Atheism to Christianity: exploring the shifting spiritual landscape with Justin Brierley

Why are young adults turning their back on atheism? Suddenly, they’re filling church pews and poring over the Bible. Digital discipleship is on the rise. Young adults want authentic, full-fat faith. What is the Church’s role in the new spiritual landscape that we find ourselves in?

Join our hosts, Dr Rhiannon McAleer, and Dr Andrew Ollerton alongside special guest Justin Brierley, author and podcaster, as they talk about the evolving public perception of Christianity and the Bible.

What has caused the public shift in how people view Christianity? A pandemic that drove us into isolation and reminded us of our mortality? Public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland daring to explore Christianity with an open mind?

How should church leaders think strategically about shepherding a new generation from curiosity to discipleship? Andrew, Rhiannon and Justin pose genuine Bible engagement as an answer.


Timestamps

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:05) - Introducing Justin Brierley
• (03:00) - Noticing the shift in the public view of Christianity
• (05:10) - Changing perceptions and the rise of Jordan Peterson
• (07:00) - Did Jordan Peterson cause the shift in view towards Christianity?
• (09:20) - The pandemic as a catalyst of spiritual openness
• (14:56) - Traditional apologetics vs the new questions being asked about Christianity
• (18:24) - Changing views towards the Bible
• (22:24) - Full-fat faith: how deep can we go with new believers?
• (26:29) - How does the Church meet the appetite for the Bible?
• (31:30) - Where you can find Justin Brierley

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Re-Enchanting podcast with Belle Tindall
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This is a Bible Society podcast, but it’s also a conversation between people exploring the Bible and culture together. We won’t get everything right – and we won’t always agree. Please be patient with us and join us on the journey. Bible Society is very proud of its generous orthodoxy.

Creators and Guests

Host

Dr Andrew Ollerton

Bible Engagement Lead at Bible Society, theologian, author of The Bible Course and multiple books.

Host

Dr Rhiannon McAleer

Co-author of The Quiet Revival and Director of Research and Impact at Bible Society

Guest

Justin Brierley

Justin is a broadcaster, author and speaker

What is The Quiet Revival Podcast: what's the story??

We discuss how churches are strengthening discipleship and helping people grow in confidence in the Bible in a changing culture.
The Quiet Revival Podcast: what's the story? explores the stories behind a renewed interest in Christianity in England and Wales.

Whether you’re a church leader, small group leader, Bible communicator or simply curious about the Church in the UK, this podcast will inform, encourage, and equip you to discover your place in this unfolding movement.

The Quiet Revival sparked a national conversation about faith, church and what God might be doing in England and Wales today. Since its publication and the recording of these podcast episodes, we've had to retract the report after the underlying data was found to be flawed – but the conversation it started hasn't ended.

The Quiet Revival was always more than a single survey. Across England and Wales we're seeing signs of renewed interest in Christianity, especially among younger people: rising Bible sales, more conversions and adult baptisms, growing attendance at evangelism courses. Many of you have shared stories that point to a changing spiritual landscape. The questions this moment raises are more important than ever.

How is your church responding to this missional moment? And how can you invite today’s spiritually open Gen Z to experience Scripture?

Justin Brierley (00:00)
the church

to seriously its role of, helping people to engage the Bible and understand it.

Andrew Ollerton (00:05)
does the church meet the moment? when sometimes appetite for the Bible seems to almost be stronger outside the church than within the church.

Justin Brierley (00:13)
Love him or hate him, Jordan Peterson

saying, no, we do need something like God to make sense of life.

Rhiannon McAleer (00:18)
speaking

church leaders,

I've heard a few themes come

unprompted spiritual encounters. So I've heard a lot about dreams,

Justin Brierley (00:25)
the church can never out entertain So I think they're actually a bit tired of being entertained they're actually looking at something quite meaty.

Don't of the fact that people actually need to engage the story at a deep level to understand it, because that's what will actually transform their lives and transform culture,

Rhiannon McAleer (00:43)
Welcome to the Quiet Revival podcast from Bible Society. I'm Rhiannon McAleer and I'm joined by Andrew Ollerton.

Andrew Ollerton (00:50)
Hey everyone, the spiritual landscape around us is changing, isn't it? And the Bible is trending again. There are a whole load of new opportunities in this quiet revival, but there's so many challenges as well. And that's what this podcast is all about, helping us, the church, church leaders, about how do we take our opportunities and respond to the challenges.

Rhiannon McAleer (01:08)
Yes, and we are so excited today to have a very special guest, Justin Brierley as we discuss this shift in the public view of the Bible and Christianity

that we see come out around the quiet revival. Justin has done so much work over the years, looking at the rise of new atheism and beyond that, this shifting to a rebirth in the belief of God.

would love you to introduce yourself to the audience who perhaps don't know as much about your work. Let us know a bit about your background and what you're up to.

Justin Brierley (01:42)
Thank you. Thank you so much, Rhiannon and Andrew for inviting me on. I'm very excited about this new podcast and obviously very excited about the subject matter that it's dealing with. Anyway, yeah, I've worked pretty much all my adult life in Christian media of some form, but specifically

in trying to bridge actually the gap between the Christian and secular world. So for many years, I hosted the Unbelievable Show, which was a radio podcast and video show, bringing Christians and non-Christians into dialogue. I think Andrew has been on that in the past. But in more recent years, I've been also trying to do other things and tell the story in some ways of the way in which the conversation has changed.

And so one of my recent projects has been the surprising rebirth of belief in God. So that's a book that came out two years ago and a podcast series, And that's really a deep dive sort of documentary episode podcast series looking at the rise and fall of new atheism.

and this new conversation on God that I sensed was springing up in the culture. I host other podcasts. So one called the Re-enchanting Podcast, we're soon to launch a new show from my platform called Uncommon Ground, which will take me back into that conversation, dialogue and debate space. And so yeah, that's a little bit about me.

Rhiannon McAleer (02:57)
and would really encourage everyone to read Justin's book and listen to the podcast. They've been very informative, very useful for us as we've been also navigating this new space. So thank you for your work. of course, Justin, you're one of the heralds of this moment, really. Are you now known as a prophet?

Andrew Ollerton (03:00)
Hmm.

Justin Brierley (03:16)
I have heard people say that though I refuse to wear that label. I think I just noticed something that was happening at the time. I suppose the research from Quiet Revival has been an extraordinary and surprisingly fast sort of arguably confirmation of some of the things I was noticing. But even I wouldn't have sort of necessarily said

things are gonna be changing soon. I felt like whatever I was noticing in terms of the change in the intellectual atmosphere was probably gonna take a lot longer to kind of filter down if you like to something happening on the ground.

Rhiannon McAleer (03:47)
⁓

Andrew Ollerton (03:47)
I

think you've been quite brave there though. just think, you know, we honor you for that. you know, whether you're the sort of morning star of the quiet revival, whatever it might be, what you had the courage to do is just to call out what you saw was happening. And maybe before it made sense, because I remember there was a moment where you were sort of saying, you know, I can't give any statistical evidence for this, but I just sense, I just hear, it's anecdotal, but something's happened. ⁓

Justin Brierley (04:11)
Hmm. Yeah,

And that, and that in a sense has been why it's been so incredible, you know, amazing to have the quiet revival research coming out this past year, because it has felt like, gosh, that that bit of the puzzle I didn't have two years ago feels like it's starting to make sense now. When I published the book, especially, you know, surprising rebirth of belief in God, you you put the book

cover out on social media. And inevitably, the first response from a of skeptics was what surprising rebirth haven't you seen the statistics? It's all a downward trend.

I didn't hide at all the fact that the, the, the data does not support this idea of a surprising rebirth of believing God. But as you say, what I was seeing was just a real sense that the conversation had changed quite dramatically.

But I'd say from about, as I say, 2000, and I think the show launched in 2005. And that was just as people like Richard Dawkins were publishing the God Delusion and things like that. And for the following, I would say, 10 to 15 years, that new atheism thing tended to be kind of continuing.

and I it was specifically around 2018 that I really noticed a change in the conversation. And that was the year I bought on, you know, Love him or hate him, Jordan Peterson onto the unbelievable podcast. And and that was interesting because that was the first time I'd actually hosted effectively two non Christians to sort of have a conversation. One being this, you know, Jordan Peterson, this Canadian psychology professor who was just about to kind of leap into public consciousness.

And I had him opposite an atheist psychologist called Susan Blackmore. but what I was hosting was a conversation on can we make sense of life without God? He was quite hard to pin down on whether he actually believed in God, but he was actually essentially playing the part of a sort of Christian apologist saying, no, we do need something like God to make sense of life. And

and it was specifically because lots of people had been pointing me in his direction and they've been saying this guy is filling out auditoriums in Canada with like two or three hour messages on of all things, the book of Genesis. And the people who were turning up are basically the same demographic as have been turning up for Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins and co. So that was the kind of first real sense that, something's changed here.

that just, it was no longer for some reason embarrassing in even a secular cultural circles to talk about Christianity in positive ways. And so soon after that, know, people like Tom Holland, the secular historian published Dominion about a year later and.

Again, that was just another one of those sort of in my world, at least watershed moments where suddenly someone of real significance and influence in the secular world was taking a very different approach than had been the norm up to that point with questions around faith and the value of Christianity in culture and so on.

Andrew Ollerton (07:01)
Can ask you on that? Because it's interesting you pick up on Jordan Peterson it sounds like that was the first public intellectual who triggered your awareness of this just sounds different. And actually, interestingly, that was the case for me as well. I went to a private event where he spoke with Sir Roger Scruton, who was alive then, and their conversation was so different to having sort of imbibed a lot of the kind of...

postmodernist post structuralist, the kind of quite deconstruction approach to knowledge and truth. Suddenly, there was this kind of leaning into the possibility of truth and the desire for it and a gratitude actually for Western civilization, all these things that so often you feel were not the tone. And I guess one of question for you is, how much do think he caused it? The kind of Jordan Peterson phenomena.

Was he just reflecting what was happening anyway, or would you credit him with quite a causation role in the shift?

Justin Brierley (07:53)
I suspect it's more that he caught the vibe shift early in a way. And I think that's important to say this is obviously part of a much bigger trend, that there's been a big vibe shift politically, culturally in all kinds of different areas.

And he started to talk, you know, using his psychology, everything about the value, obviously, of scripture and a story that you can lean into, to make sense of who you are, and everything else. And

on reflection, people were sort of primed, I think the meaning crisis was starting to sort of ramp up at that point.

there was a sense in which a lot of people felt like the promises of the sort of secular scientists and atheists and the new atheist kind of movement had kind of just not paid off. They weren't any happier now that religion was being debunked

People felt actually, I'm really unhappy. And I think especially the crowd, particularly that I think Jordan Peterson drew young men were feeling like I'm confused. I'm distracted by social media. I'm probably addicted to porn. There's all kinds of things in my life that are not going right. And here's this wise voice who sort of, yeah, caught fire for whatever reason.

And, I, they, I, it's, different to what I've been hearing elsewhere. And gosh, it's sort of, it's kind of making sense. So you know, I'm not saying I obviously agree with everything, but I think he sensed what this would be the moment to point people back towards, towards the Bible and towards the original story as it were.

Rhiannon McAleer (09:23)
And it's so fascinating to be reflecting on these timelines, because we did our first big survey in 2018. And I would say, I don't know how much the vibe shift was reflecting in that data. Like that data set looked very much a continuation of what we'd seen before, that we had this very large kind of cold segment in our population towards the Bible and Christianity.

Justin Brierley (09:37)
Mm.

Rhiannon McAleer (09:44)
a small but warm part of the church. And we'd had about one in five, it's about 20 % of the population who were in the spiritual middle ground. But we were starting to see this, I'm searching for meaning. And among certain groups, like, yeah, maybe Christianity and the Bible could have something to say, but it was certainly in that data set, not where we are today. And things have changed really quickly. And one thing that...

Justin Brierley (10:06)
Hmm.

Rhiannon McAleer (10:10)
I had forgotten and I found it in our old notes a little bit ago was when we did focus groups out of that 2018 stuff. So this would have been 2019. When we surveyed one of our atheist groups, I've got a quote which says, you know, this is completely irrelevant to me. I don't know. Maybe it would take something like a global pandemic and then I might be interested in God again. And honestly.

Justin Brierley (10:31)
you

Rhiannon McAleer (10:33)
The hairs on my arms went up when I read that. I wonder on your reflections, I think you've been really helpful in pointing out that this has been brewing for some time. To what extent, in your view, was the pandemic a catalyst or ⁓ an accelerant perhaps, or kind of a bit of a rogue element in the whole thing? What do you think?

Justin Brierley (10:34)
⁓ mm.

Mm.

I do think it's significant. And, and partly just because it provided a sort of enforced firebreak, just for at least a month or two at the very beginning, everyone had to confront their own mortality. I think that was not not insignificant in what that did. I think, initially, most church leaders I knew were

like, my goodness, this is a disaster. We can't meet. But at the same time, yeah, I felt like that period was actually quite fruitful in terms of even though a lot of it was being mediated online. There was just a lot more openness generally I found to faith And I think that that has continued that and

especially the generation that were kind of the most affected by the pandemic are the Gen Z generation. My kids, their schooling and their relationships and all the stuff that happens as you're sort of developing at such a critical moment in your life, it all gets quite badly affected, obviously, by this sudden break.

the fact it's kind of coming on top of all of the pressures of social media and the alienation and the dislocation and everything else that I think that that brings to young people today. I think it just sort of accelerated that. And I've just met a lot of young people who are now interested in faith and coming to church, who basically that pandemic was kind of the catalyst, if you like, for the journey they've been on since. I mean, one example is a young.

woman in our congregation. And she says exactly this. She didn't grow up in a Christian family. She sort of had a Christian grandmother. That was her only real connection with church. But she had moved from South Africa to the UK. And it was during the pandemic, she would have been about 15 years old. She just got very depressed and felt so isolated

And she began a kind of a spiritual search at that point online, obviously ran into on TikTok, know, lots of the crystals and manifesting and horoscopes and all the rest of it. None of it seemed to quite gel. Started to see one or two Christian influences pop up naturally, as soon as you start watching them, more of them come in your timeline algorithmically. But what they had, there was something about what they had that felt different to her. So she asked her grandmother if she could buy her a copy of the Bible. She did. She read the Bible.

She said she was like, she'd never read it before, but she was just felt it was like speaking to her like all the time. And so, you know, fast forward to basically the end of last year, she thought, well, I need to find a church. She basically become a Christian kind of completely independently of ever walking into a church or really meeting a Christian apart from her grandmother. And so she ended up in our church and she was baptized as this last Pentecost and

And that's like, that's not that unusual a story. and sort of the way in which digital social media is both a curse and a blessing, know, it's part of the problem, if you like, but it's also allowed her to...

encounter Christianity without ever having to actually physically meet a

Rhiannon McAleer (13:51)
Yeah, and as you say, I think this is not an uncommon story. Certainly over the last few months speaking to church leaders, I've heard a few themes come out. one is around almost like unprompted spiritual encounters. So I've heard a lot about dreams, which is just so interesting how often independently this is coming up again or people feeling like, I've just got to go to church. And they don't even know why, right? Like when you...

Andrew Ollerton (14:08)
Hmm.

Justin Brierley (14:08)
Hmm.

Mm.

Rhiannon McAleer (14:16)
when

they're being asked, they don't have the language to express other than, I like being here. But another stream that sometimes sits separately or sometimes relatedly, is this almost like digital discipleship? So people hearing influences or hearing podcasts or something, and then, I'm liking this. And as you say, they then pick up more content and it's almost that they'll hear that Christians go to church. So then they try and find a church. And I wonder...

compared to perhaps the previous era we were in around apologetics and stuff, this is the way people are finding faith, what does that mean for your average church leader? What's this new landscape that they need to be understanding?

Justin Brierley (14:56)
Yeah,

I think that's a great question. And it is one I sort of tackled sort of in the earlier phase, if you like, of, you know, when I was writing the book, I did feel like the questions that were often being tackled were not necessarily the same as 20 years ago in the zenith of the new atheism. And that was, you know, what I that was my bread and butter, you know, classic apologetics,

And there's obviously a place for that, you know, I think there will always be a place for that more sort of traditional apologetics, there are always going to be people with those kinds of questions and intellectual objections. But I was also aware that that, the new kind of conversations around God were much more about the values that we have in our culture.

what do we lose sort of just culturally and psychologically and emotionally when we lose the story of Christianity? People aren't waking up in the morning saying, you know, give me five philosophical proofs for God there.

They're sort of waking up and saying, give me a reason to get out of bed because I'm feeling depressed and anxious. and dislocated. And so that I think is the kinds of issues and question that the average church leader needs to be probably prioritizing. Okay. People will still have those intellectual questions about, suspect they're going to come later rather than those being the primary things.

And one of the ways I've kind of, I think that it might be helpful for church leaders and Christians generally to think about how to present Christianity in this new environment is to take a leaf out of Blaise Pascal's book actually, who know, back when he was offering similar advice said, make good people wish that Christianity were true.

and then show them that it is. It's that sort of, it's appealing to the heart and to this sense of how you would like life to be and why life isn't measuring up to the way you want it to be. And I think Christianity answers that emotional need. And that's probably the place to start with most people. Then of course, people may have questions about, can I actually trust this book and this person and so on? And then there's gonna be always gonna be a place for that more traditional apologetics to show them that it is true. let.

Help them to realize why they want it to be true in the first place. And I think there's an openness right now to people wishing it were true. you know, the average agnostic atheist I meet today doesn't tend to be the kind who says, it's all baloney. The sooner we get rid of it, the better. They're more often saying, I wish I could believe this, because wouldn't it be great if this were true? And that's the kind of shift I think that.

that we're sort of seeing in that sort of secular arena.

Andrew Ollerton (17:20)
Do you think, how is that playing out with the Bible specifically? Because I think, you know, I sort of feel like we're seeing surges of Bible sales. So that's been reported widely. And, you you talk about the pandemic, I've certainly heard so many stories of people who started reading the Bible during the pandemic, just because, you know, sometimes because they were bored, sometimes because they were with much less to do, but also sometimes because they were reaching out for hope and stability. So there's, it feels like there's sort of

both a resurgence of interest and a younger generation who know so little about it, are intrigued and curious. And then there's also that kind of, you alluded to earlier, there are some risks associated with that in terms of some of the way that can be politicized. And maybe also a little bit of pushback from some, I feel like there may be some almost skeptics who are almost more tolerant of a belief in God. But when you say you believe in the God of the Bible,

you know that becomes more of a problem. how are you seeing the Bible fairing in the cultural shift?

Justin Brierley (18:15)
Yeah, I do think that there has been a change. Yeah, certainly in the way people talk about the Bible. I think partly it's just that the new atheist approach has faded. So the new atheists were the ones who tended to be the ones kind of with this very dogmatic anti Bible look at the God of the Bible isn't he awful sort of approach.

And I think partly the reason people are kind of engaged in the Bible in slightly more open-ended sympathetic way is because the new atheist voices just aren't what they used to be. They're a sort of bit of a shadow of their former self.

And so I think that gave space for these alternative voices.

to start picking up the Bible. And so when you had people like Tom Holland, Peterson and plenty of others starting to say, maybe we should take a second look. I think it's sort of it was sort of interesting and different. they weren't so interested in sort of getting to grips with, you know, the exact historicity of the thing or the kind of some of those

moral questions in the Old Testament, they were more interested in the bigger picture questions about the fact that this has shaped us as a culture and this has given, you know, given meaning and purpose and identity to countless generations of people. So I think framing it in that way, a slightly more psychological cultural way, of enable people to sort of have a different tack in, if you like, on the Bible than this being forced by the new atheist to constantly look at the worst passages of the Old Testament or something.

And I think, yeah, I, like you, noticed a lot of people just suddenly talking about, well, I'm going out and buying a Bible. I'm going to try reading the Bible for the first time. Now, inevitably, when they do that, if they actually do read the Bible, they'll soon probably come across things that will be confusing or difficult or whatever. But they'll also, like the person I mentioned earlier, come across some quite beautiful things and some things that may well speak to them in very unexpected ways. So

it's always going to be a sort of, you know, see what happens. And I genuinely believe I, you know, giving someone a Bible to read is a good thing. OK, yes, it's going to bring all kinds of questions with it. But actually, I think time and again, just people sitting down and reading the Bible, something happens, something quite remarkable very often happens when people just take the time to do that. And and for me, there's I think one of the appeals of the Bible and

and why it has kind of started to become almost more fashionable in those cultural circles to talk about it and encourage people to maybe go and look at it is just that it's old. It's it's it's been around a long time. And I think especially especially those younger generations, they feel quite burned out on having to keep up with everything that's new. And just the fact you can't. And and it's it's a sort of there's something quite

important and feels quite different actually for a lot of I think people and young people especially to go and read something that is just so different to anything they're currently being presented with and yet feels important and feels like and they're being told is foundational. So even if I don't get it, you know, the first time I pick it up, I'm going to persevere, I'm going to keep

Rhiannon McAleer (21:19)
Is your sense seekers as well as people within the church are after a different way of exploring the Bible? one thing I've heard a lot of around the last six months is the idea that people want full-fat faith. This also ties into the idea of like Christian weird. So if people are coming and exploring Christianity, you don't need to change. We don't need to necessarily be

dialing back or being super seeker sensitive perhaps would have been an onboarding in the past. And I guess, yeah, interested in your reflection on...

To what extent do church leaders, those who are interested in mission, exploring the Bible, both perhaps people who new to faith and those who are exploring, how deep can they go? Do we still need to think about an onboarding? How do we get people on that journey?

Justin Brierley (22:00)
Hmm.

Yeah, what I am surprised by actually is that there is just a genuine desire to just jump in actually without too much kind of, you know, we have to really take people on a very slow, gentle journey before we actually expose them to the Bible or kind of, you know, deep, difficult, you know, or whatever thought. I'm thinking of a friend of mine in Australia, Dean, he's so he's more, you know, the older end he's not so not Gen Z. He's probably

millennial Gen X probably but he's kind of been on a journey over the last five to 10 years. Firstly, was, you know, interestingly, it was through encountering Jordan Peterson, then coming across my show when I had him on, and then become a real fan of that. And, and he went from basically being a sort of typical kind of atheist, you know, who just basically rejected whatever nominal faith he'd grown up with to become very interested again in faith. And, and he starts reading the Bible, and he

he the thing he got really turned on by was when he discovered my Ask NT or Anything show, which is a deep dive into the Bible and the nuances of it. And he loves it. And he's like, you know, I never realized all of this this stuff. And he wants he he's kind of one of those people who just wants to dive in. It doesn't want to kind of skirt around the outs skirts too much. And I also encounter that to some extent in younger people. And they're they're often the ones where we feel like we have to sort of

do a bit more entertainment, you know, before we get to the actual kind of core stuff of, but actually, interestingly among, you know, a lot of the teens I see, they just want to do Bible study. They just want to get in there and do it. It's like the church can never out entertain TikTok or Instagram or all the things that are on offer. So I think they're actually a bit tired of being entertained to some extent that they're actually looking at something quite meaty.

And so I've been encouraged by that actually. Maybe church leaders can just be a bit more direct and invite people to just come and engage the Bible in a fairly direct way. Now, obviously, that's, you don't want to put up unnecessary barriers. And of course, you, you know, having a framework, you know, things like the Bible course could, I think this is a super moment for those things to come into their own and help people to start putting the pieces together. But yeah, I do sense that

that, yeah, people are ready for it in that way. And in the wider sense, the full fat faith. I think that's reflected in, as you say, the fact that people are more interested in a more kind of weird expression of Christianity, know, as Tom Holland has famously said, keep Christianity weird. And when he goes to church, he tends to go for a very full on, you know, Anglo Catholic drenched in ritual and meaning and

something that completely transports him from the normal humdrum everyday world into a story. you know, and again, that's perhaps keys into the fact that the Quiet Revival has been seeing, you know, a real uptick in in that area, the more Catholic sort of end of the church. But likewise, the same could be true, as I'm sure you're aware of the the fact that a more charismatic Pentecostal sort of expression is also gaining traction. And it's because it's different and weird in its in its expression. And I just think

Anything that just feels like the culture that we already have with maybe a bit of spiritual sprinkling over the top of it just doesn't satisfy actually that people and young people I think are quite intense. They're looking for something that rises above the shallowness, if you will, both in the Bible and in its expression in Christian worship. They want something deeper and more substantial, I think.

Andrew Ollerton (25:27)
Hmm.

that's really, this gets to the heart of the challenge the church faces, I think, doesn't it? there's a whole generation that are, as their biblical literacy is as low as probably it's been certainly for a long time in this country. So the starting point is minimal knowledge, but the curiosity levels are way higher often for those who are brand new to it all than those who've been immersed in it for some time. I'm speaking to lots of church leaders

where they're saying things like, just one comes to mind in Cornwall, he was just saying that, you know, one of the local rugby club, proper lad from Captain of the Rugby Club has just become a Christian through reading the Bible. Now his appetite for the Bible is almost putting to shame the apathy in the church. You know, the church is kind of like drifting with a fairly low level occasional sermon. And this guy's asking these questions, wrestling like you would on the rugby field, but this time with the Bible.

And I feel like I'm hearing that quite a bit. And so there's this challenge of how does the church meet the moment? when sometimes the appetite for the Bible seems to almost be stronger outside the church than within the church. And that might not always be fair, but I just feel like there's a challenge there. One of the stories in the Bible that I've been reflecting on a lot with is the story of Philip, the evangelist coming alongside the Ethiopian eunuch who's wrestling with the Bible, struggling to make sense of it.

But the fact that Philip is ready, he knows enough to help this man who's perplexed but really curious and open. He knows enough to help him make sense of how the big story of the Bible fits together and points to Jesus. I mean, what advice do you have for, I suppose, how can the church meet this moment, especially in particular with the Bible, but more generally as well? What are we needing to do to not miss what's happening?

Justin Brierley (27:06)
Mm.

Yeah.

I think that there's lots of different directions I could go in here. But one of the things I think is to encourage, but firstly, those who are already in the church to pick up their Bibles again, because I think you're right. There's almost a sense in which I suddenly like, I've been like, well, have I paid as much attention actually recently to the Bible as, you know, these new young sort of people who are taking this interest in.

I think the church also though, you know, has to take seriously its role of, you know, helping people to engage the Bible and understand it. And this is the great difficulty is in the age of social media, there are all kinds of takes on the Bible that people can easily pick up and how does the church sort of compete in a sense with the wide variety and very often sometimes sadly erroneous or sub biblical kind of ways in which people.

can use and abuse the Bible. I think sort of doing everything we can to kind of give people opportunity to read the Bible, to discuss the Bible and to sort of engage it in ways that are really helpful. One of the dangers you see, I think that we're seeing is there's a lot of talk about the Bible and biblical values, but not that many people are necessarily actually ending up reading the Bible. And this was.

Andrew Ollerton (28:28)
Hmm, yeah.

Justin Brierley (28:29)
an interesting reflection from my friend, Glenn Scrivener, who I'm sure you guys may know, we were both at the Arc Conference earlier this year. And for those who aren't aware, that's a sort of interesting new sort of conference movement that has emerged partly under the auspices of Jordan Peterson and others, where they're trying to kind of sort of bring together a sort of conservative political movement with a kind of a reintegration of Christian

Christian values and Christendom. And there are things that are good and things that are potentially bad about that. I did a whole episode of my podcast this season, you know, with my reflections and some highlights from this conference. But one of the things Glen Scrivener said, who was also there, is he said, you know, he found it so interesting because he, the sort of whatever the onstage speakers were saying, in the venue, in the sort of stalls,

you know, in what was probably, I don't know, a 50 % Christian, 50 % non-Christian sort of mix, everyone seemed to want to talk about faith and the Bible. And it was so easy with all these non-Christians out to strike up a conversation about the Bible. And he said, what I really should have done is just bought some Bibles and handed them out because ⁓ he said, you know, let's stop talking about biblical values and just read the darn thing.

Andrew Ollerton (29:36)
Yeah.

Justin Brierley (29:41)
because he feels like there's a sort of sense in which it's very easy to kind of start to use quote unquote the Bible or biblical values or whatever it might be for a agenda when people have never actually gone to the trouble of really understanding the story in its full breadth and what it actually means for our lives and how we go out and live in the world. So that for me is really important that the church.

in its excitement and perhaps enthusiasm, the people are talking about the Bible again and biblical values. Don't lose sight of the fact that people actually need to engage the story at a deep level to understand it, because that's what will actually transform their lives and transform culture, not just some sort of veneer, if you will, of feeling like it's culturally fashionable right now to talk about the Bible and so on.

Rhiannon McAleer (30:26)
Justin, thank you so much. So for those who want to know more about your work, your podcast, we've got the unbelievable back catalogue, which has been, I think, pretty significant for many people in their journey as kind of part of the Quiet Revival Wave movement, like, and has been very significant missionally over the years. Surprising Rebirth, which is fantastic. I am a subscriber and I listen to it regularly.

Justin Brierley (30:41)
Mmm.

Andrew Ollerton (30:49)
Hmm.

Justin Brierley (30:50)
you

Rhiannon McAleer (30:50)
You'll work with seen and unseen. How can people find that?

Justin Brierley (30:53)
Mm Yeah.

Yeah. So so that's right. Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God is the long form sort of documentary podcast series. And of course, we've been talking about the quiet revival quite a bit in recent episodes of that. But yes, more in the sort of just interview sort of format as the the podcast re enchanting from seen and unseen. And that's when I co host with Bell Tindall. So there's we're sort of just about to start recording season eight of that. So that's been going on for the last couple of years.

And yeah, you can find me sort of all of that stuff, my newsletter, books, other resources at justinbryley.com. That's a good place to go if you wanna make a start.

Rhiannon McAleer (31:30)
and you have an upcoming conference you mentioned working with Glenn. Do you want to tell people a little bit more about that and what you'll be discussing?

Justin Brierley (31:38)
Yeah, absolutely. So I think when Glenn Scriven and I sort of realised that we were working in the same direction, noticing similar things happening in culture, and particularly when the Quiet Revival research, you know, came out, we thought, well, time for someone to put on a conference to help church leaders hopefully understand and engage and do something with this moment that we're living through. And so responding to the rebirth is the name of that conference. It's happening on Saturday, the 22nd of November.

in London, All Souls Lang and Place. Now, this is another sign of the interest and hunger there is. We actually have sold out all of the in-person tickets over three months ahead of this conference taking place. So currently, what we can offer, I'm glad to say, is livestream tickets. So if you weren't able to book a place for that conference, do feel free to book at the livestream. that's rebirthconference.net is the place to go.

Andrew Ollerton (32:29)
Brilliant. I think you're right. That is just a sign of how much not only is the hunger there in culture, which is what the quiet revival has shown, the church is waking up increasingly, aren't we? We're all waking up to the fact that the landscape has shifted. The challenges are different. There's still challenges, but there's different opportunities that we've not had before. And I think we're just so grateful for the way that you're bringing a voice to steer and guide and narrate some of that. So Justin, thank you so much for your work. We really want to encourage all of our

Listeners, check out Justin's website and all of the content. We think it's brilliant and we're really grateful for you joining us today.

Justin Brierley (33:03)
thanks so much. It's a privilege to have been with you on this episode of the podcast.

Rhiannon McAleer (33:07)
Thank you, Justin.