than young women, reversing a longstanding trend

In Christian countries including the United States, women have always been more devout than men: More likely to pray daily, to attend church regularly and to regard religion as “very important.” This trend still holds true on a population level, but amongst Gen Z’ers (the generation born after 1996), this trend has reversed, making them the first generation of American Christians in which the men are more religious than the women. Our four young NFL quarterbacks may be part of a bigger trend!

Nobody seems to know why this is the case, though there are many theories. (More on this in future episodes!)

3. Although some churches in the West are indeed dying, others are thriving

A 2016 study by David Millard Haskell of Wildfred Laurier University compared churches that were growing with those that were declining. In what was, at the time, a rather surprising finding, it turned out that the more theologically conservative churches were growing, while the more liberal ones were seeing membership declines.

To put it more starkly, the churches that have tried to “fit in” with the culture zeitgeist—those that have “gone woke”, often at the expense of their Christian principles—are, on average, losing members. This can happen at the level of individual churches or at the level of entire denominations. In Canada, for example, The United Church is arguably the most “woke” of all Christian denominations. It is also declining more rapidly than any other denomination in Canada.

The Episcopal Church's membership has been declining since 2012, with an average yearly decline of about 40,000. Can you guess why?

In the UK, the Anglican Church has been declining for decades, but went downhill particularly fast under left wing archbishop Justin Welby, who led the church between 2013 and 2024. During his tenure, a poll showed that 2% of the church’s priests were atheists and a further 16% were unsure as to the nature of God. Among many “progressive” initiatives, the church considered whether to start using “gender neutral” terms for God since, apparently, it didn’t seem fair to refer to Him as Him. Even God has pronouns, after all. Not surprisingly, the Anglican church has lost about 25,000 congregants a year over the past ten years, even as alternate denominations with a more conservative bent—such as Pentecostal and Orthodox Churches—are seeing healthy increases in their numbers in the UK.

As David Gunnlaugsson wrote in the Spectator in 2020:

If Jordan Peterson can fill big venues with his message of the importance of taking responsibility – and base his views to a great extent on scripture – then why can’t the church do the same? Rather than aggravating its followers, the church can become an answer to the angst and extremism of our times.

Christianity has stood the test of time, but a church that seeks to appease the zeitgeist of the time, rather than stick to its principles, will not. William Ralph Inge said ‘Whoever marries the spirit of this age will be widowed in the next’. Christian denominations around the world are in grave danger of falling into this trap.

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Many years ago, the great Catholic theologian Karl Rahner claimed that “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.” He is looking increasingly prophetic, as churches emphasizing conservative values and a direct and personal connection to God, continue to grow. (The Pentocostals, for example, are the fastest growing Christian denomination— and possibly the fastest growing religious group of any kind—in the entire world.)

Can Christianity learn from these success stories and reinvent itself to once again become a dominant cultural force in the West? Can the West as we know it survive if it doesn’t? In Part 4 of this series, we’ll explore these questions and more.