by Kenneth Francis (July 2025)
Ever since Nietzsche’s Parable of the Madman at the end of the 19th century, God has been buried many times, especially in Russia (which is now a Christian country), but He continues to rise again and again.
And ever since the Lockdowns Reign of Terror (2020-2023), when every sane person must have felt like the ‘Madman’ in Nietzsche’s parable, religion has been making a comeback with God rising once again, especially in the hitherto secular West and beyond.
The French Church, last Easter, hit a record of more than 17,800 baptisms of adults and adolescents. The Economist magazine, which is no fan of Christianity, last May called it a “Baptism Boom,” as “a secular country returns to the Church.” This French reverting back to the Faith was predicted by a French mystic called Marie-Julie Jahenny (1850-1941). Through the Divine intervention of the Holy Spirit, she made many predictions, which to date have all come true.
Last month, a record 19,000 (now calculated at 30,000 in a sold-out walk) young Catholics walked from Paris to the French city of Chartres, in what has become France’s largest traditional pilgrimage, according to the organisers of the walk.
But it is not just France. Last month, the Catholic News Agency, said that a record number of adults have been baptised in Dublin, as faith grows among young Irish people. The trend is also happening in the UK. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales reported recently that in 2023, Mass attendance grew from 503,008 in 2022 to 554,913 in 2023 … and rising.
In the Middle East, according to Rhythm TV, a quiet revival is sweeping across the land. In Iran, where there were just 500 Christians in 1979, the underground church has grown to over 1 million believers, making it the fastest-growing church in the world, according to Rhythm.
It added: “Afghanistan, despite being one of the most dangerous places for Christians, is seeing thousands turn to Christ in secret (from the hostile authorities). Even in Saudi Arabia, where conversion is forbidden, there are increasing reports of native Saudis following Jesus. Many share remarkable stories of vivid dreams and visions of Christ, calling them by name and drawing them to the Gospel. Against all odds, faith is rising in the most unlikely places.”
In China, over the past four decades, Christianity has grown faster than anywhere else in the world, according to The Brink (a pioneering research center from Boston University). Daryl Ireland, a Boston University School of Theology research assistant professor of mission, estimates that the Christian community there has grown from 1 million to 100 million.
In Sweden, the Sweden Herald recently reported a story on the return to the Christian Faith. Quoting P3 News, it wrote:
“Interest in the Catholic Church is increasing in Sweden, reports P3 News. Over a 10-year period, more than 19,400 members have been added, according to figures from the Catholic Church in Sweden.
“The increase is mainly due to immigration from Catholic countries. Additionally, many young people are attracted. 16-year-old Melvin Hedman is now on his way to converting.
‘I look forward to every Mass,’ he says to P3 News.
“Joel Halldorf, a professor of church history, notes a changed attitude among young people, including on Tiktok.
‘One notices today a growing interest in religion and questions related to belonging, identity, community, and hope. These are questions that religious traditions have worked with for centuries.'”
The Catholic Church in Skellefteå is one of those that have noticed the increase and has now introduced double high Masses on Sundays.
In America, in one of his first interviews as Pope Leo XIV, the Chicago-born pontiff discussed with NMC News Lester Holt on the impact that a first-ever American pope may have in the United States, where data already suggests there are several states where Catholicism is on the rise.
NBC added that the number of practising Catholics increased nationwide from 2010 to 2020, even as the number of churches shrank, according to an NBC News analysis of data from the U.S. Religion Census and U.S. Census Bureau. And the places where church attendance is growing shows a geographic realignment that is reshaping where and how American Catholicism thrives.
The report continues: “In the Northeast and Midwest—historically Catholic strongholds—the share and number of congregants declined during the past decade. In those two regions there are 3 million fewer Catholics than there were in 2010. Meanwhile, the opposite story played out across the South and West, where the Catholic population grew by six million.”
So, why is this phenomenon occurring in recent times? I believe there are many reasons, one of which is people lament the destruction of Christendom and, where the secular Nanny-god State once acted like a godhead figure, the exposure in social media has revealed the malevolence and tsunami of lies that have been told to decent, hard-working, tax-paying citizens.
Lies which the mainstream media State-sponsored stenographers spewed out on a daily basis till the end of the Lockdowns, when many people awakened. That is why Christianity is despised by the Establishment, because Christians answer and obey God before the State.
I also believe that another reason for this return to the Faith is that most secularists, who act civilised, behave in a respectful fashion, and are quite rational about most things, intuitively believe in God. Some of these people, the famous ones, have described themselves as Cultural Christians. The biologist Richard Dawkins is one of them.
They like the aesthetic beauty of Western civilization’s art and architecture, like the great cathedrals and stunningly beautiful Sistine Chapel, as well as the message of loving and caring for fellow humans: Soup kitchens for the homeless, hospitals for the sick and dying, schools, and numerous charities worldwide. Postmodern atheistic relativism could not care less if such places of human flourishing and nurturing did not exist.
The reason why I believe the atheist intuitively believes in God is because the shock realisation of God being false would lead any normal intelligent morally good person (not a diabolical narcissist) to have a spiritual crises and/or nervous breakdown leading to a profound feeling of despair of the terror of existence. This is what allegedly happened to writer Albert Camus (1913-1960) before he died in a car accident. Camus was desperately seeking meaning in life.
Even though he did not regard himself as a philosopher or Existentialist, there is an allegation that a request to be baptized was made by Camus before he died, according to Howard Mumma in his book, Albert Camus and the Minister.
While aged in his mid-40s, just a few years before his death, Camus allegedly had a crisis of faith in atheism. Baptised a Catholic, Camus was a theologically challenged atheist, and was fortunate to find a theology minister, Howard Mumma, from Ohio, a guest minister at the American Church in Paris.
Camus eventually had a conversation with Mumma, and over a few years, they talked about God and faith, according to Mumma. Eventually, Camus asked to be baptized in private. Mumma paraphrases Camus as saying that something is dreadfully wrong in his life and that he is a disillusioned and exhausted man who has lost faith and hope.
Camus said: “To lose one’s life is only a little thing. But, to lose the meaning of life, to see our reasoning disappear, is unbearable. It is impossible to live life without meaning (especially ultimate spiritual meaning with hope beyond the grave).” Mumma refused to baptise Camus because he was already baptised as an infant, which is sufficient for a Catholic. Camus later died in a car crash in 1960, aged 46.
Having a breakdown due to the loss of God also happened to atheist philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) before he went insane. Some have argued that his decent into madness was caused by syphilis: something a promiscuous person contracts when they ‘bury’ God. But many believe he must have intuitively known God exists because in his Parable of the Madman, which looks biographical, the consequence of believing God does not exist are horrifically explained.
Nietzsche almost fully understood the ramifications of the death of God, to a point: He had not considered the problem of freedom of the will, which rules out the birth of the Übermensch, who could not be a person but instead a sack of atoms which would be at the mercy of chemistry, physics, and geographical location.
However, ‘The Madman’ spells out the death of God in terrifying metaphors in one of the greatest pieces of prose ever written. At the 19th century Russian marketplace, ‘The Madman’ says to the Godless villagers who are mocking and laughing at him (excerpt):
…Whither is God? I will tell you.
We have killed him—you and I.
All of us are his murderers.
But how did we do this?
How could we drink up the sea?
Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?
Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?
Away from all suns?
Are we not plunging continually?
Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions?
Is there still any up or down?
Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?
Do we not feel the breath of empty space?
Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?
Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?
Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers
who are burying God?
Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition?
Gods, too, decompose.
God is dead.
God remains dead.
And we have killed him.
How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?
… Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?…
Continuing in 19th Russia, where people had forgotten God: In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s seminal novel, The Brothers Karamazov, a character says, “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” And intuitively any rational, morally good atheist knows, intuitively, that there is a God, because torturing a human being or animal for fun is a moral abomination and should never be permitted. So much for the philosophical concept of moral relativism or Aleister Crowley’s diabolical motto: “Do as thou wilt.”
The graveyards of the world are jam-packed with moral monsters who ‘did what thou wilt’ and tried every trick in the book to destroy God.
Napoleon Bonaparte once taunted a Catholic cardinal by saying: “Your Eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?” The cardinal replied: “Your Majesty, we Catholic clergy have done our best to destroy the Church for the last eighteen hundred years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”
The cardinal was referring to lacklustre lukewarm Catholics—theologically challenged types who err on dogma. This erring on dogma went into turbo charge after Vatican 2 in 1965. Paradoxically, the late Pope Francis (unwittingly?) woke-up millions of slumbering Catholics, who are now becoming traditionalists. Once again, ‘the cunning of reason’ laid bare.
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Kenneth Francis is a Contributing Editor at New English Review. For the past 30 years, he has worked as an editor in various publications, as well as a university lecturer in journalism. He also holds an MA in Theology and is the author of The Little Book of God, Mind, Cosmos and Truth, The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd (with Theodore Dalrymple), and Neither Trumpets Nor Violins (with Theodore Dalrymple and Samuel Hux). His most recent books are Theology in Music: How Christian Themes Permeate Classic Songs and Theology in Film: How Christian Themes Permeate Classic Movies.
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