Giles Coren has given up atheism for Lent. Are we witnessing an intellectual return to Christianity?

In his latest column for The Times, journalist Giles Coren announced that he was giving up atheism for Lent. Stephen McAlpine explores

Alan Coren was a great journalist whose columns were snortingly funny, and whose editorship of the satirical Punch magazine was its high point. His son Giles is also a great writer. Given the shrivelled, snivelling uber-irony that passes for humour in recent decades, Giles’ ability to make us belly-laugh with self-deprecating humour is refreshing. He clearly got that from his father.

What he didn’t get from his father was a return to the Jewish faith. Whereas Alan was slightly embarrassed about his Jewish heritage and dampened it down until later years, that ship had sailed for Giles. In fact, he says as much in his recent column in The Times, in which, Coren announces that he’s decided to turn towards Christianity.

How many public figures, especially of the literary, comedic and intellectual ilk are doing that these days? Take a ticket and line up. Aayan Hirsi Ali, her husband Niall Ferguson, Russell Brand, Tom Holland (well almost, he’s still got an issue with that pesky resurrection).

But if anything is signalling a turning of the spiritual tide, it’s coming from those of whom the average scornful atheist cannot say: “They just haven’t read enough.”