Monthly Archives: May 2010

Church of England Diocesan Benchmarking Study

We recently (1 May) reported here on the relatively cheery (given the global economic climate) 2009 financial results of the Church Commissioners, who contribute around 16% of the cost of running the Church of England. We can now highlight a … Continue reading

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Religion and Politics Among British Asians

The British general election may have come and gone, but detailed results of the opinion polls conducted during the campaign are still becoming available. One such with religious interest is the ICM poll for the BBC Asian Network, conducted by … Continue reading

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Future Role of Bishops in the Church of England

The Church of England Evangelical Council, founded by John Stott in 1960 to provide a collective evangelical voice in the Church of England, has recently published a report on The Future Role of Bishops in the Church of England, which … Continue reading

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Religion and the Hidden Wealth of Nations

Halpern’s discussion of religion is in a chapter called ‘The Politics of Virtue’, concerned with good citizenship. Despite Britons being generally averse to seeing politicians parade their personal religiosity,

‘an everyday sense of moral values and a shared sense of what is acceptable behaviour, is key to making a society work – it is part of the ‘hidden wealth’ of a successful nation’.
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Reflections on Surveying Religion Online: Perils and Promise?

I presented the results of my surveys of religion on the island of Ireland this weekend at the annual conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland (May 7-9, 2010 at Queen’s University in Belfast). All three of the papers presented were about religion, and all three utilized quantitative data of some sort. Continue reading

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The Catholic Vote

‘Labour would be returned for an historic fourth consecutive term with a very large majority if it were just Catholics voting at the general election on Thursday, as Labour holds a huge lead of 19 points over the Tories among … Continue reading

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Political Leanings of Britain’s Jews

‘There is no Christian vote’ ran the headline for Nick Spencer’s article on The Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ pages on 26 April, trying to assess how significant faith voting would be in next Thursday’s general election. But is the same … Continue reading

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Jewish Community Research Initiative Launched

On 27 April the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR), founded in New York as the Institute of Jewish Affairs in 1941 but located in London since 1965, announced the launch of its Community Research Initiative. The estimated annual cost … Continue reading

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Church Commissioners Announce Results for 2009

Have you ever wondered how faith bodies fund themselves? Although they all publish annual accounts, there has been little systematic academic research into the economics of faith in Britain, one of the rare exceptions being James Nathaniel Wolfe and Michael … Continue reading

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