As the Premier League and Prime Minister question the prominence of betting companies, Hannah Rich reflects on the knotty ethics of the gambling industry and the need for regenerated community spaces. 14/08/2026

When the Premier League returns next weekend for 2026–27, there will be a conspicuous absence: front–of–shirt gambling sponsors, which have been collectively banned from this season.

You might be forgiven for not noticing, given the plethora of opportunities that will still abound for betting companies to promote themselves, from pitchside hoarding to shirt sleeves (but crucially only the sleeves) and incessant ad–breaks during televised games. But still, it is a gesture in the right direction, in recognition of quite how ridden with gambling the sport has become.

Elsewhere this week, betting shops were one of the entities that Prime Minister Andy Burnham took aim at in his announcement of plans to improve high streets. Town centres, he said, had been “hollowed out” by years of economic decline and in many communities, high streets are unloved and “unrecognisable”. The proliferation of betting shops is part of that, along with vape shops, mini–marts and barbers, all of which councils will be given greater powers to regulate.

There are three times as many gambling premises (including casinos and gaming centres) in the most economically deprived local authorities than there are in the least deprived areas, and betting shops account for the majority of these. A government review in 2023 found that the cost to the UK economy of the societal and health–related harms of gambling was an estimated £1.05 to £1.77 billion, also disproportionately concentrated in already disadvantaged population groups. There is also a litany of evidence for the negative socioeconomic and physical health outcomes of problem gambling in particular. (Closing or limiting the number of physical betting shops is not a panacea; moving gambling online further reduces the social aspect and accountability of the industry, such as it is, and does nothing to tackle the associated harms.)

Conversely, I come from a city where almost everything from the cancer unit in the hospital to the local hospice, and countless other community projects, has received funding thanks to the beneficence and philanthropy of the Coates family, founders of the Bet365 gambling empire. As the potbanks and manufacturers have closed, one by one, Bet365 is now also the largest local employer in the Staffordshire Potteries. Through their charitable foundations, they have given away millions of pounds, much of it directly to the communities where their business is headquartered, where employees live and where the Bet365 brand is itself a byword for the local football club and ground they own. (Somewhat ludicrously, even the road signs directing away day visitors to the Bet365 stadium effectively function as free advertising for the betting company, and being in the lowly Championship this season means they are still free to advertise on the team’s shirts.)

Bet 365 Stadium in Stoke–on–Trent, Andy Sumner/Focus Images Ltd/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

The ethics of gambling funding health care, directly or otherwise, are knotty. At a time when the patchwork of access to palliative care is in the spotlight, it is problematic to say the least that there are parts of the country where hospice provision and a good death is reliant on the proceeds of others gambling away their livelihoods. There is virtue in philanthropy, to be sure, but at what cost? I am not convinced that the charitable contribution of the Coates family and other industry giants like them even begins to erase the human and economic costs and harms of gambling. Almost everyone in Stoke knows someone who has been treated at the cancer unit or the hospice, but almost everyone also knows someone whose life has been ruined on some level by gambling.

Ahead of the budget last autumn, when the government mooted increasing some forms of taxation on the gambling industry, a startling argument emerged in its defence. Far from being dens of iniquity, it went, betting shops are the new community hubs and their workers the new Samaritans. “Our betting shops are sanctuaries. I worry for the men if we close,” ran the headline of a Times article which lauded the contribution of the shops’ staff to the health and wellbeing of their customers. It painted the workers – overwhelmingly middle–aged women – as akin to social workers, with their shops being the only place many of their regulars could stay warm amid a cost–of–living crisis and soaring heating bills. It was an astonishing piece, and one I have found myself thinking about frequently ever since.

Admittedly, this is not an entirely new phenomenon. When my uncle, who ran a bookies’ shop on a less than salubrious Scottish high street, died a decade ago, the local newspaper announcement of his death read ‘late of’ followed by the name of the shop rather than the place he called home so that his regulars could come and pay their respects.

But if the argument that we owe betting shops a debt for their community contribution has any truth to it, then the hollowing out of the high street is far worse than even Andy Burnham fears. Recent polling from More in Common found that the public are more likely to say that they would prefer to see an empty shop front than a gambling shop on their high street. Not only is closing or limited betting shops likely to be popular therefore, but it suggests the public already recognise the flaw in the argument that such premises have community benefit. An empty shop, after all, contributes nothing to the economy or to the quality of life locally, but at least it does less harm.

There is a need, however, to go beyond this and build spaces that genuinely add to communities, rather than sucking the life out of them. For many of us, faith communities and their buildings naturally fulfil this role, and the Co-operative Party’s effort to revive the social clubs that were once the beating heart of communities also responds to the need for shared community spaces.

We cannot resign ourselves to a world where betting shops are the last bastions against the loneliness epidemic, and the gambling industry our strongest hope of regeneration in cities like Stoke. It is not just a crisis of local business or of micro–economic growth, but a crisis of community itself, and one of human dignity. Real regeneration means creating places of belonging that do not depend on people losing money in order for others to survive.

I would celebrate if high streets followed the front of football shirts in the list of places where gambling is no longer welcome, but I would celebrate even more if it was accompanied by the regeneration of the sort of community spaces, relationships and human connection that we are sorely in need of.

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Where could studying Theology and Religious Studies take you? 13/08/2026

Choosing a degree is about what prepares you for a world shaped by technological change, global connection, and deep differences in belief and identity. Theology and Religious Studies (TRS) speaks directly to that world. 

TRS graduates go on to careers in law, journalism, policy, education, the civil service, finance, and the charitable sector. They’re valued for their ability to analyse complex information, communicate clearly, and handle disagreement with care. At the same time, TRS is intellectually engaging, bringing together philosophy, history, ethics, politics, and culture in a single field. 

You can read the resource in full here.

What you study 

TRS explores how beliefs shape individuals and societies. You might examine ethical and philosophical questions, study religious traditions, analyse texts, or explore religion’s role inpublic life. 

A typical course includes topics such as religion and artificial intelligence, medical ethics, philosophy, religion and climate change, or freedom of speech. Courses vary across universities, and you do not need A–level Religious Studies to apply. 

Why it matters now 

Religion and belief continue to influence public life. Understanding how belief shapes identity, language, and conflict is increasingly important. 

Public debates often show how easily complex issues are misunderstood. TRS develops religious literacy: the ability to interpret beliefs carefully without reducing them to stereotypes. This matters in fields such as healthcare, law, education, journalism, and public service. 

It also matters in a digital world shaped by social media, misinformation, and new technologies. TRS equips you to ask better questions and navigate these changes thoughtfully. 

The big questions 

TRS explores questions such as: What is a good life? Why do people search for meaning? How do ideas of justice, dignity, and personhood develop? 

These questions shape debates in medicine, law, politics, and culture. TRS gives you the space to explore them seriously and with curiosity. 

Skills and future paths 

TRS develops highly valued skills: critical analysis, clear communication, and careful argument. 

Graduates move into roles such as policy adviser, journalist, teacher, lawyer, civil servant, consultant, or work in NGOs and public service. Employers value the ability to interpret complexity and respond thoughtfully to different perspectives. 

Ethics, connection, and understanding 

TRS is especially valuable where ethical judgement matters, including law, medicine, and public policy. It helps you understand how beliefs and values shape decisions, trust, communication, and care. 

It also connects different subjects. Ideas about belief run through literature, politics, history, philosophy, and art. TRS helps you see how these areas interact – and how questions of identity, power, and meaning often come together. 

A subject that opens questions 

TRS offers something distinctive: the chance to engage seriously with ideas and reflect on questions that shape human life. 

If you want to understand the world, TRS is worth serious consideration. It develops both intellectual depth and practical skill, preparing you for a range of careers and for thoughtful participation in a complex society. 

Want to find out more? Find out more and discover testimonies from TRS graduates here.

In collaboration with

This pamphlet was produced in partnership with Theology & Religious Studies in Higher Education (TRS–UK), the professional association for departments, units and subject associations of the study of religion and theology in the UK. With grateful thanks to Dr Tim Hutchings.

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Nick Spencer unpacks the relationship between environmental problems and democratic problems. 06/08/2026

Greetings. I write to you on day 5,379 of the Great Drought. We at Theos are surviving on the occasional eggcup full of stagnant rainwater, while we watch footage of southern England ablaze, and stare longingly at photographs of something The Elders tell us was once called “grass”. We hope you’re coping too. 

A joke, of course, but not an especially funny one. As I write, half of England (and all of Wales) is in drought, having received about 3% of long–term average rainfall in July; the fire service is responding to 19 active wildfire incidents in the UK; huge tracts of France, Spain and Greece are burning; and the temperature is again predicted to hit the high thirties across most of central Europe this week. And then there’s also the rest of the world.  

We can expect more to come. The young Bart Simpson once complained to Homer, “This is the worst day of my life”, to which his father sagely replied, “The worst day of your life so far.” Wags have memeified the exchange for climate change.  

“We all know what to do,” the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean–Claude Juncker, is supposed to have remarked. “We just don’t know how to get re–elected after we’ve done it.” He was talking about economic reform and democracy, but if any arena owns this aphorism, it is climate change. We know what causes climate change. We know what we need to do to slow it (we can’t stop it now). But it is a super–wicked problem – combining all the classic problems of collective action, short–term cost vs long–term benefit, and extreme pathway dependency (the problem is essentially embedded in our daily lives). The environmental problem is, perhaps more so, a democratic problem. 

Alas, we’re not exactly suffering from a surfeit of democratic trust at the moment. Theos research, to be published later this year, has found some eyebrow–raising results among the British population when it comes to the question of whether we need a “strong man” political leader who is “prepared to break the rules.” The virtues of pluralism, political patience, and democratic deliberation have seen their stock fall over recent decades. 

But if the environmental crisis unfolds into a democratic one, the democratic one unfolds into a human one. Whatever ails our politics, its unlikely to be fixed by tweaks to the electoral machine, or even by the election of Count Binface in Clacton, epochal as that may prove. Democracy rests on pre–political foundations and, as Jonathan Sumption recently argued, “even the most carefully designed democracy can be subverted once the underlying spirit has gone.” 

Over a decade ago, in his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis wrote: 

“We urgently need a humanism capable of bringing together the different fields of knowledge, including economics, in the service of a more integral and integrating vision. Today, the analysis of environmental problems cannot be separated from the analysis of human, family, work–related and urban contexts, nor from how individuals relate to themselves, which leads in turn to how they relate to others and to the environment.” (#141) 

He was spot on. The pressures of the hour call for (what he describes elsewhere in the encyclical as) “a genuine and profound humanism to serve as the basis of a noble and generous society”. (#181) Thankfully, there are signs of this emerging. 

For a depressingly long time, many Christians were resistant to the green movement, because they saw it as pagan, and resistant to humanism, because they saw it as anti–religious (despite its deep Christian intellectual roots). As noted, Laudato Si’ ended the long drought of encyclical letters on environmental themes by rooting creation care in integral humanism. More recently, in 2020, Francis wrote in Fratelli tutti about “faith, and the humanism it inspires”, while just this year Pope Leo XIV’s much–lauded encyclical Magnifica humanitas pitted Christian humanism, against hubristic post– and transhumanism, insisting the while Christian humanism does “not reject science or technology, but embraces them with gratitude and realism”, it does so with the “higher vocation” of true human flourishing in its sights. (#129) 

Earlier this year, a few members of the Theos team spoke at a conference, held at Washington National Cathedral and attended by over a thousand delegates, about Christian humanism and its potential to transform society. Later in the summer, Prof Luke Bretherton, who gave the keynote speech in Washington, assembled an academic conference in Oxford to discuss Reimagining Humanism. The historian of ideas Jens Zimmerman is about to publish a fascinating book on What is Christian humanism? 

In other words, there is momentum here, as more and more people become aware of the way in which the current storms that are buffeting societies across the world are generated by deep weather patterns, originating miles away, in which the most fundamental questions that face human beings – who am I? who are we? to whom (and what) do we have a responsibility? and why? – are worked through. 

As friends of Theos will know, this has been a theme in our work for many years now, linking theology (and, in particular, theological anthropology – the question of who I am, posed in the light of Christ) to everyday affairs. You can watch our most recent event on this topic, held at the National Gallery, in which Rowan Williams, Marcus du Sautoy, Ayla Lepine, Nathan Mladin, and Chine McDonald discuss “Art, creativity and what it means to be human in the age of AI” here. And you can also book to come to our next one, in September, on “Faith in Democracy”, in partnership with, and held at Westminster Abbey, here. 

And as ever, there is a wealth of articles, longreads and reports on the Theos website, including our project uncovering the spiritual, social and political impact of motherhood (Motherhood, Inside Out), another of Emily Downe’s brilliant animations Making a Mother, and (sorry for the plug and even sorrier for the price; I didn’t make the decision) my forthcoming book that applies a Christian humanist lens to the question of future of welfare in the UK. 

Happy August.

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Coco Parkinson–Huggins & George Lapshynov review Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’. What if the stranger we should fear is ourselves? 04/08/2026

Why do stories written nearly three thousand years ago still captivate us today? Because the greatest stories are rarely about the past: they become mirrors in which every generation sees itself.

Few stories have proved more enduring in this respect than Homer’s Odyssey. Enter Christopher Nolan’s take on it, a blockbuster and star–studded screen adaptation of one of the most famous and influential stories in the Western cultural canon. It is perhaps unsurprising that Nolan decided to make his own version of the poem. As classicist Emily Wilson and others have argued, themes of journeying, homecoming, meaning and, indeed, a sense of man (and, in Nolan’s case, only ever of man) standing on the edge of world–historical change, are deeply Nolan–esque, from Interstellar to Dunkirk and Oppenheimer.

These are themes of Nolan’s work for a reason; they speak deeply to our contemporary moment. Whether it is the nonchalance with which tech giants affirm that AI may well destroy humanity, what appears to be the ever–deepening polarisation of politics, or the increasing frequency of climate change–related disasters, there is a strong sense that we are collectively on the edge.

That atmosphere permeates Nolan’s Odyssey. Hanging throughout the film is a sense of impending crisis. Within the story’s historical context, this takes the form of the Bronze Age Collapse. Within our contemporary context, to which the story alludes, it refers to notions of a collapse of the West (whether perceived or actual). Characters whisper about the approaching “people from the sea”, mysterious outsiders who will bring about the end of their civilisation. The mood is unmistakably eschatological, and it is difficult not to hear in it echoes of the End Times, including the biblical language of judgement and endings.

What struck us most, however, was what this impending coming of “the people from the sea” was accompanied by: the breakdown of “Zeus’s law”. Whilst questions of travel, migration and the encounters with strangers are certainly strong themes in Homer’s original, Nolan arguably makes xenía, the sacred duties between host and guest, far more explicitly the moral axis of the story. Indeed, Nolan’s depiction of Zeus’s law bears a striking resemblance to biblical ideas of hospitality, as Krish Kandiah and others have pointed out. If the Odyssey has shaped the minds of most Western writers for centuries, then so have biblical stories which repeatedly present the stranger as a figure through whom God (Genesis 18, Matthew 25) and his angels (Hebrews 13) may be encountered. 

Across Nolan’s film, there is a persistent sense that this moral order is fraying. In much the same way, contemporary political language across both the Left and the Right in Britain is filled with anxiety about the erosion of the moral assumptions on which our common life depends. Whether expressed through concerns about the “rules–based international order” governing global cooperation, the decline of trust in public institutions, or the loss of a shared national cultural inheritance, depending on one’s priorities, there is a seemingly universal sense that something which once held society together is becoming harder to sustain. Can a society survive when trust and hospitality cease to be? The Odyssey offers an imperfect (and somewhat gratuitously violent) but compelling parable of what happens when our common life is no longer rooted in shared moral commitments.

In this context, the Trojan horse is not only a brilliant military trick; it is portrayed as a sacrilege against hospitality, an attack on what holds society together. It becomes, argues Joseph Earp, the moment when trust breaks down, when a horse is no longer simply a horse and appearances can no longer be believed. Not simply the lies we tell, but the institutions, technologies and political projects that promise security or prosperity while quietly corroding the trust on which societies rest.

The irony is that through its shallowing and blockbuster–ing of much of its characters, the film undercuts the very themes it wishes to explore. The female characters from Penelope through to Calypso are all but hollowed out. Even the choice to parachute some of Hollywood’s biggest names into leading roles distracts from the serious themes it wishes to discuss. Meanwhile, the film’s breathtaking photography and the scale of the production overwhelm the human stories of suffering it intends to honour.

And yet Nolan’s central insight lingers after leaving the cinema. There is a realisation at the end of the film that Odysseus himself is one of the harbingers of destruction menacing society. Nolan reframes his Odysseus as haunted by guilt where Homer’s is famously cunning, ambitious, and morally ambiguous. The obstacles keeping Nolan’s Odysseus from home are not merely storms, monsters, or hostile gods, but his own conscience. In many respects, he becomes a kind of prodigal son: not merely longing for home but seeking restoration after the devastation he has helped to bring about.

Just as he does not realise that it is his own acts of destruction on this journey home that are contributing to its tearing it apart, the film calls us to reflect – in a somewhat heavy–handed way – on how the forces eroding our own common life are not only beyond our borders but also within our own habits, institutions, and actions. Every civilisation fears the stranger. Nolan asks a more uncomfortable question: what if the stranger we should fear is ourselves?

Perhaps that is why The Odyssey still matters. It reminds us that every civilisation eventually faces the same question: not simply whether it can defend itself, but whether it still remembers the moral vision that made it worth defending.

Nolan’s film cannot fully answer that question. It remains, ultimately, a Greek tragedy in which violence restores order only temporarily. Christianity offers a different ending, one in which homecoming comes not through vengeance but through grace.

Even so, Nolan leaves us with an important warning. The forces capable of unravelling a civilisation are not always waiting beyond our borders. More often, they begin within us, whenever trust gives way to suspicion, hospitality to fear, and our shared moral imagination begins to fade. The question is, what are our Trojan horses?

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The third of our 20th anniversary events held in Westminster Abbey.

In collaboration with the Westminster Abbey Institute, leading thinkers will examine how people of all faiths and none can help strengthen the future of democracy.

Chaired by broadcaster Mishal Husain, hear from a distinguished panel including Dame Caroline Spelman, Vicky Fox, Dr Nick Spencer, and the Revd Dr James Hawkey about the prominent role faith has played in the evolution of British democracy. Together, they will consider what trust means at a time when political debate is frequently fractured, how citizens with profoundly different convictions can find common ground, and what it takes to disagree well when divisions run deep. In an increasingly pluralist and multi faith society, what are the shared values that can continue to sustain public trust and democratic consent?

As the UK’s democracy continues to evolve, join the conversation this Autumn about democracy’s past, present, and future.

Find out more and get tickets here.

About Theos 20

To celebrate 20 years of shaping public debate on religion and society, Theos are hosting a year–long programme of lectures, events, and ideas that looks ahead as much as it looks back, asking how faith, values, and moral reasoning can contribute to a more humane, trustworthy, and hopeful public life in the decades to come.

Interested in this? Share it on social media. Join our monthly e–newsletter to keep up to date with our latest research and events. And check out our Supporter Programme to find out how you can help our work. 

Join us for a live recording of The Sacred Podcast with Elizabeth Oldfield in conversation with author and journalist Jamie Bartlett.

How do we remain thoughtful, free, and deeply human in a world of AI?

AI is changing far more than the way we work. It’s reshaping how we find information, form opinions, build relationships, and understand the world around us. As the internet fills with AI–generated content, what happens to truth? To democracy? And ultimately, to us?

For more than a decade, journalist and Author, Jamie Bartlett has been uncovering how the internet is reshaping our identities, relationships, and society. From social media algorithms and online extremism to misinformation, surveillance, and the future of democracy.

Jamie is the bestselling voice behind The Dark Net, The People vs Tech, The Missing Cryptoqueen, and most recently Endgame: Can We Live with Artificial General Intelligence? His most recent book is, How to Talk to AI (and how not to).

Elizabeth Oldfield is a writer, speaker, and author of the book Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. She is the host of The Sacred podcast, where she engages guests from a wide range of backgrounds in thoughtful conversations about their core values, beliefs, and the ideas that shape them.

We’d love you to join us for a human, honest and curious conversation about one of the defining questions of our time.

Doors open at 7:00 pm with the live recording kicking off at 7:30 pm, so please ensure you are seated by then. Complimentary drinks and nibbles will be available after.

The conversation will be followed by a Q&A, after which the bar will be open.

There will be plenty of opportunity to chat and connect after the event, so we hope you’ll be able to stick around for that.

Use the promo SACRED–EARLY–BIRD to get your ticket for £12! (Promo ends on 08/08 at 23:59)

Find out more and get tickets here.

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Analysis of the main quantitative findings from our UK motherhood research. 30/07/2026

Motherhood is one of the most significant transitions a woman can experience. It can reshape identity, relationships, priorities and, for many women, how they see the world itself. Yet it remains surprisingly under–researched and is often undervalued in public life.

This report accompanies the Motherhood, Inside Out research project, unpacking its main quantitative findings. In Spring 2026, Theos and the Bible Society commissioned Ipsos to undertake a survey of women aged 18 to 75 across Great Britain. A representative sample of 4,458 women responded to the online survey and, of these, 3,606 women consented to proceed with the survey (having been notified that it contained questions about religion and health). The sample included 2,112 “Mothers”, who we have defined as those who identified themselves as biological mothers, adoptive mothers or step–mothers.

Fieldwork took place between 24th April and 14th May 2026. We asked women how they saw the value of, and economic and cultural support for, parenting, before asking the mothers specifically how their thinking and identity had shifted since having children. The findings reveal that motherhood can transform women from the inside out.

— Changing identity, relationships and community

Over a quarter of mothers (27%) said they were (a lot or a little) less likely to feel valued by society since becoming a mother, while 36% were more likely to feel lonely. Yet the same proportion (36%) said they were more likely to feel authentic or true to themselves, and 34% were more likely to feel connected to their local community since becoming a mum.

— A complex emotional picture was a feature running throughout the data.

Mothers associated childcare itself with a range of emotions. The top positive emotions were rewarding (64%), enjoyable (60%) and heartwarming (57%), and the top negative were challenging (59%), tiring (53%) and exhausting (50%). Other responses included overwhelming (40%), lonely (25%), thought–provoking (24%) and awe–inspiring (20%), reflecting the intensity of the experience for some women.

— Navigating existential and spiritual shifts

Alongside high proportions of mothers who said they thought (a lot or a little) more about family (76%), education (72%) and their local community (52%) since becoming a mother, 65% said they thought more about death, 44% thought more about politics, and 27% thought more about God or spirituality.

— Facing life’s biggest questions

Some 56% of mothers agreed they had engaged in thought–provoking discussions about life’s big questions with their children, rising to 67% among parents of secondary–school–aged children.

The findings also point to motherhood as a political issue, not simply a personal one.

— The economic value of parenting

Some 72% of women agreed that time spent looking after children at home is “as vital to the economy as time spent working in paid employment”. Agreement rose to 78% among mothers, compared with 64% among women who are not parents or guardians.

— Who pays the cost?

Some 76% of women (and 81% of women with a child under 18, compared to 71% of non–parent/guardians) agreed that being a mum can limit career opportunities for women, while only 11% said the same about dads.

— Support for new parents

Some 66% of women agreed that the UK government should do more to support new parents and guardians.

— Motherhood as a politicising experience

Women with children under the age of 18 were consistently more likely than those who are not a parent or legal guardian to feel that new mums do not receive enough in–person support from healthcare professional services (44% vs. 31%), local authorities (53% vs, 43%), and their local/wider community (51% vs. 41%).

— Motherhood rituals

When asked about interest in formal rituals or ceremonies to mark a woman’s transition to motherhood (focusing on them as the mother), 29% were “very” or “fairly” interested. Interest was highest among mothers with a religion (37%), younger mothers aged 18–34 (41%) and mothers of children aged 0–3 (43%) – factors which may be interlinked to various extents.

Taken as a whole, the findings explored in this report speak to a potentially under–supported social role – but as explored further in our separate qualitative report, they also hint at an existential shift that is far more complex and wide–reaching than is acknowledged in ordinary depictions of motherhood, entailing social, political, and even spiritual impacts on the women who go through it.

You can read the report in full here.

About the data

If you want to know more about the survey, undertaken by Ipsos, you can find the data tables here.

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Esmé Partridge shares the stories of young Christian converts from new report with the Church of England. 27/07/2026

To grow up in the world today – to grow up online – is to experience culture as a dizzying kaleidoscope of images and ideologies. The beliefs and values held by young people are rarely ones they have inherited, but rather chosen from the vast array of options in a postmodern, digital age: wellness culture, alternative spirituality, “manifestation”, self–optimisation, therapy TikTok, financial gurus, the manosphere.

Yet a curious feature of this strange new world is that it can also throw up ancient ideas and timeless truths in places where they are least expected. In a climate where anything goes, beliefs previously thought outdated or irrelevant may find new expressions and new legitimacy. Even Christianity may become a viable option once again, even if it is only one of many possibilities for spiritual exploration. In this sense the digital world may be seen as the culmination of what sociologist Zygmunt Bauman called ‘liquid modernity’, in which all socially dominant narratives – including secularism itself – have melted away.

This was the experience of many of the young adults Theos interviewed for its new report on young adult journeys to church, who have found faith in what might seem like unlikely and surprising circumstances. The report, published last week by the Church of England, brings together the stories of thirty 18–30 year olds who have found a spiritual home in Anglicanism. Most of these journeys were long and winding. They did not come about because the Church of England was the default option or something they were familiar with from their upbringing.  Instead, having grown up in mostly secular or other religious families, they came through their own personal explorations, most beginning online and out of the postmodern supernova of belief. Sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly, they became open to the idea of Christianity – often having previously held very different views.

Some of these young people had previously been militant atheists, describing having a “teenage atheist phase” before later coming to faith. Farid*, a medical student in his early twenties from a Muslim family, developed strong opinions against religion having spent his early teens on the Reddit forum R/atheism and watching YouTube videos from the likes of Richard Dawkins and Alex O’Connor. “These guys hard launched my atheism in my teens”, he explained. Other men had said they had been enticed by right–wing manosphere influencers and the ideas of self–improvement they promoted. One 18 year old described how he got into bodybuilding, believing that “if you just get muscly, you’ll be happy”.

Others, particularly among the women interviewed, said they had previously dabbled in alternative spirituality. Many commented on the popularity of astrology and manifestation on social media, especially during the Covid pandemic. Abby*, a 24 year old nurse from the East Midlands, described how through encountering New Age spirituality and tarot cards on Instagram, she put her trust in “the universe” rather than God because “that was just what was accessible to me at that time”. She explained that her generation were drawn to these spiritualities because they were searching for some meaning or guiding purpose in life, making them open to just about anything. Among Gen–Z, one 19 year old convert said, “there’s just a longing for truth”.

There were others who pursued this longing for truth in religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. Whilst at university, Dom*, a 24 year old from Surrey, stayed up all night listening to talks by the Eastern religious philosopher Alan Watts. Others had been interested in Islam, which another young man said “opened up my mind to what God was as an idea” years before he considered Christianity.

It was sometimes through these other ideas that people, accidentally or otherwise, eventually found Christianity. Marina*, a 25 year old who works in a nursery, had followed alternative spirituality. But one day, a spiritual influencer she had been following on Instagram posted a Christian testimony out of the blue. Seeing her renounce her previous occult beliefs, Marina said, “sparked my curiosity but also scared me…I just never really considered that they were opposing [spiritual] forces”. This revelation led Marina to buy a Bible. In reading it she found deep solace and felt called to explore further, eventually deciding to attend a church near her.

There were others who stumbled across Christian content randomly – or perhaps providentially. Becky*, a young mum from the South West who grew up with an atheist mother and satanist sister, described how one day her phone “started showing me loads of TikToks and Facebook posts, all to do with Christianity”. She thought “OK, I’ll watch a few.” But realising that she “found so much peace and joy” in watching the videos, she kept clicking, “end[ing] up down this rabbit hole of sermons and speeches”. In retrospect, Becky says, this content suddenly appearing on her feed can only be explained by providence; what she described as “the Holy Spirit moving through the algorithm”.

Similar stories included Jake*, a 22 year old aspiring entrepreneur, who only became curious about faith after watching livestreamers on the gaming platform Twitch who mentioned being Christian. For Carmen*, a gap year student in the Midlands, it was seeing an artist she followed on Instagram post paintings inspired by Bible stories that inspired her to go deeper into Christianity, turning what had initially been a purely intellectual curiosity into a personal one.

The result for many people was a period of deep exploration that went beyond short–form online content and into longer podcasts, articles and books. These young people, whether or not they had been to university, were remarkably autodidactic. They spent hours watching theological YouTube channels like “Pints with Aquinas”, studying contemporary theologians like David Bentley Hart, and even reading Christian novelists like Dostoyevsky. These explorations carried them a long way on their spiritual journey, with many seriously considering becoming Christian at this stage.

However, strikingly, these explorations alone did not tend to convert them. Despite first discovering faith in a highly postmodern, virtual way, the deeper spiritual shifts that people described almost always occurred through a personal relationship or real–life encounter. For example, Owen*, a 28 year old from Yorkshire, had been researching the religious beliefs of J.R.R. Tolkien, being a lifelong fan of The Hobbit (with a Lord of the Rings sleeve tattoo to prove it). But it was only after passing his local parish priest in the street one day and getting to know him that he seriously thought about becoming a Christian himself. He described spending hours talking to the vicar, who offered personal guidance and answered his many questions. It was through this relationship that Owen’s curiosity grew into church attendance and, eventually, baptism.

Similarly, Jamilah*, a postgraduate medical student, had also been thinking about Christianity independently, but only made the decision to go to church after forming a close relationship with a pastoral support officer at her university. From housemates and partners to teachers and childminders, almost every story involved some individual who played a decisive role in the journey to church, providing a living example of faith, hope and joy.  

Others were transformed by emotional and spiritual encounters they had upon entering a church for the first time. For Dylan*, a recent English graduate, it was stepping into a medieval parish church and seeing rainbow light beaming through the stained glass windows that first awakened his sense of the numinous. “I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen”, he said. “I didn’t quite know what to do with the feeling…so I kept going back to that church”. At his first service there, he went up to the altar and described feeling an “overwhelming love” while receiving a blessing. He now goes to that church every Sunday, sings in the choir, and was recently baptised there.

Another student who came to church through her university’s Christian Union described going along to a service for the first time and being suddenly and unexpectedly moved by its “atmosphere of safety, people being so vulnerable…but so joyful…it was just an environment that I had never experienced before.” For her and others, it was these real–life spiritual encounters – of kindness, goodness, beauty and truth – that brought them into the Church.

What might these findings tell us about young adult journeys to faith today, in the Church of England and beyond? It is certainly true that the channels through which people discover Christianity in a digital age are novel and unpredictable. And yet, what is striking about these stories is that what really moved people – what turned them to Christ – were real relationships, real places, and real experiences. It was encountering the beauty of a sacred space; receiving a warm welcome from a congregation; spending hours talking with clergy and being able to ask them questions. The spark of curiosity may come from somewhere new, but the factors that sustain faith are unchanging – they are rooted, relational and timeless.

*All names were changed for the purposes of this research.

You can read The Church of England report ‘Understanding young adult journeys to faith’ here.

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Lucy Jones unpacks our new research on motherhood for the Guardian. 27/07/2026

”We hear about the ruinous effect of low birthrates, but comparatively little of the difficulties mothers face.” 

Lucy Jones writes for The Guardian unpacking the findings from our new report Motherhood, Inside Out and what the experiences of new mothers reveals about our current value system.

Read the article here. 

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Nick Spencer was quoted in the Guardian on how a Catholic Prime Minister will play out in our wider culture. 25/07/2026

Nick Spencer was quoted in Guardian article by Aamna Mohdin, unpacking the differences between Christianity in politics in the US vs the UK in light of new PM Andy Burnham’s Catholic faith. 

“Nick Spencer, a senior fellow at the thinktank Theos, said he believed there were many reasons why we were seeing such different expressions of Christian politics in the UK and US.

“Culture war politics really thrives on a narrative of exclusion,” he said. “But its much harder to argue that you are being socially, culturally and politically marginalised as a Christian in this country. If you crown the head of state, if you have 26 bishops in the Lords, you are already quite close to the heart of power.” In the US, he said, pastors were able to take their congregations in different political directions because the church landscape was much more fragmented. 

Read the full article in the Guardian here.

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Chine McDonald reflects on the life and legacy of Broadcaster and Journalist, Edward Stourton. 21/07/2026

It was rare for broadcaster Edward Stourton’s name to appear without being prefaced by the word ‘veteran’. His style steady, his voice instantly recognisable, Stourton represented the best of British broadcasting and, in particular for us, a British broadcasting that took religion seriously. This week, he died at the age of 68, and tributes have been pouring in.

Born in Nigeria in 1957, Stourton was educated at Ampleforth College before going up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read English Literature. His career started as a trainee at ITN and then a founder member of the Channel 4 News team before becoming a stalwart of the BBC, where he spent most of his career, presenting Radio 4’s Today programme for a decade until 2008, as well as The World at One and The World This Weekend. Current Today editor Rebecca Keating said she and her colleagues described Stourton as the “Rolls Royce of broadcasting”.

That someone of Stourton’s journalistic stature devoted so much of his career to religious affairs, most notably as a long–time presenter of Radio 4’s Sunday, was significant. When religion can so often be treated as either irrelevant or a culture–war battleground, he approached faith with the seriousness it deserved. He neither sensationalised nor trivialised it; he simply believed it was important enough to understand well.

It was on Sunday that several of the Theos team regularly encountered Stourton. To be interviewed by him was both terrifying (he was the Edward Stourton, after all), but also strangely reassuring. This was a man who knew his stuff when it came to religion. You knew he would have done the reading, that he understood the theological nuances, and that he was more interested in getting to the truth of a matter rather than point–scoring or hearing the sound of his own voice.

He was particularly knowledgeable about the Catholic faith, which played a significant part in his personal life. In a Christmas edition of BBC One’s Mastermind, chaired by his Today co–presenter John Humphrys, his chosen subject was Pope John Paul II. He later wrote a biography of the former pope – John Paul II: Man of History – one of several he wrote about the Christian faith, which also included In the Footsteps of St Paul.

It was his 2023 book Sunday: A History of Religious Affairs through 50 Years of Conversations & Controversies for which Theos hosted a book launch, in partnership with Sandford St Martin Trust and the book’s publishers SPCK. There, I had the honour of interviewing Stourton and his co–author and long–time Sunday producer Amanda Hancox, about the biggest religious affairs news stories over the past five decades.

It was after Stourton disclosed in his memoir Confessions: Life Re–examined that he was living with incurable prostate cancer that we invited him to write the foreword to our report Ashes to Ashes: Beliefs, Trends and Practices in Dying, Death and the Afterlife.It explored how Britain is rethinking death, dying and the afterlife in an increasingly secular age, and how the role of faith communities within the death process is changing, too.

Stourton wrote in the foreword: “Religion – and I am sure this applies just as fully to the United Kingdom’s minority faiths as it does to Christianity – still seems to be a source of strength we turn to when confronted with the enormous enigma of death…“As someone with a slow–moving but incurable cancer, I welcome the greater openness about death this report identifies. It is certainly true, as the report finds, that many people are turning to new and more secular ways of celebrating the memory of those they loved, but most religious traditions can call on the experience of centuries of responding to the reality of death, and they have much to offer in a debate of the kind Ashes to Ashes seeks to encourage.”

Reading these words now is both poignant and insightful into who Stourton was. He wasn’t someone interested in easy answers or saccharine optimism. Rather, he understood that religious traditions carry a depth of wisdom which remains relevant, even (or especially) in a society that often imagines it has moved beyond them.

Edward Stourton was a friend of Theos, once describing it as “an inspired idea” that filled “a big gap in our culture”. But for us, his greatest legacy was in showing that journalism about religion can be both rigorous and generous; that broadcasters can combine scepticism with respect; and that faith, when treated with intellectual curiosity and seriousness, belongs not at the margins of public life but at its heart, offering answers to some of the biggest challenges our society faces today. 

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Nick Spencer appears on BBC Radio 4’s Church Going, with Giles Fraser. 20/07/2026

What is the relationship between England’s national and religious identities?

In Episode 2 of Giles Fraser’s ‘Church Going’ series, Nick Spencer appears alongside Tom Holland, Alice Roberts, Bishop Arun Arora and more to discuss England as a Christian nation and the anxieties surrounding this. 

Tune in here.

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Our 2025 Annual Lecture with Andy Burnham was featured in The Observer. 19/07/2026

“Today his identity is still wrapped up in football and politics, but his relationship with the church is more equivocal. Last October he gave a lecture on religion and society to the thinktank Theos. In the Q&A afterwards he acknowledged his debt to one of the great voices of liberal Catholic social teaching, the former Archbishop of Liverpool. “Derek Worlock was a big influence. I was an altar boy. I used to have to press the button on his tape–recorded messages in the church. And to me, that kind of church was always about speaking for people without power; those who needed to be built up.”

But in the lecture itself, Burnham mentioned Pope Francis just twice, Jesus and spirituality not at all, and devolution 14 times. It was an orthodox political text with no religious flavour and – through what it left out more than what it said – placed Burnham in the right pigeon hole: a cultural Catholic who ‘doesn’t do God’. Religion is a piece of the Burnham jigsaw but far from the whole picture.”

Read the full piece by Ceri Thomas in the Observer here.

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Our research on the life–changing effects of motherhood. 19/07/2026

What really happens when a woman becomes a mother? 

Motherhood is often described as life–changing, yet the depth of that transformation is rarely understood. Beyond sleepless nights and practical adjustments lies matrescence: the profound process of becoming a mother.  

Like adolescence, matrescence is a period of far–reaching physical, emotional, psychological, social, political, and spiritual change that reshapes identity. It unfolds not only within a woman’s body or home, but also across her relationships, her place in society, the way she spends her time and money, and how she understands the world. It often prompts deeper questions about meaning, values, community, and connection. For many women, this transition also brings a form of spiritual disruption or awakening, though this is experienced in different ways and to varying degrees. Motherhood exposes our vulnerability and interdependence in a culture that prizes autonomy, productivity, and self–optimisation. It is, fundamentally, a transformative human experience. 

Our report Motherhood, Inside Out presents the qualitative findings from our wider research project on new motherhood, drawing on interviews and focus groups with 91 mothers and interviews with 14 professionals directly involved in maternal care. It explores women’s experiences of matrescence from the inside out, examining how they navigate the physical, emotional, social, relational, political, and spiritual dimensions of becoming a mother. Participants reflected on identity, faith and spirituality, embodiment and body image, media, family and friendships, local community, work, politics and current affairs, and mortality. 

The research found that there is no single, universal experience of becoming a mother. Every participant’s journey was shaped by her own circumstances, relationships, and beliefs. Yet across every theme we encountered women whose views and perspectives – and, in many cases, whose entire lives – had been transformed by motherhood. We heard from the mother who now writes regular postcards to her children in case she dies unexpectedly; the mother who understands breastfeeding her child as worship; the Christian mother pacing at the back of church with a crying baby, grieving the uninterrupted worship she once took for granted; the many mothers newly angered by inadequate maternity policies, unaffordable childcare, or diminished agency at work; and the mother who finds herself baking cupcakes at midnight because her daughter cannot sleep. 

The report also considers how well existing forms of support respond to these experiences, and where significant gaps remain. It finds that the inner changes of matrescence, and how they intersect – are generally not adequately supported, highlighting the need for more holistic approaches to maternal care. Where mothers experience consistent, relational, face–to–face support, they feel better equipped to navigate this transition. In this context, churches can sometimes provide one of the few places of sustained local accompaniment, even if their potential to support mothers – spiritually and in other ways – is not always fully realised. 

The report concludes with practical recommendations for healthcare providers and local churches and faith communities. These focus on improving understanding of the inner dimensions of ordinary matrescence and increasing awareness of the support that already exists. More broadly, however, the findings point to the need for a wider cultural shift: one that more fully recognises and responds to the depth of the personal, relational, political, and spiritual transformation that accompanies becoming a mother. 

You can read the report in full here.

Methodology

Theos and Bible Society researchers spoke to 91 self–defining mothers and 14 experts and professionals directly involved in maternal care. Findings from our qualitative study were lightly supplemented with a quantitative survey of women aged 18–75 in Great Britain, both with and without children, exploring perceptions of motherhood. Full datasets can be found on the Ipsos website here. 

Full analysis of the quantitative survey can be found here.

About the authors 

Dr Marianne Rozario is senior researcher and projects lead at Theos, and author of several publications including Creating a Neighbourhood Health Service (2025), Moving on Project: Wraparound Survivor Support (2025), and co–author of Ashes to Ashes (2023). She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Dr Rhiannon McAleer is Director of Research and Impact at Bible Society. She writes and speaks on contemporary Christianity, spirituality and Bible engagement and has a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter.

Dr Madeleine Pennington is Head of Research at Theos and co–host of the podcast Motherhood vs the Machine.

Dr Eona Bell was a Research Assistant at Theos. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the London School of Economics.

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Catch the thought–provoking conversation taken from the panel discussion at the our event ‘Making a Mother’.

In April, more than 150 women attended our event at St Giles Church, Camberwell to explore a question that’s both deeply personal and publicly important: what makes a mother? 

This conversation is taken from the panel discussion at the Theos event ‘Making a Mother’, which took place on April 29 2026. We heard from Theo Clarke MP, Lucy Jones, Chine McDonald, Rev Alice Watson, and Dr Madeleine Pennington.  

Our conversations reminded us that while many mother share common experiences, no journey through pregnancy, birth or motherhood is ever the same. Every story is unique, and every story matters. 

We’re also looking ahead to our new report, ‘Motherhood, Inside Out’, which will explore those lived experiences in greater depth, from physical realities of motherhood to the emotional, relational and spiritual changes that often accompany it. 

Find more of our work on motherhood and sign up to be the first to hear about future releases here: https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/motherhood  

Recorded by Joshua Lelo. 

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Nick Spencer reviews J.D. Vance’s new book ‘Communion’ for the Spectator. 14/07/2026

Curiously, the President is almost invisible in Vance’s latest memoir – so perhaps the VP is attempting to distance himself, at least as far as his current job allows.

Nick Spencer reviews the new book ‘Communion’ by US Vice President J.D. Vance for the Spectator.

Read it here.

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Chine McDonald unpacks the state of theology and religious education in the UK. TRS is more than just a ‘soft’ conversation 09/07/2026

There may be trouble ahead in the world of religious education. While steps are being made to strengthen RE within schools, theology & religious studies (TRS) departments at universities are quietly disappearing. Over the last 20 years, the number of TRS  departments in England and Wales has roughly halved. While the schools sector is recognising the need to bolster faith literacy and education among pupils, the future pipeline of those equipped with skills to teach the school pupils of tomorrow well is being  decimated.

Added to this, the decline in TRS, social sciences and humanities departments more generally across the UK are coming at a time when we need people equipped with the skills of philosophical, spiritual and ethical enquiry to wrestle with some of the big questions we are asking today: what does it mean to be human? What is the impact of AI on our understanding of who we are? What is a good life? How do we live well together? 

Last weekend, Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson announced that proposals to make religious education part of the English national curriculum, having received a consensus of support from the RE sector, would move to the next steps with a public consultation in the autumn. While RE is compulsory in schools in England, it does not currently form part of the national curriculum, leading to significant variation in the content and ways of teaching the subject at school level. The government had last year accepted a call for inclusion within the national curriculum, provided that the RE sector could reach consensus on what religious education in the national curriculum should look like.

With consensus now reached – and ahead of Phillipson potentially being reshuffled out of her position at the Department of Education (DfE) when Andy Burnham becomes prime minister – plans will now begin on the how and what of RE’s integration into the new national curriculum.

“Learning about the world’s great faiths and traditions teaches children not just about the world, but how to live alongside and tolerate one another within it,” the Secretary of State said. “In such fractured times, it should be a source of hope that those representing the full spectrum of religion in this country have reached consensus on the most fundamental of points: what our children should learn about the world’s faiths, communities and traditions.”

This milestone is to be celebrated – it could have so easily been a different story, of no consensus. Tireless work by many across the sector, including our friends at Culham St Gabriel Trust, has led to this historic move towards strengthening teaching of religious education in schools. But who will teach it? And how can religious education wherever it is found – in schools, lecture theatres, and beyond the classroom (see our 2025 report on this) – be seen as not just a nice to have, but a necessity in these fractured times?

Sometimes a defence of TRS can fall into the trap of sounding… well, soft. We speak of understanding and tolerance, of being able to see another person’s point of view. But – good though these things are – it’s about more than this.

Last month, I was at the DfE for the first meeting of its Community Cohesion Advisory Group. Run by DfE in collaboration with the University of Salford and the National Union of Students, the group has been brought together to provide feedback on a research–based approach to developing a cohesion framework for education. There, Minister of State for Skills, Baroness Jacqui Smith, spoke of the important role higher education institutions in fostering a sense of communality and cohesion, as well as tackling misinformation.

This is not just fluffy stuff. Sometimes it’s a question of life and death. Nic Beech, vice–chancellor of the University of Salford, said that we are living in a “period of heightened polarisation” and pointed to the attacks in Heaton Park, Golders Green, Belfast and Edinburgh as examples. “There is an urgent need to come together,” he said.

In this setting, I highlighted the importance of religious education and literacy as something we just cannot ignore. Many of the atrocities we see stem from religious and ethical ideologies. Organisations like ours are among the few in the nation who are equipped try to make sense of them.

It’s why TRS is more important than ever. It’s great that the schools sector is starting to understand this, but the closure of religious education departments across the country suggests higher education institutions don’t.

We’ve long seen this coming. Last year, we penned this open letter, signed by people from across different spheres in public life – some of whom are TRS graduates – calling for the safeguarding of religious education. But it seems very few in higher education are listening. For many university vice–chancellors, theology and religious studies, social sciences and humanities, make little business sense. For prospective students facing extortionate tuition fees, the pressure to study a subject that offers the strongest chance of a job with a high salary (which, dare I say it, aren’t the ones that are instinctively geared towards working for the common good) is strong. It’s a sad state of affairs when everything becomes about financial gain.

TRS provision is patchy and dwindling at a time when we need it more than ever. As my colleague George Lapshynov writes so eloquently in our latest Theos blog: “Critical religious literacy, the ability to understand, interpret and engage with different beliefs, is unevenly distributed. Where it is weak, empathy and cohesion suffer, and misunderstanding grows.”

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Hannah Rich speaks to ABC’s Religion and Ethics programme. 06/07/2026

The man set to become the next prime minister of Britain, Andy Burnham, is best known as the popular and successful mayor of Greater Manchester in northern England. 

But long before that, he was a pious altar boy in his local Catholic church in Liverpool. 

Burnham has referred frequently to his Catholic background and values, even if he observes only some of the church’s teaching. 

How much will faith shape his prime ministership? 

Hannah Rich unpacks Andy Burnham’s Catholic heritage and the continued influence of faith on his policies for ABC’s Religion and Ethics report.

Tune in here.

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Nick Spencer appears on the Church Times podcast unpacking the influence of Catholicism on Andy Burnham’s politics. 03/07/2026

Paul Vallely and Nick Spencer join Ed Thornton on the Church Times podcast to discuss how Andy Burnham’s Roman Catholicism influences his politics.

This follows Nick Spencer’s Church Times Analysis piece on the same subject. 

Tune in to the episode here.

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Nick Spencer writes for Church Times on Andy Burnham’s “safe” faith.

Senior Fellow Nick Spencer unpacks Prime Minister–in–waiting Andy Burnham’s faith and its impact on politics for Church Times.

Read the full piece here.  

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George Lapshynov responds to the University of Exeter’s considerations to cut Humanities staff and calls for safeguards to religious education.

Nearly a year on from Theos’s open letter calling for urgent action to safeguard Theology and Religious Studies (TRS) in higher education, news last week that the University of Exeter is considering significant staff cuts – affecting disproportionately the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences – reminds us that the situation has not stabilised. If anything, it has gotten much worse.  

Among those affected, and calling for TRS (and her and her colleagues’ jobs) to be saved, is Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou, a prominent public intellectual and leading scholar of religion. 

Disciplines like theology, religious studies and philosophy are precisely the disciplines that help us understand meaning, belief, culture and human difference. They gave us Renaissance Humanism, the Enlightenment, and the intellectual foundations of human rights and liberal democracy. The fact that another Russell Group university is now considering shedding them should alarm us. It is a sign we are losing, or perhaps choosing to ditch, our collective capacity to understand belief and worldviews critically and rigorously. 

Exeter is not an isolated case; this moment has been a long time in the making. TRS in UK higher education has been in sustained decline for over a decade. Student numbers have fallen sharply since the early 2010s, driven partly by high tuition fees and a narrow ‘value for money’ logic. Departments have merged, fragmented, and closed; centres of expertise have been dispersed or lost. Two decades ago, there were more than forty TRS providers. Today, that number has roughly halved. An entire academic community is hollowing out. 

But why should we care? 

It might be tempting to see TRS as a niche, confessional subject, attractive only to the dwindling number of practising religious Britons, dispensable when difficult financial choices must be made.  

Thinking this way would be a profound mistake. 

First, the loss of TRS impoverishes the university itself. The study of religion is embedded across the humanities and social sciences, offering distinctive historical, sociological and philosophical approaches to understanding texts, cultures and human behaviour. Well beyond the mere promotion of belief, TRS gives us the tools to look critically, historically, and comparatively at some of the most fundamental and ancestral aspects of human life. This is only made evident by the fact that some of the most prominent scholars in the field – such as Professor Stavrakopoulou herself – are very openly atheist. Additionally, students in TRS mingle with students in other disciplines and cross–pollinate. Debates from different disciplines bleed into each other. Remove it, and the university’s intellectual ecology, including its other humanities and social science subjects, is diminished. 

Second, this erosion reflects a wider fragility in the humanities. In an era dominated by STEM and business, these disciplines are often dismissed as less valuable. This is ironic as it is precisely scientific discoveries and rapid technological change, such as artificial intelligence, that are forcing us to confront now more than perhaps ever before questions about meaning, agency and responsibility. TRS and the humanities are essential to the intellectual infrastructure we need to ensure that technology serves human ends, rather than the other way round. 

Humanities graduates remain also highly adaptable, bringing communication, creativity, and analytical skills that employers actively seek. UK humanities research is globally leading and disproportionately impactful. To weaken it is to undermine one of the country’s genuine strengths and sources of soft power, and our ability to contribute to world culture. 

But the most serious consequences lie, arguably, beyond the university. 

We live in a world shaped (often decisively) by religion and belief. From geopolitics to local communities, from healthcare to education, questions of faith and worldview are ever–present. Yet, as Theos’s Beyond the Classroom report highlights, our collective ability to navigate these realities is uneven. Critical religious literacy, the ability to understand, interpret and engage with different beliefs, is unevenly distributed. Where it is weak, empathy and cohesion suffer, and misunderstanding grows. 

TRS provision helps directly address this. It forms not only more religiously literate citizens but also the specialist RE teachers who shape the next generation. The shortage of well–qualified RE teachers, closely linked to weakening TRS provision, is already a recognised challenge, and will get only worse. 

What is perhaps most striking is that all this is happening just as the need for religious literacy is increasing. Government policy increasingly emphasises “faith and belief literacy” for social cohesion and national resilience. Public services are encountering growing religious diversity and recognise the need for better training. Globally, religion continues to shape political and social realities in ways early–2000 ‘end of history’ supporters could not have conceived. 

In other words, just as demand for expertise grows, we are dismantling the structures that produce it. 

The loss of TRS capacity would therefore be catastrophic, not only for the discipline but for the wider ecosystem of education and public life. Universities lose intellectual depth. Schools lose a pipeline of specialists, even as RE looks set to gain status in the National Curriculum. Public services lose access to essential expertise. Above all, society becomes less able to understand itself. 

Nearly a year ago, Theos and many others called for urgent action. That call remains unanswered. Policymakers, universities, and civil society must recognise what is at stake and act together. Financial pressures in higher education are real – there is no denying it. But if we allow them to quietly dismantle the very disciplines that help us understand ourselves and one another, we will pay a far higher price. 

The questions Exeter and other institutions are answering for us – whether or not they are aware of it – are about the kind of society we want to be, about deciding whether we still value the knowledge needed to live together well in a diverse, complex world. If we do, we cannot afford to let Theology and Religious Studies, and the wider humanities, wither. 

If we wait until the last TRS department closes up shop to act, it will be too late. 

Image credit: Photo by Álvaro Bernal on Unsplash

Interested in this? A more detailed resource on the importance of TRS will be available this August. You can also watch Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s interview on The Sacred podcast here.

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Nick Spencer speaks with historian and journalist Bijan Omrani. 23/06/2026

The idea that our country is Christian – in the historical sense of having been comprehensively formed by the faith – is sometimes taken as a kind of Christian nationalist dog whistle. But it shouldn’t be.

In reality, this is true for most countries in Europe, in which, in spite of massive secularisation in the later 20th century, Christianity’s fingerprints are everywhere.

So, what is England? How has the English nation, its laws, politics, culture and literature, been formed by Christianity? And (how) can they survive without it?

This week on Reading Our Times, Nick Spencer is joined by British historian and journalist Bijan Omrani to discuss these questions and more, delving into his new book, provocatively titled God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England. 

You can purchase a copy of his book here.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts here.

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George Lapshynov writes for the Times on the importance of cathedrals. 20/06/2026

Researcher and co–author of our latest report on cathedrals, George Lapshynov, unpacks the significance of cathedrals on civic life for The Times’ Credo column. 

Read the full piece here.

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Nick Spencer explores what people across the UK believe is important when they think about British identity. 19/06/2026

Summary

Ten years ago, the UK voted to leave the European Union. The referendum drew on and then intensified the debate about what it meant to be British, a debate that has, if anything, deepened over recent years, as concerns around immigration, asylum, the rise of Islam, the rise of China, and the alleged decline of Europe and the West have come to dominate the news cycle.

As part of Theos’ work exploring the rise of Christian nationalism in the UK and Europe, this essay explores perceptions of Britishness, among people living in the UK, today.[1] We commissioned research into the relationship between nation and religion from RED C, technical details of which can be read here.

We found that the more lurid concerns about the UK sliding into exclusive forms of “ethnonationalism” have not been born out.

Britain remains strongly characterised by forms of civic, cultural and emotional belonging, with Britons leaning heavily towards achieved (and inclusive) identity when it comes to being “truly” British.

Based on new research commissioned by Theos and conducted by RED C, four factors are especially important to the UK population when it comes to their perception of what makes one truly Britishness, namely (in descending order):

–       obeying the law

–       being committed to democracy and freedom of speech

–       speaking English

–       contributing economically

More recent anxieties about the UK being gripped by Christian nationalism are also overblown. Levels of belief that you need to be Christian in order to be British are low compared to other Britishness factors, as low as those that say you need to be white to be British.

However, there are some causes for reflection and perhaps concern.

While “respecting the authority of parliament”, one of the pillars of political/ civic identity, is widely considered to be important for Britishness, it is very rarely considered the most important factor. This is noteworthy given how central parliament is to our political/civic identity. This presumably reflects widespread political disaffection at the moment, which, if left unchecked, could threaten to erode that commitment to political/ civic identity more generally.

Conversely, while ethno–nationalistic identity is rarely considered important, the importance of natal identity is thought somewhat higher (45% agree that being born in Britain is important for being truly British) and is judged to be the most important factor by nearly a third of those people. In other words, many of those who are inclined towards natal identity as a characteristic of Britishness, are strongly inclined that way.

Those who have an ethnic/ natal or a political/ civic idea of Britishness are intensely exercised by a handful of (different) issues each.

–       The ethnic/ natal group are particularly focused on the level of immigration, the number of Muslims, and the number of asylum seekers but also, notably, the cost of living today, and the issue of national ID cards.

–       The political/ civic group are particularly anxious about the level of racism, climate change, the rise of the far right, and the anti–vaxx movement.

–       By comparison those who have primarily a cultural or emotional conception of Britishness are less intensely exercised by these (or indeed) issues.

Contents

1. Summary
2. Contents
3. Introduction
a. Seven dimensions of national identity
b. Conducting research
4. What does it mean to be British? An overview
5. What’s the most important factor in being British?
6. What issues preoccupy different ideas of Britishness?
7. Conclusion

Introduction

Seven dimensions of national identity

There are different ways in which people in a country can feel and express their national identity and loyalty.[2] The most familiar is the distinction between ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’ national identity, the former focusing on commitment to political institutions, the latter on birth and ancestry. The divide runs deep. It maps onto debates about whether countries are, on the one hand, created or “imagined”, or, on the other, natural and inherent. It also maps onto contemporary concerns about the nature and possibility of social cohesion, with ‘civic’ identity considered more “achieved” and therefore inclusive, while “ethnic” identity is more “ascribed” and therefore exclusive.

While this distinction is foundational, it is also incomplete or at least inexact.  There are various factors, not least cultural ones, that can blur the boundaries of the civic and the ethnic. Celebrating national customs and traditions, for example, are, in theory, civic identity markers, open to everyone. But because such customs and traditions are often deep–rooted and historically embedded, they are not necessarily easily or quickly “achieved” and can feel more ascribed. The ex–pat Briton who moves to Japan is unlikely to become a connoisseur of the quintessentially Japanese tea ceremony in quick time.

For that reason, it can be helpful to disambiguate the drivers and sources of national identity beyond the ‘civic/ethnic’ divide. In our research, we picked out seven different dimensions of national identity.

1.     Political/ civic identity. To be British, means to have a commitment to certain political/ legal/ constitutional arrangements and institution.

2.     Ethnic/ natal identity. To be British, means having been born here or being white.

3.     Cultural identity. To be British, means participating in and celebrating British customs and traditions.

4.     Religious identity. To be British means having a commitment to the historically dominant religious tradition of the country, meaning Christianity.

To these four (and relatively familiar) factors, we have added three others, which are often overlooked but play a serious role in debates around national loyalty.

5.     Geographic identity. This is a relatively thin form of belonging, entailing nothing more than simply inhabiting the country. Nonetheless, it is important to include as 5.5 million (or 8 per cent) of British citizens live abroad, something often overlooked in debates around Britishness

6.     Economic identity. Very often, the immigration debate is framed not so much around how many immigrants come here but what they do when they are here and, in particular, whether they contribute economically. Public opinion is, not surprisingly, rather different according to perceptions of whether they do.

7.     Emotional identity. Finally, simply the way that people feel about their country is vitally important, and an important subjective factor to place alongside the other (slightly) more objective ones.

Conducting Research

In order to measure these different forms of national identity, we asked people how far they agreed or disagreed with a series of 12 statements about being British, that covered the seven different dimensions outlined above.[3] These were, “To be truly British you should…

In the first instance, respondents were asked whether they agreed (on a five–point scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree) with each statement. In the second, respondents were asked to select the single “most important” factor that defined Britishness.

What does it mean to be British? An overview

The first pass at this question generated the following results.

Figure 1: To be truly British you should… (levels of agreement)

The first observation to note here is that there are clearly two separate categories of identity when it comes to public opinion. Political/ civic, cultural, geographic, economic, and emotional conceptions of identity are all relatively high, getting 60–80% agreement by UK adults, whereas ethnic/ natal and religious forms of identity are seen as comparatively less important. The only mid–way exception is the ethnic (specifically natal) form of identity (having been born here), which 45% of people agree is important to be “truly” British.

Of the more widely recognised dimensions of identity, political/ civic is seen as most important with 83% of people agreeing that to be British you need to obey the law, and 77% that Britishness requires being committed to democracy and freedom of speech.[4] The only (slightly) weaker element in this category was “respect[ing] the authority of parliament”, with only 60% agreeing, arguably reflecting current widespread political disaffection.

Cultural and economic identities are also seen as significant, with 77% of people agreeing that speaking English is an important dimension of Britishness, 68% “sharing national customs and traditions” and 77% saying that contributing economically was important to being truly British.

Religious and ethnic identity on the other hand, were only deemed important to being truly British by a minority, just 17% of people in each case.

Overall, therefore, it is clear that Britons lean heavily towards achieved (and inclusive) identity and loyalty when it comes to being “truly” British.

Further clarity can be acquired on this issue when we factor in not only levels of agreement but also the level (and strength) of disagreement on these issues. For example, it is salient that nearly half of all people strongly disagree that you need to be white to be truly British. By applying a rating score to people’s views on this issue,[5] we can evaluate overall balance of public opinion.

Figure 2: To be truly British you should… (balance of public opinion)

This calculation shows that four factors – one economic, one cultural, and two political/ civic – are particularly important to the UK population when it comes to their perception of what makes one truly Britishness, namely:

–       contributing economically (1.1)

–       speaking English (1.13)

–       being committed to democracy and freedom of speech (1.15), and

–       obeying the law (1.31).

Conversely, two factors – one religious and one ethnic– are especially unimportant:

–       being Christian (–0.73)

–       being White (–0.86)

While this should not altogether dismiss the existence of religious and ethnic identity in the UK, it should contextualise it within a broader landscape of other dimensions which are considered more important.

What’s the most important factor in being British?

One challenge that might be levelled at the question just analysed is that it allows people to hedge their bets. Looking at the raw numbers, there were almost three times as many answers (12,599) agreeing (strongly or slightly) with the options available than disagreeing (4,400) with them.

In some instances (religious and ethnic identity, most obviously) people do feel sufficiently strongly as to disagree vigorously with their being important to Britishness. But with others, the picture is one of generally positive citizenship, and so generally amenable to positive opinion. In effect, many of the factors listed here could be seen as necessary rather than in any way sufficient to being British. Obeying the law, for example, might be a basic responsibility if you want to be British, but that may not mean it’s a key characteristic of being British.

To probe this element further, we asked respondents which from the list was the single most important factor for being truly British. The responses are given in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Which ONE of these factors is MOST important for being truly British

This data broadly preserves the priority ascribed to the factors already discussed.

Commitment to democracy and freedom of speech is considered the most important factor for being truly British by the largest proportion of people (15%) instead of obeying the law, which had the highest balance of public opinion (1.31), but obeying the law is still considered the most important factor for being truly British by 10% of people.

At the other end of the scale, being Christian and being white are considered the most important factor for being truly British by just 1% of people, which is where one would expect those factors from the agree/ disagree data discussed earlier.

In other words, there is broad correlation between a factor being generally agreed to be important and it being considered most important. There are two noteworthy exceptions, however, which can be seen in Figure 4.

Figure 4: The correlation between a Britishness factor being considered important (“agree”) and it being the “most important”.

Figure 4 plots the percentage of people who agree (slightly or strongly) that a factor is important to being truly British (red bar) and the percentage of people who say that it is the most important factor to being truly British (blue bar) – both measured on the left–hand scale. It then also measures what proportion of the former think the latter, i.e. what proportion of people who think a factor is important actually think it is the most important. It charts this with a green line, on the right–hand scale (and has data labels).

For example, 78% of people think that being “committed to democracy and freedom of speech” is important to being British, and 15% think it is the most important thing (right–most bars). That means that nearly a fifth (19%) of those who agree that commitment to democracy and freedom of speech is important, think it is core, or “most important”.

At the other end of the scale, 17% of people think that being Christian is important to being British, but only 1% think it is the most important thing, meaning that around 1 in 20 (6%) of those who agree that Christianity is important to Britishness, think it is of “core importance”. The same proportion applies for being white.

This measure is helpful because it draws out how big the core to any view is; in other words, so to speak, what proportion of people who have an opinion here are prepared to die on that hill. For most factors it is between 10% and 20%.

However, there are some outliers. Comparatively few people consider Christianity or being white as core to Britishness, and even fewer (5%) consider defending the country when people criticise it as being core. It appears that Christian nationalism, ethno–nationalism, and “my country right or wrong” nationalism are rarely considered core to being British.

Similarly, only 3% of those who agree that this is important for being truly British, think it is the most important factor. The unpopularity of parliamentary politics (and possibly the rise in nationalist movements across the UK[6]) is visible here and while this is hardly news, it is still noteworthy. Preserving the strong sense of political/ civil identity and loyalty that still dominates feelings of Britishness is made harder when ever fewer people respect the keystone of that identity.

There is another outlier, in the opposite direction. While 45% of people think that being born in Britain is important for being truly British (the third lowest figure), nearly a third of them, or 14% of the population overall (the second highest figure), think it is the most important factor for being British. In other words, a disproportionately high number of people who favour some form of natal identity and loyalty believe it is the core issue when it comes to Britishness. It seems that this, rather than any older and more familiar kinds of (white) ethno–loyalty is where the more “ascribed” nationalistic sentiments currently reside.

What issues preoccupy different ideas of Britishness?

Finally, how do different concepts of national identity and loyalty map onto political and social concerns today.[7]

We simplified the dimensions outlined above into four distinct categories, each of which had a sufficiently large sample base on which to conduct analysis. (The other dimensions of identity discussed above – geographic, economic and religious – do not have large enough sample sizes to test.) The four categories selected were:

We then analysed people’s current social and political concerns according to their conception of Britishness. The top three issues for each of the four kinds of national identity were as follows:

Table 1: Top three issues of concern in UK today (very concerned by conception of Britishness)?

“The cost of living” was the topmost concern for all different groups, but after that there was a marked difference between the concerns of political/ civic nationalists (who were concerned about the rise of the far right and the level of racism, and other groups, whose concerns were asylum and immigration.

We then examined which issues different groups felt very concerned about compared to other groups.

Table 2: % very concerned about [issue] for Britain?

Table 2 above records what percentage of each group (plus what percentage of the total) said they were very concerned with an issue. Different figures have different shading to give an indication of how to read each ‘footprint’. More precise definition can be read in this footnote[8], but in essence

–       Red indicates a strong level of difference between the opinion of the group on the issue to hand, and the opinions of all three other groups.

–       Orange indicates a strong level of difference between the opinion of the group and those of two other groups.

–       Yellow indicates a strong level of difference between the opinion of the group and that of one other group.

–       Grey indicates no meaningful difference at all between groups.

A number of points can be made about these results.

First, there are only a handful of issues that elicit no meaningful difference at all between people according to their understanding of Britishness. These issues are shaded in grey: gender identity (e.g. the trans debate), public finances and debt, the threat from Russia or other hostile states, and mental health problems among young people. Note, this does not mean people are not concerned about these issues but rather that their conception of what it means to belong to Britain does not appear to affect how concerned they are about this issue.

Second, those who have an ethnic/ natal or a political/ civic idea of Britishness are intensely exercised by a handful of (different) issues each. The ethnic/ natal group are particularly focused on the level of immigration, the number of Muslims, and the number of asylum seekers but also, notably, the cost of living today, and the issue of national ID cards. Rather differently, the political/ civic group are particularly anxious about the level of racism, climate change, the rise of the far right, and the anti–vaxx movement.

By comparison those who have primarily a cultural or emotional conception of Britishness are less intensely exercised by these (or indeed) issues. To be clear, it is not that cultural or emotional nationalists are unconcerned by these issues facing Britain today, but rather their conception of what it means to be British does not correlate with any particularly strong social or political anxieties at the moment. Where they do, as indicated by the prevalence of yellow boxes on the two right hand columns on the table (and more specifically by the letters next to the statistics), the cultural or emotional nationalists are marked out as being different from the civic/political nationalists, rather than the ethnic/ natal ones. In effect, holding a cultural or emotional concept of Britishness inclines you in the same direction as holding an ethnic/ natal, but with less intensity.

There is an intuitive logic to much of this. Ethnic/natal “nationalists” are more concerned about who is living in the UK, and are more inclined to reject outsiders. Political/ civic “nationalists” are not concerned with who lives here but they are with how they get on with one another, and are especially worried about factors that they consider to be divisive.

Beyond that, however, it is worth noting that:

–       Although ethnic/natal “nationalists” are not especially bothered about economic inequality, they are disproportionately concerned with the cost of living. In other words, there is likely to be an economic dimension to their ethnic/natal concerns.

–       There is almost no co–incidence between the felt concerns of ethnic/natal “nationalists” and political/ civic “nationalists”. These two, at least, do feel like two tribes.

–       Over a third of Britons prefer neither an ethnic/natal nor a political/ civic idea of Britishness, but instead favour a cultural or an emotional form of identity and belonging, and if these feel like softer forms of “nationalism”, it is probably because they are. People in these categories are far from indifferent but also less animated about social/ political affairs than those in other groups. In other words, while there are political tribes at work in relation to different conceptions of Britishness, that does not mean the whole landscape is tribal.

Conclusion

The Brexit vote, and the ensuing three–year parliamentary hokey–cokey, was a difficult and tense time in British public life, with many sensing or prophesying a decisive shift in our idea of Britishness, away from a civic/political model and towards a more exclusionary ethnic/ natal one.

In reality, things were always more complex when it came to British identity (the question of English identity is very different of course, and no less complex). When British Social Attitudes measured conceptions of national identity more than twenty years ago, splitting identities according to civic and ethnic ideas, they found that just 23% (in 1995) and 32% (in 2003) of people had a civic–only understanding of Britishness.[9] The majority of people – 63% in 1995, 58% in 2003 – had a mixed ‘civic and ethnic’ idea. (Very few people had an ethnic–only conception). In other words, the lines between these well–established conceptions of identity are vaguer and more permeable than might appear to be the case in theory, or indeed from the above data on the apparently incompatibly different concerns of ethnic/ natal vs political/ civic groups. Something of that blurring is captured when you factor in those who prefer to hold to more cultural or emotional forms of national identity.

Either way, the data presented in this essay strongly suggest that the civic/political conception of Britishness remains predominant, in spite of news stories that have stoked anxieties about the slide towards angry, exclusive, ethnically–flavoured nationalism. We should be aware of this before we sound apocalyptic trumpets about the state of society.

All that noted, and factoring in the point just made about the permeability of boundaries in this whole debate, while the differences between ethnic/ natal and political/ civic categories are real and clear, the two categories are not unrelated.

Some people will have immutable opinions on what it means to be British, and nothing will change that. However, many will not and it is quite possible, for example, to imagine that some, who once held a more civic/political idea of Britishness, could relinquish it because they feel that national politics is no longer functioning as it should, and therefore no longer a satisfactory source of identity, belonging or pride.

Were that to be the case, these people might not slide all the way from a civic/political idea of Britishness to an ethnic/ natal one, but move to a more moderate and less intense emotional or cultural view of the nation. That may be what we are seeing.

Either way, however much the public still favours a civic/political idea of Britishness, and however much the lurid anxieties of public life being transformed by a tide of ethno–nationalism after Brexit were overdone, it would be wrong to assume that the civic/political identity is secure. Because of its very nature – an achieved rather than an ascribed identity – it needs to ‘perform well’, and could therefore be seriously eroded by waves of political frustration and anger.

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]]> nick.spencer@theosthinktank.co.uk (Nick Spencer) https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2026/06/19/brexit-10-years-on-what-does-it-mean-to-be-british-today https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2026/06/16/what-is-the-truth-behind-immigration-in-conversation-with-alan-manning Tue, 16 Jun 2026 16:22:00 +0000

Nick Spencer speaks with Alan Manning, Professor of Economics at LSE and former chair of UK government’s Migration Advisory Committee. 16/05/2026

Immigration is a major issue in the contemporary world, a – if not the – driver of nationalist movements the world over. It is impossible to think about nationalism today, religious or otherwise, without thinking first about immigration.

But immigration is also a hard subject to think about, not because of a paucity of information but because of a glut. Awash with statistics, anecdotes and personal stories, immigration offers people a well–stocked cupboard of things to feed their existing views and opinions.

So, what is the truth behind immigration? What are the actual numbers? What are the benefits? And the harms? And to which people? Immigration policy is notoriously tough – is there are way to think clearly about it and make it any easier?

Nick Spencer speaks to Alan Manning, Professor of Economics at LSE and former chair of UK government’s Migration Advisory Committee, about his latest book, Why Immigration Policy Is Hard: And How to Make It Better. 

You can purchase a copy of his book here.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts here.

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]]> nick.spencer@theosthinktank.co.uk (Nick Spencer) https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2026/06/16/what-is-the-truth-behind-immigration-in-conversation-with-alan-manning