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Counting Religion in Britain, July 2016

Posted on July 30, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 10, July 2016 features 14 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 10 July 2016

OPINION POLLS

Hope not Hate post-Brexit poll

On behalf of Hope not Hate, Populus conducted an extensive online survey among 4,032 adults in England between 30 June and 4 July 2016, principally to test the social impact of the vote to leave the European Union in the referendum on 23 June. Results were disaggregated by a range of demographics, including religious affiliation, albeit they are only statistically meaningful for Christians, non-Christians, and religious nones. Tables 247-352 present the data for the module on the European Union, showing how particular groups voted, and why; what they thought of the Remain and Leave campaigns; and how they perceived Brexit would impact the nation. The voting figures (summarized below) confirm what we already know from previous studies, that Christians were disproportionately leavers and non-Christians remainers.

% down	All	Christians	Non-Christians	Nones
Remain	38	33	51	42
Leave	45	50	35	41
Did not vote	17	17	14	17

The poll also replicated questions exploring attitudes to religious groups which had been included in Hope not Hate’s pre-Brexit poll, undertaken on 1-8 February 2016. This is interesting, given the frequent claims that the Brexit vote has increased public hostility toward immigrants and other outsiders. In fact, even for Muslims, who have the most negative ratings of all five religions featured in the study, the number of adults suggesting they created major problems in both the UK and the world actually fell in the period between the pre- and post-Brexit fieldwork. There were also modest reductions in those with negative views toward other religions, held by only tiny minorities.

% choosing 4-5 on 5-point scale	Pre-Brexit	Post-Brexit
Groups creating problems in UK
Jews	6	6
Muslims	45	36
Christians	9	9
Hindus	6	5
Sikhs	6	5
Groups creating problems in world
Jews	16	13
Muslims	59	52
Christians	17	15
Hindus	9	7
Sikhs	8	6

All the data tables from this poll can be found, in two separate files, at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/polls/

Perceptions of Muslims (1)

Another pre-Brexit study also revealed that a significant minority of Britons (28%) continued to entertain an unfavourable opinion of Muslims in the country. This was nine points more than in 2015, albeit at a similar level as 2009 and 2014. Unfavourable attitudes to Muslims were especially likely to be held by those on the ideological right (33%) rather than left-leaners (18%) and peaked at 54% among UKIP supporters. People regarding Muslims unfavourably were twice as inclined as those viewing them in a favourable light to perceive refugees as a major threat and as heightening the risk of terrorism. Just under one-fifth of Britons (17%) agreed that most or many Muslims in the country already back Islamic State. Notwithstanding, negativity toward Muslims remained far lower in Britain than in nine other European countries surveyed, the proportion surpassing two-thirds in Greece, Poland, Italy, and Hungary.

With regard to integration, a majority of Britons (54%) still considered most Muslims in the country want to be distinct from the wider society, although this was ten points fewer than in 2006, in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings the previous summer. The proportion rose to 65% on the ideological right and 80% of UKIP voters. Overall, 31% thought Muslims wanted to adopt national customs and way of life, a steady improvement from the 19% recorded in Britain in 2005, but below the 43% currently achieved in France and Sweden. All the findings are contained in the latest release of data from the Spring 2016 wave of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, for which 1,460 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed by TNS BMRB by telephone between 4 April and 1 May 2016. Other questions covered attitudes to Jews and the importance of being Christian to national identity. The report is available at:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2016/07/11/europeans-fear-wave-of-refugees-will-mean-more-terrorism-fewer-jobs/

Perceptions of Muslims (2)

In his column in The Sun on 18 July 2016, Kelvin MacKenzie questioned whether it had been appropriate for Channel 4 News to co-present its report on the recent and deadly Islamist truck attack in Nice with a Muslim journalist (Fatima Manji) wearing a hijab. His article prompted a flood of complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The pollster YouGov took up the matter on 21 July when it ran one of its instant app-based surveys. Just 29% of respondents thought MacKenzie had been right to make his remark against 64% who deemed him in the wrong. About half (48%) also argued that The Sun should not have printed the remark. Topline results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/07/21/too-old-highest-office-kevin-mackenzie-and-comment/

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Bible stories

The Bible Society has recently published The Nation’s Favourite Bible Stories (ISBN 978-0-5640-4407-8, 144pp., paperback, £7.99), reproducing 70 of them. The 70 emerged from an online survey conducted by ComRes on behalf of the Society among a sample of 2,051 Britons aged 18 and over on 22-23 April 2015. Respondents to this poll were asked to list, unprompted, their top three Bible stories or passages. ComRes subsequently tested the top 20 unprompted mentions with a separate online sample of 2,252 UK adults between 4 and 6 September 2015. The final top 10, in order of popularity, were:

1. The birth of Jesus

2. Noah’s ark

3. The Good Samaritan

4. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus

5. The Exodus

6. David and Goliath

7. The Ten Commandments

8. Jesus feeding the five thousand

9. Jesus turning water into wine

10. The Sermon on the Mount

Jewish marriages

The latest report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) is David Graham’s Jews in Couples: Marriage, Intermarriage, Cohabitation, and Divorce in Britain, derived from the 2001 and 2011 censuses of population (including many tables specially commissioned by JPR from the Office for National Statistics) and the JPR’s 2013 National Jewish Community Survey. Three-fifths of adult Jews live as couples, more than for any other religious or ethnic group, in part due to their older than average age profile. The majority of couples (89%) is married but 11% cohabit. Among married Jews, 78% are in endogamous marriages (i.e., they are married to another Jew) but 22% are in exogamous relationships, generally wed to a Christian or religious none. Marital endogamy for Jews has declined in Britain since at least the late 1960s but the rate of decrease has tailed off recently, being only 2% between the two censuses; moreover, marital endogamy here is still much higher than for Jews in the United States. On the other hand, intermarried Jews have fewer dependent children than their in-married counterparts. Among the rapidly growing contingent of cohabitees, the proportion of exogamous partnerships reaches 68%, negatively impacting Jewish fertility. Exogamous Jews, whether married or not, exhibit far weaker levels of Jewish attachment and engagement than endogamous Jews. Exogamy also increases the chances of a Jewish marriage ending in divorce, although the divorce rate among Jews is lower than in society as a whole. Jews in Couples is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR_2016.Jews_in_couples.Marriage_intermarriage_cohabitation_and_divroce_in_Britain.July_2016.pdf

FutureFirst

The lead article in the August 2016 issue of FutureFirst, the bimonthly subscription magazine of Brierley Consultancy, is contributed by Phil Topham and considers recent statistics of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (based on a report discussed in the May 2016 edition of Counting Religion in Britain). The remaining content is written by Peter Brierley, including two articles inspired by British Social Attitudes Survey religion data, an analysis of rural churches in East Anglia, and a piece on the growing number of active retired clergy in the Church of England (who will soon exceed stipendiary clergy). Brierley Consultancy can be contacted at:

http://peter@brierleyres.com

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Religious hate crimes

The Crown Prosecution Service completed 737 prosecutions for religiously aggravated offences in England and Wales in 2015/16, a 10% increase on the previous year. The total represented 5% of all hate crime prosecutions in 2015/16. Of these religion-related prosecutions, 79% resulted in convictions (five points less than in 2013/14 and 2014/15 and four points less than the average for all hate crimes in 2015/16) and the remainder were unsuccessful, mostly because of acquittal after trial or of victim issues. Just over two-thirds of convictions involved guilty pleas. The Religiously Aggravated and Antisemitic Crime Action Plan was developed and implemented during 2015/16, and the Hate Crime Assurance Scheme was extended to cover racially and religiously aggravated cases, so it is possible that prosecutions may increase in future years. Further details are contained in Hate Crime Report, 2014/15 and 2015/16, which is available at:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/publications/docs/cps_hate_crime_report_2016.pdf

Sex crimes

There have been 725 reported sex crimes in places of worship in the UK during the past three years, according to data obtained from police forces by The Mail on Sunday under the Freedom of Information Act. The number has risen by one-fifth during the past twelve months, partly, it is believed, as a result of the ‘Jimmy Savile effect’. Half of the cases (368) involved child abuse. Although most cases related to churches, some occurred at mosques and gurdwaras. One expert, Graham Wilmer, of The Lantern Project (which supports child sex abuse victims), suggested that, given the well-documented tendency to underreport crime, the true number of cases could be up to ten times the reported figure. See the newspaper’s coverage at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3705042/Five-new-sex-offences-week-Reports-abuse-UK-churches-mosques-Sikh-temples-risen-20-cent-past-year-half-involve-children.html

Religion of prisoners

Prison Population Statistics by Grahame Allen and Noel Dempsey (House of Commons Library Briefing Paper No. SN/SG/04334) includes tables summarizing the religious profession of prisoners in England and Wales (Table 7, annually from 2002 to 2016) and Scotland (Table 14, for 2005, 2010, and 2013 only). Of the 85,441 prisoners in England and Wales in March 2016, 49% were Christian (nine points fewer than in 2002), 15% were Muslim (seven points up on 14 years before), and 31% were religious nones (unchanged from 2002). In Scotland in June 2013 (the latest date available), 54% of the 7,883 prisoners were Christian, 3% Muslim, and 42% nones (albeit 57% for female prisoners alone). Muslims are overrepresented in the prison population in both England and Wales and Scotland. Prison Population Statistics can be downloaded from:

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN04334/SN04334.pdf

Meanwhile, the British Religion in Numbers website has recently updated its own coverage of the religion of prisoners in England and Wales, its series (now extending from 1975 to 2015) being available at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/religion-in-prison-1991-2015/

ACADEMIC STUDIES

State of the Church of England

Two of the country’s leading writers on religious affairs, journalist Andrew Brown and sociologist of religion Linda Woodhead, have teamed up to write That Was the Church, that Was: How the Church of England Lost the English People (London: Bloomsbury, 2016, [8] + 255pp., ISBN 978-1-4729-2164-2, £16.99, hardback, also available in ePDF and ePub editions). It tells the story of how, since the 1980s, the Church of England has not merely declined in a numerical sense (a process which had obviously started long before) but has progressively disappeared from the centre of public life and become alienated from (and unaccountable to) its host society. While, it is suggested, the Church has largely stood still over these three decades (with the notable exception of the ordination of women, achieved under duress), becoming more inward-looking and immersed in ‘managerial voodoo’, the nation has been transformed, generally embracing social liberalism and, in some measure, spirituality as an alternative to religion (which has become a ‘toxic’ brand). The limited trust and allegiance which the English now exhibit toward their Established Church is depicted as in stark contrast to the higher levels of support enjoyed by ‘its closest historical cousins’, the Scandinavian state Churches.

Since the work seems primarily addressed to a general readership, rather than an exclusively academic audience, the argument is not unreasonably built up primarily through description and analysis of key episodes and personalities in the life of the Church, often enlivened by the direct personal experiences of the authors. Some of the judgments on individuals may seem harsh and are likely to ruffle a few feathers, not least among allies of two former (and still living) Archbishops of Canterbury, George Carey and Rowan Williams, who come in for a fair amount of overt or implied criticism. Indeed, That Was the Church, that Was is already proving controversial (the first edition was withdrawn following legal challenge) and has received several unflattering reviews. Some British Religion in Numbers users may also be disappointed by the comparatively limited use made of statistics to substantiate the central claim that the Church of England ‘lost’ the English people during the period in question. Although some reference is made in the text and, more especially, the endnotes to Church and sample survey data, including research commissioned by Woodhead in recent years, their treatment is far from systematic. A possible solution might have been the inclusion of a short appendix where the relevant quantitative evidence could have been assembled for scrutiny. The publisher’s webpage for the volume can be found at:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/that-was-the-church-that-was-9781472921642/

Religious nones

In a recent post on the LSE’s Religion and the Public Sphere blog, Ben Clements collates evidence from sample surveys and opinion polls to illuminate the growth of no religionism in Britain since the Second World War and the extent to which it is driven by avowed atheism or agnosticism. He highlights variability in the findings arising from fluctuations in methodology and question-wording. The post can be found at:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionpublicsphere/2016/07/26/who-are-the-religious-nones-in-britain-atheists-agnostics-or-something-else/

Historical Quaker statistics

A reasonably full history and analysis of national-level statistics relating to the Religious Society of Friends in Britain is offered by James William Croan Chadkirk, ‘Patterns of Membership and Participation among British Quakers, 1823-2012’ (MPhil thesis, University of Birmingham, 2015, xx + 261 + xxxivpp., with 72 figures and 55 tables). It covers three broad areas: membership (both before and after the inauguration of the ‘Tabular Statement’ in 1861); attendance at meetings for worship (commencing with the Government’s 1851 religious census and with an especially good overview of the national Quaker censuses in 1904, 1909, and 1914); and various ad hoc studies conducted in recent years, including the longitudinal ‘Present and Prevented’ surveys undertaken by Chadkirk and Ben Pink Dandelion in 2006, 2008, and 2010 (considered at length in chapters 5 and 10). There is no substantive discussion of the British Quaker Survey, 2014 but some preliminary findings are given in footnotes. The conclusion draws brief quantitative comparisons with the experience of other Churches and denominations but emphasizes the distinctiveness of Quakerism and rejects generalized secularization theory as an explanation of Quaker decline. The thesis can be downloaded from:

http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/5787/1/Chadkirk15MPhil.pdf

Religion and higher education

James Lewis, Sean Currie, and Michael Oman-Reagan have utilized the population censuses of Australia (2006), New Zealand (2006), Canada (2011), and England and Wales (2011) to establish a positive relationship between higher educational attainment and affiliation to new religious movements (NRMs). They also contend that, apart from New Zealand, irreligion and higher education are similarly correlated. In the case of England and Wales, as the authors note, data on NRMs were only available for those individuals who ticked ‘other’ religion and chose to write in their specific religion on the census schedule. ‘The Religion of the Educated Classes Revisited: New Religions, the Nonreligious, and Educational Levels’ is published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 55, No. 1, March 2016, pp. 91-104, and access options are outlined at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12246/abstract

Collective worship in schools

Imran Mogra surveyed 125 primary school trainee teachers (preponderantly female) at an English university to investigate their knowledge and understanding of, and attitudes toward, collective worship in schools. A large majority of the students thought such worship should be retained and that it makes a significant contribution to the spiritual, moral, social, cultural, emotional, and intellectual development of pupils. ‘Perceptions of the Value of Collective Worship amongst Trainee Teachers in England’ is published in Journal of Beliefs and Values, Vol. 37, no. 2, 2016, pp. 172-85, and access options are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2016.1185227

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

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious Census, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Andrew Brown, Anti-Semitism, being Christian, Ben Clements, Bible Society, Bible stories, Bloomsbury, Brexit, British Religion in Numbers, Channel 4, child abuse, Church of England, collective worship, ComRes, Crown Prosecution Service, David Graham, endogamy, European Union, exogamy, Fatima Manji, FutureFirst, Grahame Allen, higher education, Hope Not Hate, House of Commons Library, Imran Mogra, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, integration, intermarriage, Islamism, Islamophobia, James Lewis, James William Croan Chadkirk, Jews, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Journal of Beliefs and Values, Kelvin MacKenzie, Linda Woodhead, Mail on Sunday, Michael Oman-Reagan, Muslims, New Religious Movements, Nice, Noel Dempsey, Peter Brierley, Pew Global Attitudes Project, places of worship, Populus, prisoners, Quakers, Religion and the Public Sphere, Religious Affiliation, religious hate crimes, religious nones, religious prejudice, Religious Society of Friends, Sean Currie, sex crimes, The Sun, TNS-BMRB, trainee teachers, YouGov | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, June 2016

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Clive D. Field

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

OPINION POLLS – BREXIT

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

Pre-referendum: voting intentions of religious groups

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

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

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

Pre-referendum: voting intentions of practising Christians

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

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

Pre-referendum: voting intentions and science

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

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

% across	Agree	Disagree
Remainers	36	59
Leavers	46	47

Pre-referendum: intervention of religious figures

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

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

Data tables can be found at:

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

Post-referendum: actual voting of religious groups

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

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

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

Post-referendum: actual voting of Jews

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

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

OPINION POLLS – OTHER TOPICS

Charitable giving

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

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

Religious education and faith schools

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

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

Data tables are at:

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

Freedom of speech

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

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

Trust in religious leaders

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

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

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

Islamic State

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

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

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

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Faith-based charities

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

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

Church of England ministry statistics

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

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

Leadership of large Anglican churches

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

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

Baptist statistics

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

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

Quaker statistics

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

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

Islamophobia (1)

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

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

Islamophobia (2)

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

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

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Religion and well-being

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

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

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

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

British Social Attitudes, 2015

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

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

Psychological profiles of Anglican congregants

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

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

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

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

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

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

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

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

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

SN 7995: Scottish Surveys Core Questions, 2014

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

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

PEOPLE NEWS

Bill Pickering (1922-2016)

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

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

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

Counting Religion in Britain, May 2016

Posted on May 31, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 8, May 2016 features 31 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 8 May 2016

OPINION POLLS

Anti-Semitism (1): Attitudes of Jews toward the Labour Party

The recent row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party seems to have further damaged its standing with the Jewish electorate. A majority (63%) of British Jews regard the Labour Party as anti-Semitic, and 66% assess its current leader, Jeremy Corbyn, as doing a bad job in addressing the issue. Whereas 15% of Jews voted Labour at the 2015 general election, and 32% of those who did not have considered voting Labour at some time in the past 10 years, only 7% would vote Labour now. The Jewish community remains overwhelmingly (67%) Conservative in its political allegiance, although it has only really been so since the Second World War. In part, this perhaps reflects the very low perception of anti-Semitism in that party (6%), a similar perception applying to the Liberal Democrats but not to UKIP (which 46% of Jews view as anti-Semitic). Notwithstanding the current publicity being given to anti-Semitism, 82% of Jews say they feel very or quite safe in Britain. Data derive from a survey of 1,008 members of Survation’s pre-recruited panel of self-identifying Jews in Britain, interviewed mainly by telephone on 3-4 May 2016.

The poll was commissioned by the Jewish Chronicle which published its own analysis of the results in its edition for 6 May 2016 at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/157746/labour-support-among-british-jews-collapses-85-cent

Full data tables, including breaks by demographics, are available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Full-Tables-JC-Poll-030516SPCH-1c0d0h8.pdf

Results for a question on the voting intentions of Jews in the forthcoming referendum on European Union membership were separately reported in the Jewish Chronicle for 13 May 2016, 49% being in the ‘remain’ camp, 34% in the ‘leave’ camp, and 17% undecided. These data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Full-Tables-JC-EU-Poll-030516SPCH-1c0d0h8.pdf

Anti-Semitism (2): Attitudes of Labour Party members

A bare majority (52%) of 1,031 Labour Party members interviewed online by YouGov for The Times on 9-11 May 2016 acknowledged that the Party has a problem with anti-Semitism, 38% being in denial. Moreover, 47% thought it no worse a problem in the Labour Party than in any other political party, while 35% blamed the press and opponents of Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for exploiting the issue in order to attack him (a further 49% accused them of manufacturing the problem for the same reason). Likewise, although 59% approved of the suspension from the Party of Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, only one-quarter judged the remarks leading to his suspension to be anti-Semitic and wanted him to be expelled from the Party. Data tables can be accessed via the link in the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/05/17/labour-members-increasingly-bullish-on-corbyn/

Anti-Semitism (3): Attitudes of the electorate

Asked about the extent of prejudice against Jews in the UK, 29% of 1,694 Britons replied that there is a great deal or a fair amount in an online poll by YouGov for Tim Bale on 2-3 May 2016. This was five points more than in a previous survey in December 2014. Not very much prejudice was reported by 43%, none at all by 5%, with the remaining 23% unable to say. Some anti-Semitism on the part of respondents themselves was in evidence, 7% agreeing with the long-standing trope that ‘Jews have too much influence in this country’, rising to 14 per cent among UKIP supporters and 10% for men and Scottish residents. A similar overall proportion (6%) acknowledged that they would be less likely to vote for a political party led by a Jew and also disagreed with the proposition that ‘a British Jew would make an equally acceptable Prime Minister as a member of any other faith’; the number was again double among UKIP voters. Almost one-third of the sample claimed to have Jewish friends, acquaintances, or work colleagues, which is a surprisingly high ratio, given that there are relatively few Jews in the country and that they are spatially concentrated.

Bale had an article about the survey in the online edition of the Daily Telegraph for 5 May 2016, which can be found at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/05/labour-voters-dont-have-a-problem-with-jewish-people-but-london/

The full data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/prmzmd3z1w/TimBaleResults_160503_Anti-Semitism_W.pdf

Perceptions of Islam

A significant degree of negativity toward both Islam and Muslims has again surfaced in a poll conducted by ComRes for Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association (UK) among a sample of 2,012 adult Britons interviewed online on 22-24 April 2016. Topline findings are tabulated below, in the order in which questions were asked, except for the omission of questions about understandings of the Caliphate (a central preoccupation of the sponsor), which are too complex to summarize here. It will be seen that a majority of respondents denied that Islam is compatible with British values, while a plurality disagreed it promoted peace in the UK and believed it is a negative force in the country. Only a minority acknowledged having a good grasp of Islamic traditions and beliefs, but there was little appetite to learn more or to see Islam taught more in schools. At the same time, there was acceptance that British Muslims are seriously and unfairly disadvantaged by misconceptions of Islam. The public’s long-standing desire for a separation of religion and politics was reaffirmed. Detailed computer tables, giving breaks by a range of demographics (including religious affiliation and possession of Muslim family, friends, or acquaintances), are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Ahmadi-Muslims_Perceptions-of-the-Caliphate.pdf

% across	Agree	Disagree	Don’t know
Islam promotes peace in UK	32	46	22
Possess good understanding of Islamic traditions/beliefs	32	57	10
Possess Muslim family/friends/acquaintances	41	54	5
Get most of knowledge about Islam from media	55	37	8
Islam is compatible with British values	28	56	17
Islam promotes acts of violence in UK	33	51	16
Islam is a violent religion	28	57	14
Most people in UK have negative view of Islam	72	15	13
Islam is a negative force in UK	43	40	17
Would like to know more about Islamic traditions	36	49	15
More should be taught about Islam in UK schools	38	47	15
Misconceptions of Islam negatively impact quality of life of British Muslims	67	18	15
Misconceptions of Islam negatively impact quality of life of all Britons	60	24	16
Extremist views/actions conducted in Islam’s name by Muslim minority unfairly impact perceptions of Muslims	78	12	11
No place in UK politics for religious influence of any kind	62	23	15
UK Muslims do not have unifying figurehead	45	17	38

Admiration for global religious figures

Of the three international religious leaders included in YouGov’s latest 30-nation ranking of most admired living figures, the Dalai Lama took a larger share of the vote than the Pope in 19 countries, including the United Kingdom, the Dalai Lama performing especially strongly in Australia, France, Germany, and Norway. The Pope out-performed the Dalai Lama in nine countries, most impressively in the Philippines, while in Argentina and New Zealand the two leaders were tied. Internationally, the Pope has fallen seven places since last year’s rankings, suggesting his influence may be on the wane. The veteran evangelist Billy Graham, mostly out of the limelight these days, predictably trailed the other two religious leaders, except in Egypt (where he came first of the three) and in Brazil, South Africa, and the United States (where he came second). In the United Kingdom, which Graham has missioned on several occasions, his percentage share of admiration was below the global mean, whereas for Pope Francis it was slightly above. Of course, in virtually all countries the lists were dominated by secular names. Statistics for religious figures alone are tabulated below. Topline results for all figures for all participating nations, together with an explanation of methodology, can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/05/07/wma-2016/

% share of admiration	Pope Francis	Dalai Lama	Billy Graham
Global mean	3.0	4.3	1.6
Argentina	7.0	7.0	1.0
Australia	4.8	11.4	2.1
Brazil	1.9	8.4	2.0
Canada	7.8	5.8	2.4
China	0.4	NA	0.2
Denmark	1.7	9.9	0.4
Egypt	0.7	0.6	0.9
Finland	2.3	7.0	0.8
France	7.7	10.0	0.1
Germany	1.3	10.0	0.3
Hong Kong	4.2	2.6	0.7
India	2.2	2.9	0.9
Indonesia	1.8	2.8	0.8
Malaysia	1.4	2.0	0.8
Mexico	3.7	9.1	0.8
Morocco	0.2	0.7	0.2
New Zealand	5.6	5.6	2.7
Norway	7.7	10.0	0.1
Pakistan	0.1	0.4	0.0
Philippines	20.7	2.8	1.7
Russia	1.1	2.8	0.1
Saudi Arabia	0.6	0.5	0.3
Singapore	3.4	2.5	1.7
South Africa	2.0	5.4	3.2
Spain	2.2	7.4	0.4
Sweden	2.0	8.7	0.3
Thailand	1.8	4.5	0.2
United Arab Emirates	4.1	2.0	0.9
United Kingdom	3.5	4.1	1.1
United States	8.2	3.7	5.2

Trust in religious leaders

In a separate YouGov study for YouGov@Cambridge, three-fifths of 1,742 Britons interviewed on 13-14 March 2016 said they had limited (32%) or no trust (28%) in religious leaders in general to tell the truth, peaking at 73% among those judging the current political system to be broken. Just 30% expressed a great deal or fair amount of trust in religious leaders, with marked contrasts between 18-24s (20%) and over-65s (43%) and between those thinking the political system works well (43%) and that it is broken (22%). Comparisons with a somewhat eclectic list of other groups are shown in the table, below.

% degree of trust to tell truth	Great deal/fair amount	Not much	Not at all
Friends	89	7	0
Family members	89	6	1
Academics	64	22	5
People you meet in general	50	36	6
UK military leaders	40	32	17
Religious leaders	30	32	28
Trade union leaders	24	37	27
Journalists	18	45	32
People who run large companies	17	47	27
UK government ministers	15	38	38
Senior European Union officials	13	36	40
Senior US government officials	12	38	38

The same survey explored several other matters of religious interest. Asked about the role of a ‘higher force’ (such as God, fate, or destiny) in their own lives, 5% assessed that everything which happened to them was caused by this force, 8% that most of what happened was so caused, and 22% that some of what happened was so caused. That made 35% according some role to a higher force against 38% denying it had any influence at all, the remaining 27% being undecided between the options on offer. Men (45%) and 18-24s (48%) were most likely to refute the intervention of a higher force in their lives. Membership of church or religious organizations during the past five years was reported by 8% of respondents overall, rising to 13% of over-65s and 14% of Scots. Given a list of possible conspiracy theories, the suggestion that official accounts of the Holocaust are a lie, with the number of Jews killed being exaggerated, was strenuously refuted – merely 2% agreed with the proposition (albeit 5% of UKIP voters).

Data tables for the poll can be accessed via the link at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/05/27/conspiracies/

Dying

Britons claim to feel far more comfortable about discussing religion with their family and friends (80%) than they do sex (50%), according to the latest poll by ComRes for the Dying Matters Coalition, for which 2,085 adults were interviewed online on 15-17 April 2016. There is also greater willingness to discuss religion than either dying (64%) or money (78%), albeit slightly more reticence than about politics (82%) or immigration (85%). Just 17% say they would feel uncomfortable talking about religion, and no more than 19% among any demographic sub-group (the Welsh being most reluctant). However, when it comes to factors potentially ensuring a ‘good death’, ‘having your religious/spiritual needs met’ is rated as the least important of the six options, with a mean score of 5.29 on a six-point scale, the list topped by ‘being pain free’ on 2.44. Addressing religious and spiritual needs is judged the single most important factor by only 5% of respondents overall, and no more than 6% in any sub-group. Data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/NCPC_Public-polling-2016_Data-tables.pdf

Places of worship and community

Places of worship are accorded a very low priority by the public in shaping a local community, according to a recent survey commissioned by TSB Bank, for which OnePoll surveyed 4,000 UK adults online between 20 January and 18 March 2016. Indeed, asked which of 22 facilities and services were most essential, a place of worship came in penultimate position, attracting just 12% support, marginally ahead of a youth club on 10%. The list was headed by a post office (74%) and a bank (73%). Even fewer, 9% of men and 8% of women, said that the existence of easily accessible places of worship was a factor they liked about their current home. Full data tables from the poll are not in the public domain, but headline findings appear in a report from TSB at:

http://www.tsb.co.uk/news-releases/tsb-home-reports.pdf

Brexit

This will be the last edition of Counting Religion in Britain before United Kingdom voters decide on 23 June 2016 whether they wish the country to remain a member of the European Union (EU) or not. So, it seems appropriate to review the latest evidence about referendum voting intentions by religion. It comes from Lord Ashcroft’s online survey of 5,009 adult Britons interviewed between 13 and 18 May 2016. Respondents were not asked how they proposed to answer the actual question on the referendum ballot paper but about their inclination to vote, on a feeling thermometer running from 0 to 100, where 0-49 denoted a leaning towards remaining in the EU, 51-100 a leaning towards leaving, and 50 represented undecided. As the table below indicates, a majority of voters (52%) inclined towards the leave position, 14 points more than opted to remain. However, among Christians the gap in favour of leaving widened to 22%. A plurality of both non-Christians (49%) and religious nones (48%) was also in favour of leaving, albeit the margin over the remainers was very small (3% and 6%, respectively). See, further, page 92 of the data tables at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Euro_Poll_May16.pdf

% across	Remain	Undecided	Leave
All voters	38	10	52
Christian	34	9	56
Non-Christian	46	5	49
No religion	42	11	48

Voting intentions of Jews in the referendum, according to a different survey, are mentioned in the final paragraph of the first item in this edition, ‘Anti-Semitism (1)’, above. For Sikh views on the EU, see ‘British Sikh Report’, below.

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

English church census, 2016

Plans for another ecumenical census of church attendance in England, the first since 2005, have been abandoned, according to news reports in the Church Times and on the Churches Together in England website. The census was to have taken place in October, with a pilot scheduled for June. The plans had been devised by a steering group which has been meeting since autumn 2015 under the chairpersonship of the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker. But they had to be aborted after several major denominations, including most recently the Church of England itself, indicated their unwillingness to sign up to the administrative resource implications. News stories about the cancellation of the census can be found at:

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2016/13-may/news/uk/church-census-2016-cancelled-after-c-of-e-drops-out

http://www.cte.org.uk/Articles/468006/Home/News/Latest_news_articles/Proposed_Church_Census.aspx

http://www.cte.org.uk/Groups/273292/Home/Resources/Proposed_2016_Church/Proposed_2016_Church.aspx

Sermons

The overwhelming majority (88%) of 1,800 UK churchgoers and church leaders interviewed online by Christian Research in early May disagreed with the suggestion that preaching a sermon in church is outdated. However, sermons in excess of half an hour in length appealed to only 10% of the sample, more so to men (14%) than women (6%) and to those aged 25-34 (19%) than over-65s (9%). In reality, 15% of sermons were reported as exceeding 30 minutes, the most common length (44%) being from 10 to 20 minutes. Regarding priorities for content, most emphasis (44%) was placed on biblical exposition, by men (49%) more than women (39%). Practical application was second in significance (40%), albeit preferred by more women (44%) than men (36%). Neither sex attached much importance to humour or anecdote in sermons. Four-fifths of worshippers did not mind whether the preacher was male or female, but one-fifth favoured a man in the pulpit. The research was commissioned by the Christian Resources Exhibition (CRE) in the run-up to CRE International at the ExCeL Centre in London on 17-20 May, which featured a Sermon of the Year competition. As with virtually all Christian Research polling via its Resonate panel, few data have entered the public domain, but CRE has a press release at:

https://www.creonline.co.uk/news/preachers-told-give-us-content-over-comedy-please/

Church Commissioners annual report

The Church Commissioners, who support the mission and ministry of the Church of England from the proceeds of a diverse investment of £7 billion, have published their annual report and financial statements for 2015, entitled Investing in the Church’s Growth. The overall return on this investment last year was in excess of 8%, not far short of the annual average of almost 10% over the past 30 years, and well ahead of inflation. The Commissioners’ total expenditure in 2015 was £218.5 million, amounting to 15% of all spending across the Church, with their biggest single outlay (56%) being on clergy pensions (for service prior to 1998). Media coverage has focused disproportionately on the fact that Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, is shown among the Commissioners’ 20 most valuable equity assets, despite frequent accusations against Google that it fails to pay its fair share of UK tax. The report is available for download at:

https://churchofengland.org/media/2492846/churchcommissionersar2015.pdf

Fresh Expressions of church in the Diocese of Sheffield

An analysis of 56 Fresh Expressions of church (fxC) started in the Diocese of Sheffield between 1992 and 2014 has been prepared by George Lings and published by the Church Army’s Research Unit. Nearly all (47) of these fxCs are still in existence, adding 13% to the average weekly attendance in the diocese’s parish churches. Of the 2,450 fxC attenders, 35% are existing Christians, 27% dechurched, and 39% non-churched. The report is available at:

http://www.sheffield.anglican.org/UserFiles/File///CARU_Research_report_19_Sheffield_Diocese.pdf

Church of Scotland statistics

Church of Scotland statistics for the year-ending 31 December 2015, which were reported to the General Assembly meeting in Edinburgh this month, revealed a continuing decline. There were 14,788 fewer members in 2015 than 2014, a decrease of 4%, this being the net figure of 6,330 admissions and 21,118 removals from the rolls. Half the removals were as a result of deaths, which were nine times as numerous as new members received on profession of faith. The Church conducted 21,235 funerals during the course of the year, equivalent to 37% of all deaths in Scotland. There were only 3,591 baptisms, a far cry from the peak of 51,767 in 1962. Indeed, media coverage of the General Assembly highlighted the intention to give serious consideration to online baptisms (for example, via Skype or over the phone), which are already popular in America, to stem the fall. The headline statistics can be found in Appendix X of the General Assembly’s Order of Proceedings at:

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/32879/Order_of_Proceedings.pdf

Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches

The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) has released a summary report on its 2014-15 ‘data survey’, which was initially prepared for consideration by its Leaders’ Conference in November 2015. The FIEC was founded in 1922 as an umbrella organization for non-denominational and unattached churches and missions. It currently represents 559 ‘church gatherings’ in Great Britain and is continuing to grow. The ‘data survey’ revealed that 39,000 individuals (31,000 adults and 8,000 young people under 18) attend FIEC churches on a typical Sunday morning, an increase of 10% since a similar survey in 2003. The number worshipping at least monthly (and thus considered to be regular attenders) is, at 46,000, almost one-fifth more. Church membership stood at 27,000 in 2014-15, equivalent to 59% of regular adult attenders compared with 64% in 2003. Most (54%) of FIEC churches have fewer than 35 members, the smaller the church, the more likely it is to be in numerical decline. The proportion of Sunday attendances in the morning has risen from 58% in 1989 to 70% today, while the number of churches holding evening services has fallen over the same period, from 93% to 77%. The ratio of young people in FIEC congregations has reduced from 32% to 20% since 1989, with 13% of churches having no young people in the pews and 53% reporting no baptisms in the past year. One in seven attenders is aged 75 or over. A further data survey is planned towards the end of 2016. The summary report for 2014-15 can be found at:

https://fiec.org.uk/docs/FIEC_How_are_we_looking.pdf

British Sikh Report

British Sikh Report, 2016 is the fourth annual edition of a survey overseen by a group of Sikh professionals, and conducted (mainly online) in late 2015 and early 2016 among a self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) sample of 1,416 adult Sikhs in the United Kingdom. Britain’s place in the world was a special theme of this year’s study. On membership of the European Union (EU), 57% of British Sikhs were in favour of remaining (mostly subject to reform of the EU, the survey being conducted before the British government’s agreement with the EU in February 2016), 12% wanted to leave the EU, with 31% undecided. However, 54% disagreed with allowing an unlimited number of EU migrants into the country, and 67% wanted their access to benefits to be limited. On immigration generally, although 59% agreed that migrants made a positive contribution to society, 67% feared that public services could not cope with the current level of net influx, and 53% that diversity and cohesion would be adversely affected by it. Only 32% supported Britain taking in more refugees (with 39% opposed), albeit 51% approved of greater help being given to refugees already in Europe. Other topics covered were ethno-religious self-identity, relevance of caste, observance of the Panj Kakkars, charitable giving and volunteering, attitudes to British military involvement in Syria and the retention of a nuclear deterrent, and demographics (including employment status and highest educational attainment). Gurbachan Singh Jandu contributes an article on ‘Britain’s Sikhs in 2016: A Community with Society in Mind’ (pp. 5-12). British Sikh Report, 2016 is available to download at:

http://www.britishsikhreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/British-Sikh-Report-2016.pdf

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

2021 census

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has confirmed that it intends to include a question on religious affiliation in the 2021 population census of England and Wales, using the same wording as in 2011, to ensure continuity in reporting with both 2001 and 2011 results. A primary driver for so doing is to enable organizations to meet their duties under the Equality Act 2010, which defines religion as a protected characteristic. Following public consultation, ONS is declining to extend the question, noting: ‘While data users proposed that additional information about philosophical belief should also be collected, testing ahead of the 2011 Census demonstrated that including philosophical beliefs within the question changed how respondents thought about religion. This led to them providing answers on religious belief rather than affiliation. It is therefore not intended to expand the scope of the religion question to include this aspect of the protected characteristic.’ The statement appears in section 3.9 of The 2021 Census: Assessment of Initial User Requirements on Content for England and Wales – Response to Consultation, which is available (in English and Welsh) at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/consultations/the2021censusinitialviewoncontentforenglandandwales

Scottish Surveys Core Questions, 2014

Scottish Surveys Core Questions combines into a single dataset the answers to identical questions asked of an aggregate 21,000 respondents in the annual Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, the Scottish Health Survey, and the Scottish Household Survey. The report and tables for 2014, the third year of the series, have just been published by the Scottish Government, with religion as one of the 19 core questions. Overall, 44% of the Scottish population had no religion, 52% was Christian (29% Church of Scotland, 15% Roman Catholic, 8% other denominations), and 3% non-Christian. Religious affiliation was used as a variable for analysing the incidence of general health, long-term limiting health conditions, smoking, mental wellbeing, unpaid care, local crime rates, and confidence in the police. The apparent statistical significance of some religious correlates was weakened when results were standardized by age, reflecting the disproportionately elderly profile of Church of Scotland affiliates and the younger profile of nones and Muslims. However, even after age standardization was applied, the greatest prevalence of smoking was still found among Catholics and nones. More details at:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/05/7615/downloads

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Protestant and Catholic differences

‘Protestant and Catholic Distinctions in Secularization’ are examined by Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, with particular reference to the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, in Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2016, pp. 165-80. The underlying data derive from cross-sectional national surveys for the period 1985-2012, including 86,000 respondents to British Social Attitudes Surveys. In all three countries, there has been a steep decline in Protestant affiliation over time, but the remaining Protestants have generally seen heightened rates of religious practice (measured by attendance at religious services and prayer) when compared with remaining Catholics. With regard to orthodox religious beliefs, both remaining Protestants and remaining Catholics exhibit increasing levels of believing. For the incidence of religious behaviour and believing, Protestants now surpass Catholics in the United States and Canada and are said to be on track to do so in Britain. The societal implications of the ‘religious core’, at once diminished yet strengthened, are briefly assessed. Access options to the article, and to supplementary tables available online, are explained at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2016.1152660

Catholic disaffiliation

British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys, in this case for 1991-2011 (and especially 2007-11), have also been mined by Stephen Bullivant in his study of ‘Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain: A Quantitative Overview’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2016, pp. 181-97. Disaffiliates are defined as those who were brought up as Catholics but no longer identify as such, either because they regard themselves as belonging to some other religion (switchers) or to none at all (leavers). A much smaller proportion of Catholics (38%) was found to have disaffiliated than was the case with other mainstream denominations, some of the lowest retention rates being among Baptists and Methodists, only 36% and 34% of whom (respectively) stayed loyal to their faith of upbringing. Nevertheless, Catholic disaffiliations increased over time, from 25% for pre-1945 cohorts to 40% for post-1945 cohorts (a possible Vatican II effect, Bullivant suggests), and dwarfed, in the ratio of ten to one, converts to Catholicism. Men raised as Catholics were one and a half times more likely than women to disaffiliate. Moreover, a large contingent of the overall 62% of Catholics retaining their cradle identity rarely or never practised their religion, while a significant minority were even atheists or agnostics. Access options to the article are explained at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2016.1152664

A somewhat broader and more up-to-date account of results from this research, focusing on England and Wales and drawing upon BSA surveys for 2012-14, can be found in Bullivant’s Contemporary Catholicism in England and Wales: A Statistical Report Based on Recent British Social Attitudes Survey Data (Catholic Research Forum Reports, No. 1, London: Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society, St Mary’s University Twickenham, 2016, 18pp.). Its four chapters explore: religion in England and Wales; the Catholic population; retention and conversion; and church attendance. Catholic data are disaggregated by gender, age, and race/ethnicity. Extrapolating from BSA, Bullivant suggests that the Catholic community of England and Wales numbers (professedly) 3,800,000 against 6,200,000 brought up as Catholics. This report is freely available to download at:

http://www.stmarys.ac.uk/benedict-xvi/contemporary-catholicism.htm

Catholics and faith schools

‘Attitudes Towards Faith-Based Schooling amongst Roman Catholics in Britain’ are explored by Ben Clements in an online first article in British Journal of Religious Education. The underlying data derive from a survey of 1,062 adult Catholics in Britain by YouGov for the Westminster Faith Debates in 2013. Some support is found for the ‘solidarity of the religious’ thesis, with the more orthodox Catholics (in terms of their religious practice and beliefs) showing a greater propensity to endorse publicly-funded faith school provision for Christians and non-Christians alike. The effects of moral attitudes and socio-demographic variables (except for ethnicity) were weaker and less consistent. Access options to the article are explained at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01416200.2015.1128393

Urban and rural Anglican dioceses

Owen Edwards has proposed a new model for defining rural, mixed, and urban Anglican dioceses in England and Wales, based upon 10 statistical factors, in comparison with an earlier (2001) model devised by David Lankshear. ‘Classifying “Rural” and “Urban” Dioceses of the Church of England and the Church in Wales: Introducing the Ten-Factor Model’ is published in Rural Theology, Vol. 14, No. 1, May 2016, pp. 53-65, and access options to the article are explained at:

http://tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14704994.2016.1154729

Polarized Jews

Jews are likely to hold more divergent and stronger views than non-Jews across a wide variety of social issues. This is according to a comparison of a 1995 study of British Jewish opinion, undertaken by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, and British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys for 1993-94, both of which permitted respondents to choose between moderate or more extreme positions in answer to 14 identically-worded questions. No subsequent survey of the British Jewish community appears to have deliberately replicated BSA questions in this way. In all but one of the 14 cases, the Jewish sample exhibited a wider spread of attitudes than BSA interviewees, which was statistically significant in 11 instances. Competing non-religious (socio-demographic and language norm) explanations for the variance are considered and dismissed. This greater polarization of Jewish opinion conforms to Jewish folklore, religious narratives, and tropes of Jewish humour. An open access version of Stephen Miller, ‘Are Jews More Polarised in Their Social Attitudes than Non-Jews? Empirical Evidence from the 1995 JPR Study’, Jewish Journal of Sociology, Vol. 57, Nos 1 and 2, 2015, pp. 70-6 is available at:

http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/12694/1/2%20Miller.pdf

Digital methodologies

Digital Methodologies in the Sociology of Religion are explored in a new book edited by Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor and Suha Shakkour (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016, xxvi + 227pp., ISBN 978-1-4725-7115-1, £21.99, paperback). It comprises 15 fairly short chapters by 25 contributors (10 of them from the United Kingdom) which tease out the methodological lessons to be learned from online research which they have conducted, identifying key tips for future practitioners. There is also a useful bibliography of relevant primary and secondary literature (pp. 197-223). The empirical findings of the research are only incidentally reported. Digital methodologies employed, besides the fairly obvious use of online surveys, include Facebook, YouTube, videoconferencing, apps, crowdsourcing, and gaming. They can be helpful in targeting minority and otherwise hard-to-reach populations, particularly in non-Christian communities, which are the subject of several of these essays (for example, Jasjit Singh’s contribution on the religious engagement of young Sikhs). However, in statistical terms, digital research, although relatively inexpensive, often struggles to achieve representative samples and thus to generate scientifically robust data. This even applies to online surveys, which frequently rely upon self-selecting respondents. The book’s webpage can be found at:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/digital-methodologies-in-the-sociology-of-religion-9781472571151/

Implicit religion and adolescents

Leslie Francis and Gemma Penny have examined the late Edward Bailey’s notion of the persistence of implicit religion among a sample of 8,619 adolescents aged 13-15 in England and Wales who participated in the Teenage Religion and Values Survey and who had no formal religious affiliation (nones) nor practice (never attended religious services). Implicit religion was operationalized as attachment to traditional Christian rites of passage (religious baptism, marriage, and funeral). Marriage in church was sought by 43%, a church funeral by 42%, and baptism of children by 21%. It was found that young people who remained attached to these rites displayed higher levels of psychological wellbeing than those who were not attached, suggesting, the authors contend, that implicit religion serves similar psychological functions as explicit religion. ‘Implicit Religion and Psychological Wellbeing: A Study among Adolescents without Formal Religious Affiliation or Practice’ is published in Implicit Religion, Vol. 19, No. 1, 2016, pp. 61-78, and access options are explained at:

https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/IR/article/view/30009

Journalists and religion

The United Kingdom’s 64,000 professional journalists are not an especially religious lot, even less so than the population as a whole. This is according to a new report from the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism: Neil Thurman, Alessio Cornia, and Jessica Kunert, Journalists in the UK. A random sample of journalists drawn from the Gorkana Media Database was invited to complete an online survey in December 2015, of whom 715 responded. The majority (61%) said that they had no religion, 74% that religious belief was of little (22%) or no importance (52%) to them, and 76% that religious considerations had little (28%) or no influence (48%) on their work. Moreover, as many as 45% expressed little (27%) or no trust (18%) in religious leaders, only 11% having a great deal or complete trust in them. The relatively low religiosity of journalists may be at least partially explained by the fact that they are disproportionately white and university-educated. The report is available at:

http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Journalists%20in%20the%20UK.pdf

George Whitefield’s voice

Christian history is full of examples of evangelists who have preached to large crowds in the open air without any amplification of their voice. Historians have often doubted whether these crowds were quite as large as estimated at the time and, in any case, whether the preacher would actually have been audible. Now matters have been put to the test in respect of George Whitefield, the great transatlantic preacher of the eighteenth century, who is said to have attracted as many as 80,000 people on a single occasion. Braxton Boren, a graduate in both physics and music technology, has used contemporary experimental and topographical data combined with modern simulation techniques to calculate the maximum intelligible range of Whitefield’s field preaching in Philadelphia and London. He concludes that, based on Whitefield’s vocal level, he could have reached a crowd of 50,000 under ideal acoustic conditions and still half as many even when noise levels were higher or crowd density lower. Braxton’s ‘Whitefield’s Voice’ is published in George Whitefield: Life, Context, and Legacy, edited by Geordan Hammond and David Ceri Jones (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 167-89.

British Religion in Numbers

The annual update of the British Religion in Numbers (BRIN) source database has just taken place (it was deliberately delayed to allow the BRIN website to be migrated to a new platform, and, as part of that, for the database itself to be moved from MySQL to WordPress software). New entries have been created for 158 British religious statistical sources (disproportionately sample surveys), of which 121 date from 2015, 27 from 2014, and 10 from previous years. This brings the total of sources described in the database to 2,552. The 2015 sources include many important surveys, a very large number relating to Muslims, Islam, or Islamism (notably Islamic State), with a smaller cluster of polls exploring Jewish opinion and the attitudes of Britons toward Jews and anti-Semitism. Sources can be browsed at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/source-list/

An advanced search facility is available at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/search/

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7894: What about YOUth? Survey, 2014

The ‘What about YOUth?’ survey was commissioned by the Health and Social Care Information Centre and conducted by Ipsos MORI through a combination of self-completion postal and online questionnaires between 23 September 2014 and 9 January 2015. It investigated the health and wellbeing of a random sample of 15-year-olds in England, which can be analysed by a raft of background variables, one of which was religious affiliation. The substantial size of the dataset (120,115 interviews, representing a response rate of 40%) makes it of particular interest. A catalogue description, with links to technical and other information, is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7894&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7963: Scottish Household Survey, 2013 and SN 7964: Scottish Household Survey, 2014

The Scottish Household Survey, initiated in 1999, is undertaken on behalf of the Scottish Government by a polling consortium led by Ipsos MORI. Information is collected about the composition, characteristics, attitudes, and behaviour of private households and individuals in Scotland; and about the physical condition of their homes. For the 2013 survey (January 2013-February 2014) data were gathered on 10,650 households and 9,920 adults; for 2014 (January 2014-March 2015) on, respectively, 10,630 and 9,800. The specifically religious content of the questionnaire for both years covered: religion belonged to; experience of discrimination or harassment on religious, sectarian, or other grounds; and incidence of volunteering for religious and other groups. Catalogue descriptions for the datasets are available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7963&type=Data%20catalogue

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7964&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7972: British Election Study, 2015 – Face-to-Face Post-Election Survey

The series of British Election Studies originated in 1963, and the post-election survey for 2015 (there was also an internet panel) was based on face-to-face interviews with a probability sample of 2,987 British electors, 1,567 of whom also filled out a self-completion module. Fieldwork was conducted by GfK NOP between 8 May and 13 September 2015, with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council allocated to a research team at the Universities of Manchester, Oxford, and Nottingham. Respondents were asked whether they regarded themselves as belonging to any religion and, if so, how often they attended religious services other than for rites of passage. These are important background variables for analysing the answers to the recurrent and non-recurrent questions on political and related topics. A catalogue description for the dataset is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7972&type=Data%20catalogue

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

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Counting Religion in Britain, April 2016

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 7, April 2016 features 23 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 7 April 2016

OPINION POLLS

Muslim voices

Opinion polls conducted among British Muslims have a habit of sparking controversy. No sooner had the storm died down surrounding a telephone survey by Survation for The Sun, specifically regarding the latter’s presentation of the results, than another blew up around a poll by ICM Unlimited for Channel 4, for which 1,081 Muslims aged 18 and over were interviewed face-to-face (in the home) between 25 April and 31 May 2015. Respondents were drawn from Lower Super Output Areas where at least 20% of the population in the 2011 census was Muslim, using random location, quota-based sampling.

Some Muslim commentators (such as Miqdaad Versi in The Guardian and Maha Akeel in The Independent) subsequently criticized this sampling methodology as ‘skewed’ toward Muslims of a lower socio-economic status, but Martin Boon, ICM Director, robustly defended his company’s approach, arguing that this was ‘the most rigorous survey of Muslims that has been produced for many years’. ICM has further published a detailed account of its methodology at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/Survey%20of%20Muslims_Sampling%20approach.pdf

As an additional cross-check, a significant sub-set of the 53 questions posed to Muslims was put to what ICM described as a ‘control group’ of 1,008 adult Britons interviewed by telephone on 5-7 June 2015. The 615 pages of data tables comprised breaks by demographics and attitudinal types both for the Muslim sample and the control group, together with a topline comparison of the two samples in respect of the questions which were common to both. The breaks for the control group included religious affiliation. These data tables will be found at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/Mulims-full-suite-data-plus-topline.pdf

The poll was commissioned by Channel 4 in connection with its documentary What British Muslims Really Think, which was screened on 13 April 2016 and presented by Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. However, results were fed into the media a few days earlier, notably through two lengthy and hard-hitting articles by Phillips in Sunday Times Magazine (10 April) and Daily Mail (11 April). In them, Phillips suggested that Muslims had become ‘a nation within a nation, with its own geography, its own values, and its own very separate future’, requiring ‘a far more muscular approach to integration’, replacing the failed policy of multiculturalism, if they were to be successfully incorporated into the mainstream.

The overwhelming majority of British Muslims judged Britain to be a good place to live (88%) and had a sense of belonging to the country (86%). This is notwithstanding a perceived growing problem of Islamophobia, with 40% assessing there was more religious prejudice against Muslims than five years ago and 17% reporting a personal experience of harassment because of their religion in their local area over the past two years. The overall positivity toward Britain is almost certainly linked to the feeling of 94% of Muslims that they are able to practice their faith here.

At the same time, there is a wish of Muslims to retain a certain distance from the wider society; while 49% would like to integrate fully with non-Muslims in all aspects of life, 46% wanted some degree of separation in favour of an Islamic life. Moreover, as the table below demonstrates, there is a significant amount of rejection by Muslims of values which have become normative among most non-Muslims. Equality and diversity with regard to gender and sexual orientation are heavily compromised by social conservatism, there is a disproportionate adherence to anti-Semitic views, and subscription to freedom of speech is qualified when Islam is felt to be under attack or criticism.

% agreeing	Muslims	Control group
Gender equality
Girls and boys should be taught separately	33	10
Muslim girls should have the right to wear niqab in school	64	37
Acceptable for a British Muslim to keep more than one wife	31	9
Wives should always obey their husbands	39	5
Homosexuality
Acceptable for homosexual to be a schoolteacher	28	75
Homosexuality should be legal in Britain	18	73
Gay marriage should be legal in Britain	16	66
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is a problem in Britain	26	46
Jewish people have too much power in Britain	35	9
Jewish people have too much power over the government	31	7
Jewish people have too much power over the media	39	10
Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country	42	24
Jews have too much power in the business world	44	18
Jews have too much power in international financial markets	40	16
Jews still talk too much about the Holocaust	34	18
Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind	34	11
Jews have too much control over global affairs	38	10
Jews think they are better than other people	30	11
Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars	26	6
People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave	27	11
Freedom of speech
Sympathize with groups who organize violence to protect their religion	24	7
Sympathize with people who use violence against those who mock the Prophet	18	NA
Any publication should have the right to publish pictures of the Prophet	4	67
Any publication should have the right to publish pictures making fun of the Prophet	1	47

Islamist threat to London

In the wake of the Islamist attacks on Paris and Brussels, the majority (61%) of 1,017 Londoners interviewed online by YouGov for the Evening Standard between 15 and 19 April 2016 remained anxious that Islamic State/ISIS may attempt a terrorist attack on the capital this year, concern running especially high with Conservative and UKIP voters. Overall anxiety had dropped by five points since the question was last put on 4-6 January, the fall occurring entirely among the ranks of the fairly worried, the very worried being unchanged at 25%. Asked which of the two leading candidates in the upcoming London mayoral election, Zac Goldsmith (Conservative) or Sadiq Khan (Labour and a Muslim), would be most likely to tackle Islamic extremism, 41% of the sample could offer no opinion, while 16% opted for Khan and 13% for Goldsmith, with 30% saying neither or both equally. Data tables can be accessed via a post about the general results of the survey (which revealed Khan well ahead of Goldsmith in terms of voting preferences) at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/sadiq-khan-leads-20-london-mayoral-race/

Anti-Semitism and the Labour Party

It was not just Muslim anti-Semitism which came under the spotlight during April 2016. At the end of the month, a long-simmering row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party finally erupted, resulting in the Party suspending two of its prominent figures, one an MP and the other Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London who had risen to the MP’s defence. Livingstone has a track record of getting into anti-Semitic hot water, and 27% of 4,406 members of the British public interviewed online by YouGov on 29 April 2016 thought that he was very or fairly anti-Semitic, including 46% of Conservative voters and 39% of over-60s. Still more, 45% of the whole sample, considered the Labour Party had been right to suspend Livingstone, and this included 43% of Labour voters as well as 62% of Conservatives. Just over one-fifth (22%) of all Britons judged anti-Semitism to be a very or fairly big problem in the Labour Party, while 45% said it was only a small problem or none at all, with 33% undecided. Labour voters were less inclined (11%) to view it as a problem. A majority (60%) was clear that criticism of the Israeli government was not in itself anti-Semitic, merely 9% deeming it so. However, hating Israel and questioning its right to exist was regarded as anti-Semitic by 53%, against 21% who disagreed and 26% who could not make up their minds. The data are available in full via the link at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/04/30/drawing-line-anti-semitism/

British Social Attitudes Survey

Londoners are more religious than the rest of Britain, in terms of both belonging and behaving, according to fresh analysis by NatCen Social Research of data from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey. In 2014, the latest year available (the dataset and documentation for which is already held by the UK Data Archive as SN 7809), there was a 20 point difference in the proportion of respondents professing no religion between Londoners (32%) and the remainder of the country (52%), whereas in 1983, when BSA commenced, the gap had only been 5%. Of those with a religion, or brought up in a religion, twice as many Londoners (38%) claimed to attend religious services at least monthly in 2014 as people in the rest of Britain (19%). Immigration to the capital, by persons from both Christian and non-Christian backgrounds, largely explains these differences. In 2014, no fewer than 31% of Londoners subscribed to non-Christian faiths (a 9% increase on 2010), against just 4% elsewhere in the nation. In fact, there were almost as many non-Christians as Christians (37%) in London. A press release, with link to data tables, is available at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/news-media/press-releases/2016/march/londoners-are-more-religious-than-rest-of-britain/

Scottish Social Attitudes Survey

A majority (52%) of residents in Scotland says they belong to no religion, according to initial analysis by ScotCen Social Research of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) for 2015. This compares with 40% in the first SSAS in 1999. Although the proportion of Roman Catholics and other Christians in Scotland has held relatively steady over the years, there has been a big decline (from 35% in 1999 to 20% in 2015) in professed affiliation to the Church of Scotland. The non-Christian presence in Scotland is limited (2%). Among those with a religion, or brought up in a religion, attendance at religious services monthly or more has also fallen by 10% between 1999 (31%) and 2015 (21%), while 66% in 2015 admitted to never or practically never worshipping (49% in 1999). The latest SSAS interviewed a representative random probability sample of 1,288 adults in Scotland between July 2015 and January 2016. A press release, with link to data tables, is available at:

http://www.scotcen.org.uk/news-media/press-releases/2016/april/two-thirds-of-religious-scots-don’t-attend-services/

Church visits

An online poll by Populus for the Charities Aid Foundation on 19-21 February 2016 quizzed 2,054 UK adults about their engagement with charities, defined in the broadest sense, the principal finding being that almost every household has used at least one charitable service at some point. Churches or religious institutions of charitable status were one of the types of ‘charitable service’ asked about. The proportion of respondents claiming to have ever visited a church themselves (presumably, not necessarily for an act of worship) was 46% (half of them within the past year), which was two points less than those who had never done so. The number of ‘attenders’ was highest among Londoners (55%), public sector workers (56%), the top AB social group (57%), BMEs (57%), and members of households with a combined annual income of more than £55,000 (60%). Those least inclined to have set foot in a church came from the bottom social strata, characterized as being from the DE group (59%), members of households with a combined income of under £14,000 (59%), retired people living only on a state pension (61%), and council tenants (63%). Data tables can be found at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OmValue-of-Charity-Shortv2.pdf

Referendum on European Union membership

One of the fascinating aspects of the campaign around Brexit, whether the UK should vote to leave the European Union (EU) in the forthcoming referendum on 23 June 2016, is the number of international leaders who have voiced their opinions that the UK should remain in the EU. These have included the Pope who has let it be known, through a senior Vatican diplomat, that he believes the UK would be better ‘in’ than ‘out’ and that it would also make for a stronger Europe. With President Barack Obama the latest world leader to wade into the debate, ITV News commissioned ComRes to conduct an online poll among 2,015 Britons on 20-21 April 2016. Respondents were asked how important to them were the views on the UK’s EU membership of eight leaders or institutions. As the table below indicates, the Pope’s opinion on this matter counted least of all with the electorate. Only 13% overall regarded what he thinks as important and no more than 20% among any demographic sub-group. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ITV-News_Obama-Poll_tabs.pdf

	Important	Unimportant
US President Barack Obama	30	60
HM The Queen	49	42
German Chancellor Angela Merkel	34	55
The Pope	13	77
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon	26	60
International Monetary Fund	48	37
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney	61	29
French President Francois Hollande	28	60

Religion and alcohol

Religion continues to exercise a marginal influence on alcohol consumption in the UK, according to recent research by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Drinkaware, for which 2,303 adults aged 18-75 were interviewed online between 16 November and 4 December 2015. Among the 10% of respondents who claimed that they never drank, 39% gave as a reason for abstinence that drinking alcohol was against their religious or spiritual beliefs, the remaining 61% saying that this was not an important factor for them. Of the 90% of drinkers, 9% reported that a change in their religious circumstances had occasioned a sustained decrease in their consumption of alcohol at some point and 1% an increase. However, for both groups the dominant influences on non-drinking behaviour were secular, such as health, finance, and being in personal control. A report about the research, Drinkaware Monitor, 2015, is available at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Publications/Drinkaware-Monitor-2015-%20Report.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Faith-based charities

More than one-quarter (27%) of the 187,500 registered charities in Great Britain are faith-based, in the sense of embodying some form of religious belief – or cultural values arising from a religious belief – in their vision or mission, founding history, or project content. This is according to research by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), which has devised an improved methodology for identifying faith-based charities, employing a combination of existing classifications and automated text analysis of keywords. About two-thirds (65%) of these charities are categorized as Christian or deriving from a Christian tradition, 23% as generally faith-based, and 12% are associated with non-Christian faiths (mostly Islam or Judaism). Almost one-fifth have been formed since 2006. More information about NPC’s ongoing research into the effect of faith on the charitable sector, including a seven-page description of the methodology used to build the underlying dataset of charities, can be found at:

http://www.thinknpc.org/publications/understanding-faith-based-charities/

Faith in public service

A new report from the Oasis Foundation, the research and policy unit of the Oasis group of charities and social enterprises, calls for a rebranding and relaunch of the failed ‘Big Society’ initiative and especially upon the Christian Church in the UK to re-imagine its role and re-orientate itself more radically towards social action and the delivery of public services: Ian Sansbury, Ben Cowdrey, and Lea Kauffmann-de Vries, Faith in Public Service: The Role of the Church in Public Service Delivery. In building their case, the authors draw upon two online surveys conducted on 5-6 April 2016, one by YouGov among 1,710 members of the general public and the other by Oasis of 124 church leaders. The public was clearly ambivalent about the Church assuming a greater role in the delivery of public services. Some people recognized that the Church might be more likely to care than other providers, to add the personal touch, to be better connected to other community groups, and to be more motivated to do a good job. Others, however, worried that the Church might be insufficiently inclusive in its approach, attempting to make converts in the process or to shut out non-Christians or other minority groups. These concerns were held particularly by the 18-24 age group. For church leaders, capacity constraints were a major potential challenge, with only 28% confident that their church could run substantial public services such as education or healthcare. The report can be downloaded from:

http://oasis.foundation/sites/foundation.dd/files/Oasis%20Foundation%20Report%20FINAL%20RS.PDF

Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ncm2584h0d/Oasis_Results160406_W.pdf

Christians and Brexit

One-half of practising Christians (including church leaders) believe that the UK should remain in the European Union (EU), according to an online survey conducted by Christian Research among members of its self-selecting Resonate panel during the first week of March 2016. Free movement of trade was cited as the main reason for their pro-EU stance, while many also considered the debate thus far had been too dominated by anti-immigration rhetoric. Just one-fifth intended to vote for Brexit in the forthcoming referendum on 23 June, mostly because they felt the EU to be too bureaucratic and wasteful or its laws threatened our sovereignty. The remaining 30% were undecided. Promoting peace was seen as the most important part of the EU’s mission by 61% of the sample, but its track-record for advancing religious freedom and tolerance was deemed ineffective by 56%. A press release about the survey (with a tiny amount of additional content available to logged-in Christian Research subscribers) can be found at:

http://www.christian-research.org/news-blog/brexit-and-mothering-sunday-survey/

Evangelical consumers

The March/April 2016 issue of Idea, the magazine of the Evangelical Alliance, contained some headline results from a 2015 survey of evangelical attitudes to ethics and consumerism, completed by 1,461 self-selecting members of the Alliance’s research panel. Four in five respondents (81%) concurred that greed for material possessions is one of the greatest sins of our time and 76% that consumerism is eroding family and community life. The advertising industry was widely blamed for this state of affairs, 67% wanting it more tightly regulated and 44% considering it was generally unethical. Although 92% of evangelicals accepted that the Bible teaches us to be content with what we have, 84% also thought there was nothing wrong in enjoying the material things God has provided for us. On Sunday trading, 59% said that Christians should avoid doing their shopping on Sundays, and just 5% backed longer opening hours for larger stores on Sundays. The magazine is available at:

http://www.eauk.org/idea/upload/idea_magazine_mar_april2016_webversion.pdf

Catholic prisoners

Self-professed Roman Catholics constitute a disproportionate number (18%) of the prison population of England and Wales. Insights into their religious background and engagement with the faith in prison are contained in a new 57-page report commissioned from Lemos & Crane by the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales: Gerard Lemos, Belief & Belonging: The Spiritual and Pastoral Role of Catholic Chaplains for Catholic Prisoners. All Catholic inmates at 17 prisons and young offender institutions in England were invited to complete an anonymous questionnaire, and 332 replied, of whom 86% were male. This was evidently a small minority of those approached, and the sample is not claimed by Lemos as statistically representative. It is possible that prisoners who were least well-disposed to the faith, or suspicious about the involvement of Catholic chaplains in the distribution of the survey, may have been less inclined to take part.

Respondents often had fairly close links with the Catholic Church in their pre-prison life, 82% stating they had attended Mass, 78% they had been baptised, 72% they had made their Communion, and 62% they had been confirmed. Within prison, 88% said they engaged in private prayer and 87% that they had a religious object (typically a rosary or picture) in their cell. Three-quarters wrote that they tried regularly to attend Mass in the prison chapel, albeit 24% had encountered practical or logistical problems in doing so. Favourable opinions were expressed of the Catholic chaplains, whom 94% trusted and 86% considered had helped them learn more about the faith or to practice it, with 58% having come to the chaplain with a specific problem or at a difficult time. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.catholicnews.org.uk/belief-belonging-survey-040416

FutureFirst

The lead article in the April 2016 issue (No. 44) of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy, was by Mark Griffiths on the subject of parental transmission of faith to children, based on his August 2015 online survey of members of the New Wine database, to which 1,500 parents responded. The remainder of the content was written by Peter Brierley, including articles on church growth, larger churches, churchgoing in London, Church of England mission statistics, and religion and wellbeing. A special four-page insert, also by Brierley, examined trends in UK church membership and attendance since 2000, with forecasts through to 2030. The current year of FutureFirst is only available on subscription, but a complete backfile from 2009 to 2015 is freely available at:

http://www.brierleyconsultancy.com/future-first/

Invisible Church

Steve Aisthorpe illuminates the persistence of Christianity beyond the confines of formal church membership and attendance in his The Invisible Church: Learning from the Experiences of Churchless Christians (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2016, x + 214pp, ISBN 978-0-86153-916-1, £14.99, paperback). The book is based on his original research in Scotland, initially qualitative (in 2013) and then quantitative among two random samples interviewed by telephone, 2,698 members of the general public in the Highlands and Islands in 2014 (of whom 430 non-attending Christians went on to complete a detailed survey) and 815 non-churchgoing Christians in 2015 across five regions. It is written in an accessible style, with cartoons, plenty of Bible references, individual stories, and remarkably few statistics (certainly there are no tables nor figures). The work seems primarily aimed at an ecclesiastical rather than academic readership, both church leaders and church attenders, with questions and activities for further reflection included. Much time is spent by Aisthorpe exposing what he regards as the myths, stereotypes, and prejudices surrounding non-churchgoers. The pervasive message of the volume is that, for many post-congregational and non-congregational Christians, faith continues to play a central role in their lives, even to the extent of a willingness to engage in a different formulation of ‘church’, to display a hunger for informal fellowship, to recognize the importance of ‘mission’, and to become conscious or unwitting pioneers of alternative Christian communities. In this way, ‘what the evidence points to is a reshaping, rebalancing or reconfiguration of the Church.’ Those who subscribe to the thesis that religion is changing rather than declining will derive hope from this book, but it will utterly fail to convince scholars who, arguing from a wider and more balanced portfolio of data, continue to feel that, overall, Britain remains on a secularization trajectory. Further details of the book can be found on the publisher’s website at:

https://standrewpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780861539161/the-invisible-church

Other outputs from Aisthorpe’s research are available at:

https://www.resourcingmission.org.uk/resources/mission-research#

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Marriages in England and Wales

There were 9% fewer marriages in England and Wales in 2013 than in 2012, according to a newly-released Statistical Bulletin from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This was the first decrease in marriages since 2009 and is explained by ONS thus: ‘The fall could indicate the continuation of the long-term decline in marriages since 1972 or could be due to couples choosing to postpone their marriage to avoid the number 13 which is perceived as unlucky by many cultures.’ Moreover, the reduction in weddings conducted with religious rites was more than double the level of those performed in civil ceremonies, 14% compared with 6%. The proportion of religious marriages in 2013 was, at 28%, the lowest figure ever recorded and 20 points below 1994, the last full year before the legalization of marriages in approved premises, where over three-fifths of weddings now take place (the final tenth occurring in registry offices). The overwhelming majority (73%) of religious marriages were celebrated by the Church of England or Church in Wales, with Roman Catholics accounting for 11%, other Christian denominations for 12%, and non-Christian faiths for 4%. Unlike Scotland, humanist marriage ceremonies are still not legal in England and Wales. The ONS Statistical Bulletin, with embedded links to a range of detailed data, is at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwales/2013

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Secularization and crises

The proposition that social crises cause religious revivals has been evaluated by Steve Bruce and David Voas with reference to the effect of three twentieth-century crises (the First and Second World Wars and the inter-war Great Depression) on several statistical measures of British and UK church adherence. They conclude there is little or no evidence that these crises produced any religious resurgence. Rather, they found the trajectory of decline in institutional Christianity during the course of the century to be remarkably smooth, thereby supporting (they contend) the notion that secularization has been a long-run process with amorphous and deep causes. ‘Do Social Crises Cause Religious Revivals? What British Church Adherence Rates Show’ is published in Journal of Religion in Europe, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2016, pp. 26-43. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18748929-00901001

Cathedral friends

Judith Muskett has reported further findings from her 2011 survey of 1,131 members of the friends’ associations of six English cathedrals in her ‘Associational Social Capital and Psychological Type: An Empirical Enquiry among Cathedral Friends in England’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 1-15. She demonstrated that higher levels of religious social capital were exhibited by extraverts compared with introverts, posing a potential challenge for the cathedrals among whose friends introverts outnumbered extraverts by almost two to one. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2015.1103550

Theology of religions index

Jeff Astley and Leslie Francis have devised a new multi-choice research instrument to measure ‘theology of religions’, which is concerned with the interpretation and evaluation of the divergent truth-claims and views of salvation asserted or implied by different religious traditions. The methodology is explained in their ‘Introducing the Astley-Francis Theology of Religions Index: Construct Validity among 13- to 15-Year-Old Students’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 29-39. The construct validity of the measure was supported in research among a sample of 10,754 adolescents from London and the four UK home nations surveyed for the Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project in 2011-12. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2016.1141527

Intercessory prayer

Using a special analytic framework for intercessory prayer which she devised, Tania ap Siôn has examined 577 prayer requests posted on the Church of England’s Pray One for Me website over a six-month period in 2012 and compared the results with recent studies of posts to physical intercessory prayer boards in three Anglican cathedrals (Bangor, Lichfield, and Southwark). She highlights important differences between the functioning of requests made in the online and offline environments. Access options to the article (‘The Church of England’s Pray One for Me Intercessory Prayer Site: A Virtual Cathedral?’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 78-92) are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2016.1141531

People and places

Danny Dorling and Bethan Thomas have compiled the third in a series of census-based atlases of the UK, deriving from the 2011 census but also incorporating some more recent data: People and Places: A 21st-Century Atlas of the UK (Bristol: Policy Press, 2016, 284pp., ISBN 978-1-44731-137-9, £22.99, paperback). Through maps, tables, and figures with associated commentary, a succession of topics are explored, including a chapter on religion and ethnicity (pp. 47-80). The book’s webpage is at:

http://policypress.co.uk/people-and-places

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7927: Wellcome Trust Monitor, 3, 2015

The Wellcome Trust Monitor is a triennial survey of public attitudes to and knowledge of science and biomedical research (including alternative and complementary medicine) in the UK. It was initiated in 2009. Fieldwork for the third wave was conducted by Ipsos MORI between 2 June and 1 November 2015 among a sample of 1,524 adults aged 18 and over, interviewed face-to-face. Four religious topics were included as background characteristics, which can be used as variables to analyse responses to the more purely scientific and biomedical questions. They covered: religious affiliation (using a ‘belonging’ form of wording); attendance at religious services; frequency of prayer; and beliefs about the origin of life on earth. The catalogue entry for the dataset is at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7927&type=Data%20catalogue

A variety of research outputs from the survey can be accessed on the Wellcome Trust’s website. They include a report (with a section on the origin of life on earth at pp. 74-5, 53% of the sample being unqualified evolutionists, allowing no role for God) and full data tables for all questions, with breaks by demographics. They can be found at:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Publications/Reports/Public-engagement/WTX058859.htm

SN 7933: Youth Research Council Survey of Young People’s Religion and Lifestyles, 1957

The Young Christian Workers’ path-breaking survey of the lifestyles and religiosity of adults aged 15-24 living in urban England in 1957 has hitherto been known mainly from preliminary accounts and analyses published in New Life, Vol. 14, 1958, pp. 1-59 and The Tablet, 12 and 19 April 1958. However, the paper questionnaires completed during the course of the face-to-face interviews have mostly been preserved by the Pastoral Research Centre Trust (PRCT), successor to the Newman Demographic Survey, which was one of the partners involved in the original study. Now, with the cooperation of PRCT’s Tony Spencer and funding from the Nuffield Foundation and Marston Family Trust, Siobhan McAndrew has been able to arrange for the scanning of the majority (5,834) of the questionnaires and their transformation into a dataset. This should support significant secondary analysis in the years ahead which, in turn, will inform the growing scholarly debate about changes in the British religious landscape during the long 1950s. The catalogue entry for the dataset, incorporating a link to a very full and brand new user guide compiled by McAndrew, can be found at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7933&type=Data%20catalogue

McAndrew has also blogged about the dataset on the British Religion in Numbers website at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/2016/the-1957-youth-research-council-survey-of-young-peoples-religion-and-lifestyles/

http://www.brin.ac.uk/2016/religion-in-the-1957-youth-research-council-survey/

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

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Counting Religion in Britain, March 2016

Posted on May 6, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 6, March 2016 features 23 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 6 March 2016

OPINION POLLS

Hope Not Hate

Hope Not Hate, founded in 2004 to provide a positive antidote to the politics of hate, was responsible for the most detailed opinion poll on religious issues whose results were released in full this month. Online fieldwork was conducted by Populus among a sample of 4,015 adults in England on 1-8 February 2016. An overview of the findings can be found in Robert Ford and Nick Lowles, Fear & Hope, 2016: Race, Faith and Belonging in Today’s England, running to 60 pages and full of bar charts, which can be purchased from the Hope Not Hate website, priced £3 for the ebook and £4 (inclusive of postage) for the printed version. Full data, extending to 436 tables over 541 pages, and incorporating breaks by a range of standard demographics (among them religious affiliation) and segmentation by six identity tribes, are freely available at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/polls/

Overall, compared with the Fear and Hope, 2011 report, England was said to have become a more tolerant and confident multicultural society than five years ago, with attitudes towards race, immigration, and religious hate speech all becoming more positive, due mainly to growing optimism about the economy and changing demographics. However, Muslims continued to be regarded as a uniquely different and problematic religious minority, albeit concerns about them were at a lower level than in 2011. There was majority support for a range of measures to promote greater integration by Muslims.

The richness of the data source precludes comprehensive analysis here, but readers may find it helpful to have a complete checklist of the specifically religious survey questions, as follows:

Q.7	Religious affiliation
Q.16	Religion and other influences as source of identity
Q.18	Compatibility of British values with religious faith
Q.19	Words/phrases (including Christian teachings) marking out British people
Q.20	Respect for local religious leaders/other local institutions
Q.27a	Attitudes to influence of religion on laws/policies
Q.27b	Personal importance of religion
Q.27c	Perceptions of religion as force for good
Q.27d	Attitudes to tolerance of different religious/cultural beliefs
Q.29	Perceived similarity to self of Jews/Muslims/Christians/Hindus/Sikhs
Q.30	Frequency of contact with Jews/Muslims/Christians/Hindus/Sikhs
Q.31	Know well people who Jews/Muslims/Christians/Hindus/Sikhs
Q.32a	Extent to which Jews/Muslims/Christians/Hindus/Sikhs create problems in UK
Q.32b	Extent to which Jews/Muslims/Christians/Hindus/Sikhs create problems in world
Q.35a	Attitudes to relative seriousness of religious/racial abuse
Q.35b	Perceptions of relative extent of religious/racial abuse in Britain
Q.35c	Perceptions of increasing religious abuse in Britain
Q.35d	Attitudes to free speech about religion
Q.37	Attitudes to new party wanting, inter alia, to challenge Islamic extremism and restrict building of mosques
Q.38	Attitudes to campaign against religious/racial extremism
Q.39	Attitudes to campaign against new mosque
Q.40	Attitudes to violence by either side in connection with new mosque
Q.41a	Perception that Islam poses serious threat to Western civilization
Q.41b	Perception that discrimination serious problem for Muslims in Britain
Q.41c	Perception that media too negative to Muslims
Q.41d	Perception that Muslim communities need to do more about Islamic extremism
Q.41e	Perception that most Muslims have successfully integrated into British society
Q.41f	Agreement that wrong to blame entire religion for actions of a few extremists
Q.42	Reaction to seeing/hearing Muslims associated with violence/terrorism
Q.43	Sympathy for English national/Muslim extremists when violence between them
Q.44a	Support for more positive media coverage of Islam/Muslim communities
Q.44b	Support for active promotion of British values within Muslim communities
Q.44c	Support for closer monitoring of faith schools, including Muslim faith schools
Q.44d	Support for measures to enable Muslim immigrants to speak English
Q.44e	Support for high-profile campaign against anti-Muslim hatred

Religion and the European Union referendum

A by-product of the Hope Not Hate/Populus survey in England (see preceding item) is that it furnishes the first known evidence in the current European Union (EU) referendum campaign about the attitudes of different religious groups to whether the UK should remain in or leave the EU. The EU-related data will be found in Tables 364-388. A selection is presented below for the three main groups (Christians, Muslims, and nones). Unfortunately, cell sizes for other religions are too small to be statistically reliable. The voting question utilized a scale from 0 (will definitely vote for the UK to remain in the EU) to 100 (will definitely vote to leave), which was subsequently compressed by Populus into three categories (shown here). All the questions suggest that professing Christians are currently more likely than average to take up Eurosceptic positions, with Muslims the most Europhile. However, these views will be the product of a multiplicity of factors, of which religion on its own may not be especially significant.

% down	All adults	Christians	Muslims	No religion
Voting intention
Lean to voting for UK to remain in EU	34	31	40	38
More undecided	27	26	30	27
Lean to voting for UK to leave EU	39	43	31	35
Mean score	52.0	55.2	44.8	48.8
Britain does best within EU
Agree	41	39	54	40
Disagree	21	24	6	20
Britain can be just as prosperous outside EU
Agree	44	49	29	38
Disagree	25	24	36	26
Leaving EU would be security risk
Agree	44	41	64	46
Disagree	27	30	7	24
Britain should be outside EU even if economically worse off
Agree	44	49	30	49
Disagree	23	21	32	24
Leaving EU would allow Britain full control of borders
Agree	57	61	45	53
Disagree	15	14	18	17

Freedom of religion

Asked to select the single most important of 30 possible human rights, just 1% of Britons and of the publics of six other European nations prioritized the right to pursue a religion of choice (or none); in the United States, the figure was 7%. Allowed to pick four or five rights, 26% of Britons opted for religious freedom (peaking at 37% of Liberal Democrat voters), the overall proportion comparable with five of the other European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden), albeit much less than in the United States (53%). British fieldwork for the survey was conducted online by YouGov among 1,700 adults on 22-23 February 2016. International topline results and detailed British data tables are available via the post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/03/30/which-rights-matter-most/

Belief at Eastertide

Using YouGov Profiles data, YouGov has reported on the level of belief in 14 spiritual or paranormal phenomena among 12,000 people who affiliate with Christianity and a control set of 39,000 adults. From the list of phenomena, Britons overall were found most likely definitely to believe in fate and alien life, with belief in ghosts and karma more prevalent than in a creator or heaven. Only 41% of Christians definitely believed in a creator (while 18% did not), less than in fate or destiny (46%). Christians also tended to identify with the more comfortable elements of faith, 44% definitely believing in heaven against 27% in hell, and 35% in angels against 24% in the devil. Additional analysis of YouGov Profiles for 234,000 adults showed Christians and religious nones neck and neck at 46% each, with other religions on 8%. For more information, see the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/03/26/o-we-of-little-faith/

Good Samaritan

As part of its ongoing initiative ‘Pass It On’ (to hand down the stories and messages of the Bible to future generations), the Bible Society has been asking Britons about the contemporary meaning of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). It commissioned YouGov to run two online surveys, one among 2,057 adults aged 18 and over on 4-7 December 2015, the other among 745 children aged 8-15 on 4-9 December 2015. Seven in ten adults said they had read or heard about the story of the Good Samaritan, with 40% (including 46% of women but just 27% of 18-24s) agreeing that educating school pupils about it would help create a kinder society. However, only 13% of adults had actually passed this story on to their own children, rising to 27% of over-55s. Majorities of both adults (64%) and children (58%) claimed to be worried that Britain is becoming a less kind society, while 86% and 89% respectively thought the country would benefit if people were more willing to help each other. In practice, given various scenarios outlined in the poll, there were clear limitations to respondents’ preparedness to help strangers in need in a public place, particularly if it might cost them money and the environment appeared unsafe. Lending somebody a mobile phone to make a call seemed an especially challenging prospect, even when the stranger was a religious leader. No data tables are available online as yet, but a report – Pass It On: The Good Samaritan in Modern Britain – The Power of the Parable in the 21st Century – is available to download at:

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/uploads/files/good_samaritan_report_03083845.pdf

Easter eggs

Four in five (79%) of Britons disagree with the suggestion that manufacturers of chocolate eggs should avoid using the word Easter on their packaging, according to a survey of 2,050 adults conducted online by YouGov on 1-2 March 2016 on behalf of the Meaningful Chocolate Company (which has made The Real Easter Egg since 2010, including a copy of the Easter story in the box). One in nine (11%) of people agrees that Easter should be dropped from the packaging, while one in ten is undecided. The poll was commissioned in response to a tendency by some manufacturers to remove the word Easter from their boxes or to reduce it in size and reposition it on the back of the box. Data tables from the survey are not in the public domain, but there is a news report at:

http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/Stories/National?storyaction=view&storyid=2154

During the fortnight after the story broke, there was growing public and media outrage that chocolate manufacturers were airbrushing Easter from their eggs. Manufacturers were put on the spot to explain themselves, they were mocked on social media sites, and even MPs joined in the fray. Had the poll been undertaken a bit later and nearer Easter, against this backdrop, probably the majority in favour of reinstating the prominence of Easter on chocolate eggs would have been even more overwhelming.

Trust in the Church

The most recently published trust in institutions module of nfpSynergy’s Charity Awareness Monitor, conducted in April 2015 among 1,000 adults aged 16 and over, revealed that 36% of Britons trust the Church quite a lot (26%) or a great deal (10%), a similar proportion to previous years (the survey has been running annually since 2006). The majority (55%) trusts the Church very little (27%) or not much (28%). The most trusted institutions are the armed forces (77%) and National Health Service (70%). Slides containing topline results can be downloaded (after free registration) from:

http://nfpsynergy.net/press-release/trust-charities-now-lowest-eight-years-scotland-and-northern-ireland-have-higher-trust

Papal popularity

In a WIN/Gallup International survey of the publics of 64 nations at the end of 2015 but not released until Easter, 54% overall entertained a very or somewhat favourable opinion of Pope Francis, 12% held an unfavourable view, with 34% undecided. In Britain, where the fieldwork was conducted online by ORB International among a sample of 1,000 adults on 19-28 November 2015, the plurality (46%) was neutral, with 37% favourable and 17% unfavourable. Britain ranked 46 out of 64 in terms of favourability towards the Pope, just behind Sweden and just ahead of Greece, the whole list being headed by Portugal (94%) and Philippines (93%). Not unexpectedly, favourability tended to be highest in predominantly Catholic countries. The proportion of Britons who were very favourable to the Pope was 9%, not much more than one-third of the global average of 24%, although the figures were an identical 5% for those holding a very unfavourable opinion. A report can be found at:

http://www.wingia.com/web/files/richeditor/filemanager/Opinion_Pope_Francis_Q8_Press_Release_v16-3-2016___.pdf

Topline results for each country are at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/article.php?s=pope-more-popular-than-world-leaders-easter-2016-poll

The same survey also asked about favourability toward other world leaders. In Britain, Barack Obama (66%), David Cameron (42%), and Angela Merkel (40%) were all given higher ratings than the Pope, François Hollande the same (37%). These comparative data have been online for some time at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/global-q4-only-final.pdf

Islamic State (1)

A poll by YouGov conducted among an online sample of 2,459 Britons on 23 March 2016, the day after the attacks by Islamic State (IS) in Brussels left 32 people dead, found 77% very or fairly worried that IS would attempt a terrorist attack on British soil, just 4% saying they were not worried at all. Concern was highest among over-60s (86%), women (85%), Conservative voters (84%), and Londoners (83%). Only 11% thought the war against IS was being won, while three times that number agreed IS was actually getting stronger, including 48% of UKIP supporters. A blog about the snap survey, incorporating a link to the full results, is available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/03/23/were-failing-fight-against-isis-public/

Islamic State (2)

There have been calls recently for the killing by Islamic State (IS) of Christians and Yazidis (a Kurdish-speaking religious minority) in Iraq and Syria to be formally recognized as genocide. The calls have thus far been resisted by the British Government but appear to enjoy the support of a majority of the British public, according to an online poll by ComRes among 2,023 adults on 16-17 March 2016, commissioned by the Alliance Defending Freedom. Asked what the Government should be doing about the killing of Christians and Yazidis by IS, 63% thought it should be officially recognizing the killing as genocide, 69% wanted it to raise the issue at the United Nations Security Council with a view to onward referral to the International Criminal Court, 59% endorsed it launching its own enquiry into claims that IS had committed genocide, and 68% agreed that it should be using Britain’s broader international influence to ensure the killing is classified as genocide and the IS leadership brought to account. There was very little opposition to each of these proposed measures being taken by the Government, although about one-quarter of the population was undecided on each statement. Data tables, including breaks by religious affiliation, can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ADF_Genocide-Tables_March-2016.pdf

The Sun and Muslim opinion

In the November 2015 edition of Counting Religion in Britain, we reported on a telephone poll by Survation of 1,003 British Muslims conducted in the wake of the Islamist outrages in Paris, and of the developing row surrounding the presentation of the findings by The Sun (which commissioned the survey) in its issue of 23 November 2015. The newspaper’s reporting of the poll, particularly its suggestion of substantial sympathy among Muslims for individuals who left the country to fight on behalf of Islamic State in Syria, triggered an unusually large number of complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). IPSO has now investigated the matter and has upheld the lead complaint by Muslim Engagement and Development. IPSO has ruled that The Sun ‘failed to take appropriate care in its presentation of the poll results, and as a result the coverage was significantly misleading’. Accordingly, the newspaper has been found guilty of breaching Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice and has been required by IPSO to publicize the decision, in print and online, in remedy of the breach. IPSO’s judgment can be read in full at:

https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/rulings/IPSOrulings-detail.html?id=331

Religion and gender

A helpful compilation of contemporary global data about the (generally) greater religiosity of women than men, together with an exploration of the various theories surrounding gender differences in religion (including a possible link to female labour force participation), is contained in the latest report from the Pew Research Center, The Gender Gap in Religion around the World. This was prepared under the direction of Conrad Hackett. The data on religious affiliation relate to 192 countries and derive from national censuses and surveys. Those on religious practices and belief are taken from Pew’s own surveys in 84 countries. In Britain atheists were more likely to be men (56% versus 44%), but women were 5% more likely to attend religious services weekly (15% versus 10%), 9% more likely to pray daily (23% versus 14%), and 7% more likely to say that religion was very important in their lives (25% versus 18%). Regrettably, measures of gender differences in belief in heaven, hell, and angels, which are also available for many countries, were not asked by Pew in Britain, although they have been covered by other survey agencies here. The Pew report can be downloaded at:

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2016/03/Religion-and-Gender-Full-Report.pdf

Meanwhile, the dataset from the Spring 2014 Pew Global Attitudes Project has been released. Questions of British religious interest concern attitudes to Jews and Muslims; opinions of Pope Francis; and the perceived threat to the world from religious and ethnic hatred. This dataset (and earlier ones) can be downloaded from:

http://www.pewglobal.org/category/datasets/

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Visitor attractions

Westminster Abbey was the UK’s top ecclesiastical destination for tourism in 2015 and the fourteenth most frequented UK visitor attraction, among member organizations of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA). It drew 1,664,850 fee-paying customers, 3% fewer than in the previous year. St Paul’s Cathedral was two places behind, with 1,609,325 visitors, 10% down on 2014. Canterbury Cathedral came thirty-fourth, with 957,355 visitors, a fall of 5%. Prominent among the former monastic ruins were Fountains Abbey (371,012 visitors) and Whitby Abbey (146,277), in the care of, respectively, the National Trust and English Heritage. Several places of worship administered by the Churches Conservation Trust appeared in the bottom quartile of the 230 properties on the ALVA list, while the sole designated religious museum (St Mungo Museum of Religious Life and Art in Glasgow) attracted 143,967 free visitors, up 5%. Visitor figures for ALVA members for 2015 and all years back to 2004 are available at:

http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423

Jewish charitable giving

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research has published a new report, the first on the topic since 1998, on the charitable giving of the country’s Jews: David Graham and Jonathan Boyd, Charitable Giving among Britain’s Jews: Looking to the Future. The underlying data derive from the Institute’s 2013 National Jewish Community Survey, which elicited 3,736 responses from a self-selecting and non-probability convenience sample. A very high proportion of these respondents (93%) claimed to have given something to charity during the year prior to interview, although a much smaller number (28%) had donated more than £500. The report identified the three most important variables which predict the scale of charitable giving of British Jews as age (older Jews being both more generous and habitual donors), strength of Jewish identity and engagement, and level of income. It forecast that secularization of the mainstream Jewish population may lead to a decline in giving, as may the growth in strictly Orthodox Jewry, which will reduce the overall wealth of the Jewish community, also increasing its charitable needs. The report is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.2016.Charitable_giving_among_Britains_Jews.pdf

Jewish health

A 2015 survey of 507 members (207 children, 300 adults, the latter disproportionately female) of Salford’s 7,500-strong strictly orthodox (Charedi) Jewish population has surfaced sundry health issues. It was sponsored by NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and conducted by Jonny Wineberg and Sandi Mann by means of focus groups and questionnaires. Particular concerns were raised by the researchers about immunization take-up, healthy eating, amounts of exercise (especially among men), and attitudes to mental health. Although alcohol consumption by adults was not generally a problem, 12% were classed as binge-drinkers on the Jewish Sabbath. A 54-page report of the survey can be found at:

http://archive.jpr.org.uk/download?id=2721

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Places of worship

A relatively little-known aspect of religious data is that the state collects statistics of places of worship through a process of certification to the Registrar General laid down under an Act of 1855. This is a valuable source of information, notwithstanding certain limitations, in particular that the duty only applies to England and Wales, does not extend to the Church of England and Church in Wales, and is optional (albeit certification confers certain financial advantages and is a prerequisite for subsequent registration of a building for the solemnization of marriages).

A full-page article in The Times on 28 March 2016 used the certifications for 2010 and 2016 to highlight changes in the country’s religious landscape, notably the contraction in mainstream Churches and the growth of newer manifestations of Christianity and non-Christian faiths as a consequence of inward migration. Over this six-year period, places of worship belonging to the United Reformed Church reduced by 8% and to the Methodist Church by 6%. Salvation Army, Quaker, and Roman Catholic ones were down by around 3%. On the other hand, there were more Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, up by 17% and 39% respectively, while places of worship certified to Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims increased by one-quarter. ‘For every Church of England church that has closed over the past six years, more than three Pentecostal churches and almost two mosques have opened’, the newspaper’s journalist, Kaya Burgess, reported in the piece which was variously headlined, according to edition, including as ‘Anglican Faith Sinks in Sea of Diversity’. Subscribers can read the full text at:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article4722614.ece

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Jewish and Muslim MPs

In general, MPs from a Jewish or Muslim minority background in the UK House of Commons are not statistically more likely than MPs from other backgrounds to address issues of concern for Jews or Muslims in the House of Commons. This is according to a content analysis of 3,103 Early Day Motions (EDMs) sponsored by 38 Jewish MPs and 196 by 11 Muslim MPs between 1997 and 2012 compared with a control group of EDMs tabled by non-minority MPs. Logistic regression analysis demonstrated that religious background was a vastly inferior predictor of raising minority issues than ‘institutional’ factors such as holding a leadership legislative role, representation of a constituency with a substantial minority population, and length of Parliamentary service. The research is reported in Ekaterina Kolpinskaya, ‘Does Religion Count for Religious Parliamentary Representation? Evidence from Early Day Motions’, Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2016, pp. 129-52. Access options to this article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13572334.2015.1134905

In an article in the advance access edition of Parliamentary Affairs, the same author applies the same methodology to Parliamentary Questions for Written Answers (WPQs) asked by the same group of MPs over the same timescale (39,877 WPQs by the Jewish and 2,398 by the Muslim MPs). An identical conclusion is reached about the limited impact of a religious minority background on engagement with minority issues in the House of Commons. Access options to Kolpinskaya’s ‘Substantive Religious Representation in the UK Parliament: Examining Parliamentary Questions for Written Answers, 1997-2012’ are outlined at:

http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/02/03/pa.gsw001.abstract

London churchgoing in 1913

Late Victorian and Edwardian London had a reputation for relatively low levels of religious practice, as evidenced in the census of church attendance conducted in the capital by the Daily News in 1902-03. In 1912-13 its successor, the Daily News and Leader, attempted to replicate this census but was forced to abandon it at an early stage in the face of concerted opposition from both Anglicans and Nonconformists. In its place was substituted a survey of the religious and social work of the metropolitan churches, which was published in 1914. The story of ‘the census that never was’ has been pieced together for the first time by Clive Field, who also explains the reasons for its significance, within the context of the broader scholarly debate about whether Edwardian Britain was a ‘faith society’. ‘“A Tempest in the Teapot”: London Churchgoing in 1913 – The Census That Never Was’ appears in London Journal, Vol. 41, No. 1, March 2016, pp. 82-99. Access options to this article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03058034.2015.1108624

Religion in Bolton

Although Mass-Observation’s pioneering social survey of industrial Worktown (Bolton), Lancashire in the late 1930s is generally well-known, no serious investigation has hitherto taken place of its sub-project on religion. Clive Field has now published a preliminary survey of the extant and somewhat disordered documentation, enabling a basic history of the sub-project to be constructed for its principal phase in 1937-38, spanning organization, research methodology, and plans for a book which never saw the light of day. The account is underpinned by detailed references to relevant material in the Mass-Observation Archive, thereby facilitating future scholarly exploitation. Briefer descriptions are also provided of subsequent phases of Mass-Observation’s religion research in Bolton, during the early months of the Second World War and in the summer of 1960. A summative assessment finds that the overall output from the sub-project is somewhat disappointing and methodologically impoverished (notably in the limited recourse to quantification), more illuminating of religious institutions in the town than of the role of religion in the everyday lives of ordinary Boltonians, especially non-churchgoers. Access options for ‘Religion in Worktown: Anatomy of a Mass-Observation Sub-Project’, Northern History, Vol. 53, No. 1, March 2016, pp. 116-37 are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0078172X.2016.1127629

Nonconformist prosopography

Mary Riso casts light on the lives as well as the deaths of Victorian Nonconformists in her new book, The Narrative of the Good Death: The Evangelical Deathbed in Victorian England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, xvi + 276pp., ISBN 9781472446961, £65.00 hardback, also available as an ebook). It is based upon an analysis of 1,200 obituaries published between 1830 and 1880 in the magazines of four denominations, Wesleyan and Primitive Methodists, Baptists, and Congregationalists. Of course, obituaries cannot be regarded as an approximation of a cross-section of the laity of these denominations. In this instance, their limitations also include a tendency to become progressively less formulaic and less spiritual in content over the half-century covered and for their subjects to become increasingly more male and middle class. A methodological chapter (pp. 29-56) explores some of these difficulties. Setting these considerations aside, the sample is large enough to permit some quantification, with statistics appearing throughout the text and, in figure format, in appendix B (pp. 231-47). The analysis is by theme (theology; lifestyle and social mobility; social background; age at death; and religious experience) within denomination. The book’s webpage can be found at:

https://www.routledge.com/products/9781472446961

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7899: National Survey of Young People’s Well-Being, 2010

The National Survey of Young People’s Well-Being, 2010 was a collaboration between the Children’s Society and the University of York, with data collection the responsibility of the National Foundation for Educational Research. A self-completion online questionnaire was filled in, during December 2010 and January 2011, by 5,443 children aged 8-15 in years 4, 6, 8, and 10 of schools in England. It covered a range of measures of well-being and some background information, including religious affiliation (‘what would you say your religion is?’), allowing a ‘not sure’ response alongside ‘none’ and the major world faiths. The religion question does not appear to have been asked in the successor Children’s Worlds Survey, England, 2013-2014. For a full description of the 2010 dataset and background documentation, see the catalogue entry at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7899&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7919: Health Survey for England, 2014

The Health Survey for England, 2014 is the twenty-fourth in a series of annual studies designed to monitor trends in the nation’s health. It is commissioned by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care and conducted by NatCen Social Research and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. It is undertaken through a combination of face-to-face interview, self-completion interview, and clinical and other measurements. A number of core health-related topics are explored each year with additional topics investigated on a more occasional basis (mental health being a special focus in 2014). A question ‘what is your religion or belief?’ was one of the background variables included in the self-completion booklet given to the 8,077 adults aged 16 and over interviewed in 2014, with reply options of no religion, Roman Catholic, other Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and any other religion. This permits analysis of the religious correlates of particular health conditions and attitudes. For a full description of the dataset and background documentation, see the catalogue entry at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7919&type=Data%20catalogue

PEOPLE NEWS

Stephen Bullivant

Stephen Bullivant is the inaugural director of the new Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society which has been established at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. It will function as an international hub for research and engagement activities in the interaction between religion and economics, sociology, and political science. The Centre’s current major research projects are on the Scientific Study of Nonreligious Belief; Catholic Social Teaching, Policy, and Society; and Humanae Vitae at 50. A Catholic Research Forum also operates from the Centre, comprising a number of smaller initiatives, including a statistical profile of Catholics in England and Wales compiled from British Social Attitudes Surveys; an investigation among Catholics who no longer regularly attend Mass, in partnership with the Diocese of Portsmouth; and research into the uptake of free school meals in Catholic state schools, in collaboration with the Catholic Education Service. The Centre’s website can be found at:

http://www.stmarys.ac.uk/benedict-xvi/

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

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Counting Religion in Britain, February 2016

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 5, February 2016 features 23 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 5 February 2016

OPINION POLLS

Prayer

Two-fifths (42%) of 2,023 Britons answered in the affirmative when asked by YouGov ‘do you ever pray?’ in an online poll on 2-3 July 2015. Of those who claimed to pray, 26% said they did so once a day or more. This information appears on the website of Prayersonthemove, an initiative coordinated by SPCK, which in February 2016 posted 3,000 prayer advertisements on the London Underground and 500 on buses in Tyne and Wear, with more advertisements to follow on buses in Birmingham later in the year. Meanwhile, the website can be found at:

http://prayersonthemove.com/

Upon enquiry, data tables are available from SPCK upon request, subject to uncontentious conditions. They reveal that, besides the basic information about the frequency of prayer, reasons for praying or not praying were also sought. Those who prayed were additionally asked the subjects of their prayers and whether they believed that prayer can be answered. SPCK also commissioned a separate survey of the incidence of prayer among an online sample of 1,027 Londoners on 17-19 September 2015.

Lent (1)

Three-quarters of people in the UK did not plan to give up anything for Lent this year, according to an online poll of 2,075 adults by YouGov for Homepride Flour on 13-14 January 2016. The remaining 25% aimed to give up something, although not all knew what, at the time of interview. Chocolate was the top forfeit, to be forsaken by 10% of the population, followed by sweets (6%), and alcohol and fizzy drinks (5% each). Those keenest on Lenten abstinence were: 25-34-year-olds (34%), residents of the North-West (32%), 18-24-year-olds (31%), and women (30%). The least observant were: residents of Yorkshire and the Humber (16%) and Wales (18%), men (20%), over-55s (20%), and residents of Eastern England (20%). Since fieldwork was conducted approximately four weeks before the start of Lent on 10 February, it is possible that good intentions never became a reality in some instances. Also, as with New Year’s resolutions, many folk may not have persisted in their abstinence. One-half the sample anticipated that they would be celebrating Pancake Day on 9 February, with 28% recognizing it as the start of giving something up for Lent and 15% as an important religious occasion. Full data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ic5oyo75fe/Results-for-Homepride-Flour-Pancake-Day-010216.pdf

Lent (2)

So much for the good intentions of the previous poll. In a second online survey by YouGov, undertaken on 10 February 2016 (the first day of Lent) and completed by 5,022 Britons, it transpired that just 9 per cent actually planned to give something up for Lent (about one-third of the aspirational 25% of a month before), with a further 8 per cent still undecided. If the figures are taken at face value, the most abstaining group this year were 18-24-year-olds (16%), followed by women and Liberal Democrat voters (12% each). Results can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/6dd75d10-cfe1-11e5-a405-005056900127

Church buildings

Almost three-fifths (57%) of the British public report that they have visited a church building in the past year, either for a religious service (37%), to attend a non-religious activity (18%), or as a tourist (23%). This is according to a survey conducted by ComRes for the National Churches Trust, for which 2,038 adults were interviewed online on 16 and 17 December 2015. Asked what would most encourage them to visit churches in the future, 43% replied a friendly welcome, 34% the provision of toilets, 32% a café or refreshment area, 29% comfortable seating, 28% access to useful visitor information, and 26% heating. There was overwhelming recognition (by 84% of the whole sample and 91% of over-65s) that Christian places of worship constitute an important part of the UK’s heritage and history, with 60% (including 68% of women) favouring Government funding in order to preserve this heritage asset for future generations. Their social value, as community space, was acknowledged by 83%. Full data tables, including breaks by standard demographics and religious affiliation, are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/National-Churches-Trust_Perceptions-of-Churches.pdf

Pope versus Trump

During his return flight to the Vatican after his recent trip to Mexico, Pope Francis took on Donald Trump, front-runner as US Republican presidential candidate, suggesting the latter was ‘not Christian’ because of his wish to build a wall on the American-Mexican border when, to the Pope’s mind, Christians should be building bridges. According to an online poll of 6,245 British YouGov panellists on 19 February 2016, 47% of adults thought the Pope’s comments were appropriate, including 60% of 18-24s and 63% of Liberal Democrats. Just over one-quarter (28%) judged the Pope had been out of order, especially over-60s (37%), Conservatives (39%), and UKIP voters (60%), while 25% were undecided. Data can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/d6912da0-d6ed-11e5-a405-005056900127

Sunday trading

The Government has tabled amendments to the Enterprise Bill to incorporate its long-held ambition to further liberalize Sunday shopping hours in England and Wales, which are currently limited to a maximum of six for large stores. At the heart of its plans is the proposal to devolve to local authorities and elected mayors decisions for extending the hours large shops could trade on Sundays. YouGov has recently tested public reaction to the Government’s policy through an online poll of 1,896 residents in England and Wales, a plurality of whom (48%) supported the idea of shops being open for longer on Sundays, with 33% against and 19% undecided. This result is perhaps unsurprising, given that 56% admitted that they already regularly shop on Sundays, with 21% anticipating they would do even more shopping on Sundays, in the event of hours being extended. Opinion was more finely balanced about local authorities having the final say, with 39% in favour and 34% not, while 58% agreed that smaller, local shops would lose out from more liberalization and 63% expected confusion to arise from different areas having different hours. Topline results only are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/jsnx2yhl1n/YG-Archive-160209-SundayTradingHours.pdf

Meanwhile, in its response to the Government’s amendments, USDAW (Union of Shop, Distributive, and Allied Workers) issued a press release drawing renewed attention to the survey of 10,536 USDAW members working in retail conducted by Telsolutions in September 2015. This revealed ‘35% of staff in large stores currently want to work less hours on Sundays, 58% say they are already under pressure to work Sundays when they don’t want to, and more than a third of staff were “not usually” or “never” allowed a Sunday off.’ The full report on the survey, entitled Is Sunday Working Working for Retail Staff?, is still available to download at:

http://www.usdaw.org.uk/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=e401039e-75f9-4675-8216-56fa579b65b0

Holocaust Memorial Day

Christian Research has filed the following report on its website, based on online interviews with practising Christians and church leaders in membership of its self-selecting Resonate panel: ‘Nearly 90% of Christians believe it is important to have a day to commemorate the Holocaust – however, nearly 65% of those surveyed felt not enough attention is given to other groups that suffered under the Nazis. In a questionnaire we launched in the lead up to Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, the majority of respondents also believed there should be a commemorative day for all the genocides of the past 100 years, such as Armenia, Cambodia, and Rwanda.’ Members of Christian Research can access additional results from this survey by logging on via the link at:

http://www.christian-research.org/reports/holocaust-memorial-day-and-ramadan-exam-changes-survey/

Islam and British values

The majority (51%) of adults think there is a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of British society, according to a YouGov poll for YouGov@Cambridge among an online sample of 1,729 on 13-14 January 2016. The proportion rose to 61% among Conservative voters, 63% of over-60s, and 81% of UKIP supporters. One-quarter disagreed with the proposition, saying instead that Islam is generally compatible with British values, this view being especially popular with Liberal Democrats (42%) and 18-24s (44%). An additional quarter were neutral or undecided. Results were comparable with a previous YouGov@Cambridge study in March 2015 which found 55% taking the fundamental clash option. The data table is available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/mkhbqsloy4/1.JAN_GB_16_Pat10.pdf

Mosque in EastEnders

The BBC is reported to be including a mosque on the new set of its long-running television soap EastEnders, in order better to reflect the East End of London and to increase the potential for storylines. The proposed development is regarded as ‘a good thing’ by 23% of the British public, and particularly by 18-24s (37%) and Liberal Democrats (40%). It is opposed by 24%, especially by Conservatives (30%) and UKIP voters (57%). The remainder are neutral (37%) or do not know what to think (16%). The survey was conducted by YouGov among 4,750 members of its online panel on 23 February 2016, and the results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/0f2353d0-da15-11e5-a405-005056900127

Islamic State (1)

Islamic State (IS) is regarded as the second most important issue facing Britain at the moment, selected by 40% of 1,694 adults interviewed online by YouGov on 20-21 January 2016. It is the number one concern for 18-24-year-old Britons (38%), who are far less exercised than others about the overall top issue of immigration and asylum (17% versus 49% nationally). Above-average anxiety about IS is recorded by Conservatives (51%), UKIP voters (47%), and over-60s (46%). Preoccupation with IS stands slightly lower in Britain than in France (42%), where IS occupies first place in the list of problems. In Germany, by contrast, IS is selected as an important issue only by 28%, Germans being focused much more on the European refugee crisis (59%) and immigration and asylum (52%). IS also drops down the domestic agendas in Baltic countries, scoring 28% in Denmark, 27% in Norway, 22% in Sweden, and 13% in Finland. International topline results from this latest Eurotrack survey can be found at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/7vc25691sq/Eurotrack_January_Trackers_Immigration_Website.pdf

Data for Britain alone, with breaks by demographics, are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/gy8vfbc62s/Eurotrack_GB_Full_Website.pdf

Islamic State (2)

The recent suggestion made by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn that the British government should seek ‘back channel’ talks with Islamic State has been rejected by a majority (57%) of 1,511 UK adults in an online poll by BMG Research for the Evening Standard on 21-25 January 2016. Most dismissive of the idea were over-55s, Conservative and UKIP voters, self-assigned right-wingers, people wanting the UK to leave the European Union, and those for whom immigration/asylum was the top political issue. Self-described religious persons were slightly more against a dialogue (60%) than the non-religious (54%). Just 22% of all UK residents were in favour, particularly Labour supporters, left-wingers, and Londoners. One-fifth (21%) were undecided. A short article about the survey appeared in the Evening Standard on 12 February and full data tables are available at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CONFIDENTIAL-BMG-Poll-for-Evening-Standard-120216.pdf

Astrology

The majority (56%) of the British public do not believe in astrology and star signs, and this is especially true of men (72%). Just under one-third (31%) think there is definitely or possibly some truth in astrology and star signs, and these are disproportionately women (42%) and Londoners (40%). Don’t knows number 13%. The poll was conducted by YouGov among 5,569 members of its online panel on 26 February 2016, and the results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/0b115dc0-dc75-11e5-a405-005056900127

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Christian conferences

The overall proportion of female speakers at 21 UK national Christian conferences edged up by 1% in 2015, to 36%, according to the third annual analysis by Natalie Collins for Project 3:28. The figure varied enormously by individual conference, from 10% to 62%. The report can be found at:

http://media.wix.com/ugd/7c3a0c_9c7c6ce00b4f4fd58bb690df6414b7b5.pdf

Methodist Statistics for Mission

A downbeat report on ‘Methodist Statistics for Mission, 2015’ was received at the recent quarterly meeting of the Methodist Council. It anticipated that Methodist membership is likely to fall below 200,000 in 2015/16, for the first time in almost two centuries. Four-fifths of Methodist churches did not make any new members during the course of the previous year. The need is flagged to review reporting measures and processes in the light of ‘challenging circumstances’, including a reappraisal of the Methodist community roll, first introduced in 1969 as an indicator of those in pastoral contact with the Church. Little information is available about the age, gender, and ethnicity of members, but the hope is expressed that a mooted ecumenical church census in England and Wales in 2016 might fill the gap. The report is available at:

http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/1938012/coun-MC16-15-Statistics-for-Mission-january-2016.pdf

Anti-Semitic incidents

In 2015 the Community Security Trust logged 924 anti-Semitic incidents in the UK, a fall of 22% from 2014 but still the third highest annual total recorded by the Trust since figures were first collected in 1984, notwithstanding the absence of any major trigger event during the year related to the situation in Israel and Gaza. Three-quarters of all incidents in 2015 occurred in Greater London and Greater Manchester, home to the UK’s two largest Jewish communities. Three-quarters took the form of abusive behaviour, while 9% involved violence. The Trust continues to believe that there is significant under-reporting of incidents both to itself and to the police. The 44-page Antisemitic Incidents Report, 2015 is available at:

https://cst.org.uk/data/file/1/9/Incidents_Report_2015.1454417905.pdf

Jewish Year Book

The Jewish Year Book, a major source of UK Jewish statistics (and much other information about UK Jewry) since it first appeared in 1896, is to cease publication with immediate effect – there will be no 2016 edition. Vallentine Mitchell, the title’s publishers since 1994, have said that it is no longer economic in the light of falling library and other institutional sales. It was Joseph Jacobs, the inaugural editor of the Jewish Year Book and author of Studies in Jewish Statistics (1891), who pioneered the inclusion of a statistical section, in the 1896-97 edition (pp. 27-33). The centenary edition in 1996 also contained an important retrospective essay (pp. ix-xvii) by Marlena Schmool, ‘A Hundred Years of British Jewish Statistics’. The 2015 edition is still available, priced £37.50, at:

http://www.vmbooksuk.com/collections/newly-published/products/9780853039785

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Hospital chaplains

Recent data from the Health and Social Care Information Centre reveal that the number of chaplains working in the National Health Service in England has declined by 17% between 2010 and 2015, from 1,107 to 916. The proportion of female chaplains has increased from 32% to 37% over the same period. The Excel file ‘Number of Chaplains Employed by the NHS, 2010-2015’ can be found by searching:

http://www.hscic.gov.uk

Personal wellbeing

The Office for National Statistics has published measures of personal wellbeing in the UK for the three years from April 2012 to March 2015, derived from approximately half a million interviews on the Annual Population Survey. The four indicators are: ‘how anxious did you feel yesterday?’; ‘how happy did you feel yesterday?’; ‘how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?’; and ‘to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?’ These were measured on a scale running from 0 (not at all) to 10 (completely). The Excel tables of results contain breaks by personal characteristics, including religion, mean scores for which are tabulated below.

It will be seen that those without religion have the lowest scores of any faith group on the happiness and worthwhile measures and come near the bottom on life satisfaction; however, they experience lower levels of anxiety than the national average and any other group apart from Sikhs. Religion per se may not wholly or even largely explain this pattern, which is likely to be influenced by a range of interconnecting factors. Commenting on the figures to the Daily Telegraph, Professor Linda Woodhead suggested that faith was probably only a small element in generating happiness: ‘You might say if it is “the opium of the people” they need to up the dose.’ The tables can be downloaded at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-429189

Mean scores	Anxiety	Happiness	Satisfaction	Worthwhile
No religion	2.90	7.22	7.41	7.58
Christian	2.92	7.47	7.60	7.86
Buddhist	3.09	7.41	7.40	7.61
Hindu	3.11	7.57	7.60	7.74
Jewish	3.15	7.37	7.51	7.90
Muslim	3.05	7.33	7.41	7.64
Sikh	2.89	7.45	7.50	7.72
Any other religion	3.19	7.26	7.31	7.70
UK average	2.93	7.38	7.53	7.76

Religious education teachers

The number of people applying to train as religious education (RE) teachers in England and Wales has surged in the first few months of the 2016 recruitment cycle, according to data compiled by the University and College Admissions Service (UCAS) and highlighted in a press release from the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education. Applications for RE places as at 18 January 2016 were 31% up on the corresponding figure for 2015 (850 against 650), even though those for all secondary teacher training places were down by 1%. Offers of conditional places for RE had already more than doubled over the corresponding point in 2015. The increase in applications to train to teach RE follows the launch of a campaign by the Religious Education Council of England and Wales to encourage graduates and career changers into the discipline. The press release is at:

http://www.natre.org.uk/news/latest-news/trainee-re-teacher-applications-soar-press-release/

The UCAS report is available at:

https://www.ucas.com/sites/default/files/utt_publicstats_application_18jan2016_report_b_1.pdf

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7871: Scottish Surveys Core Questions, 2013

Scottish Surveys Core Questions, 2013 is the second (but first ‘official’) release of an annual statistical publication of the Scottish Government, gathering into one output responses to identical questions in the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, Scottish Health Survey, and Scottish Household Survey. It provides detailed information on the composition, characteristics, and attitudes of Scottish households and adults across a number of topic areas, including equality characteristics, housing, employment, and perceptions of health and crime. In 2013 there were 21,038 responses to the individual variables, among them religious affiliation (categorized as none, Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic, other Christian, Muslim, and other). The official report on the 2013 surveys, to be found with the dataset documentation, contains tables showing country of birth by religion, ethnic group by religion, and religion by demographics, including sexual orientation). Supplementary tables are available online at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/8775/downloads Nones were the most numerous ‘religious’ group in 2013 (43%), surpassing adherents of the Church of Scotland (31%). For a full description of the dataset, see the catalogue entry at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7871&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7872: Taking Part, 2014-15

The Year 10 dataset for ‘Taking Part: the National Survey of Culture, Leisure, and Sport’ has been released. The survey is sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Arts Council England, Sport England, and Historic England. Fieldwork for April 2014-March 2015 was undertaken by TNS-BMRB, through face-to-face interview with a sample of 9,817 adults aged 16 and over living in private households in England. Topics covered were spare-time activities and participation in arts, libraries, archives, museums, heritage, walking, cycling, and sports, as well as barriers to and factors affecting such participation. Demographics included two questions on religion: ‘what is your religion?’ (according to census categories) and ‘are you currently practising this religion?’ These can obviously be used as variables to analyse replies to any of the questions on participation in culture, leisure, and sport. For a full description of the dataset and background documentation, see the catalogue entry at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7872&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7889: Crime Survey for England and Wales, 2014-15

The Crime Survey for England and Wales, formerly known as the British Crime Survey (there has been a separate survey in Scotland since 1993), commenced in 1981. It is now conducted annually, on a rolling basis, by TNS-BMRB on behalf of the Office for National Statistics. Fieldwork for April 2014-March 2015 involved face-to-face and self-completion interviews with 33,350 adults aged 16, and over and 2,374 children aged 10-15, resident in private households. Topics covered experience of crime (including perceived religiously-motivated hate crime) during the preceding 12 months, attitudes to a range of crime-related issues, and a basket of demographics (among them religious affiliation). The affiliation question, which did not differentiate between particular Christian denominations, can be used to analyse replies to all the crime-related questions. For a full description of the dataset and background documentation, see the catalogue entry at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7889&type=Data%20catalogue

PEOPLE NEWS

David Voas

Professor David Voas, a leading quantitative sociologist of religion and co-director of British Religion in Numbers, became Professor of Social Science and Head of the Department of Social Science at University College London on 1 February 2016. He was formerly Professor of Population Studies at the University of Essex (2011-16) and Simon Professor of Population Studies at the University of Manchester (2007-11).

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

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Politics, Religious beliefs, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged abstinence, advertisements, Annual Population Survey, anti-Semitic incidents, Anti-Semitism, astrology, BBC, BMG Research, British values, Christian conferences, Christian Research, Christians, church buildings, Community Security Trust, ComRes, Crime Survey for England and Wales, David Voas, Donald Trump, EastEnders, Eurotrack, Evening Standard, female speakers, Health and Social Care Information Centre, Holocaust Memorial Day, Homepride Flour, hospital chaplains, Islam, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Jeremy Corbyn, Jewish Year Book, Lent, Methodist Church, mosque, Natalie Collins, National Churches Trust, Office for National Statistics, personal wellbeing, Pope Francis, prayer, Prayeronthemove, Project 3:28, Religious Affiliation, religious education teachers, Resonate, Scotland, Scottish Surveys Core Questions, shops, SPCK, star signs, Sunday trading, Taking Part: the National Survey of Culture Leisure and Sport, Telsolutions, TNS-BMRB, UCAS, Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers, University and College Admissions Service, USDAW, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, January 2016

Posted on April 30, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 4, January 2016 features 25 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 4 January 2016

OPINION POLLS

Nones

On 19 January 2016 Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University delivered a lecture at The British Academy on ‘Why “No Religion” is the New Religion’. It can be listened to at:

http://www.britac.ac.uk/events/2016/Why_no_religion_is_the_new_religion.cfm

The lecture was partly underpinned by an opinion poll designed by Woodhead and undertaken by YouGov among an online sample of 1,668 adult Britons on 21-22 December 2015. Asked to give their religious affiliation, 46% of adults replied that they did not regard themselves as belonging to any particular religion (i.e. they were ‘nones’), more than the 44% self-identifying as Christians (including 28% as Anglican and 8% as Roman Catholic). Nones constituted the majority among the two youngest age cohorts, being 60% of 18-24s and 55% of 25-39s, and also among Scots (52%) and Liberal Democrats (51%). They were least likely to be found among the over-60s (34%). The data table can be found on YouGov’s archive website, filed under 21 January 2016, at:

https://yougov.co.uk/publicopinion/archive/

A press release from Lancaster University on 18 January, which was the basis for much of the pre-lecture media coverage, pointed out that the proportion of nones had increased from previous YouGov surveys (being 37% in January 2013 and 42% in February 2015). In her lecture, Woodhead anticipated that ‘this trend will continue because nones tend to be young whereas Christians tend to be old; nones are being hatched while Christians are being dispatched’. Based on her previous research, both the press release and the lecture also provided some context and commentary about the religious profile of nones, who are by no means entirely secular when it comes to belief in God or even religious practices. This release can be found at:

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/articles/2016/why-no-religion-is-the-new-religion/

Andrew Atherstone, the evangelical Anglican theologian and historian, has an article about Woodhead’s research on nones in The Tablet for 30 January 2016 (pp. 8-9), critiquing not so much her data as her interpretation of them. This is available online, to subscribers only, at:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/features/2/7829/religious-nones-on-the-rise-but-what-s-the-truth-behind-the-data-an-evangelical-theologian-explains

Same-sex marriage

Same-sex marriage has been legal in England and Wales since March 2014 and in Scotland since December 2014. During the past three years supporters of same-sex marriage in Britain have increased from being a plurality (46% in January 2013) to a majority (56% in January 2016). This more liberal attitude has been reflected in affiliates of most religious denominations and faiths, although in many, including the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, it is still only a plurality which believes that same-sex marriage is right, just 8% ahead of Anglicans and 9% of Catholics who say it is wrong. Nones were overwhelmingly in favour of same-sex marriage in both years. A few headline statistics are tabulated below. The 2013 data are taken from one of Linda Woodhead’s YouGov polls, those for 2016 from a YouGov poll commissioned by Jayne Ozanne (Church of England General Synod member and gay rights activist), for which 6,276 Britons were interviewed online on 19-21 January 2016. Two sets of data tables are available, one for all adults disaggregated by religious affiliation and one for professing Anglicans disaggregated by demographics. They can be found on YouGov’s archive website, filed under 29 January 2016, at:

https://yougov.co.uk/publicopinion/archive/

% down	All	Anglican	Catholic	None
January 2013
Right	46	38	36	63
Wrong	34	43	44	20
Don’t know	20	19	20	17
January 2016
Right	56	45	45	70
Wrong	27	37	36	16
Don’t know	17	19	20	14

Veracity of groups

Trust in clergy and priests to tell the truth has fallen by 18 points in Britain since 1983 (when they were the most trusted of all professions), according to the 2015 Ipsos MORI Veracity Index, conducted by face-to-face interview of 990 adults between 5 December 2015 and 4 January 2016. Although 67% do still trust clergy and priests to tell the truth, this is slightly less than say the same about hairdressers (69%) and the ordinary man/woman in the street (68%), and it is considerably less than trust doctors (89%) and teachers (86%). Just over one-quarter (27%) doubt the veracity of clergy and priests, and the proportion exceeds one-third among members of Generation X, skilled manual workers, and residents of southern England outside London. For further details, see the news blog (including a link to the full data tables) at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3685/Politicians-are-still-trusted-less-than-estate-agents-journalists-and-bankers.aspx

Hate crime

In a poll released for Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January 2016, 22% of UK adults claim to have witnessed at least one hate crime or hate incident based on religion or beliefs in the last year. The research was conducted by Censuswide, on behalf of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, among a sample of 2,007 respondents aged 16 and over between 2 and 7 December 2015. The Trust’s press release about the survey is at:

http://hmd.org.uk/news/quarter-british-public-have-witnessed-race-hate-last-year-two-thirds-regret-not-intervening

Radicalization

On 18 January 2016, Prime Minister David Cameron announced a £20 million initiative to improve the English language skills of Muslim women living in England. The somewhat muddled rationales for so doing included the promotion of integration, the deterring of support for extremism, and the advancement of gender equality. However, the public appears sceptical about the initiative’s potential value as a counter-extremism measure, according to a poll of 5,092 YouGov panellists in the UK on 19 January 2016. Only one-quarter felt the requirement for Muslim women to learn English would reduce radicalization in the Muslim community, while 14% thought that it would simply make matters worse; the remainder judged it would have a neutral effect (43%) or were undecided (18%). Full results are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/f0497730-be91-11e5-979a-005056900127/question/fa396930-be91-11e5-979a-005056900127/toplines

Donald Trump and Muslims

Following his call for a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has been incurring somewhat of a backlash, both in his own country and abroad, including in the UK. Here a petition calling on the Government to ban Trump from entering the UK attracted so many signatures that it warranted a debate in Parliament. Trump has retaliated by threatening to pull £700 million of planned investment in golf in Scotland if he is refused entry into the UK. Asked by Survation on behalf of the Daily Record what the Government should do in these circumstances, a plurality (47%) of 1,029 Scots interviewed online on 8-12 January 2016 opposed any ban on Trump travelling to the UK while 40% favoured it, the latter disproportionately women, under-35s, and Scottish National Party voters. The full data can be found in Table 58 at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Final-Scomnibus-I-Tables-DR-1c0d2h9-51.pdf

Islamic State (1)

A poll published in the Evening Standard on 8 January 2016, but based on online fieldwork by BMG Research among 1,585 UK adults on 9-15 December 2015, found that a plurality (44%) of respondents opposed the deployment of British ground troops in Syria and Iraq in order to defeat Islamic State (IS). One-third were in favour and 23% undecided. Opinion was sharply divided about the wisdom of letting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad remain in power to combat IS, on the lesser of two evils principle, IS constituting a much bigger threat to the UK than Assad’s regime. Some two-fifths of adults could not make up their minds on this matter, with 35% supporting Assad to defeat IS and 26% not, even if it meant that more territory was lost to IS. Data tables are at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/CONFIDENTIAL-BMG-Poll-Evening-Standard-080116.pdf

Islamic State (2)

Four-fifths (82%) of Britons regard Islamic State (IS) as an enemy of the UK and 90% consider it has a bad record on human rights, according to a poll by YouGov, conducted online on 5-6 January 2016 among a sample of 1,779 adults. Most of the rest expressed no view, albeit 2% overall (and 5% in Scotland) curiously rated IS as friendly towards the UK. IS also easily topped a list of 11 countries for constituting the greatest threat to the UK, scoring 86%. Data tables can be found at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ac790k63k8/InternalResults_160106_SaudiArabia_Website.pdf

Islamic State (3)

Two-thirds of Londoners are very (25%) or fairly (41%) worried about the prospect of a terror attack on London by Islamic State (IS) during the course of 2016. This is according to a YouGov poll for LBC Radio among an online sample of 1,156 London adults on 4-6 January 2016. Most concerned were the over-60s (83%), Conservative voters (82%), and those in favour of Britain leaving the European Union (81%). About one-quarter were not very or not at all worried about IS attacking London and 8% were undecided (including 23% of the under-25s). Data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6npv0yq1wf/LBCResults_London_Boris_EUReferendum_ISISterroristattack_160106_W2.pdf

Sunday trading

The campaign to extend Sunday trading hours in England and Wales (currently limited to a maximum of six for large stores) continues to bubble along below the surface. There is naturally particular interest in such extension among London retailers, and the New West End Company has recently released fresh polling on the subject. Conducted by ComRes online on 7-14 December 2015, it has especial relevance since respondents comprised 850 retail employees in London, 55% of whom were Christians (who have traditionally observed Sundays as a day of rest). Of the whole sample, only 5% never had to work on Sundays and 60% worked every Sunday or every other Sunday. Approximately two-thirds of all retail employees supported plans to extend Sunday trading hours, viewed them in a positive light, and anticipated that they would benefit them personally (both financially and in terms of offering greater flexibility in manage their own time). Even more, around three-quarters, recognized that London requires more flexible shopping hours to accommodate the needs of the capital’s residents and tourists and to compete with online retailers. Full data tables, including breaks by religious affiliation, are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/New-West-End-Company-Sunday-Trading-Research_ComRes_data-tables.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Scottish church census

Plans have been announced for a fourth voluntary census of churchgoing in Scotland, to be taken among the country’s 4,000 places of Christian worship on 8 May 2016. It is being sponsored by a consortium of denominations and organizations who have commissioned Peter Brierley of Brierley Consultancy to organize the census by means of a two-page postal questionnaire (which can alternatively be completed online). Brierley has been involved in the three previous Scottish church censuses, in 1984, 1994, and 2002. Statistics will be gathered about the size of congregations at both Sunday and mid-week services, with numbers broken down by gender, age, and frequency of attendance. There will also be some sponsored questions. The final report will be published during spring 2017. Meanwhile, a leaflet about the census is available at:

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/54228e0ce4b059910e19e44e/t/56377c30e4b0f705d4f3efc4/1446476848387/SCOTTISH+CHURCH+Census+4pager+2015.pdf

History of Christian Research

Peter Brierley has also been busy writing a valuable 4,800-word personal history of the Christian Research Association. This commenced as MARC Europe in 1983, with Brierley (the former Cabinet Office statistician and director of the Bible Society) in charge. When it had to be closed down after ten years, following the withdrawal of the subsidy from World Vision, Brierley established the Christian Research Association (usually known as just Christian Research) as a charity in 1993, and with the same aims as MARC Europe. Christian Research ceased to exist as an independent entity in 2008, when it was incorporated into the Bible Society, where it nominally exists. Brierley opted to set up his own consultancy in 2007, which he still runs, carrying on – in necessarily attenuated form – the research, publishing, and training programmes which had been associated with MARC Europe and Christian Research. To request a copy of the history, contact Brierley at:

peter@brierleyres.com

Evangelicals and health

‘Warning: the Church is seriously good for your health’. So claims the Evangelical Alliance in reporting (in the January-February 2016 issue of Idea magazine, pp. 14-15) the headline results of its online survey of the views of 1,703 self-selecting and self-identifying UK evangelicals at the end of 2015. The claim is based on the finding that ‘more than nine out of 10 evangelicals had been in good health during the past year compared to just three quarters of all English adults’. No attempt is made to explore the social correlates of good health which might explain these differences. Moreover, 93% of evangelicals agreed that they should lead healthy lifestyles to look after their God-given bodies, and 82% were opposed to the legalization of assisted dying. Miraculous healing of the sick was believed in by 98%, while 94% reported that their church offered prayer when they or a loved-one were seriously ill, albeit 59% felt there was scope for churches to strengthen their healing ministry. One-half of evangelicals thought that Christians should never try yoga nor hypnotherapy. The article is available at:

http://www.eauk.org/idea/upload/idea_magazine_january_february2016.pdf

Church of England statistics for mission, 2014

Newly-released statistics for mission for 2014 reveal that the Church of England’s overall steady long-term numerical decline is continuing, affecting all principal measures of religious participation. Most media attention on the release focused on average all-age weekly attendance at church during October, which fell below one million for the first time since the metric was introduced in 2000, to 980,000 or 1.8% of the population and 12% less than in 2004, although this figure excludes 145,000 attending services for schools held in churches. Usual Sunday attendance stood even lower, at 765,000, compared with 1,606,000 when that metric was inaugurated in 1968. Only at Christmas does the Church of England exert significant quantitative reach in terms of churchgoing, drawing in 2,400,000 attenders for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day services (equivalent to 4.3% of the population), together with 2,200,000 at Advent services for the congregation and local community, and 2,600,000 at Advent services for civic organizations and schools. Take-up of the Church’s rites of passage, traditionally one of the broadest indicators of its appeal, has decreased more steeply than for churchgoing over the past decade: by 12% for baptisms, 19% for marriages, and 29% for funerals. Just 12% of babies now receive an Anglican baptism and 31% of deceased persons an Anglican funeral (against 41% in 2004). The 58-page report, incorporating extensive disaggregation to diocesan level (which naturally pinpoints some exceptions to the general trend) can be found at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2432327/2014statisticsformission.pdf

Archives of Faith in the City

The archives of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Urban Priority Areas (ACUPA), which was appointed in 1983 and produced the seminal if – in some circles – controversial report on Faith in the City: A Call for Action by Church and Nation in 1985, have now become available for consultation at the Church of England Record Centre. They extend to 30 boxes and 512 files, among them records of the research submitted to or commissioned by ACUPA. This includes the interview survey by Gallup Poll of 402 Anglican stipendiary parochial clergy in February-March 1985, designed to elucidate differences between those serving in Urban Priority Areas and elsewhere in terms of background, experience, and attitudes. A hierarchical catalogue for the archives can be browsed at:

http://archives.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=ACUPA

Economic impact of St Vincent de Paul Society

Oxera Consulting has completed an economic impact study of the work in England and Wales of the St Vincent de Paul Society (SVP), an international Roman Catholic voluntary organization founded in 1833 which tackles poverty and provides assistance to those in need. In its report, entitled Economic Impact of Visiting and Befriending, Oxera assessed that the visiting and befriending activities of the SVP in England and Wales have a positive economic benefit by: avoiding costs to the National Health Service; improving the quality of life of the beneficiaries; enhancing labour market outcomes; and, in the longer term, reducing costs to social services. In practice, not all the benefits could be quantified, but those which could be suggested that, conservatively, SVP’s 10,000 volunteers generate a net £11 million of welfare improvement each year, albeit the majority of this sum apparently accrues to increased wellbeing of the volunteers themselves. The report, which sets out the full workings on costs and benefits, can be read at:

http://www.oxera.com/Latest-Thinking/Publications/Reports/2015/Oxera-identifies-economic-welfare-improvement-of-%C2%A3.aspx

Baptist ministry

The final report of a review of Baptist ministry undertaken by the Ignite Project Team includes (at pp. 10-18) a statistical snapshot of the ministry, mainly extracted from the database of the Baptist Union of Great Britain Ministries Department. The database contained 2,711 names as at 22 September 2015, including those in training and applicants. Of the 1,521 active ministers, 83 per cent were men and 61 per cent were aged 51 and over, with an additional 979 ministers on the retired list. Since 1985 the number of ministers enrolled each year has been trending upwards and has exceeded that of ministers retiring, except in 2014, although the gap is narrowing. As a consequence of the growth in ministers, there were actually fewer Baptist churches without a minister in 2015 than in 1995 (440, or 23%, versus 723), and there has been a significant increase in churches with three or four ministers. About one-quarter of ministers are estimated to be part-time. The report is available at:

http://www.baptist.org.uk/Groups/259034/Ignite.aspx

Cost of (Jewish) living

Writing in The Jewish Chronicle for 8 January 2016, two economists (Anthony Tricot and Andrea Silberman) have estimated the additional costs of a Jewish lifestyle in the UK (the so-called ‘Jewish premium’) as £12,700 per family a year. The additional costs were broken down as follows: £5,900 for a property in North-West London (one-fifth of British Jews living in Barnet); £1,500 for eating out in kosher restaurants; £3,000 for a Jewish faith schools supplement; £1,100 for Simchahs (such as weddings and barmitzvahs); £700 for synagogue membership; and £500 for kosher meat (which is double the cost of ordinary supermarket meat and which has inflated more than twice as fast as non-kosher meat during the past ten years). A number of other costs were not included in the basic calculation but are likely to be incurred by many Jewish families, such as Age-16 Israel Tours (£2,800 per child), post-university Israel gap years (£10,000 to £15,000), attendance at the Limmud conference (£1,270 per family), and the 400% mark-up on kosher Passover holidays. Several suggestions are made for improving the affordability of Jewish living. The article can be read at:

http://www.thejc.com/node/152005

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

2011 religious census

Since the New Year the Office for National Statistics has published three new ad hoc tables of data from the religious census of England and Wales in 2011. These can be downloaded in Excel format from:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/business-transparency/freedom-of-information/what-can-i-request/published-ad-hoc-data/census/ethnicity–identity–language-and-religion–eilr-/index.html

One of the three, Table CT0557 disaggregating religion by proficiency in English by sex by age in England, has acquired political significance in view of Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement on 18 January 2016 of a £20 million initiative to improve the English language skills of Muslim women living in England (the other three home nations being excluded from the funding). In justification, he cited the fact that 190,000 such women, according to the census, speak little or no English. The 2011 census figures for the language proficiency of adult Muslim women have been recalculated by age group and are summarized below:

% down	16-24	25-44	45-64	65+	All
Main language English	63.5	42.3	26.4	14.1	42.5
Main language not English – speak English very well/well	30.3	39.4	34.0	19.2	35.1
Main language not English – cannot speak English well	5.4	16.4	31.4	37.2	17.9
Main language not English – cannot speak English	0.8	1.9	8.1	29.5	4.5

1851 religious census

The 1851 census of religious accommodation and worship, undertaken by the Government as an extension of the decennial census of population, is an undisputed crown jewel of primary sources for the study of British church history. Its utility is being progressively enhanced by the publication of scholarly editions of the original schedules held at The National Archives in Kew. Two new such editions have appeared recently.

The Religious Census of Bristol and Gloucestershire, 1851 is published in the Gloucestershire Record Series, Vol. 29 (Gloucester: Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2015, xvi + 428pp., ISBN 9780900197888, hardback, £30). It has been edited by Alan Munden (who already has an edition of the 1851 religious census for Northumberland and County Durham under his belt). Included are full transcripts, with annotations, of the returns for 894 places of worship, 422 of them Church of England, 211 Methodist, and 261 of other denominations. Rather confusingly, their arrangement deviates from the convention followed in most other county editions, Munden juxtaposing the original Census Office order with his own numerical hierarchy. It should also be noted that the manuscript schedules for the five registration sub-districts in Bristol city have long since been lost so that Munden has had to ‘recreate’ them from other contemporary or near-contemporary sources, inserting church attendance data from a local census in Bristol in 1881. There is a substantial 38-page introduction to and commentary on the Gloucestershire returns, together with separate bibliography, explanatory notes, guide to editorial practice, list of parishes transferred to or from Gloucestershire, specimen schedules, seven appendices, and indexes of persons and places. A map and some more intensive aggregate quantitative analysis of the results would have been valuable additions.

Religious Life in Mid-19th Century Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire: The Returns for the 1851 Census of Religious Worship has been edited by David Thompson (one of the pioneers in studying the census, especially through his 1969 doctoral thesis on Leicestershire) and is published in Cambridgeshire Records Society, Vol. 21, 2014 (viii + 275pp., ISBN 9780904323238, paperback, £27). With accompanying footnotes, it reproduces transcripts of the returns for 597 places of worship in the two counties (400 in Cambridgeshire, 197 in Huntingdonshire), of which 272 were Church of England, 144 Methodist, and 181 of other denominations. They are arranged in registration district order, with a statistical summary provided for each registration district, including attendance totals for general congregations and Sunday scholars based on the average figures in the schedules (where given) rather than the actuals for 30 March 1851 (the day of the census). There is a very full introduction (pp. 1-62) which is strong on describing the methodological and interpretative challenges of the census and on a topographical analysis of the results in these counties. There is also a bibliography of primary and secondary sources and indexes of persons and places.

ACADEMIC STUDIES

The Changing World Religion Map

Undoubtedly one of the largest-scale religious studies publishing projects of 2015 was Springer’s The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred Places, Identities, Practices, and Politics, edited by Stanley Brunn (ISBN 9789401793759, hardback, £809.50, also available as an e-book). This is less of the encylopedia or reference work implied by the title than a collection of 207 thematically-arranged chapters, cumulating to almost 4,000 pages. Some chapters are multinational in scope while the majority are of the case study variety. At a quick glance, only five of the essays major on the United Kingdom, two of them relating to Northern Ireland, and just one has a quantitative bent. This is Lia Dong Shimada and Christopher Stephens, ‘Mapping Methodism: Migration, Diversity, and Participatory Research in the Methodist Church in Britain’ (pp. 2997-3016). It documents the Church’s efforts in recent years to enhance the collection and exploitation of its statistics for mission, on a participatory research basis, including through the use of maps as a reporting tool and a mechanism to promote inclusivity and diversity. The contents page of the work and abstracts can be freely browsed, and copies of individual chapters obtained (mostly via purchase but some on open access), at:

http://www.springer.com/gb/book/9789401793759

Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion

On a somewhat more modest scale was the 2015 edition (Vol. 26) of Brill’s annual Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, containing 18 contributions of which five were of British religious statistical interest. In the general section, Judith Muskett explored social capital among 923 friends of six English cathedrals in 2011 (pp. 57-76), while Tania ap Siôn analysed 958 prayer requests posted to the prayer board in Southwark Cathedral (pp. 99-119). In the thematic section on the psychological health of ministers, guest-edited by Leslie Francis, there are two consecutive chapters exploring the stress and coping strategies of a sample of 613 rural clergy in the Church of England in 2004: by Christine Brewster, Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins, and Gemma Penny (pp. 198-217) and Leslie Francis, Patrick Laycock, and Christine Brewster (pp. 218-36). Finally, Kelvin Randall reported on the work-related psychological well-being of 156 Anglican clergy in England and Wales based on the year 14 (2008) wave of his longitudinal study of those ordained as deacons in 1994 (pp. 291-301). For the full table of contents, go to:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004299436

Death in Britain

In Mors Britannica: Lifestyle and Death-Style in Britain Today (Oxford University Press, 2015, viii + 428pp., ISBN 9780199644971, £30 hardback), Douglas Davies offers us a fascinating anthropological-sociological overview of death in contemporary Britain, including its religious aspects. He synthesizes a vast amount of existing published research, much of it his own, and provides extensive contextual material (arguably a bit too much on occasion) and a theoretical perspective. However, he is somewhat sparing in his deployment of statistical evidence, which is largely relegated to chapter 2 and, in respect of cremation (whose growing adoption is viewed as an index of secularization), chapter 3. There is no systematic trend analysis of the various official statistics pertaining to death and coverage is also somewhat selective of available British sample surveys on public attitudes to death and associated beliefs (such as in the afterlife). The book’s webpage is at:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/mors-britannica-9780199644971?cc=gb&lang=en&

Labour market penalties

Nabil Khattab and Tariq Modood have continued their investigation of employment penalties in the UK, based on an analysis of Labour Force Survey data for 2002-13, research which has been previously reported in the journal Sociology. They argue that these penalties are strongly associated with colour (mainly blackness) and culture (particularly being Muslim), black Muslims facing the highest penalty of all, but that they are not fixed, tending to vary in extent and nature. The article, ‘Both Ethnic and Religious: Explaining Employment Penalties across 14 Ethno-Religious Groups in the United Kingdom’, is published in Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 54, No. 3, 2015, pp. 501-22 and can be accessed online (via paywall, if not a subscriber) at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12220/abstract

Muslim women

Skaiste Liepyte and Kareena McAloney-Kocaman have explored ‘Discrimination and Religiosity among Muslim Women in the UK before and after the Charlie Hebdo Attacks’ (perpetrated by Islamists in Paris in January 2015), reporting their findings in Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Vol. 18, No. 9, 2015, pp. 789-94. Their sample was a self-selecting one of 240 Muslim women living in the UK, with a mean age of 24 years, recruited via YouTube and other online means, 153 of them before and 87 after the attacks. Greater Islamic religious practice and perceptions of discrimination were reported by the post-attack sub-sample. The article can be freely accessed online at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2015.1107890

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

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Counting Religion in Britain, December 2015

Posted on April 27, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 3, December 2015 features 34 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 3 December 2015

OPINION POLLS – GENERAL

Religious affiliation

Lord Ashcroft has returned to the polling fray with his first very large-scale survey since his recent serious illness, interviewing 20,054 UK adults aged 18 and over online between 20 November and 2 December 2015. The subject was attitudes to the European Union, but, as usual, a question on religious affiliation was included in a battery of background variables. The wording was: ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ Results by home nation are summarized in the table, below. Full results disaggregated by other demographics can be found in table 67 at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Europe-poll-tables-Dec-15.pdf

% down	United Kingdom	England	Wales	Scotland	Northern Ireland
Christian	51	51	54	50	69
Non-Christian	7	7	4	3	2
No religion	40	40	42	46	27

Guessing games

Ipsos MORI has been continuing its ‘Perils of Perception’ research, asking respondents to guess the answers to sundry factual questions and then comparing them with the actual statistics. The latest survey was conducted in 33 countries between 1 and 16 October 2015, including in Britain where 1,000 adults were interviewed online. One of the questions this year was: ‘out of every 100 people, about how many do you think do not affiliate themselves with any religion – that is, atheists, agnostics, and those who say they do not identify with any religion?’ In Britain the average guess was 45%, which Ipsos MORI noted as being 20 points above the actual census of population figure. While this is true, religious affiliation questions are notoriously sensitive to variant wording and coding, and the public’s guestimate on this occasion was actually quite close to the proportion of religious nones found, for example, in the British Social Attitudes Surveys. A slide presentation featuring toplines from the ‘Perils of Perception’ study is at:

https://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/IpsosMORI/the-perils-of-perception-in-2015-ipsos-mori/5

Who wants spiritual progress?

Not many of us is the answer, according to YouGov polling of 18,235 adults in 17 countries across the world (fieldwork dates not given). They were asked to think about their whole lives and to say which of 12 things they most wanted and which single one they wanted most overall. Scores were then calculated by balancing the two figures, to give a measure incorporating both the breadth and intensity of the desire. Spiritual progress was one option, picked by just 4% of the UK sample (being ranked ninth), and by no more than 13% in any nation (United States and Indonesia heading the list in this regard). In the UK, love (19%), better health (15%), money and my own family (12% each) were the top priorities. A blog about the survey and an interactive table of topline results can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/23/wants/

Religion as personal value

Religion also attracted relatively little support as a personal value, whether in the UK or the European Union (EU) as a whole, according to preliminary results from Eurobarometer 84.3, undertaken by TNS on behalf of the European Commission. UK fieldwork took place between 7 and 16 November 2015 among a sample of 1,314 adults aged 15 and over. Respondents were presented with a list of 12 values and invited to select a maximum of three which were most important to them, the findings being tabulated below, from which it will be seen that religion was ranked bottom. Religion was also included as an option on two further lists, of factors which most created a feeling of community among EU citizens and which best represented the EU. Topline data are in the annex which can be accessed via the link at:

http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/PublicOpinion/#p=1&instruments=STANDARD

%	UK	EU
Respect for human life	41	36
Human rights	39	40
Peace	37	45
Individual freedom	25	27
Equality	25	20
Rule of law	20	13
Respect for other cultures	20	9
Tolerance	18	17
Democracy	16	25
Solidarity/support for others	9	18
Self-fulfilment	5	9
Religion	5	6

Leaving Christ out of Christmas (1)

Family and not faith is important to Britons at Christmas, according to a news release from the British Academy in advance of its New Year series of debates and other events around faith. The Academy commissioned YouGov to poll an online sample of 1,751 adults on 14-15 December 2015 on the most and least important aspects of the Christmas period for them. Spending time with family and friends was most important for 65% followed by having time off work (12%). Faith/Christianity was the choice of only 7%, and no more than 12% in any demographic sub-group (among the over-60s and in Scotland). Moreover, faith/Christianity actually topped the list of the least important aspects of the Christmas period, at 33%, being especially unpopular among the under-40s. Linda Woodhead had a comment piece about the survey in The Times for 23 December, describing Christmas as ‘this sacred ritual of kindred’, while the full data table is at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/22iawbpysa/BritishAcademyResults_151215_ChristmasHolidays_Website.pdf

Leaving Christ out of Christmas (2)

In similar vein, an online poll by BMG Research for the Evening Standard on 9-15 December 2015 found that for 74% of 1,585 UK adults the highlight of the festive period would be a traditional Christmas Day dinner with family or friends. The next favourite activity was giving and receiving gifts (60%), although only 32% enjoyed going shopping for presents. Celebrating the birth of Christ was a favourite aspect of Christmas for a lowly 18%, ranging from 14^ of under-35s to 24% of over-65s. Singing carols was enjoyed by 21%, and going to church on Christmas Day by 10% (the least attractive of the available options). Slightly more, 12% (including 17% of over-65s), said they would definitely worship over the Christmas period and a further 16% said they might, the remaining 72% having definitely decided they would not attend (66%) or being unsure (6%). An article about the survey appeared in the Evening Standard for 23 December and full data tables are at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/CONFIDENTIAL-BMG-UK-Omnibus-Dec15-Evening-Standard-Christmas-poll_1.pdf

Neighbours at Christmas

Almost four in five Britons (78%) anticipated talking to their neighbours over the Christmas period, and 18% said they would be speaking with neighbours who were mostly of a different religion to themselves. In a further 29% of cases the neighbours were mostly of the same religion, while the remaining 31% apparently did not know which faith their neighbours followed. Londoners and black and minority ethnic (BME) persons were the groups most likely to be talking to neighbours of a different religion at Christmas. The survey was conducted between 4 and 8 December 2015 by Ipsos MORI on behalf of The Challenge charity among an online sample of 1,170 adults aged 16-75, including a booster of BMEs. Data tables are at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3677/Eight-in-ten-Britons-will-speak-to-their-neighbours-over-Christmas.aspx

Religion and later life

The relative irreligiosity of the young is well documented. Time was when older age cohorts scored highest on most indicators of religious belonging, behaving, and believing, but there are signs that this is beginning to change. A small piece of evidence derives from an Ipsos MORI poll for the Centre for Ageing Better, for which 1,389 adults aged 50 and over across England were interviewed face-to-face between 25 September and 18 October 2015. They were asked two questions which touched on religion. The first required them to identify factors of importance in contributing to a good later life. Religion/faith was one of the options and was selected by just one person in the entire sample. The second question concerned social groups with which respondents had been involved during the previous 12 months. Religious groups, including attendance at a place of worship, was one possible reply, which 10% claimed to participate in (ranging from 6% of persons in their early 50s to 14% of over-75s). Data tables are at:

http://laterlife.ageing-better.org.uk/resources/cfab_lli_2015_data_tables.pdf

Karma

Asked online by YouGov on 15 December 2015, a plurality (41%) of 4,009 UK adults and a majority (52%) of women claimed to believe in karma, the Eastern spiritual principle of cause and effect whereby the intentions and actions of an individual influence his or her future in terms of happiness or suffering. Around one-quarter (24%) were undecided whether they believed, while 28% disbelieved and 7% were unsure what karma is. However, when karma was more fully explained, 15% more of the believers saw the potential effect as psychological rather than spiritual, and only 27% anticipated that a good deed today would in practice increase the likelihood of something good happening to them tomorrow (59% saying there would be no effect). This suggests that people’s understanding of Eastern-style religious concepts and practices may be neither secure nor internally consistent. Results of the survey are posted at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/ecb30710-a313-11e5-b9b0-005056900127

Perceptions of Jews and Muslims

On behalf of Prospect magazine, YouGov has recently conducted 48 separate online surveys among representative samples of adult Britons, each survey exploring perceptions of a specific group of people, defined by a combination of gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, and religion. Each of the 48 groups was scored according to five positive qualities (intelligence, honesty, industry, politeness, and helpfulness) and five negative attributes (violence, fare-dodging, drug-taking, promiscuity, and drunkenness). The table below shows the topline scores for groups involving Jews and Muslims, the only two religious categories which were covered, together with their rank order (out of 48 groups). It will be seen that Jews were rated more favourably than Muslims and, within both categories, women more favourably than men. Muslim men in their 20s had the lowest rank order of these 12 groups, although white men in their 20s were the most derided of all 48 groups. White women in their 60s were the most praised group. Peter Kellner has an article about the surveys, ‘Good Will to All Men’, in Prospect, No. 238, January 2016, pp. 16-19. A blog, with a link to an interactive data table (permitting analysis by gender, age, social grade, region, and voting), is available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/14/young-white-men-most-derided/

	Positive average	Negative average	Overall rating	Rank order
Jews
Jewish man in his 20s	50	-48	49	22
Jewish man in his 40s	51	-52	52	17
Jewish man in his 60s	58	-59	58	6
Jewish woman in her 20s	58	-55	56	9
Jewish woman in her 40s	55	-62	59	5
Jewish woman in her 60s	52	-57	54	11
Muslims
Muslim man in his 20s	36	-40	38	34
Muslim man in his 40s	36	-45	40	31
Muslim man in his 60s	42	-56	49	21
Muslim woman in her 20s	40	-63	52	18
Muslim woman in her 40s	36	-65	51	19
Muslim woman in her 60s	31	-70	50	20

Pre- and post-Paris attitudes to Muslims

There has been ‘a surprising resilience’ of British attitudes toward Muslims following the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, according to Rob Ford and Maria Sobolewska of the University of Manchester’s School of Social Sciences. They commissioned YouGov to poll two online samples (n= 1,707 and 1,621, respectively) of Britons on 10-12 November (as it turned out, immediately before the attacks) and on 17-18 November (immediately afterwards), asking identical questions on each occasion. Some headline results are tabulated below, from which it will be seen that attitudes toward Muslims did not significantly harden in the aftermath of the attacks, and, indeed, there was a modest softening. Of course, this relative lack of movement in public opinion may not really be a cause of great optimism, which Ford and Sobolewska incline to embrace, but simply reflect the large degree of pre-existing negativity or at least ambivalence about Muslims. Perhaps the real and enduring significance of these surveys is that they appear to answer the doubting Thomases who are too ready to dismiss event-driven polling on the grounds that it captures the public mood in the heat of the moment, and thus atypically. Ford and Sobolewska have a blog about the research, including a link to the topline data, at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/23/after-paris-surprising-resilience-british-attitude/

% down	Pre-attacks	Post-attacks
Muslims have a lot to offer British culture
Agree	32	34
Neither agree nor disagree	32	31
Disagree	35	35
Western European and Muslim ways of life are irreconcilable
Agree	51	49
Neither agree nor disagree	28	27
Disagree	21	24
Muslims in Britain have respect for culture and way of life of others
Agree	23	27
Neither agree nor disagree	23	22
Disagree	53	50

Donald Trump on Muslims

The recent call by Donald Trump, the current frontrunner for the Republican Party presidential nomination, for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, either as immigrants or tourists, has caused a bit of a backlash, both there, in Britain, and around the world. YouGov tested the pulse of public opinion by running a snap poll of 4,608 UK adults online on 8 December 2015. Asked whether they thought Trump’s proposal would be an appropriate policy for the United States, 64% said it would not be. One-quarter deemed it appropriate, including 61% of UKIP voters. Further information and a link to the data is available in the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/09/brits-oppose-muslim-policy-pockets-approval/

One component of the backlash against Trump in Britain was an online petition calling for him to be banned from entering the UK. By 10 December this had attracted around 400,000 signatures, prompting YouGov to run another snap poll among its UK panellists that day, to which 5,506 responded. Approximately two-fifths (39%) thought Trump should be banned from the UK on account of what he had said against Muslims, while 47% disagreed and 14% were undecided. Results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/3c456cd0-9f24-11e5-ba8c-005056900127

Ethno-religious integration

A surprisingly large number of UK adults appear ambivalent about the desirability of schoolchildren integrating across religious or racial boundaries, according to a YouGov poll of 2,092 people interviewed online on 19-20 November 2015 on behalf of The Challenge charity. Asked whether ‘every school child should participate in group activities with children from different faith/ethnic backgrounds to their own, either in school and/or in their local community’, just 64% were in agreement, with 11% disagreeing, and 21% neutral. Affirmative answers ranged from 48% to 82% by demographic sub-group, and negative ones from 7% to 20%. There was no analysis of opinion by religious affiliation. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/yaviwesgx1/Results-for-The-Challenge-Statement-Test-20112015.pdf

OPINION POLLS – ISLAMIC STATE

Polls in this section are arranged in chronological order by last date of fieldwork.

YouGov (1)

In an online poll for The Times, conducted among 1,657 adults in Britain on 30 November and 1 December 2015, YouGov reported a sharp drop in public support for RAF air strikes against Islamic State (IS) in Syria, down from 59% on 23-24 November to 48%. The poll was published in The Times on 2 December, to coincide with the House of Commons debate on the issue, which resulted in MPs backing the Government’s motion to extend air strikes from Iraq to Syria. The survey also covered the possible return of British ground troops to Iraq to fight IS, and the commitment of British and US ground troops against IS in Syria, opinion being evenly divided in both cases. Data tables can be accessed via Peter Kellner’s blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/02/analysis-sharp-fall-support-air-strikes-syria/

YouGov (2)

Interviewed by YouGov on the day, 2 December 2015, of the House of Commons debate about extending air strikes against Islamic State (IS), 74% of 11,410 UK adults correctly anticipated that MPs would vote in favour of bombing IS in Syria, only 8% forecasting the opposite outcome. Results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/a9a2ba00-98d8-11e5-a807-005056900127

YouGov (3)

An ostensibly separate survey of YouGov panellists on 2 December 2015 found that 86% judged it right for Parliament to be debating the extension of air strikes against Islamic State, albeit only 14% expected to feel safer from terrorism in three years’ time in the event of a vote to extend strikes (34% saying they would be less safe). Results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/03/debate-syria/

YouGov (4)

A snap poll of YouGov panellists on 3 December 2015, following Parliamentary approval of, and the commencement of, British air strikes against Islamic State (IS) in Syria, revealed significant reservations on the part of the public. Just 22% were confident that this had been the right thing to do, while 25% were unsure but relieved that something was being done, 31% believed air strikes would not help and would result in the loss of innocent lives, and 15% were horrified that Britain was intervening where it had no right to do so. On the other hand, 41% supported the deployment of British ground troops against IS in Syria, now or in the future, 48% being opposed. There was pessimism about the prospects for defeating IS in Syria, 32% suggesting that it would never happen, and 60% that it would take over one year (including 35% saying it would take more than three years). Results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/04/effect-uk-action-syria/

YouGov (5)

In an online poll among 1,672 adults on 2-3 December 2015, Youov posed the same three questions about fighting Islamic State (IS) in the air and on the ground as in their survey of 30 Novemnber-1 December (reported above). Fieldwork took place partly before and partly after the House of Commons vote in favour of British air strikes against IS in Syria. A further drop in support for such strikes was revealed, down to 44%, with Labour voters particularly likely to have had a change of heart. For YouGov’s analysis of the trends, and a link to the full data tables, see the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/12/06/support-syria-air-strikes-falls-again/

YouGov (6)

On behalf of WalesOnline, YouGov polled 1,005 Welsh adults between 30 November and 4 December 2015 about their attitudes to British air strikes against Islamic State (IS) in Syria (a plurality of 45% approving), and their assessment of such strikes increasing the likelihood of terrorist attacks in the UK (54% thinking so). The data table is at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/1lrr4w9u45/WalesOnlineResults_December15_Syria_w.pdf

ComRes

Even after the House of Commons vote for British participation in air strikes against Islamic State (IS) in Syria, less than half (47%) of the British public endorsed them, with 33% disapproving and 20% uncertain. Even fewer (25%) favoured the imminent involvement of British troops in a ground war against IS in Syria, with 48% opposed, while 32% judged that there were no circumstances under which British troops should engage in ground combat with IS. The findings emerged from an online poll of 2,049 adults by ComRes for the Independent on Sunday conducted on 9-11 December 2015. Topline results were published in the Independent on Sunday on 13 December and the full data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IoS-SM-Political-Poll-December-2015.pdf

Ipsos MORI

Very few adults (9%) think British participation in air strikes against Islamic State in Syria will make Britain safer from terrorism, while 44% consider it will make it less safe, and a further 44% that it will make no difference. Optimists did not rise above 17% in any demographic sub-group. The poll was conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Evening Standard among a sample of 1,040 Britons interviewed by telephone on 12-14 December 2015. Topline results were published in the Evening Standard on 17 December and the full data table is available via the link at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3672/Few-believe-air-strikes-in-Syria-will-make-Britain-safer.aspx

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life

The independent Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, convened by the inter-faith Woolf Institute, Cambridge in September 2013 and chaired by Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, has published its final report under the title of Living with Difference: Community, Diversity, and the Common Good. It was prepared by a team of 20 commissioners, including several academics. Its findings and recommendations have proved controversial, not least in appearing to challenge the notion of the UK as a Christian society and the role of the Church of England within it. Ruth Gledhill, former religious affairs correspondent of The Times, has described it on the Christian Today website as ‘the worst report I’ve ever read’. The recurring theme is the need to learn to understand and live with differences, differences which are said largely to have arisen from the growth of non-Christian faiths and of people of no religion. Although the Commission took evidence, in the form of responses to a public consultation, local hearings, weekend seminars, and personal interviews, it did not undertake any new quantitative research. Rather, it relied (in Appendix A and elsewhere) upon the official censuses of religious profession, a range of sample survey data, and faith-based investigations. These statistics are not treated systematically, as an overview of changes in the religious landscape over recent decades, but selectively, in support of the various topics into which the report is sub-divided, such as education, media, dialogue, social action, and law. The report is at:

https://corablivingwithdifference.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/living-with-difference-community-diversity-and-the-common-good.pdf

Church and community night shelters

A total of 2,171 people stayed in the network of church and community night shelters, mostly in London, linked with the national Christian homelessness charity Housing Justice between October 2014 and May 2015, according to Church and Community Night Shelter Network Impact Report, 2014-2015. The majority of guests were male (86%) and aged 26-50 (66%). Three in ten stayed for longer than one month, and 39% received assistance to move from the shelter into their own accommodation. An estimated 231,000 volunteer hours were given to be alongside the guests. The report is available at:

http://www.housingjustice.org.uk/data/files/Shelters/CCNS_IMPACT_report_2014_15.pdf

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Christmas Day working

The last official figures, from the Labour Force Survey, of the number of people working on Christmas Day in the UK relate to 2012. However, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has updated them for 2015 in the light of employment growth during the intervening three years. The TUC estimate was that 905,000 individuals would be working on 25 December in 2015, 5% more than in 2012, and equivalent to 3% of all employees. The largest groups were expected to be care workers and home carers (168,000) and nurses and nursing auxiliaries/assistants (135,000). According to the TUC, there would be 20,000 clergy ‘on duty’, 6,000 fewer than in 2012 (the reason for this not being stated), which represents 52% of Christian ministers in the UK (as recorded in the current edition of Peter Brierley’s UK Church Statistics). The TUC press release is at:

https://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace-issues/work-life-balance/employment-rights/working-time-holidays/over-900000-workers-set

Religion on Jersey

The States of Jersey, a self-governing Crown Dependency, have published a report on the Jersey Annual Social Survey, 2015. Data were collected by means of a self-completion postal questionnaire sent to a random sample of 3,200 Jersey households in June-July 2015, requesting it to be filled in by the household member who next celebrated their birthday and who was aged 16 or over. There was a 52% response, and results were weighted to be representative of the island’s population as a whole. For the first time, a question on religious affiliation was included. This revealed that 54% of Jersey residents claimed to have a religion, 39% did not, with 7% unsure. Religious nones peaked at 52% among 16-34s, falling to 17% of over-65s. Of those professing a religion, 97% were Christians, mostly equally divided between Church of England (Jersey being part of the Diocese of Winchester until quite recently) and Roman Catholic. The report on the survey is available at:

http://www.gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Government%20and%20administration/R%20JASS%202015%2020151202%20SU.pdf

Hate crimes

Newly-released data from the Metropolitan Police reveal that both anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes increased by more than three-fifths during the 12 months to November 2015 compared with an average rolling annual growth of 4% for all crime categories. Anti-Semitic crimes numbered 483 in the Metropolitan Police area in 2014/15 compared with 299 in 2013/14, up by 61.5%, while Islamophobic crimes amounted to 818 in 2014/15 against 499 in 2013/14, a jump of 63.9%. This worrying expansion in religious hate crimes reflected the domestic fallout from international tensions, most recently after the Islamist attacks in Paris, but, according to a police spokesperson, was also linked to improved reporting by the public of religious hate crimes and greater awareness of them on the part of police officers. An interactive page for the figures can be found at:

http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Yearbook of International Religious Demography, 2015

Volume 2 of the Yearbook of International Religious Demography (ISSN 2352-1147), which was launched by Brill in 2014, has recently appeared, edited by Brian Grim, Todd Johnson, Vegard Skirbekk, and Gina Zurlo. It provides an annual snapshot of religious population statistics analysed at the global and continental levels (in parts 1 and 2, respectively), together with a series of eight case studies in part 3 (none specific to the UK) and a list of data sources in part 4. A publication of the International Religious Demography Project, which is also responsible for the World Religion Database, the volume can be bought in print or as an e-book for €89 and is more fully described at:

http://www.brill.com/products/reference-work/yearbook-international-religious-demography-2015

Religion and Britishness

Using descriptive and multivariate analyses of the 2008/09 Home Office Citizenship Survey (HOCS) for England and Wales, Saffron Karlsen and James Nazroo have examined the extent to which there are ethno-religious differences in a sense of ‘Britishness’ (undefined in HOCS) and in perceptions of the compatibility between Britishness and other cultural/religious identities among nine minority groups spanning four world faiths (Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism). Comparisons are also drawn with an earlier survey for 2000/01. The authors’ findings are especially used to ‘expose the straw man manufactured by Governments and policy commentators’, which has raised questions about the integration and loyalty to the country of British Muslims who, in reality, according to this study, make a strong claim to Britishness. ‘Ethnic and Religious Differences in the Attitudes of People towards Being “British”’ was published in Sociological Review, Vol. 63, No. 4, 2015, pp. 759-81, and access options are outlined at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12313/abstract

Religion and party choice

In an article first published in the online edition of British Journal of Political Science in April 2014 but not formally assigned to an issue (Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 907-27, plus six tables of regression models) until 18 months later, James Tilley uses the sequences of British Election Studies stretching back to 1964 and British Social Attitudes Surveys from 1983 to demonstrate that religious cleavages have proved remarkably resilient in an ostensibly secular Britain. The relationship between religion and party preference, he argues, is not primarily due to the social composition of the various religious groups, nor to ideological differences between them (in terms of social conservatism, economic leftism, or national identity). Rather, particular denominations are associated with parties that represented their denominational interests in the early twentieth century, these linkages mainly being underpinned by parental transmission of party affiliation within denomination. Data are presented separately for England and Wales and for Scotland, and for the principal religious groups (Church of England, Church of Scotland, Nonconformist, Roman Catholic, and no religion), also controlling for religious practice. ‘“We Don’t Do God”? Religion and Party Choice in Britain’ can be accessed by journal subscribers or on a pay-per-view basis at:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9915556&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0007123414000052

Religion and substances

Using data from a sample of 12,252 young people in the UK in 2011-12, Gemma Penny and Leslie Francis have probed the relationships between ‘Implicit Religion, Explicit Religion, and Attitude toward Substances: An Empirical Enquiry among 13- to 15-Year-Old Adolescents’, Implicit Religion, Vol. 18, No. 3, 2015, pp. 373-97. Having initially explored the prevalence of implicit religion, operationalized as attachment to traditional Christian rites of passage, the authors went on to test (and confirm) the hypothesis that explicit religiosity (operationalized as church attendance) and implicit religiosity (as defined above) are both associated with proscriptive attitudes towards substances. Access options to the article are outlined at:

https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/IR/article/view/28054

Scottish sectarianism

A recent issue of Scottish Affairs (Vol. 24, No. 3, 2015) comprised six articles on the theme of sectarianism in contemporary Scotland, based upon a combination of new quantitative and qualitative research and reflection on previous research. Of particular statistical interest is Rachel Ormston, John Curtice, Stephen Hinchliffe, and Anna Marcinkiewicz, ‘A Subtle but Intractable Problem? Public Attitudes to Sectarianism in 2014’ (pp. 266-87), deriving from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey for 2014, for which 1,501 residents of Scotland were interviewed face-to-face by ScotCen Social Research. It revealed a major disjunction between popular perceptions of the generalized existence of anti-Catholic or anti-Protestant prejudice, which were quite high (88% believing it was a problem affecting at least some parts of Scotland), and direct observation or experience of specific forms of sectarian behaviour in their own locality or lives, for example in terms of harassment or job discrimination. ‘So many members of the Scottish public seem to think that religious discrimination and sectarianism are things that happen in Scotland, but not in their area, and not to them.’ Another important quantitative paper is Michael Rosie, ‘The Sectarian Iceberg?’ (pp. 328-50), which revisited existing census and sample survey data, including the influential NFO Social Research poll of sectarianism in Glasgow in 2002. The print edition of the entire issue of Scottish Affairs can be purchased from Edinburgh University Press for £8 or individual articles bought online at:

http://www.euppublishing.com/toc/scot/24/3

Religion and science

The UK’s biological and physical science community is not especially religious, according to initial findings from the Religion and Public Life Program (based at Rice University in the United States), and published in the report A Global Lab: Religion among Scientists in International Context, written by Elaine Howard Eklund, David Johnson, Sarah Hamshari, Kirstin Matthews, and Steven Lewis. With major financial support from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, biologists and physicists were surveyed in eight countries (France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, and United States), with responses obtained from 9,422 of them, 42% of those approached. Among the weighted sample of 1,531 respondents in the UK (55% male, 45% female), 65% described themselves as agnostic or atheist and 59% as neither religious nor spiritual, while 65% never prayed and 60% never or practically never attended religious services. Detailed results from the research will eventually appear in three books, which are being written, and 17 academic papers are currently under review or in process. Meanwhile, the summary report can be read at:

https://rplp.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/RPLP/A%20Global%20Lab%20Conference%20Summary%20Report_2015_1201.pdf

Press representations of Muslims and Islam

In a post on the Radicalisation Research website, Paul Baker and Tony McEnery discuss ‘The British Press and Radicalisation’, summarizing the findings of their forthcoming report for the charity MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development). Using corpus-based discourse analysis techniques, the authors have studied the representation of Muslims and Islam in the British press over time, with reference to 11 broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. Comparing 1998-2009 with 2010-14, they demonstrate a trend away from labelling both Muslims and Islamic in extremist terms but a slight increase in descriptions of Islam in these terms. This suggests that the labelling of extremism has become less personalized, more associated with the religion rather than its people. At the same time, the press is projecting a growth in radicalization and attributing it in the main to extremist interpretations of Islam. The essay can be read at:

http://www.radicalisationresearch.org/debate/baker-british-press-and-radicalisation/

NEW DATASET AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7851: Scottish Health Survey, 2014

The Scottish Health Survey, established in 1995, is undertaken by ScotCen Social Research on behalf of the Scottish Government. The 2014 study involved face-to-face and self-completion interviews and clinical/physical measurements with 4,659 adults resident in private households throughout Scotland between January 2014 and February 2015. Replies to the various health questions can be analysed by a range of background variables, including religion. The wording of the religion question was: ‘what religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’ Response options comprised the major world faiths plus pagan, although Christians were sub-divided between Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic, and other (with the facility to write in a specific denomination). The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7851&type=Data%20catalogue

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious beliefs, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged air strikes, Anna Marcinkiewicz, Anti-Semitism, attendance at religious services, Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, biologists, BMG Research, Brian Grim, British Academy, British Election Studies, British Journal of Political Science, British Social Attitudes Surveys, Britishness, celebrating the birth of Christ, Centre for Ageing Better, Christianity, Christmas, Christmas Day, church and community night shelters, churchgoing on Christmas Day, clergy, Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, ComRes, David Johnson, demography, different religion, Donald Trump, Elaine Howard Eklund, entry ban, ethno-religious integration, Eurobarometer, European Commission, European Union, Evening Standard, explicit religiosity, faith, Gemma Penny, Gina Zurlo, ground troops, hate crimes, Hinduism, Home Office Citizenship Survey, House of Commons, Housing Justice, implicit religion, implicit religiosity, Independent on Sunday, International Religious Demography Project, Ipsos-MORI, Iraq, Islam, Islamic State, Islamophobia, James Nazroo, James Tilley, Jersey, Jews, John Curtice, Karma, Kirstin Matthews, Labour Force Survey, later life, Leslie Francis, Lord Ashcroft Polls, Maria Sobolewska, MEND, Metropolitan Police, Michael Rosie, Muslim Engagement and Development, Muslims, neighbours, Paris, Party Choice, Paul Baker, personal values, Peter Kellner, physicists, prayer, press, Prospect, Rachel Ormston, Radicalisation Research, Religion and Public Life Program religious affiliation, religious festivals, religious groups, religious nones, Rice University, Rob Ford, Saffron Karlsen, Sarah Hamshari, science, ScotCen Social Research, Scotland, Scottish Affairs, Scottish Health Survey, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, sectarianism, Sikhism, singing carols, Sociological Review, spiritual progress, Stephen Hinchliffe, Steven Lewis, substances, Syria, terrorism, The Challenge, The Times, TNS, Todd Johnson, Tony McEnery, Trades Union Congress, United States, Vegard Skirbekk, Wales, WalesOnline, Western European and Muslim ways of life, Yearbook of International Religious Demography, YouGov | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, November 2015

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 2, November 2015 features no fewer than 41 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 2 November 2015

OPINION POLLS – GENERAL

Religious affiliation

ORB International’s latest surveys for The Independent included the pollster’s standard question on membership of religious groups (response options being limited to each of the major world faiths plus categories for other religions and none). Fieldwork was conducted online on 23-25 October and 18-19 November 2015 among samples of, respectively, 2,015 and 2,067 adults aged 18 and over in Britain. The data tables, with breaks by standard demographics, are at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/october-2015poll.pdf

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/omnovemberpoll.pdf

Freedom of speech

The latest release of data from the Spring 2015 wave of the Pew Global Attitudes Project covered the attitudes towards free expression among publics in 40 countries. Fieldwork was co-ordinated by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, with 999 adults aged 18 and over interviewed by telephone in Britain between 8 and 28 April 2015. Respondents were asked about the importance which they attached to being able to practice their religion freely and whether people should be able to make public statements which are offensive to religion or beliefs. They were also invited to assess how important religion was in their own lives, a question asked several times before in Britain by Pew, albeit not since 2011. A majority (54%) replied that it was not too important or not at all important to them, albeit this was lower than the 61% of four years before. The Pew report is available at:

http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2015/11/Pew-Research-Center-Democracy-Report-FINAL-November-18-2015.pdf

Lord’s Prayer and cinemas

News that Digital Cinema Media had refused to run in cinemas a Church of England pre-Christmas advertisement based on the Lord’s Prayer, on the grounds that it might cause offence to people of non-Christian faiths or none, prompted YouGov to mount a snap poll on the subject among its panellists. When the context was explained to them, 55% of respondents thought the advertisement should have been screened, notwithstanding that 67% rarely or never pray themselves (with just 9% claiming to pray every day). Results were reported on 24 November 2015 at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/24/lords-prayer-and-praying/

Funerals

Funerals remain a relatively under-researched area, notwithstanding that this is the one rite of passage for which faith bodies continue to be majority providers, at least nominally. Although it lacks any specifically religious component, a new online poll from YouGov, undertaken on 9-10 November 2015, gave interesting insights into how far the sample of 1,639 adults had thought about their funeral and the disposal of their body. Data are available via the link in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/12/two-thirds-british-people-have-imagined-their-own-/

Life after death

YouGov has replicated six questions originally posed by the British Institute of Public Opinion (later known as Social Surveys, Gallup Poll) in 1939. YouGov’s fieldwork was conducted among an online panel on 1-2 November 2015, with 1,716 respondents aged 18 and over. Gallup, by contrast, employed face-to-face interviewing with quota samples of Britons aged 21 and over. One of the repeated questions concerned belief in life after death. Whereas in 1939 just under one-half of adults believed and just over one-third disbelieved, in 2015 the proportions were reversed. A link to the 2015 data table can be found in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/03/britain-1939-less-accepting-refugees-less-fond-cit/

Remembrance Day

To coincide with this year’s event, Survation released the results of two polls on attitudes to Remembrance Day which were commissioned by British Future. Online panel fieldwork was conducted as far back as 8-15 May 2015 among samples of 3,977 adults in Great Britain and 1,056 in Scotland. Two questions were asked, one about wearing a poppy, and the other about whether the commemoration caused frictions between people of different faiths and ethnicities. Data, which include breaks by religious affiliation, are available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BF-Poppy-Release-GB.pdf

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BF-Poppy-Release-Scot.pdf

Religion at Christmas

The importance attached to the religious aspect of Christmas was investigated by ComRes in an online poll for Premier Christian Media on 23-24 September 2015 (but only recently released), for which 2,016 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed. They were asked to signal their agreement/disagreement with six statements regarding the religious meaning of Christmas. Data tables, including breaks by religious affiliation as well as standard demographics, are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PremierChurchads_Christmas-Starts-with-Christ.pdf

Religious texts

Respondents to an online poll from YouGov about the changing status of books were asked which single book they would want to save from being destroyed forever. They were given four options to choose from, one of which was a religious or sacred text, selected by 14% of the sample, well behind a reference work and a novel in first and second places, respectively. The survey was commissioned by Ideate Research for the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and it was completed by 2,186 adults aged 18 and over on 4-6 November 2015. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/y2zm3xks3z/Results-for-Ideate-AHRC-Wave2-061115.pdf

Scots and organized religion

Ipsos MORI’s latest Scottish Public Opinion Monitor, which surveyed 1,029 adults aged 16 and over in Scotland by telephone between 9 and 16 November 2015, included a short battery of Likert-style statements about social changes. One was ‘organised religion is not for me’, with which 68% agreed and only 28% disagreed, thus confirming other recent research which suggests that Scotland is rapidly secularizing. The data table is available at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3658/Scots-expect-health-social-care-and-police-services-to-get-worse-in-the-next-ten-years.aspx

British attitudes toward Israel

The attitudes to Israel of 2,007 adults aged 18 and over in Great Britain have been investigated by Populus on behalf of BICOM (Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre). Fieldwork was conducted online on 16-18 October 2015. Questions included public reactions to the existence of a majority Jewish state in Palestine, both today and going back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Opinions were also sought regarding other current players in the Middle East, among them Islamic State and the danger which it poses to the UK’s security. Data tables are at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/British-Attitudes-Towards-Israel-October-2015.pdf

World War III

Pope Francis has warned that World War III has begun in a ‘piecemeal’ fashion. On 18 November 2015, after the Islamist attacks in Paris, YouGov gave its online panellists an opportunity to say whether they agreed with the Pontiff that we are now in World War III and also whether, regardless of their agreement/disagreement, they thought he had been right to say what he did. Although 53% of the 4,757 UK adults who replied believed he had been right to voice his opinion, only 38% agreed with him. Results, weighted to be representative of the population as a whole, are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/c7983230-8ddc-11e5-adf5-005056900127

Muslim attitudes

In the wake of the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, Survation polled 1,003 Muslims aged 18 and over in Britain by telephone on 18-20 November. Questions covered: relative importance of British and Muslim identity; perceived degree of integration of Muslims into British society; responsibility of Muslims and UK Islamic leaders to condemn terrorist acts carried out in the name of Islam; and attitudes to Islamic State (IS) and the bombing of IS in Syria. Results were reported in The Sun, the newspaper which commissioned the survey, on 23 November, while the full data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Islamic-Identity-Community-Relations-Survey.pdf

The poll proved controversial and triggered an unusually large number of complaints to the. Independent Press Standards Organisation. The concern arose particularly from the presentation and interpretation of the findings by The Sun, not least its front-page headline ‘1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ Sympathy for Jihadis’. Even the pollsters distanced themselves from the newspaper’s reporting. However, some criticism was also directed against Survation’s methodology (which it had used before). In brief, respondents were sampled based on a modelled probability of self-identifying as Muslim and using a range of demographic indicators. Prior to interview they were asked to confirm that they were Muslim, including non-practising. Apparently, YouGov, The Sun’s normal pollster, declined to pitch for the contract. For a flavour of the negative coverage, see:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/23/sun-poll-respondents-found-using-list-of-muslim-surnames

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/24/sun-poll-british-muslims-jihadi-sympathy-survation

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/the-sun-front-page-on-british-muslims-sympathy-for-jihadis-attracts-record-complaints-a6745756.html

For Survation’s published defence of itself, see:

http://survation.com/statement-on-survations-poll-of-muslims-for-the-sun/

OPINION POLLS – ISLAMIC STATE

There has been a strong polling focus this month on attitudes to, and potential British actions against, Islamic State (IS). This follows the renewal of the political debate about extending British participation in coalition air strikes against IS from Iraq to Syria and also arises from the aftermath of the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, which resulted in the death of 130 people. The polls are arranged below in chronological order by date of fieldwork.

BMG Research

On behalf of the Evening Standard, BMG Research surveyed an online sample of 1,528 UK adults on 11-17 November 2015 about their views on extending British air strikes against Islamic State from Iraq to Syria. Interviews were carried out both immediately before and after the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November, and the full data tables give the results separately for these two phases. The survey featured in the Evening Standard for 18 November 2015. Data tables are at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BMG_Research_Evening_Standard_Opinion_Poll_171115.pdf

Opinium

Opinium Research quizzed an online sample of 2,003 UK adults on 13-17 November 2015 about how cases such as that of Mohammed Emwazi, the British ‘Jihadi John’ who executed Western hostages, and who was recently killed in a British and American drone strike, should be handled. Specifically, they were asked whether an attempt should have been made to capture him and put him on trial or whether, given the difficulty of doing so, killing him by drone was appropriate. Data tables are promised but have yet to materialize online. In the meantime, a blog about the poll is at:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/survey-results/ideally-trial-if-not-drone-strike

YouGov (1)

On behalf of The Times, YouGov took the pulse of public opinion toward Islamic State (IS) in the wake of the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, interviewing a sample of 1,688 adults online on 16-17 November. Respondents were asked whether they approved or disapproved of: RAF participation in air strikes against IS in Syria; Britain and the United States sending ground troops back into Iraq to help fight IS; Britain and the United States sending ground troops into Syria against IS; and the British and American drone strike which killed Mohammed Emwazi, otherwise known as Jihadi John. Views were also sought about the adequacy of the powers of the British authorities to combat the IS threat in Britain, and the level of concern felt about an IS attack in Britain. The poll results were covered in The Times on 18 November and in a blog post on YouGov’s website the same day, the latter also including a link to full data tables – see:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/18/brits-less-accepting-syrian-refugees-wake-paris-at/

Much the same suite of questions was also asked by YouGov, on behalf of The Times, of 1,443 members of the Labour Party on 19-23 November 2015, with a view to seeing whether they agreed with the seemingly less hawkish position taken against IS by their leader (Jeremy Corbyn) than adopted by Prime Minister David Cameron. Data tables can be accessed via the link in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/24/analysis-corbynistas-stay-loyal-few-others-share-h/

Survation (1)

As part of a broader survey commissioned by Leave.EU, Survation polled an online sample of 1,546 UK adults aged 18 and over on 16-17 November 2015 about their attitudes toward military action (including air strikes in Syria) against Islamic State in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris. Data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Final-Leave.EU-Tables-161115CBLCH-1c5d4h6.pdf

ComRes (1)

Also in the immediate aftermath of the Islamist attacks in Paris, ComRes conducted a poll for the Daily Mail among an online sample of 1,061 adults aged 18 and over on 17 November 2015. The subject matter was attitudes to terrorism, including toward Islamic State (IS). The IS-related questions concerned: support for air strikes, and the commitment of ground troops, against IS; the likelihood of such military action increasing the risk of a terrorist attack in Britain; the prospects for defeating IS with or without military action; and approval/disapproval of the killing of Mohammed Emwazi (Jihadi John). Findings were published in the Daily Mail for 19 November 2015, with full data tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Daily-Mail_Terrorism-Survey_November-2015.pdf

ORB International

ORB International undertook a survey among an online sample of 2,067 adult Britons on 18-19 November 2015 on their attitudes to the extension of British air strikes, and the commitment of British ground troops, against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Data tables are at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/omnovemberpoll.pdf

ICM Unlimited

In an online survey by ICM Unlimited among 2,013 adult Britons on 18-20 November 2015, views were sought about: (1) British involvement in air strikes against Islamic State (IS) in Syria, with or without the consent of Parliament; and (2) whether British military intervention against IS would make the Middle East safer or more dangerous. Data tables are at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/OlOm-ISIS-Survey.pdf

ComRes (2)

On behalf of The Independent and Sunday Mirror, ComRes polled an online sample of 2,067 adults aged 18 and over on 18-20 November 2015 about: (1) British involvement in air strikes and a ground war against Islamic State (IS); and (2) the killing of British citizens in Syria who had joined IS. Findings were reported in the Independent on Sunday for 22 November 2015, and data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SM-IoS_Political-Poll_November-2015-4123.pdf

YouGov (2)

Almost four-fifths of Londoners are very or fairly worried about an Islamic State terrorist attack on the capital, according to a YouGov poll for the Evening Standard among an online sample of 1,008 London adults on 18-21 November 2015. Results were published in the Evening Standard for 27 November, with the data table available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/m64386ibnw/Internal_Results_151123_ISIS_and_Refugees_Website.pdf

YouGov (3)

The November 2015 wave of Eurotrack, undertaken online by YouGov in seven Western European nations (Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden) on 19-24 November, included several questions about terrorism and Islamic State (IS). Respondents, including the 1,699 in Britain, were asked whether Western countries were doing enough to combat IS in Iraq and Syria; whether their national police and security services had sufficient powers to combat any IS threat at home; and about their fears of an IS terrorist attack in their own country. Topline results only are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/hdfr2e6nua/Copy%20of%20November_Eurotrack.pdf

YouGov (4)

YouGov conducted an online poll of 1,659 Britons on 23-24 November 2015 in connection with a YouGov@Cambridge symposium on Syria and the European Union. Questions covered three broad areas: attitudes toward British military action (in the air and on the ground) against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria; the handling of Syria and IS issues by British and world political leaders, including David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn; and possible resolutions of those issues, among them co-operation with the government of President Bashar al-Assad and negotiation with IS. Data tables are available via the link at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/27/regret-over-opposition-2013-syria-vote-beginning-s/

YouGov (5)

An online poll by YouGov on 25-26 November 2015 asked 1,623 Britons whether they thought a decision on military intervention against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria should be taken collectively by the European Union or be a matter for individual member states. Only one-third favoured a decision being made at the European level. The data table is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/27/eu-standing-army/

Survation (2)

On behalf of the Daily Mirror, Survation polled an online sample of 1,026 UK adults on 26-27 November 2015 about their attitudes to British involvement in air strikes, and to the commitment of British ground troops (now or in the future), against Islamic State in Syria, including about the potential for air strikes to heighten the risk of a terror attack in the UK. Results featured in the Daily Mirror on 28 November 2015, while data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Syrian-Intervention-Poll.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Christians and the refugee crisis

The attitudes of UK practising Christians to the international refugee crisis were explored in an online poll conducted by Christian Research in November 2015 and commissioned by Embrace the Middle East, a Christian charity originating in 1854. Respondents comprised 1,055 members of Christian Research’s Resonate panel. Full results have not been released, but there is a brief press release at:

http://www.embraceme.org/news/embrace-survey-finds-vast-majority-uk-christians-ready-and-willing-help-refugees

Church of England finances

The Church of England has published a financial overview for 2004-13, conveniently bringing together information on income and expenditure from over 12,000 parishes, 44 dioceses, 41 cathedrals, and three National Church Institutions (Church Commissioners, Archbishops’ Council, and Church of England Pensions Board). The report is available at:

https://churchofengland.org/media/2401072/financial_overview_1__copy.pdf

Catholic schools

The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales has published the digest of its 2015 census of Catholic schools and colleges, which, for the second year running, achieved a return of 100%. In separate reports for England and Wales, there are details of: the number, type, and size distribution of schools and colleges; the number of pupils disaggregated by school type, Catholicity, ethnicity, and deprivation; and the number, qualifications, Catholicity, and ethnicity of teaching and support staff. Appendices provide additional breaks by diocese. The reports can be accessed via the links at:

http://www.catholiceducation.org.uk/ces-census

Israelis in Britain

The latest report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) is David Graham’s Britain’s Israeli Diaspora: A Demographic Portrait. It is largely based upon the results of the 2011 UK census, including many tables specially commissioned by JPR from the Office for National Statistics. These revealed 23,221 Israelis (defined by birth or citizenship) living in the UK in 2011, the highest ever recorded number, 73% of whom were Jewish either by religion or ethnicity, equivalent to 6% of the Jewish population of the UK. In fact, during the first decade of this Millennium there were more Israeli migrants to Britain than British emigrants to Israel. The 20-page report is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.2015.Britains_Israeli_diaspora.pdf

Islamophobia

The Islamic Human Rights Commission has published a substantial (272-page) report by Saied Reza Ameli and Arzu Merali entitled Environment of Hate: The New Normal for Muslims in the UK. In chapter 5 (pp. 123-84) it seeks to document Muslim experiences of Islamophobia based upon a sample (implicitly self-selecting) of 1,782 Muslims in 2014, 1,148 of whom completed a hard-copy questionnaire and 634 an online survey. To judge from the demographics which are quoted, respondents were disproportionately young, of Pakistani heritage, educated to degree level, from middle income groups, and practising Muslims. One in eight informants were not actually resident in the UK, and 1% were not even Muslim. Comparisons are drawn with a similar survey in 2009-10, to which there were only 336 respondents, with many indicators apparently revealing perceived worsening Islamophobia over the period. The tone of much of the text gives it the air of a political tract and, combined with a doubtful survey methodology, weakens the case for considering the work as an objective and balanced piece of empirical research (notwithstanding several academic endorsements quoted on the back cover). The report costs £5 to download in PDF format and £10 in paperback, but an eight-page executive summary is freely available at

http://www.ihrc.org.uk/attachments/article/11559/Executive%20Summary-UK-ll-02.pdf

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Religion of prisoners

The Ministry of Justice’s National Offender Management Service has published its Offender Equalities Annual Report, 2014/15, with associated data tables. This includes details of the religious affiliation of the prison population of England and Wales as at 31 March 2015. Of 85,664 prisoners, 49% professed to be Christian, 31% to have no religion, and 14% to be Muslim. The proportion of Christians was actually 0.5% higher than in 2009 and of religious nones four points fewer; this somewhat counterintuitive trend may reflect a shift in the age profile of the prison population, away from the under-25 cohort. The report is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/noms-annual-offender-equalities-report-2014-to-2015

Religion of armed forces

The Ministry of Defence’s biannual diversity statistics for UK armed forces personnel as at 1 October 2015 presented a rather different religious profile to that of prisoners: 77% of the 152,150 regular forces were Christian, 21% of no religion, and a mere 0.3% Muslim. The distribution was very similar among the volunteer reserve. The report and data tables are at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-2015

Youth social action

Meaningful social action by young people in the UK is rather more prevalent among those professing some religion (45%) than those without (39%). Among those classified as committed to social action, the proportion with some faith is 52%. Overall, 49% of young people expressed a religious affiliation and 46% did not. The findings emerged from face-to-face interviews conducted, by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Cabinet Office, with 2,021 10- to 20-year-olds between 2 and 19 September 2015. The definition of social action used in the survey was ‘practical action in the service of others to create positive change’. A presentation about the study, which is designed to support a Government campaign to advance youth social action, is at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Publications/sri-youth-social-action-in-uk-2015.pdf

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Personal saliency of religion

Clive Field provides an additional lens on the scale and chronology of secularization in modern Britain by reviewing opinion polls on the personal saliency of religion conducted between the 1960s and the present day. Six self-rating measures were derived from both non-recurrent and serial surveys: religiosity (binary questions), religiosity (non-binary questions), spirituality versus religiosity, importance of religion, importance of God, and difference made by religion. The conclusion is that saliency of religion indicators present one of the bleaker pictures of the extent of secularization, worse than affiliation or belief in God data, with self-assessed non-religiosity in Britain higher than in most other Western European countries. The article, ‘Secularising Selfhood: What Can Polling Data on the Personal Saliency of Religion Tell Us about the Scale and Chronology of Secularisation in Modern Britain?’, is published in Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2015, pp. 308-30. Access options are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2015.1095520

Clergy well-being

Revisiting an 11-year-old dataset of 722 rural clergy, Christine Brewster found only partial linkages between churchmanship and psychological well-being (as measured via the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire). Although theological liberals did experience higher well-being than theological conservatives, controlling for sex, age, and personality, there was no significant difference between evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics nor between charismatics and non-charismatics. Possible explanations for these results are briefly offered. Her article, ‘Churchmanship and Personal Happiness: A Study among Rural Anglican Clergy’, is published in Rural Theology, Vol. 13, No. 2, November 2015, pp. 124-34, and access options are outlined at:

http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1470499415Z.00000000050

Clergy theological constructs

In ‘Go and Observe the Sower: Seeing Empirical Theology at Work’, Journal of Empirical Theology, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2015, pp. 155-83, Leslie Francis and Andrew Village sought to operationalize two theological constructs, one concerning the nature of being human (rooted in a theology of individual differences) and the other concerning the nature of the Church (rooted in ecclesiology). These constructs were tested among a sample of 1,418 clergy living in England who self-selected to reply (online or by post) to a questionnaire included in the Church Times in 2013. The data revealed that, after controlling for sex and age, both constructs explained significant variance in three measures dividing clerical opinion: traditional moral belief, traditional religious belief, and traditional worship. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15709256-12341325

Clergy leadership skills

Personality has substantial effects on the self-rated leadership strengths of Anglican clergy, although the psychological types which have positive associations are often not those most commonly found among these clergy. In particular, there is arguably a shortage of ordained ministers characterized by extraversion and thinking (rather than introversion and feeling). So conclude Laura Watt and David Voas on the basis of an online survey of 1,480 clergy, 95% in stipendiary ministry, in April-July 2013 in connection with the Church of England’s church growth research programme. ‘Psychological Types and Self-Assessed Leadership Skills of Clergy in the Church of England’ is published in Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Vol. 18, No. 7, 2015, pp. 544-55. Access options are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2014.961250

Attitudes of British Jews toward Israel

The Attitudes of British Jews towards Israel, and to that country’s current policies and conduct in the Middle East, are considered in a new research report published by City University and written by Stephen Miller, Margaret Harris, and Colin Shindler. The study was funded by Yachad, a British, pro-Israel, pro-peace campaigning group, although the authors are at pains to stress their independence of the funding body. Fieldwork was undertaken by Ipsos MORI between March and July 2015 among 1,131 adult British Jews aged 18 and over. The sample was recruited using a combination of: random sampling of individuals on the electoral register with distinctive Jewish surnames; exhaustive sampling of Jewish members of an online panel maintained by Ipsos MORI; and a structured (discriminative) approach to online snowball sampling. An interesting feature of the research is a scale of hawkishness-dovishness in opinions of Israel, based on responses to 41 attitude statements. The report is available at:

http://yachad.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/British-Jewish-Attitudes-Towards-Israel-Yachad-Ipsos-Mori-Nov-2015.pdf

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 6614: Understanding Society, wave 5

The dataset for wave 5 of Understanding Society (United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study) has been released. Face-to-face interviews were completed by NatCen Social Research with 41,041 adults aged 16 and over in the UK between 8 January 2013 and 5 June 2015. Topics covered included the importance of religion to a sense of personal identity; pride in religion; religious affiliation (by upbringing and current); and religion as a source of harassment and discrimination. The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=6614&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7836: Community Life Survey, 2014-15

The Cabinet Office’s Community Life Survey touches on the role of religion in relation to community life, including volunteering and charitable giving. Background questions are also asked about religious affiliation and self-assigned practice of religion. The 2014-15 survey was conducted by TNS BMRB between 1 July 2014 and 30 April 2015, among a face-to-face sample of 2,022 adults aged 16 and over in England, with 2,323 respondents completing an online or postal questionnaire. The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7836&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7839: Integrated Household Survey, January-December 2014

The Integrated Household Survey is the largest pool of UK social data after the decennial census of population. In 2014 323,935 individuals aged 16 and over were interviewed, face-to-face or by telephone. A question on religious affiliation is included, using the census categories. The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7839&type=Data%20catalogue

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Counting Religion in Britain, October 2015

Posted on April 19, 2016 by Clive D. Field

We are pleased to announce that the migration of the British Religion in Numbers (BRIN) website to its new platform has now taken place, and we are in a position to recommence posting of content to the site. We wish to thank our users for their patience.

The news pages of the site will continue to feature extended research notes on particular resources of topical or historical interest. The most recent of these, which has literally just been published, is by Ben Clements, offering further analysis of the British Election Study 2015 data. This post can be found at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/2016/religion-and-party-choice-evidence-from-the-bes-2015-face-to-face-post-election-survey/

Our regular round-ups of new statistical sources are now being consolidated into a monthly bulletin, Counting Religion in Britain. The present post provides an overview of sources which came to BRIN’s notice during October 2015. Posts for subsequent months will follow in relatively quick succession.

The content of Counting Religion in Britain, No. 1, October 2015, can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 1 October 2015

Counting Religion in Britain

A Monthly Round-Up of New Statistical Sources

Number 1 – October 2015

OPINION POLLS

Human rights

An online poll by ComRes for Amnesty International, undertaken among 2,051 adults in Britain on 2-4 October 2015, probed attitudes to the proposed British Bill of Rights, which the Government intends as a replacement for the current Human Rights Act. Specifically, respondents were asked whether they considered that rights which are presently protected by the Act, among them the right to freedom of religion and thought, should not be included in the Bill. Data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Amnesty-International_Data-Tables-Human-Rights-Act_October-2015.pdf

Religious pluralism

A ComRes poll for the BBC explored perceptions of: (1) contemporary children’s understanding of religion and faith, and different faith communities; and (2) the effects of the changing religious make-up of Britain on moral standards, shared values, acceptance of people from different backgrounds, and understanding of different cultures. Fieldwork was conducted by telephone on 18-28 September 2015 among a sample of 2,016 adults aged 18 and over. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/BBC_Public-Opinion-Poll_Sept-15_TABLES.pdf

Religious discrimination

In 2006, 2009, and 2012 the European Commission included a module on discrimination in its regular series of Eurobarometers of public opinion in all member states of the European Union. It has now published a report on a fourth and extended study of the same subject: Special Eurobarometer 437: Discrimination in the EU in 2015. United Kingdom fieldwork was conducted by TNS UK by means of face-to-face interviews with 1,306 adults aged 15 and over. Questions covered attitudes to and experience of discrimination on several grounds, including on the basis of religion or beliefs; and reactions to efforts to promote diversity on the same grounds in the workplace, schools, and media. Respondents were also asked about their attitudes to a range of people (among them atheists, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, and Muslims) as prospective work colleagues or as partners in a love relationship with their children. The report is available at:

http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/PublicOpinion/index.cfm/Survey/index#p=1&instruments=SPECIAL

Data are available at:

http://open-data.europa.eu/en/data/dataset/S2077_83_4_437_ENG

Regulating supplementary religious schools

Prime Minister David Cameron’s commitment, made in his speech to the Conservative Party’s autumn conference, to regulate supplementary religious schools (such as Islamic madrassas) in England was well received by the electorate, securing 62% endorsement. This was according to a Survation poll for the Huffington Post UK, for which 1,031 adult Britons were interviewed online on 7 October 2015. Data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Cameron-Speech-Poll-Tables.pdf

Islamic State (1)

A trio of online polls of adult Britons by YouGov on behalf of YouGov@Cambridge, and published on 2 October 2015, explored public attitudes to British involvement in military action (by air, sea, and ground) against Islamic State (IS) in three Middle Eastern countries. Fieldwork was conducted on 4-5 August in the case of intervention in Iraq (n = 1,707), 5-6 August about Libya (n = 1,972), and 24-25 September about Syria (n = 1,646). The full data tables are available under ‘Latest Documents’ on the YouGov@Cambridge website at:

https://yougov.co.uk/cambridge/

Islamic State (2)

Notwithstanding serious tensions between Russia and the West elsewhere in the world, the majority of Britons approved of Anglo-American co-operation with Russian military forces in the fight against Islamic State (IS). This was according to a YouGov poll published on 1 October 2015, for which 2,064 adults were interviewed online on 29-30 September, presumably mostly before news broke of the start of Russian air strikes against IS in Syria. Other questions covered attitudes to British military involvement against IS in Iraq and Syria. YouGov’s analysis of the survey, with a link to the data tables, is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/10/01/cooperation-russia-syria/

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Millennial Christians

The Evangelical Alliance has reported on the religious beliefs, practices, opinions, and experiencers of millennial Christians: Lucy Olofinjana, Building Tomorrow’s Church Today: The Views and Experiences of Young Adults in the UK Church. It is based upon an online survey completed by a self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) sample of 1,703 churchgoing, evangelical Christians aged 18-37 in the UK in October-November 2014 and March 2015. The report, which especially highlighted gender and ethnic differences, is available at:

https://www.eauk.org/church/one-people-commission/upload/Building-tomorrow-s-Church-today-PDF.pdf

Church of England buildings

The first attempt in many years to audit the Church of England’s stewardship of its 15,700 church buildings was published on 12 October 2015: Report of the Church Buildings Review Group, chaired by the Bishop of Worcester and established by the Archbishops’ Council and Church Commissioners. It surveyed the statistical and theological context before setting out general principles and specific recommendations for the management of the Church’s places of worship. Future closure of some churches is envisaged and the downgrading of others to ‘festival church’ status, involving the cessation of regular worship in favour of occasional offices and major seasonal services only. The report, which includes data disaggregated to diocesan level, is available at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2383717/church_buildings_review_report_2015.pdf

Cumbrian churches

One day after the Church of England national buildings report was published, the Churches Trust for Cumbria, an independent charity established in 2008, very belatedly released the results of its own interdenominational church buildings survey, the fieldwork for which was conducted as far back as 2012-13. The research covered two-thirds of the 600 Anglican, Methodist, and United Reformed churches in the county, highlighting the immense challenges which they face in terms of financial viability and ageing congregations. The report, which is somewhat lacking in terms of data and confusing in its presentation, can be viewed at:

http://www.carlislediocese.org.uk/uploads/1356/Churches_Trust_for_Cumbria_Report_2015-pdf.html

Pastoral Research Centre publications

The Pastoral Research Centre Trust, which undertakes socio-religious research into Roman Catholicism in England and Wales with particular reference to statistical sources, has posted on its website an up-to-date list of its own reports and those of its predecessor, the Newman Demographic Survey (1953-64), the latter documents only declassified by the Catholic Church in recent years. These publications provide a much sounder basis for the quantification of the Catholic community during the past half-century than the data to be found in successive editions of the Catholic Directory. The list can be found on the Trust’s homepage at:

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

Strictly Orthodox Jewry

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) has published a major report on Orthodox Jewry: Daniel Staetsky and Jonathan Boyd, Strictly Orthodox Rising: What the Demography of British Jews Tells us about the Future of the Community. It explores the implications of the ‘extraordinary demographic growth of the strictly Orthodox sub-population’ in British Jewry, which is attributed to its high birth rate and low mortality. Making particular use of population pyramids, the authors assess the current and possible future numerical relationships between, and respective characteristics of, the strictly Orthodox and non-strictly Orthodox Jewish communities.

The evidence base mostly comprises estimates derived from the 2011 census of England and Wales, including what is claimed to be the first presentation in the public domain of estimates of British Jewish fertility. The latter show that the strictly Orthodox possess the highest fertility of any religious group in the country and, all other things remaining unchanged, it is set to become the majority of British Jews during the second half of this century. The picture which emerges, through the growth of the strictly Orthodox, is thus one of reversal of the long-standing contraction of British Jewry and of its increasing religiosity.

According to the Jewish Chronicle (16 October 2015, p. 14), aspects of the tone and content of the research have come under fire from the Interlink Foundation (an Orthodox charity). This is especially true of JPR’s estimate of the current maximum size of the Orthodox sub-population (43,500) and of the point at which it will account for half of Jewish births (2031). Interlink calculates that there are actually 58,500 Orthodox Jews and that they will provide the majority of births much sooner than 2031. JPR’s report can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/publication?id=4222#.Vh_ayMtdHX6

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Religious hate crimes

Home Office Statistical Bulletin 05/15 is on Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2014/15 by Hannah Corcoran, Deborah Lader, and Kevin Smith. Of the 52,528 hate crimes recorded by the police in that year, 3,254 (6%) were religion- or belief-related, a rise of 43% on 2013/14. The increase is mainly thought to reflect improved police recording but there was almost certainly some genuine growth in religion hate crimes, linked to trigger events leading to Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. However, even these figures still represent a significant under-count, due to under-reporting, the Crime Survey for England and Wales suggesting that the true number of incidents of religiously-motivated hate crime each year may be as high as 38,000, fairly evenly split between household and personal crimes. The Statistical Bulletin and associated tables can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2014-to-2015

Scottish Gaelic and religion

The Scottish Government has published a report and data tables relating to the results of the Scottish Gaelic questions in the 2011 Scottish census. Five data tables give breaks by religion for Scottish Gaelic for the population aged 3 and over. They are:

AT 250 2011 – Gaelic language skills by religion (council areas)
AT 251 2011 – Gaelic language skills by religion (civil parish bands)
AT 275 2011 – Use of Gaelic language at home by religion (council areas)
AT 276 2011 – Use of Gaelic language at home by religion (civil parish bands)
AT 277 2011 – Gaelic language skills by religion by age (Scotland)

These tables can be accessed, in Excel format, under the ‘language’ heading of the 2011 Scottish Census Data Warehouse at:

http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/data-warehouse.html#additionaltab

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Christian beliefs and religious debates

In his second book, Ben Clements quantitatively illuminates several key aspects of religion in post-war Britain, especially since the 1980s, on the basis of four recurrent historical sample survey sources (Gallup Polls, British Social Attitudes Surveys, European Values Studies, and Eurobarometers) and multivariate analysis of several contemporary non-recurrent polls. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the correlates of theistic and other traditional beliefs (God, atheism, life after death, hell, heaven, sin, the Devil, and the Bible), while chapter 4 reviews the attitudinal evidence for three areas of religious-secular debate (religion and science, faith schools, and disestablishment). There are 38 tables in all. Surveying Christian Beliefs and Religious Debates in Post-War Britain is published by Palgrave Macmillan at £45 (x + 144pp., ISBN 978-1-137-50655-9, hardback, also available in EPUB and PDF formats), and the book’s webpage is at:

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/Surveying-Christian-Beliefs-and-Religious-Debates-in-PostWar-Britain/?K=9781137506559

Anglican cathedrals

Social scientific interest in the ministry and witness of cathedrals, especially in the contemporary Church of England, is continuing to grow. The latest offering is a series of ten research-focused (often quantitative and survey-based) studies of cathedrals in England and Wales by members of the research group around Leslie Francis, together with introductory and concluding chapters by Francis and Judith Muskett. Topics covered range over both the spiritual and touristic dimensions of cathedral life, and the perspectives are those of empirical theology, sociology of religion, and psychology of religion. Some authors report on individual cathedrals (including three in Wales – Bangor, Llandaff, and St Davids), while others range more widely. All show familiarity with relevant secondary literature, which is usefully listed in the bibliography. Anglican Cathedrals in Modern Life: The Science of Cathedral Studies is edited by Francis and published by Palgrave Macmillan at £57.50 hardback (xiv + 267pp., ISBN 978-1-137-55301-0, also available in PDF format). The book’s webpage is at:

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/anglican-cathedrals-in-modern-life-leslie-j–francis/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137553010

Education and secularization

David Voas has replied to an article by James Lewis in Journal of Contemporary Religion in which, utilizing census data from Anglophone countries, Lewis reasserted the thesis that higher education appears to have a secularizing effect. In his response Voas reiterated his own previous argument, that religious ‘nones’ are becoming normalized in their characteristics. He suggests that the approach adopted by Lewis, a cross-sectional snapshot of the whole population undifferentiated by age together with an over-dependence on write-in replies which are the census exception rather than the rule, misses the generational dynamics of religious change. His own analysis of the 2011 census for England and Wales, one of the sources drawn upon by Lewis, demonstrated that, whereas older ‘nones’ are more educated than Christians of the same age, younger ‘nones’ have fewer qualifications than their Christian counterparts. ‘The Normalization of Non-Religion: A Reply to James Lewis’ was published in Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2015, pp. 505-8, and access options are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2015.1081354

Congregational bonding social capital

A seven-item measure of congregational expressions of Robert Putnam’s theory of bonding social capital was proposed and empirically tested (on 23,884 adult churchgoers in the Church of England Diocese of Southwark) in Leslie Francis and David Lankshear, ‘Introducing the Congregational Bonding Social Capital Scale: A Study among Anglican Churchgoers in South London’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2015, pp. 224-30. The research data supported the internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the scale. No significant differences in congregational bonding social capital were found between the sexes, but levels did increase with age and frequency of church attendance. Previous attempts to develop measures of congregational bonding social capital were also briefly reviewed. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2015.1041786

New Churches in the North East

The final report on the New Churches in the North East project has been published, written by David Goodhew and Rob Barward-Symmons of the Centre for Church Growth Research, Durham University. It lists and profiles 125 new churches founded in the region between 1980 and 2015, and with a combined usual Sunday attendance of around 12,000. The majority of these places of worship were started by non-mainline Churches or as independent congregations, and they are disproportionately BME in composition and evangelical-charismatic in churchmanship. The report is available at:

http://community.dur.ac.uk/churchgrowth.research/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/NCNEreportFINAL.pdf

Holocaust education

University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education has published a major (273-page) report about young people’s engagement with the Holocaust: Stuart Foster, Alice Pettigrew, Andy Pearce, Rebecca Hale, Adrian Burgess, Paul Salmons, and Ruth-Anne Lenga, What Do Students Know and Understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English Secondary Schools. Deriving from survey responses of 7,952 students aged 11-18 in 74 schools between November 2013 and October 2014, and 49 focus groups involving 244 students, it claims to be the largest single-nation study in the field. It finds that ‘despite the Holocaust being a staple in the curriculum for almost 25 years, student knowledge and conceptual understanding is often limited and based on inaccuracies and misconceptions’. The report is available at:

http://www.holocausteducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/What-do-students-know-and-understand-about-the-Holocaust1.pdf

Muslims in the labour market

British Muslims are proportionately less well represented in top managerial and professional jobs than any other religious group. They are also disproportionately likely to be unemployed and economically inactive, and to have the lowest female employment participation rate of all religious groups. So claim Louis Reynolds and Jonathan Birdwell in their Rising to the Top, a new research report from think-tank Demos, based upon a review of the academic literature and secondary analysis of data from the census, Labour Force Survey, Higher Education Statistics Agency, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, and other sources. Demographic, cultural, and other factors contributing to Muslim under-representation are explored, and a series of recommendations made to help redress it. The report is available at:

http://www.demos.co.uk/project/rising-to-the-top/

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7786: 21st Century Evangelicals

Since 2010 the Evangelical Alliance, in association with research partners, has conducted a series of online surveys among self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) samples of self-identifying evangelical Christians in the UK. Surveys have mostly been carried out quarterly, with each devoted to a particular theme. An overview of the findings of the research programme, which is still ongoing, can be found in 21st Century Evangelicals: Reflections on Research by the Evangelical Alliance, edited by Greg Smith (Watford: Instant Apostle, 2015). The individual datasets for the surveys to 2015 have now been made available on a Special Licence access basis, together with reports, questionnaires, and other documentation. The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7786&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7799: National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, 2010-2012 (NATSAL III)

NATSAL III was conducted, through a combination of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire, by NatCen Social Research between September 2010 and August 2012 among a sample of 15,162 adults aged 16-74 in Britain (including two booster samples of younger cohorts). The response rate was 58%. Three background questions on religion enable religious attitudes to a wide range of sexual issues to be explored, especially contraception, homosexuality, and sexual experiences. These questions enquired into: the personal importance of religion and religious beliefs; religious affiliation (using a ‘belonging’ form of wording); and frequency of attendance at religious services. The dataset description is available at:

http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7799&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7809: British Social Attitudes Survey, 2014

The British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey commenced in 1983 and has been undertaken annually ever since, apart from in two years. The latest BSA was conducted by NatCen by means of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire between August and November 2014, among a sample of 2,878 adults aged 18 and over in Britain. The standard questions on religious affiliation and attendance were asked of the whole sample; these have both an intrinsic interest but can also be used as variables for analysing replies to other topics. A few other religion questions (for example, about attitudes to religious extremists) were put to sub-samples. The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7809&type=Data%20catalogue

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, Religious Census, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged 21st Century Evangelicals, Adrian Burgess, Alice Pettigrew, Amnesty International, Andy Pearce, Anti-Semitism, atheism, atheists, attendance at religious services, BBC, Ben Clements, Bible, bonding social capital, British Bill of Rights, British Social Attitudes Survey, Buddhists, Cathedrals, census of population, Centre for Church Growth Research, Centre for Holocaust Education, Christians, church buildings, Church of England, Churches Trust for Cumbria, ComRes, contraception, Cumbria, Daniel Staetsky, David Cameron, David Goodhew, David Lankshear, David Voas, Deborah Lader, demography, Demos, Devil, Diocese of Southwark, disestablishment, Durham University, Eurobarometer, European Commission, European Values Studies, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, Faith schools, fertility, freedom of religion and thought, Gallup Poll, God, Greg Smith, Hannah Corcoran, heaven, hell, higher education, holocaust, Home Office, homosexuality, Huffington Post UK, human rights, Human Rights Act, importance of religion, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Interlink Foundation, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic State, Islamophobia, James Lewis, Jews, Jonathan Birdwell, Jonathan Boyd, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Judith Muskett, Kevin Smith, labour market, Leslie Francis, Libya, life after death, Louis Reynolds, Lucy Olofinjana, madrassas, Methodist Church, millennial Christians, Muslims, NatCen Social Research, National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, Newman Demographic Survey, North East, Pastoral Research Centre Trust, Paul Salmons, Rebecca Hale, Religious Affiliation, religious beliefs, Religious discrimination, Religious diversity, religious extremists, religious hate crimes, religious nones, religious pluralism, Rob Barward-Symmons, Roman Catholic Church, Russia, Ruth-Anne Lenga, science, Scottish Gaelic, secondary schools, secularization, sexual experience, sin, Strictly Orthodox Jews, Stuart Foster, supplementary religious schools, Survation, Syria, TNS UK, United Kingdom Data Service, United Reformed Church, University College London, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

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