Turning wine into water?

“Imagine making a batch of wonderful wine, but then finding that there was a small amount of contamination that had got into the vat, and then into the wine before anybody noticed. You basically have to throw it all away and that’s what we realised needed to happen and that’s why we withdrew the report. And it’s also why we were very clear that when we withdrew the report, we were NOT saying that the findings were wrong, rather we were saying that the study could no longer be treated as statistically reliable. ”

So said the CEO of the Bible Society on 30^th April in a YouTube hosted webinar titled ‘The Quiet Revival one year on – what’s the story?’

A lot of people in the chat were interested to know what the Bible Society would say following the withdrawal of the increasingly infamous Quiet Revival report.

The attendance varied between 400-500 people throughout the one and half hour session.

The description of the event read: ‘Hear from Paul Williams, our CEO, and a whole host of guests sharing their insights from different contexts, including Dr Rachel Jordan-Wolfe, Amanda Bedzrah, Bishop Mike Royal and Swarzy Shire.’

And we did.

In a pre-recorded segment, Stephan Shakespeare CEO and co-founder of YouGov intoned (from far away in space and time): “It was so disappointing to discover that the research we conducted for you didn’t live up to the standards we set for ourselves and that you expect from us. I want to re-iterate that YouGov takes full responsibility for the outputs of the original 2024 research and we apologise for what has happened… I thank you for your understanding.”

The Bible Society, being offered a free re-survey has accepted YouGov’s apology and is running the survey again in “the next couple of months” (alongside commissioning other survey providers.)

The rest of the webinar passed pretty much as you may expect with some people saying that despite the withdrawal of the quantitative data, they had seen some qualitative evidence of a revival and that there is now more openness and curiosity about Christianity. Someone mentioned that independent Bible sales stats really have increased in the last couple of years by well over 100%. Others spoke of churches seeing new members and more people getting baptised. Another spoke of a new church member who had had a dream about Christ recently which was so visceral that he had become a believer in a day. There was also the obligatory very vocal Humanist in the chat, chagrined at the lack of apologies.

The main question lingered in the air though. ‘So, is there a Christian revival, or the leading up to a revival – or not?’ Water cannot be turned to wine without a miracle from God. It either remains water or becomes wine. I’m thinking an expensive Merlot.

I was struck once again at our capacity to make something so inherently interesting, so incredibly boring. Turning wine into water.

My question was not read out in the webinar so I put it to the Bible Society by email…

I had two questions actually.

1.      Why was the Bible Society seemingly the ONLY organisation apparently affected by the YouGov errors?

2.      Is there a Christian revival coming imminently to the UK or not?

I haven’t had a reply yet, but if I do, I’ll let you know.