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Rebirth Confirmed? Studies Reveal Surge in New Christians || SLP687 · The Speak Life Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: 28% of those who are evangelical according to our definition would have started coming to church in the last one to two years.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's quite astounding.
0:08
SPEAKER_02: Those who are on Team Evangelical, we we get excited about those numbers, but we are also very wary because we had that experience with the quiet revival where a lot of the UK church just doesn't know what to do with exciting numbers anymore.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't know what to do with reports anymore.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Now, does every single percentage write?
0:26
SPEAKER_01: No.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: No, we're not claiming that there's a margin of error.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not seeing so many reports and so many stories.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: I have little doubt something's happening.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: The exact scale in nature.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: But actually, repeated themes are younger, more ethnically diverse, and more male.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: That's coming up again and again and again.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: There's nobody sitting around going, Life's brilliant, isn't it?
0:44
SPEAKER_01: I can just chill out and look if you need your Christianity over there, tick your crutch.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's like, life's carnage.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, most of these young men don't actually want an argument about Christian nationalism or about manifesting.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: They want somebody to come alongside, show that they care, bring them into their home, model what marriage and family and good life looks like in a Jesus-centered Christian way, rather than some abstract answer.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what we are actually really well equipped to do.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: Evangelicals are a growing proportion of UK society, so says a new report from the Evangelical Alliance.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: And of those who are at evangelical churches, 28% of them have started going to church in the last two years.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: So says a new report by Ligoneer.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: We've got representatives from both the Evangelical Alliance and from Ligoneer on the line.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for joining us, Peter and Sam.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: I'd love you to introduce yourselves and uh introduce uh your organization, but also can you just briefly tell us about uh the survey that your organization has uh briefly brought out and uh let us know what what some of the methodology was behind uh that survey.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh Peter Lannis, UK director of the Evangelical Alliance.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're the largest and the oldest body representing the UK's evangelicals.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: We're 180 years old.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things we thought was, do we understand, do we know who the evangelicals are in the UK?
2:08
SPEAKER_01: People would ask us, politicians or maybe in the media.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: And we were pointing back to a tier fund survey from 2007.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: And so we said, look, we need to do some work.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: So we asked Whitestone Insight, a big polling company, uh, to take nearly 8,500 UK adults, asked them a series of questions about identity, about belief, and about practice.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: Because we said it's not like simply, are you an evangelical?
2:32
SPEAKER_01: Do you identify as one or do you believe what they believe or do you go to church?
2:35
SPEAKER_01: We needed a combination of those.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: And then we were fascinated and we wanted to know who are the evangelicals, what do they believe, do they use the term, do they go to church, and a few other questions thereafter.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: We'll definitely get into labels, uh, how you have assigned various labels to people and uh how people themselves want to either wear the label evangelical or not, and the value of the label evangelical.
2:58
SPEAKER_02: We'll get into all that.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: But uh Sam Tunacliffe at uh Ligoneer, uh, let us know uh who you are, who is Ligoneer, and what is this report?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm Sam Tunacliffe, and uh I work for Ligoneer for most of the time, but I'm also a trainee minister at my church in West London as well.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I kind of have two perspectives, as it were, on the report.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: Uh Ligoneer is um basically we produce discipleship resources.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, so Ligoneer Ministries began in the US.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh R.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: C.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: Spruell would be the name that many will recognize.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And he was an excellent communicator and a pastor, and he um was a theologian who would basically communicate um sort of great deep theological ideas uh to a wider uh kind of well Christian public largely.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And so the aim of Ligoneer is really to do that, it's to make sure that people in the pews are um well taught and that we supply uh kind of church pastors, eldership teams, and others with uh enough resources that they can uh they can just, you know, that they would demand and want and that they can do their job well.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh the church is is God's plan A and there is no plan B.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: So we uh are working to assist the church in that way.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Basically, the survey um kind of goes into that.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: So the um the the survey is is one that we've run for the second time here in the UK.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: We had the first one in 2018.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And the purpose of it, I suppose, is just to be a bit of a diagnostic of what exactly do evangelicals think.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: So I suppose it might be useful to think, okay, so Evangelical Alliance survey is um more in the the World Placket, how many are our number and and what is an evangelical?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And in one regard, what we're focused on is you know, taking the kind of um uh even the narrowest um kind of classic evangelical um definition uh from that survey, we would then kind of mine into that and say, what do these people actually believe?
4:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh they they are evangelical, they seem to be believers, but what about those kind of happy inconsistencies that we live with?
4:55
SPEAKER_00: Um those things that you know I believe in the Trinity, but I also think that God accepts the worship of all uh different religions.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: How how does that sit together?
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And yet it does in the in the minds of many.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so EA is is doing um how many are out there, how how do we sort of categorize them and label them?
5:13
SPEAKER_02: And I guess the ligonia is, and what do they actually believe?
5:16
SPEAKER_02: Um interestingly, in both reports, there are some exciting numbers, okay?
5:21
SPEAKER_02: Um in the EA reports, um, it seems like evangelicals are a growing share of uh the UK population.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: The Tier Fund report back in 2007 put the number at something like two million um sort of hardcore evangelicals back in 19 years ago, and that's grown to about 2.6 million, according to the EA.
5:44
SPEAKER_02: And so that's a growth of about 30% when the UK population has only grown by 13%.
5:48
SPEAKER_02: And so we seem to be kind of punching above our weight.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: That's an exciting thing, and it seems to confirm uh that 12% of uh the UK is is going to church on a monthly basis, which uh sort of gels with what the quiet revival statistics said last year, that about 12% is is the number of people kind of going to church.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: So those are exciting numbers, and then in Ligoneer's report, it's an exciting number to think that actually 28% of uh those in evangelical churches have joined in the last two years.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, these are the the headlines that uh get out there, and I guess those who are on Team Evangelical, we we get excited about those numbers, but we are also very wary because I guess we had that experience with the quiet revival, uh the study came out, and then because of I guess um inconsistencies in the data from from Ugov, they felt they needed to pull that report back.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: And I guess a lot of people, a lot of the UK church, just doesn't know what to do with exciting numbers anymore, doesn't know what to do with reports anymore.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: How should we feel about surveys like this?
6:57
SPEAKER_02: Peter, do you want do you want to go first?
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's valid, firstly.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we talked quite a lot about the Bible Society's report.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: It was a big report.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: It had some, I think it was 2018 and then 2025, so it was able to do a really interesting comparison.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: It was like 17,000 people in one of their survey panels, and it was Ugov who were considered the biggest player.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, and they made an error.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, I think there's a one misunderstanding people do have people are always like, it's wrong.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, we don't know if it's wrong.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: What we do know is it's unreliable.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: They some of the anti-fraud measures that they normally put in place didn't, weren't put into effect.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: It took them a year and a half to discover that.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: They were asked repeatedly, they checked, they checked.
7:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's some interesting questions, but fundamentally what we do know is it's it's not reliable, um, but it's not necessarily wrong, and they are rerunning it, and we wouldn't be surprised if we found some figures that are similar.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: For example, we found 12% church attendance as today.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Pew Research have found a figure that's higher than that, and the British Social Attitude Surveys found a figure that's lower than that.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: We're not overly surprised.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing is I could point you to about eight or nine surveys.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the Bible Society produced a report called The Quiet Revival One Year On.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: So we've got Pew, we've got Savannah Comrade as one of the big polling companies, Opinion, and we've got the Global one by Epsos Morey.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Each of them tell us different things but similar basic ideas.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: More interest in spirituality more generally, more interest in religion, particularly amongst young people, more people going to church or praying or experiencing God.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: There's a variety of measures in there.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: So there's about seven or eight.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: We've also got uh Savanta did another one for the student movement for fusion, uh, and I think there's another one I'm forgetting, but there's uh you've just got seven or eight now, maybe nine or ten, including these two, and you're starting to say that aligns with the stories that I'm hearing and the statistics repeatedly.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: Now, does every single percentage right?
8:44
SPEAKER_01: No, no, we're not claiming that, and there's a margin of error.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: But I'm now seeing so many reports and so many stories.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: I have little doubt something's happening, the exact scale in nature, but actually repeated themes are younger, more ethnically diverse, and more male.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: That's coming up again and again and again.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: That I'm pretty sure that's true because I've heard the stories and I've seen the stats.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: So we put all these things together.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: If this was one outlier report or one random report, I would definitely be concerned.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, but people are right to have at least a healthy questioning.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: I think that's okay.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: But I would say eight or nine reports later, I think we're over the basic questions.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: We're now into just levels of detail.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Sam, how should we feel about exciting numbers or disappointing numbers?
9:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, how how should we, yeah, how should how should we see these uh reports?
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a great question.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we are inclined to be very British about it and just sort of say, you know, is this definitely really real?
9:37
SPEAKER_00: And sort of I don't I don't know where that instinct comes from, but I think it's it's uh you know, in in every way, we all as Christians want there to be more Christians, and as as we uh you know, preaching the gospel in churches, we want people to respond and to come to Christ, obviously.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: So in one sense, you know, we just want that to be real, and it in in in a way, I think really people are expressing a sense that you know you can't really prove revival from a spreadsheet.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not possible to do that, and therefore, you know, you only see that in lives renewed, and that is the case.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, you know, a survey does um something that you know anecdotes can't do.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: And so in that regard, I'd just say, yeah, it seems as though um exactly the same things that Peter is talking about are repeated in our surveys, so more likely to be uh younger and male, so 25 to 44 year old are disproportionately represented uh in ours, more likely to be uh from an ethnic minority background.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: So these things seem to be the case.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh and in our case, yeah, 28% um of those um who are evangelical according to our definition would have started coming to church in the last one to two years.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's quite astounding.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And in a way, for those um areas in the country where that's not happening, perhaps there is an interesting dynamic there.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: It's more likely to be in London and larger cities that this is likely to be happening on the basis, I would say, that you know, there's there's certain populations that will gather in London or in Birmingham or in you know Manchester that wouldn't necessarily be in the countryside.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: And so I quite understand when people turn around and say this isn't happening in my parish.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, that's partly the nature of what we're trying to survey.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: Are you seeing it?
11:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh because you're you're you're in London, because I the the the 28% figure is is the one that really grabbed my attention.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: Because yeah, would I say that 28% of my local church here in Eastbourne, it's definitely up.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: Definitely the number of people who would say I've just joined in the last two years, um, it's definitely up.
11:43
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't say it's between a you know a quarter and a third of the congregation.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: But like what are you seeing in Ealing?
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean the statistics surprise me, but then it kind of made me look at our own congregation again.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, our congregation is expanding, praise God, but we I think among those would have quite a lot of people who are new to church, actually.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: And it honestly would be around the 25 to 28 percent, I think, if we were to survey the congregation.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: So in that regard, we are seeing that.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's an area with higher immigration than average.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: It's an area that's affected by a number of other things that some other parts of the country aren't, and therefore, perhaps you know it's a different uh scenario.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: But that is the case, and I can think of three or four uh young men off the top of my head that I can think actually fit into that exact um kind of uh demographic and fit into that exact kind of group of people, some of whom began going to church and then when they're younger as a child, and then just you know never went again um until the last couple of years.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Um a few of whom have just started coming and have listened and heard.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: And to be honest with you, I think the central thing here seems to be that they just look out and there's a kind of spiritual wasteland of just seeing there's a hopelessness and meaninglessness, and they want something and they're they're just willing to try and willing to come if someone invites them.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Actually, two guys hopped on to the Tuesday lunchtime service that we just had, and like, you know, they'd be in that category as well.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: So it'd be fascinating to see if that's replicated the countrywide.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's it's definitely happening.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's definitely happening.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: And we'll we'll think about what it means uh for churches, for church life, for mission, for discipleship.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, we'll think about that as the conversation goes on.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I guess there's one issue we need to clarify, which is what even is an evangelical.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I noticed that in uh your two reports you had very overlapping definitions of an evangelical that that seem to sort of trace their genealogy back to um Bebington and his so-called quadrilaterals.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's four things that he said made an evangelical, I guess, biblicism, um, very Bible-centered, crucicentrism, um, being cross-centered, sort of conversionism, people need to come to Christ, and therefore we're very uh active in evangelism and activism.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: And I think basically the EA sort of took those four.
14:08
SPEAKER_02: Is is is that correct?
14:09
SPEAKER_02: That that's that's your definition of an evangelical.
14:12
SPEAKER_02: Were you considering other definitions?
14:13
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have a theological advisory group, and uh this was one, so you know, firstly we would say uh the identity piece you can, you know, in most other surveys you just say if you identify as gay or Scottish or whatever it is, then that's that's the kind of test.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Like so, in one sense, we were like, we need to ask that, we think, but then we said, look, what are the beliefs?
14:32
SPEAKER_01: And the Bebington is descriptive, not prescriptive.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: We know that it's a historical kind of looking back, but we were like, what else?
14:38
SPEAKER_01: So there was a bit of going back and forward, looking at some stuff that'd be done in the States, the born-again language, some other terms, and we just were going around a little bit and said, Look, is there anything that's better than that as a relatively agreed, relatively simple?
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, we can put it into language that most people can understand.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: Because again, you get a bunch of theologians that's like, guys, I'm not sure those questions are going to land with the general public the way you think they might.
15:01
SPEAKER_01: I get it, but we've got to get a balance, and I'm not saying we got it right, but that's where we landed that this was probably the most agreeable format within a UK context that we could realistically ask some questions around.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And we were we're trying to be clear, this is not the definitive test, but how else would you do it?
15:17
SPEAKER_01: So we wanted to do identity and then some sense of belief, those four questions.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and again, we slight difference between strongly agreeing with them and agreeing with with them, um, and then uh the practicing piece, which is an agreed formula generally.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: A lot of surveys have used once a month going to church, once a week reading the Bible, at least once a week reading the Bible, at least once a week praying.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that again what we would always say, but it allows you to compare to lots of other surveys that use that as the practicing Christian matrix.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Um so again, that's helpful to compare over time movements up or down on that.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: And and for you, Sam, I I guess the beliefs, um, you've sort of got that Bible-centeredness, the cross-centeredness, um, the the need for personal conversion and therefore an urgency to evangelism.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: And and then that the fourth thing for you was not so much activism, but the fourth thing for you, I guess, was a belief that we are justified by faith alone.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: Was that was that was that am I remembering that correctly?
16:11
SPEAKER_02: And and uh yeah, why why did you hit on those four uh beliefs?
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, it is, yeah.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Um so we've got uh yeah, only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their savior receive God's free gift of eternal salvation.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: That's our fourth question.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, realistically, uh the question is not because uh yeah, the question has been changed, not because we don't like activism, uh we do, but it's mainly because we thought the biggest challenge for us will be getting pastors and elders in churches who are conservative evangelicals and would define themselves as such to think actually these are problems that affect our corner.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: These are actually issues that people will come into churches with.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: And if you know, I was a school teacher, and um if you have a class of 30 and out of that six to eight kids are new all of a sudden that year, year and a half, that's gonna affect how you teach, it's gonna affect what you need to go over again.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And so, in a sense, what we're doing is saying, look, okay, these really are um the kind of the kind of people who are turning up to your churches.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And so uh what really this overlaps with for us is essentially it's very similar to the classic evangelicals.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Um so we'd have to say that they strongly agree with all four of these statements to qualify as an evangelical according to our metrics, and you have to be a practicing Christian, so you have to be going to church or and reading the Bible um by yourself.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: So we're in a sense drilling down on that purposefully, not because we think that no one else is an evangelical as such, but it's just because we think, okay, how do we present it to people who are in this uh quadrant of the church and say, look, this is uh a problem that actually we are having to deal with.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: It's an issue that is constant.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, discipleship is is a constant task, and but that these are our guys, these are the people in front of you in the pew, whether you know it or not.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: Which seems, I guess, to correspond to the classic evangelical in the evangelical alliance uh kind of taxonomy.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: Um Peter, do you do you want to um talk us through?
18:13
SPEAKER_02: We'll have this, we've got this Venn diagram up on the screen, um, which I've I I love this.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: This is this is not everybody's cup of tea, but um love a good Venn diagram.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: Um you've got belief on one side, um, and you've got identity and and sort of the labels that people are uh are happy to own on the other side.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: And when you factor in, um, those who agree or strongly agree with all four belief statements or identify as evangelical, whether or not they would use the term, um, and when you put no denominational um or practicing limitation on the widest category of event evangelicals, 12.3 million, that's a lot.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: Only only 10 to 11 million uh Britons are members of gyms in in the country, um, which means quite a f quite a lot fewer people actually go to the gym.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: Um But there are 12.3 million somewhat evangelicals, which is of roughly the same number as there are cats in the UK.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: Um I I that's quite a lot, isn't it?
19:17
SPEAKER_01: You're full of helpful uh illustrations if I'd known that.
19:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and look, we want to be as clear that is the broadest category.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and this is what people have told us.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: So the identity bit is you say, I love a van diagram, that's probably why it's in there.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: So we asked that identity question.
19:32
SPEAKER_01: So 11.4% of people identify.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: So they either say, I am an evangelical and I like the term, or I am an evangelical even if I don't use the term, and that that was their answer to that.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: And that that splits just a little bit less were happy using the term, 5.4% and 6% wouldn't use the term, even though they would say they are.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: So that you can kind of see that represented visually, and that's the identity.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: So six percent out of so basically more than more than half yeah, so more than half of those who quietly are evangelical wouldn't say they are, wouldn't generally use the term to describe themselves or others.
20:08
SPEAKER_01: So that's really important for us to know.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: That's a really interesting.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: We do get asked about our name, the evangelical lads it's in the name.
20:15
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes people say, Do you not want to change that?
20:17
SPEAKER_01: 180 years on, we're not likely to, but we recognize there's a confidence question there for people.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: That's really helpful, you know.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: That's massive confidence.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: I might not like that, but I have to acknowledge.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: No, but again, that's an 11.4%.
20:28
SPEAKER_01: So that's a big chunk of people who have some interesting beliefs, should we say?
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: But I mean, isn't that interesting that that you know at elections people talk about the you know the power of the shy Tory or the shy Brexiteer who wouldn't declare to the pollster um that they were going to vote for Brexit or whatever it is, and and then it turns out that it's a very decisive thing.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: But if politics, like if in politics literally half of the Tory vote was a shy Tory vote, that would that that would be massive, wouldn't it?
20:59
SPEAKER_02: Um what what do you what do you put this down to, the the fact that there are so many shy evangelicals?
21:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, from conversations I've had, and again, this is not on our polling, but I mean the American uh sort of impact of evangelicalism is is very real.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: Like people are uneasy with the term, um, they don't find it always helpful in a conversation that's taken on a political edge that is a little different, and we have tried to work hard around that, but we acknowledge that's what we hear out on the road a bit.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: It's worth noting that a chunk of those people hold almost no beliefs.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting, people who are okay with the name, but don't so there's this is where it gets complicated.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: But I do think you know, the size of that group tells us this is not all the people going to church every week.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: We want to be clear about that.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: We're not saying that group are, you know, evangelicals, but they identify as it.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: So in one sense, it's a war mission field.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: I like to look at it that way.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm going, I'm really interested in the core, our classics, but I'm really interested in people who either use the term or even reluctant there quietly use the term.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: That's way more than the people going to church.
21:58
SPEAKER_01: So we think missionally, we're not.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Always, I think, thinking, you know, of course it's changed and we don't have the same nominalism in church going, but actually still a big chunk of people who are quite warm to some of both the beliefs and the identities, and yet are a bit fuzzy.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: And this, I think, is where the complementarity with with Sam's work and Ligonier's work is really interesting.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: There's quite a mixed set of beliefs inside the church, there's a mixed set of beliefs around it.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of work to be done in discipleship, as we'll probably return to, and it's similar here with identity.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: It's intriguing to me that so many people identify, even though they don't go to church and don't often even believe.
22:33
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Let's have a look at the belief uh side of things.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: Nearly 10 million are belief evangelicals.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: Who are belief evangelicals?
22:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so again, 14% of the population, the four statements that you were saying, based on Bebington, um, and we asked around those.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh so uh 5.8% within that, so 5.8% overall have strongly agreed with all four, whereas it's 14% agree with all four.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: Um those are, I think, pretty interesting statements, each of them.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: You know, the the authority authority of the Bible that Christ died for our sins, personal conversion, and activism.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, it was the activism was probably the lowest level.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: It was probably the one, if you like, if there's a trip, it was the one that I thought people would be, oh, okay with that.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Was the lowest bar to get across all four, if you like.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, so just marginally.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a massive, but you know, it's just enough.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, that gets us our strongly agree category within there uh uh for the classics.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: And if you just agree with that um and you identify and agree, then you're a broad evangelical.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Again, that's just the best term we could have for this kind of bigger uh subset of 5.5 million people.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: Um we didn't put a denominational criteria on that.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: That's just you agree and you believe.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a really interesting bunch.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: And then we said, but hold on, for a lot of people, there's more than that.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: We want strongly agree, so we want real clarity, and historically, this is evangelicalism's been within the Protestant tradition, so we said let's only have those within the Protestant who've identified that, and let's get a kind of classic group in the middle.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: Again, we tried our best not to make too many judgments here.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: We just said this is what people have told us.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: You identify, you believe, you put them both, and then you tell us which denomination and the level of your agreement, and we've done our best to try and label those groups as objectively as we could and what we found.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: And do we do you think that Tier Fund's 2007 figure is basically this classic um kind of subset?
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've got some of their data tables, it's largely around the church that you attended, and it largely was exclusively Protestant churches, and it was mainly to do with the church you attended and how you identified.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: So actually didn't ask a lot on belief.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: So arguably it might be a slightly more amorphous group.
24:49
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to do an exact correlation.
24:51
SPEAKER_01: They were asking quite a different set of questions and in a different way, and almost the evangelical bit was stuck on a little at the end of their survey, but it was literally the only number we had.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: And in one way, you look back now and think, gosh, I wouldn't almost want to stand over that too much as a piece of survey.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Wonderful as it was, it was doing something different, really, about rates of attendance and what churches people were attending.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: And the evangelical was almost a little, not quite a footnote, it was more than that.
25:15
SPEAKER_01: But I wouldn't say it was the most robust piece of understanding what an evangelical was, but it's the only number we have as a sort of comparator.
25:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: And and so, um, if if those if those groups are comparable, um that is 30% growth over over 19 years, which is um that's kind of encouraging.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: Um one thing that really struck me though is the the difference between these two um uh subsets, sort of the broad evangelicals, and they're different from the classics uh in two regards.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: And one is that they they either agree or strongly agree with the four beliefs, but also in the broad category are non-protestant evangelicals.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: Um and so we're talking about Catholic and Orthodox people, some of whom might identify as evangelical, evangelical Catholic, evangelical Orthodox.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: Um and like this this number of people is like gosh, it's it's more than double the the number of classic evangelicals.
26:18
SPEAKER_02: Um does that say anything to us about the the changing uh nature of denominations in in the country and the the the changing uh fortunes of of Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the UK?
26:30
SPEAKER_01: So uh I think it does.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: And as somebody from Northern Ireland, we actually did a little piece of research here and we're intrigued, even in Northern Ireland, and we're some of you I'm sure are aware of a little bit of our history, how many Catholics were prepared to use the evangelical term.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, and we actually asked the Archbishop a little bit about that, the general sense of evangelism and good news, and he saw that as not overly surprising.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: We might see it as a particularly kind of Protestant and stream within it.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, but we had quite a lot in Northern Ireland, and I think in general, again, we maybe don't think culturally in the same way doctrinally and historically, lots of people try and resist some of those labels.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: So it was a little surprising, but I think as we looked at it, we thought maybe it's not that surprising that quite a lot of Orthodox and Catholic people are prepared to identify as an evangelical, because that's really what that means.
27:15
SPEAKER_01: They would align with the four beliefs, which again, if you're not really super analytical on it, you quite possibly would in those traditions, you wouldn't see those as a big deal.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, some might, but many obviously wouldn't and didn't.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: And then the other big distinction is classics strongly agree.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: So maybe as that level of agreement required to go up, that did bring in our reduce uh that core constituency a little bit more.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: But I think again to some of what Samuel survey was fine, there are what I think probably the three of us would all consider some contradictory beliefs or ideas out there that people can say one thing and believe another, and we're like, what?
27:51
SPEAKER_01: But people are have an incredible ability to hold what I consider incoherent beliefs at this moment, and we have to accept that that's also part of our changing world, I think.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: Sam, as as you've uh had a little look at these uh statistics and reports, uh what what has struck you about the numbers, about the labels, about the proportions?
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good question.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, to follow on slightly, um we you if you go to our website, you can actually filter out among those who've said, Yes, I turn up to church in the last two years, you can filter for Catholics and for Eastern Orthodox as well under that.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: So you can play around with all the data and see what um you know, see what you want to see in sense of um toggle out one thing and uh and add in another um to see how many Catholics have then converted in the last few years that we've surveyed.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: So you can do that, and that's at thestatoftheology uh com.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Um so if you want to go out there and have a look at that, do um but yeah, otherwise, I mean it's uh it's a fascinating um survey, especially I think the uh the evangelical alliances um survey.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: And ours really is mining into the classic evangelicals uh sort of camp um in that in that regard.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, uh I'm kind of intrigued, I've been distracted by what you have to say about cats and gyms, I'll be honest.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: And I on the Venn diagrams, I'm really keen to see uh one of those, you know, evangelicals, cat owners, gym membership.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: I think we need that uh to be central for the next time.
29:21
SPEAKER_02: So um, Peter, some of the other um sort of headline stats in uh in your report is that evangelicalism is younger, it's more male, and it's more ethnically diverse than the general population.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: Um what do you see as the significance of some of this?
29:37
SPEAKER_01: I think for me, the ethnic diversity is the real uh key one here.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: We're at a third basically now as non-white, if we put it that way for a second.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: And we would have said if people asked us, look, we think it's a quarter, that's some numbers we could see, our sense, but it was really hard to get a solid read on that.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: And again, as a representative body, incredibly important to understand our constituency.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: But we were really struggling to get hard data.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: Um and so this has been really interesting to us and is slightly higher than we thought.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And predominantly that is within the black, black, British, Caribbean, and African.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's 27, 28%, depending on the classics in the broad.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: They're fairly similar, sorry, slightly higher in the classics in each case, so that core classic, more Pentecostals.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: So again, classics are much bigger in the Pentecostal denomination.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh so a lot of Anglicans in the broad.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: And then as you narrow into the classics, the other thing, as well as uh ethnicity for me was the um yeah, was the denominational breakdown there.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so we have done a further piece of research that'll be coming soon on this same cohort around uh the kind of charismatic and the gifts, around women and leadership, around uh sort of sexuality and some of those questions, as well as voting intention and others, to understand a little bit more of what they believe, not the same kind of theological questions uh as Sam and Laganier, um, but also some overlaps there.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: So again, we'd love to understand this word.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: But I think for me, the big takeaway is that is that ethnic diversity is growing and thriving.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: And again, I think the the kind of stereotype maybe of an evangelical is an old white person, or uh is just not true, and potentially even an old white lady.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: We were praying for more men and we got it.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: We were praying for younger people and we seem to have got that, and we want to see more diversity and we are seeing it.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: I think that's an incredibly exciting story, and that to me is beyond doubt on the stats, regardless of anything else.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing it, and that's the story we're hearing.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: But if you're in little bubbles or tribes, you might not always see it.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: There are huge swathes of the the Redeemed Christian Church of God, one of the big Nigerian groups, uh, many other uh the New Testament Church of God, many other denominations which have huge diversity that we don't always see on a daily basis.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's really important for us to recognize as a church and to celebrate.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: And Sam, um when you press into some of these newcomers uh that are in church and and 28% of evangelical churches uh have the these adults that have just begun coming to church in the last two years.
32:02
SPEAKER_02: One of the standout statistics uh from your report is that 57% of new evangelicals think that the Bible contains ancient myths, but is not literally true.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Um and that that does seem to gel with the anecdotes that I'm encountering and the people that I'm encountering as I go around the place and and people who are showing up in church, um, they might have a Bible under their arm.
32:27
SPEAKER_02: Um they they might have bought it from Amazon, it might be King James Version because they want the proper thing and they they they want the the the full fat weird Christianity.
32:36
SPEAKER_02: Um But when you press into what they think the Bible actually is, in one sense there's a there's a there's a helpful sense in the a lot of the guys that I'm meeting, there's a there's a helpful sense in which they actually see there's a narrative here by which I can orient my life.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: Um and there's there's a sort of a there's a world that I can inhabit within the the mythology of the Bible, and I'm trying to get my life in order, and the mythology of the Bible is helping.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: Um, but it is quite bracing when you read your statistics.
33:06
SPEAKER_02: 57% of these new event new evangelicals think that the Bible contains ancient myths, but is not literally true.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: Do you do you have a sense of what these people actually say about what the Bible actually is?
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's difficult.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: I think your you your summary is excellent there, and it's hard to sort of prove that someone's come with, you know, 12 rules for life under one arm and the Bible in the other, but there are quite a few people who would be in that kind of meaning crisis um sort of world who who would be interested in coming to church and start it off just yeah, basically as a kind of I'll I'll come and see what it's like, and actually this is helping, this works.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Of course, in one way, we should expect that.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Like it's the Lord Jesus Christ being proclaimed, and the gospel does work.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh God, you know, God speaks and his word does not return to him empty.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: So that absolutely is the case, um, and you'd expect that.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: But also, um, as you as you might expect from the scriptures, people are therefore coming to faith, and it seems as though um they're coming with yeah, interesting beliefs.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you compare that 57% statistic of you know the Bible's containing a lot of myths like other sacred writings, but it's not literally true.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And you can there are quibbles and qualms with the question, of course, which I think are uh somewhat legitimate, but actually, if you compare that with more established evangelicals, it's somewhere around the kind of 16% mark that um those who've been turning up church for a long time would think.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's quite a marked difference there.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: Um that's the same with God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: So that would be another question that sort of those who are newer evangelicals would uh have a 71% uh agree, uh 60% strongly agree, 11% uh just agree with that statement, which is fascinating.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's versus 39% of established evangelicals, so those who've been turning up to church for quite a while.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: So it's an interesting, you know, kind of bunch of different beliefs that I suppose gives us a little bit of a window into a profile of this kind of person who might be coming.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, people break the mold all of the time.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: There'll be other people who are turning up without those beliefs.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: But I think it is quite helpful to pastors and to those in churches, even just to those who are looking out for newcomers.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, just you're kind of, you know, on a Sunday, uh, someone comes in the door and you think, okay, what's your name?
35:26
SPEAKER_00: And you talk to them and you get a little bit of a sense of what they're about.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: It just kind of helps to think what might the angle um and the needs here be for ongoing discipleship.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Not that you want to tell them all about it that one Sunday, but just as you're welcoming them into membership and just living alongside uh one another in fellowship in the church.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully that is helpful.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: I think it is a little bit of a picture of what you're uh saying there, Glenn.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: I think that's not uh not inaccurate from what seems uh to be uh what they seem to be saying.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Here are some other remarkable findings um from the Ligonier report.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: Um so 63% of UK evangelicals believe that most people are good by nature.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: Um here's another one I just want to query, Sam.
36:09
SPEAKER_02: 39% of adults in the UK are unsure about who God is.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: So that that's just in the general population, is that right?
36:16
SPEAKER_02: Or is that in the general population?
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we've surveyed just above 5,000 people uh surveyed total, and uh quite a large proportion of those wouldn't be Christian.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: Um and so we're kind of interested in asking your neighbor, you know, like obviously evangelism, asking your neighbors, would you like to come to church, telling your neighbours about Jesus?
36:36
SPEAKER_00: And therefore it's useful to know what they think.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Um obviously the EA report's really helpful here in one sense, in that it's an encouragement to say, look, if one in five people that you're gonna door knock on is is likely to say either yes, I'm a Christian, or they're likely to say, Yeah, and I kind of believe that.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Great, are you going to any church?
36:53
SPEAKER_00: And you you know, there's an open invitation there that's that's that in a sense it's just an encouraging thing that you won't meet with just wall-to-wall hostility.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: I think people often believe that.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Whereas actually it seems as though that's not the case.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: And it also seems like kind of as compared to 2018, I think these surveys often are good when you can compare them to a benchmark of the same questions a few years earlier.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: So for us, it the don't know category has increased quite a lot uh among the UK general population.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: The take-home message there seems to be to me that a kind of secular certainty um that God doesn't exist or that kind of this supernatural stuff can't be true doesn't seem to be as much there as it used to be.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: But the other thing is just that there's also less of an understanding of what Christian doctrines are.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, in one respect, I don't go out there, or well, I didn't personally survey the people, but um Whitestone Insert doesn't go out there and survey people thinking they're gonna know exactly what Christian doctrine is before you know they're overset food in the church.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: But obviously it's a barometer of where society is.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: That's to say, people just don't really know what Christians would teach in the first place, which is interesting when you consider, you know, someone coming to church, um, what is their view of sexual ethics, of kind of uh, you know, other religions, um, of the Bible itself.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: These things kind of used to be perhaps assumed that you come in and someone go, yeah, yeah, well, I kind of know what Christians say about this, so uh I feel welcome or I feel welcome or whatever it might be in this context.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: It it seems as though part of the opportunity is people have no idea what Christians believe.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: They come along, it's starting to work, they they hear the word proclaimed, they come to faith.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: And then that actually makes quite a big impact in terms of how important just ongoing walking with uh the Lord and discipleship from uh your pastors and elders is.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: And let let's move the conversation on onto some of those implications.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, Peter, as as you're um looking across at the the ligoner reports, uh what are some of the resonances with with you, not only with your own report, but also your own experience of of going around churches yourself?
39:00
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, I mean I think this it if and I think it it's true the 28% number is right, and I was doing a video on it the other day, that 28% of people have come to church, evangelicals have come to church in the last two years.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: That that resonates on so many levels.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: So, one, that accounts for some of the variations in the survey.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: So we're seeing a quickly changing number here.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: Um so I know sometimes people are like, oh, the British Social Attitude Survey and various things, or the gold standard.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: I just don't think they are.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: They're surveying very small tranches of people in the particular age bracket, they're doing it to postal addresses, they're using an older method.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not surprised that these online surveys are catching it quicker, quick quicker.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: And I also think to I think Sam was mentioning this, people like Jordan Peterson, Tommy Robbins, and Joe Rogan, there's lots of or the manifesting and crystal side.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: People are coming through those.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: We know there are people coming into church, and when they do, it's not surprising they carry some of the baggage of those things over, they bring a mix of ideas.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: Somebody says to me sometimes in my oh, what do you think of Jordan Peterson or what do you think of that?
39:58
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Well, which bid?
39:59
SPEAKER_01: Which thing he said?
40:00
SPEAKER_01: Some of it's really good and interesting, and some of it's basically heresy.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: And but it takes time to work all that out, and they're doing discipleship in real time, is what I say.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: They're literally talking about encountering Jesus, various characters online in ways I'm going, oh wow, but oh, not that though.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: Please go away into the desert for a while and talk yourself out, you know, the old traditions.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: There was something healthy about that, and we're not going to get that.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: So there's people like who are Christian for one month, six months, a year online saying things, and so that's both a challenge and an opportunity because they are winsome to other people.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: They think, oh, this is really interesting and they're engaging, but they are saying stuff that it's it's just flat out wrong at times.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: And so what I find really helpful helpful with the the lighenier is where do we need to put our discipleship kind of resources?
40:45
SPEAKER_01: Where are the points where it's like, oh, that's way out of kilture?
40:48
SPEAKER_01: You guys don't know what sin is, you have no understanding of hell, or whatever it might be, or Jesus is good, but oh, that's a line that's not going to help.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: We need to make the distinction, and so I think that's really helpful in the in the kind of discipleship challenge.
41:01
SPEAKER_01: I think the mission field is way more receptive than we have thought, but it's also way more complex.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: People are carrying a whole load of spiritual ideas in the broad sense, and that has made them open, but it's made them, I think discipleship will take longer because they've they've brought a mix of political ideas, it might be Christian nationalism or spiritually complex ideas where they're manifesting away still and following Jesus and haven't worked out that those are incompatible until somebody says, Oh no, hold on, you can't talk to the universe.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: We don't mean that.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: Yes, God created the universe, he is not in the universe.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: We need to distinguish some stuff, and that just takes a little bit of time.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: So I'm kind of not surprised, but it's really helpful and healthy, I think, for ministers and leaders to know where to be putting time and resource in terms of how do you disciple people in this moment?
41:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: So Sam, you you've said that you wear different hats, uh, one as a trainee minister and and one working for Ligonia.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: Um talk to church leaders.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: If if you are a church leader in the UK today, um, what are some of the implications for just week by week uh the the life of the local church in in Great Britain right now?
42:09
SPEAKER_00: I I think the first thing they need is is a survey.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: They need they need some survey guys to come in and say listen to the staff meeting.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: Just put it down on the sides of just half an hour reading this.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: Um like in one sense, these surveys, you know, often they're confirming what people are kind of already seeing, and for others, you know, they reject them because they're not not seeing it.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: In one sense, I just want to say take five, ten minutes, just have a little look and just see what tracks with you.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: And a few of the things that I'd say are really important are these things like we've just discussed about the Bible and the worship of all religions, but also that everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Those are two different questions, but they actually basically have changed to the same amount in the opposite direction uh since uh 2018.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: So 2018, 48% of people said everyone sins a little.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: That's 48% of the evangelicals, but most people are good by nature, that's up to 63% in 2026.
43:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's a marked change.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: And to some extent, we could blame, you know, oh, there's new people in church that they come with some crazy ideas.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: But of course, yes, always, uh, and also that's part of the nature of discipleship.
43:19
SPEAKER_00: The whole thing I would suggest would just be, of course, proclaim the whole council of God.
43:24
SPEAKER_00: We all know that there are those aspects of scripture that we find whatever our particular denomination or tradition harder to deal with, or we don't want to talk about as much, but actually God's given it to us for a reason.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: And so, in one regard, I'd just say teach that.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: But on another level, I'd say there's perhaps a kind of an allergy to theology in the UK.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of a sense that this is something divorced uh from the Bible, it sort of satellites above the Bible rather than actually just doctrines that come out of the Bible.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: We're happy with going through, and that's a really good thing.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: I want to keep that emphasis and I want that to be central.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: But you also want to Say that well, the letter of James says this, and and also then Paul says this, and and so how do you how do you put those two together?
44:07
SPEAKER_00: It's actually an important task because God speaks with one voice.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: So ultimately, that means that we have to understand the Bible as a whole and therefore tackle theological topics.
44:18
SPEAKER_00: Because this one about human nature is a giant issue.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Because I was talking to an American the other day and uh they said there weren't many books on religion in the shops.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, have you tried in the self-help section?
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: And that's an honest response, and they went, Well, obviously not.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: And of course, that's just a big cultural divide, which is becoming more and more the case in this country.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: That if you don't believe that you are a sinner in need of a savior, then of course Jesus belongs in the self-help section.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: You know that what in a sense the challenge is, is taking him out and saying, No, no, he's he's not only Lord of this whole section, but he is the Lord over the whole earth.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: And he is ascended and he sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: That is where he is, whether we want to say this or that or the other, and therefore we are to sit under his word and to listen and to love him, because actually he is our savior, and he's not just a sort of person who he helps, he does help us, he is our help, um, and God is our help.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, actually, the depth of our need isn't felt, and therefore we don't see the the heights of grace.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: What are some of the things that you say, Peter?
45:30
SPEAKER_02: Um, if somebody does come into your church with a copy of Jordan Peterson's Twelve Rules for Life under one arm and and a copy of the King James Bible under the other arm, and they kind of believe in the Bible as a as a set of stories that can help orient them in their life, and um and they want, you know, even more rules for life, and they want to wrestle with God, and they want to work on their relationship with God, and they've kind of bought into that kind of gospel, so to speak.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: What are some of the things that you're wanting to say to such a person to sort of put them onto the gospel of Jesus?
46:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a great question.
46:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and again, there are points in Peterson where he's really helpful and opening some stuff up, and then there's bits where it's basically a self-help, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: You've got to be uh kind of self-aware enough to be able to put in place some of the rules he's even talking about.
46:19
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, well, okay, so where's the space for Jesus in that and what he did in the cross?
46:23
SPEAKER_01: Where's the space for the Holy Spirit in our lives and that?
46:25
SPEAKER_01: So it's often going to be a bit more practical as well.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: It's community.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's probably in my case and for some others, having a little bit of um clout or authority because I've spoken around some of those issues, have listened to some of Peterson.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: So not just saying he's really bad or he's all good.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: It's like, hold on, which bits of what he said, what are you interested in?
46:44
SPEAKER_01: What brought you here a little bit?
46:46
SPEAKER_01: And then then we want to contrast that with what the biblical text has to say, depending on what their place on that is, because at some point Peterson, in and of himself, runs out of road, obviously.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: And people have questions as to what level of encounter he's had.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: And I've met guys who've said, uh I a dad who said, My son asked me to send him a Bible, he'd been raised in church, moved away from it.
47:06
SPEAKER_01: He said he knew where to get a Bible, but he really wanted to tell me.
47:09
SPEAKER_01: He'd been listening to Jordan Peterson and now wanted a Bible.
47:12
SPEAKER_01: And of course he could have gone and got one, but he basically said that dad, I want you to know, and I want you to get me the Bible because this is us restoring a relationship around this moment, and that's a lovely thing.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: So again, I always caution people as well to be a little careful about the either Peterson's really bad on a problem, and a lot of these guys on maybe more on the Christian right, you're like, Yeah, but be careful, people are encountering there, but inevitably there's some discipleship, depending on what it is.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: Often community is going to be the biggest form of that, some sort of experience around communion and what we're doing in the act of worship in terms of laying down our lives.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: Various bits of that will be the jarring moment for them where they maybe go, Oh, I don't know if I'm comfortable singing that or taking communion in that way, or being in this small group and sharing that.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be the same for everybody, obviously, but it's it's it's those moments of coming into the body, I think in its various ways, it will often be uh the moment of encounter and change.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: And we know from again some of the surveys that some will find the kind of more liturgical, orthodox, structured worship is really important to them.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: That helps them.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: Others are finding the more experiential, charismatic worship.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, those are probably the two areas that the survey suggests are growing more.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: Um that kind of in between, maybe a little less so.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh so again, it's gonna look different for different people, but I've had fascinating conversations with guys who've been on the marches.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: If we go back to some of that, who've been in the Jordan Peterson world, who've been around that space, and have found be it Ian Hershey Alley or Louise Perry or Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan, an interesting on-ramp, but it's usually only the on-ramp.
48:37
SPEAKER_01: So you've got to say, where do we go next and where do we get deeper into what it is to submit your life to Jesus?
48:43
SPEAKER_01: That's the bit where you're really chanting.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: Like, do you worship, do you fall at his feet and call him Lord?
48:48
SPEAKER_01: That's language that tends to jar with some of those guys.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: You're like, okay, here's the here's the pinch point.
48:54
SPEAKER_01: There's a sacrifice here, there's a laying down, um, because this is what Jesus did for you.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: And it does gel with what I've been seeing for the last two years.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: So it's interesting that the ligonier um report says that the last two years have been significant.
49:07
SPEAKER_02: I certainly sensed that in 2025 and 2026, so many of my evangelistic conversations have begun by me assuming that this other person is actually a Christian because the kind of language they're using is so freighted with um, I want to work on my prayer life, I want to get closer to God, I, you know, they're they're talking in terms that before 2025 I would only really associate with Christians.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: And as the conversation develops, it turns out that these people, they're not yet Christians.
49:39
SPEAKER_02: Um and yet they're wanting to jump in with both feet to the Christian thing, and they want something that's challenging and biblical, and they want something that it that that has discipleship to it, and they want actually something like sacramental and serious, and they want some gravitas, and they want to touch grass and not just touch grass but break bread.
49:55
SPEAKER_02: And um but it's it's a slow journey, and as they as they do show up to church with a Bible under an arm, um they are certainly by no means the the finished article, even if some of their language is can sometimes be very, you know, very sold out for Jesus.
50:11
SPEAKER_02: And that you know, the country needs to get back to Christ, and and so I'm getting back to Christ, and and they can they can talk in such terms.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: So I see at the moment what an opportunity to actually unite discipleship and evangelism.
50:23
SPEAKER_02: Um because sometimes in our thinking, those two can be artificially separated, as though there's this distinct realm of evangelism, and then okay, now we pass over to the discipleship process, whereas people are just coming in with all the mess of their lives, and it just takes a long time to kind of walk through that in a am I making disciples, am I evangelizing?
50:43
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's the same thing, actually, biblically speaking.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: So we're sort of discovering something quite rich and and and precious in this moment.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: Um I'll I'll give you guys one last word each on um what you think the UK church can learn from this moment, and and you can speak to any of these or none of these issues, but it it seems like mission and discipleship, and also if you want to speak at all to the online space, um, because I I do see that that is having a big impact on some of these things, um how do do some of these developments make you think about mission, discipleship, the online space, or whatever final word you have for us?
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Sam.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: All right.
51:27
SPEAKER_00: That's uh a number of topics.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: Um let's go online space first.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: So I mean, as you were speaking just there, and I quite agree, Peter, that people do come in um and they come in with a lot of uh sort of uh you know understanding from uh things online.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: They've been watching church services online often before they come for the first time.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: That's a common phenomenon nowadays, I think.
51:48
SPEAKER_00: So it's quite fascinating in a way, you know, that kind of battle for hearts and minds has has gone on to the internet.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: Um and that's why, you know, things such as your podcast, uh, Glenn, and a whole load of uh of other content is out there.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's loads of stuff on Liganeer as well.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: And and people have come in and they've said, I I've seen so-and-so teacher online, I kind of you know, I was captivated.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's great, and there's a lot there, and yet there is also a whole host of people upon whom we we just have to have compassion.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's Jesus' response, isn't it?
52:20
SPEAKER_00: He he looks at the crowd when they come and and he has some compassion on them because they are those who are sheep without a shepherd.
52:28
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, that is the only response.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: I suppose that really leads into mission and discipleship, which is you know, the EA's report, particularly, just seems as though there are these people with beliefs that are uh are kind of you know pretty evangelical, resonant as well with evangelicalism.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: There's you know, even as you get towards the kind of fringes of that, there are people with attitudes that are similar to some of the biblical kind of norms for um you know marriage, for um kind of human sexuality, uh the human person creation.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: In a way, there's lots and lots of people out there who are actually kind of sympathetic and they're just waiting for an invitation to church.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: There's quite a lot of those people.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are people who are very hostile, and we also want to pursue those.
53:09
SPEAKER_00: But I think from these particular surveys, that seems to be one big takeaway.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Last thing on discipleship I'll say is you know, we you're right that there isn't an artificial distinction there.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: We don't know when the people in RPUs have become Christian.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes we know, sometimes there's a big moment, but often there isn't.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: And actually, it's just between those months when I heard that preaching and I heard Christ and I him and him crucified, I ultimately became a Christian.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: I gave my life to Christ.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: And sanctification is not a one and done process, is it?
53:44
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a lifelong process that we are all, all three of us, uh, and I'm certain all of the listeners uh are also going through.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, that is not a process of do-it-yourself, actually, and that's probably the biggest thing for um you know, for those who are in the kind of Jordan Peterson camp.
54:04
SPEAKER_00: In a way, he embodies uh a bit of the do-it-yourself attitude, and I think in a noble respect, but it has taken a toll on him and it's difficult.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: And I see that I think ultimately all of those human philosophies, these people are in need of a savior.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: They're not in need of a of a of a an effort of self-improvement wherever that comes from.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: And so basically that's also true for those being sacrificed in it.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: We are on an ongoing kind of we're we're we're going towards heaven as pilgrims, and ultimately we need to depend on Christ every step of the way.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:38
SPEAKER_02: To be truly evangelical, it means to be a gospel person, to center yourself on the evangel.
54:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh so yeah, let the evangel refresh us uh as believers, even as it reaches uh unbelievers as well.
54:50
SPEAKER_02: Peter, a final word from you.
54:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I think it might be Charles Taylor, and you might be quoting somebody else talks about doubters are tempted to believe and believers are tempted to doubt.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: And I do think both those things are true.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: We're seeing a lot of doubters in the broad sense really open to belief.
55:05
SPEAKER_01: So there's phenomenal openness.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: I do also see a lot of believers, a lot of people have been on the journey following Jesus for quite some time, also, if not tempted to doubt.
55:13
SPEAKER_01: Like I think Sam, the the ligonier work shows us with a kind of weird set of beliefs that they've picked up over time, and we certainly need to help them in the discipleship um journey around that.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: I think you're absolutely right, Glenn, about this making disciples, it's pulling together in this season evangelism and discipleship that we may be pulled apart uh artificially to some extent.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: And so I do think the chaos that we're living in, and we are living in chaotic times, it just seems crisis after crisis, and with lots of language you can put around it, a perma crisis, a polycrisis, whatever it is.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: There's nobody sitting around going, Life's brilliant, isn't it?
55:46
SPEAKER_01: I can just chill out and look if you need your Christianity over there, take your crutch.
55:50
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's like, life's carnage.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know how people do life without a grounding story, without a personal relationship with Jesus, and without a community of faith to kind of do that with.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: I just don't know how my friends honestly sometimes raise their kids and navigate life.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: I am so in need of all three of those things and so thankful.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: And I think this like what we have is so appealing in this moment and in the chaos that I just think what a wonderful time to be alive around that.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: And the in the end, the discipleship deficit that that I do think is there, the answer, in a sense, is not that complicated.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: As Sam says, it's going back to the basics, its creeds, its doctrines, it's speaking some of this stuff out, be it in our services and in our kind of just way we work through the text Sunday by Sunday and in small groups and in Bible courses and whatever else we do around that in our different traditions, and ultimately inviting people into community relationships with older generations, discipling younger generations.
56:47
SPEAKER_01: It's not that rocket science.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: Most of these young men don't actually want an argument about Christian nationalism or about manifesting, they want somebody to come alongside, show that they care, bring them into their home, model what marriage and family and good life looks like in a Jesus-centered Christian way rather than some abstract answer.
57:05
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what we are actually really well equipped to do.
57:08
SPEAKER_01: And I think there is an incredible season last thing.
57:11
SPEAKER_01: So in an online world, in an AI world, people are just fed up with AI.
57:14
SPEAKER_01: People are like, all I see is an AI email coming at me, selling me something.
57:18
SPEAKER_01: Next thing I just see an AI video.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: Is that really Gren Scriven or is it just an AI version of him selling me something?
57:24
SPEAKER_01: And uh there's an Irish entrepreneur and he said, What's the controversial thought that you had?
57:28
SPEAKER_01: And he said, We're going to return to in-person sales.
57:30
SPEAKER_01: And I guess what do you mean?
57:31
SPEAKER_01: And he said, like, we just don't trust this stuff anymore.
57:33
SPEAKER_01: We want somebody in front of us physically to talk to us.
57:36
SPEAKER_01: And and I said, thought to myself, if I use somewhat crass business language, who has the biggest in-person sales network in the world?
57:42
SPEAKER_01: It's the church.
57:43
SPEAKER_01: And it's sometimes laborious every Sunday to do this and to gather together and in the middle of the week and in all these little places all over and to keep these churches going.
57:52
SPEAKER_01: But we have this incredible in-person sales network, in-person gathering network.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: I'll change my language.
57:58
SPEAKER_01: We know it's moving from the business across.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: Gospeling.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: And at times it's really frustrating.
58:03
SPEAKER_01: It is really tedious sometimes to run.
58:05
SPEAKER_01: And I absolutely agree with you, Sam, but online entrance ways.
58:08
SPEAKER_01: But this is the thing, the authentic gathered people of God coming together, people are going to go, that's the only thing I actually now trust that's real.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to that thing where people are going to really sing, speak to me, take a physical meal together and do something going, I want that.
58:22
SPEAKER_01: And in that they will encounter Jesus and something real.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: There endeth my preach.
58:27
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
58:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it's a good amen.
58:30
SPEAKER_02: Hallelujah.
58:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh back in back in June uh at the art conference, I mean, Jordan Peterson not well enough to be at the art conference.
58:39
SPEAKER_02: And and is there a lesson there about the the burnouts that comes from from um self-help?
58:45
SPEAKER_02: But but there is his friend Jonathan Peugeot, and and he says, you know, Jordan would also always say tidier room.
58:51
SPEAKER_02: That's that's the message, tidier room, tidyer room.
58:53
SPEAKER_02: And and uh Jonathan said, I I say it a little bit differently, go to church.
58:58
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, go to church is the new tidier room.
59:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh and and it's a it's a more hopeful message.
59:04
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's not spectacular.
59:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, tidier room wasn't a spectacular message either.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: Go to church is not spectacular, um, but it is this breaking of bread, this fellowship together with one another, under the word, hearing the good news, walking together with Jesus.
59:19
SPEAKER_02: And as I was saying earlier today, I was doing some teaching on um Matthew chapter five.
59:24
SPEAKER_02: You know, Jesus it's very simple, isn't it?
59:27
SPEAKER_02: Mission is very simple.
59:28
SPEAKER_02: He just says, You are the light of the world.
59:31
SPEAKER_02: You know?
59:31
SPEAKER_02: Um a city on a hill um shouldn't get ashamed of itself, shouldn't get shy about itself.
59:38
SPEAKER_02: And no one buys a lamp and puts it under a bucket.
59:41
SPEAKER_02: Um except that you know churches we're constantly doing that.
59:44
SPEAKER_02: We we are the light of the world, but we we've we kind of hide ourselves under a bushel.
59:50
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus is like, just be who you are.
59:52
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't say burn brighter, he says you are the light.
59:55
SPEAKER_02: Um be who you are, and my goodness you will shine in into the darkness.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_02: And as you've both been saying, uh there is such a hunger right now.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: There is such chaos, as as Peter has said.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_02: Um there are there are people who just they just need the bread of life because they're hungry, they just need the light because they're in the darkness, they they just need Jesus, and we we have we have the solution.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: So let's keep on being church, let's keep on shining that light, and let's keep on preaching the evangel uh out there into the world.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh Peter, let us know um how can we find out more about the EA and this uh this report and and um yeah, how can how can they keep up with you?
1:00:36
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, eAuk.org is the website.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: Um you will find understanding evangelicals, our research there, and lots of resources like spiritual curiosity and how to engage this moment.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm on socials at Peter Lennis and uh on Twitter and on or X now, whatever it's called, and Instagram often talking about all these kind of cultural cultural issues because we're old, it's still Twitter, I agree.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: The pre-Elon name.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: And Sam.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so thestatoftheology.com forward slash UK.
1:01:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh is where you can find the survey.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_00: There's all sorts of things you can toggle if that uh brings you joy.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: But um, as for me, um, yeah, Sam Tonycliffe, if you can spell it, you'll be able to find me on uh socials.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_00: So there you go.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_02: Love it, love it, guys.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_02: You have encouraged us very much and and yeah, given us a dose of reality.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: We we don't need grabbing headlines, uh, but I think you've named some of what's going on and given us a vision for how we can move forward.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.