Religion and Public Affairs

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Clive D. Field

 

Britons on Christianity in the public square

Five times as many people (73% versus 15%) think that Britain has become less of a Christian country over the past five years than dissent from the proposition, according to a ComRes poll for Christian Concern conducted among an online sample of 2,057 Britons aged 18 and over on 31 March and 1 April 2015, and published on 5 April. Notwithstanding, a plurality (47%) still considers that Britain’s Christian heritage continues to bring benefits to the country today compared with 32% who say the opposite, and a majority (55%) welcomes the fact that Easter is marked primarily as a Christian festival against 33% who view it as little more than two Bank Holidays together. There is also majority support for the rights of Christians in the workplace, with 52% believing they should be able to refuse to act against their conscience without being penalized by their employer, 66% wanting legal protection for the wearing of Christian symbols such as the cross in the workplace, and 72% deeming it wrong that health care workers should be threatened with the sack for offering to pray with patients. Unsurprisingly, Christians are much more well-disposed than religious ‘nones’ to an ongoing public profile for Christianity, albeit a minority is not, while many of the ‘nones’ also defend Christian freedoms. In terms of age, the over-65s display the most conservative views about the place of Christianity, with 18-24s adopting a more liberal position. Data tables are at:    

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Christian_Concern___Easter_Poll___April_2015.pdf

Britons on assisted dying

The British public is overwhelmingly in favour of legalizing assisted dying within defined parameters, and there is very little difference between the views of Christians overall and the national average. This is according to the results of one of the largest ever surveys on the subject, undertaken online by Populus on behalf of campaign group Dignity in Dying on 11-19 March 2015, and released in full on 7 April. The major findings are summarized below, with detailed data tables available at: 

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Dignity-in-Dying-Poll-March-2015-WEBSITE-DATATABLES.pdf 

% across

All

Christians

Non-Christians

Nones
Attitude to assisted dying becoming law

 

 

 

 
Support

82

80

68

88
Oppose

12

14

26

6
Attitude to own MP backing such a law

 

 

 

 
More positive to them

53

49

47

61
More negative to them

10

11

23

5
MPs voting on legalizing assisted dying

 

 

 

 
Should take account of constituents’ views

67

69

60

68
Should vote according to own opinion

21

22

24

20
House of Commons should allocate time after general election for full debate on assisted dying

 

 

 

 
Agree

79

80

64

81
Disagree

11

12

23

8
Would assist terminally ill loved one to die even if it meant breaking the law

 

 

 

 
Would assist

44

43

37

49
Would not assist

29

32

39

23

Unfortunately, the attitudes of followers of individual Christian denominations were not recorded, but it seems likely that, as in other studies where they have been, Roman Catholics would have been most opposed to legalizing assisted dying. In this Populus poll non-Christians were more than twice as opposed on several of the key questions asked, albeit the majority even of them endorsed assisted dying. The most supportive religious group of all were the ‘nones’, but not by a big margin. Lord Falconer of Thoroton has signalled his intention to bring back his bill to legalize assisted dying as soon as the new Parliament assembles after the general election; the bill ran out of time in the old Parliament. 

Britons on Scientology

The Church of Scientology, founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, has been in the media spotlight again recently, principally as a result of its negative portrayal in Alex Gibney’s controversial new documentary Going Clear. This has prompted YouGov to test the British public’s awareness of and attitudes to the movement in an online poll of 1,906 adults on 3-4 April 2015. Knowledge is minimal, with 75% professing to know nothing or very little, 23% something, and just 2% a lot. This did not prevent 61% dismissing Scientology’s claims to being a real religion, only 8% thinking it is, rising to 14% among 18-24s and those with some knowledge of it; the remaining 31% were unable to express an opinion. Moreover, 45% found the beliefs of Scientology less credible than those of Christianity, peaking at 62% with those who knew something about it. The achievement of spiritual enlightenment is one of Scientology’s core beliefs, which a plurality of 38% considered to be probably attainable, with 30% disagreeing and 32% uncertain, although it is debatable how much this question was actually understood. The majority (54%) did not regard themselves as spiritual while 41% said they were (12% very and 29% slightly), compared with 60% and 35% respectively when YouGov last probed the matter in September 2011. However, too much should not be read into the differences as spirituality is a rather elusive concept, difficult to operationalize, with surveys on the topic yielding fluctuating results. A blog about this latest YouGov study, with a link to the data tables, was published on 8 April at: 

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/08/scientology-not-real-religion-public/

Professing Anglicans and the general election

The Church of England has often been seen as a natural ally of the Conservative Party, and an analysis of YouGov’s aggregate polling of 35,000 electors in March 2015, commissioned by the Church Times, certainly confirms that professing Anglicans are disproportionately likely to favour the Conservatives. Whereas, as the table below shows, the Conservatives and Labour were tied nationally, on 34% each, the Conservatives had a commanding 21% lead among Anglicans. Catholics, by contrast, were more disposed to Labour (42%) than Conservatives (31%). For the Church Times report, see: 

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/10-april/news/uk/tories-can-count-on-the-c-of-e-voters-tell-polls 

% down

All electors

Anglican electors
Conservative

34

48
Labour

34

27
Liberal Democrat

7

6
UKIP

14

16
Other parties

11

3

Practising Christians and the general election

Four-fifths of 1,960 practising (churchgoing) Christians aged 16 and over think Britain is heading in the wrong moral direction, while two-thirds believe that it is harder to be a Christian in Britain today than it was in 2010. This is according to a ComRes survey undertaken online in the UK between 13 and 17 March 2015 and published on 9 April by Premier Christian Radio, which sponsored the study, in a press release at: 

http://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/Election-Deficit-not-a-top-concern-for-Christians

Asked which of the leaders of the four main parties they most associated with six statements about the role of faith in politics, a majority of practising Christians ranging from 55% to 78% replied ‘none of them’, with David Cameron being the only one to shine a little (see table, below). However, even Cameron had blotted his copy-book in the eyes of respondents, with 71% denying that his time as Prime Minister had been good for Christians in Britain (and 52% saying that it had actually been bad), and 78% claiming that he had been wrong to laud the legalization of same-sex marriage as one of his proudest achievements. 

Leaders of four main parties associated with … (%)

None of them

David Cameron
Places importance on own faith in political decision-making

78

12
Exhibits Christian values in political beliefs

68

20
Exhibits Christian values in personal life

66

23
Likely to build on Britain’s Christian cultural/political heritage

59

23
Encourages involvement of faith groups in politics

58

24
Committed to protecting religious freedom

55

18

The three most important of 13 named policy areas for determining the personal vote of practising Christians were: managing the NHS (42%), ensuring the benefits of economic growth are felt by all (41%), and making the welfare system fairer (33%). These are not necessarily the highest priorities of the electorate as a whole (for instance, immigration and the European Union came well down this sample’s list of concerns) nor of the main political parties. Even reducing the government budget deficit preoccupied no more than 20% of practising Christians, and promoting UK economic growth just 16%. The latter was the major policy area where practising Christians regarded the Conservatives as having a big advantage over Labour (50% versus 13%), followed by reducing crime and anti-social behaviour. Otherwise, the rating of the parties was either closer or Labour was seen as the more credible option, notably when it came to ensuring economic equality, improving housing affordability, making the welfare system fairer, managing the NHS, and caring for the elderly.   

Regrettably, although full data tables for the survey are available, including breaks by age, gender, region, and denomination, they are not up to the usual ComRes standard of presentation and clarity. They can be found at: 

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Premier-_-Election-Priority-Polling.pdf

Jews and the general election

Among electors intending to vote in the forthcoming general election, and after discounting undecideds and refusals, Jews are more than twice as likely to favour the Conservatives and far less likely to support UKIP as the population as a whole. This is according to the latest Survation telephone poll of 566 self-identifying British Jews for the Jewish Chronicle on 2-7 April 2015, compared with the same company’s national poll for the Daily Mirror on 8-9 April. A summary of voting intentions appears below, with full data tables for the Jewish survey available at: 

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/General-Election-Poll-Tables.pdf 

% down

Jewish electors

All electors
Conservative

69

30
Labour

22

36
Liberal Democrat

2

8
UKIP

2

15
Other parties

5

11

The pro-Conservative stance of British Jews doubtless reflects their relatively affluent status, but it also appears to be determined by perspectives on Israel and the Middle East. Almost three-quarters (73%) of Jews claimed that the views of British political parties towards Israel would be very or quite important in influencing their own vote. Three-fifths (61%) contended that the Conservatives had the best policies for Israel and the Middle East, and 65% felt that, of the party leaders, David Cameron had the best approach to these issues. A similar proportion (64%) considered that Cameron as Prime Minister would have the best attitude to the Jewish community in the UK, against only 13% for Labour’s Ed Miliband. Indeed, in its coverage of the poll (10 April 2015, pp. 1, 4, 28), the Jewish Chronicle was particularly struck by Miliband’s ‘shocking’ standing, asking how a supposedly Jewish politician could make ‘such a terrible fist of attracting Jewish voters?’

Muslims and current issues

Most British Muslims (71%) see no incompatibility between the values of British society and those of Islam, according to a telephone poll of 1,001 Muslims, conducted by Survation for Sky News from 10 to 16 March 2015, and published on 10 April. Just 16% disagreed. A majority also felt that Muslims were already doing enough to integrate into British society (64%) and that they had personally encountered no more suspicion from non-Muslims than a few years previously (62%). However, there was some ambiguity when it came to matters of terrorism. Two-fifths overall (and 46% of women) did not believe it was the responsibility of Muslims to condemn terrorist acts carried out in the name of Islam, while 28% of all Muslims (including 33% of women and 32% of under-35s) said that they had a lot or some sympathy with young Muslims who had left the UK to join fighters in Syria. A plurality (39%) agreed that the actions of the police and MI5 were contributing to the radicalization of young Muslims. Data tables, with breaks by gender, age, and region, are available at: 

http://interactive.news.sky.com/2015/PDFs/Sky-Muslim-Poll.pdf

Survation also undertook an online survey of 1,000 non-Muslims, which has yet to be reported in full. A few results were mentioned in a Sky News press release, two being polar opposites of the Muslim voice, with 58% of non-Muslims considering that Muslims were not doing enough to integrate into British society and 52% that the values of British society and Islam were incompatible. The press release is at: 

http://news.sky.com/story/1462023/poll-majority-have-no-sympathy-with-extremists

 

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Muslim Voices and Other News

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Clive D. Field

 

Muslim voices

There is no shortage of national opinion polls asking what Britons think about Islam and Muslims, but there have been relatively few surveys conducted among British Muslims in recent years. Only in the aftermath of the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks in 2001 and 2005 respectively were attempts made to capture Muslim voices in a systematic fashion. This omission partly reflects the difficulties in recruiting a nationally representative sample from what is still a religious minority, albeit a large one, and the associated higher costs of interviewing them. Given this background, we must welcome the poll conducted by ComRes on behalf of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, for which 1,000 Muslims in England were interviewed by telephone between 26 January and 20 February 2015. Full details of sample recruitment methods have yet to be published, but data tables of results (with breaks by gender, age, and region) were released on 25 February 2015 and can be found at:  

http://comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/BBC-Today-Programme_British-Muslims-Poll_FINAL-Tables_Feb2015.pdf

From the perspective of community cohesion, we may note that 95% of Muslims profess loyalty to Britain, 93% agree that they should always obey British laws, 94% would inform the police about a Muslim planning an act of violence, 85% have no time for those fighting against the West, and 85% dispute that they would rather socialize with Muslims than non-Muslims. However, 20% deny that Western liberal society can be compatible with Islam, 35% think most Britons do not trust Muslims, and 46% report that Britain is becoming less tolerant of Muslims and that prejudice against Islam makes it difficult being a Muslim in Britain. About one in seven (14%) claim not to feel safe in Britain (particularly Muslim women) and to prefer to live in a Muslim country, if they could.  

With regard to the Islamist outrage against Charlie Hebdo in Paris at the start of the year, 32% understand and 27% sympathize with the motives of the perpetrators, and, more generally, 11% assert that organizations publishing images of the Prophet Mohammed deserve to be attacked, 24% rejecting the suggestion that such acts of violence can never be justified. As many as 78% say that they are personally offended by publication of images of the Prophet. Scaled up for a British Muslim population which must now be approaching three million, several of these percentages have been thought by some commentators on the poll to translate into a worrying level of alienation from British society and ‘British values’. For nearly all questions, there was remarkably little variation in replies between the various demographic sub-groups.  

Islamic State

More than three times as many adults, 66% versus 20%, deem Islamic State to be a greater threat to Britain’s security than Russia, notwithstanding the escalating crisis between the West and Russia over developments in Ukraine. This is according to a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, for which 1,959 Britons were interviewed online on 26-27 February 2015. Islamic State is a particular concern to UKIP voters (75%), the over-60s (73%), and Conservatives (71%). Moreover, in future decisions regarding military expenditure, 52% wish to see resources prioritized to combat Islamist terrorism, with only 18% opting for investment to counter the danger from states like Russia. Data tables are at:   

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/42tha4tjwo/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-270215.pdf

Non-stun slaughter of animals

The practice of slaughtering animals without pre-stunning, which is particularly important in the Jewish and Muslim traditions, was in the news again last week, thanks to a new YouGov poll released by the RSPCA, for which 2,177 adults were interviewed online on 18-19 February 2015. The RSPCA has kindly made the full results available to BRIN (they are not online), but some headline findings were also included in the organization’s press release of 23 February 2015, which is at: 

http://media.rspca.org.uk/media/pressreleases/details/-/articleName/PressAlmost80PerCentOfUKWantsAnEndToNonStunSlaughter23Feb15

Current animal welfare legislation generally requires pre-stunning of animals killed for human consumption but allows an exemption for Jews and Muslims on religious grounds, which the RSPCA wishes to see ended. Overwhelmingly (77%), Britons agree with the RSPCA that ‘all non-stun slaughter should be banned, with no exceptions’, with only 8% opposed and 16% undecided. However, the vox populi is seemingly being driven by a mistaken association of non-stunning with halal meat and thus with Muslims alone. Two-thirds of respondents rightly identify the exemption with Muslims, but the same proportion wrongly suggests that the majority of halal meat is not pre-stunned, whereas the reality is that the large majority is pre-stunned, as research by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has confirmed. On the other hand, awareness that the exemption applies to Jews also is much lower (39%), and just 40% realize that, as the FSA revealed, no kosher meat produced for Jews using the shechita method is pre-stunned. About one-third could not hazard a guess about the amount of either halal or kosher meat which is not pre-stunned. Nearly one in seven (15%) incorrectly believes the statutory exemption from pre-stunning applies to Hindus and a few even to Christians. 

Jewish health

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research published the latest in its series of census-derived profiles of British Jewry on 23 February 2015: David Graham, Health and Disability in Britain’s Jewish Population: Details from the 2011 Census. Its 27 pages are divided into three parts: general health; disability and limiting health conditions; and other census data on health (relating to unpaid care provision, Jewish residents of medical and care facilities, and medical conditions in Scotland). Subjectively defined, and controlling for the older average age of the Jewish population, Jews were found to be among the healthiest of all religious and ethnic groups and to exhibit a very low prevalence of long-term disability. Unfortunately, in respect of general health, different question-wording was used in 2011 than in 2001, so reliable over-time comparisons cannot be made. The report can be downloaded from:   

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/Health_and_disability_in_Britains_Jewish_Population.pdf

Sectarianism in Scotland

The 2014 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey is only the second since the annual series was launched by ScotCen in 1999 to include a specific module on religion. Whereas on the previous occasion, in 2001, the questions covered general religious beliefs and attitudes and paranormal experiences, in 2014 the focus was on sectarianism, at the behest of the Scottish Government, which funded the module. Fieldwork took place between May and August 2014 among a sample of 1,501 adults aged 18 and over in Scotland. A 98-page report on the sectarianism module was published by Scottish Government Social Research on 20 February 2015: Stephen Hinchliffe, Anna Marcinkiewicz, John Curtice, and Rachel Ormston, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 2014: Public Attitudes to Sectarianism in Scotland. It is available to download from: 

http://www.scotcen.org.uk/media/830110/ssa2014_full-report-public-attitudes-to-sectarianism-in-scotland.pdf

The report presents a somewhat mixed picture of the extent of Protestant-Catholic sectarianism in Scotland, with some distance evident between perceptions and reality. Although the vast majority (88%) believed that sectarianism is a problem in Scotland, and 66% that it would always exist there, just 19% viewed it as an issue throughout Scotland as a whole, 69% regarding it as a localized phenomenon (notably in Glasgow and the West of the country) and 55% thinking football was its principal cause. No more than 3% felt that Protestant-Catholic relationships in Scotland had worsened over the past decade, 47% detecting an improvement and 40% no change. Only one person in seven (14%), disproportionately Catholic, claimed to have experienced some form of religious discrimination or exclusion during their lives. Overwhelmingly, people’s social networks straddled the denominational divide and the use of sectarian language was condemned. Opinion remained divided about the continuing existence of denominational (Catholic) schools in the state system, 43% opposing and 25% supporting them (rising to 62% among Catholics). 

Of the answers to a handful of questions about respondents’ religious background, perhaps the most interesting (and puzzling) was the 10% drop in the number claiming to profess no religion, from 54% in 2013 to 44% in 2014, despite identical question-wording. The authors explain this (p. 7) ‘as most likely to be an artefact of questionnaire content and ordering effects rather than a reflection of any true upsurge in religious adherence in Scotland … It is evidently possible that when, as in 2001 and 2014, a question about religious belonging is preceded by other questions about religion some people are stimulated into reporting a largely latent religious affiliation that they would not otherwise have acknowledged.’ The proportion disclaiming a religious identity was lower still, at 33%, comparable with the 37% who said they belonged to no religion in the 2011 Scottish population census (which covered children as well as adults). The self-reported incidence of regular churchgoing (monthly or more) was 22%, and 51% of those who identified with a religion described themselves as not very or not at all religious.     

Adolescents and religion (1)

An interesting case study of the saliency of religious affiliation is reported in Leslie Francis and Mandy Robbins, ‘The Religious and Social Significance of Self-Assigned Religious Affiliation in England and Wales: Comparing Christian, Muslim, and Religiously-Unaffiliated Adolescent Males’, Research in Education, No. 92, November 2014, pp. 32-48. Respondents comprised 547 male students aged 16-18 attending selected secondary schools in England and Wales at an unspecified date and who self-identified with one of the three religious groups under examination. They completed a questionnaire which explored, through statements measured by a five-point Likert scale, eight themes relating to religious beliefs (Bible, Koran, Jesus, Prophet Mohammed, Jesus and justice, Mohammed and justice, experiencing God, and theology of religions); and six themes relating to religion and public concerns (personal life, public life, the state, social rights, rights of women and children, and sex and morality). Results are presented in the form of 14 tables with commentary. The data highlighted some areas of commonality and others of strong divergence between the three groups. The findings are drawn together in eight main conclusions which cumulatively ‘demonstrate that self-assigned religious affiliation serves as a powerful and important predictor of matters of religious and social concern’. For access options to the article, go to: 

http://manchester.metapress.com/content/664n1302104l8787/?p=81083da44fea422ca01929800882a5c1&pi=2

Adolescents and religion (2)

Religion is correlated with character-building according to findings presented in a report published by the University of Birmingham’s Jubilee Centre for Character & Virtues on 27 February 2015: James Arthur, Kristján Kristjánsson, David Walker, Wouter Sanderse, and Chantel Jones, Character Education in UK Schools: Research Report. The research, conducted between February 2013 and June 2014, involved 10,200 students and 250 teachers from 68 UK schools, and the techniques comprised surveys, moral dilemma tests, and semi-structured interviews. On the moral dilemma tests, students who professed to be religious scored more highly than those who claimed to be atheist or otherwise to have no religion. Within the religious group, those who practised their religion scored more highly than those who did not. Students attending faith schools also achieved better scores than those going to non-faith schools. Although all these differences were statistically significant, in their conclusion the authors are cautious about interpreting the apparent link between religion and character-building (p. 24). This contrasts with their more emphatic rejection of the widespread conviction that participation in sport builds character. The 38-page report, which is not an easy read, can be found at: 

http://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/userfiles/jubileecentre/pdf/Research%20Reports/Character_Education_in_UK_Schools.pdf

 

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Atheism and Other News

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Clive D. Field

 

Atheism

Two-fifths (42%) of Britons now declare that they have no religion, and the plurality (45%) of these regard themselves as atheists, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by and published in The Times on 12 February 2015, for which 1,552 adults were interviewed online on 8-9 February. The proportion of self-reported atheists in the entire population is thus 19%, rising to 31% of 18-24s, although the number of Britons who definitely do not believe in any sort of God or greater spiritual power is higher still (33% overall, 46% among 18-24s), including 9% of professed Christians. People no longer seem fazed by atheism. Not only do 88% of atheists feel comfortable about talking about their lack of religious identity, while 24% of Christians who believe in God are uncomfortable discussing their convictions, but very few adults react negatively to public figures who have openly acknowledged their atheism. Thus, only 6% of all Britons and 16% of Christians who believe in God feel more negatively about Labour leader Ed Miliband and LibDem leader Nick Clegg simply because they are atheists, and no more than 13% say the same about actor and presenter Stephen Fry following his recent outburst against ‘a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain’. The Times story (with quotes by BRIN’s David Voas) is only available online to subscribers, but YouGov has a blog on the survey, with a link to the full data tables, at: 

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/02/12/third-british-adults-dont-believe-higher-power/

Future of religion

The team blog of the Theos think tank is carrying a series of guest posts on the future of religion in Britain, timed to coincide with, and to mark, the forthcoming appearance of the second edition of Grace Davie’s seminal 1994 book on Religion in Britain (on which we will report in due course). Davie is one of the Theos bloggers, with other contributions (thus far) from David Goodhew, Nick Spencer, David Voas, and Adam Dinham.   

In the first post, published on 9 February 2015 and focusing on Christianity, Goodhew suggested that ‘the future … will be a persistent paradox of secularisation from above and resacralisation from below’. His conclusion stemmed from a somewhat caricatured critique of the alleged ‘dodginess’ of many national data on religion (including the Church of England’s) and examples of more localized church growth, from London and elsewhere. As I have said before on the BRIN website, Goodhew’s thesis is undermined by its lack of long-term historical perspective. His blog is at: 

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2015/01/20/secularisation-from-above-resacralisation-from-below

The fourth blog, by Voas, was published on 12 February 2015 but previewed in The Times of 9 February. Voas predicts that the prospects for faith among white Britons are bleak and that ‘the future of religion in Britain is black and brown’, largely revolving around black-majority Churches and Islam. In terms of mainstream Christianity, he thinks that ‘the secularization of religious behaviour has reached the point of no return’; ‘the default position now is that we do not gather together to sing and pray and listen to an indifferent speaker deliver a thought for the week’, most ordained ministers having ‘the leadership ability of bank managers’. Orthodox belief has also declined, especially in God, which ‘has taken a battering’. The post is at: 

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2015/02/02/what-is-the-future-for-religion-in-britain

Christians and politics

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland has recently launched a 2015 general election website to keep Christians briefed about issues and practicalities during the campaign, and to promote debate around its ‘Vision 2020 of the Good Society’. It has also collaborated with Church Action on Poverty (CAP) to commission ComRes to conduct an online survey of 2,135 practising UK Christians between 20 and 26 January 2015. The headline results were published by CAP on 13 February 2015 under the banner ‘Christians Tired of Short-Termism in Politics’. The press release, which includes a link to a summary report prepared by ComRes, can be found at: 

http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/news/pressroom/pressreleases/archive/20150213

The poll revealed that 91% of practising Christians claimed they would be more likely to vote for a Parliamentary candidate who communicated a positive long-term vision for society, and yet 88% felt that UK politicians were more interested in short-term political concerns and that the leaders of the main political parties failed to articulate such a long-term vision. Almost without exception (97%), practising Christians agreed that Churches had a key role to play in encouraging debate about what makes a good society, with 80% considering that hitherto they had been ineffective in challenging politicians to communicate their vision for society, and 68% that Churches did not talk enough in public about matters like food poverty, homelessness, and tax avoidance.    

Church of England: social action

The social action of the Church of England is examined in Bethany Eckley and Tom Sefton, Church in Action: A National Survey of Church-Based Social Action, which was published on 9 February 2015. The research, which was conducted by the Church Urban Fund (CUF) and the Church’s Mission and Public Affairs Team, was based upon an online survey of Anglican incumbents in September 2014, 1,812 of 5.097 responding (36%), with a slight skew towards larger churches and churches in London, and – possibly – an underrepresentation of those less involved in social action. Some of the questions replicated those in a previous survey by CUF in December 2011. The latest report can be read at: 

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/PDFs/Research/Church-in-Action-2015_0.pdf

Overwhelmingly (95%), Anglican clergy agreed that ‘engaging with the poor and marginalised in the local area is a vital activity for a healthy church’, although fewer (53%) reported that ‘we are tackling poverty as a fundamental part of the mission for our church’. The social issues which presented a major or significant problem in their communities were deemed to be: isolation/loneliness (65%), family breakdown (50%), debt (47%), lack of self-esteem/hope (46%), low income (46%), unhealthy lifestyles (45%), and mental health problems (44%). Just 7% of churches admitted not to be addressing any local issues, with 27% tackling up to four, 31% between five and eight, and 35% (disproportionately in London) nine or more. The most prevalent forms of church-based social action were schools work (76%), food banks (66%, double the 2011 figure), parent and toddler groups (60%), and lunch/drop-in clubs (53%). Activities in support of credit unions were to be found in only a minority of parishes. The main barriers to increased social action by churches were identified as resource constraints, both human (leaders and volunteers) and financial.  

Church of England: rural Anglicanism

A profile of the Church of England in the countryside was published by the Archbishops’ Council on 30 January 2015: Released for Mission: Growing the Rural Church (GS Misc 1092). It is based on a mixture of qualitative (47 interviews with clergy and lay people) and quantitative research, the statistics deriving from an analysis of the 2011 parochial returns, a summary of which is tabulated below. It will be seen that, in terms of churches and parishes, two-thirds of the Church of England is to be found in the countryside, but only about two-fifths of its clergy (who are disproportionately female) and attenders (except at Christmas). The pattern of church growth and decline in rural and urban parishes is similar. The report is available at: 

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2148423/gs%20misc%201092%20-%20rural%20multi%20parish%20benefices.pdf 

%

Rural

Urban
Organization

 

 
Churches

65

35
Parishes

66

34
Benefices

48

52
Deaneries

67

33
Ministry

 

 
All clergy

42

58
All incumbents

43

57
Male incumbents

40

60
Female incumbents

50

50
All assistant curates

31

69
Male assistant curates

30

70
Female assistant curates

33

67
All self-supporting clergy

47

53
Male self-supporting clergy

45

55
Female self-supporting clergy

49

51
Membership and attendance

 

 
Electoral roll

46

54
Minimum attendance

37

63
Maximum attendance

43

57
Average attendance

40

60
Sum of attendance

39

61
Christmas attendance

49

51
Church growth over 10 years

 

 
Growing

18

18
Declining

25

29
Inconclusive

57

53

British Muslims in Numbers

On 11 February 2015 the Muslim Council of Britain launched an 80-page report (including 33 tables and 4 figures) on British Muslims in Numbers: A Demographic, Socio-Economic, and Health Profile of Muslims in Britain Drawing on the 2011 Census. Prepared by the Council’s Research and Documentation Committee, with Sundas Ali as lead analyst, it examines the Muslim-related data from the 2011 census for England and Wales (Scotland, which had only 77,000 Muslims, is not really covered, despite the work’s title) under four broad headings: demographics, civic life, inequalities, labour market and education. The census findings are supplemented by other empirical evidence and accompanied by a series of ‘observations’ directed at a variety of audiences and a list of priorities for future research. The report can be downloaded from: 

http://www.mcb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MCBCensusReport_2015.pdf

Probably the most striking demographic is the relative youth of the Muslim community, with a median age of 25 compared with 40 in the overall population, and 33% of Muslims under 16. Taken alongside factors such as immigration, this young profile seems likely to ensure the community’s ongoing rapid growth, both absolute and relative (the absolute increase from 2001 to 2011 was 75%). In terms of national identity, as many as 73% of Muslims in 2011 stated their only identity as British (or other UK national), even though 53% were born overseas. On some indicators, the incidence of deprivation among Muslims remained high, with, for example, 46% living in the 10% most deprived local authority districts, up from 33% in 2001. However, there were also signs of greater levels of educational attainment and social mobility among Muslims. 

Islamic State

New polling from YouGov for The Sunday Times, in which 1,668 Britons were interviewed online on 5-6 February 2015, has revealed that just 32% support Britain and the USA sending ground troops back to Iraq to help fight the so-called Islamic State (IS), the plurality (45%) being opposed, much the same as in October 2014 (when the question was last asked). This is despite the fact that only 20% are convinced that the current combination of Western air strikes and Iraqi and Kurdish forces will be sufficient to defeat IS, 49% alternatively indicating a need for ground troops ‘from elsewhere’. At 63%, approval of the existing RAF involvement in air strikes against IS has gone up by four points since last October, with 56% supporting an escalation of this involvement in terms of more planes and an increased number of strikes. Data tables are at: 

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/k24ox3l7ay/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-060215.pdf

YouGov has also updated its Iraq, Syria, and IS tracker report to take account of the new findings. This can be viewed at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/51xpyhtlev/YG-Archives-Pol-Iraq-Syria-and-ISIS-060215.pdf

Conspiracy theories

YouGov online polling for YouGov@Cambridge on 3-4 February 2015 explored public attitudes to nine ‘conspiracy theories’, among a sample of 1,749 adults. One of them was a suggestion that some courts in the UK legal system are choosing to adopt Sharia law, which 18% thought was definitely or probably true, including 31% of UKIP voters and 26% of over-60s; a further 31% said it might or might not be true, while 51% were certain that it was false. Another potential conspiracy posited that humans had made contact with aliens but that the news had been deliberately hidden from the people, which 14% agreed was definitely or probably true against 61% who were clear it was not and 25% who were unsure. Nevertheless, belief in both these ‘conspiracies’ paled into relative insignificance compared with the 55% convinced that the Government is hiding the real number of immigrants in the country and the 52% that European Union officials are gradually seeking to take over all the UK’s law-making powers. Data tables are at: 

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/bhw7u94epz/GB%20Conspiracy%20Theories%20Pilot.pdf

Anti-Semitism

The All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism published the Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism on 9 February 2015 and, alongside it, a sub-report summarizing the results of a Populus poll which it had commissioned, for which 1,001 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed between 22 and 25 January 2015. Asked to rate the seriousness of anti-Semitism in contemporary Britain on a scale of 1-10 (where 1 was low and 10 high), the mean score was 4.66, much as it was ten years ago (4.52), although 37% thought that the problem had worsened over the decade (against 16% who detected an improvement). Moreover, only 55% said that they would be able to explain what anti-Semitism was to somebody else, ranging from 37% of 18-24s to 71% of over-65s, while awareness of recent incidents which were widely regarded as anti-Semitic was relatively limited, the murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris excepted, which was known to 91%, albeit one-fifth did not classify the attack as anti-Semitic.  

Some anti-Semitic stereotypes continued to find favour, such as the 11% who agreed that Jews have too much power in UK media and politics and the identical proportion that they have too much influence over the direction of UK foreign policy; 15% believed that Jews talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust. The identification of British Jews with Israel was problematical for rather more, 32% thinking that British Jews always defend Israel, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of its actions, and 30% that their loyalties are either divided between Britain and Israel or vested in Israel alone. This is despite the fact that 89% acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. The number of Jews in Britain was vastly over-estimated by respondents, the average guess being 2.7 million, nine times the real figure in the 2011 census, whereas the Muslim population was over-estimated by just one-third. The poll summary can be found at:   

http://www.antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/themes/PCAA/images/Polling-Anti-Semitism-Summary%202015.docx.pdf

 

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Church Buildings and Other News

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Clive D. Field

 

Church buildings

Churchgoing may be a distinctly minority activity in contemporary Britain, but as many as 45% of the population claim to have visited a church or chapel during the past year for either religious or non-religious purposes, rising to 60% of over-65s and Christians, and even including 27% of those who profess no religion. This is according to a ComRes poll for the National Churches Trust which was published on 29 January 2015, and for which 2,061 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed online between 12 and 14 December 2014. Data tables have been posted at: 

http://comres.co.uk/polls/National_Churches_Trust___Data_Tables.pdf

The heritage and community value of church buildings was also widely appreciated by respondents to the survey. In particular: 

  • 79% agreed that churches and chapels are an important part of the UK’s heritage and history (including 51% of religious nones)
  • 75% agreed that it is important for churches and chapels to have good access and modern facilities to make it easier for people to use them (66% of nones)
  • 74% agreed that church buildings play an important role for society as a venue for community activities (64% of nones)
  • 59% disagreed that repairing and restoring historic church buildings only benefits churchgoers (55% of nones)
  • 55% agreed they would be concerned if their local church or chapel building was no longer there (34% of nones)
  • 39% disagreed that their local church or chapel does not play a large role in supporting people in the community (28% of nones)

Fresh Expressions 

Church growth advocates, especially in the Church of England and the Methodist Church, are often keen to talk up the potential of Fresh Expressions (FEs) of church as a counterpoise to the more familiar narrative of church decline. However, a somewhat more sobering account of FEs, from theoretical and empirical standpoints, is offered by John Walker, Testing Fresh Expressions: Identity and Transformation (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, xv + 254p., ISBN 9781472411846, hardback). The book is divided into two substantive halves, the first being a contextual review of the existing British evidence and literature about the fall in churchgoing and secularization. The second half outlines the author’s mixed methods research in the Diocese of Canterbury from 2009, examining five parish churches and five FEs by means of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and attendance data.   

Walker concludes by rejecting, on both sociological and theological grounds, any suggestion that FEs alone constitute the future of the Church. In particular, ‘fresh expressions … do not and cannot compete with the depth and breadth of life and experience of parish churches, they are no better at attracting the non-churched than parish churches, and both fresh expressions and parish churches grow through exactly the same process.’ The author presents some interesting ideas and evidence, but his research is ultimately small-scale, and it is debatable whether it benefits from being reported at such excessive length.     

Religious authority: Pope vs Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is more admired in Britain than Pope Francis, according to a YouGov poll released on 30 January 2015. In January publics in some 23 countries were asked online two questions about their most admired figures from a global list of 25 men and 25 women, the answers then being combined into a single score. In Britain, the list of male personalities was headed by Stephen Hawking (on a score of 14.8), with the Dalai Lama in sixth position (6.3) and Pope Francis in ninth (5.0). Both the Pope and Dalai Lama scored more highly in Britain than the global mean (4.1 and 4.0, respectively). However, the rating of the Pope was much lower in Britain than in Brazil (17.5) and the United States (9.1), albeit it exceeded that in France and Scandinavia, where the Dalai Lama was much more likely to be admired (his French score being 14.6, with 10.5 in Sweden and 10.3 in Denmark). In the United States, Pope Francis was placed second among the most admired men, followed by Billy Graham in third spot (7.2), and the Dalai Lama in seventh (4.8). A blog about the survey is at: 

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/30/most-admired-2015/

Religious authority: declining status of the Bible

Those who have been unable to access my article on the decline in Bible-centricism in Britain in the October 2014 issue of Journal of Contemporary Religion, because it is hidden behind a paywall, may wish to read a summary of it in the second half of a presentation which I recently gave to Bible Society staff. The first half deals with the context of the statistical measurement of religion. The presentation can be read by clicking on the following link:

Bible – Bible Society presentation

Christians and pornography

The film version of Fifty Shades of Grey hits the cinema screens next week, and in parallel Premier’s Christianity magazine has decided to publish an article in its February 2015 issue exploring the theme of Christians and pornography. To illustrate the piece, its author, Martin Saunders, ran an online survey of UK practising Christians in December 2014, to which he received over 500 anonymous replies. His sample was clearly self-selecting, and Saunders makes no claim to its statistical representativeness. Certainly, some of the results seem a little improbable (or, if true, would be seen by some as rather disturbing). For example, 55% of Christian men reported that they view internet pornography at least once a month with a further 20% accessing it less often (compared with, respectively, 15% and 20% for Christian women), 42% of Christian men acknowledging an addiction to pornography. Even 30% of church leaders admitted to viewing internet pornography at least monthly. The article can be read online at: 

http://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2015/February-2015/Grey-Matter-50-Shades-pornography-and-the-shaping-of-our-brains

Muslims and the general election

The Muslim News is currently running an apparently open poll on its website to identify the top issues which may determine how UK Muslims vote in the general election on 7 May 2015, with the intention of using the findings to influence political parties to listen to the views of the Muslim community. This follows the newspaper’s recent research which suggested that the Muslim vote could shape the electoral result in as many as 40 parliamentary constituencies in England, 39 of them held by Labour or priority Labour targets. Of the 40, 25 were classed as marginal seats and 15 as safe seats, but all deemed to be capable of influence by Muslim voters, based upon a correlation of the proportion of the population which was Muslim at the 2011 census with the size of the majority for the successful candidate at the 2010 general election. It is unclear how far the analysis takes account of the disproportionately younger profile of Muslims, which is likely to mean that their share of voters will be rather less than that of the population as a whole. In all, there are said to be 80 constituencies where Muslims exceed 10% of the residents. For more information about the research, including the sensitivity tests which were applied, see: 

http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/newspaper/home-news/muslim-voters-may-determine-next-government/

Mosques

By far the best source of information about mosques in the UK is the database maintained by Mehmood Naqshbandi as part of the (unofficial) Muslims in Britain website. According to the latest report generated from the database, on 19 October 2014 and extending to 64 pages, there are 1,743 active mosques (including prayer rooms) in the UK, of which 1,625 are in England (an estimated 37% being registered as charities). They belong to a variety of Islamic traditions, but with Deobandi (43%) and Bareilvi (24%) being the most dominant. There are 59 mosques which accommodate more than 2,000 people, the largest being a Bareilvi mosque in Bradford, with space for 8,000. The data are also analysed by parliamentary constituencies and local authorities. The report can be downloaded from: 

http://www.muslimsinbritain.org/resources/masjid_report.pdf

An earlier (April 2013) snapshot of the database was recently summarized on pp. 6-7 of Innes Bowen, Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Brent: Inside British Islam (London: Hurst & Company, 2014, x + 230p., ISBN 9781849043014, paperback). At that time, there were 1,664 mosques in the UK with an estimated capacity of 837,000. Bowen’s book is a useful introduction to the diversity of British Islam and its constituent ideologies and cultures.

Slaughter of animals

UK animal welfare legislation permits slaughter without pre-stunning to be carried out in accordance with religious rites. The practice is particularly important in the Jewish and Muslim communities but is increasingly controversial with veterinarians and sections of the public, and seemingly now contrary to UKIP policy. The prevalence of slaughter without pre-stunning was revealed on 29 January 2015 when the Food Standards Agency (FSA) published the results of its September 2013 survey of animal welfare in Great Britain, during the course of which assessments were made at 301 slaughterhouses. It found that 1% of cattle, sheep and goats, and poultry were slaughtered by the Shechita (Jewish) method, none of which were pre-stunned. The incidence of slaughter by the Halal (Muslim) method was 3% for cattle (25% not being pre-stunned), 41% for sheep and goats (37% not pre-stunned), and 21% for poultry (16% not pre-stunned). Overall, 2% of cattle, 3% of poultry, and 15% of sheep and goats were not stunned prior to slaughter, the last figure having risen from 10% in a 2011 survey. For all three classes of animals the proportion slaughtered by the Halal method without pre-stunning increased significantly between 2011 and 2013, supposedly because of stronger campaigning by some Muslims who believe that stunning kills animals. The FSA report is at: 

http://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2013-animal-welfare-survey.pdf

Anti-Semitic incidents

The Community Security Trust (CST), which has been monitoring anti-Semitic incidents in the UK since 1984, reported on 5 February 2015 that there was a record number in 2014, 1,168, which was more than double the total in 2013 (535) and 25% above the previous highest figure of 931 in 2009. The single biggest contributing factor to this record number was the conflict in Israel and Gaza between 8 July and 26 August 2014, during which time no fewer than 501 incidents occurred. However, even controlling for the distorting effect of this ‘trigger event’, the CST still calculated that there was an underlying increase of 29% in anti-Semitic incidents in 2014 over 2013.  More than three-quarters of all incidents in 2014 took place in Greater London and Greater Manchester, where the two largest Jewish communities in the UK are concentrated, with incidents in Greater London 137% above the 2013 level. Overall, abusive behaviour accounted for 76% of incidents, those involving extreme violence or assault being far less common (7%). For a full analysis and commentary, see the 41-page Antisemitic Incidents Report, 2014, which can be found at: 

http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/Incidents%20Report%202014.pdf

New Religious Movements

New religious movements (NRMs) seem to get relatively less exposure in mainstream academic research and literature than they once did, so we should welcome the recent book by James Lewis, Sects & Stats: Overturning the Conventional Wisdom about Cult Members (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2014, ix + 209p., ISBN 9781781791080, paperback). The volume provides a contemporary quantitative overview of NRMs from a global perspective, principally derived from questionnaire surveys (some undertaken by the author) of the membership of selective NRMs and analysis of national census data from Anglophone countries (but excluding the United States, which has no religion census, although some sample surveys are available). The book contains relatively little UK data, the principal exception (pp. 184-6) being toplines of the write-in responses to the 2001 and 2011 censuses.  

Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 2013

The complete dataset for the June-October 2013 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey was made available for secondary analysis by the UK Data Service as SN 7519 on 20 January 2015. Fieldwork was conducted by ScotCen Social Research by means of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire administered to 1,497 adult Scots. Although no religion module was included, the standard background questions about religious affiliation (current and by upbringing) and attendance at religious services (by those professing a religion) were asked. These can obviously be used as variables for analysing the replies to the other questions, which, on this occasion, disproportionately related to constitutional change, alcohol, mental health, and policing. 

Magna Carta

In 2015 we are celebrating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta, one of the most iconic of all historical documents, the four surviving copies of which have been briefly reunited at The British Library and the House of Lords this week. Yet, beyond knowing that it is significant, many Britons remain unaware of or hazy about its actual content, which was determined by a specific set of circumstances operating in 1215. Although it could be said to have influenced the development of some human rights, in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights sense, Magna Carta cannot be regarded as the progenitor of them all. An example is ‘freedom of religion’, which is only covered in Magna Carta to the more limited extent that chapter 1 established the freedom of the English Church (then Roman Catholic, of course) from state (royal) interference. Nevertheless, 16% of 1,630 Britons interviewed online on 1-2 February 2015 for Index on Censorship thought that Magna Carta had mentioned freedom of religion, including 25% of Liberal Democrats and 22% of over-60s. This was a somewhat lower proportion than the 25% of the public who had given a similar reply to Ipsos MORI in October 2012. The YouGov data tables are at:      

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/xysuhertyl/IndexOnCensorshipResults_150202_Magna_Carta_W.pdf

 

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

ComRes on Religion and Other News

Posted on January 24, 2015 by Clive D. Field

 

ComRes on religion

Exactly half the whole population (and 71% of those professing no religion) now denies that religion is a force for good in the world, according to a ComRes poll for ITV News on 16-18 January 2015, for which 2,036 adults were interviewed online. Only 24% overall agreed with the proposition with 26% undecided. Christianity was viewed somewhat more positively, a plurality (39%) agreeing that it is a force for good in the world (peaking at 55% of over-65s and 63% of Christians), against 30% who disagreed (including 53% of religious nones) and 31% who did not know. However, although 44% judged that religious leaders in Britain should not get involved in political debates (compared with 34% who thought they should), in practice there was majority support for some specific recent interventions: 65% approved of the criticisms made by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York of the behaviour of shoppers in the Black Friday sales; 63% of their charge that Britain has become dominated by consumerism and selfishness; and 50% of religious leaders speaking out about economic inequality. Data tables are at:   

http://comres.co.uk/polls/ITV_News_Index_Religion_20th_January_2015.pdf

British Cohort Study

On 27 April 2014 BRIN included in one of its regular weekly round-ups of religious statistical news an item on ‘When we’re 42’. This contained a preliminary (topline) analysis of a short religion module which had formed part of the latest wave of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS), which has been following the lives of babies born in Britain one week in 1970. Information was gathered by TNS BMRB between May 2012 and April 2013 from 9,841 members of the cohort at the age of 42, by a combination of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire, the religion questions appearing on the self-completion form.  

A much fuller (27-page) analysis of the module, incorporating various cross-tabulations, was published on 21 January 2015 as Centre for Longitudinal Studies Working Paper 2015/1: David Voas, The Mysteries of Religion and the Lifecourse. It will also appear in a forthcoming issue of the journal Longitudinal and Life Course Studies but meanwhile can be accessed via the link at: 

http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/page.aspx?&sitesectionid=939&sitesectiontitle=Recent+working+papers

The press release for the report led on the substantial gender differences which were found in the two religious beliefs which were enquired into, an emphasis which was then reflected in the media coverage, although the phenomenon is hardly novel and, as Voas comments, still lacks a clear resolution. Perhaps of greater interest are his methodological conclusions and observations arising from the research, with a plea to avoid over-reliance on single-item measures of religiosity. This is exemplified in the sevenfold religious typology proposed by the author in table 8, based on pooling BCS data about religious identity, religious attendance, and belief in God and life after death, and which demonstrates that religiosity is far from being a black and white matter. The table is reproduced below: 

Label Description

%
Non-religious Does not have a religion and believes in neither God nor life after death

28
Nominally religious Identifies with a religion but believes in neither God nor life after death

7
Unorthodox non-religious Does not have a religion or does not attend services, believes in God or life after death but not both

21
Unorthodox religious Has a religion and attends services at least occasionally, believes in God but not life after death (or vice versa)

5
Non-identifying believers Does not have a religion but believes in God and life after death

10
Non-practising religious Has a religion and believes in God and life after death but does not attend services

14
Actively religious Has a religion and believes in God and life after death and attends services

15

Religious affiliation

Lord Ashcroft’s latest themed political opinion poll was published on 14 January 2015, this time on public attitudes to the National Health Service. Fieldwork was conducted online between 14 and 24 November 2014 among adults aged 18 and over, and, as usual, there was a background question asked about religious affiliation: ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ Summary weighted findings appear below, with comparisons from previous years, from which it will be seen that Christian disaffiliation and profession of no faith are proceeding relatively rapidly. The full results (with breaks by gender, age, social grade, region, employment sector, working status, educational attainment, and voting intention) can be found in table 149 of the data tables at: 

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/NHS-poll-Full-data-tables.pdf 

% down

11/2011 All

11/2012 All

11/2013 All

11/2014 All

11/2014 18-24

11/2014 65+
Christian

56.4

55.0

52.6

53.7

32.4

72.1
Non-Christian

6.6

6.5

7.4

7.0

13.3

3.2
No religion

35.2

36.3

37.7

37.0

49.4

23.4
Refused

1.8

2.2

2.3

2.4

4.9

1.3
N =

5,000

20,066

8,053

20,011

2,402

4,201

Rating Pope Francis

Pope Francis was quick to condemn the Islamist outrages in Paris, but he subsequently raised more than a few eyebrows when he told journalists that there were limits to freedom of expression and that the faith of others should not be insulted, even cracking a joke in the process about punching anybody who foul-mouthed his own mother. The majority of Britons (51%) disagreed with the Pope’s (unguarded) statement (Londoners and UKIP voters most strongly, on 59%), against 36% who supported it, according to an online poll by YouGov among 1,747 Britons on 18-19 January 2015. Reviewing his pontificate more generally, 51% thought that the Pope is doing a good job, up by 15 points over two YouGov surveys undertaken during his first year in office in 2013, and very few (7%) suggested he is doing a bad job, as many as 42% being undecided. Almost one-quarter (23%) claimed they had a more positive view of the Catholic Church as a result of Pope Francis, albeit the plurality who hold a negative view of the Church is still as large as ever (36%, the same as in November 2013), the over-60s being most negative (48%). Nearly two-fifths (39%, 8 points up on November 2013) anticipated that the Pope would make the Church more liberal, notwithstanding there is as yet little tangible evidence that its teachings are about to be ‘modernized’ in any substantive way. A blog about the survey was published on 20 January 2015, with a link to the data tables, at: 

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/20/pope-francis-approval-rise/

Immigration

A plurality (47%) of the British public believes that immigration has weakened Christian values in Britain, according to an online poll by Survation for the think-tank Bright Blue, for which 1,052 adults were interviewed between 12 and 16 September 2014 (although the results were only released on 19 January 2015). The proportion holding this view soared to 81% among UKIP voters and also constituted a majority for several other demographic sub-groups, including retired people (66%), the over-55s (62%), Conservative voters (56%), the lowest (DE) social grade (55%), men (54%), and married persons (53%). Just 19% of the whole sample disagreed with the proposition that immigration had weakened Christian values in Britain, while 25% neither agreed nor disagreed and 8% registered as don’t knows. On a related matter, and referring to a recent situation in real life, 66% of Britons favoured granting asylum in the UK to a woman from a strongly Muslim country who had been threatened with execution because of her Christian beliefs. Data tables are at: 

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/GB-Population-tables.pdf

The same questions were also posed to a separate sample of 1,307 current Conservative voters between 12 and 30 September 2014, and these data tables are at: 

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Conservative-Voters-tables.pdf

Anti-Semitism – Jewish perspectives

Anti-Semitism was again in the media spotlight during the past week, in the wake of the recent Islamist outrages in France, in one of which four Jews were murdered in an attack on a kosher supermarket. The heightened coverage of anti-Semitism is being underpinned by original empirical research. 

The Jewish Chronicle has published the second in its new series of Jewish topical issues polls, undertaken by Survation among a representative sample of 939 UK Jews (including secular and non-practising) aged 18 and over, who were interviewed by telephone on 19-20 January 2015. Notwithstanding greater efforts being made by the authorities to protect Jews, 58% claimed not to have noticed any increased police presence in their own areas during the past fortnight (against 40% who had), with Jewish over-55s most likely to have detected no improvement (70%). Asked whether the Government was doing all it could to combat anti-Semitism, only 33% answered in the affirmative, while 55% thought it should be doing more (rising to 61% of female Jews and 64% of under-35s). However, there was majority welcome (60%) from UK Jews for the letter which the Communities Minister had written to Muslim leaders calling for renewed efforts on their part to explain how Islam can be part of British identity. Data tables, with breaks by age, gender, and region, are at:  

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jewish-Issues-Poll-2.pdf

As well as summarizing the results of its own poll, the current issue of The Jewish Chronicle (23 January 2015, pp. 6-7, 35) also allocated space to continued discussion about the validity of the poll of Jews conducted online by the Campaign against Antisemitism (CAA) between 23 December 2014 and 11 January 2015, whose findings were rather alarmist (as featured in our last post on 18 January 2015). In The Jewish Chronicle, CAA chair Gideon Falter had an article strongly affirming the ‘bulletproof’ nature of his organization’s research, while distinguished academic (and Holocaust survivor) Michael Pinto-Duschinsky urged the newspaper’s readers ‘don’t trust these misleading figures’, backing up previous criticisms of them by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Meanwhile, Geoffrey Alderman, a regular columnist on The Jewish Chronicle, called for an end to ‘point-scoring’ about the CAA survey of Jews, although he was skating on somewhat thin ice himself since he had apparently made some use of the CAA data in an article he had written for The Spectator. 

Anti-Semitism – public opinion

A survey of public attitudes to Jews and the Holocaust was published by the European Jewish Congress on 21 January 2015. It was designed by 202 Strategies and undertaken by Survation among a sample of 504 UK adults aged 18-35 (48% of whom described themselves as not religious), who were interviewed online between 8 and 10 January 2015. A significant minority of respondents was found to have ambiguous, prejudiced, or ill-informed views on both topics, albeit some might consider a few of the questions to be a little leading. Although a majority (53%) acknowledged the existence of anti-Semitism in the UK, 23% denied it and 24% were undecided. Three-fifths had been taught about the Holocaust at school but fewer, 40%, regarded it as the most important event in European history over the last century, just 34% knew who Adolf Eichmann was, 31% underestimated the number of Jews who had perished in the Holocaust (with a further 21% unable to answer at all), and only 29% were aware of Holocaust Memorial Day. One in seven inclined to Holocaust denial in that they agreed ‘the evidence surrounding the Holocaust is not complete and I would need to see more proof to believe without a doubt that it occurred’. A similar proportion (15%) backed the introduction of a legal requirement for businesses owned by Jews to have a special form of identification (22% saying the same about Muslim businesses) and 15% wanted individual Jews to carry religious identification (13% wishing to see a similar obligation on Christians). One-quarter thought it very or somewhat likely that laws discriminating against Jews could be passed in Europe today, and 24% anticipated that another Holocaust might happen in Europe during their lifetime. Full data tables have not yet been released (and may not be, since 202 Strategies rather than Survation did the analysis), but a 16-page report is available at:   

http://www.eurojewcong.org/docs/UKpoll.pdf

The Conversation of 22 January 2015 contained a preliminary analysis by Tim Bale of a poll which he had commissioned from YouGov to gauge voter reactions to the prospect of a Jewish politician leading a political party and becoming Prime Minister. This is more than a distant scenario, given that Ed Miliband leads the Labour Party and might, after the May general election, become the first British Jewish Prime Minister since 1880, albeit – conceivably – at the head of a minority or coalition government. In fact, only one-third of all UK voters are aware of Miliband’s religious background, and even fewer of those intending to vote Labour than for the other parties. Even if they were aware, for the vast majority (83%) it would apparently make no difference to their electoral choice. However, 13% of UKIP voters would be less likely to vote for a party with a Jewish leader, twice the proportion of Conservative and LibDem voters who said this, and three times the number of Labour voters. UKIP voters were also least likely (48%) to see a Jewish prime minister as equally acceptable as one from another faith, compared with 62% of all voters and 72% of Labour voters. More generally, just 10% agreed that Jews have too much influence in the country, a reduction from 18% in 2004 (albeit UKIP supporters are still at 18%). Bale’s post, which is a spin-off from his forthcoming Oxford University Press book on the Labour Party under Miliband, can be read at: 

http://theconversation.com/british-voters-open-to-a-jewish-prime-minister-but-some-are-more-welcoming-than-others-36611

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion

Among the 11 essays in the latest edition (Vol. 25, 2014) of Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, an annual published by Brill, are a couple which might interest BRIN readers, details of which are given below: 

  • pp. 2-16, Leslie Francis and Mandy Robbins, ‘Religious Identity, Mystical Experience, and Psychopathology: A Study among Secular, Christian, and Muslim Youth in England and Wales’ – a survey of the incidence of mystical experience and its association with psychoticism and neuroticism among 203 Muslim, 477 Christian, and 378 religiously unaffiliated young people aged 14-18 attending 12 schools in England and Wales 
  • pp. 78-108, Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip and Sarah-Jane Page, ‘Religious Faith and Heterosexuality: A Multi-Faith Exploration of Young Adults’ – a survey of the sexual values, attitudes, and behaviour of 515 self-defined heterosexual religious young adults aged 18-25 living in the UK

 

Posted in Measuring religion, People news, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Religious beliefs, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Clive D. Field

The recent Islamist outrages in France continued to dominate the news last week, being the most noted story for 74% of the 2,070 Britons interviewed online by Populus on 14-15 January 2015. However, the domestic research agenda has now broadened out to include the implications for the Jewish community.

Anti-Semitism (1)

The Campaign against Antisemitism (CAA), a grass-roots movement which started in August 2014, published its Annual Antisemitism Barometer, 2015 Full Report on 14 January 2015, summarizing the results of two surveys which it had commissioned in Britain, one among the public and the other among Jews. These new data led the CAA to conclude: ‘Whilst antisemitism in Britain is not yet at the levels seen in most of Europe, the results of our survey should be a wakeup call. Britain is at a tipping point: unless antisemitism is met with zero tolerance, it will continue to grow and British Jews may increasingly question their place in their own country.’ The report, the preparation of which was funded by the Anglo-Jewish Association and private donors, can be viewed at: 

http://antisemitism.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Annual-Antisemitism-Barometer-Report.pdf

The survey of the general public was undertaken by YouGov among 3,411 adults interviewed online in two separate polls, on 21-22 December 2014 and 5-6 January 2015 (i.e. just before the recent Islamist outrages in France, including an attack on a kosher supermarket during which four Jews were killed). Respondents were presented with a list of seven stereotypical statements deemed by the CAA to be anti-Semitic in nature, and it was found that 45% of Britons believed at least one of them to be definitely or probably true, including 51% of men and 39% of women, the regional range being from 30% in Scotland to 48% in northern England. One-quarter (26%) believed at least two statements were true, 17% at least three, and 11% at least four.  

If the last statistic is taken as some kind of approximation of hard-core prejudice against Jews in Britain, then the proportion is similar to that discovered by Clive Field in his ‘meta-analysis’ of polls on anti-Semitism published in Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300.Also, more recently, according to The ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, released by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in May 2014, Britain has one of the lowest rates of anti-Semitism in the world – see BRIN’s coverage at: 

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2014/adl-index-of-anti-semitism/

Results for each of YouGov’s seven statements are tabulated below, showing highs and lows by demographic sub-groups.

% saying definitely or probably true

All

High

Low
Jews chase money more than other British people

25

39 (UKIP)

18 (LibDem; 18-24)
Jews’ loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people

20

28 (UKIP)

15 (women; Scotland; no religion)
Jews think they are better than other people

17

27 (UKIP)

11 (women)
Jews have too much influence in the media

17

29 (non-Christian)

11 (women)
Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy

13

23 (non-Christian)

10 (women; Scotland)
In business Jews are not as honest as most people

11

17 (UKIP)

7 (Scotland; no religion)
I would be unhappy if a family member married a Jew

10

22 (non-Christian)

7 (LibDem)

The full data tables are at: 

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/jqf80l3ea6/CampaignAgainstAntisemitismResults_MergedFile_W.pdf

For its second survey, the CAA claims to have polled ‘a representative sample of the British Jewish community’, with the assistance of various Jewish agencies. In practice, informants appear to have constituted a self-selecting sample, who responded to an online questionnaire between 23 December 2014 and 11 January 2015, and which they accessed via a weblink distributed via social media and email lists. So, although electronic identifiers enabled duplicate or non-UK responses to be filtered out, and although the British data were weighted to reflect the regional distribution of Jews in the census (it is unclear why other census demographics of Jews were not deployed), the results should still be treated with some caution and may not be representative. As we have noted previously, it is genuinely very difficult to achieve proper cross-sections of minority religious populations. 

In particular, those with a special angst about anti-Semitism and/or who felt particularly protective of Israel may have been more predisposed to reply to the CAA enquiry than other Jews. We may note that social scientist Keith Kahn-Harris is quoted in The Jewish Chronicle as having already dismissed the CAA survey as ‘methodologically invalid. There can be no confidence in its representativeness’. The equally respected Institute for Jewish Policy Research has issued a press release in which it criticizes the CAA study for being ‘littered with flaws’ and ‘rather irresponsible’. The release can be read online at: 

http://www.jpr.org.uk/newsevents/article.1012

With this significant caveat in mind, we should note, for the record, that, of the 2,230 British Jews who replied to the CAA: 

  • 84% agreed that boycotts of businesses selling Israeli products constituted intimidation (11% disagreeing)
  • 82% agreed that media bias against Israel fuelled persecution of Jews in Britain (11% disagreeing)
  • 77% reported that they had witnessed anti-Semitism disguised as a political comment about Israel (13% disagreeing)
  • 69% agreed that the Jewish community had to protect itself because the State does not protect it enough (18% disagreeing)
  • 63% argued that the authorities let too much anti-Semitism go unpunished (19% disagreeing)
  • 58% were concerned that Jews may not have a long-term future in Europe (28% disagreeing)
  • 56% had witnessed or experienced more anti-Semitism in the past two years than previously (26% disagreeing)
  • 56% concurred that the recent rise in anti-Semitism in Britain had echoes of the 1930s (27% disagreeing)
  • 45% were concerned that Jews may not have a long-term future in Britain (37% disagreeing)
  • 45% agreed that their family was threatened by Islamic extremism in Britain (37% disagreeing)
  • 37% avoided showing any visible signs of Judaism when they went out (42% disagreeing)
  • 27% often avoided mentioning their Judaism when they were with new people (57% disagreeing)
  • 25% claimed to have considered leaving Britain in the past two years due to anti-Semitism (63% disagreeing) 

Anti-Semitism (2)

To be fair to the CAA, it had settled upon its own survey of Jews only after approaching ‘major polling organisations’ who ‘advised that they did not have enough Jewish panellists on their databases to conduct an effective or valid survey of the Jewish community’. The CAA will doubtless have been as surprised as everyone else to have read the announcement by The Jewish Chronicle, on the same day as CAA’s Annual Antisemitism Barometer was published, that the newspaper had been working with Survation over several months to develop ‘an extensive targeted database of thousands of Jews across the UK who can be randomly contacted for polling’, each poll to have a sample of around 1,000 Jews.  

Survation has published the following description of its methodology: ‘SAMPLING METHOD: Respondents were sampled based on a modelled probability of residents identifying themselves as Jewish. This was done using a range of demographic indicators selected by Survation in consultation with Jewish community leaders and academics. Respondents were asked to confirm whether they were Jewish before completing the survey, this includes both secular and non-practicing Jews. Only those who identified themselves as Jewish were asked to complete the survey.’  

‘DATA WEIGHTING: Data were weighted to the profile of all Jewish adults aged 18+ in the UK … by age and sex … Targets for the weighted data were derived from Office of National Statistics 2011 Census data.’ 

The Jewish Chronicle had originally planned to publicize this panel of adult UK Jews towards the end of January 2015 but rushed it forward in the light of recent events in France, and commissioned its first poll, with 555 respondents contacted by telephone on 12-14 January 2015. Topline results for the four questions (excluding don’t knows) are shown below, but data tables (with breaks by gender, age, and region) have also been posted at:      

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jewish-Topical-Issues-Poll-Final.pdf 

  • Thinking about personal safety, how safe or unsafe do you feel as a Jewish person in Britain? – very safe 17%, quite safe 58%, quite unsafe 19%, very unsafe 3%
  • Do you feel life in general is getting better or worse for Jewish people in Britain, or is it about the same? – better 9%, about the same 45%, slightly worse 34%, much worse 9%
  • Have last week’s events in Paris made you more concerned about your safety in Britain or have they made no difference? – much more concerned 32%, slightly more concerned 41%, made no difference 27%
  • Have last week’s events in Paris made you consider leaving Britain? – yes 11% (16% among under-35s), no 88%  

An article in The Jewish Chronicle about the survey is at: 

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/128162/jc-poll-reveals-88-cent-british-jews-have-not-considered-leaving-uk 

Anti-Semitism (3)

Further evidence that hard-core prejudice against Jews in Britain may not exceed 10% of the population came in a second YouGov poll for The Sunday Times on 15-16 January 2015, among 1,647 adults. Data tables are at:  

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/wt26kxdn72/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-160115.pdf

The survey revealed that, although 13% considered that, as regards other people, there was more prejudice against Jews than ten years ago (compared with 61% saying the level of prejudice was unchanged or lessened), the overwhelming majority of the public had a favourable personal view of Jews, with only a small minority (disproportionately located among UKIP voters) unfavourable. In particular: 

  • 10% disputed that British Jews are well integrated into British society, against 71% thinking they are and 18% uncertain
  • 8% denied that British Jews make a positive contribution to British society, with 73% believing that they do and 20% expressing no view
  • 7% admitted to having a negative opinion of Jewish people in Britain, 77% being positive, and 17% undecided 

Islamophobia (1)

The fall-out from the recent Islamist outrages in France has also negatively impacted Muslims in Britain, and matters are not helped by the fact that the population at large harbours an exaggerated notion as to how many Muslims there actually are in the country. According to the 2011 census, the proportion is just under 5%, yet only 9% of 1,782 adults interviewed by YouGov online on 12-13 January 2015 knew this, with the mean guess being 17%, more than three times the reality. Moreover, 26% of this national cross-section (and 54% of UKIP voters) also felt that ordinary Muslims needed to apologize when people claiming to be acting on behalf of Islam committed terrorist acts, with 63% considering that ordinary Muslims had nothing to apologize for, and 11% undecided. Data tables were published on 14 January 2015 at: 

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/t92z3pag83/BuzzfeedResults_150113_Muslims_W.pdf

Islamophobia (2)

YouGov’s poll for The Sunday Times on 15-16 January 2015, published on 18 January, also probed Islamophobic attitudes, as well as reactions to the latest edition of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, whose front page showed another cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. The majority (53% overall, 68% of UKIP voters) agreed that this had been the right thing for the newspaper to do, and a plurality of the whole sample (43%) and majority of men, Liberal Democrats, and UKIP supporters still took this line even though it would make further terrorist attacks more likely. On British Muslims, there were some sharp divisions of opinion: 

  • 58% (and 84% of UKIP voters) contended that most British Muslim leaders could be doing a lot more to combat radicalization and terrorism, against 27% accepting they were doing all they reasonably could
  • 46% thought that all, most, or a majority of British Muslims shared British values and the identical proportion that only a minority, hardly any, or no British Muslims did so, peaking at 73% of UKIP voters
  • 42% believed that British Muslims were well integrated into British society but 50% said that they were not, including 79% of UKIP voters and 59% of over-60s
  • 41% assessed that British Muslims were usually friendly to non-Muslim Britons but 20% judged them usually unfriendly, with a high of 39% among UKIP supporters
  • 33% agreed with the suggestion of UKIP leader Nigel Farage that ghettoes had sprung up in Britain where Sharia law prevailed and from which the police and other legal authorities had withdrawn, a view shared by 75% of Farage’s own backers, with 41% denying the statement (63% of 18-24s)

 

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Advent Pot-Pourri

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Clive D. Field

 

Correlates of belief

The socio-structural and religious correlates of over-time belief in God, life after death, hell, heaven, and sin are explored in a new article by Ben Clements published in the advance access edition of Journal of Beliefs and Values on 26 November 2014: ‘The Correlates of Traditional Religious Beliefs in Britain’. Data derived from a multivariate analysis of the British samples from the four waves of the European Values Study between 1981 and 2008. No uniform decline in individual beliefs was detected, with the picture one of change (reducing belief in God, heaven, and sin) and continuity (for belief in life after death and hell), although the proportion holding none of the five beliefs did increase from 8% to 25% over the period of the surveys. Women, affiliates of a faith, attenders at religious services, and those attaching importance to religion were found to be more likely to believe. Age effects were not consistent, while higher socio-economic status (reflected in occupation and educational attainment) tended to be associated with lower levels of belief. Access options to the article are explained at: 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2014.980070#.VH2Zi-kqXX4

Catholics, assisted suicide, and abortion

The Roman Catholic Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life are well-known and apparently continue to exercise some sway over the faithful, despite clear evidence of liberalizing opinion and the desire of many Catholics to make up their own minds about such matters. This is suggested by new research by Ben Clements into Catholic attitudes to assisted suicide and abortion which is reported in ‘An Assessment of Long-Term and Contemporary Attitudes towards “Sanctity of Life” Issues amongst Roman Catholics in Britain’, Journal of Religion in Europe, Vol. 7, Nos. 3-4, 2014, pp. 269-300. The empirical evidence is divided into two main sections. In the first, British Social Attitudes Surveys, European Values Studies, and some other recurrent polls are used to compare attitudes over time to the two issues among Catholics and the general public, mostly since the early 1980s. It is shown that, although the gap between the two has closed, Catholics still tend to hold more socially-conservative views than the rest of the population. In the second section, the YouGov/Westminster Faith Debates poll of Catholics in June 2013 is analysed to determine the socio-demographic and religious correlates of Catholic attitudes to assisted suicide and abortion. The variables found to have the most consistent effects in underpinning a conservative position on sanctity of life were ageing and greater religiosity (in terms of both believing and behaving indicators). Access options to the article are explained at: 

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18748929-00704005;jsessionid=1h6f4t8e08s5w.x-brill-live-02

Catholic schools

The Catholic Education Service (CES) for England and Wales published digests of its 2014 census data for Catholic maintained and independent schools and colleges on 28 November 2014, with separate reports for England and Wales. A response rate of 100% was achieved. In England and Wales combined there were 2,245 Catholic schools attended by 845,762 pupils. Increases were recorded in the number of pupils educated in Catholic maintained schools and in teachers employed in them. The proportion of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds and living in the most deprived areas also rose, exceeding the national average in each case, but the proportion receiving free school meals remained below the national figure. The number of pupils who were Catholics continued its slow decline, standing at 69.5% in English maintained schools and 56.5% in the Welsh ones. The CES press release, incorporating a link to the digests, is at: 

http://www.catholiceducation.org.uk/news/ces-news/item/1002981-catholic-education-service-annual-census-now-more-reliable-than-ever

School nativity plays

A traditional nativity play is held in only a third of schools, according to an online survey of more than 2,000 of its members by Netmums, the parenting website, which was released on 2 December 2014. Instead, more than half of schools now stage an ‘updated nativity’ featuring contemporary characters, while one in eight schools hold Christmas performances devoid of any religious content. Two-thirds of parents whose schools do not put on a traditional nativity play said that they would like it to. The Netmums press release is at: 

http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/general-coffeehouse-chat-514/news-current-affairs-topical-discussion-12/1213778-no-room-inn-traditional-nativity-plays-ditched-pop-songs-punk-fairies.html

The subsequent reporting of and comment in the media on the Netmums survey prompted YouGov to run a couple of questions on the subject in its regular weekly poll for The Sunday Times, for which 1,838 Britons were interviewed online on 4-5 December 2014. More than three-fifths (62%) of the sample thought it better for schools to stage traditional nativity plays, and this was especially so among Conservative voters (75%), UKIP supporters (80%), and the over-60s (75%). No question was asked about religious affiliation, but, given the distribution of responses to such questions in other YouGov studies, a significant minority of people professing no faith must also have elected for traditional nativity plays. More modern Christmas plays relevant to contemporary Britain were favoured by 17% (24% for 18-24s), while 12% did not want either sort of play, and 10% did not know what to think. Among parents of children attending primary school, 42% said that their child’s school put on a traditional play with religious content, 40% a modern play with religious content, 5% a modern play with no religious content, and 5% no play at all. Data tables are at: 

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/juhk980ke8/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-051214.pdf

Debt support

Four-fifths (79%) of Anglican clergy believe that helping people to manage their money wisely is an important part of the Church of England’s mission, with 48% of parishes actually providing formal or informal help to those in financial difficulties and 22% running debt advice or budgeting courses. The findings derive from an online survey undertaken in October 2014 by the Church Urban Fund and the Church’s Mission and Public Affairs Department, to which 1,685 clergy responded. The Church of England issued a press release about the research on 27 November 2014, which can be read at: 

https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2014/11/growing-number-of-parishes-providing-help-to-people-with-debt.aspx

Christians in sport

Practising Christians in the UK are almost 10% less likely to participate in sport once a week than the general public (25.8% and 35.2%, respectively), according to a poll commissioned and published by Christians in Sport (in association with the Bible Society) on 26 November 2014. The press release, which is thin, fails to offer the obvious explanation for such a disparity, that (on the evidence of censuses of church attendance and sample surveys) practising Christians have a more elderly profile than the population as a whole, but it does mention that only 19% of churches actively encourage their congregations to play sport. Although noting that the study was undertaken by Christian Research, the press release gives little further detail. The presumption must be that it was conducted via Resonate, Christian Research’s online panel of UK practising Christians (including church leaders), with some 2,000 of the 15,000-strong panel completing this particular survey. Detailed data tables do not appear to be in the public domain, certainly not on the Christian Research website. We have had occasion in the past to express regret at the lack of visibility about the methodology and results of Resonate polls, which now take place monthly. Christian Research (which is part of the Bible Society family) and its clients potentially do themselves a great disservice by failing to report these Resonate polls more transparently and to open them up to professional scrutiny. The Christians in Sport press release can be found at: 

http://www.christiansinsport.org.uk/news.asp?itemid=5805&itemTitle=Press+release%3A+New+poll+says+Christians+prefer+the+armchair+to+arm+weights&section=22&sectionTitle=Stories&from=&to=

New Churches in North-East England

An interdisciplinary conference on New Churches founded in the North-East since 1980, based on a research project funded by the William Leech Foundation, will take place at St Johns College, Durham on 17 April 2015. The conference website, including a link to the draft programme, can be found at: 

http://community.dur.ac.uk/churchgrowth.research/conferences/new-churches-in-the-north-east-a-day-conference

Muslims and crime

In his (somewhat laboured) article published in the advance access edition of British Journal of Criminology on 30 November 2014, Julian Hargreaves challenges the dominant scholarly discourse concerning criminological issues faced by British Muslims. Utilizing British Crime Survey/Crime Survey of England and Wales data for 2006-10, he seeks to replace the current misleading generalizations about Muslim experiences of victimization, discrimination, and demonization. Instead, he paints a more nuanced picture in which there were only small or no statistically significant differences between Muslims and non-Muslims in being victims of personal crime, although Muslims were more likely to be victims of household crime (in reflection of living in areas of socio-economic disadvantage). Moreover, Muslim attitudes to the police were, by and large, positive and often more positive than those of non-Muslims. The full text of ‘Half a Story? Missing Perspectives in the Criminological Accounts of British Muslim Communities, Crime, and the Criminal Justice System’ is currently free to download from: 

http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/11/26/bjc.azu091.full.pdf+html

Muslims and employment

Some BRIN readers may have noticed the headline in The Independent for 1 December 2014: ‘British Muslims Face Worst Job Discrimination of any Minority Group, according to Research’. Intrigued to know more, BRIN has tracked the findings down to a forthcoming article in Social Science Journal by Nabil Khattab and Ron Johnston on ‘Ethno-Religious Identities and Persisting Penalties in the UK Labor Market’. Utilizing pooled data from the British Labour Force Survey (covering 553,600 adults aged 19-65 interviewed in the April-June quarters of 2002-10), the authors have estimated the gross and net effects of ethno-religious background on the likelihood of (a) avoiding unemployment and (b) securing employment in professional and managerial (salariat) jobs. The net calculations take the ‘human capital resources’ (such as educational attainment) of the 14 ethno-religious groups into account. This is by no means an easy article to summarize (nor to read). However, the principal conclusion appears to be that ‘most non-white groups face an employment penalty, but Muslim groups – both men and women – experienced the greatest penalties. These penalties are exacerbated when … searching for a managerial or a professional job …’ The most advantaged group in terms of employment prospects was Jewish White British, even more so than Christian White British. Although the article formally only exists as a corrected proof at the moment, it is still possible to access it (by purchase or institutional subscription) at: 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S036233191400130X

Religious book sales

The current issue (5 December 2014, p. 8) of The Church of England Newspaper reports an analysis by The Bookseller of the sales of books on religious and related topics. Until 2007, apparently, the value of sales of mind, body, spirit titles outstripped that of traditional religious books, the relative proportions being 56% and 44%. Thereafter, throughout the years of economic recession, the share of mind, body, spirit titles reduced to 41% (of a slightly diminished overall sales total), falling by 29%, while traditional religious books reached 59%, up 28% in sales. However, from 2014, as the economic recovery has taken effect, mind, body, spirit sales have risen by 10%, with a particularly large increase in sales of works on mindfulness. It is hard to comment without seeing the full data, which do not seem to be on The Bookseller’s public website and are presumably only available to subscribers.

 

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Social Capital, Religious beliefs, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Halloween and Other News

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Clive D. Field

 

Halloween

Halloween is almost upon us again! It is next Friday (31 October 2014). Strictly speaking, it is All Hallows’ Eve in the Christian calendar, but since the Millennium it has been transformed in the UK into a seasonal festival in the American mould, surpassed only by Christmas and Easter in its value in the commercial calendar. In 2001 it was estimated that only £12 million of Halloween-themed products were sold in this country, whereas today the value of the Halloween market is said to range from £230 million (according to Mintel) to £443 million (Webloyalty/Conlumino), with Planet Retail’s forecast being £330 million. The fact that Halloween this year falls on a Friday and during school half-term breaks is thought likely to increase its observance still further. Since average spend per consumer on Halloween remains relatively low, there is felt to be quite a lot of potential for ongoing growth.

Such is the commercial importance of Halloween, especially to the supermarkets, that it now drives a fair amount of market research, much of which remains locked up behind paywalls. However, the Webloyalty/Conlumino report was put into the public domain on 24 October 2014 and can be briefly summarized here. Of the total Halloween spending of £421 million in 2013, 33% was on costumes, 31% on food, 21% on decorations, and 15% on entertainment and stationery. Two-thirds of consumers questioned in September 2014 anticipated celebrating Halloween in some shape or form the following month (the most common activities expected to be giving out sweets to trick or treaters and carving a pumpkin), and 57% thought they would buy something for Halloween, with £11 the likely amount of money to be parted with. Despite this apparent enthusiasm, 63% agreed that Halloween is not a real festival but a commercial opportunity, 56% claimed to be indifferent towards it, and 50% said they would not open the door to trick or treaters. Asked whether Halloween is bad because it focuses on the occult, 23% agreed, 36% disagreed, and 41% were neutral. The Webloyalty/Conlumino report is at:

http://www.webloyalty.co.uk/images/uk-halloween-research-webloyalty-2014.pdf

Meanwhile, 42% of 2,067 Britons have told Populus, in an online poll for Hubbub (the charity behind Pumpkin Rescue – no, we jest not) carried out on 10-12 October 2014, they have at some time bought a pumpkin to carve or decorate for Halloween. Those professing no religion were slightly more likely to have done so (45%) than Christians (42%) or non-Christians (36%). After hollowing out and carving the pumpkin, most respondents throw the insides away, but one-third claimed to have cooked with them. Data tables are at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Hubbub-Pumpkin-Research-Full-Tables.pdf

Contemporary beliefs

Doubtless also prompted by the imminence of Halloween, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! London attraction released the headline results of a survey into UK beliefs on 28 October 2014, which were initially picked up by The Times and Daily Star. The study was commissioned by Ripley’s from 72 Point and conducted online by the latter’s polling partner, OnePoll, between 7 and 10 October 2014. The sample comprised 500 children aged 8-12 and 1,500 adults aged 18 and over. Full data tables are not available, nor (one suspects) are they ever likely to be, but there are two press releases which can be read at:

http://www.ripleyslondon.com/believe-aliens-god/

and

http://www.72point.com/coverage/brits-aliens/

As with other media-focused polls investigating the supernatural, it is not always easy to reconcile the findings with those from other sample surveys into religious and cognate beliefs. This is especially so in relation to belief in God, which fluctuates markedly in surveys and is heavily dependent upon question-wording, and particularly upon the way in which ‘God’ is defined. For the record, this is the Ripley’s league table showing how comparatively badly God fares when pitted against other extra-terrestrial beings:

Belief in (%)

Adults

Children
Ghosts

55

64
Aliens

51

64
UFOs

42

50
Angels

27

27
God

25

33

YouGov@Cambridge polling

New YouGov polling on defence and foreign policy issues has been released in connection with this year’s YouGov@Cambridge Forum, which was held on 23 October 2014. Here we focus on the Islamist-related aspects, concerning attitudes to a range of actions which could be taken against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq (fieldwork on 13-14 October 2014) and Syria (14-15 October 2014) and the Islamist group Boko Haram in Nigeria (25-26 September 2014). Samples of approximately 2,000 adults were interviewed online for each survey. Topline results are summarized below, but detailed data tables can be accessed at:

http://cambridge.yougov.com/archive/

Support for

Against IS in Iraq

Against IS in Syria

Against Boko Haram in Nigeria
RAF air strikes

60

60

38
Unmanned aerial drone strikes

61

62

46
Royal Navy missile strikes

58

58

37
Supplying heavy weapons to local forces

45

NA

24
Supplying small arms to local forces

47

NA

29
Sending in regular UK troops

30

NA

19
Sending humanitarian supplies via charities

67

NA

63
RAF dropping humanitarian supplies

79

NA

71
Sending UK military advisers

63

NA

62
Sending UK special forces to rescue hostages

68

65

55
Cooperating with Iranian government

NA

52

NA
Cooperating with Russian government

NA

49

NA
Cooperating with Syrian government

NA

37

NA

Perception and reality

‘The British public are often very wrong about the basic make-up of their population and the scale of key social issues’, Ipsos MORI has concluded from its analysis (published on 29 October 2014) of a multinational survey of knowledge about nine topics, two of them religion-related. The two pertinent questions asked were ‘Out of every 100 people how many do you think are Muslim?’ and ‘Out of every 100 people how many do you think are Christian?’ Average guesses were computed from the answers given and compared with the true national proportions. Fieldwork was conducted online between 12 and 26 August 2014 among a sample of 1,000 Britons aged 16-64 via Ipsos Global @dvisor.

As in most of the other 13 nations surveyed, Britons massively overestimated the proportion of Muslims in the population, the average guess being 21%, which was almost four times the actual number of Muslims recorded in the 2011 census. They likewise underestimated the presence of professing Christians, suggesting they only represented 39% of the population whereas the census recorded 59%. These ‘perils of perception’, as Ipsos MORI describes them, doubtless contribute to the growth of Islamophobia and to the sense that Christian tradition and culture are being undermined. Results for Britain and major Western European and North American countries are shown below. They have been abstracted from a press release and slide show which can be found at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3466/Perceptions-are-not-reality-Things-the-world-gets-wrong.aspx

%

Overestimate of Muslims

Underestimate of Christians
Belgium

+23

-18
France

+23

-14
Germany

+13

0
Great Britain

+16

-20
Italy

+16

-14
Spain

+14

-15
United States

+14

-22
Canada

+18

-21
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Latest Surveys on Islamic State

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Clive D. Field

 

With the referendum on Scottish independence now held, polling attention has begun to swing back to the crisis created by the rise of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. Here we report the studies which have appeared since our last blog post on 21 September 2014, arranged in chronological order of fieldwork. It should be noted that no survey was taken completely after the parliamentary debate and vote, on 26 September, in favour of British involvement in air strikes against IS in Iraq. All polls were conducted online among representative samples of British adults aged 18 and over. Topline results only are given below, but breaks by standard demographics can be found by following the links to the full data tables.

8-9 September 2014 [published 26 September 2014]

Asked to choose the most important of five current news stories, 40% of the 2,099 interviewed by YouGov for Newsweek put IS and the beheading of foreign captives in first place, just ahead of the Scottish independence referendum on 35%. The Ebola outbreak in Africa came third, on 11%, with the pregnancy of the Duchess of Cambridge and the leaking online of nude photos of celebrities trailing at 2% and 1% respectively. However, when asked to rate the same stories according to the degree of their personal interest in them, the Scottish referendum (40%) relegated IS into second position on 25%. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ex0m19sls5/Newsweek_Results_140909_Kate_Middleton_Website_140926.pdf

21-22 September 2014

How should we (and the media) describe the Islamist organization which has advanced throughout parts of Iraq and Syria during the summer, and which has recently rebranded itself as ‘Islamic State’? Britons seem unclear as to how to answer this question, according to a YouGov poll among a sample of 1,671. Only 19% personally elected for IS, against 16% preferring ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the group’s earlier title), 11% Un-Islamic State (a purely made-up name, by British imams, suggesting the group’s activities are the antithesis of Islam), 27% some other designation, with 28% undecided. By contrast, 49% of Americans chose ISIS, even though the Obama administration has tended to use ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, another former title). In both Britain and America just one-third thought the media should cite the term favoured by the organization concerned, i.e. IS in this instance, the plurality recommending use of the most accurate nomenclature, with 13% of Britons and 7% of Americans urging a deliberately insulting description. British data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/v2v4emmnwp/InternalResults_140922_IslamicState_W.pdf

and American tables at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/px7wyur5cz/tabs_OPI_IS_name_20140922.pdf

22-23 September 2014

A plurality (46%) disapproved of Britain and the USA sending ground troops back into Iraq in order to help fight IS, with 29% approving and 25% undecided, in a YouGov poll of 2,141. However, of those who were opposed or uncertain, 39% wanted the option of deploying ground troops to be kept open. Data tables are at:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/09/25/full-results-troops-iraq/

24-25 September 2014

IS was the most noticed news story of the week for 34% of the 2,128 Britons interviewed by Populus, pushing the Scottish independence referendum into second place on 25%, and no other story scoring more than 4%. The question was entirely open-ended.

24-25 September 2014

Support for RAF air strikes against IS in Iraq increased to 57%, up from 53% on 18-19 September, in this YouGov poll for The Sun of 1,972 Britons. There was also a majority (51%) for RAF air strikes against IS in Syria, although the government is not currently pursuing this option. A plurality (48%) backed strikes in both Iraq and Syria. The majority (54%) disapproved of the commitment of ground troops. Endorsement of RAF involvement in the dropping of humanitarian aid to the victims of IS rose by six points during the week, to reach 81%. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/9cr35g8rud/SunResults_140925_Iraq_IS_W.pdf

24-26 September 2014

A plurality of 45% agreed with the proposition that Britain should take part in air strikes against IS in both Iraq and Syria, in this ComRes survey of 2,003 for the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday. One-quarter (26%) disagreed, with 29% undecided. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/IoS_SM_Political_Poll_28th_September_2014_8723.pdf

25-26 September 2014

Attitudes to the IS crisis remained fairly steady in the latest YouGov study, for The Sunday Times, among a sample of 1,992 adults, albeit support for RAF air strikes against IS nudged up to 58% overall and 53% in the case of IS in Syria. There was continued opposition (by 68%) to the payment of ransoms to free British hostages held by IS, but 33% felt there was more that the government could be doing to rescue them. The threat posed by IS was deemed sufficiently strong to warrant Britain co-operating with the governments of Iran (54%) and Syria (36%), whatever their faults. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/j77kqbuqsf/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-260914.pdf

Tracker

The latest tracker of YouGov polling on IS can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/efwcliflou/YG-Archives-Pol-Iraq-Syria-and-ISIS-140925.pdf

Muslim predisposition to radicalism

At least 500 British Muslims are currently believed to be waging jihad in the Middle East, not all of them fighting with IS. Some insights into what might be the drivers for predisposition to Islamist extremism among young Muslims are offered in a new article published on 24 September 2014 in the open access, online journal PLOS One (Vol. 9, No. 9): Kamaldeep Bhui, Brian Everitt, and Edgar Jones, ‘Might Depression, Psychosocial Adversity, and Limited Social Assets Explain Vulnerability to and Resistance against Violent Radicalisation?’ The authors’ question was answered through face-to-face interviews, conducted by Ipsos MORI in 2011-12, with a quota sample of 608 men and women aged 18-45 of Pakistani or Bangladeshi family origin and of Muslim heritage living in East London and Bradford.

Radicalization was measured through a 16-item module exploring sympathies for violent protest and terrorism. Such sympathies were not widely expressed but, where they were, they were found to be most prevalent among those reporting depression and the importance of religion in their everyday life. Conversely, resistance to radicalization was associated with larger numbers of social contacts, less social capital (in terms of satisfaction with residential area, trust in neighbours, and feelings of safety), unavailability for work due to housekeeping or disability, and not being born in the UK. While calling for more research, the authors conclude that their findings point towards a preventive approach to radicalization, through tackling depression, promoting wellbeing, and, possibly, enhancing social capital. The text of the article and two supplementary tables (containing results from the 16 Likert-style radicalization statements) is located at:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0105918#s5

Other aspects of the same research were published in a previous article in PLOS One (Vol. 9, No. 3, March 2014): Kamaldeep Bhui, Nasir Warfa, and Edgar Jones, ‘Is Violent Radicalisation Associated with Poverty, Migration, Poor Self-Reported Health, and Common Mental Disorders?’ This revealed that only 2.4% of the sample showed some sympathy for violent protest and terrorist acts. They were disproportionately under 20, in full-time education, born in the UK, English-speakers at home, from high earning households, and healthy. Those with poor health, migrants, and older people were more likely to condemn radicalization, while discrimination, poverty, social and health inequalities, political engagement, and attitudes to foreign policy were not found to be relevant factors. This first article is at:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0090718

 

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