Britain stands on centuries of Christianity but the faith no longer lives in its people

Seen from above, this country still looks Christian. Churches adorn prominent points in almost every town and village. Many of these churches are closed and crumbling, but in 2019 those still open for worship outnumbered the nation’s pubs.

Britain’s children can still be seen scurrying to hymns and prayers each morning – a third of state-funded schools are faith-based, most of them Church of England, which comprise a quarter of primaries, while Roman Catholic institutions make up 9% of secondary state schools.

Even the Houses of Parliament look like a cathedral, with the odd stained-glass window. Inside is a culture steeped in Christianity. It is traditional to swear in new members of parliament on a Bible, and the majority still take their oath this way. Parliamentary sittings in both houses begin with Anglican prayers; in the House of Lords 26 Church of England bishops and archbishops cast their votes on the policies that will govern Britain.

Keir Starmer stands out as an atheist prime minister, but the occupants of two of the four great offices of state – David Lammy and Rachel Reeves – are practising Christians. The king is head of the Church of England, and must be a member, and Catholics are excluded from the throne.

But if the country stands on centuries of faith, that faith no longer lives in its people. As Catholics across the planet feverishly await the election of a new pope, and the more prosaic business of choosing the archbishop of Canterbury grinds on, fewer Brits are sharing in the excitement.

The last census, in 2021, found that less than half of the population call themselves Christian. Numbers of Muslims and Hindus have ticked up slightly, but the biggest rise by far is among those who consider themselves to be secular. Religion is fading from ideas of identity, too: the number who think being Christian is part of being “truly British” falls with every social attitudes survey.

Meanwhile, fewer of us are turning up to church. The Church of England, which keeps anxious tabs on attendees, recorded 895,100 average Sunday attendees in England in 2009, and just 573,500 in 2023. Figures for Catholics are less reliable, but the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales found that attendance at mass fell between 2019 and 2023, from 701,902 to 554,913.

These findings are somewhat at odds with a widely reported revival in Christianity, allegedly driven by enthusiastic young members. That was the case argued in a survey by the Bible Society last month, which found that the share of people who said they went to church at least once a month had risen from 8% in 2018 to 12% in 2024. Among 18 to 24-year-olds, the proportion of bums on pews had grown from 4% to 16%. A higher proportion of these were Catholics and Pentecostals; Anglicans made up a smaller chunk. This is an astonishing break with a truth that beleaguered members of the clergy have long held to be ontological – that church attendance goes only in one direction. Can it really be correct?

While there are no definitive figures for Pentecostal worshippers, it is certainly recognised as a fast-growing religion, both worldwide and in the UK, where there are an estimated 17,000 churches, bolstered particularly by immigrants.

The survey also draws from non-denominational networks and churches, which are similarly hard to quantify. But the seeming gap between recorded and reported attendance among Catholics is a little trickier to explain. It may be that more people are attending services online, which slip outside the data recorded by churches. It could be that the Bishops’ Conference figures are inaccurate. Or it could be that spending your Sundays in church is now seen as more socially desirable, prompting some people to exaggerate their godliness. That would be interesting in itself, and would fit with other trends we see in the young, among whom atheism long ago lost its social cachet.

Today, increasing numbers of generation Z prefer to describe themselves as “spiritual”.

Even if young people are indeed returning to the church, the opposite shift may be seen among their elders, who are rapidly losing their faith. According to the World Values Survey, in 1981 69% of the prewar generation said they were a religious person, a figure that dropped to 46% in 2022. In the same period their belief in God fell from 82% to 59%. Just 7% of baby boomers said they were atheists in 1981, compared with 22% of them in 2022.

These trends are hardly surprising in a country where faith is fading. But they do run contrary to a theory embodied by Lord Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited, that the prospect of meeting your maker encourages you to get on better terms with him.

Britain does not stand out from its fellows – Christianity has long been declining across western Europe; trends in the United States follow in its wake, just a few decades behind.

Elsewhere, however, the story is different. Rapid population growth in sub-Saharan Africa will soon shift Christianity’s geographical centre. By 2060, four in 10 Christians are likely to live there; fewer than a quarter will remain in Europe and North America combined.

But as the country’s Christian past runs up against its godless future, questions arise – some existential, some practical. Secular campaigners argue that it is time to cut ties between church and state: they say the current system is exclusionary. About 50% of the public feel the same, and have for at least a decade, although a larger proportion (73%) think the church has little influence over the way people live their lives. That may be correct. Church and state are divided in America, but religion permeates its politics nonetheless. In Britain, the opposite is true.

The clergy tends to be plagued by a more pressing problem: how to keep the roof from leaking? Short of a miracle, congregations are not returning in force.

The elderly have tended to supply bequests and free flower-arranging; and as that population falls, those contributions are falling too. More than 3,500 parish churches have shut in the last decade, and the cost of repairing the Church of England’s estate mounts – by some estimates it stands at around £1bn.

What to do with these beautiful buildings? Two-thirds of UK adults think they are worth saving. Nearly half of the 16,000 Anglican churches in England have Grade 1 status, meaning they are of exceptional architectural or historical interest. They are, meanwhile, valued as community spaces.

Some countries favour a church tax; a better solution may be to turn empty churches over to thriving social enterprises and local businesses – as food banks, day centres, libraries, cafes and housing. That, after all, would represent the country they stand in: built and burnished by Christianity, adapted to other purposes.

Graphic by Katie Riley