Humanism on Borrowed Capital
Andrew Copson’s short letter ‘There Is No Revival of Christianity in Britain’ in The Guardian would have been a familiar piece of secular confidence on any ordinary day. Published on Easter Sunday, however - the day Christians mark the resurrection of Jesus Christ - it landed differently. That is why I’ve decided to respond: not only because Copson’s argument rests on assumptions that deserve far firmer scrutiny, but because humanism is once again spending moral capital it did not mint.
The Moral Vision Humanism Didn’t Create
Take Copson’s key claim: that younger generations are turning away from religion and instead grounding their lives in “the humanist values of reason, kindness and personal responsibility”. This sounds fine - until you ask the obvious question: where did those values come from in the first place?
Humanism likes to present itself as morally self-sufficient, as though it simply discovered kindness by looking hard enough at the world. But historically, that is not what happened. The moral architecture humanists often appeal to - universal human dignity, the equal worth of persons, the moral obligation to care for the weak - was not generated by secular reason operating in a vacuum. It is the inheritance of a Christian civilisation.
The idea that every human being has equal and inviolable worth is not self-evident. It is, in fact, a profoundly specific claim, rooted in the Christian conviction that human beings are made in the image of God. Remove that foundation, and the language of dignity and rights does not become sturdier; it becomes harder to justify.
This matters because Copson’s argument subtly depends on the very tradition he is trying to sideline. He wants the fruits of Christianity - its moral clarity, its concern for the vulnerable - without acknowledging the roots that sustain them. That is not intellectual neutrality; it is historical amnesia.
What the Public Square Is Built On
On the public square, Copson argues that non-religious people should be recognised as a community with a positive ethical worldview and given equal standing. In one sense, this is uncontroversial - and Christians should have no interest in excluding others from public life.
But the argument quietly assumes something Copson doesn’t comment on: the nature of the public square itself. The kind of society Copson seems to be appealing to - a liberal democracy in which people of fundamentally different convictions can coexist, speak freely, and be protected in their beliefs - is not a historical inevitability. It rests on specific moral commitments: that individuals possess inherent dignity, that conscience should not be coerced, that power must be limited, and that even those we disagree with deserve equal standing under the law.
Those commitments did not arise in a vacuum. They emerged from a long moral and intellectual tradition in which Christian ideas about the person, conscience, and the limits of authority played a decisive role. The belief that each individual has equal and intrinsic worth, for example, is far more naturally grounded in the Christian conviction that human beings are made in the image of God than in a purely material account of reality.
None of this means that liberal democracy is “owned” by Christianity, nor that non-Christians cannot sincerely support it. Of course they can. But it does mean that the freedoms Copson rightly values are not self-explanatory. They depend on moral assumptions that have been historically formed - and still quietly sustained - by the Christian vision of the human person.
This is often one of my problems with the humanist project. It insists on equal standing in a public square whose moral architecture it did not build, while offering no clear account of why its central commitments - dignity, equality, rights - should remain binding if detached from the worldview that gave them coherence in the first place.
So yes, humanists should have a voice in public life. But a more honest conversation would acknowledge that the conditions which make that possible are neither neutral nor inevitable - and that Christianity remains far more integral to them than most humanists admit.
Selective Decline and the Real Religious Landscape
Then there is the question of decline and “revival”. Copson is within his rights to criticise the “Quiet Revival” report (and I have written about YouGov’s error here, where still affirming the general trends that the Bible Society’s original commentary identified). Unreliable data should be challenged. But Copson proceeds to make a similar mistake in reverse - treating a particular dataset as if it settles the entire question.
His reliance on Church of England figures is especially revealing. Although I know many Anglican churches that are thriving, it is the case that the Church of England as a whole is presently shrinking. But, regardless, this is not synonymous with the whole story of Christianity in the UK, and treating it as such is to misunderstand the landscape entirely.
There are indeed areas of growth elsewhere: in Pentecostal churches, in Roman Catholic parishes, in Orthodox communities, in many other evangelical congregations - in fact, churches across traditions are quietly noting new attendees and renewed interest. These are not marginal footnotes; they are a significant part of the story. By dismissing them, Copson ends up doing precisely what he criticises - drawing sweeping conclusions from selective evidence.
Beyond statistics, there are cultural signals that cannot be dismissed. Reports of Gen Z exploring faith are becoming increasingly common - and I’m seeing this firsthand. Across politics, too, there’s been a noticeable willingness to speak positively about Christianity; a quick look at party social media over Easter makes that clear. And the same pattern shows up in places that once felt firmly secular: athletes talking openly about prayer, broadcasters treating faith as a normal part of public life, and media figures speaking about belief without the old embarrassment.
Clearly, none of this proves a full-scale revival. But it does suggest that the standard narrative of inevitable decline no longer captures the whole picture.
The Story Secularism Wants - and the Reality It Can’t Explain
What Copson’s letter ultimately rests on is a familiar narrative: religion fades, humanism rises, and the future is secular. It is a story that has been told for decades - and yet reality stubbornly refuses to conform.
The UK is not simply becoming less religious; it is becoming more complex. Old institutions are indeed weakening, but that is not the same as faith disappearing. In many places, it is reappearing in new forms, among new people, with a confidence the secularisation thesis struggles to explain. Even the growing number who describe themselves as non‑religious are not, for the most part, committed humanists. Many are simply drifting. And drift, for all its sociological interest, is not a worldview.
A more honest account would admit two things at once: that secularisation is real, and that it is not the whole story. If humanism wants to be taken seriously as a moral vision, it must do more than assert its values. It must explain them - and explain why, in a purely secular universe, they should bind any of us at all. Christianity still speaks with a clarity and depth the UK’s moral imagination has not outgrown, and it provides the roots for values that cannot survive on sentiment alone.