The Vibe Shift

Send us Fan Mail April, a former corporate professional turned professor at Houston Christian University, joined Edward’s week-long seminar on Gen Z at the 2025 Oxford Theology Summer School. In this conversation, she reflects on what she is seeing among her students: a generation often cautious of organised religion, yet deeply engaged in a search for meaning, truth, and community. Drawing on both her own vocational journey and her classroom experience, April explores the resonance of ...

Send us Fan Mail Kasun Fernando, a young Roman Catholic deacon from Sri Lanka, joined Edward's week-long seminar on Gen Z at the 2025 Oxford Theology Summer School. In this conversation, Kasun reflects on what the experience taught him about listening, and how the five themes—or narrative-types—of The Gen Z Role Models Project has helped him better understand his generation. The Vibe Shift Podcast is part of The Gen Z Role Models Project, a study exploring how young people today make sense of...

Send us Fan Mail James, a London-based student, grew up in a religious home but now calls himself “pro-faith" but not practising. In this conversation, he reflects on why some Gen Zers turn away from organised religion and move toward self-help, how social media shapes shared anxiety and belonging, and why curiosity—and conversation—might be the best kind of therapy. This episode is part of The Gen Z Role Models Project, a study exploring how young people today make sense of religion, spiritu...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Vibe Shift, Edward talks with Noah, a theology graduate and study participant who reflects on the power of asking big questions—and finding simple but profound answers. Noah shares how reading the medieval theologian, Saint Thomas Aquinas, transformed his understanding of religion, why our study's Simple Faith Narrative resonated with him, and how teaching with stories helps students navigate their own life journeys. From thirteenth-century questions to...

Send us Fan Mail In this final episode of The Vibe Shift mini-series, Edward brings the essay to a close—an essay that shaped the theoretical foundation of the Gen Z Role Models Project. Building on narrative theology, moral philosophy, and the method of reflexive thematic analysis, the episode explores how exemplarist narratives appear across religious and cultural traditions. Drawing on thinkers like Linda Zagzebski and Alasdair MacIntyre, Edward reflects on why moral meaning unfolds in sto...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Vibe Shift, Edward—lecturer at King’s College London and research lead on the project—steps back to share the theoretical foundation that shaped how the research team approached the story data. At the heart of the study is a method called story completion, which asks participants to finish a fictional narrative involving Jesse, a Gen Z character encountering a spiritual or religious role model online. To interpret these submissions, the team used ...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of The Vibe Shift, Claire speaks with Saadadden, a former research assistant on the Gen Z Role Models Project with a background in both law and theology. Drawing on the Islamic tradition, Saadadden reflects on the importance of moral exemplars—and why face-to-face encounters are so central to understanding them. He explains how online interactions often strip role models of their values and context, reducing them to mere image or fragmentary sound bites. In co...

Send us Fan Mail In this first episode of The Vibe Shift, we sit down with Iris—a London-based student from Southeast Asia and one of the first participants in the Oxford pilot of the Gen Z Role Models Project. The project uses a research method called story completion to surface the unspoken beliefs young people hold about religion and spirituality. Together, we explore stories of “divine disillusionment”—moments when religious figures and institutions fail to live up to expectations, and wh...