{"id":22135,"date":"2026-03-13T07:48:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T07:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=22135"},"modified":"2026-03-13T07:48:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T07:48:17","slug":"even-our-secular-mainstream-media-can-see-where-the-real-hope-for-this-nation-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=22135","title":{"rendered":"Even our secular mainstream media can see where the real hope for this nation lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n \u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bible might just save Britain\u2019s self-obsessed youth\u201d is not a headline I would have expected to find over an article by a secular lifestyle columnist in a national newspaper when I became a minister in the Church of England in 1996.<\/p>\n

But that is the thrust of Celia Walden\u2019s article\u00a0in\u00a0The Telegraph<\/em> on March 10. I recall worthy but dull editorials in that conservative newspaper at Christmas and Easter back in the 1990s about the importance of Britain\u2019s Christian heritage. But I do not recall reading such a strong plug for the Bible and Christian faith in a column covering lifestyle and entertainment.<\/p>\n

Walden declared: \u201cI noticed at the start of the year that Bible sales in Britain had more than doubled compared to pre-pandemic levels \u2013 driven, apparently, by a surge in interest\u00a0from Gen Z. And when Nielsen IQ BookData confirmed yesterday that, after a 19 per cent rise in 2025, sales are now at their highest levels since the 1990s, my first thought was this: Just how lost are young people feeling?\u201d<\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cThe short answer is surely \u2018very\u2019.”<\/p>\n

She goes on to reason that in “an increasingly turbulent world, where everything from global politics and the economy to your Instagram and X is constantly shifting \u2013 a world in which world leaders no longer demonstrate serenity but a frightening human volatility daily”, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that young people are turning to something loftier to steady them “in the storm”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She concluded: \u201cA number of quick fixes have been touted and tried by many \u2013 from mindfulness, yoga and meditation to barefooting, sound baths, flotation tanks and celery juice. The list goes on. But what if it turns out that they were just an extension of the self-pampering \u2018me-mind\u2019 virus? … I think [Gen Z] are far more open to exploring their spirituality than previous generations. I think they are more open-minded, full stop. And I know that many of them are tired of the superficiality and the self-obsession. So if they can just stick with this new interest long enough, it may well pay dividends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walden caused controversy with a different column on March 3 in which she commented\u00a0 on the news that former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has been seeing a psychotherapist since his resignation in November 2024. He has been weighed down by a feeling of failure after the C of E\u2019s Makin Review into the John Smyth abuse scandal criticised him for his handling of disclosures.<\/p>\n

Welby told broadcaster Gyles Brandreth on the Rosebud Podcast: \u201cI\u2019ve been seeing a psychotherapist for a considerable period of time. And a psychiatrist. Very helpful. It\u2019s not about saying, \u2018oh, it didn\u2019t matter\u2019, or anything like that, quite the reverse \u2013 how does one live with such a failure?\u201d<\/p>\n

In her column headlined \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of God if even Justin Welby is seeing a therapist?\u201d, Walden argued: \u201cI realise that therapy and religion are very different things … But in my experience, people either believe in one or the other. If the former Archbishop didn\u2019t have a satisfactory experience with the Lord, where does that leave the rest of us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those outraged by Walden\u2019s piece was\u00a0Church Times<\/em> writer Madeleine Davies. She quoted the above on X\u00a0tailing it with \u201cNO NO NO\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ironically, knowledge of the Bible\u2019s doctrine of \u2018common grace\u2019 would have helped Celia Walden to see that trusting in the Lord and getting professional help with mental health issues is not a binary choice. God as the gracious Creator of men and women in his image has given some people, regardless of whether they are Christian believers, specialist skills in this area that can bring help and a degree of healing to individuals suffering from mental health problems. \u00a0<\/p>\n

A Christian person seeing a secular psychotherapist needs to evaluate the therapy they are receiving in the light of the special revelation that God has given his believing people in the Holy Scriptures. They need to ensure that they are not being led into error or disobedience by aspects of the worldview that underlie the therapy. But \u2018common grace\u2019 insights from a skilled psychotherapist can be the gift of God through his creation that a suffering person needs.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, she is perceptive when it comes to what may be going on with Gen Z. Perhaps I am being over-optimistic, but Walden\u2019s positive piece on the Bible makes me think that an Anglican evangelical starting ordained ministry in 2026 instead of 1996 might find the cultural soil more receptive to the Christian message than I found it. As to whether “The Bible might just save Britain’s self-obsessed youth”, that would require the Lord’s Holy Spirit to apply his Word to individual hearts and minds, for which British Christians should certainly pray.<\/p>\n

Julian\u00a0Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock) \u201cThe Bible might just save Britain\u2019s self-obsessed youth\u201d is not a headline I would have expected to find over an article by a secular lifestyle columnist in a national newspaper when I became a minister in the Church of England in 1996. But that is the thrust of Celia Walden\u2019s article\u00a0in\u00a0The Telegraph on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[553,2419,4215,1141,2319,477,4138],"class_list":["post-22135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-hope","tag-lies","tag-mainstream","tag-media","tag-nation","tag-real","tag-secular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22135\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}