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As we tiptoe into 2025, there is something we need to start factoring into our thinking: religion. We may just have enjoyed a Christmas season with almost no mention of faith, but the world is set to become more religious, not less, in the coming decades.
Western rationalists have always assumed that atheism is the logical end point of prosperity. But I’m no longer so sure. At the moment, four-fifths of the world’s population still identify with a religious group. You don’t have to “do God” to worry that the secular standpoint may therefore lack something when it comes to understanding global currents. There are many examples, but they might include the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, bloodshed in Nigeria, the recent change of heart by the Chinese Communist party in embracing folk traditions, and the uncertainty over what kind of Islam will prevail in Syria.
Faith is set to become an even greater force in the coming decades because the fastest-growing nations, where birth rates are highest, are among the most devout. Sub-Saharan Africa saw the most dramatic expansion of Christianity in the world since the European Middle Ages during the 20th century. Its Christian population is expected to double between now and 2050, to 1.1bn.
Meanwhile Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, having made big inroads in north Africa. By mid-century there may be almost as many Muslims as Christians. Hindus and Jews are also expected to increase their numbers — though Buddhists will not.
These predictions are based on crude correlations between religion and births, so won’t be entirely accurate. But there is still likely to be a net growth in believers, because populations are growing where faiths are strongest, and shrinking where they are weaker.
What does this mean for Europe? We are currently the most secular continent. In Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and the UK, only a tenth of people say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 90 per cent in Africa. At the last census, the number of people in England and Wales identifying as Christian fell below half for the first time.
It’s not, though, quite so simple. Many immigrants are bringing faith with them. In England, for example, the number of mosques is rising and the number of Chinese churches, which have grown by almost a third since the exodus began from Hong Kong. There are also signs that a younger generation is more open to spiritual experiences, searching for something beyond materialism. Finland saw a doubling of young men attending church in the past decade, though no one knows quite why.
A number of high-profile people have also started to talk about their Christian faith. The historian Tom Holland and the singer-songwriter Nick Cave have both spoken about coming back to the traditions they grew up with. “To my considerable surprise,” Cave has written, “I have found some of my truths in that wholly fallible, often disappointing, deeply weird and thoroughly human institution of the Church.” Here, I think, lies the faint outline of a journey that more people may sooner or later take.
The environmentalist poet Paul Kingsnorth has described how his quest for a more spiritual connection to nature led him first to Buddhism, then witchcraft, and now Christianity. Even Richard Dawkins has called himself a “cultural Christian” — not a believer, but at home with the Christian ethos.
Some theologians are becoming excited that the hold of aggressive atheism may be weakening. Justin Brierley, author of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, has argued that the tide may be turning against materialism. Rupert Shortt, the Cambridge researcher, wrote in his book Outgrowing Dawkins that western culture had been trapped in “a dialogue of the deaf” through the dogma of atheists like Dawkins, who have got away with what he argues are crude caricatures of Christian doctrine. The American Catholic theologian Bishop Richard Barron has 1.8mn followers on YouTube; the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson has started talking about the scriptures.
It would be wrong to overdo this, when fewer than a million Britons regularly go to church. But it does feel as though there is a space opening up in which people can start to talk about faith without being mocked. And for individuals to be able to acknowledge that strange sense of the sublime that human beings have felt since time immemorial.
My own godfather, the philosopher Bryan Magee, felt right until the end of his life that religion was a lazy comfort, a distraction from the quest for truth. But he also became increasingly interested in the “noumenal” — that which sits beyond our ability to fully see. Certainly, the churches which are growing fastest seem to be the evangelical and Pentecostal ones at the more intoxicating end — with angels, miracles, and fabulous music. Holland has argued the Church of England should take note — that their success is because they “take the supernatural seriously . . . not the kind of thing that you would get on Radio 4”.
This is the dark time of the year in the northern hemisphere, when our modern celebrations are adaptations of ancient pagan festivals. So it’s a good time to realise that far from living through a new age of reason, the coming decades are likely to see a growth in belief systems of all kinds.
