This is an age where TikTok trends eclipse timeless truths and AI promises salvation through algorithms, but the divine is staging a comeback, not with thunderclaps from Sinai, but with the subtle murmur of packed pews and the earnest confessions of former sceptics. As S.R. Piccoli chronicles in his compelling American Thinker essay "God is Back," (link below), a profound revival is underway, particularly among the young and the intellectual elite in the United States and United Kingdom. This isn't a nostalgic throwback to the fire-and-brimstone revivals of yore; it's a pragmatic reclamation of faith as the antidote to the hollow victories of secularism. The gods of progress, science, technology, and unbridled individualism, have left a void: economic precarity, relational atomisation, and a creeping sense of cosmic irrelevance. Into this breach, God returns, not as a relic, but as a radical necessity. From the incense-filled halls of Catholicism to the Orthodox icons of rural England, the faithful are rediscovering what the enlightened forgot: Transcendence isn't optional; it's the scaffolding of civilised life.
The Youth Surge: From Apathy to Altars
Peek into the cathedrals of London or the basilicas of Boston, and you'll find a sight that defies the obituaries for religion: Young faces, disproportionately male, drawn to the ancient rites. In England and Wales, church attendance among 18- to 24-year-olds has skyrocketed from a dismal 4% in 2018 to a vibrant 16% in 2024, with over 40% of active 18- to 34-year-olds identifying as Catholic. Record numbers of adult baptisms and conversions aren't anomalies; they're the new normal, fuelled by a hunger for authenticity in a world of curated facades. These aren't the children of televangelists either — many hail from secular upbringings, repelled by the performative wokeness of campuses and the existential dread of gig economies.
Across the pond, the U.S. mirrors this trend. A striking 1.5% of Catholic adults are recent converts, often young men seeking the "stable moral order" and liturgical beauty that secular therapy apps can't provide. Seminaries report surges in enrolment, and traditional Latin Masses draw crowds that rival Coachella for fervour. Why the pull? Piccoli nails it: In an era of "radical individualism" that promises liberation but delivers loneliness, faith offers community, a tangible bulwark against the isolation of swiping right into oblivion. As Paul Williams, CEO of the Bible Society, declares, "The Quiet Revival is a hugely significant report that should reshape perceptions... Far from sliding toward extinction, the Church is alive, growing, and making a difference for individuals and society." This isn't blind piety; it's calculated rebellion against a culture that equates meaning with memes.
Intellectuals Reconvert: The Fall of New Atheism's Tower
If the youth are the foot soldiers, the intellectuals are the generals in this return. The high priests of New Atheism, Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, once proclaimed religion's obituary with the smug certainty of Enlightenment heirs. Yet, as hyper-rationalism buckles under its own weight, unable to stanch ecological despair or moral relativism's bleed, the prodigal thinkers are stumbling home. Piccoli spotlights a roster of reconversions that read like a philosophical who's who:
Matthew Crawford, once a darling of secular humanism, found solace in Anglicanism's "human encounter" for moral grounding, a rejection of the disembodied rationalism that left souls adrift.
Paul Kingsnorth, environmentalist turned Orthodox, sees faith as the key to mending our "spiritual rupture" with nature, where pagan eco-spirituality meets Christ.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the ex-Muslim firebrand, embraced Christianity not just to combat Islamism but to fill the "inner emptiness" that atheism couldn't touch: "Faith as response to... the West's need for Christianity against aggressive ideologies."
Even Richard Dawkins, the atheism impresario, now styles himself a "cultural Christian," fretting that ditching tradition would "create a dangerous vacuum." And Jordan Hall extols rural churches as tech-proof havens from "cultural termination," where demographic decline and digitised loneliness find no cure in code.
This intellectual pivot isn't whimsy; it's wisdom born of failure. Secularism's gospel, progress through science and tech, delivered iPhones but not purpose. As Piccoli observes, it fostered a "normative decline" where identity politics devours the soul, welfare states erode family, and birth rates plummet into oblivion. God returns as the philosopher's stone, transmuting fragmentation into cohesion, offering a "higher moral order" that radical individualism can't counterfeit.
The Cultural Calculus: Why Now, and Why It Matters
Timing is everything in divine comedy, and 2025 feels providential. Post-pandemic isolation amplified the secular ache; economic insecurity exposed the fragility of materialist dreams; and geopolitical tempests, from Ukraine to the Middle East, reminded us that history isn't a straight line upward. In this maelstrom, religion reemerges as "social capital," Piccoli argues, anchoring identity and resistance in a disarmed West. Young converts aren't escaping reality; they're engaging it more deeply, through confession's raw honesty, adoration's quiet awe, and liturgy's timeless rhythm.
Philosophically, this revival echoes the ancients: Augustine's restless hearts finding rest in Thee, or Pascal's wager updated for the Anthropocene. Biblically, it's the dry bones rattling to life in Ezekiel's valley, a breath of the Spirit amid cultural death. Historically, it parallels the 19th-century awakenings that birthed abolition and reform; today's could birth a renaissance against woke nihilism.
Critics may scoff, labelling it a "quiet" fad doomed by science's march. But data disagrees: Rising conversions, surging attendance, and intellectual defections signal not a blip, but a tide. In a world where AI chats mimic companionship but can't absolve sin, God's return feels less like revival and more like revelation: We were made for more than metrics.
Divine Encore: Faith as the West's Last Stand
Piccoli's thesis lands like a benediction: Religion isn't dying; it's reawakening as the West's "resource for the future." Amid debates over borders, babies, and belonging, faith provides the glue, cohesion for crumbling communities, purpose for plummeting fertility, and courage against ideological invaders. The return of God isn't a retreat to the past; it's a charge into tomorrow, where young men genuflect not in defeat, but defiance.
So, to the sceptics scrolling in the shadows: The altars await. To the faithful flickering low: Fan the flame. In 2025, the divine isn't absent — He's arriving, fashionably late, to a party secularism crashed long ago. Heed the quiet revival; it's the loudest truth of our time. God is back, and with Him, hope's unkillable spark: Romans 12:12.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/11/at_2025_11_24.html