The 5th most popular podcast on Spotify in 2024 was Steven Bartlett's "Diary of a CEO". The YouTube version has almost 13 million subscribers. One of last week's episodes was entitled "Is Not Believing In God Causing More Harm Than Good?!"
Bartlett starts with the statistic than 9 in 10 young people in the UK believe their life is lacking meaning. "As a result, a lot of people are turning back to religion — there is something going on". The 3+ hour episode goes on to talk about the "meaning crisis", or the "purpose crisis". Bartlett gives the example of a 35-year-old friend in Dubai. This friend was single and worked from home. Six months ago, he told his friends that he couldn't get out of bed anymore. Fast forward to today and he's become a Christian, got baptised and "suddenly his life has purpose and meaning again — he's a completely different person". This is despite, Bartlett says, him being the last person you would ever think would be religious.
Bartlett then gives the example of another friend in her early 30s. Again, with no kids and who works from home. When he asked her what her meaning and purpose was, she replied that she wanted to reach a total of 200 plants that she could water. A week later she told him she was in therapy because she felt lost and stuck in life.
He sums up what motivated him to have the conversation (to which he invited a Christian, an atheist, and a psychiatrist) as follows: "It appears to me that freedom/independence/be your own boss, the decline in people having children — the glamorisation of 'do it your way' — is failing people in some way. And actually the push for independence was in some way some kind of lie". Bartlett himself went through what he calls a "new atheist baptism" at the age of 18. He read all the books and was such a staunch atheist that he was debating dog-walkers on the street about God. "But I now find myself in a position where I'm almost back to being curious again".
Bartlett echoes what many are feeling. People are detecting a "vibe shift". As he himself puts it: "there is something going on". A friend from school, who's currently a pastor in Wales, has seen more than 50 people baptised in the last 18 months in his normal local church. Many of them said that someone told them about Jesus and they really wanted to hear. Or they were invited to church, and they really wanted to come. This is in a "majority atheist" borough.
These trends seem only set to accelerate following the murder of Charlie Kirk. The label of "Conservative activist" doesn't really do justice to his central focus on Jesus Christ. Some are going as far as to call his assassination a Christian martyrdom; certainly, many people have returned to church — or attended for the first time — as the result of his death. People are buying Bibles and beginning to read them for the first time.
New atheism, it seems, has grown old. It can't provide answers to our deepest questions. Indeed, as I wrote about in December 2023, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of new atheism's key figures, has herself converted to Christianity. So has Louise Perry, author of "The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century". Perry recently sat down for a 2+ hour debate with Bonnie Blue on Chris Williamson's YouTube channel (4 million subscribers). She converted to Christianity after coming to believe that Christian morality is best for human flourishing. Perry has moved from believing that Christianity was "sociologically true" — based on social science data — to believing that it is "supernaturally true". In other words, Christianity "works" because it's true.
There is something going on. It's an exciting time to be part of a church and see people coming through the door for the first time. People have a hunger that won't be satisfied with the sort of "Christianity lite" that many churches have served up for the last half century and more — where Christian language is maintained, but the changing values of society are adopted. In our own church we're throwing open the doors next Thursday evening and inviting people in to hear more about this return to "full-fat Christianity".
People are looking for hope, purpose and meaning. We believe that it's possible, as Charlie Kirk put it, to "pursue the eternal" and in doing so "seek true joy".
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 9th October 2025