Religion is the new LBD. With a proposal at this week’s EUSA AGM to provide Bibles in Pollock Halls, and following the rise of everything from the Jonas Brothers to Christian modelling agencies, it seems everybody is lusting after a little faith with students and young people leading the way.

Social commentators are always talking about the secularisation of Western society. Atheism and agnosticism began to become more established during the post-Enlightenment culture of the19th and 20th centuries but there has been a particularly rapid decline in religious believers since the 1950s. The 2001 census of the British population noted that people in the 16-34 age group were almost five times as likely to belong to no religion as those over the age of 65, reflecting the trend towards secularisation. We live in a society where science, above all else, is venerated as the provider of truth.

But religion is undergoing a resurrection. Perhaps as a response to this social trend that academics have termed ‘scientism’, where science is considered to have intellectual authority over all other interpretations of life, people began to turn to alternative faiths during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Whilst I am sure this was sparked off by a genuine need for spirituality as a remedy for the pressures of modern life, it rapidly became a fashion statement. We all know that guy who went off to Thailand on his gap year and returned with a pair of fisherman trousers and a new-found devotion to Buddhism. A survey conducted in 2003 revealed that British women were spending £670 million a year on alternative and spiritualist therapies such as reiki and crystal healing. The success of such forms of spirituality is, it would seem, partially a result of their ability to commercialise themselves; advertising themselves as a product that has something to offer the consumer, albeit in the unusual form of spiritual or emotional salvation.

And now, as we come towards the end of the decade, it would seem more orthodox faiths are jumping on the bandwagon. Christian organisations often claim that people turn to God when they become disillusioned with the consumerism and materialism of modern society and that the success of programmes such as the Alpha Course can be put down to people, including the young ‘celebrity generation’, searching for spirituality in an otherwise superficial Western life. Christianity is widely regarded as providing an alternative to this frivolous lifestyle, but it would seem that there is actually something more subversive going on. With a population that is clearly unwilling to give up the consumerist lifestyle that, ultimately, none of us can live without. The church, apparently, has taken some advice from that wise English idiom - “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” - and this new attitude has been surprisingly successful. By adopting things that are already fashionable amongst young people in a consumerist society and simply adding a touch of biblical guidance, the church is drawing in the crowds. Take, for example, America’s Silver Ring Thing. The programme organises music, comedy and club-style events, attracting crowds of revelling teenagers. During the gathering participants are encouraged to commit to a vow of sexual abstinence, until marriage, by purchasing silver rings. Call me cynical, but I’m surprised at how easy it was to make Christianity cool. All it takes, it seems, is a lot of loud music and some jewellery and suddenly 25,000 American youths had committed themselves to abstinence.

Admittedly the programme was shunned by teenagers when it arrived in the UK, but before we start attributing the phenomenon of the Silver Ring Thing to the American evangelist craze, we should look a little closer to home. Last month, The Guardian reported on a British Christian modelling agency called Models of Life. The company claims “MOL aims to raise the standard of models to a new height: beauty achieved from the perfect balance and unity of spirit, mind, and physical body”. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sold. This sounds less like Christianity and much more like the advert I saw in my local reiki practitioner’s window. The company’s website seems to have been temporarily shelved after the publication of The Guardian’s article but by all accounts it was filled with striking, heavily made-up girls smiling out of the screen. If St. Matthew is currently turning in his grave, muttering about lust and 'adultery of the heart', then I have to say I sympathise. Although not officially affiliated with the church, this is a prime example of Christianity commercialising itself in an attempt to reach a wider audience and, possibly, make a little dosh in the process.

A more mainstream (and less financially motivated) initiative to spread the word of God can be found in the form of the Alpha Course. This trans-denominational programme is primarily aimed at non-church goers who are looking for an informative, no-pressure way into religion. Since its inception at London’s well-heeled Holy Trinity Brompton in 1993, a staggering 2.5 million people have taken the Alpha Course in the UK alone. Anybody can lead an Alpha Course, providing an informal evening or dinner once a week at which to discuss and explore Christ and his significance to us today. University of Edinburgh students are joining in wholeheartedly, with several courses being run out of New Town flats and roughly ten to 15 students attending each course. These are tailored specifically to a student timetable, with courses being slightly shorter than usual. After six weeks, participants attend the ‘Holy Spirit Weekend’: two days of talks, presentations and discussions, during which it is hoped the individual will experience the Spirit within themselves. This part of the course in particular has received heavy criticism, with some participants claiming the high-pressure environment is coercive and uncomfortable, often involving relatively unorthodox elements such as speaking in tongues. Nonetheless, statistics suggest that most do end up converting to Christianity and, given the unquestionable success of the programme, the Church is obviously doing something right. This is Christianity becoming hands-on and interactive, clawing its way back into the mainstream with Alpha events being run across the country – including a recent campaign backed by celebrity adventurer Bear Grylls – and adverts spread across buses and billboards everywhere. There is a lot to be said for such an approach – the numbers speak for themselves – but it seems that, as with the more alternative faiths of the 90s, what we are seeing here is Christianity becoming absorbed into consumerism, rather than standing against it.

In whatever unusual forms and via whichever untraditional methods, religion is back, making itself relevant to the citizens of a modern, consumerist society, heralding the rise of the religionista.

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