Lamorna Ash spent a year searching for God. Did she find what she was looking for?

What draws Gen Z to Christianity and what might they find there? In Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever, Lamorna Ash explores faith with honesty, depth and a storyteller’s eye, offering an intriguing glimpse into a generation’s spiritual searching, says Derek Walker

Lamorna Ash had her interest piqued when she heard that a comedy double act from her university days had simultaneously become Christians and wanted to become priests. She was a: “no Christian, no theologian, no philosopher,” and had the usual assumptions that Christianity is: “aligned with all kinds of malignant social positions.” Wishing to understand what made the duo and others in their 20s and 30s  want to convert, she wrote a Guardian piece about them. When she realised how much more there was to discover, she turned her fascination into a book: Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion (Bloomsbury Publishing).

Ash had no agenda beyond seeking truth and understanding. She explored the lives of Christians in her age bracket across a range of denominations, from Orthodox to Quaker, interviewing widely and conducting in-depth research. She also immersed herself in Christian community, beginning with a six-week Christianity Explored course. As we journey with her in the book, we experience her reactions firsthand. Ash is candid and unfiltered, wher honesty balanced by a clear respect for others. In the process, we gain insight into how Christians can be perceived, positively or negatively to those unfamiliar with the faith. She may be just one voice, but her perspective offers a valuable window into the worldview of Gen Z.

In the book, Ash draws on the Genesis story of Jacob wrestling with the angel - both the biblical account and Sir Jacob Epstein’s striking 2.5-tonne alabaster sculpture at the Tate, to frame her own struggle to come to terms with faith in God. At the start of her research, she joked: “Can I become a Christian in a year?” - though part of her feared it wasn’t entirely a joke. Ash began the experiment believing that faith might compromise