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Britain Uncovered and Other News

Posted on April 26, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Britain uncovered

The recent ‘Britain Uncovered’ poll commissioned by The Observer from Opinium Research, among an online sample of 1,019 adults, included several questions of religious interest. The proportion associating with any religion was 61%, albeit significantly lower among those self-defining as left-wing (49%) as right-wing (71%), with 17% identifying as agnostics and 21% as atheists. However, only 29% of those associating with a religion said that they actively practised it, for example by attending services, equivalent to 18% of the entire population. Of the whole sample, 61% agreed, and just 15% disagreed, that religion is a negative influence in the world rather than a force for good. Two-thirds (65%) acknowledged that Islamophobia is common in Britain, and 48% definitely and 31% probably believed that, in the light of Islamist extremism, British Muslims should make a special effort to state their allegiance to the country. Full data tables from the survey are not yet online; the following details have been abstracted from the summary at:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/19/britain-uncovered-survey-attitudes-beliefs-britons-2015

Religion of parliamentary candidates

A poll by Whitehouse Consulting of 225 parliamentary candidates for marginal seats in the forthcoming general election has revealed that 42% did not identify as members of any religious faith, with 34% claiming to be atheists (including half of Labour Party and Green Party candidates). Just 16% identified themselves as belonging to the Church of England, albeit this rose to 41% of Conservative and 27% of UKIP candidates. Overall, belief in a deity ran at 37%. A press release about the poll was issued on 17 April 2015 at:

http://www.whitehouseconsulting.co.uk/survey-shows-marginal-seat-candidates-will-be-white-male-and-only-somewhat-religious/

Religiosity and voting

In our post of 12 April 2015, we highlighted findings from an analysis of religious affiliation and voting intention undertaken by YouGov for the Church Times on the basis of online interviews with 36,579 electors between 1 and 28 March 2015. The study confirmed that professing Anglicans are disproportionately likely to favour the Conservative Party and Roman Catholics the Labour Party. Further investigation of the same dataset by self-assessed religiosity has now revealed that, excluding the 13% who did not know how they would vote and the 6% who said they would not vote at all, the Conservatives are more likely than average to attract people who describe themselves as religious and the smaller parties those who regard themselves as non-religious. The results are tabulated below:

% down	All	Religious	Non-religious
Conservative	34	42	29
Labour	34	31	34
Liberal Democrat	7	6	8
UKIP	14	14	15
Other parties	11	7	13

Further statistics are available at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/7wu1rrot0u/Final_Church_Times_Religious_Voting_Intention_Website.pdf

Would you buy a used car from … ?

The public standing, including the perceived trustworthiness, of clergy and priests has taken a bit of a tumble during recent decades. So much so that only one in four of the 300 people questioned by Gorkana Surveys for the vehicle data firm HPI said that they would most trust a vicar to sell them a used car in the private market. The good news, however, is that no other profession fared any better, even motor mechanics getting only a 19% vote of confidence. A blog about the survey was published by HPI on 20 April 2015 at:

https://blog.hpicheck.com/2015/04/20/trusting-sellers/#more-1797

Clergy dyads

Fresh light is shed on the incidence and patterns of ministry of clergy married to clergy in the Church of England in a new article by Susie Collingridge, ‘Patterns of Ministry of Clergy Married to Clergy in the Church of England’, Journal of Anglican Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, May 2015, pp. 68-91. Using the online edition of Crockford’s Clerical Directory in early 2013 as her source, she identified the number of such clergy as 26% greater than previous estimates, at 1,160, of whom 994 were active in the ministry, equivalent to 5% of all active Anglican clergy. However, she also found that a higher than normal proportion of clergy married to clergy (20%) were in non-parochial roles such as chaplains, and that it was very rare in clergy marriages for wives to hold more senior positions than their husbands. The article can be accessed via institutional subscription or pay-per-view at:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9652924&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S1740355314000205

Gender equality in the Church in Wales

The meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales in Llandrindod Wells on 15-16 April 2015 considered a Report of the Working Group Appointed by the Standing Committee to Review Representation of Women in the Church in Wales, 2015. Having analysed statistics of gender balance among candidates for the ministry, current clergy, holders of senior clerical posts, clergy presiding at cathedral services, members of diocesan boards of finance, and members of provincial committees, the report concluded that:

There is great difference between dioceses in the representation of women
There are few senior appointments held by women and women are not even occupying the posts which would be expected to act as the first stage in achieving a senior post
Equality of representation on committees has not been achieved and early progress has not been maintained
A number of the Cathedrals do not have women either as part of the ministry team or on their Chapters

The report can be found at:

http://cinw.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/10-RepresentationWomen.pdf

Edward Bailey (1935-2015)

Revd Professor Edward Ian Bailey, who initiated the formal study of implicit religion (the concept of ‘secular faith’) in 1968, died on 22 April 2015. An Anglican clergyman (notably as Rector of Winterbourne in the Diocese of Bristol from 1970 to 2006), he was also convenor of the annual Denton Hall Conferences on Implicit Religion from 1978, founding director of the Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spirituality, a member of the executive committee of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality, and visiting professor at three British universities. Although his own research and books were not particularly characterized by quantitative methods, he was encouraging of those who deployed statistical approaches, not least by publishing their articles in the journal Implicit Religion, which he established in 1998 and edited until his death.

1851 religious census of Warwickshire

On 30 March 1851 the Government organized, as part of the decennial census of population, a census of the accommodation and attendance at all places of worship in the British Isles. The experiment was never repeated and only summaries of the returns were ever published at the time. However, the original schedules have survived at The National Archives for most parts of England and Wales, and these have been the subject of many scholarly editions during the past four decades. The returns for Warwickshire are the latest to be published: The 1851 Census of Religious Worship: Church, Chapel, and Meeting Place in Mid Nineteenth-Century Warwickshire, edited by Keith Geary (Publications of the Dugdale Society, Vol. XLVII, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Society, 2014, xii + 350pp., ISBN 9780852200971, £30.00 + £3.00 postage and packing, hardback). The main body of the text (pp. 85- 323) comprises an annotated transcript of the 590 returns for the county, arranged by registration districts and sub-districts. This is preceded by a substantial introduction (pp. 1-74) which briefly sketches the historical and topographical background before providing a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of and commentary on the Warwickshire data. There are indexes by persons, places, and subjects (including denominations), plus maps and a bibliography.

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Politics, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Church in Wales, Church of England, clergy, Dugdale Society, Edward Bailey, gender equality, Gorkana Surveys, HPI, implicit religion, Islamophobia, Journal of Anglican Studies, Keith Geary, Muslims, Opinium Research, parliamentary candidates, Religious Affiliation, religious census, self-assessed religiosity, Susie Collingridge, The Observer, trust, used cars, voting, Warwickshire, Whitehouse Consulting | Leave a comment

Religiosity and Other News

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Self-assessed religiosity

In our post of 11 January 2015, we reported on the British results from the WIN/Gallup International End of Year 2014 poll, focusing on a question about trust in religious professionals, but also noting findings on two other religion-related topics, one of them self-assessed religiosity. On 13 April 2015 WIN/Gallup International and ORB International, which undertook the British fieldwork, posted online the full religiosity data and an associated religiosity index for the 64,000 respondents from 65 countries participating in the global poll. These can be downloaded from:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/article.php?s=are-you-a-religious-person-poll-results-from-65-countries

Britain came 59th out of 65 nations in terms of the proportion of the population self-rating as a religious person, with just 30%, under half the global mean (63%) and well behind Thailand at the head of the index (94%). The six countries less religious than Britain were Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden, Japan, and China. Two-thirds of Britons either described themselves as not a religious person (53%) or a convinced atheist (13%), with 4% undecided. The results for selected countries, arranged by region, are shown below.

% across	Religious person	Not religious person	Convinced atheist
Global mean	63	22	11
Europe
Austria	39	44	10
Belgium	44	30	18
Czech Republic	23	45	30
Denmark	42	40	12
Finland	56	32	10
France	40	35	18
Germany	34	42	17
Great Britain	30	53	13
Greece	71	15	6
Ireland	45	41	10
Italy	74	18	6
Netherlands	26	51	15
Poland	86	10	2
Portugal	60	28	9
Russia	70	18	5
Spain	37	35	20
Sweden	19	59	17
Switzerland	38	46	12
North America
Canada	40	41	12
USA	56	33	6
Asia
China	7	29	61
India	76	21	2
Japan	13	31	31
Korea	44	49	6
Pakistan	88	10	1

The number of Britons self-rating as religious seems first to have been measured (by Opinion Research Centre) in January-February 1968, when it stood at 58%. It was 36% when recorded by YouGov earlier this month. The question has been asked many times in between, albeit with variant wording, leading to some volatility in results. However, there has been a clear pattern of decline in religiosity since the 1990s, with, during the first half of the present decade, between 55% and 75% viewing themselves as irreligious. This is a much higher proportion of adults than professed no religion in the 2011 census of Britain (25%) or in the 2012 Integrated Household Survey (30%) or who doubted or denied the existence of God or a higher power in two YouGov polls of 2013 (35%).

Personal well-being

Christians tend to experience the highest levels of personal well-being in the UK and Muslims and religious ‘nones’ the lowest. This is suggested by an analysis of aggregated data for adults aged 16 and over from the Annual Population Survey for April 2011-March 2014 which was published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 27 March 2015 as How Does Personal Well-Being Vary by Sex, Disability, Ethnicity, and Religion? Respondents were asked to assess, on a scale running from 0 to 10, overall ‘how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?’; ‘to what extent do you feel that the things you do in your life are worthwhile?’; ‘how happy did you feel yesterday?’; and ‘how anxious did you feel yesterday?’ Means for each of these four measures are tabulated below, while the report, with links to data tables, can be read at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_400162.pdf

Mean scores out of 10	Life satisfaction	Life worthwhile	Happiness yesterday	Anxiety yesterday
All adults	7.46	7.70	7.33	3.03
No religion	7.34	7.51	7.15	2.98
Christian	7.54	7.81	7.43	3.01
Buddhist	7.31	7.57	7.39	3.23
Hindu	7.48	7.66	7.46	3.26
Jewish	7.44	7.81	7.31	3.29
Muslim	7.27	7.52	7.20	3.28
Sikh	7.39	7.67	7.32	3.23
Other	7.25	7.62	7.25	3.27

ONS does not attempt to explore the root cause of these religious differences in any detail, except to note that variations between and within equality groups generally can be attributed to various factors, including socio-economic characteristics and self-reported state of health. The relatively older age profile of Christians and younger profile of Muslims and ‘nones’ is likely to account for some of the difference, as is the relative deprivation of Muslims.

Muslims and non-Muslims

In our last post, on 12 April 2015, we reported on a telephone survey of Muslim opinion conducted by Survation for Sky News, noting that a parallel online poll of 1,001 non-Muslim Britons aged 18 and over had also been conducted for comparative purposes, the data tables for which were not then available. The tables for the latter study have now been released and can be found, together with the Muslim data, via links in a blog at:

http://survation.com/british-muslims-is-the-divide-increasing/

A comparison of Muslim and non-Muslim views is shown below, revealing a gulf on all issues, and very wide on some. This exemplified that 44% of non-Muslims admitted to being more suspicious of Muslims than they had been a few years back, rising to 49% of men and over-55s.

% down	Muslims	Non-Muslims
Values of Islam
Compatible with British values	71	22
Incompatible with British values	16	52
British Muslims doing enough to integrate
Agree	64	18
Disagree	21	57
Muslims should condemn terrorism carried out in name of Islam
Agree	51	67
Disagree	40	17
Sympathy with UK Muslims fighting in Syria
A lot/some	28	14
None	61	77
Police/MI5 contributing to radicalization of young Muslims
Agree	39	16
Disagree	29	50

Further recent exploration of anti-Muslim sentiment is contained in Ingrid Storm’s post on the Democratic Audit UK blog on 17 April 2015. Using data from the 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey, she shows that Muslims continue to be less accepted than other religious or ethnic minorities in Britain. She suggests that ‘negative media portrayals of Muslims and associations with Islamist terrorism amplify prejudice against this group among all parts of the population.’ See:

http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=12510

Anglican church growth

Revd Dr Mark Hart, Rector of Plemstall and Guilden Sutton in the Diocese of Chester, has just (13 April 2015) published ‘From Delusion to Reality: An Evaluation of From Anecdote to Evidence’, the Church of England’s influential report (January 2014) on its church growth research programme (2011-13) which is now being used to drive ‘Reform and Renewal’ in the Church. A mathematician and engineer by background, Hart carefully reviews From Anecdote to Evidence in the light of the original research by Professor David Voas and Laura Watts of the University of Essex. Hart concludes that ‘From Anecdote to Evidence systematically misrepresents or misinterprets the underlying report by David Voas and Laura Watts, thereby exaggerating the usefulness of the findings for numerical growth’.

More specifically, Hart highlights eight major weaknesses in From Anecdote to Evidence, the first being its over-dependence upon self-reported assessments of growth, which are inflated and biased, rather than using statistical data from parish returns. On the basis of his critique, he calls into question both the From Evidence to Action initiative designed to encourage parishes to implement the findings presented in From Anecdote to Evidence, as well as the decision to borrow at least £100 million from the future, using Church Commissioners’ funds, in order to advance the ‘Reform and Renewal’ agenda for the Church, doubting that this will give an adequate return on investment either in terms of finance or church growth. Hart’s 18-page paper is extensively covered in the Church Times for 17 April 2015 (main report on p. 5, leader comment on p. 12) and can be downloaded in full from:

http://revmarkhart.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/from-delusion-to-reality.html

Upcoming events

The Church of England’s annual ‘Faith in Research’ conference is to be held at Novotel, Birmingham on 14 May 2015. The theme this year is ‘Everyone Counts’, the title of a congregational survey carried out in a sample of Anglican parishes in 2014, and about whose results Sarah Barter-Godfrey will be talking. Other plenary speakers include Professor Leslie Francis on psychological type and the Church of England, and Tom Sefton and Bethany Eckley on church-based social action. There are also parallel sessions on ministry, mission, occasional offices, and church growth. More details at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/facts-stats/research-statistics/faith-in-research-conferences.aspx

‘Rethinking Modern British Studies’ is an international conference hosted by the University of Birmingham on 1-3 July 2015. Its extensive programme includes several panel sessions on religious themes, including one on the last day on ‘Public Opinion, Polling and Cultural and Religious Change in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Britain’, with papers by Marcus Collins (on measuring permissiveness), Clive Field (on indicators of religiosity), and Ben Clements (on the religious beliefs and social attitudes of Catholics). More details at:

https://mbsbham.wordpress.com/programme-rethinking-modern-british-studies/

Professor Linda Woodhead is running a residential course on ‘Britain’s Religious Crisis’ at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden on 3-5 July 2015. Drawing on her own empirical research, she intends to: highlight the growing values gap between religion and society; chart the rapid rise of religious ‘nones’ and the ‘seculigious’; review the battles for the soul of traditional religion and the role of politics and the media; and suggest how to resolve the crisis and move forward. More details at:

https://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/events/events-courses-list/britains-religious-crisis

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged Annual Population Survey, atheists, British Social Attitudes Survey, church growth, Church of England, Democratic Audit, Faith in Research, Ingrid Storm, Islam, life satisfaction, Linda Woodhead, Mark Hart, Muslims, non-Muslims, Office for National Statistics, ORB International, Religiosity, religious person, Sky News, Survation, well-being, WIN/Gallup International | Leave a comment

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

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Anglicans, assisted dying, Christian Concern, Christian country, Christianity, Christians, Church of England, Church Times, ComRes, Conservative Party, David Cameron, Dignity in Dying, Easter, Ed Miliband, general election, Islam, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Labour Party, Muslims, non-Muslims, party leaders, politics, Populus, Premier Christian Radio, religious freedom, Scientology, Sky News, spiritual enlightenment, Survation, terrorism, voting, workplace, YouGov | 1 Comment

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

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged air strikes, Aliens, All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, Anti-Semitism, atheism, Bethany Eckley, census of population, Church Action on Poverty, church attendance, church growth, Church of England, Church Urban Fund, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, clergy, ComRes, conspiracy theories, David Goodhew, David Voas, Ed Miliband, ground troops, Iraq, Islamic State, Israel, Jews, Muslim Council of Britain, Muslims, Nick Clegg, politics, Populus, practising Christians, religious census, rural Church, Sharia law, social action, Stephen Fry, Sundas Ali, Sunday Times, The Times, Theos, Tom Sefton, vision for society, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

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 anti-Semitic incidents, Bible, Christianity magazine, church attendance, church buildings, Church of England, Clive Field, Community Security Trust, ComRes, Dalai Lama, Diocese of Canterbury, Food Standards Agency, freedom of religion, Fresh Expressions, general election, halal, Index on Censorship, Innes Bowen, James Lewis, Jews, John Walker, Magna Carta, Martin Saunders, Mehmood Naqshbandi, mosques, Muslim News, Muslims, National Churches Trust, New Religious Movements, politics, Pope Francis, pornography, Religious Affiliation, ScotCen Social Research, Scotland, Scottish Social Attiutudes Survey, shechita, slaughter of animals, YouGov | Leave a 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 abortion, assisted suicide, Ben Clements, Bible Society, Bookseller, British Crime Survey, British Social Attitudes Surveys, Catholic Education Service for England and Wales, Christian Research, Christians in Sport, Church of England, Church Urban Fund, crime, debt, employment, European Values Study, Journal of Beliefs and Values, Journal of Religion in Europe, Julian Hargreaves, Labour Force Survey, Muslims, Nabil Khattab, nativity plays, Netmums, New Churches, religious beliefs, religious books, Resonate, Roman Catholics, Ron Johnston, schools, Social Science Journal, sport, Sunday Times, YouGov | Leave a comment

Jesus Test and Other News

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Clive D. Field

The Jesus test

Jesus Christ is not often dragged into the contemporary British political arena, but, when He is, people tend to ask what He would do or think about a current situation (or, in a few cases, even claim to know what His views are). In what the company describes as a ‘new thought experiment’, YouGov probed the British public on how they imagined Jesus would react to four political issues of the present day: immigration, same-sex marriage, (re)nationalization of the railways, and the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder. Interviews were conducted online on 24-25 November 2014 with 1,890 adults aged 18 and over.

Needless to say, many respondents found the task impossible, with between 34% and 56% stating that they did not know what position Jesus would have taken on each issue (rising to 39% to 58% for those professing no religion). On railway nationalization, the views imputed to Jesus were much the same as those expressed by Britons overall in another survey, perhaps indicating that interviewees might have been simply playing back their own attitudes, not recognizing this as a moral/religious issue at all. On same-sex marriage, a plurality (35%) thought Jesus would have supported it, albeit this was a lower level of endorsement (by 19 points) than was found among the electorate at large last year. This difference presumably reflects popular knowledge of opposition to the legalization of same-sex marriage by the major Christian Churches and the assumption that this must be rooted in Christ’s teaching.

On the remaining two questions, Jesus and the public were apparently at loggerheads. Thus, whereas 32% more believed that Jesus would oppose than approve the reintroduction of the death penalty (49% versus 17%), in August 2014 YouGov discovered a 6% margin (45% versus 39%) for the contrary position among electors. The gap was even wider when it came to immigration, with 76% of Britons quizzed by YouGov this month wanting to see tighter controls, including (for some) the cessation of all immigration. Jesus, on the other hand, was felt to favour fewer or no restrictions on immigration (39%) compared with 15% who judged Him as supporting tighter controls.

In a blog accompanying the survey, dated 26 November, YouGov rationalized it thus: ‘Comparing the views that people hold themselves with what they imagine Jesus would think suggests interesting insights as to how virtuous, or at least Christian, they consider their own political views to be.’ The blog has sparked a lively debate, with some comments being fairly dismissive of the whole venture, such as ‘one of the most idiotic surveys of YouGov … ever!’ or ‘most ridiculous set of questions I’ve ever been asked on YouGov’. The blog, incorporating a link to the full data tables including breaks by religious affiliation as well as standard demographics, is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/11/26/the-jesus-test/

There is also an appraisal and analysis of the poll in a blog on the May2015 website, which concludes: ‘What would Jesus do? If we offer an opinion, it’s likely to be shaped by our own’. This can be found at:

http://may2015.com/ideas/we-tend-to-think-jesus-would-do-what-we-would-do/

Some BRIN readers will doubtless be sceptical about the worth of such an investigation, and its value is certainly diminished by the high proportion of ‘don’t knows’. On balance, one reading of the data might be that they rather indicate people form their political opinions without much reference to religious factors.

Pope Francis on the European Union

Talking of religion and politics, Pope Francis seems to have set the cat among the pigeons by a speech to the European Parliament on 25 November 2014 in which he made several forthright remarks about the current state of the European Union (EU), which he likened to a grandmother who was no longer fertile and vibrant. In a poll for The Times Redbox on 26-27 November 2014, YouGov asked 1,970 Britons whether they thought the Pope had spoken the truth about the EU and whether he had been right to express his opinion at all. Overall, 62% felt that what he had said about the EU was true (rising to 73% of Conservatives, 71% of UKIP voters, and 74% of over-60s), while 54% defended his right to speak out (against 22% who judged him in the wrong, with 24% undecided). Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/yebku7qamp/RedBoxResults_141127_Pope_Francis_Website.pdf

Islamic State

The autumn has seen a marked diminution of interest on the part of pollsters and their clients in surveying public attitudes to the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria. But on 25 November 2014 ICM Research released the topline findings from a new multinational poll which had been commissioned by the Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya. Based on telephone interviews between 7 and 11 November, including 1,002 in Britain, it revealed an appreciably greater appetite for their country’s participation in military intervention against IS among Britons than the French or, more especially, Germans. The Anglo-German difference is especially striking, given that the identical proportion (two-thirds) in each nation agreed that European involvement in military action against IS would increase the threat posed by radical Islamism in Europe, whereas only 45% of the French shared this view. Results are summarized below, while data tables are at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/RS-Airstrikes-Comb%20-%20Nov%2014.pdf

% supporting country’s involvement in	Britain	France	Germany
Airstrikes against IS	65	49	35
Ground operations against IS	53	41	20
Both	49	37	16
Neither	18	28	55

Also pertinent to the above is another recent poll, not previously reported on BRIN, by ComRes for ITV News on 24-26 October 2014, 2,004 Britons being interviewed online. This showed that a plurality (49%) agreed that the rise of IS was probably a direct result of British and American military involvement in the Middle East, with 26% dissenting and the identical proportion undecided. At the same time, 42% believed that Afghanistan would face a similar fate to Iraq and Syria under IS unless international forces remained in the country. Data tables are at:

http://comres.co.uk/polls/ITV_News_Index_27th_October_2014.pdf

Youth social action

Two-fifths of UK young persons aged 10-20 have participated in some meaningful form of social action (defined as ‘practical action in the service of others to create positive change’) during the past 12 months, but the proportion is slightly higher among those who profess a religion (43%) than those who do not (37%). The headline appears in Youth Social Action in the UK, 2014, which was published on 24 November 2014, and based on research undertaken by Ipsos MORI for the Cabinet Office and Step up to Serve. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 2,038 young persons between 11 and 22 September 2014. The report is available at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Publications/sri-ecf-youth-social-action-in-the-uk-2014.pdf

Liking the Church of England

YouGov Profiles, a new interactive segmentation and media planning tool, enables profiles to be built of people who ‘like’ a particular brand, person, or thing, showing what differentiates them from their natural ‘comparison set’ in terms of demographics, lifestyle, personality, brands, favourite entertainments, online activity, and media consumption. Statistical relationships between those who ‘like’ the brand, person, or thing in question and the ‘comparison set’ are expressed as ‘Z scores’, under 1 being weak, from 1 to 2 medium, and 2 and above strong. The source database comprises information gathered from YouGov’s 200,000-strong UK survey panel. The profiler can be searched at:

https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/

You may well struggle to extract data about specific religious groups, either because the sub-sample is rather small (for instance, there are only 104 individuals who ‘like’ the Catholic Church) or because there is nothing directly relevant; thus, keying in ‘atheists’ generates data for panel members who ‘like’ The Ruts (music artist), The Mist (film), and The Rats (novel). Moreover, any profiles recovered should not be interpreted as an approximation of a national cross-section of the group concerned. As YouGov explains, what is revealed is ‘the quintessential, rather than the average, member of that group’. BRIN strongly recommends that you read the FAQs before starting to use the tool; these are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/find-solutions/profiles/

By way of illustration, we can take the Church of England, whose YouGov profile features in the latest edition of the Church Times (28 November 2014, p. 4), based on the 1,187 individuals who said they ‘like’ that Church. Although certain of their attributes and behaviours are predictable, and consistent with what is known from other research, in some respects they are, as the Church Times puts it, ‘off-beam’, including an unexplained preponderance in the Midlands and North-West. Still, if you want to amuse yourself by finding out what some ‘Anglicans’ eat, where they shop, what they watch on television, which newspapers they read, and so forth – all in relation to their ‘comparison set’ – then go to:

https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/Church_of_England/demographics

Cathedral statistics

Cathedral Statistics, 2013 was published by the Church of England’s Research and Statistics Department on 24 November 2014, comprising 13 tables, 12 figures, explanatory notes, and commentary. It includes comparative data back to 2003, albeit methodological changes significantly impact comparisons for Holy Week and Advent. The finding headlined by the Church was the increase in midweek attendances at cathedrals since 2003 (doubling in the case of adults), although Sunday congregations have remained more stable during the past decade. Easter attendances and communicants were slightly down on 2012 levels, those for Christmas somewhat improved, but turnout at both these festivals is notoriously variable, influenced by their timing (whether Easter is early or late, the day of the week on which Christmas falls) and the state of the weather. Visitor numbers rose to 10,248,000 (but were still less than in 2003), to which Westminster Abbey added another 2,000,000. The report, which is the subject of a sober editorial in the current issue of the Church Times (‘these figures offer challenges as well as reassurance to cathedrals’, 28 November 2014, p. 14) can be read at:

https://gallery.mailchimp.com/50eac70851c7245ce1ce00c45/files/Cathedral_Statistics.pdf

FutureFirst

The latest issue (No. 36, December 2014) of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy, has just been published. As usual, packed into its six A4 pages are sundry news stories about recent socio-religious research, this time including a couple of pieces with BRIN connections. Research by David Voas into the factors promoting or inhibiting growth in the Church of England is summarized in ‘Anglican Growth’, on pp. 1 and 4, while Clive Field writes on p. 6 about ‘Attitudes to Church and Clergy in Britain’ (based on his recent article in Contemporary British History). Peter Brierley also has an analysis on p. 3 of the YouGov poll of Anglican clergy conducted for Linda Woodhead this summer; he especially highlights gender variations within theological positions. New subscriptions to FutureFirst cost just £20 per calendar year; contact peter@brierleyres.com for more information.

Advent calendars

Today (30 November 2014) is the first Sunday in Advent, but research by the Church of England Newspaper (28 November 2014, p. 1) has revealed that only 31 (3%) of the 976 Advent calendars on sale in stores on London’s Oxford Street had a religious theme. The dominant images were of One Direction, Hello Kitty, Frozen, and Santa Claus.

Religion in the First World War

The secondary literature on religion and the First World War in Britain has disproportionately focused on ‘trench religion’, the faith of the fighting men and the experiences of their chaplains. Using statistical evidence, wherever possible, Clive Field takes a look at the domestic front in a new article entitled ‘Keeping the Spiritual Home Fires Burning: Religious Belonging in Britain during the First World War’, War & Society, Vol. 33, No. 4, October 2014, pp. 244-68. He shows that church attendance rose briefly at the start of the war but fell away thereafter in the Protestant tradition, accelerating a pre-existing trend, which was not reversed after 1918. The disruption caused by the war to the everyday life of organized religion, Field suggests, probably accounted for the decrease, rather more than loss of faith. Church membership also declined during the war in the Anglican and mainstream Free Churches, albeit not for other denominations and faiths, but it temporarily revived after the war. This was not the case for non-member adherents and Sunday scholars whose reduction was more continuous. Access options for the article are outlined at:

http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/full/10.1179/0729247314Z.00000000041

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Survey news, visualisation | Tagged Advent calendars, Cabinet Office, Cathedrals, church attendance, church membership, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Church Times, Clive Field, ComRes, David Voas, death penalty, European Union, First World War, France, FutureFirst, Germany, ICM Research, Immigration, Ipsos-MORI, Islamic State, ITV News, Jesus Christ, military action, Peter Brierley, politics, Pope Francis, railway nationalization, Rossiya Segodnya, same-sex marriage, social action, Step up to Serve, The Times, War and Society, YouGov, YouGov Profiles, youth | Leave a comment

Sacred Texts and Other News

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Sacred texts

The potential contribution of religious and sacred texts to the school curriculum is explored in new research published by the Bible Society on 20 November 2014. Commissioned from YouGov, it involved online interviews with samples of (a) 795 primary and secondary teachers in England and Wales between 24 October and 4 November 2014 and (b) 566 students aged 8-15 in Britain on 24-27 October 2014. The Bible Society’s press release, incorporating links to the full data tables for both samples, will be found at:

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/news/more-sacred-texts-in-schools-would-help-children-love-thy-neighbour-as-yourself-say-teachers/

Almost three-quarters (73%) of teachers agreed that the education system has more of a role to play in addressing the challenges of inter-religious and ethnic strife at home and abroad through changing attitudes and behaviour of the next generation. Just over two-fifths (42%) thought the teaching of religious and sacred texts in more of the curriculum would improve the cross-cultural understanding of their students with minority groups, with 31% believing it would enhance the general social development of students and 28% community cohesion. However, less than half of teachers (47%) felt confident about including such texts in their teaching plans. Beyond religious education (85%), personal, social, health and economic education classes were deemed appropriate for teaching about religion and faith (48%), followed by those in citizenship (46%), history (27%), and English (11%).

Some two-thirds (64%) of pupils acknowledged the importance of knowing about different religions, but only 15% considered they would have a more positive opinion of religious people as a result (three-fifths saying it would make no difference). A minority clearly viewed religious people with some suspicion, 6% describing them as threatening, 7% as dangerous, 11% as weird, and 13% as old-fashioned. Overall, 46% of pupils said they were not religious themselves. One-fifth (21%) claimed not to have read or been taught about during the past year any of the six religious texts named in the survey, with 64% being exposed to the Bible and 25% the Koran.

Aspirational churchgoing

One-fifth of Britons anticipate they will attend church during the forthcoming Christmas period, according to a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times conducted online on 20-21 November 2014 among 1,970 adults. The proportion rises to 25% for Conservative voters, 24% for the over-60s, and 23% for non-manual workers. The figure is likely to include a fair amount of aspiration since we know that, in the Church of England, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services last year were attended by around 2,400,000, or 4% of the English population. Even if we factor in churchgoing during Advent and Christmas attendances by non-Anglicans, it is hard to see how the 20% prediction will be met in reality. Moreover, this total is made up of 9% who claim to be regular churchgoers and 11% who are not but expect to worship at Christmas. The former statistic is also likely to be inflated as the last (2005) English church census revealed 6% of the population in the pews on a typical Sunday, which is almost certainly less now, notwithstanding recent growth in London. YouGov’s data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6au4g3f66s/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-211114.pdf

Christians and poverty

Christian attitudes to poverty in Britain are briefly reported in a new book by Martin Charlesworth and Natalie Williams, The Myth of the Undeserving Poor: A Christian Response to Poverty in Britain Today (Grosvenor House Publishing for Jubilee+, ISBN 978-1-78148-875-1) – see especially pp. 42-7. The data, which derive from an online survey completed by an apparently self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) sample of 419 Christians (including church leaders) over a three-week period in the summer of 2014, were compared with opinions of a cross-section of adults as recorded by the British Social Attitudes Surveys.

In general, Christians were found to have a slightly narrower definition of who is in poverty than the public, with 51% selecting the narrowest definition and merely 12% the broadest. However, Christians were ‘more sympathetic to those in need, more aware of the poverty that exists in Britain, and less prone to buying into myths about people on benefits’. For example, as many as 54% of Christians suggested that support for the poor from the State is too low, compared with 22% of the population as a whole.

Nevertheless, as in the nation at large, political allegiance made a big difference to Christian opinion, with Christians who identified as Conservatives taking the hardest line. Whereas 67% of Christians who were Labour and 48% who were LibDems agreed that the income gap between rich and poor is morally wrong, just 33% of Conservative Christians said so. Newspaper readership and proximity to poverty were also revealed as having a substantial impact on Christian attitudes. The authors of the book seemed surprised that there was less of a consensus among Christians.

Cathedral friends

An illustration of social capital generated in a religious domain is provided by Judith Muskett, ‘Measuring Religious Social Capital: Scale Properties of the Modified Williams Religious Social Capital Index among Friends of Cathedrals’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2014, pp. 242-9. The main purpose of the article is methodological, to validate a modified version of the religious social capital index originally devised by Emyr Williams in 2008. However, along the way, interesting light is shed on the profile and motivations of 923 members of the friends’ associations of six Anglican cathedrals in England who responded to a postal questionnaire sent out by Muskett in 2011. These respondents were disproportionately over 65 years of age (74%), educated to degree level (44%), and – in their own estimation – religious (96%, including 54% who described themselves as rather or extremely religious). The research originated in the author’s 2013 PhD thesis from York St John University on ‘Cathedrals Making Friends: The Religious Social Capital of Anglican Cathedral Friends’ Associations’. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2014.884843#.VHDfPekqXX4

Clergy burnout

One manifestation of the decline of institutional Christianity in Britain has been the growing trend for clergy to be required to look after more than one church, especially in rural areas. Mandy Robbins and Leslie Francis have examined the relationship between ministerial oversight of multiple churches and levels of clerical burnout, taking into account personal, psychological, theological, and other contextual factors, based upon a sub-sample of 867 female Anglican clergy under the age of 71 serving in stipendiary parish ministry in England in 2006-07. Their findings are reported in ‘Taking Responsibility for Multiple Churches: A Study in Burnout among Anglican Clergywomen in England’, Journal of Empirical Theology, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2014, pp. 261-80. They demonstrate a small significant inverse association between number of churches and satisfaction in ministry but no association with emotional exhaustion. Access options are outlined at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15709256-12341310;jsessionid=3mkajba2b384x.x-brill-live-03

Origins of life on earth

News that the European Space Agency’s Philae probe had landed on comet 67P rekindled the debate about the origins of life on earth and, in particular, the extent to which comets might have played a part by bringing organic compounds to earth many millions of years ago. This prompted YouGov to ask representative samples of both Britons and Americans how they currently think life on earth began. In Britain 2,003 adults were interviewed online on 12-13 November 2014, and the results are presented at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/t0vgrsctuq/PeterResults_141113_life_on_earth-Website.pdf

Just 15% of Britons believed that the earth was created by God, the proportion rising to no more than 23% in any demographic sub-group, that being Londoners among whom, through immigration, there are relatively high levels of religiosity. Overall, the divine explanation found less favour than comets, which 19% suggested were instrumental in starting life on earth (possibly because they had heard media speculation along these lines). Another 4% subscribed to the view that an older, alien civilization brought life here from elsewhere in the universe. Two-fifths discounted all these arguments and opted for life beginning because conditions on earth happened to be suitable, while 22% had no idea.

These findings were in stark contrast with those for the United States sample, with no fewer than 53% of Americans agreeing that life on earth was created by God, ranging from 42% in the western states to 70% among blacks and Republicans. However, there is absolutely no difference between Britain and America in the likelihood of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe, an opinion held by, respectively, 66% and 67%. American data tables are at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/l0f4q17xnt/tabs_OPI_space_20141114.pdf

Anti-creationism

Peter Webster’s latest blog post, on 18 November 2014, continues his analysis of the religious dimensions of UK webspace. This time, he has identified and categorized the unique UK hosts linking to any of the four main anti-creationist websites at any point between 1996 and 2010. His conclusion is that, during this period, ‘British creationism was talking largely to itself, and was mostly ignored by academia, the media and most of the churches’. His blog, with links to the source data, can be found at:

http://peterwebster.me/2014/11/18/reading-creationism-in-the-web-archive/

Time to say goodbye

Hymns, as well as classical music, are decreasingly popular as choices for funeral music, according to 84% of funeral directors in the latest annual survey by Co-operative Funeral Care, which was published on 21 November 2014, and based on more than 30,000 funerals conducted by the company. There are now only three traditional hymns left in the top 20 funeral music choices: The Lord is My Shepherd (in second place, the most requested hymn in all but one listing since 2005), Abide with Me (in third position), and All Things Bright and Beautiful (in sixth). In top spot is Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, which has displaced the former long-standing leader, Frank Sinatra’s My Way (now in fifth place). Advancing up the league table is the Match of the Day theme tune, occupying fourth place. Schubert’s Ave Maria came sixteenth. Funerals have often been viewed as the ‘last monopoly’ of organized religion, but, if music choice is anything to go by, they too are being secularized. For the overall top 20, and the top 10 or 20 in each music genre (including the top 10 hymns), see the press release at:

http://www.co-operative.coop/corporate/press/press-releases/Funeralcare/the-final-countdown-funerals-march-to-a-different-tune-as-brits-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life/

Jewish lives

The Jewish Chronicle for 21 November 2014 (p. 18) highlights an interim report from Jewish Lives, an ongoing project of UJIA (United Jewish Israel Appeal) and funded by the Pears Foundation, involving a longitudinal study of more than 1,000 Jewish families whose children entered Jewish secondary schools in London and Manchester in 2011. The report, which does not appear to be in the public domain, is said to show that, during their first two years at Jewish secondary school, pupils strengthened their British identity without any diminution of their Jewish identity or lessening of support for Israel. The newspaper write-up, which is relevant to current debates about the teaching of ‘British values’ in schools, is at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/125709/jewish-schools-make-you-feel-more-british

BRIN site traffic

The latest site traffic statistics (analysed by Siobhan McAndrew) reveal that there have been 650,457 page views of the BRIN website since its official launch in March 2010 in 300,543 sessions and by 234,744 unique users. In the latest complete month (October 2014) there were 13,587 page views by 6,144 unique users.

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion Online, Rites of Passage, Survey news | Tagged anti-creationism, Bible Society, BRIN, British identity, cathedral friends, Christians, Christmas, church attendance, Church of England, clergy burnout, Co-operative Funeral Care, comets, funeral music, God, hymns, Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Lives, Jews, Journal of Beliefs and Values, Journal of Empirical Theology, jubilee, Judith Muskett, Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins, Martin Charlesworth, Natalie Williams, origins of life on earth, Peter Webster, poverty, religious festivals, religious social capital, sacred texts, schools, Sunday Times, UJIA, United States, YouGov | Leave a comment

Public attitudes towards women bishops

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Ben Clements

Given important recent developments in the long-running debate on the issue of women bishops in the Church of England, this post provides a brief review of topline and group attitudes using recent data from opinion polls. Several polls on the topic of women bishops and the Church of England have been conducted by YouGov and ComRes, based on nationally-representative samples of the adult population in Britain (on their initial release, many of these surveys were covered in earlier BRIN posts).

Table 1 shows the topline findings for YouGov surveys conducted between 2010 and 2013. The general pattern is for public opinion to be very favourable towards the Church of England allowing women to become bishops. The level of support is somewhat lower for the two surveys where an additional response option has allowed respondents to declare that they have no opinion either way (which significant minorities do). Across surveys, only around a tenth of respondents are opposed to women being allowed to become bishops.

Table 1: Public opinion towards women bishops in the Church of England

	Should allow (%)	Should not allow (%)	Have no opinion either way (%)	Don’t know (%)
11-12 July 2010	63.0	10.0	24.0	3.0
7-8 July 2012	77.0	11.0	–	12.0
8-9 July 2012	55.0	12.0	30.0	4.0
22-23 November 2012	78.0	10.0	–	11.0
14-15 March 2013	80.0	11.0	–	10.0
27-28 March 2013	78.0	9.0	–	13.0

Source: YouGov surveys.

Table 2 shows topline response for three ComRes surveys conducted in 2012, which have used differently-worded response options. The overall picture is similar to that obtained from Table 1. Opinion is very firmly in favour of women bishops in each survey. Around a tenth of respondents are opposed. It is also worth noting that ComRes asked a question on this issue to its CPanel of churchgoing Christians aged 18 years and older. This survey, conducted in September 2012, found that 57% of respondents either strongly or tended to support women bishops being allowed in the Church of England, with 38% opposed to some degree (only 5% said they did not know). Another question on this issue in the same survey found that 51% agreed that the Church of England should allow women to become bishops, compared to 34% who disagreed and 15% who did not know or could not state a view.

Table 2: Public opinion towards women bishops in the Church of England

	Should allow (%)	Should not allow (%)	Don’t know (%)
4-5 July 2012	74.0	12.0	15.0
	Agree (%)	Disagree (%)	Don’t know (%)
24 August-9 September 2012	79.0	11.0	9.0
	In favour (%)	Against (%)	Don’t know (%)
16-18 November 2012	67.0	13.0	20.0

Source: ComRes surveys.

A more recent Opinium survey of the UK adult population, conducted in July 2014, posed separate questions about women becoming bishops in the Church of England and becoming part of the clergy in the Roman Catholic Church. The distribution of responses was similar for each question. Majorities agreed with each of these propositions and very few disagreed. Interestingly, the levels of don’t know responses were comparatively high compared to those recorded in Table 1 and Table 2 (this poll was discussed in more detail in a BRIN post at the time).

Moving on from the overall state of public opinion, what about variation in attitudes across socio-demographic and religious groups? Table 3 presents the views of different groups based on analysis of the YouGov survey from late-March 2013. Again, data are shown for indicators of religious belonging, behaving and believing.

In terms of socio-demographic groups, women are slightly more in favour of women bishops than men while support is slightly lower amongst those in the DE social grade. In terms of religious groups, Catholics, adherents of non-Christian religions and those who attend religious services on a frequent basis are less supportive. Even so, around two-thirds of Catholics, adherents of non-Christian faiths, and frequent-attenders support women bishops. The opinions of occasional attenders are broadly similar to those who do not attend religious services. Levels of support are similar for Anglicans and other Christians. In terms of believing, support is somewhat higher amongst those who believe in a spiritual higher power (but not in God). Support is lowest amongst those who don’t know whether they believe in a God or higher spiritual higher power, but this does not translate into higher levels of opposition. Rather, around a third of this group does not have a clear view either way on this issue.

Table 3: Public opinion towards women bishops in the Church of England, by social and religious group

	Should allow (%)	Should not allow (%)	Don’t know (%)
All	77.9	9.0	13.0
Male	74.0	10.3	15.8
Female	81.6	7.9	10.4
15-24	75.9	8.6	15.5
25-34	76.2	4.9	18.8
35-44	76.0	11.0	12.9
45-54	78.6	8.8	12.6
55-64	80.0	10.5	8.8
65-74	79.3	10.4	10.4
75+	73.8	14.3	11.9
AB	79.7	10.4	9.9
C1	80.0	8.3	11.7
C2	78.9	7.5	13.7
DE	72.5	9.5	18.0
Church of England	82.5	7.5	10.0
Catholic	67.1	19.5	13.4
Other Christian	82.4	7.6	9.9
Other religion	66.7	10.8	22.5
No religion	79.1	7.7	13.2
Frequently attend	65.8	23.0	11.3
Infrequently attend	82.9	8.0	9.1
Never attend	80.6	6.6	12.8
Believe there is a God	75.1	13.9	10.9
Do not believe in a God, but believe there is some sort of higher spiritual power	86.5	6.3	7.3
Do not believe in a God or higher spiritual power	80.6	6.5	12.9
Don’t know	64.0	3.9	32.0

Source: YouGov survey, 27-28 March 2013.

Summary

This brief review of recent survey data on the views of British adults towards women bishops has shown that usually sizeable majorities have taken positions supportive of this move. There has been some variation in levels of support and opposition across population groups, even though negative sentiment has been the preserve of very small minorities of the adult population. Higher levels of opposition are evident amongst older age groups, Catholics, non-Christian faiths, as well as those attending religious services on a regular basis.

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Behaving, believing, Belonging, Church of England, ComRes, gender equality, opinion polls, Opinium Research, ordination of women, public debate, religious belonging, Survey Data, women bishops, women clergy, YouGov | Leave a comment

Bible Versus Darwin and Other News

Posted on November 15, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Bible versus Darwin

Given a list of 30 books, and invited to select three which they considered to be most valuable to humanity (as opposed to having read or enjoyed), 37% of the 2,044 adult Britons recently questioned by YouGov for the Folio Society put the Bible in top spot, narrowly ahead of what is often thought to be its arch rival, Darwin’s Origin of Species (35%). However, in the battle between religion and science, Darwin won out among men (37% against 36% for the Bible), while women put the Bible (38%) ahead of Darwin (33%). In regional terms, the Bible scored most highly in Northern England (41%). Asked why they had opted for the Bible, the most frequent response was because it ‘contains principles/guidelines to be a good person’. The Koran came in eighth position, on 9%. The top ten titles are shown below.

		%
1	Bible	37
2	Origin of Species – Charles Darwin	35
3	Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking	17
4	Relativity – Albert Einstein	15
5	Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell	14
6	Principia Mathematica – Isaac Newton	12
7	To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee	10
8	Koran	9
9	Wealth of Nations – Adam Smith	7
10	Double Helix – James Watson	6

The survey has been widely reported in British and overseas print and online media during the past few days, from which the above summary has been compiled. Irritatingly, the Folio Society’s press release is not yet posted on its website, and the data tables are not yet in YouGov’s online archive either.

Religious liberty

Religious liberty issues are of some concern to a minority of the electorate, according to a ComRes poll conducted for the Christian Institute in the 40 most marginal constituencies of England and Wales. Fieldwork was carried out online among 1,000 adults between 18 and 26 September 2014. Full data tables have yet to be released into the public domain (albeit they have been generously made available to BRIN by ComRes), but a news release from the Christian Institute (on 31 October 2014) is available online at:

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/poll-shows-voters-concerned-over-religious-liberty-threats/

Two-fifths (39%) of the sample disagreed with the proposition that religious liberty in Britain had been improved by the current Coalition Government, with just 11% in agreement and 50% recorded as don’t knows. A plurality (44%) thought that UK law should ensure that people are not forced to provide goods or services that violate their beliefs, while 31% dissented from the view that enforcement of equality should always take precedence over conscience in law. Asked whether ‘the tide of legislation has gone too far in elevating equality over religious freedom’, 43% agreed, 21% disagreed, and 35% were undecided. One-third believed that Britain should follow the example of other nations in offering asylum to displaced Christians in Iraq, and 17% said that they would be more likely to vote in the forthcoming general election for a party which promised to grant such asylum.

The Christian Institute’s purpose behind the poll was presumably to ascertain the extent to which neglect of religious liberty might cost politicians votes in May 2015. In practice, however, this seems highly unlikely since we know from a myriad of other polling that it is topics such as the economy, immigration, and the health service which are foremost in the public mind. When it comes to the crunch, religious issues per se generally do not have saliency in British politics.

Jewish vote

Talking of religion and politics, Ed Miliband’s condemnation of Israel’s ground operation in Gaza this summer seems to have upset many Jewish voters, according to a survey published by the Jewish News on 6 November 2014. Three in ten admitted that they would be less likely to vote Labour at the next general election as a result of Miliband’s comments, and 16% that they would be more likely to vote Labour (perhaps suggesting a certain lack of sympathy for Israel’s actions). A plurality (39%) stated that they would not have voted for Labour in any case, with 15% intending to vote Labour anyway.

Overall, 48% of the 1,300 Jewish News readers questioned online on 3-5 November 2014 said that they would vote Conservative if a general election were to be held now (rising to 63% among orthodox Jews), 19% Labour, 8% UKIP, 4% Green, 3% Liberal Democrat, with 16% undecided. The economy was ranked as the top political issue by 85%, followed by the National Health Service (57%), Israel (51%), education (49%), and Europe (40%). The majority (56%) said that a party leader’s or a local candidate’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be a major factor in determining how they voted. For further information, go to:

http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/general-election-poll-results-lipman-test/

The usual caveat applies: the poll was evidently completed via a self-selecting sample alerted via various Jewish organizations, so it may not be representative of Britain’s Jewish community as a whole. The pattern of prospective voting by Jews is certainly a little different from the British Election Study (BES) 2015 panel (analysed by Ben Clements for BRIN on 17 October 2014), which was 46% Conservative, 30% Labour, 5% LibDem, and 12% UKIP. However, the BES data were based on only 134 Jews and omitted the undecideds, so the comparison is by no means exact. Moreover, a lot of the fall in the Labour vote between the two surveys may be accounted for by the negative reaction to Miliband’s criticism of Israel. Capturing the opinions of minority religious populations is no easy task.

Blasphemy

Asked about five different types of content in television and film, only 7% of the British public are concerned about blasphemy, compared with 17% who object to racism, 14% to sex, 14% to swearing, and 11% to homophobia, with 37% not being troubled about any of them or undecided. Blasphemy is of most concern to the over-60s (10%) and Conservative voters (9%) and of least concern (4% each) to people aged 25-39 and Labour supporters. The survey was conducted by YouGov for The Sunday Times among 2,022 adults, who were interviewed online on 6 and 7 November 2014. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ggg23xnvxt/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-071114.pdf

Anglican statistics

The Church of England’s Statistics for Mission, 2013 were published on 10 November 2014 in 63 pages of tables, figures, commentary, and methodological notes. They are based upon an 80% completion rate of parochial returns, with estimation being used for the remaining data. The report revealed a by now all too familiar picture of slow net decline, with some more dramatic reductions (for example, electoral roll membership dropped by 9% last year, which saw its first renewal since 2007), but also tempered by some pockets of growth. As columnist Giles Fraser commented in The Guardian for 15 November 2014 (p. 40), ‘it seems that the Church of England continues to slip quietly into non-existence’ while, at the same time, ‘it is holding up pretty well, despite seriously adverse market conditions’.

A variety of measures of all age churchgoing were included; in descending order of magnitude these are: Christmas attendance 2,368,400 (equivalent to 4% of the English population); Easter attendance 1,272,000; worshipping community 1,056,400; average weekly attendance 1,009,100 (2% of the population); average Sunday attendance 849,500; and usual Sunday attendance 784,600. Additionally, an estimated 5,000,000 individuals attended special services during Advent. Overall, it was calculated that 24% of churches were declining, 19% growing, and 58% stable. Enhanced information about joiners and leavers indicated that losses arise from death/illness (38%), moving away (32%), leaving the church (17%), and moving to another local church (14%). Gains derive from joining church for the first time (46%), moving into the area (29%), returning to church (14%), and moving from a local church (12%). Statistics for Mission are at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2112070/2013statisticsformission.pdf

Disestablishment

Only 29% of Britons think the official link between the Church of England and the state is good for Britain, according to a ComRes survey for ITV News between 31 October and 2 November 2014, for which 2,019 adults were interviewed online. The range by demographic sub-groups was from 16% in Scotland to 39% among retired people with a private pension. A similar overall number (30%) believed that establishment is a bad thing, while the plurality (41%) was unable to express a view. The results were comparable with previous polls by ComRes this year (27-29 June and 12-14 September) which posed the identical question. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/ITV_News_Index_6th_November_2014.pdf

English and Welsh Catholic statistics

Tony Spencer of the Pastoral Research Centre Trust has recently published, as a blog, the second part of his critique of the collation of Catholic statistics in England and Wales printed in the 2014 edition of the Catholic Directory. This part covers mass attendance, baptisms, marriages, and receptions, together with some overarching reflections on the quality of Catholic data. It also describes the Trust’s own plans for future publications on pastoral and demographic statistics. The blog can be found at:

http://www.prct.org.uk/

Sectarianism in Scotland

Earlier this year, Equality Here, Now released on its website an analysis of the religious composition of the workforce in Scottish local authorities, concluding that there continues to be significant institutional discrimination in the employment of Catholics. A robust response to this has just been published by Steve Bruce in ‘Sectarian Discrimination in Local Councils and Myth-Making’, Scottish Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 4, November 2014, pp. 445-53. He points out the fundamental methodological flaw of Equality Here, Now in drawing conclusions from very incomplete data (religious affiliation only being available for 14% of council staff). He also presents an alternative way of interpreting these partial statistics, suggesting that, in general, ‘self-declared Catholics and self-declared Protestants are present in ratios that fit local council profiles [in the census of population] reasonably well’. Access to the article can be gained from:

http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/scot.2014.0043

The original Equality Here, Now report can still be read at:

https://sites.google.com/site/equalityherenow/home/performance-on-equalities/performance-of-councils—general/catholics-work-and-local-authorities-in-scotland-2014

On retreat

The Autumn 2014 issue of Promoting Retreats: The Newsletter of the Association for Promoting Retreats includes (on pp. 7-9) a summary by Ben Wilson of a survey of the membership of the Association earlier this year, to which 200 members (approaching one-quarter of the total) responded. Two-thirds of them were aged 65 and above, with one-third over the age of 75, and almost two-thirds were women. One-fifth had joined the Association within the past five years, while one-third had been in membership for more than two decades. Members currently attended an average of one retreat and two non-residential quiet days each year. Time constraints (56%), cost (34%), and distance to the nearest retreat house (20%) were cited as the main barriers to going on retreat more often. The newsletter can be read at:

http://www.promotingretreats.org/downloads/2014-2-Autumn.pdf

Islamic State

Things have been a bit quiet on the polling front of late regarding the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, but the British public has certainly not forgotten about the group, 78% regarding it as a very or fairly serious threat to Britain in the most recent YouGov poll, for which 2,003 adults were interviewed online on 12-13 November 2014. This was a slightly higher proportion than said the same about al-Qaeda (72%) and significantly more than with Iran (40%) or Russia (38%). The data table is at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/i0qdjx3dhs/InternalResults_141113_threats_Russia_Ukraine.pdf

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Survey news | Tagged Association for Promoting Retreats, Ben Wilson, Bible, blasphemy, Catholic Directory, Charles Darwin, Christian Institute, Church and State, church attendance, Church of England, ComRes, disestablishment, Equality Here Now, Folio Society, Iraq, Iraqi Christians, Islamic State, ITV News, Jewish News, Jews, joiners and leavers, Koran, Origin of Species, Pastoral Research Centre Trust, Religious Liberty, retreats, Roman Catholic Church, Scottish Affairs, sectarianism, Steve Bruce, Sunday Times, Syria, television and film, Tony Spencer, voting, YouGov | Leave a comment

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