For decades, there has been a cultural narrative that the church is a declining institution, which has been backed up by data that shows fewer and fewer British people are attending services. You might expect churches to be busy over festivals like this past Easter weekend, or Christmas, but with otherwise sparse crowds and aging parishioners for the rest of the year.

However, a recent survey entitled The Quiet Revival, commissioned by the Bible Society and conducted by YouGov, shows that church attendance in England and Wales has actually increased by 50% over the past six years, and that young people aged between 18 and 24 are the second largest demographic in attendance (behind those who are 65 and over). The trend is especially strong with young men, with 21% aged 18 to 24 saying they attend church at least once a month, compared with 12% of young women. The data also shows that generation Z are particularly drawn to Roman Catholicism, which accounts for a significant rise in the number of Catholics in England, almost closing the overall gap between those who identify as Catholic and those who identify as Anglican.

England and Wales are not alone in seeing more young men attending church, with the New York Times religion correspondent, Ruth Graham, reporting that the same trend can be seen across the US. Graham is blunt in her proposed reason for this, stating that men are less educated than their female peers, while also placing a higher value on traditional family structures, meaning that they find encouragement and reinforcement in conservative church communities.

This is a somewhat unsympathetic reading of the circumstances, but when attempting to locate the possible influences on these young men, the landscape does look........

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