Census Question Under Fire

There are just six days to go before UK residents have to complete the household and individual questionnaire for the decennial population census.

But humanists are still simultaneously maintaining their attack on the voluntary question on religion while paradoxically encouraging people to answer it, ideally (from the humanist perspective) by registering as of no religion.

In a press release on 20 March the British Humanist Association (BHA) described the census question as ‘highly misleading’ and ‘fatally flawed for its intended purpose of planning public services’. The BHA’s evidence for this claim comes from new opinion polls conducted online by YouGov in England and Wales and in Scotland.

The English and Welsh survey, commissioned by the BHA, was undertaken on 9-11 March 2011 among a representative sample of 1,896 adults aged 18 and over. The Scottish poll was sponsored by the Humanist Society of Scotland and conducted on 10-14 January 2011 among 2,007 adults.

In England and Wales, when asked the census question ‘What is your religion?’, 61% ticked a religious box and 39% declared themselves to be of no religion. However, when asked ‘Are you religious?’, just 29% said ‘yes’ and 65% ‘no’, ‘meaning over half of those whom the census would count as having a religion said they were not religious’.

Responses varied somewhat according to demographics, most notably by age. Whereas 56% of 18-24s had no religion, the proportion fell steadily throughout the age cohorts, to stand at 25% among the over-55s. Similarly, while 70-73% of the three under-45 cohorts stated that they were not religious, this was the case with 68% of those aged 45-54 and 56% of the over-55s.

Marital status also appeared to make a difference, although this pattern doubtless conceals an age-related effect. The number professing no religion was highest among the never married (53%) and those living as married (52%). It was substantially lower among those who were currently married or in a civil partnership (31%) or had formerly been, 27% among the separated or divorced and 25% with the widowed.

The 53% of the English and Welsh sample who professed to be Christian were additionally asked: ‘Do you believe that Jesus Christ was a real person who died and came back to life and was the son of God?’ Fewer than half (48%) said that they did so believe, with 27% disbelieving and 25% unsure, BHA’s unspoken point presumably being that many so-called Christians have rather a shallow or unconventional faith.

It is also a generally inactive faith, in terms of attendance at a place of worship for religious reasons. Only 15% of the entire sample claimed to have been within the past month, with a further 16% going within the past year, 43% more than a year ago and 20% never. The never category was largest among the 18-24s (28%), with 32% for full-time students.

In Scotland, one-half of the sample was asked the Scottish census question: ‘What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’ In reply, 56% of Scots professed some affiliation (with write-in responses available) and 42% none.

The other Scottish half-sample was initially asked: ‘Are you religious?’ 35% said that they were and 56% that they were not, with 8% uncertain. Those who answered that they were religious or who did not know were then asked: ‘Which religion do you belong to?’ At this point, 22% said that they did not belong to any organized religion.

The BHA press release and links to the data tables for both England and Wales and Scotland will be found at:

http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/771

These statistics serve to illustrate what is already generally well-known, that surveys on religious (and – indeed – all other) topics are inevitably informed or perhaps even shaped by question-wording.

The Office for National Statistics, which is overseeing the census, is fully aware of the sensitivities and ambiguities of investigating religion. It has gone to some considerable lengths to research and trial the merits of alternative wordings during its census preparations.

For fuller information about these deliberations and experimentation, see the October 2009 ONS report on Final Recommended Questions for the 2011 Census in England and Wales: Religion, which is available on the ONS website.

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Searchlight on Religion

A major new source of public opinion data on religion and inter-faith relations has just become available in the form of a Populus poll for Searchlight Educational Trust.

The survey is of unusual importance in terms of the number of questions asked and the large size of the sample (5,054 adults aged 18 and over interviewed online in England on 28-31 January 2011).

The Trust is a registered charity formed in 1992 that works with communities to build responses to racism and hatred, dispel myths and develop greater understanding. It has just established the Together project to explore and tackle the rise of right-wing nationalism and extremism in Britain and Western Europe.

Only a small proportion of the poll’s statistics have been included in Searchlight’s Fear & HOPE report, based on the survey, which concluded that ‘there is not a progressive majority in society and … that there is a deep resentment to immigration, as well as scepticism towards multiculturalism.’

‘There is a widespread fear of the “Other”, particularly Muslims, and there is an appetite for a new right-wing political party that has none of the fascist trappings of the British National Party or the violence of the English Defence League. With a clear correlation between economic pessimism and negative views to immigration, the situation is likely to get worse over the next few years.’

At the same time, ‘there are also many positive findings from the report. Young people are more hopeful about the future and more open to living in an ethnically diverse society. The vast majority … reject political violence and view white anti-Muslim extremists as bad as Muslim extremists and there is overwhelming support for a positive campaign against extremism.’

The document is available, in a somewhat curious format, at:

http://www.fearandhope.org.uk/project-report/

For this post BRIN has ignored the report and drawn upon, but cannot claim to have summarized adequately, the 128 computer tables extending to 395 pages. These provide topline responses, the only ones used here, together with disaggregations by gender, age, socio-economic group, region, employment sector, ethnicity, religion, and a sixfold segmentation by identity ‘tribes’. These tables can be accessed at:

http://populuslimited.com/uploads/download_pdf-310111-Searchlight-Fear-and-Hope-survey.pdf

Two clusters of questions are briefly considered here, those which sought to enumerate the nation’s general verdict on and participation in religion, and those which assessed attitudes to and engagement with people from the various faith traditions in Britain.

RELIGION IN GENERAL

35% of adults professed no religious affiliation, while 54% were Christians and 7% non-Christians (table 7).

23% said that religion was important to them, with 55% disagreeing and 22% neutral (table 76).

Just 7% said religion was the most important element in their personal identity. This compared with 35% for nationality, 24% for country of birth, 16% for the city, town or village in which they lived, 7% for ethnicity, 6% for their immediate neighbourhood, and 5% for the country of residence, where different from that of birth (table 32). Religion was the second most important influence on identity for 8% (table 33) and the third most important for 10% (table 34).

55% never attended a place of worship in their local community. 8% claimed to go at least once a week, 5% at least once a fortnight, 6% at least once a month, and 26% less than once a month (table 63).

Only 23% thought that, by and large, religion is a force for good in the UK. 42% disagreed and 35% expressed no opinion (table 77).

68% agreed that religion should not influence laws and policies in Britain, with 16% disagreeing and 16% neutral (table 75).

On a scale of 1 (= do not trust at all) to 5 (= trust fully), the mean respect score for local religious leaders was 2.95. This was lower than for the respondent’s general practitioner (3.98), the local headteacher (3.44), women’s institute (3.43), the local scout/girl guide leader (3.41), the local branch of service organizations (3.31), and leaders of local clubs (3.15).

But it was higher than for the local chamber of commerce (2.81), a local trade union (2.72), the local mayor (2.62), the local MP (2.58), local councillors (2.57), and the local council (2.54). See tables 38-51.

INTER-FAITH RELATIONS

62% considered religious abuse to be as serious as racial abuse, but 38% viewed the latter as more serious (table 115).

28% thought religious abuse to be more widespread in Britain than racial abuse. 72% said the reverse (table 116).

71% assessed religious abuse to be on the increase in Britain, 29% disagreeing (table 117). 64% said that racial abuse was growing (table 118).

60% believed that people should be able to say what they wanted about religion, however critical or offensive it might be. 40% thought there should be restrictions on what individuals could say about religion, and that they should be prosecuted if necessary (table 119). Significantly more, 58%, were in favour of limitations on freedom of speech when it came to race (table 120).

44% regarded Muslims as completely different to themselves in terms of habits, customs and values. Just 5% said the same about Christians, 19% about Jews, 28% about Hindus, and 29% about Sikhs (tables 78-83).

42% said that they interacted with Sikhs less than monthly or never, 39% with Jews, 36% with Hindus, 28% with Muslims, and 5% with Christians. There were a lot of don’t knows for this question (tables 84-89).

59% did not know any Sikhs well as friends and family members, work colleagues, children’s friends or neighbours. 55% said the same about Jews, 53% about Hindus, 41% about Muslims, and 8% about Christians (tables 90-95).

32% argued that Muslims created a lot of problems in the UK. Far fewer said this about other faith groups: 7% about Hindus, 6% about Sikhs, 5% about Christians, and 3% about Jews (tables 96-101).

49% contended that Muslims created a lot of problems in the world. Again, this was much less often said about other faith communities: 15% about Jews, 12% about Christians, 10% about Hindus, and 9% about Sikhs (tables 102-107).

25% viewed Islam as a dangerous religion which incites violence. 21% considered that violence or terrorism on the part of some Muslims is unsurprising given the actions of the West in the Muslim world and the hostility towards Muslims in Britain.

49% thought that such violence or terrorism was unsurprising on account of the activities and statements of a few Muslim extremists. 6% dismissed accusations of violence or terrorism by Muslims as something got up by the media (table 126).

On hearing reports of violent clashes between English nationalist extremists and Muslim extremists, 26% would sympathize with the former who were standing up for their country and 6% for the Muslims who were standing up for their faith. 68% would view both groups as bad as each other (table 127).

43% indicated that they would support a campaign to stop the building of a new mosque in their locality, against 19% who would oppose such a campaign, with 38% neutral (table 124).

In the event of such a campaign turning violent or threatening to do so, by the action of either of the disputing parties, 81% would condemn such violence but 19% would continue to support one side or the other (table 125).

Interviewees were asked to react to the possibility of a new political party which would defend the English, create an English Parliament, control immigration, challenge Islamic extremism, restrict the construction of mosques, and make it compulsory for all public buildings to fly the St George’s flag or Union Jack. 21% said that they would definitely support such a party and a further 27% that they would consider backing it (table 122).

Quizzed about a new organization which would campaign against religious and racial extremism, and promote better relations between different ethnic and religious groups, 20% said that they would definitely and another 48% that they might possibly support it (table 123).

Hopefully, this gallop through a veritable mountain of statistics will give BRIN readers some insight into the range of questions posed in this Populus/Searchlight survey, and some sense of the research potential of the dataset.

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A Perfect Companion

Anybody feeling a little at sea in the plethora of religious data may find a new briefing paper from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) a great boon. Written by EHRC’s research manager, David Perfect, and simply entitled Religion or Belief, it is available to download from:

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/publications/religion_or_belief_briefing_paper.pdf

The 25-page paper brings together a selection of key national statistics on religion in Great Britain, sometimes as time series. The document is short enough for BRIN readers to consult directly, so no summary of findings will be attempted here. However, an annotated listing of the 19 tables may be found useful.

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION

1. Religious affiliation, Great Britain, 2001, from Census

2. Religious affiliation, Great Britain, 2004/05-2008/09, from Annual Population Survey

3. Religious affiliation, England, Scotland, Wales, 2001, from Census

4. Religious affiliation, England, Scotland, Wales, 2009/10, from Integrated Household Survey

RELIGIOUS BELONGING

5. Belonging to a religion, Great Britain, 1983, 2008, from British Social Attitudes [BSA] Survey

6. Belonging to a religion by gender, Great Britain, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2008, from BSA

7. Belonging to a religion by age, Great Britain, 2008, from BSA

RELIGIOUS PRACTICE

8. Active practice of religion, England and Wales, 2008/09, from Citizenship Survey

9. Attendance at religious services, Great Britain, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2008, from BSA

10. Church attendance, England, 1979, 1989, 1998, 2005, from English Church Censuses

RELIGIOUS BELIEF

11. Belief in God, Great Britain, 1991, 1998, 2008, from BSA

12. Belief in God, United Kingdom and Europe, 2010, from Eurobarometer  

RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION AND PREJUDICE

13. Perceptions of religious prejudice, England and Wales, 2005, 2007/08, 2008/09, from Citizenship Survey

14. Perceptions of more religious prejudice by religion, England and Wales, 2005, 2007/08, 2008/09, from Citizenship Survey

15. Perceptions of racial or religious harassment as a big problem, England, 2009/10, from Citizenship Survey

16. Perceptions of widespread discrimination by religion or belief, United Kingdom and Europe, 2009, from Eurobarometer

17. Perceptions of discrimination by equality strand, United Kingdom and Europe, 2009, from Eurobarometer

18. Disposal of Employment Tribunal cases by equality strand, Great Britain, 2009/10, from Employment Tribunal Statistics

19. Female Church of England clergy, England, 2000-09, from Church Statistics  

The paper concludes with a discussion of the sources (pages 20-2), mostly giving online links, and endnotes (pages 23-5).

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Getting Ahead in Life

The traditional annual volume derived from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey was published by Sage just before Christmas. Edited by Alison Park, John Curtice, Elizabeth Clery and Catherine Bryson, The 27th Report: Exploring Labour’s Legacy was based on the 2009 survey, undertaken by Natcen between June and November that year.

Unlike the 2008 survey (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=66), which was full of religious content, the 2009 study does not immediately appear to afford such a rich mine of information. Nevertheless, it is not without value for religion-related research.

The full sample, comprising 3,421 adult Britons aged 18 and over interviewed face-to-face, was asked the usual questions about religious affiliation and attendance. These are important both in their own right and as variables for analysing the more ‘secular’ questions.

Of particular interest is the fact that, for the first time in the history of BSA, a slim majority of respondents claimed to have no religion when asked ‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’

In reply, 51% self-identified as having no religion. This compares with 31% when the question was first put in 1983. The 40% barrier was not broken until 1995. The proportion was 46% in 2007 and 43% in 2008.

Of the 49% with a current religion, the principal categories were Anglican (20%), Christian – unspecified denomination (9%), Roman Catholic (9%), and non-Christian (5%).

There can be little doubt that many individuals had become less religious over time. For instance, just 19% had been brought up without a religion, 32% less than said they had no religion in 2009. Similarly, 38% had been reared as Anglicans, almost double the number who were still Anglican in 2009.

Of those with a religion, only one in ten attended services connected with it weekly or more often, and 48% never or practically never went to their place of worship.

The main sample was also asked about groups and organizations, besides parents, who should ensure children live safely without suffering abuse or neglect. Unsurprisingly, social services (66%), schools (53%) and extended families (52%) topped the list.

Yet the very low score for religious groups (2%) was somewhat unexpected, apparently suggesting the poor public image of religious social work, doubtless not unrelated to widespread knowledge of sexual abuse of children at the hands of some Roman Catholic clergy.

As well as the face-to-face interview, respondents were invited to tackle a self-completion questionnaire. There were three versions of this, corresponding to three sub-samples into which the main sample was evenly divided.

Version A of the self-completion questionnaire incorporated a special module on inequality as part of an International Social Survey Program extension. The first question in this asked about opportunities for getting ahead in life and was answered by 958 individuals.

In reply, 9% said that a person’s religion was essential or very important in getting ahead in life, rather more than when the question was previously put, in 1987 (5%) and 1992 (3%). By 2009 religion had even assumed greater importance on this definition than race/ethnicity and gender (8% each).

But, in terms of ascriptive factors, religion was not considered as quite so essential or very important as coming from a wealthy family (14%) or having well-educated parents (31%).

It was also dwarfed by meritocratic factors such as hard work (84%), good education (74%) and ambition (71%), and by the non-meritocratic factor of knowing the right people (33%).

The full spread of responses for the importance of a person’s religion in getting ahead in life was: essential 3%, very important 6%, fairly important 10%, not very important 27%, not important at all 52%, cannot choose 2%, and not answered 1%.

There is a brief analysis of the getting ahead in life question in chapter 2 (pages 29-50) of The 27th Report: Exploring Labour’s Legacy, by Anthony Heath, Nan Dirk de Graaf and Yaojun Li on ‘How Fair is the Route to the Top? Perceptions of Social Mobility’.

The annotated questionnaire for the 2009 British Social Attitudes Survey will be found at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/606622/bsa%202009%20annotated%20questionnaires.pdf

POSTSCRIPT [23 February 2011]: The dataset for the survey has just been released at ESDS as SN 6695.

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Church of England Statistics for Mission, 2009

The provisional Church of England statistics for mission for 2009, released yesterday in the form of five tables and eight maps, ‘paint a mixed picture’, according to Revd Lynda Barley, the Church’s Head of Research and Statistics, quoted in an accompanying press release.

‘Alongside some encouraging signs, such as the number of under 16s in church holding steady and growth in church attendance in 16 out of 44 dioceses, there are continued challenges, with further small declines in traditional attendance measures.’

‘Excluded from these figures’, Barley adds, ‘are Fresh Expressions, chapel services in hospitals, education and other establishments, some international congregations and the projects funded by the Youth Evangelism Fund.’

However, looking at the statistics in more detail, it will be seen that 36 of the 41 key indicators registered a decrease between 2008 and 2009, albeit the fall was 1% or less in 16 instances, especially for the measures of churchgoing.

The sole double-digit drop was in communicants on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, 11% down on the year, attributed to widespread snow and ice and the consequent cancellation of services.

All-age attendance at Christmas was also 9% lower, for the same reason. Congregations at Christingle and carol services during Advent were not enumerated.

Other significant decreases in 2008-09 were in confirmations (7% fewer) and funerals (6%). The latter figure cannot be entirely explained by lessening mortality, since it was still 2.5% above the fall in the number of UK deaths in 2008-09.

Moreover, the fact that funerals in crematoria dropped by 9% and funerals in church by only 4% is clear evidence of secularizing tendencies and is in line with Co-operative Funeralcare’s recent research, which we have covered at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=840

The five Anglican increases for 2008-09 were for child baptisms (up by 3%), adult baptisms (6%), child thanksgivings (2%), Easter Eve and Easter Day communicants (0.4%), and electoral roll members (1%).

Too much should probably not be made of short-term changes, year on year, but it is perhaps instructive to look at comparisons between 2002 and 2009.

On this basis, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, overall and even allowing for special circumstances, the Church of England continues to decline, but at an uneven pace.

Over these seven years baptisms and thanksgivings were down by 9%, confirmations by 25%, marriages and blessings by 7%, funerals by 21%, and electoral roll members by 1%.

Average Sunday attendances over a four-week period in October fell by 6% between 2002 and 2009 and usual Sunday attendances by 10%. The latter measure is said to be ‘interpreted differently across the dioceses and is therefore not regarded as statistically accurate as a comparison’.

Yet even the newer all-age average weekly attendance figure, designed to capture churchgoing other than on Sundays, dipped by 3% over the seven years, with the weekly highest attendance also down by 2%. 

On the festival attendance front, the decrease between 2002 and 2009 was 4% for both communicants and all-age attendants on Easter Eve and Easter Day, 21% for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day communicants, and 7% for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day all-age attendants.

The only positive figures for 2002-09 were for child baptisms (+10%), adult baptisms (+31%), child thanksgivings (+13%), and weekly highest attendance by children and young people under 16 years (+3%).

Also a source of encouragement is that a further 375,000 children and young people attend church-based activities other than services.

Barley glosses these data thus: ‘It remains important to see these trends in the context of wider changes in a society where fewer people join and take part in membership organizations.’

‘Even in a General Election year, almost double the number of members of the three main political parties taken together will attend a Church of England parish church on a Sunday.’

Interviewed about the statistics for today’s Church of England Newspaper, Ven Bob Jackson, an Anglican church growth expert, said that ‘the Church of England is in a much better place than in the 90s’, with a slackening pace of decline and a renewed commitment to evangelism.

As well as pointing to the need to factor in Fresh Expressions, with Messy Church alone accounting for 100,000, Jackson added: ‘I think that the recent reduction in numbers is the result of people coming less often rather than fewer people.’

The provisional Church of England statistics for mission for 2009, both national and disaggregated to diocesan level, are available at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1179117/2009provisionalattendance.pdf

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Christmas Churchgoing in the Diocese of London

Anglican churches in the Diocese of London (which serves 17 boroughs in Greater London north of the River Thames) saw Christmas Eve and Christmas Day attendance levels rise by one-fifth between 2009 and 2010, according to returns from a cross-section of 22 churches from the 480 parishes in the diocese and summarized in a press release on 24 January. See:

http://www.london.anglican.org/NewsShow_14110

Two in every three London churches in the sample recorded an increase in their Christmas congregants. Grossed up, there would have been 130,000 worshippers at Christmas in 2010, compared with 110,000 in 2009, thus (assuming we are comparing like with like) more than reversing the decline from 116,000 in the Diocese of London on Christmas Eve/Day 2008 (the latest year for which national Anglican statistics are available at present).

According to a report in the Church of England Newspaper for 28 January (‘Christmas Attendance Soars in London Diocese’), the increase in 2010 is partly attributed to the use of radio advertisements for its Christmas services, the first time the Diocese of London has used them. London was possibly also helped by the fact that it generally suffered less from the adverse weather than many other parts of the country in the run-up to last Christmas.

It is sometimes said that Christmas attendances are affected by the days of the week on which Christmas Eve and Christmas Day fall. In 2010 they were Friday and Saturday. Nationally, some of the largest attendances at Anglican Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services (2,786,000) were recorded in 2005, the only occasion in the past decade when Christmas Day has been on a Sunday, the traditional day for Christian worship. However, they were surpassed by 2,994,000 in 2006, when Christmas Day was a Monday, followed by a decline in 2007 and 2008.

None of these figures include congregations at carol and other Christmas-related services during Advent.

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21st Century Evangelicals

According to a large-scale survey of churchgoing published by Tearfund in 2007, there are approximately two million evangelical Christians in the UK. Hitherto, we have had only limited insights into their profile and attitudes.

We now know a great deal more about them, thanks to a study undertaken by Christian Research for the Evangelical Alliance in 2010, and published on 11 January under the title 21st Century Evangelicals: A Snapshot of the Beliefs and Habits of Evangelical Christians in the UK.

17,298 Christians aged 16 and over completed the Christian Research questionnaire. These mostly divided between two samples: 14,511 attenders at seven Christian festivals in the UK and known to be popular with evangelicals, and 1,159 attenders at 35 churches randomly selected from the 3,222 in membership of the Evangelical Alliance.

Interestingly, 6% of both samples could not say for certain that they were Christians, while fully one-quarter of the professing Christians failed to designate themselves as evangelicals.

A third sample was also drawn, of black majority churches and conferences. Only a few agreed to participate. Although 1,239 questionnaires were completed by attenders at these churches, Christian Research clearly has reservations about the typicality of this sample, and limited use has been made of the findings from it.

Two reports on the research have been issued at present, although more are promised. The first (described as the ‘initial report’) is a ‘popular’ 24-page summary. This is fully-illustrated, selective in its use of statistics, and has an emphasis on headlines and brief commentaries. Such data as are quoted in it mainly relate to the festival sample. It can be found at:

http://eauk.org/snapshot/upload/21st-Century-Evangelicals-PDF.pdf

The second 47-page report (the so-called ‘data report’) is likely to be of special interest to BRIN users. This contains detailed information about the research methodology and the all-important weighting procedures, which require careful review (see the discussion and weighting factors on pp. 6-7).

The second document mainly comprises tables of results (pp. 8-45), routinely disaggregated for the festival and church samples and, more occasionally, for non-evangelical festival-goers. There are some minor inconsistencies between some of the tables when replies to certain questions are duplicated. This report can be accessed at:

http://www.eauk.org/snapshot/upload/21st-Century-Evangelicals-Data-Report.pdf

There were fewer differences in the profiles, beliefs and behaviours of the festival and church samples than might have been expected. However, for simplicity, and because they instinctively feel more ‘representative’ of grass-roots evangelicals, all the figures quoted below derive from the church sample only.

DEMOGRAPHICS: 60% of evangelical churchgoers are women and 38% men. 36% are under 45 years of age, 39% 45-64, and 21% 65 and over (an age profile far less skewed than for churchgoers in general). 24% are single, 1% cohabiting, 61% married, 6% separated or divorced, and 7% widowed.

BELIEFS: 98% agree that their faith is the most important thing in life and 96% that it is the key factor in their decision-making. 96% believe that Jesus is the only way to God. 96% consider the Bible to be the inspired word of God and 82% say that, in its original manuscript, it is without error. 92% believe in miraculous gifts of the Spirit. 59% believe in a physical hell, but 27% are unsure and 14% disbelieve. 39% think evolution and Christianity are incompatible, 43% that they are not.

PRACTICES: 95% claim to attend church once a week or more. 76% attend a small group meeting at least once a fortnight. 55% read the Bible daily and a further 36% during the course of a week. 78% pray daily and a further 20% during the course of a week.

EVANGELISM VERSUS SOCIAL ACTION: 91% deem it the Christian’s duty to be actively engaged in evangelism, and 58% talk about their faith with a non-Christian once a month or more. 82% regard evangelism and social action as equally important and 80% as complementary, but 39% think many churches place too much emphasis on social action. 88% consider it a Christian’s duty to volunteer in the service of the local community. 78% volunteer at least once a month. 98% voted in the 2010 general election.

MORALITY: 82% agree that sexual intercourse outside marriage is always wrong. 62% say that assisted suicide is always wrong (and 15% not). 49% agree and 33% disagree that abortion can never be justified. 36% feel it is wrong to have homosexual feelings, with 22% unsure and 42% not seeing it as problematical. However, 80% condemn homosexual actions. 84% oppose the blessing of civil partnerships in churches.

GIVING: 97% have given money to their church in the past year, 77% to Christian charities, 48% to other charities, 47% to individual missionaries, and 22% to individual homeless people. 62% claim to have given at least one-tenth of their household income during the past month to their church and charities. 73% agree that it is a Christian’s duty to give 10% of their income to their church, but only 40% tithed to their church during the past month.

ECUMENICAL AND INTER-FAITH WORK: 95% consider it important for Christians to be united in truth and 93% in mission. 88% say that their church works with other places of worship. 63% want Christians to collaborate with people of other faiths on community projects.

Also worth a glance is the Evangelical Alliance’s press release about both strands of the research, issued on 10 January. This focused on the themes of distinctiveness and diversity in the evangelical constituency, and highlighted the vital role of evangelicals in volunteering in the community. See:

http://eauk.org/media/uk-evangelical-christians-distinct-yet-diverse.cfm

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Back to Church Sunday 2010

‘Onward Christian Soldiers: Churches Resurgent’ proclaims the headline in Jonathan Wynne-Jones’s article in today’s Sunday Telegraph, referring to the case advanced by Christian Research over the past three months that the relentless decline in churchgoing may be coming to an end, at least for now.

The Church of England was also in upbeat mood when it issued a press release last Wednesday (15 December) about the outcomes of this year’s Back to Church Sunday (BTCS), which was held on 26 September. See:

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr11610.html

BTCS is an initiative for churchgoers to invite people they know who are no longer attenders to return to church. It was started in the Diocese of Manchester in 2004, spread to the Diocese of Wakefield in 2005, and has grown steadily ever since. Nine Anglican dioceses participated in 2006, 20 in 2007, 38 in 2008, and all 44 in 2009 and 2010.

Other denominations have latterly become involved, including (in 2010) congregations from the Baptist, Methodist, United Reformed and Elim Pentecostal churches; Congregational Federation, Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion and Salvation Army; the Church in Wales, Baptist Union of Wales, Presbyterian Church of Wales and Union of Welsh Independents; Churches Together in Scotland; and the Church of Ireland and Methodist Church in Ireland.

All told, around 3,500 places of worship took part in BTCS 2010, one-third of them for the first time. Collectively, they welcomed back 51,000 people, bringing the total of church returners since 2004 to more than 150,000, ‘enough to fill Wembley Stadium and the Emirates Stadium put together’, as the Anglican media folk put it.

However, what we are not told by them is that, despite a fair amount of publicity (including local radio advertisements), BTCS 2010 was evidently less successful than BTCS 2009, for which the equivalent press release last year announced 82,000 returners, including 53,000 in the Church of England alone.

A good many of these ‘prodigals’ inevitably fall away. Research by the Diocese of Lichfield after BTCS 2007 showed that, six months after the event, between 12% and 15% of returners had become regular worshippers. The Church of England considers this to be a high retention rate; others may feel that it represents quite a leakage.

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Today’s News – (1) ‘Islamic Extremism’, (2) Religion at Christmas

The regular weekly YouGov poll for The Sunday Times, published today, includes questions on a couple of topics which will interest BRIN readers. Interviewing was online on 16 and 17 December, among a representative sample of 1,966 adult Britons aged 18 and over. The data tables are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-171210.pdf

‘ISLAMIC EXTREMISM’

On 11 December an Iraqi-born British resident, Taimur Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, blew himself up during a suicide bombing on a busy shopping street in Stockholm. He had been a student at what is now the University of Bedfordshire in 2001-04 and had been told to leave the Luton Islamic Centre in 2007 on account of his radical views, although the mosque authorities did not report him to the police. He and his family lived in the town.

Against this background, YouGov posed a number of questions about so-called ‘Islamic extremism’. 51% of respondents considered that the government was doing insufficient to tackle the problem, including 63% of the over-60s, 60% of Conservative voters, 58% of men, and 57% of Northerners. Those least likely to take this line were young people aged 18-24 (31%) and Liberal Democrats (37%).

A further 22% thought that government was doing all it reasonably could to combat extremism, 10% that it was devoting too much effort to the issue, while 17% expressed no clear opinion.

A similar proportion, 52%, argued that universities should be doing more to combat ‘Islamic extremism’, rising to 68% among Conservative supporters and 65% of the over-60s. 13% believed that universities were doing all they reasonably could, 4% that they were already doing too much in this area, with 30% uncertain (including 38% of 18-24s).

Asked whether the Muslim community in Britain co-operated with the police in combating extremism, 7% believed that most or all British Muslims did so, 40% that many did so with a minority not co-operating, 24% that only a minority co-operated and the majority not, 13% that few or none co-operated, with 16% expressing no opinion.

Thus, 37% alleged that a majority of British Muslims failed to work with the police against extremism. The highest figures were for Conservative voters in the 2010 general election (44%), men (42%), the over-60s (42%), Northerners (42%), and the C2DE social group (40%).

Three-quarters of adults were critical of the directors of the Luton mosque for failing to inform the police of al-Abdaly’s views, the over-60s (82%), Conservatives (79%), and Northerners (78%) most inclining to this position. 12% thought the mosque should not have contacted the police, and 14% were uncertain.

78% of the sample agreed that all extremist preachers (whether Muslim, Christian or from another religion) should be banned from Britain, including 86% of Conservatives and the over-60s. The remaining 22% divided equally between don’t knows and those who did not want extremist preachers excluded.

The general nature of the question was presumably intended to subsume the case of Terry Jones, the American pastor with extremist views against Islam, which has been in the news recently.

CHRISTMAS

19% of Britons said that they would be attending a church service this Christmas, 5% less than in another recent YouGov poll for The Sun (http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=780). This sub-divided between 8% who regularly attended church throughout the year and 11% who did not normally worship but expected to do so over Christmas. 76% said they would not attend church over the festive period, 2% of whom were otherwise regular churchgoers, and 6% were undecided what they would be doing.

The apparent marginality of religion to the public’s Christmas was underlined by another question in which 75% described it as a predominantly commercial event and only 4% as a religious festival. A further 16% said that it was both and 3% neither. The youngest age cohort (18-24) was most likely to say that Christmas was wholly or partly about religion, followed by Liberal Democrats (24%), and the 18-39s, ABC1s, and Scots (23% each).

Finally, respondents were offered a choice of five guests for their Christmas Day meal. 15% elected for the Queen, 11% for Ann Widdecombe (the former Conservative politician, whose profile has been raised by her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing), 10% Matt Cardle (winner of the X Factor), 5% Liz Hurley and Shane Warne (media celebrities who had left their respective partners to start an affair, although some papers today suggest that it is already over), and just 3% the Archbishop of Canterbury. 55% wanted none of these guests at their dining table.

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Understanding Society

On 13 December the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) made an interim release of data for the general population component from Wave 1, Year 1 (running from 8 January 2009 to 7 March 2010) of Understanding Society, the new multi-topic United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). The dataset is catalogued as SN 6614. The full release of Wave 1 will be made in 2011.

UKHLS is, in part, the successor to the British Household Panel Survey, waves 1-7, 9, 11 and 13-18 of which (spanning the years 1991-2009) included sundry religious variables. Entries for each of these waves appear in the BRIN source database, and the relevant data are available from ESDS (as SN 5151). The three other components of UKHLS are: the general population sample, the innovation panel, and an ethnic minority booster.

UKHLS is based at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Fieldwork is conducted by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) and, in Northern Ireland, by the Central Survey Unit of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. Funding is provided by the Economic and Social Research Council and various Government departments and agencies.

UKHLS is an annual longitudinal (or panel) survey of the members of a nationally representative sample of approximately 40,000 households in the UK, the same individuals being re-interviewed in each wave. Each wave is collected over 24 months, the main first wave of data collection commencing in January 2009.

One person per household completes the household questionnaire. Additionally, each adult aged 16 and over is interviewed face-to-face and fills in a self-completion questionnaire. Young people aged 10 to 15 years are only asked to respond to a paper self-completion questionnaire. Wave 1, Year 1 of the general population sample had participation from 14,103 households (59% response) and 22,265 adults (86% response).

The principal religious interest of Wave 1 for adults is as follows: current religious affiliation; religion of upbringing; attendance at religious services; difference made by religious beliefs to a respondent’s life; religion as a perceived reason for discrimination in employment; and religion as a perceived reason for various forms of harassment. The young people’s questionnaire just covers religious affiliation.

Extensive documentation for Wave 1, Year 1 of UKHLS, including a codebook with basic frequencies, can be accessed at:

http://www.esds.ac.uk/findingData/snDescription.asp?sn=6614&key=6614

More background information about UKHLS in general will be found on the Understanding Society website:

http://www.understandingsociety.org.uk/

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