So, now we are in the earliest stages of a third phase, whose precise shape is not yet clear, but it undoubtedly marks a significant shift in political discourse, social patterns, and both private and group allegiance. I would characterise it broadly not as a surge in institutional religion, or church attendance, but a more nuanced flourishing of religious sensibility and the accelerated rolling back of what Max Weber famously called \u201cdisenchantment\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Everywhere one looks, the sacred, the numinous, and the mystical are reasserting themselves \u2014 not always in traditional form, of course: what Tara Isabella Burton aptly calls the \u201cRemixed religions\u201d of the young are customised, consumerist, and made-to-measure rather than doctrinally coherent….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That said, there is indisputably a discernible Christian edge to what is happening \u2014 and not only the \u201ccultural Christianity\u201d that Tom Holland\u2019s wonderful book Dominion <\/em>has nurtured in so many (Features, 27 September 2019<\/a>). There have been specific, high-profile conversions, of which the most striking was the public announcement of the former New Atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in 2023, that she was now a committed Christian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alongside this, one cannot begin to comprehend the contemporary tech world without understanding the grip of AI millenarianism and the growing fixation with the Revelation of St John among Silicon Valley oligarchs such as Peter Thiel, who has been lecturing around the world on the advent of the Antichrist. It is remarkable \u2014 and quite normal now \u2014 to hear \u201ctech bros\u201d talk with enthusiasm about the Christian theorist Ren\u00e9 Girard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a> (subscription or registration).<\/p> "Everywhere one looks, the sacred, the numinous, and the mystical are reasserting themselves"@MatthewdAncona<\/a> detects a huge shift in politics and culture https:\/\/t.co\/uOFMcoLpZp<\/a><\/p>— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) May 26, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote>