A survey which showed data indicating a Christian revival was booming Britain has been withdrawn after it was discovered that a number of respondents were fraudulent.
The YouGov poll was used as evidence in the "Quiet Revival" report - published by the Bible Society - to highlight a renewal of faith among the British public, especially across Gen Z.
But on Thursday, the pollster confirmed responses collected in the survey included “a number of respondents who we can now identify as fraudulent”. YouGov chief executive Stephan Shakespeare said the company takes "full responsibility" for the inaccurate data and issued an apology. He said: "We would like to stress that Bible Society have at all times accurately and responsibly reported the data we supplied to them.
"We are running the survey again with Bible Society to get robust data on this topic.” The pollster previously reported that belief in God among 18 to 24-year-olds had almost tripled in just three-and-a-half years, rising from 16 per cent in August 2021 to 45 per cent in January 2025. It also appeared to show a surge in church attendance, with a 56 per cent increase in adults attending a service at least once a month, when compared to YouGov survey carried out in 2018.
The Bible Society said their published report was now “faulty, and it can no longer be regarded as a reliable source of information about the spiritual landscape in Britain”. On Thursday, the charity's CEO, Paul Williams, fumed: "We are deeply disappointed that YouGov not only made an error but also that it only discovered this so recently."
He added that the Bible Society “recognise that this news may feel discouraging and we share that sense of disappointment." Mr Williams said: “Over a 15-month period, Bible Society repeatedly sought and received assurances from YouGov, regarding both the robustness of the methodology and the reliability of the report’s conclusions.
"It was only at the beginning of March that YouGov confirmed that it failed to activate key quality control technologies that protect the sample from a wide range of errors and this undermines the reliability of the results.” Despite the data, he insisted there was “plenty of other evidence that indicates that more people are finding faith today than for many years”.
The charity has said there were only made aware of the polling company's "concerns" surrounding the survey last month. It said: “Before then, YouGov had repeatedly assured us that there was nothing wrong with the data.
"We only learned in early March that serious failures had been found in their anti-fraud systems. "After that, we worked as quickly as we could to establish the full picture before going public with a statement and correction.”
The Bible Society confirmed it will be running a repeat of the survey in the spring with YouGov, alongside other polling companies, to gain "as accurate a picture as possible" about the state of Christianity in Britain. It said it hoped the findings of the new poll will be published in the autumn.
FULL ARTICLE AT: https://www.gbnews.com/news/christian-revival-britain-fake-mass-fraud-survey
