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Counting Religion in Britain, July 2018

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 34, July 2018 features 18 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 34 July 2018

OPINION POLLS

Attitudes to Christians and Christianity

In connection with the recent publication of Krish Kandiah’s Fatheism: Why Christians and Atheists Have More in Common than You Think (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2018), Home for Good and Hodder Faith commissioned ComRes to undertake an online survey of attitudes to Christians and Christianity among 4,087 adult Britons on 2-6 March 2018. The core of the poll comprised ten statements to which respondents were invited to indicate agreement or disagreement. Topline results are as follows, revealing a very large number choosing the neither agree nor disagree option (perhaps reflecting a lack of engagement with, or knowledge of, the subject matter):

‘I believe that Christians are a negative force in society’ – agree 10%, disagree 51%, neither 39%
‘When I meet somebody new, I assume that they hold no religious beliefs unless they tell me otherwise’ – agree 39%, disagree 17%, neither 44%
‘When I know that someone is a Christian, I find it harder to talk to them’ – agree 9%, disagree 65%, neither 27%
‘I would be more likely to trust a person with no religious beliefs than a Christian’ – agree 12%, disagree 45%, neither 43%
‘I would be cautious about leaving my children in the care of a Christian’ – agree 7%, disagree 62%, neither 31%
‘I would have more fun socialising with a Christian than an atheist’ – agree 7%, disagree 37%, neither 56%
‘I think that being an atheist or non-religious is more normal than being a Christian’ – agree 28%, disagree 26%, neither 46%
‘Overall, I have had a positive experience of Christians and Christianity’ – agree 44%, disagree 15%, neither 41%
‘I feel comfortable discussing my religious beliefs with people at work’ – agree 46%, disagree 16%, neither 39%
‘Christians are more tolerant than other people’ – agree 19%, disagree 32%, neither 49%

Full data tables, including breaks by standard demographics and frequency of church attendance (but not by religious affiliation), can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/home-for-good-and-hodder-faith-faitheism-survey/

Religion and violence

ComRes was commissioned by Theos to run another set of attitude statements, this time exploring the relationship between religion and violence, among an online sample of 2,042 Britons on 6-7 June 2018. Topline results were as follows:

‘Religions are inherently violent’ – agree 32%, disagree 55%, don’t know 13%
‘The teachings of religion are essentially peaceful’ – agree 61%, disagree 27%, don’t know 12%
‘Most religious violence is really about things like politics, socio-economic issues, or Western foreign policy’ – agree 64%, disagree 21%, don’t know 15%
‘It is religious extremists, not religions themselves, that are violent’ – agree 81%, disagree 12%, don’t know 7%
‘Most of the wars in world history have been caused by religions’ – agree 70%, disagree 21%, don’t know 9%
‘On balance, religions are much more peaceful today than violent’ – agree 40%, disagree 44%, don’t know 16%
‘The world would be a more peaceful place if no one was religious’ – agree 47%, disagree 38%, don’t know 16%
‘The world would be a more peaceful place if no one believed in God’ – agree 35%, disagree 45%, don’t know 19%

Opinion on the subject was thus divided, and dependent on question-wording. Higher levels of negativity would doubtless have been on display had the topic of Islam and violence been explicitly raised. Data tables, including breaks by religious affiliation, can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/theos-religion-and-violence-survey/

The poll findings are touched upon in Nick Spencer’s foreword to a new Theos report by Robin Gill on Killing in the Name of God: Addressing Religiously Inspired Violence, which was published on 16 July 2018 and can be downloaded from:

https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/Killing-in-the-Name-of-God.pdf

Pride in the Church

Asked which of 13 British institutions they had pride in, just 33% of 1,693 adults interviewed online by YouGov on 28-29 June 2018 said they were very (8%) or fairly (25%) proud of the Church of England/Church in Wales/Church of Scotland, only the House of Commons (28%) and House of Lords (21%) being ranked lower. The institutions in which most pride was taken were the fire brigade (91%), National Health Service (87%), and armed forces (83%). Half the sample claimed they were not very (24%) or not at all (26%) proud of the ‘national’ Churches, including three-fifths of Scots. Full data tables are accessible via the link in the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/07/04/nhs-british-institution-brits-are-second-most-prou/

Religious affiliation

Representative samples of adult Britons drawn from an online panel are regularly asked by Populus ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ An aggregation of the responses to this question for 27,000 individuals across 13 polls between January and June 2018 revealed that 49.3% self-identified as Christians, 6.1% as non-Christians, 42.9% as of no religion, and 1.7% preferring not to say. Compared with the pooled sample for the period July to December 2017, there were 1.4% fewer Christians and 1.4% more religious nones. Weighted data were extracted from sundry tables on the Populus website.

Godparents

One-half of adults have no godparents, presumably because they have not been baptised, according to an online poll by YouGov of 4,886 Britons on 13 July 2018. The proportion was highest in Scotland (56%) and among Scottish National Party voters (62%). An additional 17% of respondents did not know whether they had any godparents or not, including 21% of both men and over-65s. Data tables are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/8701aa4a-867c-11e8-80e4-c9623beb00b4

Human rights

Freedom of thought and religion is provided for in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In a recent Ipsos Global Advisor survey, conducted among online samples of adults in 28 countries between 25 May and 8 June 2018, 56% of 1,000 Britons aged 16-64 correctly identified this particular right as being covered in the Declaration. However, when asked to prioritize the four or five which were most important to protect from a list of 28 possible human rights, just 20% of Britons selected freedom of thought and religion, five points fewer than the multinational mean, with freedom from discrimination the top priority in Britain (on 33%). Given a list of 16 groups needing most protection with regard to their human rights, religious minorities were ranked twelfth in importance in Britain (on 21%). Topline results only are available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/britons-split-whether-human-rights-abuse-uk-problem

Anti-Semitism and the Labour Party

The controversy surrounding anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has flared up yet again. In a further test of public opinion, the Jewish News and Jewish Leadership Council commissioned ComRes to poll an online sample of 2,036 Britons on 20-22 July 2018. This revealed that 34% of the entire electorate and even 16% of Labour voters believe the party has a serious problem with anti-Semitism; and that similar proportions, respectively 31% and 13%, considered the former Labour minister Margaret Hodge had been right to call party leader Jeremy Corbyn anti-Semitic. Almost half (48%) of all adults and 29% of Labour voters agreed with the proposition that Corbyn is letting the Labour Party down by failing to tackle anti-Semitism in its midst. More generally, 32% judged anti-Semitism to be on the rise in the UK, while 25% disagreed and 43% were undecided. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/jewish-news-the-labour-party-and-anti-semitism/

Coverage of the survey in the Jewish News can be read at:

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/exclusive-third-of-labour-voters-say-corbyn-letting-down-party-on-anti-semitism/

Islamism

One-quarter of 1,668 Britons questioned by YouGov for the Sunday Times on 19-20 July 2018 said that they would be very (13%) or fairly (11%) likely to vote for a new political party on the far right which was committed to opposing Islamism and immigration and supporting Brexit. The proportion rose to 38% with Conservatives and 44% among those who had voted ‘leave’ in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. Almost three-fifths of the entire sample declared they would be unlikely to vote for a new party with this sort of agenda and 18% were undecided. Full data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/vxuhlu27eg/SundayTimesResults_180720_for_web.pdf

Islamic State

The British government recently became embroiled in controversy when it became known that it was willing to waive its longstanding opposition to the use of capital punishment by foreign governments in the cases of Alexanda Kotey and Shafee el-Sheikh. They are two alleged members of an Islamic State (ISIS) cell which carried out the torture and murder of western hostages in the former ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Originally from Britain, they have been stripped of their British citizenship and are due to face trial in the United States, where the death penalty is still in operation. In an online YouGov poll of 7,177 adult Britons on 24 July 2018, 62% of respondents agreed that the British government had been right to make an exception to its policy and to allow the pair to be prosecuted in a jurisdiction where the death penalty could be imposed. The proportion peaked at 82% among Conservatives and 89% of UKIP voters. Only 20% of the whole sample opposed the government’s course of action, while 18% were undecided. Full results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/9db2aa33-8f1f-11e8-b93a-d77d9dded8f6/question/00cfbd71-8f20-11e8-bcee-bbcd6aeec1e0/social

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Methodist Statistics for Mission

The Methodist Church has an unbroken record of annual statistical returns stretching back to 1766. The series, known officially as Statistics for Mission and unofficially as the October count, has been a real boon to church historians and statisticians as well as the envy of many other denominations. However, the arrangements are now set to change. For the Methodist Conference, meeting in Nottingham between 28 June and 5 July 2018, accepted Memorial M13 from the Newcastle-upon-Tyne District Synod to the effect that the burden of data collection should be reduced significantly (‘only minimal data should be collected’ in future, Conference determined, comprising membership numbers and average attendance) and the effort freed up as a result redirected towards missional activity. Methodist Council has been instructed by Conference to operationalize this new policy, which will transitionally mean much lighter reporting by Methodist circuits and districts in the connexional years 2018/19 and 2019/20. For the text of the memorial and the Conference’s reply, go to:

http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/8217/conf-2018-memorials-to-the-conference.pdf

Anti-Semitic incidents

The Community Security Trust recorded 727 anti-Semitic incidents across the UK during the first half of 2018, the second highest total for a January-June period since statistics were first kept, albeit 8% fewer than between January and June 2017. With only two exceptions, the monthly total of incidents has exceeded 100 in every month since April 2016. The 16-page report on Antisemitic Incidents, January-June 2018 can be downloaded from:

https://cst.org.uk/public/data/file/e/5/Incidents%20Report%20January-June%202018.pdf

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

LGBT people

The Government has published the results of its national LGBT survey, completed online in July-September 2017, and associated action plan. The survey attracted responses from a self-selecting sample of 108,100 adults aged 16 and over living in the UK who self-identified as having a minority sexual orientation or gender identity or as intersex, the largest groups being gay or lesbian (61%) and bisexual (26%). Religion or belief was one of the background characteristics investigated, 69% of interviewees claiming to have none, with 18% professing to be Christians. Further information, including a 304-page research report with some religious breaks (for example, in respect of having undergone or been offered sexual ‘conversion’ therapy), is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report

Prisoners

A further breakdown by religion and sex of the prison population of England and Wales has been published by the Ministry of Justice. The proportion of prisoners professing no religion is currently 30.7% overall, compared with 30.8% twelve months previously, and with no significant gender difference. Full details are available in table 1.5 of the return of the prison population for 30 June 2018 at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2018

Ethnic Sikhs

According to a report in The Times for 23 July 2018 (p. 17), the campaign to have Sikhs recognized as an ethnic as well as a religious group in the 2021 census of England and Wales has moved a step closer to success, following an overwhelmingly positive response to the idea in a postal survey of gurdwaras organized by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs. This expression of support is felt likely to satisfy the requirement of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for evidence of the ‘public acceptability’ of the proposal, the last major hurdle to be cleared before ONS is able to make a formal recommendation to effect the change.

However, the newspaper’s report prompted several letters to the editor of The Times from Sikhs objecting to the recognition of Sikhs as an ethnic group (24 July 2018, p. 24, 25 July 2018, p. 24). One of the letters, from Lord Singh of Wimbledon, observed that most Sikhs in the UK today are British-born and native English-speakers and thus would not meet the criteria for ethnic Sikhs. Another alleged that British gurdwaras are largely controlled by Sikh separatists, who initiated the campaign in the first place. In reply (27 July 2018, p. 24), Jagtar Singh, Secretary General of the Sikh Council UK, reiterated that there was widespread endorsement of the idea among Sikhs, adding that 83,000 of them had written in their ethnicity as Sikh under the ‘other’ category at the 2011 census.

ONS is also considering offering Jews the opportunity to record themselves as an ethnic group in the 2021 census.

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Secularization and economic change

Economic growth can be ruled out as a cause of secularization, a new study suggests. Rather, rises in secularization and, more particularly, tolerance for individual rights have been identified as predictors of economic growth (as measured by GDP) in the twentieth century by Damian Ruck, Alexander Bentley, and Daniel Lawson in ‘Religious Change Preceded Economic Change in the 20th Century’, Science Advances, Vol. 4, No. 7, 18 July 2018, eaar8680. Data derive from a birth cohort analysis of the post-1990 waves of the World Values Surveys and European Values Surveys for 109 nations, including Great Britain. The article, and associated resources, can be freely downloaded at:

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/7/eaar8680

Ruck has also blogged about the research on The Conversation at:

https://theconversation.com/religious-decline-was-the-key-to-economic-development-in-the-20th-century-100279

British Social Attitudes Survey, 2017

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) has published British Social Attitudes, 35, 2018 Edition, based on face-to-face interviews with a probability sample of 3,988 adults aged 18 and over between July and November 2017. The report itself, comprising a series of chapters of expert analysis of public opinion on various social and political issues, contains nothing of explicitly religious interest but clarifies that the survey included religion as one of its standard background variables. It can be read at:

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-35/key-findings.aspx

The questionnaire is available at:

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39277/bsa-35-questionnaire.pdf

PEOPLE NEWS

Fiona Tweedie

Revd Dr Fiona Tweedie, part-time Mission Statistics Coordinator for the Church of Scotland since 2014, has now assumed an additional part-time role as Research Associate at the Church Army Research Unit in Sheffield. Her undergraduate degree was in computer science and statistics, and, prior to becoming the Church of Scotland’s first Ordained Local Minister in 2011, she was a lecturer in statistics at the University of Glasgow (1996-2001) and University of Edinburgh (2001-05).

David John Bartholomew

The October 2017 edition of Counting Religion in Britain noted the death of Professor Bartholomew earlier that month. Celia Swan and Martin Knott have now contributed a fuller-length obituary in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, Vol. 181, No. 3, June 2018, pp. 907-9. Access options are outlined at:

https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rssa.12368

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2018

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious Census, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Alexanda Kotey, Alexander Bentley, anti-Semitic incidents, Anti-Semitism, British Social Attitudes Surveys, capital punishment, Christianity, Christians, Church in Wales, Church of England, Church of Scotland, Community Security Trust, ComRes, Damian Ruck, Daniel Lawson, David Bartholomew, economic change, ethnicity, European Values Surveys, Fiona Tweedie, freedom of religion, godparents, Hodder Faith, Home for Good, human rights, Ipsos Global Advisor, Ipsos-MORI, ISIS, Islamic State, Islamism, Jeremy Corbyn, Jewish Leadership Council, Jewish News, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Labour Party, LGBT people, Methodist Church, Methodist Statistics for Mission, Ministry of Justice, NatCen, Nick Spencer, Office for National Statistics, politics, Populus, pride, prisoners, Religious Affiliation, religious census, religious minorities, religious prejudice, religious violence, Robin Gill, Science Advances, secularization, Shafee el-Sheikh, Sikhism, Sunday Times, The Conversation, The Times, Theos, United States, World Values Surveys, YouGov | 1 Comment

Counting Religion in Britain, June 2016

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 9, June 2016 features 24 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 9 June 2016

OPINION POLLS – BREXIT

The referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union (EU), held on 23 June, was unquestionably the single most important event of the month, and its outcome (a vote to leave the EU) is likely to have far-reaching consequences. Although religion barely surfaced in the heated public and political debates which preceded the referendum, religious elements were occasionally featured in some of the pre- and post-referendum opinion polling.

Pre-referendum: voting intentions of religious groups

ORB International’s online poll for The Independent, conducted among 2,052 British electors on 8-9 June 2016, seems to have been the last pre-referendum survey to have recorded the prospective referendum voting intentions of the principal religious groups. In line with previous polls, it demonstrated the wish of a majority of Christians to leave the EU, as tabulated below. The statistics have been calculated from the full data available at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/orbindependent-friday-10th-june-final-data-tables.pdf

% across	Remain	Leave
All	47	53
Christians	43	57
Non-Christians	52	48
No religion	51	49

Pre-referendum: voting intentions of practising Christians

In contrast with the views of professing Christians, noted above, 54% of 1,200 practising (churchgoing) Christians (laity and church leaders) in membership of Christian Research’s online Resonate panel indicated an intention to vote to remain in the EU at the referendum, in a survey launched on 9 June 2016. This was four points up on the figure from a similar Resonate poll in March. Just over one-quarter (28%) were planning to vote to leave. Awareness of the recent open letter on the referendum by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, which argued that leaving the EU would threaten peace in Europe, was limited, nearly half the respondents not having heard about it at all. Other topics covered in the June Resonate omnibus were attitudes to the National Health Service and the Investigatory Powers Bill. A press release about the survey is at:

http://www.christian-research.org/reports/privacy-nhs-and-the-referendum/

Pre-referendum: voting intentions and science

Assaad Razzouk, the Lebanese-British energy entrepreneur, commissioned ComRes to undertake, between 29 May and 5 June 2016, a telephone poll of two sub-samples of 809 adults intending to vote to remain in or leave the EU, exploring their attitudes to science. One of the statements to which respondents were invited to react was ‘people who question the theory of evolution have a point’. Answers are tabulated below, revealing that Britons who were more sceptical about the EU also found it more difficult to accept the theory of evolution. Data tables can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/assaad-razzouk-eu-referendum-and-science-poll/

% across	Agree	Disagree
Remainers	36	59
Leavers	46	47

Pre-referendum: intervention of religious figures

During the course of the referendum campaign, several prominent religious leaders and groups made their views known on whether the UK should remain in or leave the EU, including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. The majority of these religious opinion formers argued in favour of remaining. However, the British public was not inclined to attach much weight to their counsel, according to a YouGov poll for the Today programme on BBC Radio, undertaken on 13-14 June 2016 among an online sample of 1,656 adults. Asked which of 13 types of people they trusted for their statements on remaining or leaving, senior religious figures ranked eighth, albeit only 15% trusted what they said about the EU and no more than 24% in any demographic sub-group (those intending to vote remain). Three-fifths distrusted senior religious figures on the EU, peaking at 71% among men. The only consolation for religious leaders was that electors exhibited net distrust in all the types of people on the list, save academics, who notched up a net trust score of 6%. A topline summary is shown below.

% across	Trust	Distrust
Academics	43	37
Economists	38	39
People from well-known businesses	37	43
People from well-known charities	37	40
People from the Bank of England	36	45
People from international organizations	32	46
Think tanks	28	44
Senior religious figures	15	61
Political leaders of other countries	14	67
Politicians from Britain	13	72
Well-known actors and entertainers	12	61
Well-known sports people	10	64
Newspaper journalists	10	74

Data tables can be found at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/x4iynd1mn7/TodayResults_160614_EUReferendum_W.pdf

Post-referendum: actual voting of religious groups

Lord Ashcroft polled 12,369 electors after they had voted in the referendum, 11,369 of them interviewed online and 1,000 by telephone. The reported voting of the major religious groups is tabulated below, from which it will be seen that, in line with voting intentions in pre-referendum surveys, Christians inclined to be leavers and non-Christians and religious nones to be remainers. Age probably largely accounts for this pattern since in general older people were most likely to have voted to leave the EU and younger people to remain; Christians have a disproportionately elderly profile and non-Christians (particularly Muslims) and nones a disproportionately younger profile. Details of voting by religion can be found on p. 10 and of the demographics of religious belonging (including when respondents made their minds up about how to vote in the referendum) on pp. 56-9 of the full computer tables at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/How-the-UK-voted-Full-tables-1.pdf

% across	Remain	Leave
All	48	52
Christians	42	58
Muslims	70	30
Other non-Christians	53	47
No religion	55	45

Post-referendum: actual voting of Jews

Almost twice as many Jews voted to remain in the EU as elected to leave, 59% versus 31%, according to a telephone poll of 1,002 members of a pre-recruited panel of self-identified British Jews interviewed by Survation for the Jewish Chronicle on 27-29 June 2016. A further 9% did not vote or refused to say how they had voted. Jews aged 55 and over (38%) or who supported the Conservative Party (39%) were among those most inclined to leave, and respondents aged 35-54 (67%) were among those most disposed to stay. Unsurprisingly, given this voting pattern, only 28% of Jews expressed satisfaction with the result of the referendum, 60% being unhappy, while 39% claimed to feel less safe in the light of the outcome and 57% to being pessimistic about the future. Asked who should be the next Prime Minister, following David Cameron’s resignation, a plurality (39%) of Jews plumped for Theresa May. The Jewish Chronicle’s coverage of the poll, with a link to the full data tables, can be found at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/159839/brexit-vote-triggers-fears-over-security

OPINION POLLS – OTHER TOPICS

Charitable giving

Religious causes received 13% of charitable donations in 2015, the same as children and young people’s causes, but three points behind medical research. However, religious causes notched up the highest average donation (£49) of all types of charity, as well as the highest median donation (£16). Over-65s were almost three times as likely to report donating to religious causes as 16-24s (17 per cent versus 6%). Data derive from the Charities Aid Foundation report UK Giving, 2015: An Overview of Charitable Giving in the UK during 2015, which is based upon face-to-face interviews conducted by GfK NOP with 4,160 UK adults aged 16 and over in February, May, August, and November 2015. It can be found at:

https://www.cafonline.org/docs/default-source/personal-giving/caf_ukgiving2015_1891a_web_230516.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Religious education and faith schools

YouGov has recently (and very belatedly) posted on its website the data tables for an online poll it conducted among 2,198 UK adults on 14-15 September 2015. It was commissioned by Ideate Research in discussion with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in advance of a major debate on faith and education staged as part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas on 21 October 2015. Some headline findings were included in a press release from AHRC on that date, which attracted very little media coverage, but this is apparently the first time that detailed results have entered the public domain. The survey found that 77% of the population considered that religious education (RE) should be a compulsory (45%) or optional (32%) part of the national curriculum, with only 17% dissenting; paradoxically, notwithstanding their relatively low religiosity, 18-24s were keenest (53%) on compulsory RE. As the table below indicates, views about faith schools were decidedly more mixed, especially in the case of Islamic schools, which almost half the sample wished to see prohibited. When it came to changes affecting UK society over the next half-century, very few (8%) thought religious leaders would be best able to lead such changes, with just 7% suggesting they would be best equipped to help the general public understand the changes.

Attitudes to … (% down)	Christian schools	Islamic schools	Jewish schools
Should be allowed and receive state funding	44	12	16
Should be allowed but not receive state funding	32	34	43
Should not be allowed in UK	16	44	28

Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/v50s4c7q5d/YG-Archive-10616-IdeateResearch.pdf

Freedom of speech

A newly-published ComRes poll commissioned by the Conservative Woman, for which 2,050 adults were interviewed online on 7-9 May 2016, revealed Britons to be somewhat ambivalent about legislative limitations on freedom of speech designed to protect people’s rights not to be offended by what others say. Two of the eight statements the sample was invited to respond to had a religious dimension. One asked whether it was right to have laws against ‘hate speech’ even if it might mean, for example, that Christian preachers could be arrested for repeating something in the Bible. In reply, almost twice as many contended that it was not right to have such laws as agreed that it was, 47% versus 26%, with a majority of men, over-55s, and residents of Northern England and the West Midlands opposed to such restrictions and no more than 31% in any demographic sub-group in favour of them. In similar vein, three-fifths (61%) of interviewees disagreed with the suggestion that persons who criticize Islam should be punished by hate speech laws, the proportion rising to seven in ten among men and over-55s; just 15% agreed with the proposition, and no more than 28% in any sub-group. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ComRes_Freedom-of-Speech-Poll_tables.pdf

Trust in religious leaders

Young people generally do not trust religious leaders or other authority figures, according to an online poll of 1,351 Britons aged 18-30 conducted by YouGov for Hope not Hate on 6-13 May 2016. Three-fifths of respondents said that they did not trust religious leaders very much (29%) or at all (31%), with just 22% registering a great deal (3%) or a fair amount (19%) of trust, the positive rating standing highest among non-whites (30%), part-time workers (30%), and Scots (31%). The only two of the eight groups asked about which were trusted by a majority were teachers or academics and other young persons. Summary findings are tabulated below, and full data tables can be found at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ej63u31ku2/HopeNotHateResults_YoungPeople_160513_website.pdf

% across	Trust	Distrust
A teacher/academic	72	13
A young person like yourself	50	31
A trade union leader/official	31	45
A religious leader	22	60
A TV or sports star	16	66
A leader of multinational company	16	65
The media	13	73
A politician	10	76

Islamic State

Islamic State is the top of eight international concerns in Britain, with 79 per cent of the public regarding it as a major threat to our country and a further 16 per cent as a minor threat. This is according to the latest report from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, for which 1,460 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed by TNS BMRB by telephone between 4 April and 1 May 2016. The full ranking of concerns, with comparisons for France and Germany (where, alongside Italy and Spain, Islamic State was seen as an even greater threat than in Britain), is tabulated below, while Pew’s report on the survey can be found at:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/06/13/europeans-face-the-world-divided/

% regarding as a major threat	Britain	France	Germany
Islamic State	79	91	85
Global climate change	58	73	65
Cyberattacks from other countries	55	68	66
Large number of refugees	52	45	31
Global economic instability	48	73	39
China’s emergence as a world power	31	43	28
Tensions with Russia	28	34	31
United States power and influence	24	28	25

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Faith-based charities

New Philanthropy Capital’s ongoing programme of research into faith-based charities has resulted in a further brief report: David Bull, Lucy de Las Casas, and Rachel Wharton, Faith Matters: Understanding the Size, Income, and Focus of Faith-Based Charities. The 43,352 faith-based charities in England and Wales represent 27% of all charities and receive 23% (£16.3 billion) of the charity sector’s income. However, four-fifths of the income of faith-based charities is concentrated in just 1,719 organizations. Despite the inroads of secularization, proportionately more faith-based than non-faith-based charities have been registered with the Charity Commission during the past 10 years, 34% versus 25%. Relative to their non-faith-based counterparts, faith-based charities are especially active in the fields of overseas aid, human rights, and anti-poverty. The report can be found at:

http://www.thinknpc.org/publications/faith-matters/

Church of England ministry statistics

The Church of England has published Ministry Statistics, 2012 to 2015, showing national trends in numbers of stipendiary and self-supporting clergy, and their age, gender, and ethnic profiles. Detailed diocesan-level tables are also available in a separate Excel file. The data primarily derive from a new clergy payroll system, introduced in 2012, supplemented by Crockford’s Clerical Directory. This means that there is not strict methodological comparability with earlier statistics. Although overall totals of ordained ministers have remained stable since 2012, at just over 20,000, there has been a decline of 4% in stipendiary clergy over the four-year period, with the steady increase in female ministers not offsetting the steady decline in their male counterparts. As at 31 December 2015, 26% of stipendiary clergy were women, including 7 diocesan or suffragan bishops, 26 archdeacons, and 6 cathedral deans. One-quarter of stipendiary parochial clergy were aged 60 and over, ranging by diocese from 9% to 41%. Full details can be found at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/facts-stats/research-statistics/ministry-statistics.aspx

Leadership of large Anglican churches

At the end of 2015, of the 112 Church of England churches with a Usual Sunday Attendance of at least 350, only three were led by women. In a recent paper, Liz Graveling explores why, more than two decades after women were admitted to the priesthood, so few are reaching these positions. Her research has involved statistical analysis of the current leadership of large churches and semi-structured interviews with 22 ordained ministers, mainly Evangelicals. Factors contributing to the gender imbalance are found to be: career progression time-lag; discrimination; social processes; incompatible social roles and working conditions; and organizational structures and dynamics. Graveling’s 25-page paper on ‘Vocational Pathways: Clergy Leading Large Churches’ is available at:

http://www.ministrydevelopment.org.uk/UserFiles/File/TRIG/Vocational_pathways_large_churches.pdf

Baptist statistics

The Baptist Union of Great Britain has recently launched a church statistics page on its website. It is currently limited to returns of membership and attendance for 2015, but the intention is to add information for past years in due course. In 2015 there were 126,144 members of the 2,028 churches in England and Wales belonging either to the Union or another Baptist Association, with 2,724 baptisms (equivalent to 2% of membership). Average attendance at the main weekly service, scaled up for missing data, numbered 159,360, sub-divided between 14% children, 7% young people, 8% young adults, 40% other adults, and 30% seniors. Full details, including geographical breakdowns, can be found at:

http://www.baptist.org.uk/Articles/471032/Church_Statistics.aspx

Quaker statistics

The Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain has published an annual Tabular Statement of membership since 1862, based on information provided by area meetings and collated by the Recording Clerk. Membership at the end of December 2015 stood at 13,401, just 126 less than in 2014, and representing the smallest decrease for two decades. This contrasted with sharper 12-month declines in attenders (minus 5%) and of children not in membership (down 14%). For the first time in 2015, the gender breakdown of adults included the option to identify as other than a man or woman; 1 member and 44 attenders (36 of them in Scotland) were recorded as such. Also new for 2015 was the production of statistics at local meeting level, available as supplementary online tables. The Tabular Statement, which contains a significant amount of historical data (in some cases going back to 1935), can be accessed via the link at:

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/ym/documents-1

Islamophobia (1)

The European Network against Racism (ENAR) has published Forgotten Women: The Impact of Islamophobia on Muslim Women in the United Kingdom, researched between December 2014 and January 2016 by Bharath Ganesh and Iman Abou Atta (both of Faith Matters), with support from the European Union, the Open Society Foundations, and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The 75-page report mostly draws upon pre-existing official statistics, polling data, legislation, case law, and secondary literature to illustrate the inequalities and discrimination which affect Muslim women in the UK, especially as regards employment opportunities and experience of hate crimes. There is a particular dependence upon Faith Matters’ own Tell MAMA database of Islamophobic incidents, which is not yet universally recognized as an authoritative source. On the whole, the analysis seems to add little to previous overviews covering similar ground, although it perhaps has some value in a comparative context, since it forms one of a series of seven simultaneous national reports (the others examining Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, and Sweden). The document, with a four-page fact sheet on the UK, which serves as an extended executive summary, can be downloaded from:

http://www.enar-eu.org/Forgotten-Women-the-impact-of-Islamophobia-on-Muslim-women

Islamophobia (2)

Meanwhile, Tell MAMA has published its 60-page annual report for 2015, entitled The Geography of Anti-Muslim Hatred. A record number (437) ‘offline’ or in person anti-Muslim incidents were recorded by the organization during the year, 50% involving abusive behaviour and 17% assault. Three-fifths of the victims were women and three-quarters of the perpetrators were men (predominantly white). Tell MAMA received fewer (364) notifications of online incidents than in previous years, which it attributes to better policing by social media platforms of hate speech, abuse, and trolling. The report is available at:

http://tellmamauk.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/tell_mama_2015_annual_report.pdf

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Religion and well-being

A meta-analysis of 139 English-language academic studies exploring links between religion and well-being is offered by Nick Spencer, Gillian Madden, Clare Purtill, and Joseph Ewing, Religion and Well-Being: Assessing the Evidence (London: Theos, 2016, 91pp., ISBN 978-0-9931969-4-2). The overwhelming majority of these studies are international, and disproportionately American, reflecting the relatively late beginning of measurement of well-being in the UK, especially in the form of official statistics. Using five conceptions of religion and four of well-being, the authors detect a variable but mostly positive correlation between the two. The book can be freely downloaded from:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Reports/Religion%20and%20well-being%207%20combined.pdf

Spencer has also written a blog about the report for the LSE’s newly-launched Religion and the Public Sphere website. This can be read at:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionpublicsphere/2016/06/28/is-religion-good-for-you-analysing-three-decades-worth-of-academic-research-on-the-relationship-between-religion-and-well-being/

British Social Attitudes, 2015

The book-length report on the 33rd British Social Attitudes Survey, based on interviews with a random probability sample of 4,328 Britons aged 18 and over by NatCen between August and November 2015, was published this month. The dataset has not yet been released nor has the questionnaire. Although none of the chapters in the report focuses on religion, the technical appendix (p. 123) does reveal the weighted results of the question on religious belonging, with 48% self-identifying as religious nones, 17% as Anglicans, 9% as Roman Catholics, 17% as other Christians, and 8% as non-Christians. The report is available at:

http://bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-33/introduction.aspx

Psychological profiles of Anglican congregants

The subject of psychological type and temperament profiles of Anglican congregations in England has been re-examined by Leslie Francis, Howard Wright, and Mandy Robbins through a study of 196 attenders at three services at one particular church, situated against the normative profile generated by 3,302 worshippers at 140 churches reported in International Journal of Practical Theology in 2011. The authors conclude that individual churches are able to offer diverse provisions which result in congregations with distinctively different psychological profiles. ‘Temperament Theory and Congregation Studies: Different Types for Different Services?’ is published in Practical Theology, Vol. 9, No. 1, March 2016, pp. 29-45, and access options are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1756073X.2016.1149679

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7975: National Survey of Bereaved People, 2012 – SN 7977: National Survey of Bereaved People, 2013 – SN 7978: National Survey of Bereaved People, 2014 – SN 7979: National Survey of Bereaved People, 2015

The National Survey of Bereaved People, alternatively known as VOICES: Views of Informal Carers, Evaluation of Services, is an annual survey (begun in 2011) designed to measure the quality of end-of-life care, especially during the last three months of life. It is undertaken in England by the Office for National Statistics on behalf of the Department of Health by means of a postal questionnaire completed by the persons who registered a random sample of deaths. There were 22,635 respondents in 2012, 22,661 in 2013, 21,403 in 2014, and 21,320 in 2015, each of whom provided an assessment of the care received by the deceased (including spiritual support during the final two days), together with background details about the deceased (including religious allegiance). Catalogue descriptions and documentation can be found at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7975&type=Data%20catalogue

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7977&type=Data%20catalogue

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7978&type=Data%20catalogue

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7979&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7995: Scottish Surveys Core Questions, 2014

The report on this dataset was considered in Counting Religion in Britain, No. 8, May 2016. The dataset itself has now been deposited with the UK Data Service, and a catalogue description and documentation can be found at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7995&type=Data%20catalogue

PEOPLE NEWS

Bill Pickering (1922-2016)

William Stuart Frederick Pickering, pioneer British sociologist of religion and Anglican clergyman, died on 23 May 2016, aged 94. He taught successively at King’s College London (1955-56); St John’s College, University of Manitoba (1956-66); and the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1966-87), from where he retired to Cambridge. He is perhaps best known nowadays for his writings on Émile Durkheim and for establishing the British Centre for Durkheimian Studies at the University of Oxford, as well as the journal Durkheimian Studies and the Durkheim Press. However, some of his earliest work was in the empirical sociology of religion. His 1958 doctoral thesis, ‘The Place of Religion in the Social Structure of Two English Industrial Towns (Rawmarsh, Yorkshire and Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire)’, remains a ground-breaking study of the British religious landscape in the 1950s, employing a range of archival, census, and life history approaches. Sadly, little from this was ever published, mainly as essays in Vocation de la sociologie religieuse (1958) and Archives de Sociologie des Religions (1961). He also analysed the statistical background to the Anglican-Methodist Conversations (1961), patterns of post-war churchgoing (1972), and the endurance of rites of passage (1974). An important monograph, Theological Colleges: A Sociological Appraisal, written in the 1970s and based on a survey of British colleges in 1968-69, never made it into print.

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2016

Posted in church attendance, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Organisational data, People news, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Arts and Humanities Research Council, Assaad Razzouk, Baptist Union, BBC, Bharath Ganesh, Bill Pickering, Brexit, British Social Attitudes Survey, charitable giving, Charities Aid Foundation, Christian Research, church attendance, church membership, Church of England, Clare Purtill, clergy, ComRes, Conservative Woman, David Bull, Department of Health, end-of-life care, European Network against Racism, European Union, Faith schools, faith-based charities, freedom of speech, GfK NOP, Gillian Madden, hate speech, Hope Not Hate, Howard Wright, Ideate Research, Iman Abou Atta, Islam, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Joseph Ewing, large churches, Leslie Francis, Liz Graveling, Lord Ashcroft, Lucy de Las Casas, Mandy Robbins, ministry, Muslims, NatCen, National Survey of Bereaved People, New Philanthropy Capital, Nick Spencer, Office for National Statistics, ORB International, Pew Global Attitudes Project, politics, Practical Theology, practising Christians, psychological type, Quakers, Rachel Wharton, referendum, Religion and the Public Sphere, Religious Affiliation, religious education, religious leaders, Religious Society of Friends, Resonate, science, Scottish Surveys Core Questions, senior religious figures, Survation, Tell MAMA, The Independent, theory of evolution, Theos, threat, TNS-BMRB, trust, voting, well-being, women, YouGov | 2 Comments

Muslim Distinctiveness and Other News

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s round-up of eight religious statistical news stories leads on the first substantive output from an important and academic-led four-year-old sample survey of British Muslims.

Muslim distinctiveness

The distinctiveness of British Muslims is explored in a short but highly significant article by Valerie Lewis and Ridhi Kashyap, ‘Are Muslims a Distinctive Minority? An Empirical Analysis of Religiosity, Social Attitudes, and Islam’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 52, No. 3, September 2013, pp. 617-26. Data derive from face-to-face interviews by Ipsos MORI with a sample of 480 British Muslims between January and May 2009; and from face-to-face interviews by NatCen with samples of Britons of other religious persuasions (n = 2,457) and none (n = 1,903) from the contemporaneous British Social Attitudes Survey. Muslims were found to be more religious than other Britons in terms of beliefs, practices (public and private), and salience. They were also more socially conservative on a range of topics: gender roles in the home, divorce, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage. In terms of premarital sex and homosexuality, an independent effect of Islam was documented; on other social issues Muslim attitudes tended to resemble those of other religious people. Indeed, more generally, multivariate analysis revealed that much of the difference on socio-moral opinions was due to socio-economic disadvantage and high religiosity, both factors which – Lewis and Kashyap argue – predict social conservatism among all Britons and not just Muslims. The distinctiveness of Muslims, therefore, may not be as great as it superficially seems. It should be noted that no weights were applied to the Muslim data, and that there are several caveats from the authors concerning the representative nature of the Muslim sample (including a high rate of non-response). For access options for this article, go to:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12044/abstract

Civic core

Two-thirds of all charitable activity (charitable donations and volunteering) in this country is attributable to just 9% of its citizens (the ‘civic core’). This is according to a report published by the Charities Aid Foundation on 13 September 2013 and entitled Britain’s Civic Core: Who are the People Powering Britain’s Charities? A further 67% of individuals account for the remaining 34% of charitable activity (the so-called ‘middle ground’), while 24% of the population undertake little or no charitable activity (‘zero givers’). Members of the ‘civic core’ have the greatest interest (37%) in supporting religious organizations (including places of worship), with ‘zero givers’ showing the least (10%); among the ‘middle ground’ the proportion is 20%. This trend reflects the fact that the ‘civic core’ is disproportionately composed of women, the over-65s, and people from professional/managerial backgrounds – precisely those groups most inclined to be involved with organized religion. The data derive from an online survey of 2,027 Britons aged 18 and over conducted by ComRes on 31 July and 1 August 2013, and the report is available at:

https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/CAF_Britains_Civic_Core_Sept13.pdf

Full data tables for the poll were released by ComRes on 16 September. Table 21 provides breaks for interest in religious organizations by gender, age, social grade, employment sector, region, ethnicity, and the monetary value of volunteering and charitable donations. Table 64 gives details about volunteering for religious organizations during the past year among the sub-group of respondents who have given practical help to a social cause. Table 89 records self-assigned ‘membership’ of religious groups (56% Christian, 8% non-Christian, 34% none). Unfortunately, religious affiliation is not used in this set of tables as a variable to analyse answers to all the other questions about charitable disposition and activity. The data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/CAF_People_Power_9_August_2013_Sig.pdf

Confessions

The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales reported on 2 September 2013 that the number of confessions (Sacrament of Reconciliation) is rising at many of its cathedrals. Twenty-two cathedrals were contacted by telephone or email on 21 August, of which 20 replied. Overall, 65% (i.e. 13 cathedrals) noted an increase in confessions, mostly attributing it to a ‘papal effect’ (either the visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, the inauguration of Pope Francis I in 2013, or both), while the remaining 35% (7 cathedrals) said confessions were ‘steady’ or ‘normal’. Actual statistics of those confessing were not cited by the Church, and it is possible that they constitute a relatively small proportion of professing Catholics. The Church’s press release is at:

http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/Home/News/Back-to-Church

The story was picked up by all the UK’s Catholic newspapers and by the Church Times, including a particularly upbeat report and leader in the Catholic Herald. Responding to the latter, in a letter to the editor published in the Catholic Herald for 13 September 2013 (p. 13), Anthony Hofler of Wolverhampton was in little doubt from his own experience that confession is falling out of fashion among Catholics, except, relatively, at Christmas and Easter. Undaunted, the front page of the same edition of the Catholic Herald highlighted responses by 32 priests to a survey about a three-year-long initiative in the Diocese of Lancaster to boost the uptake of confessions, apparently also with encouraging results. Significantly, again, no hard data were cited in this report, and none currently appear on the websites of the diocese or the diocesan newspaper, Catholic Voice.

With regard to the ‘papal bounce’, as already noted by BRIN in our post of 28 January 2012, average weekly Mass attendance was actually lower after the papal visit in 2010 than before. And, in gearing up for its Home Mission Sunday (which took place on 15 September 2013), the Church itself conceded there are ‘four million baptised Catholics who rarely or never attend Mass’ in England and Wales.

Fracking

Recent public divisions about fracking within the Church of England and other Christian groups are evidenced in new research briefly reported in the latest issue of Christian Research’s monthly ezine, Research Brief, which was emailed to subscribers on 6 September 2013:

CRACKS APPEAR IN FRACKING ARGUMENT

‘Our Resonate August omnibus, completed by 1.520 Resonate panellists, revealed that two-thirds of practising Christians regard it as valid that the church should derive income from mineral rights on property it owns (marginally higher support amongst church leaders). More than 2 in 5 regular churchgoers felt that the church should be able to profit from shale gas reserves located under land it owns, 1 in 3 were uncertain and 1 in 4 objected (to some degree). Interestingly, men (significantly so) and Londoners agreed more strongly than others. The results see-sawed the other way, 1 in 3 opposed and 1 in 5 in favour, if the land was dwelt on.’

University students’ religion

On 27 April 2013 BRIN provided preliminary coverage of research into English university students and Christianity, undertaken by a team led by Mathew Guest of Durham University, with funding from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. A major aim of the project, which collected data via online questionnaires completed by 4,341 undergraduates in 2010-11 and via in-depth interviews, was to test empirically the widespread assumption that higher education is a force for secularization. Full details of the findings were published on 12 September 2013 in Mathew Guest, Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Rob Warner, Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith (Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN 9781780937847, paperback, £19.99 – also available in hardback and ebook editions). The volume was reviewed by Gerald Pillay in Times Higher Education on 12 September 2013. Guest has also contributed a substantial article about the research – entitled ‘What Really Happens at University?’ – to Church Times, 13 September 2013, pp. 27-8.

Scottish religious affiliation

The results from the religion question in the 2011 census of population for Scotland are still not available (they are expected to be included in release 2A of the census data on 26 September 2013). Meanwhile, we can note the religious affiliation question from the latest Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS), conducted by ScotCen Social Research among 1,229 residents of Scotland aged 18 and over between July and November 2012. The marginals on the UK Data Service Nesstar site show that a majority of Scots (52%) now regard themselves as belonging to no religion, compared with 40% when SSAS commenced in 1999. A further 22% regard themselves as Church of Scotland (35% in 1999), 11% as Catholics (15%), 12% as other Christians (10%), and 2% as non-Christians (1%). This ‘belonging’ form of question-wording is known to maximize the number of religious ‘nones’, and a similar formulation is used in the Scottish census (‘what religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’). Claimed attendance at religious services (other than rites of passage) in the 2012 SSAS was 19% at least monthly, including 12% weekly or more often. These figures are down on 1999 levels (27% and 17% respectively) but are probably still aspirational to a considerable degree. The latest Scottish church attendance census, conducted by Christian Research on 12 May 2002, revealed a weekly participation rate of 11%, with no deduction for ‘twicing’.

Churchgoing in the Presbytery of Dunfermline

As noted in the previous entry, there has been no Scottish church attendance census since 2002. Nor does the Church of Scotland – as the ‘national church’ – routinely collect attendance data (in the way that the Church of England has since 1968). So there is added interest to annual churchgoing counts organized in the Church of Scotland’s Presbytery of Dunfermline since 2009, the latest on 17 and 24 March 2013. Through the kindness of Allan Vint, summary data for the Presbytery’s 24 congregations have been made available to BRIN. Total attendance in 2013 was 2,493, 4% down on the 2012 total and 14% on 2009. Attendees comprised 34% men and 66% women; 9% children, 3% teenagers, and 88% adults (with an average adult age of 63, up by four years since 2009).

Baby names

Biblical forenames remain fashionable for Jewish boys, according to a list compiled by the Jewish Baby Directory website. Analysing around 1,000 birth announcements in the Jewish Chronicle, Samuel was found to be first equal in the list of boys’ names for the Jewish year September 2012 to September 2013, with Jacob and Joshua joint third, Joseph joint fifth, and Benjamin, Ethan, Nathan and Noah in joint eleventh position. The attraction of female biblical names was less strong, with Leah in fourth place, Rachel in ninth, and Rebecca in eleventh equal. Previously popular biblical names for girls, such as Sarah and Naomi, failed to make it to the top twenty. The rankings are at:

http://www.jewishbabydirectory.com/top-baby-names-of-5773-september-2012-present/

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged baby names, biblical names, British Social Attitudes Survey, Cathedrals, Catholic Herald, charitable giving, Charities Aid Foundation, Christian Research, Christianity, church attendance, Church of Scotland, Church Times, ComRes, confessions, Diocese of Lancaster, distinctiveness, England, fracking, Ipsos-MORI, Jewish Baby Directory, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Kristin Aune, Mathew Guest, Muslims, NatCen, Pope, Presbytery of Dunfermline, Religiosity, Religious Affiliation, religious organizations, Resonate, Ridhi Kashyap, Rob Warner, Roman Catholic Church, Sacrament of Reconciliation, ScotCen, Scotland, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, Social Capital, social conservatism, Sonya Sharma, university students, Valerie Lewis, volunteering | Leave a comment

British Social Attitudes Survey, 2012

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The results of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey for 2012 were released by NatCen on 10 September 2013 via a dedicated website – http://www.bsa-30.natcen.ac.uk – which includes, among other outputs, a copy of the questionnaire (with marginals) and British Social Attitudes, 30, a free book (downloadable in PDF, ePub or .mobi formats) comprising seven thematic chapters of analysis and commentary. The volume is edited by Alison Park, Caroline Bryson, Elizabeth Clery, John Curtice, and Miranda Phillips.

As usual, this annual survey was undertaken by NatCen on behalf of the Economic and Social Research Council and a consortium of Government departments and charitable funders. Face-to-face interviews were conducted between June and November 2012 with 3,248 adults aged 18 and over in Britain, of whom 2,866 also filled out a supplementary self-completion questionnaire.

Three specifically religious questions were posed face-to-face, with the following results:

Although just 20% had not had a religious upbringing, as many as 48% overall professed to belong to no religion at the time of interview in 2012, a proportion which increased steadily with each generation cohort (standing at 60% for those born in the 1980s against 25% for those born in the 1920s). Church of England was still the single biggest denominational/faith category in 2012 but, at 20%, it was 16% fewer than the number brought up as Anglicans, and much reduced from the 40% recorded when the question was first put in 1983.
Among those with a current religion and/or brought up in one, weekly attendance at religious services (excluding rites of passage) now runs at 12%, with a further 8% claiming to worship at least monthly and another 14% at least once a year. By contrast, 58% worship never or practically never.
Asked whether they had ever discussed with anyone their wishes in six areas should they not have long to live, 51% said in 2012 they had discussed nothing, while 11% had discussed their spiritual and religious needs (12% in 2009). Women (15%) are more likely than men (9%) to have discussed their spiritual and religious needs, and similarly older than younger age groups, and higher than lower social grades.

Additionally, responses to all questions in the survey can be quickly analysed by religion, through the BSA Information System website at http://www.britsocat.com (prior registration is required). This facility is especially relevant for the 2012 BSA which includes numerous questions concerning morality and social values, replicated from earlier BSA studies. A sampler of what can be discovered via such analysis is included in the chapter in the book on personal relationships (focusing especially on changing attitudes to marriage, homosexuality, and abortion over three decades) by Park and Rebecca Rhead, from which the following statistics for 2012 have been extracted:

All religious groups apart from non-Christians have become more accepting of premarital sex over the past three decades, the number of Anglicans and Catholics describing it as always or mostly wrong now being reduced to one in ten (much the same as in the population as a whole), compared with almost one in three in 1983. Most tolerant of all are people of no religion, only 2% of whom in 2012 considered premarital sex to be wrong (11% in 1983). Frequency of attending religious services also has an impact; whereas 71% of non-attenders said in 2012 that premarital sex is not at all wrong, this was true of only 23% of weekly attenders at worship.
Despite a similar process of liberalization of attitudes over time, people of faith are still appreciably more disapproving of homosexuality than society at large. Indeed, the gap between the religious and non-religious on this issue is now far wider than in the past. Overall, 28% of Britons in 2012 deemed sexual relations between two adults of the same sex to be always or mostly wrong, but the proportion fell to 16% among the irreligious and climbed to 61% of non-Christians (with 35% for Catholics and 40% for Anglicans).
Religion continues to be closely associated with attitudes to abortion. Catholics are the least accepting, with only 39% supporting a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy if she wishes to, against 56% of Anglicans. Those professing no religion are most supportive of all (73%, compared with 62% of all Britons). However, acceptance of abortion has increased among all faith communities since 1983; in the case of Anglicans, for example, just 34% endorsed abortion in these circumstances thirty years ago.

Liberalization of opinions on matters of personal relationships since BSA commenced in 1983 is substantially accounted for by generational differences, ‘intolerance’ progressively dying out as more illiberal older age cohorts are replaced by more liberal younger ones. The fact that the same pattern has occurred with religious affiliation might suggest that social liberalism is causally linked with increased secularization. Nevertheless, since even Christians have displayed greater social liberalism over three decades, the relationship is inevitably rather more complex than that.

This complexity is more fully explored in another chapter in the book, on social class by Anthony Heath, Mike Savage and Nicki Senior, which deploys multivariate analysis to study interactions, in 1984 and 2012, between thirteen measures of ‘social cleavage’ (including religion and attendance at a place of worship) on the one hand and five indicators of attitudes to welfare and four of social liberalism on the other. On social liberalism the authors conclude (p. 184):

‘By 2012 … measures of social class have … declined in importance, and there are much closer associations between liberal attitudes and the other social cleavages, notably religion, attendance at a place of worship, age and ethnicity. In 2012, as in 1984, religion and attendance at a place of worship have the strongest associations of all … This is especially the case with attitudes towards premarital sex (and related issues like ease of divorce). The relationship between liberal attitudes and religiosity has, if anything, got stronger over time, especially with respect to the acceptability of same-sex relationships. But educational level also remains a powerful predictor of liberal attitudes.’

The dataset for the 2012 BSA will eventually be available through the UK Data Service (although it is not yet).

Posted in Historical studies, Survey news | Tagged abortion, Alison Park, Anthony Heath, British Social Attitudes Survey, Caroline Bryson, church attendance, dying, Elizabeth Clery, homosexuality, John Curtice, Mike Savage, Miranda Phillips, NatCen, Nicki Senior, personal relationships, premarital sex, Rebecca Rhead, religion of upbringing, Religious Affiliation, spiritual needs | 3 Comments

Eight Shorts

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Eight short items of statistical news feature in today’s second post, clearing a small backlog which has built up during a week’s absence from the desk.

Hate crime

The overwhelming majority of the British public (84%) consider that an attack on someone because of their religion should be treated as a hate crime, second only to those who deem an attack on someone because of their race as a hate crime (88%), and ahead of the numbers regarding as hate crimes attacks on the basis of sexuality (83%), transsexuality (81%), disability (78%), gender (75%), sub-culture (68%), age (59%), weight (56%), height (51%), hair colour (51%), and political views (51%). The proportion who do not think that an attack on the grounds of religion should be classed as a hate crime is 10% overall, but 13% for men and Conservative supporters, and 14% among the 18-24s. The survey was conducted by YouGov on 14-15 May 2013 with an online sample of 1,886 adults, and the data tables are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/i4jqy1c3rk/YG-Archive-hate-crime-results-150513.pdf

Sunday stress

Far from being a day of rest, Sunday has become the most stressful day of the week for one-third of Britons, according to a ‘Sunday Stress Audit’ of over 2,000 adults commissioned by the Really television channel. Indeed, 65% now claim to have busier schedules on Sunday than on an ordinary weekday, and 67% report that ‘Sunday blues’ kick in at some point during the day. More than half (51%) consider Sundays to be a day ‘for getting things done’, with an average of 3 hours and 36 minutes being spent on various household tasks, and 35% admitting that they nag or are nagged by their partners to carry out such chores. Such is the level of ‘busyness’ that 34% never get a lie in bed on Sunday, and 53% never get chance to read the Sunday newspapers properly. Sunday lunch (which takes 2 hours to prepare and 26 minutes to eat) and seeing extended family remain key elements of the Sunday tradition, with two-thirds getting together with their wider family at least one Sunday each month, not always without friction. Full results and methodological details of the survey have not been released, and the above summary is largely taken from the Daily Mail for 10 May 2013 at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322269/Sunday-Its-day-rest-day-stress-Two-thirds-say-Sabbath-busiest-time-week.html

Church organs

‘The traditional church organ is a must for special occasions but, Sunday to Sunday, congregations would rather have a guitar-based worship group.’ This is the conclusion drawn by Christian Resources Exhibitions International from a poll conducted between 26 April and 3 May 2013 among 2,250 UK churchgoers who are members of the Christian Research online panel (Resonate). A guitar-based group was the preference for ordinary Sunday services of 44% of churchgoers compared with 30% for the organ, while almost two-thirds of respondents disagreed with the statement that a church with no organ is like a pub with no beer. More than half the sample had experience of organists slipping ‘unrelated’ secular music into their repertoire. Detailed results of the poll have not been published, but there is a brief press release at:

http://www.creonline.co.uk/news.asp?pageid=13

Church Commissioners

The Church Commissioners, who make a substantial contribution to the finances of the Church of England (especially in respect of its ministry), published their annual report and accounts for 2012 on 14 May 2013. They demonstrate a return on investments of just under 10% for the year, almost matching the Commissioners’ average for the past 20 years. This return exceeds the Commissioners’ target of inflation plus 5%, as well as the performance of a comparator group of funds. The report can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1743919/w1025_cc_annual-report_final.pdf

A century and more of Catholic statistics

The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales has performed a useful service in collating the available national statistics of the Catholic Church in England and Wales until 2010, of ordinations since 1860, priests since 1890, and baptisms, marriages, receptions (formerly adult conversions), and estimates of Catholic population since 1913. Updating the series already available on BRIN (reproduced, with permission, from Churches and Churchgoers, 1977), they were published in spreadsheet format (as a series of tables and graphs), together with a brief and not entirely unbiased commentary, on the Society’s news blog on 17 May 2013 at:

http://www.lms.org.uk/news-and-events/news-blog/may-2013#statistics

With the exception of ordinations (where the lists of men each year have been counted), the data have been taken from the Catholic Directory for England and Wales, a commercial publication but issued with the official sanction of the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. Although the best source we have, it should not be forgotten that, through no fault of the Catholic Directory, these figures present a variety of challenges in terms of methodology and quality, reflecting weaknesses in the Church’s statistics-gathering at diocesan and national levels. Indeed, the Catholic Directory has recently deemed them so problematical that it has ceased to publish them entirely.

The Latin Mass Society’s principal gloss on the data is to highlight ‘the striking decline of a range of statistical indications of the health of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s’. According to the Society’s chairman, Dr Joseph Shaw, ‘it is not fanciful to connect this catastrophe to the wrenching changes which were taking place in the Church at that time, when the Second Vatican Council was being prepared, discussed, and, often erroneously, applied’. No mention here of wider historical and sociological debates about the secularization of British society and of what some historians view as the ‘religious crisis’ of the 1960s.

Mass-Observation

Mass-Observation was a social research organization founded by Tom Harrisson and Charles Madge in 1937, employing a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, primarily in two fieldwork areas: Bolton/Blackpool and London. Its heyday was relatively short, just twelve years until 1949, after which it was succeeded by Mass-Observation (UK) Limited, with a focus on commercial market research. From the outset it displayed a particular interest in religion, and, although only one major religion-related project (Puzzled People, based on interviews with a sample of 500 Hammersmith residents in 1944-45) was ever published, much raw material survives in the Mass-Observation Archive, on deposit at the University of Sussex since 1975, significant portions of which have been reproduced on microform and online by Adam Matthew Publications. Despite being the subject of a considerable amount of secondary literature, there has not hitherto been a full-length history. It is, therefore, a great pleasure to welcome the new book by James Hinton, The Mass Observers: A History, 1937-1949 (Oxford University Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-967104-5). This is essentially arranged chronologically rather than thematically, but the volume does include some brief discussion of Mass-Observation’s religious research, including an account of Puzzled People on pp. 320-4.

NatCen trustees

NatCen (National Centre for Social Research), the independent and not-for-profit organization which undertakes a wide range of surveys (including the British Social Attitudes Surveys), is looking for four trustees to join its board. The closing date for applications is 17 June 2013. Further particulars are available at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/about-us/job-opportunities/trustee-x4

Public understanding of statistics

Although it contains nothing specific about religion, some BRIN readers may be interested in a poll conducted by Ipsos MORI for King’s College London and the Royal Statistical Society and published on 14 May. The sample comprised 1,034 British adults aged 16-75 interviewed online between 9 and 15 April 2013. In a crushing blow to the BRIN ego, only 6% of respondents agreed that online blogs report statistics accurately. About half the population (49%) have a great deal or fair amount of trust in information provided by statisticians, but the proportion falls to 23% for pollsters, albeit it climbs to 63% for trust in academics. The twenty questions and sub-questions also included some practical tests of the public’s numeracy. The topline results can be viewed at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/rss-kings-ipsos-mori-trust-in-statistics-topline.pdf

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Survey news | Tagged Catholic Directory, Christian Research, Christian Resources Exhibitions International, Church Commissioners, church music, Church of England, church organs, discrimination, hate crime, Ipsos-MORI, James Hinton, King's College London, Latin Mass Society, Mass-Observation, NatCen, Really, Resonate, Roman Catholic Church, Royal Statistical Society, statistics, stress, Sundays, YouGov | Leave a comment

Money for Good and Other News

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Clive D. Field

BRIN certainly cannot trump the unprecedented inauguration of new leaders of the global Catholic and Anglican communions within the same week. But, on a business-as-usual level, here are six more religious statistical stories for your edification.

Money for good UK

So-called ‘faith-based donors’ make a significant contribution to the UK’s charitable giving and volunteering scene, according to a report – Money for Good UK: Understanding Donor Motivation and Behaviour (by Sally Bagwell, Lucy de Las Casas, Matt van Poortvliet, and Rob Abercrombie) – released on 14 March 2013 by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC). It is based on online research conducted by Ipsos MORI in October 2012 among 3,005 UK adults aged 18 and over, sub-divided into six groups: donors and non-donors for each of three income bands.

Donors were segmented into seven categories, one of them being ‘faith-based donors’. They were motivated by faith and community interests, being particularly likely to state a religious affiliation and to give money at their place of worship. They were disproportionately over-65 and from ethnic minorities. They especially supported religious causes and overseas aid agencies. They were also above-average volunteers, especially giving time to religious organizations and children.

‘Faith-based donors’ comprised 11% of all ‘mainstream donors’ (those having a household income up to £150,000) but they accounted for 32% of all charitable donations during the past year, with an average donation of £906, six times the amount given by ‘ad hoc givers’. Likewise, only 4% of ‘high-income donors’ (with a household income in excess of £150,000) were ‘faith-based donors’, yet they contributed 12% of all donations for this sub-sample, the average donation of £3,687 being six and a half times greater than for the ‘ad hoc givers’. Across both ‘mainstream’ and ‘high-income donors’, ‘faith-based donors’ also showed the greatest potential increase for giving, in cash terms.

For ‘mainstream donors’ as a whole, 34% had no religion, 58% were Christians, and 7% non-Christians. Religious organizations (including places of worship) came ninth equal on the list of causes financially supported by ‘mainstream donors’ during the previous year, 23% having made a donation to them. The list was headed by medical research (to which 49% of ‘mainstream donors’ had given), hospitals and hospices (45%), children or young people (40%), and animal welfare (40%). However, religious organizations topped the table of causes to which ‘mainstream donors’ had given time during the past year, 12% having done so. For ‘high-income donors’ 23% had given money and 8% time to religious organizations during the previous twelve months.

A range of documentation relating to the survey, including a link to the NPC website, can be accessed from:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3142/Money-For-Good-UK.aspx

Same-sex marriage

By a curious coincidence, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill completed its committee stage in the House of Commons on 12 March 2013 just a day before Oxford University Press published the advance access version of a new article which will eventually appear in the online and print versions of the journal Parliamentary Affairs: Ben Clements (University of Leicester), ‘Partisan Attachments and Attitudes towards Same-Sex Marriage in Britain’. A pay-per-view option is already available at:

http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/recent

At the core of the article is a review of British public opinion towards same-sex marriage at two points in time: June-November 2008 (NatCen/British Social Attitudes Survey) and March 2012 (a YouGov survey). Results are reviewed by sex, age, ethnicity, education, political partisanship (the author’s predominant concern), newspaper readership, and religious affiliation, initially through bivariate and then by multivariate analysis.

The overall increase in support for same-sex marriage between these two surveys was found to be 10%, reaching 13% for those professing no faith, among whom the majority (56%) in 2012 endorsed same-sex marriage. Below-average increases (3% and 4% respectively) were recorded for Anglicans and Catholics, with only 24% of the former and 39% of the latter favouring same-sex marriage in 2012. The leaders of both these Churches have been at the forefront of opposing the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. For non-Christians support for same-sex marriage actually declined by 6% between 2008 and 2012, to stand at 34%, but the numbers sampled were small.

The subsequent multivariate analysis revealed that, in terms of religious affiliation, ‘regardless of faith or denomination, all adherents are less supportive of same-sex marriage than those with no religion. A similar pattern is evident for attitudes towards civil partnerships, with the exception that there is no significant difference for Catholics. The clear religious basis of opposition to gay marriage parallels the US public literature on this issue, which shows strong effects for affiliation, as well as confirming findings from earlier research into religious identification and moral attitudes in Britain, whereby those with no religious affiliation tended to be more liberal on moral issues.’

Church of England ordinands

The number of Church of England ordinands in training for the ministry in 2012/13 is 3% up on 2011/12, according to figures released by the Church of England on 11 March 2013. Of the total of 1,232, 581 (47%) are attending one of the dozen theological colleges and 651 are being trained on one of the sixteen available courses. The number at college is 6% up on the previous year compared with just 1% on the courses.

Two in five ordinands (39%) are women, but the proportion is only 29% for ordinands at college against 48% on courses. The number of under-30s who commenced training in 2012 was 113, the highest since 1993, and 22% of all accepted as ordinands. The figure for 2011 was only 77. The Ministry Division of the Archbishops’ Council is continuing to be proactive in recruiting both young ordinands and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Its press release can be found at:

http://churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/03/twenty-year-high-for-young-priests.aspx

Centre for Church Growth Research

A Centre for Church Growth Research has recently started at Cranmer Hall, part of St Johns College, Durham. Its primary focus will be the UK, but it will also explore international dimensions of church growth. Cranmer Hall’s current research for the Church of England’s church growth programme will come under the auspices of the Centre. Among future projects will be a study of new churches in the north of England.

The Centre, which will be run on a day-to-day basis by Dr David Goodhew, has an advisory board whose members include Professor David Martin (London School of Economics), Dr Alana Harris (Lincoln College, Oxford), Dr Peter Brierley (Brierley Consulting), and Professor David Bebbington (University of Stirling). The first major event of the Centre is a conference ‘Towards a Theology of Church Growth’ to be held on 12-13 September 2013. More information can be found on the Centre’s website at:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/churchgrowth.research

Religious education in English schools

A fairly downbeat assessment of the state of religious education (RE) in schools is contained in a report published on 18 March 2013 by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education, chaired by Stephen Lloyd, MP. Much of the blame for the situation is lain at the door of the Government: ‘A raft of recent policies have had the effect of downgrading RE in status on the school curriculum, and the subject is now under threat as never before … ’

The Group’s findings are based on a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence. Oral evidence was taken from 12 organizational leaders and written evidence submitted by 65 corporate bodies and individuals. The quantitative content derives from a reworking of existing statistics (Department for Education workforce census, Ofsted reports, and so forth) and a questionnaire survey among RE leaders/heads of department in English primary and secondary schools, of whom 300 and 130 respectively responded.

In 56% of the primary schools surveyed pupils are being taught RE by someone other than their class teacher, and in 24% some or all classes are taught RE by teaching assistants. Although all but two schools have a named RE leader, four-fifths report a regular turnover in the incumbents, few remaining in post for more than three years. The majority of leaders either have no qualification in RE (37%) or no qualification beyond GCSE/O Level (29%), and 9% have received no RE-specific CPD during the past three years.

RE: The Truth Unmasked – The Supply of and Support for Religious Education Teachers is available to download from:

http://www.retoday.org.uk/media/display/APPG_RE_-_The_Truth_Unmasked.pdf

Meditation

Workplace pressures have induced 16% of Britons to resort to meditation at some point, according to a Populus poll for Mind released on 19 March, and based on online interviews with 2,117 full- or part-time adult workers between 6 and 10 March 2013. The proportion using meditation as a coping mechanism peaked among Londoners (27%), people aged 25-34 (21%), and the highest (AB) social group (20%). Workers meditating on a weekly basis numbered 11% and daily 4%. Full details contained in table 15 at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/130320%20Mind%20Workplace%20Survey%20GB%20Sample(1).pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education, Ben Clements, British Social Attitudes Survey, Centre for Church Growth Research, charitable giving, church growth, Church of England, Cranmer Hall, David Goodhew, homosexuality, Ipsos-MORI, Lucy de Las Casas, Matt van Poortvliet, meditation, Mind, ministry, Money for Good UK, NatCen, New Philanthropy Capital, ordinands, Parliamentary Affairs, Populus, religious education, Rob Abercrombie, Sally Bagwell, same-sex marriage, Stephen Lloyd, volunteering, YouGov | Leave a comment

God Trumped by Aliens – and Other News

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Clive D. Field

God Trumped by Aliens

More people believe in the existence of life on other planets (53%) than believe in God (44%, which is a lower proportion than in other polls, possibly explained by a difference in question-wording). Only Northern Ireland bucks the trend; here belief in aliens stands at 30%. One-fifth think unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have landed on earth, and one-tenth claim to have seen one (more so among men than women). A staggering 52% contend that evidence of UFOs has been covered up in order not to compromise the stability of government.

Source: Survey by Opinion Matters conducted online among a representative sample of 1,359 UK adults, and on behalf of 2k Games, publishers of the new alien-themed videogame XCOM: Enemy Unknown, where the task is to save the world from enemy invasion. Full data are not in the public domain (although BRIN has requested them), and details for this post have been taken from coverage in various online media following the launch of the product on 12 October.

Religion and Ageing

Religious affiliation remains at a relatively high level among the over-50s, although (as with most religious indicators) it is greater among women (89%) than men (79%). There is also variation by age, the proportion with no religion falling steadily from the 55-59 cohort (27% of men and 20% of women) to those aged 80 and over (13% and 5% respectively). Wealth likewise makes a difference, both men and women in the lower wealth groups being more likely to espouse a religion than those in higher wealth groups; in the highest wealth group the number with no religion stands at 27% of men and 17% of women. The religion reported is overwhelmingly Christian, with non-Christians amounting to only 3% of older men and 2% of women.

Moreover, those over-50s who actively practise their faith by attending religious services have somewhat enhanced levels of psychological well-being compared with those who never attend worship. This effect, which is statistically significant, is reflected in ‘less depression, greater affective well-being, higher eudemonic well-being and greater life satisfaction’. Frequency of attendance (‘“dose-response” effects’) is not necessarily material: ‘participants who reported attending religious services a few times a year had similar levels of psychological well-being on several measures to those who were regular attenders’. In the case of life satisfaction, mean scores are 19.8 for non-attenders, 20.9 for those worshipping a few times a year, and 21.4 for those attending two or three times a month or more often.

Source: Wave 5 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), in which 10,274 English adults aged 52 and over were surveyed by NatCen between July 2010 and June 2011, through a combination of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire. The dataset is available at the Economic and Social Data Service as SN 5050. The report, The Dynamics of Ageing, edited by James Banks, James Nazroo and Andrew Steptoe, was published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on 15 October 2012. Tables 4A.81-85 (pp. 175-7) and S3a-b (p. 271) are especially relevant for BRIN users. The document can be downloaded from:

http://www.ifs.org.uk/elsa/report12/elsaW5-1.pdf

Challenges to the Christian Journey

Male and female Christians face somewhat different challenges in their faith journey, according to a recent poll of regular churchgoers. For men the top six (out of thirteen) hurdles are perceived to be: societal pressure to behave in certain ways (50%), work-life balance (47%), pornography (39%), financial pressures (38%), integrity in the workplace (36%), and materialism (35%). For women the greatest challenge is considered to be family life problems (54%, 22% more than is thought to affect men), followed by work-life balance (51%), societal pressure to behave in certain ways (50%), media portrayal of women (45% – twice the difficulty of media portrayal of men), materialism (30%), and sexual pressures (27%).

Pornography comes last on the list of challenges said to be faced by women; at 3%, it is deemed to be an insignificant problem compared with the thirteen-fold greater temptation for Christian men. Interestingly, more male churchgoers (43%) than female (34%) think pornography is an issue for men, although there is an even greater difference by age, 62% of the 18-34s citing pornography as a male problem against 25% of the over-65s. Denominationally, members of New Churches (63%) and Pentecostals (48%) are most exercised by the snare of pornography for men, albeit the sub-samples are small. Pornography causes far more angst than alcohol and drugs, the latter combination said by 15% to be a challenge for men and 6% for women.

Source: Online survey of 510 churchgoing Christians in the UK, conducted by ComRes for Premier Christian Media via Cpanel between 14 and 28 September 2012. Full data tables published on 23 October at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_Men_and_Women_Christian_Journey_04Oct2012.pdf

Halloween

There are signs that the commercialization of Halloween, the curious hybrid of paganism and a Christian feast of the dead (All Hallows’ Eve, on 31 October), may have peaked. Despite the best (and hitherto very successful) efforts of the superstore chains to manufacture a Halloween market, its value may have dipped this year. It is anticipated that UK consumers will spend £268 million on Halloween-related products in 2012 (including £78 million on dressing up), which is less than Planet Retail’s estimates of the size of the Halloween market in 2011 (£315 million) and 2010 (£280 million). The biggest spenders on Halloween are younger adults and those with families.

Although 53% of UK adults agree that Halloween is a ‘fun event for kids’, 45% dismiss it as an ‘unwelcome American cultural import’ and 33% fail to see the funny side of trick or treating. Only 23% claim that they will participate in a Halloween activity in 2012, 6% fewer than expect to take part in a Bonfire Night event. In terms of specific Halloween activities, 4% of adults plan to go trick or treating with children, 7% to dress up their children, 6% to dress up themselves, 7% to attend a party, 4% to host a party, and 8% to carve a pumpkin. Pumpkin-carving is forecast to be down significantly in 2012, doubtless because prices of the fruit have risen as a consequence of the poor weather.

Source: Online survey by YouGov among 2,167 UK adults aged 16 and over, undertaken between 1 and 8 October 2012. Part of a business intelligence report on Halloween and Bonfire Night by YouGov’s Sixth Sense arm, which costs £1,750. This is a bit beyond the means of BRIN, so we have been unable to view the full data. However, there was a press release on 24 October about the research, and that is freely available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/x6n5fpfblc/Bonfire%20Night%20Halloween%20press%20release.pdf

Posted in church attendance, Survey news | Tagged 2k Games, ageing, Aliens, Andrew Steptoe, Christian journey, Christianity, church attendance, ComRes, Cpanel, English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, God, Halloween, Institute for Fiscal Studies, James Banks, James Nazroo, NatCen, Opinion Matters, Planet Retail, pornography, Premier Christian Media, psychological well-being, Religious Affiliation, Sixth Sense, UFOs, unidentified flying objects, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, YouGov | Leave a comment

Christian Attitudes to Poverty

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Attending church appears to do little to change people’s underlying attitudes to poverty and inequality, with no great differences between the views of churchgoers and non-churchgoers, and – in particular – sharp divergences between those of clergy and their congregations.

These are among the key findings of a new research report from the Church Urban Fund (CUF) in association with Church Action on Poverty, previewed in the Church of England Newspaper and Church Times of 16 December last but only just released in full. Entitled Bias to the Poor? Christian Attitudes to Poverty in this Country, it can be downloaded from:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/PDFs/Bias_to_the_poor.pdf

CUF’s data derive from a survey of 170 Church of England clergy, carried out at deanery chapter meetings in 2011, and for regular (at least monthly) churchgoers of all denominations and non-churchgoers or professing non-religious from secondary analysis of NatCen’s British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey (seemingly for 2009). Among the headline statistics are:

73% of clergy said poverty is mainly due to social injustice, compared with only 22% of regular churchgoers and 20% of non-religious
38% of churchgoers and non-religious have a fatalistic or passive attitude to poverty, regarding it as ‘an inevitable part of modern life’, against 16% of clergy
23% of churchgoers and 27% of non-religious attribute poverty to laziness or lack of willpower (1% of clergy)
83% of clergy assessed that large income differences contribute to social problems like crime, versus 56% of churchgoers and 65% of non-religious
77% of clergy described large income differences as unfair, compared with 50% of churchgoers and 51% of non-religious
73% of clergy believed that large income differences are morally wrong, twice the figure (36%) for both churchgoers and non-religious
79% of churchgoers and 75% of non-religious saw large income differences as inevitable, against 34% of clergy
64% of churchgoers and 60% of non-religious thought large income differences incentivized people to work hard (just 19% of clergy taking the same position)
76% of clergy acknowledged that there is ‘quite a lot’ of child poverty in Britain, against just 37% of churchgoers and 38% of non-religious (in fact, official statistics prove that nearly one in three children are living in poverty)

Comparing results with BSA surveys for 20 years ago, sympathy for the poor among churchgoers is revealed to have declined. Attitudes to benefits have especially hardened, 57% of churchgoers in 2009 arguing they are too high and discourage work (versus 30% in 1987).

CUF concludes: ‘Our findings show that clergy understand poverty and inequality very differently to their congregations, and that church attendance has little impact on people’s underlying attitudes to these issues (in stark contrast to other moral issues, like euthanasia, censorship, and marriage, where there are very marked differences between churchgoers and non-churchgoers).’

‘The majority of churchgoers do not recognise the extent of poverty in this country and only a small minority attributes poverty to social injustice. If, as we believe, tackling poverty is at the heart of the gospel message, then there is a clear need for churches to do more to raise awareness and understanding of these issues among their congregations.’

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged British Social Attitudes Survey, Church Action on Poverty, church attendance, Church of England, Church Urban Fund, clergy, inequality, NatCen, poverty | 2 Comments

British Social Attitudes Survey, 2010

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Clive D. Field

‘Britain is becoming less religious, with the numbers who affiliate with a religion or attend religious services experiencing a long-term decline. And this trend seems set to continue; not only as older, more religious generations are replaced by younger, less religious ones, but also as the younger generations increasingly opt not to bring up their children in a religion – a factor shown to strongly link with religious affiliation and attendance later in life.’
Continue reading →

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, Survey news | Tagged British Social Attitudes Survey, church attendance, Lucy Lee, NatCen, National Centre for Social Research, Religious Affiliation, school choice, Sonia Exley | 2 Comments

Wellcome Trust Monitor

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Among the datasets released this month by the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) is that for the Wellcome Trust Monitor 1, 2009 (SN 6889). A suite of technical documentation can be found at:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/findingData/snDescription.asp?sn=6889&key=6889

The Monitor (expected to be repeated every three years) was a study of the knowledge of and attitudes towards medical and genetic research, and to science and science education more generally, among samples of 1,179 adults aged 18 and over and 374 young people aged 14-18 in the UK, interviewed face-to-face by the National Centre for Social Research in January-March 2009.

Although the Wellcome Trust published a report on the Monitor last year, written by Sarah Butt, Elizabeth Clery, Varunie Abeywardana and Miranda Phillips, it did not especially focus on analysing the results by the two background religious variables (religious affiliation and attendance at religious services) which were included in the questionnaire. The availability of the dataset now makes such secondary analysis possible.

The survey also included two ‘religion-related’ modules. One, asked only of adults, examined attitudes to ‘pseudoscience’, with particular reference to alternative medicine and horoscopes. The other, posed to adults and young people, concerned opinions about the commencement of human life (conception versus birth) and the origins of life on earth (creationism versus evolution), the assumption being that these would have informed views about medical research.

Topline and limited disaggregated data for both these modules were summarized on pages 31-36 of the 2010 published report, not hitherto picked up by BRIN, which is at:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/stellent/groups/corporatesite/@msh_grants/documents/web_document/wtx058862.pdf

45% of adults (51% of women and 39% of men) were found to have used some form of alternative medicine, the most common being herbal medicine, homeopathy and acupuncture. One-fifth claimed to read their horoscope often or fairly often, notwithstanding 89% considered them unscientific.

53% of adults took a fully evolutionist perspective on the origins of life, attributing it to natural selection, with 18% being creationists (including 71% of weekly attenders at religious services), and 27% saying that life evolved over time but in a process guided by God. The pattern of replies among young people was not substantially different.

In a separate commentary on key points arising from the investigation, the Wellcome Trust noted: ‘Although there is very strong support for medical research there is evidence of a plurality of views among the public. A significant minority believe that homeopathy is as good as, or better than, conventional medicines.’

‘Nearly a fifth of the public reject evolution, believing that living things were created by God and have always existed in their current form. This clearly demonstrates that this is no time for complacency and the need for both good-quality public engagement and science education.’

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged alternative medicine, commencement of life, Creationism, Economic and Social Data Service, Elizabeth Clery, evolution, homeopathy, horoscopes, Miranda Phillips, NatCen, National Centre for Social Research, origins of life, pseudoscience, Sarah Butt, Varunie Abeywardana, Wellcome Trust | Leave a comment

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