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Finding Hope – Paul Cowley tells his compelling story.

Gavin Matthews interviewed Paul Cowley for Solas.

Gavin: Hi Paul. So you have a remarkable story and it starts off in Manchester, I believe?

Paul: Hi Gavin, yes – I was born in Salford. Raised as an only child, my parents were dysfunctional alcoholics. As a result, we moved around quite a lot because as they were both quite volatile, they often fell out with neighbours.

Gavin: And what effect did that have on you?

Paul: Well, we lived in a cycle of drinking and arguments, which got worse as the week went on, and at the age of 16 two things happened. First, I was expelled from Egerton Park Secondary School as I played truant due to being bullied. Second, was that I had an argument with my father. One night, he got back late from the pub and had an argument with my mum. As he went to hit her, I got in the gap and took the clout that was meant for her. He then shouted at me to get out of the house. Running upstairs, I grabbed a bag of stuff left, but after a few hundred yards realised I had no money and nowhere to go.

For a few nights I was homeless and then I got picked up by a gang and moved into their squat. It’s there that I learnt how to thieve from shops, factories and warehouses; but I wasn’t very good at it so I ended up developing a ‘relationship’ with the police! I got arrested and fined – but I couldn’t pay the fines, so I ended up in front of the magistrate’s court in Manchester, got a prison sentence and was sent off to HMP Risley near Warrington. At that time, it was a Borstal, a young offender’s unit and had the nickname, “Grisly Risley”. Three months later my father met me at the gate and told me that he had left my mother for another woman.

I tried my hand at various jobs and tried to stay out of mischief. One day I was driving a furniture van through Manchester when I saw an advert for the Army. It was brilliant advertising. It had these soldiers in uniform standing in front of a backdrop of mountains and snow with the slogan, “Do you want a life of adventure?” So, I pulled up and went into Fountain Street recruiting centre. I said, ‘I’d like to do the stuff in that poster – the mountains, the skiing, and I’d quite like to see the world.’ It took six months to to convince them that I was serious about the Army, but eventually they signed me up. I was 21, and it was one of the happiest days of my life.

It led to 17 years in the military. I was taught many skills, including leadership. I developed physically as I was constantly running and training. I was able to look after myself and no one bullied me again. I excelled at being a good soldier and did two tours in Northern Ireland, the Falklands, and came out at the rank of Staff Sergeant. But those 17 years were also a nightmare because I went through two marriages and two divorces, and almost became an alcoholic. I abandoned my three-year-old son from my first marriage and was not a nice character. The Bible talks about someone of ‘bad character’ – and that’s what I was. My military career was going well but emotionally and relationally I was a complete disaster. When I was 29 years old, I finally went to my commanding officer and said, ‘I need help’. Because even though I was doing well professionally, I needed help because I was turning into my father – affairs, divorces, alcohol.

The Lieutenant Colonel, in his wisdom, really helped me. He sent me to an adventure training centre in Cyprus away from drink, women, and trouble. But – surprisingly, it was there that I met a young English art/dance student called Amanda. She had travelled with a friend to Troodos to do some painting but they had got stranded, so I helped her. I wasn’t looking for another relationship, and I was aware she was only only 21, whereas, I was nearly 30 – but there was something about her that I fell in love with. She taught me about literature and art and she was a little bit crazy like me. A year later we moved in together.

During my career in the Army, I was in five different regiments in the Royal Artillery, and then I transferred into the Army Physical Training Corps, which was an elite Corps of about 300 men. The course to get in there lasted a year and was gruelling. 118 men started the course, but only 18 got through it. During that year, I trained under the direction of Staff Sergeant Eric Martin. He was a kind of psychopath in uniform and I hated him. He was so bad that several of us wanted to do him some harm. Eventually, I finished the course and was posted to the 3rd Battalion Royal Green Jackets as their adventure training instructor, serving with them in Colchester, Gibraltar and Dover. It was a fantastic career.

After I left the Army, I got a house with my girlfriend in Nuneaton. One morning, I picked up the mail which contained a very strange postcard. It was of a biblical scene, with a shepherd and some sheep on the front. There were two circles of pen around the two sheep and written above one was “ME” and above the other one “YOU”. I thought what the heck is this? Turning it over, written on the back was, ‘Paul, I’ve become a Christian. You need to marry the woman you are living with. Jesus loves you. I am praying for you. Come and see me when I get back to Aldershot.’

Gavin: Who was it from?

Paul: Well, when I saw it was signed by Eric Martin, I felt sick! It was from that mad senior instructor in the PT Corps. The worst thing about receiving a postcard from him was that he obviously had my address. Amanda said to me, ‘Are you going to go and see him?’ And I said, ‘No, he was a lunatic when I knew him. So, I’m definitely not going now he’s got this God stuff!’

But eventually I thought well hes not in charge of me anymore, he has no authority over me – Ill go and see him and give him a piece of mind about what he put me through. I went to see him in Aldershot and he told me how he had gone to work with the Gurkhas in Hong Kong and had this ‘God Experience’ and then for some reason, he thought of me and sent me the postcard. By the time it reached me, I had left the Army and he was back in the UK.

I spent three days with him in the Sergeants Mess in Aldershot. He told me that God loved me, and had a plan for me and that all this stuff from scripture was true. It was fun. We went for a run, we had a few beers together, and the night before I left, he walked me to my room and said, ‘See you in the morning, Paul.’ He then gave me a piece of paper. Shutting the door, I started to get ready for bed. I looked at the piece of paper which had a Bible verse on it, Matthew 22:13, ‘The King said to his servants, take this man and bind him hand and foot, and throw him out into the darkness where there will be a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth.’

I remember sitting down on my bunk-bed in the mess and thinking what is this? It frightened the life out of me and I didn’t know what to do. I decided to drop to me knees pray, ‘God – I don’t want the gnashing of teeth’. I didn’t sleep well for the rest of the night. In the morning, I went to meet Eric in the Sergeant’s Mess for breakfast. He didn’t even look up at me but said, ‘How did you sleep?’ I said, ‘Not well!’ And still without looking at me he said, ‘What happened?’ and I said, ‘Well, that scripture you gave me with the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, and the hands tied together and your feet, frightened the life out of me.’ He said, ‘What did you do?’ I said, ‘Well, I prayed, God take away the gnashing of teeth’.  And that’s when Eric put his knife and fork down and looked at me, and said ‘That’s fantastic, welcome to the Kingdom of God, Paul, you’re now a Christian!’ And that was my introduction to the Christian faith!

Gavin: So he was still a bit of a hard-nut!?

Paul and Amanda’s baptism, the day after their wedding (1993)

Paul: Yeah, well, he was an army boxing champion! I left him, went home to my girlfriend and tried to forget about what he said. I then went to a Sunday service at Holy Trinity Brompton in Knightsbridge (HTB). They invited me to an Alpha Course. I thought Ive been in the Army 17 years and done courses all my life, why not do one on God? And it was on the Alpha course at HTB that I learnt that there were some nice scriptures, not just the one that Eric had given me. And it was on the Alpha weekend when someone prayed for me that I surrendered and admitted that I needed help in my life and then from then on things really started to change. I married Amanda and my son came to live with us.

Soon after that I went on a prison visit with Emmy Wilson from HTB and it was there that I had a bit of an epiphany. I shared my story and prayed with some men whose life backgrounds were worse than mine. When I came out of there, I felt God say to me, ‘Your past is a mess, and it’s not all your fault. If you let me, I can use it for good, and I’ve got a plan for you.’ 

In 1997, I joined the staff at HTB to develop the Alpha course in prisons. I pioneered Alpha Prisons throughout the UK, but I realised that I needed to do something more for these men. It was good to lead them to Christ while they were inside, but we needed to do something for them when they came out; so I founded the charity “Caring for Ex-Offenders” which utilises church volunteers to meet them at the prison gate and help them on the outside. I also established a night shelter at HTB and a course for men and women with addiction. I am now the Ambassador for Social-Transformation HTB and Alpha International.

Ordination (2002)

In 1998 we had a daughter and I was able to be a better father to her than I was to my son. In 2002 I was ordained a priest in the church of England and in 2016 I was awarded an MBE by the Queen for work with ex-offenders, which was amazing.

Since June 2018, Amanda and I have been involved with St Francis –  HTB’s 5th site. It is set on a deprived estate (5,000 people) near the Grenfell Tower. Before the lockdown we had grown it from 15 to 80 people. During the lockdown, although the church is closed for services, we have been able to run a foodbank each Thursday and we are really getting to know the local community.

But it all started with someone giving me a crazy piece of scripture!

Gavin: And now youve put all this together in the book – what are you hoping will be achieved through that?

Paul: Well the book has taken 5-years to write with my wife, Amanda. She’s a writer, but she’s been extraordinary as there was a lot of my history she had to process and write about before I met her.

The idea of the book is to give people hope. I have always imagined a young man in a prison cell, who’s had a really bad upbringing, feeling like he’s lost everything and has no hope, reading the book. It says in Proverbs, ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick.’ – and I know there are a lot of people like that in prison. I imagine that person reading this book and thinking if this kid from Salford, who had a bit of a rough upbringing, can achieve so much, once he surrendered to God, maybe there’s hope for me.

I hope people will explore God, and give Him a chance – like I did. Even though I was given a scary scripture by a mad staff sergeant, it was the best scripture for me, because it made me realise that there was a God who I might have to answer to.

Some of the skirmishes I got into are quite comical but the book has got a thread of God all the way through it. At the beginning of the book I say, ‘It is not the tale of a gangster or a violent man. I didn’t do a life sentence or commit a horrendous crime and I wasn’t a military hero either. In that respect it is not a dramatic story, but for that very reason there may be many readers who can identify with my experiences, especially from my early years.’ If the book does that for one person, it will have been worth it! And although it’s not a preachy book – it’s that thread of God that I want people to find.

Gavin: So what would you say to someone reading this blog who feels hopeless, whether its Corona virus, life circumstances or addiction, loss of job?

Paul: A boxer, when his opponent is too strong, throws in the towel. That’s what I did. I needed God’s help. I am very resourceful, and I’m a strong character and I’ve been around the block a bit, but I got to the point where I needed help. What I would say is, ‘Don’t Give Up’. You know that old saying, ‘It starts to get light at the darkest hour?’ Give God a chance, explore God. Have a look at the Bible, read some of the words, maybe try to pray – ask God to help you, like I did. You have nothing to lose and absolutely everything to gain.

Gavin: Thats quite a story, Paul, thanks for sharing it with us.

Paul: It’s a pleasure!

Paul Cowley’s remarkable autobiography Thief, Prisoner, Soldier, Priest is in bookshops now, priced £14.94 https://www.eden.co.uk/thief-prisoner-soldier-priest/

Paul on BBC News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcDuCAJYIsQ

Why Is There Suffering?

Why is there suffering? When pain, suffering, grief, and loss happen all of us — whatever we believe (or don’t believe) — are forced to ask some tough questions. In this Short Answers film, Solas Director Andy Bannister addresses what the message of Jesus has to say about pain and suffering — and shows that unlike atheism, only Christianity can offer real hope, real answers, and real meaning when suffering strikes.

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Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

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Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

Solas Webinar: Viral Evangelism, How to Share Your Faith in a Locked Down World

In May 2020, we broadcast our first Solas webinar, taking some of the training we usually do in churches and in conferences onto the web.  Andy Bannister and Gareth Black spoke, Gavin Matthews introduced them and people sent in their questions.  A few thousand people have watched this so far, across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube, have a watch and see what you think!

A Beginner’s Guide to Cultural Apologetics, the Imagination, and What This Tells Us About God

Chilli Rating: ? ? ?

The reality police tell us the world is disenchanted. There is no sacred order. Nothing is worthy of worship. There is no extra-mundane reality. Humans are organised bits of mud that have appeared lately and locally on a tiny outpost called earth positioned on the arm of an insignificant galaxy in the midst of a vast, unbounded, and ever-expanding universe. The idea that there is a God behind it all is viewed by many as a quaint and simplistic understanding of the world that has been conclusively refuted by modern science. When it comes to morality, just about anything goes. There is no moral order. There is no way things ought to be. Modern man has been unshackled from the oppressive, archaic, and unloving ethic of the religious dogmatist. We are free to chart our own course in this vast sea of nothingness.

On this now dominant way of perceiving, Christianity is viewed as implausible, undesirable, or both. As a result, the gospel message does not get a fair-hearing today. Even if it did, many wouldn’t understand the gospel message. Words central to the divine drama—Jesus, soul, sin, forgiveness, salvation—have been emptied of meaning. It is difficult to imagine a world lovingly created and sustained by God and so it is difficult to imagine a God that pursues wayward sinners. As followers of Christ, what can we do? How can we help others see the brilliance and beauty of Jesus and the gospel story? In other words, how can we show that Christianity is not only true to the way the world is but true to the way the world ought to be?

A new cultural apologetic is needed. Let me explain. Disenchantment has changed everything. It makes unbelief possible and belief more difficult.[1] And it’s not just those “out there” that are disenchanted. Disenchantment infects the church too. Like those in the culture around us, many of us no longer see the world in its proper light. We no longer see and delight in the world the same way Jesus does: as enchanted, sacred, gift. As cultural apologists, we must work to establish the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination within culture so that Christianity is seen as true and satisfying.[2] We do this by seeing and delighting in the world the same way Jesus does and then inviting others to do the same.

How can we join with God in reenchanting the world? We can begin by embracing a more ancient—and biblical—way of looking at the world. For the ancients, reality was understood as an ongoing story that begins and ends with God. Humans enter into the world and take up their place in that ongoing story. This story—the divine drama of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration—shapes our identity and gives our lives meaning and purpose.

Reason and imagination play central roles in helping us locate our lives in God’s story. They also are essential to a robust cultural apologetic of reenchantment. C. S. Lewis calls the imagination the “organ of meaning” and reason “the natural organ of truth.”[3] The idea is that our imagination helps us understand the world around us and the words we use. Once understood, reason judges our ideas and the stories they are embedded within as true or false so that we can act, through our wills, on the good.[4]

By engaging in “imaginative reasoning” we help others understand the gospel.[5] We do this by incorporating metaphor, story, symbol, and the aesthetic currency of our day into our evangelistic and apologetic efforts. During his second missionary journey, Paul finds himself in Athens. As he stands before the leading thinkers of his day, he brilliantly builds a bridge from Athens to Jesus. In making his case, Paul effortlessly quotes from the pagan philosophers and poets of his day to help his listeners understand (see Acts 17:16-34). We should follow Paul’s example in building bridges from our “Athens” to Jesus and the gospel. As we learn to use both reason and the imagination in making the case for Christ, we help others understand the meaning of the world, a world full of mystery, delight, drama, truth, goodness, and beauty. We help others see God as the source of all.

Philosophers, theologians, and sociologist have noted that humans are narrative animals.[6] We narrate our lives according to some story. Reflection upon the storied-nature of our lives teaches us something about ourselves and something about God. Regarding ourselves, it reminds us that we were created for drama.[7] God wants to give us life—real life—and that dramatic life is found in the true story of the world, a story full of drama, intrigue, struggle, and hope. Regarding God, it reminds us that God is dramatic too! In creating the world, the Triune God’s perfect goodness, exuberance, and love bubble over with joy and delight. God didn’t create out of some need, rather, he creates in order to give. This helps us see how incredibly valuable all people—and things—are to God. All things are created by God as gift and humans—as the apex of creation and the “hinge” or “turning point” in the divine drama of wander and return—are created in the divine image to be kings and queens, priests and priestess, that re-gift back to God all things with joy, delight, and wonder.

As cultural apologists, may we join with the Holy Spirit in reenchanting the world so that others will see Christianity as reasonable and desirable.

*For further discussion, listen to Paul on the PEP Talk Podcast here


Paul M. Gould (PhD Purdue University) is the founder and president of the Two Tasks Institute and the author or co-author of ten books, including Cultural Apologetics (Zondervan, 2019). He is married to Ethel and has four growing children. When he is not spending time with his family, hiking or running or reading philosophy or theology, he’s probably asleep.

Further readings in Cultural Apologetics

Paul Gould, Cultural Apologetics (Zondervan, 2019)

Paul Gould & Dan Ray (eds.), The Story of the Cosmos (Harvest House, 2019)

Holly Ordway, Apologetics and the Christian Imagination (Emmaus Road, 2017)

Andy Crouch, Culture Making (IVP, 2008)

Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Belknap, 2007)

Kevin Vanhoozer, Pictures at a Theological Exhibition (InterVarsity, 2016)

Miroslav Volf, Flourishing (Yale University Press, 2015)

[1] This is one of the central insights to Charles Taylors magisterial (and mammoth) A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).  

[2] This is my definition of cultural apologetics. For more see chapter 1 of Paul M. Gould, Cultural Apologetics: Renewing the Christian Voice, Conscience, and Imagination in a Disenchanted World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2019).

[3] C. S. Lewis, “Bluspels and Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare,” in Selected Literary Essays, ed. Walter Hooper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 265.

[4] This is the central insight of an excellent essay by Michael Ward called “The Good Serves the Better and Both the Best: C. S. Lewis on Imagination and Reason in Apologetics,” in Imaginative Apologetics ed., Andrew Davison (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2012), chap. 5.

[5] The concept of “imaginative reasoning” is nicely unpacked in Holly Ordway, Apologetics and the Christian Imagination (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2017).

[6] This is one of the central ideas to James K. A. Smith’s Cultural Liturgies Series. See James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2009); Imagining the Kingdom (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2013 ), and Awaiting the King (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2017).  

[7] This is one of my favourite insights from J. P. Moreland’s book Kingdom Triangle (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), chap. 1.

Andy Bannister on Premier Radio

Premier Radio’s Andy Peck

Andy Bannister was interviewed by Andy Peck on Premier Radio’s “The Leadership File” programme recently. In the programme which you can hear here, Andy talks in some detail about how he got involved in Christian ministry, and his particular interest in sharing his faith in Christ with Muslims – and how he picked up a PhD in Islamic Studies along the way.

The “Three Questions Muslims Ask” talk that Andy delivered at the ReBoot conference, and which they discuss in the programme can be found here.

PEP Talk Podcast With Paul Gould

Is there room for imagination, romance, even enchantment, in our evangelistic endeavour? In this episode we speak with Paul Gould about the concept of cultural apologetics and how it deals with the desirability of the gospel as it connects with deep-rooted cultural ideals.

Paul’s article on Cultural Apologetics in our “Beginner’s Guide to Apologetics” is available here.

With Paul Gould PEP Talk

Our Guest

Paul M. Gould (Ph.D. philosophy, Purdue University) is the author or editor of ten scholarly and popular-level books including Cultural ApologeticsPhilosophy: A Christian Introduction, and The Story of the Cosmos. He has been a visiting scholar at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School’s Henry Center, working on the intersection of science and faith, and is the founder and president of the Two Tasks Institute. He speaks regularly at Summit Ministries, the C.S. Lewis Institute, and the Evangelical Philosophical Society’s annual apologetics conference. Read more at www.paul-gould.com

About PEP Talk

The Persuasive Evangelism Podcast aims to equip listeners to share their faith more effectively in a sceptical world. Each episode, Andy Bannister (Solas) and Kristi Mair (Oak Hill College) chat to a guest who has a great story, a useful resource, or some other expertise that helps equip you to talk persuasively, winsomely, and engagingly with your friends, colleagues and neighbours about Jesus.

Miracles?

Most people today who start from the premise that miracles don’t or won’t happen knowingly or unknowingly depend on the influence of Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776).

Hume did not originate the key ideas in his essay on miracles; most are recycled from arguments of some earlier deist writers, as Robert M. Burns has demonstrated (The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Glanvill to David Hume; Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1981). It was Hume, however, whose influence mainstreamed these ideas so that some subsequent thinkers simply took for granted that he had established the case. Many thinkers from his own time forward offered strong responses to his case, including more sophisticated challenges based on mathematical probabilities, but Hume’s reputation in other areas lent credibility to his argument on this one.

Today scholars have published major academic critiques of Hume’s work. Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne has been influential (The Concept of Miracle; London: Macmillan, 1970), and more recent critiques include J. Houston’s Reported Miracles: A Critique of Hume (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), David Johnson, Hume, Holism, and Miracles (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), and John Earman’s Hume’s Abject Failure: The Argument Against Miracles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Against criticism that Earman critiqued Hume’s argument because of Christian bias, Earman replied that he is not a Christian; he simply thought Hume’s argument was a poor one.

Violating Nature

Scholars reconstruct Hume’s argument in various ways, though Burns is probably right that we should fill the lacunae based on Hume’s assumptions of then-current deist debates. At the fundamental level, Hume’s argument is twofold: miracles violate natural law, and we lack credible eyewitnesses for miracles. In sum (acording to the most common understanding of Hume’s argument), miracles contradict uniform human experience.

The second part of his argument (the lack of credible eyewitness support for miracles) is probably meant to support the first part: lack of experience of miracles points to the ordinary course of nature (or, Hume would say, the uniform course of nature). Hume is trying to use induction to establish a negative, deductive argument—an argument that does not fit even his own normal approach. Hume normally did not believe that a finite number of examples could establish with certainty that something would always be the case—except when it came to miracles. (He could argue that it is improbable based on his circle of evidence, but his sample size proves too limited, as we shall see.)

Modern conceptions of natural law tend to be more descriptive than prescriptive, but Hume’s conception of natural law did not even fit the dominant paradigm of his day. Newton and his early followers were theists who affirmed biblical miracles; they did not regard God, the Legislator, as subject to his own laws. For Hume to argue that we cannot expect miracles because a God could not or would not “violate” natural law is an assumption, not an argument. It assumes without argument what no Christians believed anyway: a God subject to natural law. Defining miracles as “violations” of natural law lends the impression that God breaks such laws when he acts in nature; but this requires one to assume an uninvolved creator (as in deism) or no God at all.

A human who act in nature, by, for example, catching a falling object, does not “violate” the law of gravity; persons can act within nature without violating it. Why must God be less an actor than human persons? Moreover, most biblical miracles do not even fit a tamer definition of miracle that requires an action without nearer (as opposed to more distant) natural causes: when God used a strong east wind to blow back the sea in Exodus 14:21, the proximate cause was the east wind, and Moses and his rod functioned as agents, even though God was the ultimate cause.

No Credible Witnesses

The second part of Hume’s essay, probably meant to support the first half, is particularly problematic. To argue that uniform human experience absolutely excludes miracles, one must have comprehensive knowledge of uniform human experience. Instead, Hume argues that there are no credible eyewitnesses for miracles, but circularly uses the uniformity of human experience to challenge the credibility of witnesses. By almost everyone’s definition of miracles (as opposed to less conspicuous divine activity) they are not part of nature’s ordinary course; we don’t call them “miracles” when they are our common, easily predictable experience. But in some kinds of circumstances, what we consider ordinary is not ordinary: in black holes and cases of superconductivity, physical laws appear different than under many other conditions, inviting broadened definitions of overarching laws. If we do not a priori rule out the possibility of special divine activity, it would be rational to even expect special experiences during such activity.

Various subsidiary arguments inform Hume’s argument against reliable eyewitnesses. These arguments help him to narrow the field of evidence that should be acceptable, excluding testimony from nonwhite peoples and from antiquity. He excludes, for example, claims from non-Western and nonwhite civilizations. Hume considers such peoples “ignorant and barbarous,” fitting his ethnocentrism in his other work. One could elaborate at length on his ethnocentrism, e.g., his denial of any truly great achievements in Asian and African civilizations, his widely-used support for slavery, and so forth. See e.g., C. L. Ten, “Hume’s Racism and Miracles,” Journal of Values Inquiry 36 (2002): 101–7; Charles Taliaferro, and Anders Hendrickson, “Hume’s Racism and His Case against the Miraculous,” Philosophia Christi 4 (2, 2002): 427–41; and my “A Reassessment of Hume’s Case against Miracles in Light of Testimony from the Majority World Today,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 38 (3, Fall 2011): 289–310.

Since all religions claim miracles at the beginning, he mistrusts miraculous claims from the beginning of religions. Hume’s target here is fellow Enlightenment thinkers, such as John Locke, who used early Christian miracles as evidence for Christian faith. But Hume is not correct that all religions claim miracles at their beginning, nor would the claims of some religions automatically cancel out those of others, any more than the discrediting of one witness for a case would discredit all the witnesses. (Moreover, Hume merely presupposes, with some of his contemporaries, that religions’ claims are mutually exclusive, so that genuine superhuman activity could not occur in more than one.) Excluding testimony in religious contexts presupposes what it would hope to prove.

To be credible, Hume believed, eyewitnesses must be educated, socially respectable Western white persons such as Hume and his circle; he avers that only such people have something to lose by lying. Today, of course, I can cite numerous witnesses who meet all his criteria, including medical doctors, philosophers, and plenty of fellow PhD’s. Not all of the witnesses began as Christians before the events they claim to witness, contrary to suspicion of religious bias (as if bias is endemic only to persons with religious convictions; as a former atheist, I can attest firsthand that bias is not limited to a single ideology).

A particular case allows us to understand more concretely how Hume might apply his criteria. Hume takes an example from then-recent history: Marguerite Perrier, niece of the famous mathematician and theologian Blaise Pascal, had a long-term, organic fistula in her eye that emitted a foul odour, seemed to accompany bone deterioration, and separated her from her peers because of the smell. She was instantly and publicly healed when touched by a relic (and few of us today would defend the relic’s authenticity), and the Queen Mother of France sent her own physician to examine this event. Hume points to this experience, noting that it was public, widely attested, even medically verified. It is far better verified than biblical miracles. Yet, he says, we do not believe this account; so why should we believe any other?

And then Hume moves on. He offers no argument; he simply takes for granted that no one will defend this account. Why? The setting in which Marguerite Perrier was healed was the early Jansenist movement, and nobody liked Jansenists; they were too Augustinian for French Jesuits, and, more to the point of Hume’s primary audience, they were too Catholic for Anglicans and Presbyterians. His Christian contemporaries who were accustomed to dismissing each others’ miracle claims without contrary evidence would not argue Hume’s point. But what if their sectarian dismissals were premature?

Challenging Hume’s Argument Today

David Hume was a smart man, and I do not believe that if he were around today, even he would argue his case the way he did in his day. (Admittedly, that is a postHUMous argument—sorry for injecting a bit of HUMour here.) It was one thing to deny credible eyewitness claims when the available sample size was so limited, and when most of his largely Protestant context relegated miracles to the distant past.

It would be a quite different to dismiss miracle claimants’ credibility a priori, or to make claims about uniform human experience, if there were millions of people who claimed to be witnesses. This is especially the case if one does not exclude witnesses based on sectarian or ethnic considerations.

Today, in fact, we have a fuller knowledge of global human experience, or at least the claims about such experience, and we can readily say that hundreds of millions of people claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing. No one would argue that all of these claims represent genuine miracles, much less that they can be explained only in this way. But with hundreds of millions of claimants, it is simply not possible logically to start with an a priori claim about human experience on the matter being uniform.

In 2006, a Pew Forum survey of ten countries (representing most continents, including North America) interviewed Pentecostals, charismatics, and Christians who claimed to fit neither category. Given the percentages in the 231-page report’s executive summary, it appears that hundreds of millions of people in these ten countries alone (i.e., not even including other countries) claimed to have witnessed divine healing. Nor are such claims limited to one religion, although other surveys show millions of people with centuries of non-Christian background converting to Christianity, often despite great social pressures to the contrary, because of extraordinary miracles in Christian contexts. A 2004 survey of U.S. physicians reports that over half believed that they had witnessed miracles during their practice. (We can keep in mind here that those with scientific training tend to define miracles more narrowly and rigorously than do many others.)

My own sample size of hundreds of sources is more limited, but from written sources and my own interviews, I conclude that many of these cases are significant. They include most of the range of miracles reported in the New Testament, including instant disappearances of blindness, resuscitations from apparent (and sometimes clinically documented) death, the instant vanishing of goiters, and the like. Again, some of these are medically documented. Although I initially collected such accounts much more deliberately for my book on miracle accounts (Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts [2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011]), I have since come across many more, and often with fuller documentation than available at the time.

I will not digress from my main point here to elaborate examples, but I conclude by reinforcing the point of my brief response to David Hume here. Hume’s a priori dismissal of credible eyewitness support for miracles, and thus his argument from the uniformity of human experience and nature, does not work in a twenty-first century context. That is not to say that Hume might not have tried to argue against miracles from a different standpoint, or to seek other ways to counter his contemporaries’ apologetic use of biblical miracle claims. It is to say that the case that Hume argued, on which most modern assumptions that dismiss miracles are based, is no longer logically tenable.

About the Author

Craig-S-Keener-150x150

Dr Craig Keener

(PhD, Duke University) is F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of the New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is especially known for his work as a New Testament scholar on Bible background (commentaries on the New Testament in its early Jewish and Greco-Roman settings). His award-winning, popular-level IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (now in its second edition [2014], and available in a number of languages) has sold over half a million copies. This article on miracles first appeared on his blog in two parts, here and here and is used with his kind permission.

Lockdown Literature

While the country is in lockdown, many people are rediscovering reading. So we asked a range of leaders and writers what their top book recommendation for lockdown is. We don’t sell any of these titles, but if you want to get any of them, just click on the cover image, which links to a retailer. Here’s the list of recommendations:


Andy Bannister, Director of Solas
The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilisation by Vishal Mangalwadi

A brilliant and hugely readable look at the massive impact made by the Bible on everything from art, to politics, to culture, to justice. Mangalwadi is an Indian philosopher, raised in a Hindu home, but gave his life to Jesus Christ as a young man. He discovered in Jesus—and in the Bible—not merely an answer to the questions of the heart, but some of the deepest questions of the mind too. It’s fascinating to read an Indian Christian’s perspective on the impact of the Bible on life and culture—and hear an Indian’s warnings to Westerners why we forget the centrality of the scriptures at our peril.


Rosaria Butterfield. Author and Academic

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs

Jeremiah Burroughs, the author of Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment and one of the esteemed Westminster Divines, defines the mystery of godly, Christian contentment as: “the inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s disposal in every condition” (40).  Burroughs goes on to say that godly contentment is the ABCs of the Christian life.  Contentment in all conditions and in all things is the most basic expression of the Christian life, not the most sophisticated.  What has always struck me about this book is Burroughs’ emphasis on the mystery of all of this.  Not a mystical mystery, but the paradox of faith and fact and the way that this comes together in the Person and Work of Jesus.  Of this mystery, Burroughs writes: “it may be said of one who is contented in a Christian way that he is the most contented man in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world” (42).  Godliness teaches us this mystery.


Roger Carswell, Evangelist and Author

What the Bible is All About by Henrietta Mears

What the Bible is all about‘ by Henrietta Mears is one of the best Christian books published in the last 75 years.  It is accessible, clear, not pedalling a party line but saturated by the gospel and the Lord Jesus.  It is suitable to give to non-Christians, young Christians and the most mature believers.


Martin Hodson, General Director, Baptist Union of Scotland

Microchurches by Brian Sanders

I read Microchurches by Brian Sanders last year and found a great deal of biblical and practical wisdom about a way of being church that is small, evangelical and Spirit-led, sustainable and shaped for mission. It strikes me as a book for church leaders to read thoughtfully as we reflect on what we might learn for the future from the present forced reconfiguration of church.


Phil Knox, Head of Mission to Young Adults, Evangelical Alliance

Rings of Fire by Leonard Sweet

Len is a world class futurist who asks, in Rings of Fire, what the church needs to look like in the twenty second century.  It’s a brilliant read full of red hot contemporary issues, but always looking forward to how we will need to respond decades into the future.


Kristi Mair, Oak Hill College
On  Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior.

Prior’s book is a wonderful foray into the world of literature. “Reading literature, more than informing us, forms us.” It’s a captivating exploration of virtue formation through some of my own personal literary friends and favourites. This book will not disappoint!  As we currently face life in lockdown, On Reading Well will help you to appreciate where the good life is truly to be found.


Rebecca McLaughlin, Author

Born Again This Way by Rachel Gilson

This is a brilliant book by a remarkable writer with an astonishing story and a decade of theological training. It offers no glib before-and-after narrative, but is a practical guide for sinners—same-sex attracted and otherwise—who dare to believe that Jesus is the best lover. I wish I could have given it to my younger self.


Natasha Moore, Centre for Public Christianity, Australia
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

A kind of magical realism meets hostage situation in an unnamed South American country. With opera. Sad and joyful and gorgeous, with some unexpected parallels for us in a time of lockdown limbo.


Michael OtsMichael Ots, Evangelist and Author

Evangelism as Exiles by Elliot Clarke

This little book is one of the best books on evangelism but I have read. Using 1 Peter as its basis it helps us to think about how we can proclaim the gospel in a society that is increasingly hostile to us. It challenges some of our passivity and fear that holds us back from evangelism.


David Robertson, Director of Third Space, City Bible Forum, Australia

The Whole Christ by Sinclair B. Ferguson 

Sinclair Ferguson – The Whole Christ – the best theological book that I have ever read…! Its a book that somehow manages to take an old and somewhat obscure theological controversy in 18th Century Scotland and turn it into one of the most beautiful and practical meditations on the person and work of Christ – and balances wonderfully the relationship between law and Gospel…


Ed ShawEd Shaw, Pastor and Living Out Leader

Julian Hardyman’s Fresh Pathways in Prayer

This is a book I’m going to be returning to during the lockdown along with my church family because it’s the most honest, practical and readable book that I’ve come across on the daily challenge of praying in all circumstances. I read it last year and am looking forward to returning to it with others so that I have some accountability in actually following the refreshing advice and helpful exercises he recommends.


Colin SinclairRev Colin Sinclair, Moderator of the Church of Scotland

The Body by Bill Bryson

One book I have enjoyed lately is the latest book from Bill Bryson, the travel writer. His latest book “The Body” is a fascinating insight into how our understanding of the body has developed down through the years. Packed with information but delivered with a light and readable touch and containing, as always, a few laugh out loud moments.”


Mark Stirling, Cornerstone Church, and The Chalmers Institute

The Cosmic Trilogy, especially That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

I’m going to go with CS Lewis’ Cosmic trilogy which I recently re-read. They are brilliant and the last book especially (That Hideous Strength) is, I think, Lewis’ most prescient and alarming bit of writing. He said that it was a novel length exploration of the ideas in The Abolition of Man. It’s also a deeply unsettling illustration of the corrupting power of the desire to be admitted to the Inner Ring – another prominent theme in his writing. All-in-all hugely entertaining, but also thought provoking and challenging.


Carl R Trueman, Prof of Biblical and Religious Studies; Grove City College

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

“It is a magnificent feat of literary and historical imagination but one that few people will ever have the concentrated leisure to enjoy.  It is a remarkable study of national and family dynamics, with all human drama — love, hate, fear, loss, redemption — set against the vast canvas of Napoleonic Europe.”


Vince Vitale, Author and Academic

Where is God in a Coronavirus World? by Prof John Lennox

But my vote in the current season would be for John Lennox’s Where Is God in a Coronavirus World? I know you will be encouraged by this incisive exploration of the question on so many minds, written by one of the people who has taught me most about how to think and how to live.


Compiled by Gavin Matthews
(Many of our contributors wanted to point out that their primary reading every day is still the Bible! – ed)

Where is God in a Coronavirus World?

The world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus crisis and many people are asking: where is God in all of this? In a very topical Short Answers film, Solas Director Andy Bannister explores why Christianity helps us make the most sense of suffering and pain—as well as offering us real, concrete hope in the midst of uncertainty.

Find out more about John Lennox’s new book, Where is God in a Coronavirus World?

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Please share this video widely with friends or family and for more Short Answers videos, visit solas-cpc.org/shortanswers/, subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us on Twitter Instagram or Facebook.

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Short Answers is a viewer-supported video series: if you enjoy them, please help us continue to make them by donating to Solas. Visit our Donate page and choose “Digital Media Fund” under the Campaign/Appeal button.

A Beginner’s Guide to the Argument from Miracles

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Are we all alone in the universe?  That’s the enduring question at the heart of Carl Sagan’s “Contact”.  It’s one of my favourite films and tells the story of the young scientist Ellie Arroway.  While growing up, she and her father built a radio set and played a game to see how far they could send and receive messages.  In a moving scene, after the sudden death of her father and his funeral, young Ellie turns on the radio set and starts sending messages: “Dad can you hear me?”  But no message comes.  Years later, Dr Arroway is still listening to radio transmissions, but this time from distant space as part of the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) project.  Although she is a sceptic about the existence of the supernatural (God) she is open to the existence of the extra-terrestrial (aliens).  The rest of the story explores how her life is turned upside down when she meets a man of faith who believes in God, and receives a message that potentially comes from another planet.

There are a lot of Dr Arroways in our world today, who believe that we live in a self-existing, self-contained, closed universe of eternal matter and energy.  However, sometimes they can’t help but feel something is missing – as Sagan wrote: “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space”.

However, what if the wonders and vastness of the universe point beyond themselves to something –Someone – else?  That’s why a Hebrew poet once wrote: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).

It was reported that when the first Russian cosmonaut returned to earth he testified that atheism was confirmed, because he had not found God in space.  In response, the Christian intellectual C.S. Lewis wrote a letter that argued the universe isn’t a house where God lives in the attic and we have to climb upstairs to find him.  Instead, the universe is more like a play – and its characters can only know about details about the playwright to the extent he writes them into the play itself.  Therefore, the reason we can know God exists is because God has written himself into the drama of human history.  The Creator has made Himself known within His creation.  All of history was split into two by His coming into the world: BC and AD.  We don’t have to look and listen to the stars, because we have already been contacted on this planet!

There are three main periods of history when the supernatural has broken into this world in miracles which demonstrated and corroborated God’s messages: the time of Moses, the time of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and the time of Jesus.  You may object: that was a long time ago – people back then were superstitious and didn’t have the benefits of scientific understanding, so may have misinterpreted natural occurrences as supernatural ones.  However, they also weren’t stupid!  They sat up and paid attention when they saw the miraculous, because they knew that such things did not happen ordinarily!  Today, following in the footsteps of the sceptic philosopher David Hume, many would say that miracles are unlikely because they break the laws of nature.  There are three responses to that.

Firstly, the very existence of natural laws should make us consider the existence of a supernatural law-giver.  Secondly, the law of gravity means that if I drop an apple for a height then it will fall to the ground.  But if I reach out my hand to catch the apple, then I have not broken the natural law, rather I have intervened.  Thirdly, if you believe in a closed universe governed by natural laws, then miracles will seem implausible and impossible because you have already assumed that there is nothing and no-one beyond the universe who can intervene.  However, that belief is not based on objective science but personal faith.  If we are truly open minded, then we must be willing to subject that belief to scrutiny in the light of other historical evidence, and follow that evidence wherever it leads.  You cannot put those historical events into a test-tube or conduct repeated experiments on it for peer review – but you can listen to the eyewitness testimony of those who knew Jesus Christ.

John was one of the eyewitnesses to the historical life and work of Jesus Christ.  John goes on to record seven pieces of evidence, seven demonstrations of Jesus’ power that show that He is God.  These miracles – healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, multiplying food, walking on water – defied natural laws.  John also records how Jesus was put to death but was raised again to life three days later.  As astonishing as this might sound, other contemporary secular historians agree that this claim about the resurrection of Jesus been believed by Christians since the earliest times.  John finishes his account telling us: “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:30-31)


David lives in Edinburgh, where he is a pastor of a city centre church and engaged in apologetics and public theology ministry.  He is married to Kirsty, a doctor, and they have two little boys: Joel and Daniel (who ask the hardest questions ever!)

Further Reading:

Lee Strobel: The Case For Christ (Introductory)

C.S. Lewis: Miracles (Specialist)

Craig Keener’s article “Miracles?” here on the Solas website looks at the philosophical objections to miracles – and why they are unsatisfactory. https://wp.me/s9HhRI-miracles

PEP Talk Podcast With Anne Witton

This time on PEP Talk, Andy and Kristi speak with Anne Witton about Iranian home-cooking, discussing aliens and giving out donuts in your front garden. It’s all part of reaching out, building community and sharing the love of Christ!

With Anne Witton PEP Talk

Our Guest

Anne Witton is based in Newcastle, UK and is one of the leaders of Living Out and heads up mission at her local church (Gateshead Central Baptist Church). She also speaks on behalf of True Freedom Trust and is studying for an MA in Contemporary Missiology at Redcliffe College.

Lockdown Update for Churches

There are loads of ways in which Solas will be continuing to work during lockdown. In this video Andy Bannister explains that although we’d rather be with you in person, we still have lots of ways in which we can serve your church, and help you to share the gospel.

The first video (4mins) is for church leaders, and explains ways in which we are working with local churches  – and how we can support you in evangelism under lockdown. The second video (1min, 30) is an edited version of this, designed for online church news  packages.

Church & Ministry Leaders Message
Online Church News edit

Book: Healthy Faith and the Coronovirus Crisis, Luke Cawley and Kristi Mair (eds)

Some things are, as they say, ‘timely’. Many churches as they have moved online, have used the new version of the Aaronic Blessing which the folks at Elevation Worship put together. It wasn’t done with the pandemic in mind – it was made just in time, and seemed “timely”.  Other things have been more deliberate responses to the odd circumstances of the Covid-Spring of 2020. “Healthy Faith: Biblically-based reflections to help you navigate the Coronavirus Pandemic” is one of them. And it is extremely ‘timely’.

The church has a reputation for being a bastion of cultural inertia; and of all the institutions in society, the one which might cope least well with the pace of change forced upon us of late. Yet churches have moved adapted, and mobilised to serve their locked-down communities with remarkable speed. With equally impressive speed, editors Kristi Mair and Luke Cawley have brought together an expansive cast of Christian thinkers to help steer the church and its members though almost every aspect of the rapidly evolving situation.

The topics addressed range from the big questions (such as why viruses inhabit God’s creation), right down to matters of personal devotion and using the time well to develop good practices in Bible-reading and prayer. In-between we find huge amount of thought given to how the church can function effectively, pastorally and evangelistically, as well as some advice on coping with the changes brought to family life, marriage, parenting and singleness. The book concludes with a series of appendices which look at some of the practicalities of the Christian life under lockdown, including things as diverse as end-of-life care and online safeguarding.

The range of issues addressed here is so comprehensive that it is unlikely that any one reader will be equally interested in all of them.  Some chapters are of universal relevance, Prof John Wyatt’s “On Dying Well” is a sobering, yet ultimately hope-filled, gospel-shaped response to his work as a medic in the face of death. Likewise, Eddie Lyle’s chapter on lessons from the persecuted church, is deeply moving and profound.

Some chapters are very specific. Ed Shaw writes with his usual clarity and candour about singleness in lockdown. While single folks will obviously relate directly to what Ed writes, his chapter deserves to be more widely read than that. Although the chapters on marriage and parenting were targeted more directly at my circumstances, I found hearing about other people’s experiences really valuable.

The challenge to the church to serve our communities in innovative ways (Krish Kandiah) and to seize the unusual opportunities for evangelism (Andy Bannister) are insightful, relevant and much needed.

What underlies all of this is the gospel of Christ – which is the unifying theme of this very diverse collection of essays. That’s what Tom Wright explores in his warm afterword, which begins: “Jesus’ death and resurrection are our paradigm for life.”  So, while Dan Strange guides the reader through fear into trusting Christ; and other writers such as Jill Weber and Matt Searles emphasise prayer and the Psalms; the point of unity is that Christ is risen, He is present and can be known, loved, trusted, served and proclaimed in this crisis. The specifics of where, how and with whom we do these things is explored in chapter after chapter.

If there are any weaknesses in this book they are simply the fact that some authors make the same point; but that is not going to trouble most readers who will pick and choose the chapters most relevant to them anyway. This is more than made up for by the fact that IVP have rushed this production through at breakneck speed and are offering this as an E-book for under £5! The thoroughness of the range of topics addressed and the good writing on offer here means that there really is something here for everyone.

Kristi Mair, Luke Cawley and IVP should be thanked for turning around a significant publishing exercise like this in less than a month. Something of this scope would have until recently taken at least a year to pull off. The times they are most certainly a-changin’!


Healthy Faith is available for download from ivpbooks.com £4.99 (and a hardback edition is being released soon). You can also get a copy as a gift if you sign up to support Solas.

 

 

A Beginner’s Guide to the Argument from Religious Experience

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Ask virtually anyone, including clergy, whether ‘religion’ is declining in the UK and the answer would be ‘yes’. The 2011 census showed a drop of 12 % in the number of people describing themselves as ‘Christian’ from the 2001 census (71% in 2001 – 59% in 2011). In September 2017 the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) announced that more than half the country considered themselves not religious (47%) and the following year they published further analysis of the same data which showed that Church of England attendance had halved over the previous fifteen years (31% – 14%).

But perhaps all is not what it seems.

Back in 2007, Micklethwait and Wooldridge published God is Back: How the global rise of faith is changing the world? In it, they acknowledged that the British church was not expanding in the way that it was in many other parts of the world, but they also observed that there were even signs of growth in Europe, including the UK. They put this down to the impact of the Alpha Course (an introduction to Christianity created by Nicky Gumbel in 1993), the sharp rise in confirmations, ‘booming’ pilgrimages (their words) and immigration, which, contrary perhaps to common belief actually brings approximately twice as many Christians as Muslims into the UK (currently) each year. Indeed, immigration is one of the key reasons why Christianity is not declining in the UK.

Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s argument is interesting and compelling, but the picture they offer is so at odds with the ongoing stream of data that is coming from authoritative sources such as the National Census and the BSAS that the only rational explanation would seem to be that the authors simply made an error.

Yet, I want to suggest that actually Micklethwait and Wooldridge were not wrong, and that the ‘green shoots’ that they discerned, as well as their analysis of the truth of what was really happening spiritually in the UK, was more reflective of reality than the headline data from the BSAS and Census surveys.

The first point to make is that Atheism is not growing it is declining.

Kaya Burgess of The Times reported in December 2018 that a YouGov poll which they had commissioned showed that those in the UK who said they never went to church declined from 63% in 2016, to 61% in 2017 and to 56% in 2018. Of course, church attendance does not mean automatically that the people attending are Christians: many could be ‘seekers’, or ‘curious’. Or simply coming to attend a special occasion such as a baptism. But what the survey also found was that the number of people who never prayed was also down from 54 to 50% and those who ‘prayed several times a year’ increased from 10 to 13%.

Globally Atheism has been in decline since its high of 20% in 1970 to 12% in 2010 and, according to the highly respected Pew Research Centre, it is projected to be 10% by 2020. This is mainly due to rises in Christianity in Asia and Africa along with the increasing Muslim and Hindu populations.

The second point to make is that we have an unrealistic view of the spiritual life of the Britain in years gone by which clouds our perception of what is happening in the present.

The only other time before 2001 when religious data was taken in the UK was in 1851. It’s methodology was somewhat rough and ready by modern standards for it simply counted the number of people in church on a given Sunday. By that measurement (taken on 30th March), 44% of the population were at church that day. Surprisingly low you might think, but what was even more remarkable about that figure was that it was Easter Sunday.

Further back in history, research by Rodney Stark (subsequently published with Robert Finke in 2000 as Acts of Faith) has shown that church attendance in the Middle Ages may have been even lower than it is today. Indeed, church attendance must have been very bad in the Tudor times because John Lawson records in his Medieval Education and the Reformation (1967) that a law was passed making church attendance and the reading of the Bible compulsory. Something which would have been unnecessary if they were occurring naturally.

Some of this evidence, in one sense, is anecdotal, but taken as a whole, it is strongly suggestive that we have a ‘skewed’ understanding of historical spiritual life in Britain.

The final point to make is that the number of people, as The Times poll indicates, who are in the ‘spiritual but not religious’ grouping has grown exponentially. In fact there are many Christians who will answer that they are ‘not religious’ when asked, not because they are ashamed of what they believe (hopefully), but rather because institutional affiliation has become passé and unfashionable. The natural ‘liberty’ which has birthed the rampant individualism of our culture demands that we show our individuality by refusing to associate ourselves with any group. Studies such as Sparks and Honey’s (2014) have shown that Millennials especially are very interested in ‘causes’ such as climate change, but will not join Greenpeace as a demonstration of that concern. This same dynamic is being reflected in spirituality. Indeed, in spiritual terms it also means that we can pick and choose our spirituality as well without having to adhere to a set of doctrines, many of which will be uncomfortable.

Micklethwait and Wooldridge were not wrong back in 2007 when they observed a growing spirituality coming back into Europe, even the UK. What we have seen since then has confirmed their analysis; the British are as spiritually thirsty as we have ever been, perhaps more so, but at present it seems we want to create ‘bespoke’ faiths. Christianity is not dying in Britain, but ‘the church’ is struggling in an age of spiritual ‘cherry-pickers’.


Sean Oliver-Dee is a researcher and writer on global religious trends and their relationship with public policy in the inter-related fields of counter-extermism, religious networks, identity and citizenship. He is currently a Research Associate of the Oxford Centre for Christianity and Culture, Regents Park College, University of Oxford and has done consulting work with a range of NGOs and the EU.

 

Further Reading and Listening:

John Mickelthwait and Adrian Wooldridge God is back: How the rise of global rise of faith is changing the world. (2009)
David Goodhew (ed) Church Growth in Britain: 1980 to the Present (2012)
Sean Oliver-Dee God’s Unwelcome Recovery: Why the New Establishment wants to proclaim the death of faith (2015)
A philosopher discusses his own religious experiences: click here