Alycia Wood states the first claim plainly: “Christianity actually provides a very, very good case for not just the existence of God, but for the Christian God.” Justin Brierley states the second. After nearly two decades of hosting debates between Christians and atheists, he believes the loud atheism of the early 2000s has spent itself and that “there’s something new stirring.” Put together, the two claims make a familiar argument: the evidence points to God, and the culture is starting to notice.
The record supports the first claim more than the second. The witnesses build a serious cumulative case for God from the origin and order of the universe, its suitability for life, moral obligation and the human need for meaning. They are candid that this is a case and not a proof, and that its decisive piece, the resurrection, is named here but not examined. The comeback claim holds in one narrow sense: new atheism has faded as a public movement. In the larger sense of more people believing, nothing in these conversations measures it.
The two claims have to be weighed separately because they rest on different kinds of evidence. Whether God exists does not change with the mood of a decade. Whether people are turning back toward the question is a matter of trends, conversions and public conversation. Treating a cultural shift as proof of God trades an argument for a trend that can reverse, and treating empty pews as disproof makes the same mistake from the other side.