The Return to Religion ~ Part Two

The second in a two-part essay about whether we're seeing a renewal of religion in Western culture and what it might mean. Today, celebrity conversions and rediscovering something strikingly familiar.

Photo by Akira Hojo

A lot has been made of some very recent, very public, religious conversions. In the last six months alone, comedian Russell Brand was baptised in the Thames; actor Shia LaBeouf received the sacraments of confirmation into the Catholic church; Ayaan Hirsi Ali, once a prominent “new atheist”, wrote an article titled “Why I Am Now a Christian”. A whole book and podcast series – both titled The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God – have been devoted to documenting this trend.

But there have always been Christian conversions, and we’ve always had Christian intellectuals. At best, this latest spate of converts is simply a return to the norm after a blip of culturally dominant atheism over the last twenty years. Besides, if a public conversion can count in religion’s favour, surely a public deconversion counts against it. Let’s not make this a numbers game.

What I find more interesting is the sense of familiarity, of return or homecoming, that underscores this recent renewal…