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Ten Years On

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Clive D. Field

In this post we summarize seven new pieces of research touching on inter-religious relations in Britain ten years on from the London bombings on 7 July 2005 and in the aftermath of the recent Islamist massacre of British tourists in Tunisia.

Tenth anniversary of 7/7 (1)

To mark the tenth anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, the UK edition of the Huffington Post is running a mini-series on ‘Beyond the Bombings’. This was launched on 3 July 2015 with a feature about a poll commissioned from YouGov, for which 1,578 adult Britons were interviewed online on 23-24 June 2015.

Perhaps the most striking finding of the survey was that a majority (56%) now considers that Islam, as distinct from Islamic fundamentalist groups, poses a threat (27% major, 29% some) to Western liberal democracy. This represents an increase on the levels immediately after 9/11 in 2001 (32%) and immediately after 7/7 in 2005 (46%). The groups most antipathetic to Islam in 2015 are UKIP supporters (83%), over-60s (71%), and Conservatives (63%). Just 15% assess that Islam presents no threat at all, the under-25s being most optimistic (33%).

Moreover, as many as 15% (five points more than in 2005) agree that a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to the country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism, rising to 45% of UKIP voters and 23% of over-60s. An additional 60% think there is a dangerous minority of disaffected Muslims, even if the great majority is peaceful and law-abiding, while merely 20% overall (but 36% of under-25s) accept that practically all British Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding and deplore terror attacks carried out in the name of Islam.

The Huffington Post feature can be found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/07/03/77-bombings-muslims-islam-britain-poll_n_7694452.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

and the full data tables, which also cover attitudes to multiculturalism and the perceived likelihood of further terror attacks on the scale of 7/7, are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/7kjmsq2f6j/HuffingtonPostResults_150624_British_Muslims_W.pdf

Tenth anniversary of 7/7 (2)

Another organization commemorating 7/7 by a new survey was British Future which released the results of its Survation poll on 2 July 2015, for which 3,977 Britons aged 18 and over had been interviewed online between 8 and 15 May 2015, including booster samples of Scottish and BME (black minority ethnic) respondents, which, inter alia, yielded a respectable unweighted number of 457 Muslims. Data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/British-Future-7-7-Poll-GB-Tables.pdf

The majority (54%) considered that community relations across ethnic and faith groups had deteriorated in the decade since 7/7, 19% saying they had got much worse and 35% slightly worse, with 37% perceiving no change and 9% some improvement. There was much less variation by demographic sub-groups than one might have imagined, albeit as many as 68% of UKIP voters discerned that relations had got worse.

Asked whether they thought the British public did not hold ordinary British Muslims responsible for the Islamist terrorists behind 7/7, 51% agreed, 22% disagreed, and 27% were neutral. The dissentients, i.e. those who implicitly said that the public did hold British Muslims responsible, included 36% of Muslims, just three points less than the 39% who said the public did not see them as responsible.

When the question was put in more personal terms, the majority (56%) accepted that Britain’s Muslims were opposed to the terrorist ideology behind 7/7, but 14% disagreed, with as many as 30% undecided. Those doubting Muslim opposition to terrorism included 28% of UKIP voters, 29% of those with the least positive attitude to immigration, and 27% with the least positive attitude to the European Union. Unsurprisingly, 72% of Muslims contended that their co-religionists were opposed to the ideology behind 7/7, yet even 12% of them claimed otherwise.

Tunisian massacre

The murder of 38 tourists (including 30 Britons) by an Islamist gunman in a beach resort just north of Sousse, Tunisia was the most noticed news story of last week, according to an online poll by Populus of 2,052 adult Britons on 1-2 July 2015. It was mentioned by 66% of respondents. Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Combating Islamic State (1)

Three-quarters of Britons are very or fairly worried that IS may attempt a terrorist attack in Britain, and only 19% are not, according to a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times conducted online among 1,531 adults on 2-3 July 2015. Over-60s (88%) are almost twice as anxious as the under-25s (47%), while UKIP and Conservative voters are also particularly concerned (87% and 84%, respectively). A plurality (45%) does not believe the police and security services have sufficient powers to combat IS in Britain, and a majority supports giving them wider powers, for example to monitor personal communications, to extend the period of detention without charge in the case of terrorist suspects, and to reintroduce control orders.

Three-fifths agree that Britain and other Western countries should be doing more to counter IS in Iraq and Syria, including two-thirds of men, over-60s, Conservative and UKIP voters. Most Britons (57%, peaking at 71% among Conservatives) now favour extending RAF air strikes against IS to Syria, as well as Iraq, with just 21% disapproving. However, opinion is more divided about committing British and American ground troops to combat IS in either Iraq or Syria, with approximately two-fifths for and against in each case. A blog on the survey, with a link to the full data tables, can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/07/05/most-would-approve-raf-air-strikes-syria/

There is a tracker of all YouGov polling on IS at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/dl5mxnrekm/YG-Archives-Pol-Trackers-Iraq-Syria-and-ISIS-030715.pdf

Combating Islamic State (2)

Fewer than half (47%) of Britons feel that it will be possible to beat the threat posed by IS at the present time, with women (39%) being far less confident than men (56%). This is according to a poll by ICM Unlimited conducted for the Daily Mirror among an online sample of 2,001 adults on 1-3 July 2015. Although pluralities backed airstrikes against IS (48%), building up local armies to fight IS (46%), and the assassination of IS leaders (41%), there was more reluctance to commit British or other ground troops (30%). And just 32% had confidence that military action would make the region safer, 29% convinced that it would make it still more dangerous. In a follow-up survey of 2,016 adults on 3-5 July, there was also a minority holding positive views of IS, 3% being very favourable and 6% somewhat favourable toward them (against 80% being very unfavourable). In the absence of data tables in the public domain, the fullest accounts of the survey are currently to be found in two articles on the Mirror’s website at:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/isis-cannot-beaten-fear-more-6009156

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-terror-attacks-inevitable-theres-6016015

Postscript: Data tables for both surveys have now been posted at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/2015_mirror_isis_poll-2.pdf

Anti-Semitism

The Anti-Defamation League has recently (30 June 2015) updated The ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, the first (2014) edition of which was covered by BRIN on 22 May 2014 at:

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

For the update, between 10 March and 3 April 2015, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research conducted interviews, mostly by telephone, with 10,000 adults aged 18 and over in 19 countries, including Great Britain, 500 interviews in each apart from 1,000 in the United States. As in 2014, ADL created index scores by asking whether 11 negative statements about Jews were true or false, assent to at least six of them being taken as evidence of anti-Semitic sentiments. Britain, with 12%, registered the fourth lowest score of all 19 nations, after Denmark, the United States, and The Netherlands, with Turkey, Greece, and Iran being most anti-Semitic (with scores of 71%, 67%, and 60%, respectively).

Responses to the 11 statements in Britain in 2015 were as follows:

% across	True	False	Don’t know
Jews are more loyal to Israel than Britain	41	45	15
Jews still talk too much about what happened in Holocaust	26	65	9
Jews have too much power in international financial markets	22	64	14
Jews have too much power in business world	21	68	11
People hate Jews because of way Jews behave	19	72	9
Jews have too much control over US government	18	64	18
Jews don’t care what happens to anybody but their own	16	77	7
Jews have too much control over global affairs	15	76	8
Jews think they are better than other people	15	77	7
Jews have too much control over global media	12	76	12
Jews are responsible for most of world’s wars	6	88	6

As the following table of attitudes to five religious groups in Britain in 2015 reveals, Muslims are regarded in the most unfavourable light, with Jews viewed almost as positively as Christians, notwithstanding that only 27% interact with Jews very or somewhat often and 15% not at all.

Attitudes to (% across)	Favourable	Unfavourable	Unrated
Christians	87	7	6
Jews	83	7	10
Buddhists	80	5	15
Hindus	79	7	13
Muslims	62	25	13

Besides the national cross-sections, an additional 100 interviews with Muslims were carried out by telephone in areas of high Muslim concentration in each of six Western European countries, including Britain, between 23 March and 8 April 2015. The smallness of the samples should encourage caution in interpreting the results, but it can be noted that Muslims in each country were found to have a very high anti-Semitic index score relative to the national average (54% versus 12% in the case of British Muslims).

To access the press release, executive summary, and (interactively) country-by-country results for the 2015 update, follow the links at the foot of the home page of The ADL Global 100 website at:

http://global100.adl.org/

Holocaust denial

According to the ADL poll, above, Holocaust denial, in the sense of the Holocaust being regarded as a myth which did not happen, is a negligible problem: 0% took this position in Britain, while 90% asserted that, not only did the Holocaust happen, but that the number of Jews who perished as a result has been fairly described by history.

Nevertheless, Holocaust denial, which is not illegal in Britain, remains a sensitive matter for British Jews, 64% of whom believe that it should become a criminal offence, with a majority among all age cohorts, including 56% of under-35s. This is according to a Survation telephone poll for the Jewish Chronicle on 17-23 June 2015, for which 1,023 Jewish adults were interviewed. The result was briefly reported by the newspaper in the edition for 3 July 2015 at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/138711/two-thirds-say-they-want-denial-banned

Posted in Religion and Politics, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged 7/7, Anti-Defamation League, Anti-Semitism, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, British Future, Buddhists, Christians, community relations, Daily Mirror, Hindus, holocaust, Huffington Post, ICM Unlimited, Iraq, ISIS, Islam, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Muslims, Populus, Sunday Times, Survation, Syria, terrorism, Tunisia, YouGov | Leave a comment

Mid-Summer Miscellany

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Christian voters: post-election

A ComRes poll for Tearfund published on 17 June 2015, and conducted online between 14 and 17 May, revealed details of how 1,507 practising (churchgoing) UK Christians had engaged with the 2015 general election on 7 May. Excluding those who either did not vote or declined to reveal how they had voted, the distribution of party support is tabulated below, alongside data for the electorate as a whole (taken from a YouGov survey of 92,945 voters between 6 and 18 May 2015). It will be seen that practising Christians were less likely than voters overall to back the Conservative, Labour, and UKIP parties, and they were above-average supporters of the Liberal Democrats and Greens. Liberal Democrats were especially popular with members of the historic Free Churches, reflecting a legacy of Nonconformist endorsement of Liberalism. The small number of Catholics interviewed (41 unweighted) is a matter of concern and may have negatively impacted the Labour vote.

% down	Practising Christians	All voters
Conservative	32	38
Labour	27	31
Liberal Democrat	17	8
UKIP	9	13
Green	10	4
Other	5	7

Asked which factors had been most important in helping them decide which party to vote for, 18% of practising Christians mentioned the economy, 13% their affinity for the party, 12% the qualities of the prospective MP, and 11% the promotion of equality/social justice. More generally, the main issues facing Britain today were assessed as inequality/social justice (27%), spiritual/religious decline (18%), immigration/asylum (14%), poverty (12%), NHS (11%), and lack of morality (10%). Issues perceived as facing the world over the next ten years differed somewhat, with environment/climate change topping the list at 28% and the threat posed by Islam/Islamization in fourth place with 15%. Detailed computer tabulations for the poll, including breaks by standard demographics, churchmanship, and denomination, are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Tearfund_-Post-Election-Polling.pdf

BME voters: pre-election

Not published until well after the general election (on 15 June), but with online fieldwork conducted beforehand (between 16 February and 5 March 2015), was a survey by Survation for Bright Blue among 1,231 black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons. It was specifically designed to capture BME attitudes to immigration and the Conservative Party, including breaks by religious affiliation, but several more general religion-related questions were also posed, which are our focus here. In line with other research, BMEs exhibited relatively high levels of religiosity. Only 14% claimed to have no religion, Christians (38%) and Muslims (30%) being most numerous. Of those professing a faith, just one-fifth said that it was not very or not at all important to them, 42% deeming it extremely and 38% quite important. However, fewer (36% of the whole sample) reported being an active member of a local religious group, with peaks of 43% among the under-35s and 50% for Muslims. On immigration matters, 78% denied that, for being truly British, one had to be a Christian, even a majority of Christians agreeing, while 79% (including the same proportion of Muslims) felt it right that a woman from a strongly Muslim country threatened with execution because of her Christian beliefs should be given asylum in the UK. Full data tables can be found at:

http://survation.com/archive/2015-2/

Social capital (1)

Based on data from the last two waves (1999, 2008) of the European Values Study and the 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Survey, Ingrid Storm considers ‘Civic Engagement in Britain: The Role of Religion and Inclusive Values’, European Sociological Review, Vol. 31, No. 1, February 2015, pp. 14-29. By means of logistic regression, she tests four hypotheses by identifying the religious and other correlates of membership of and volunteering for a range of organizations, within a theoretical framework of bonding versus bridging social capital (as proposed by Robert Putnam). A principal conclusion is that religion increases volunteering primarily through bonding rather than bridging social networks. However, there are many subtleties to the arguments and findings which it would be impossible to do justice to in the limited space which can be devoted here. Fortunately, the article is available on an open access basis, for anybody to read, at:

http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/1/14.full.pdf+html

Social capital (2)

Further analysis of the findings of the 2012 and 2014 National Church and Social Action Surveys, undertaken by Jubilee+ and last featured by BRIN in our post of 15 March 2015, has suggested that church-based social action initiatives are perceived to have a positive impact on church growth, in terms of people being added to local congregations, as well as being a social good. However, the extent of the impact is not uniform and varies according to factors such as the type and duration of social action and church size and location. More information is contained in the executive summary of Geoff Knott, Social Action and Church Growth, which can be found at:

http://www.jubilee-plus.org/Publisher/File.aspx?ID=153728

European Values Study

Better late than never, we should report publication of an important collection of 17 essays on the results of Wave 4 (2008) of the European Values Study (EVS, the fieldwork for which was actually conducted in Britain between August 2009 and March 2010): Value Contrasts and Consensus in Present-Day Europe: Painting Europe’s Moral Landscapes, edited by Wil Arts and Loek Halman (Leiden: Brill, 2014, ISBN 9789004254619, hardback). The volume, which is ‘attuned to both the descriptive and the theory-testing traditions of the EVS’, is arranged thematically rather than geographically, and operates mainly at the European level, so there is relatively little country-specific content. Nevertheless, the two chapters on religion contain some interesting insights:

Nienke Moor, ‘Religious Vitality and Church Attendance in Europe’ (pp. 213-30)
David Voas and Stefanie Doebler, ‘Secularization in Europe: An Analysis of Inter-Generational Religious Change’ (pp. 231-50)

Freedom of worship

Asked which of six freedoms or rights they thought most important, freedom to worship whatever god or religion people wanted was ranked fifth by 1,000 children aged 8-14 interviewed online about Magna Carta by OnePoll in May 2015, securing 16% of the vote. The top freedom was that nobody should be enslaved (45%). The information is derived from a graphic published in The Sunday Times, 14 June 2015, main section, p. 14. At the time of writing, no public domain online report of the survey has been traced.

Church of Scotland statistics

Church of Scotland congregational statistical returns to the recent General Assembly, for the year ending 31 December 2014, revealed a continuing sharp decline in the Kirk. A ten-year comparison of key performance indicators, expressed as absolute and relative figures, is tabulated below, with the full returns appended to the report of the Legal Questions Committee, on pp. 6.10-6.14 of the General Assembly ‘blue book’ at:

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/27119/2015_Vol_I_Blue_Book.pdf

Absolute figures	2004	2014	% change
Congregations	1,541	1,379	-10.5
Elders	41,621	31,146	-25.2
Communicants: all	535,834	380,163	-29.1
Communicants: admissions	9,136	4,643	-49.2
Baptisms	7,745	4,045	-47.8
Relative figures	2003	2013	% change
Communicants as % of adult population	13.7	9.0	-34.0
Admissions as % all communicants	1.7	1.4	-19.6
Baptisms as % of births	15.6	8.2	-47.5

Religiously aggravated offending in Scotland

Neil Davidson’s report on Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland in 2014-15 was published by the Scottish Government on 12 June 2015. The number of charges with a religious aggravation under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 was 569, 4% less than in 2013-14, 17% less than in 2012-13, and 37% less than in 2011-12 (when there were 897 charges). The decrease is only partly attributable to the use, during the past three years, of separate charges under Section 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, for this accounted for only 48 additional religious charges in 2014-15, making a total for the year of 617. The report is at:

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00479075.pdf

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has also released headline findings from a poll of Scottish public opinion about the 2012 Act as it affects offensive behaviour at football matches. The survey was conducted by YouGov in early June 2015 among an online sample of 1,044 Scottish residents. There was overwhelming (80%) support for the legislation, with 82% finding offensive sectarian singing and chanting at football matches and 78% disagreeing that they constituted an important part of football culture. Summary data appear in a set of PowerPoint slides at:

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00478775.pptx

Islamic Relief polling

On 15 June 2015, on the eve of Ramadan, Islamic Relief issued a press release publicizing a YouGov poll it had commissioned among a sample of 6,641 UK adults on 5-9 June. Relatively few data were actually cited, but two conclusions were drawn by Islamic Relief: a) a sharp decline in support for refugees, the number of people saying they should not be welcomed to Britain increasing by almost one-third compared to another YouGov survey a year before; and b) what were described as ‘hugely negative’ views of Muslims. The latter claim seemingly derived from the answers to an open question in which respondents were asked to mention three words or phrases which they associated with the term ‘Muslim’, ‘terrorism’ topping the list with a score of 12% and ‘extremist’ cited by 5%. The press release is at:

http://www.islamic-relief.org.uk/news/poll-on-eve-of-ramadan-shows-hugely-negative-view-of-muslims-and-sharp-decline-in-support-for-refugees/

Intrigued to know more, BRIN asked for a copy of the detailed data tables from this poll, which Islamic Relief generously (and expeditiously) provided. These contain breaks for all questions by most key demographics, including religious affiliation but excluding voting intention. Two additional points are worth highlighting. First, a majority of the population has had personal experience of Muslims living in the UK, principally as work colleagues (32%), as fellow school pupils (either themselves or their children, 29%), or as close relatives or friends (16%). Just 39% denied ever having any close contacts with Muslims during their educational, leisure, or professional lives, peaking at 53% of over-55s, 57% of retired persons, 62% of Presbyterians, and 74% of residents in Northern Ireland. Second, there was an exceptionally high (94%) awareness that Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims, albeit 21% considered that it should not be celebrated openly in the UK, a plurality of 49% disagreeing with that proposition, with 29% neutral or undecided. An abridged version of the data tables, missing some of the breaks by demographics, was posted by YouGov on its website on 18 June at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/3kri630dkh/Results-for-Islamic-Relief-Islam-in-the-UK-150618.pdf

Islamophobia

On 18 June 2015 the Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist, and Post-Fascist Studies at Teesside University published the third of its annual reports on Islamophobic incidents, based on data recorded by the Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) initiative: Mark Littler and Matthew Feldman, Tell MAMA Reporting, 2014/2015: Annual Monitoring, Cumulative Extremism, and Policy Implications. During the period in question (1 March 2014-28 February 2015) there were 548 anti-Muslim incidents, a significant reduction on the 734 cases for 2013-14, when there was a pronounced spike following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby on the streets of London at the hands of Islamists. Of these 548 incidents, 73% occurred online, fewer than half of which were notified to the police, and mostly involving anti-Muslim abuse or anti-Muslim literature, rather than actual threats. As might be expected, specific Islamist outrages were responsible for short-term increases in incidents, notably following the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris on 7 January 2015. The report is available at:

http://www.tees.ac.uk/docs/DocRepo/Research/Tell_Mama3.pdf

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged BMEs, Bright Blue, church attendance, church growth, Church of Scotland, Civic Engagement, ComRes, David Voas, Ethnic Minority British Election Survey, European Sociological Review, European Values Study, football matches, general election, Geoff Knott, Immigration, Ingrid Storm, Islamic Relief, Islamophobia, Jubilee Plus, Loek Halman, Mark Littler, Matthew Feldman, Muslims, National Church and Social Action Surveys, Neil Davidson, Nienke Moor, OnePoll, practising Christians, Ramadan, religious freedom, religious prejudice, religiously aggravated offending, Scotland, sectarianism, secularization, Social Capital, Stefanie Doebler, Sunday Times, Survation, Tearfund, Teesside University, Tell MAMA, voting, Wil Arts, YouGov | Leave a comment

A Fortnight in Religious Statistics

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Here are ten religious statistical news stories which have come to BRIN’s attention during the past fortnight.

Religious affiliation: population census (1)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just launched a public consultation around its initial view of the content of the 2021 population census for England and Wales. Responses, which can be either from organizations or individuals, need to be submitted by 27 August 2015. They may cover the full range of consultation topics or just the one(s) of particular concern. With regard to religious affiliation, the intention of ONS is to include a question on a voluntary basis, as in 2001 and 2011. In the interests of comparability, it is reluctant to change the actual wording. The consultation document asks respondents how they currently use the census religion data and what the impact on their work would be if such data were no longer collected. It is hoped that BRIN users would wish to support, by responding to ONS, the continued inclusion of a religion question in the census. More details are available by clicking the ‘complete the survey’ link on the consultation website at:

https://consultations.ons.gov.uk/census/2021-census-topics-consultation

Religious affiliation: population census (2)

Higher education has often been assumed to have a secularizing effect, and the hypothesis is reasserted by James Lewis, ‘Education, Irreligion, and Non-Religion: Evidence from Select Anglophone Census Data’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2015, pp. 265-72. Utilizing religious affiliation data from the censuses of Australia in 2006, Canada in 2011, and England and Wales in 2011, he shows that college graduates have an above-average representation among people professing no religion and particularly among atheists, humanists, or agnostics. In England and Wales, for example, 18% of all adults were found to have a bachelor’s or higher degree, but the proportion was 24% for religious ‘nones’, rising to 40% for agnostics, 43% for humanists, and 44% for atheists (the last three categories being write-in replies). For Christians the figure was only 15%. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2015.1025556#.VXnlYOlRHX4

Religious affiliation: British Social Attitudes

As reported by Dr Ben Clements in his BRIN research note of 3 June 2015, NatCen Social Research has recently updated its religious affiliation trend data from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys. Statistics are now available for every year between 1983, when BSA commenced, and 2014, except for 1988 and 1992. NatCen concludes that the Church of England’s market share has declined throughout this period and appears to have accelerated during the past decade, both relatively and absolutely. It now claims the allegiance of only 17% of British adults compared with 40% in 1983. Whereas there were 16.5 million adult Anglicans in 1983, there were just 8.6 million in 2014. Roman Catholic allegiance has been much steadier, at around one in ten of the population (or 4 million adults), while the number of non-Christians has quintupled. Those professing no religion have risen from one-third to one-half as a proportion, and, in figures, from 12.8 million in 1983 to 24.7 million in 2014. NatCen’s press release is at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/news-media/press-releases/2015/may/british-social-attitudes-church-of-england-decline-has-accelerated-in-past-decade/

Church growth

Towards a Theology of Church Growth, edited by David Goodhew (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, ISBN 9781472414007, £19.99, paperback) comprises 12 chapters together with a foreword (by the Archbishop of Canterbury) and a conclusion (by the editor). Although numerical growth of the Church (especially of local congregations) is a constant presence in the book, and continues to be regarded as important, the volume is less concerned with statistics (which are remarkably thin on the ground) than with exploring a theology of church growth from the perspectives of the Bible, Christian doctrine, and church history. The historical section contains five essays, ranging from the early Church to Britain from 1750 to 1970, the author of the last (Dominic Erdozain) conceding the reality of church decline while simultaneously proposing ‘a more optimistic account of the Christian ecology of modern Britain’. Further information can be found at:

https://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&title_id=19791&edition_id=1209349895&calcTitle=1

Religion and physician-assisted suicide

Thanks are due to Dr Ben Clements for drawing BRIN’s attention to some new research into religion and physician-assisted suicide: Andriy Danyliv and Ciaran O’Neill, ‘Attitudes towards Legalising Physician Provided Euthanasia in Britain: The Role of Religion over Time’, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 128, March 2015, pp. 52-6. Utilizing evidence from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys for six data-points between 1983 and 2012, the authors demonstrate statistically significant increased support for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide (for patients suffering a painful and incurable disease) running parallel with growth in indicators of secularization. Multivariate analysis showed that religious affiliation and, more especially, frequency of attendance at religious services were the principal predictors of attitudes to physician-assisted suicide, with support for legalization being greatest among those with least religious commitment. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614008387

Attitudes to religious groups

A plurality of Britons (40%) has a negative impression of Muslims, almost double the number regarding them positively (22%), with 37% neutral. This is according to a YouGov/Eurotrack seven-nation survey conducted between 20 and 27 May 2015, for which 1,667 Britons were interviewed online. The number viewing Muslims negatively was higher in Britain than in Germany, Norway, and Sweden, the same as in France, but lower than in Denmark and Finland (45%).

Jews, by contrast, were regarded much more favourably, with 41% in Britain having a positive impression (a figure bettered only in Sweden), 50% being neutral and just 7% negative (the smallest number of any of the nations, Sweden excepted). In fact, Christians in Britain had a greater negative rating (11%) than Jews, albeit their positive score was also higher (45%), with 42% neutral to Christians. Danes (47%) held the most positive attitudes to Christians and Norwegians (38%) the least.

A summary of the British data is tabulated below. Results for all seven nations, also covering opinions of five other groups (gypsies, gay people, black people, young people, and the elderly) can be found at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/g96awulgzv/Eurotrack_Minorities_W.pdf

Attitudes to … (% down)	Muslims	Jews	Christians
Very positive	6	15	17
Fairly positive	16	26	28
Positive	22	41	45
Neither positive nor negative	37	50	42
Fairly negative	24	6	9
Very negative	16	1	2
Negative	40	7	11
Don’t know	2	2	2

Religious diversity

Somewhat contrary to authorial expectations, practising (churchgoing) Christians are more interested in and more tolerant of other religious groups than nominal Christians or the religiously unaffiliated, according to new analysis of data from the ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ project at Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit: Leslie Francis, Alice Pyke, and Gemma Penny, ‘Christian Affiliation, Christian Practice, and Attitudes to Religious Diversity: A Quantitative Analysis among 13- to 15-Year-Old Female Students in the UK’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2015, pp. 249-63. The authors interpret their findings to mean that Church teaching and Christian practice are nurturing the development of the UK as a multi-cultural and multi-faith society. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2015.1026116#.VXntlulRHX4

Evangelicals and poverty

Good News for the Poor? is the latest report from the Evangelical Alliance’s 21st Century Evangelicals series, which commenced in 2011. It is based upon replies by 1,607 self-identifying evangelical Christians to an online survey in November 2014. They were either members of the Alliance’s self-selecting research panel or recruited via open invitation on the Alliance’s website or social media networks; thus, they may not be representative of all evangelicals in the UK. The overwhelming majority of respondents (93%) was found to be in a financially comfortable position themselves (being either wealthy, having no financial worries, or getting by) and, relative to the general public, they tended to have higher than average expectations about ownership of material possessions (except when it came to television). Through their attitudes and actions (charitable giving and volunteering) they mostly recognized the importance of tackling poverty issues and expressed concern about the fall-out from Government welfare reforms. Nevertheless, 71% agreed that spiritual poverty is a bigger problem than material poverty, with 77% saying that, compared with some overseas countries, the UK is spiritually destitute and 66% that Churches in the UK are not very good at evangelizing and discipling the poorest sections of society. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.eauk.org/church/resources/snapshot/upload/Good-news-for-the-poor-report-pdf.pdf

Sikhs and the general election

In our post of 25 May 2015, we reported on the results of the Survation/British Future poll of the voting of ethnic minorities at the 2015 general election, including breaks by religious groups. The reliability of this survey has subsequently been questioned in various quarters, not least by the Sikh Federation (UK) which has argued that Sikhs were seriously underrepresented in the sample and that the figures given by Survation for Sikh voting (49% Conservative, 41% Labour) were misleading. In an attempt to convey the ‘correct’ picture, the Federation has published the findings of its own post-election survey of the voting of 1,000 Sikh electors in 190 constituencies. This revealed that 50% voted Labour, 36% Conservative (up from 15% in 2010), and 15% for other parties. The Federation’s two press releases on the subject can be found at:

http://dailysikhupdates.com/british-future-survey-challenged-on-how-sikhs-voted-in-uk-elections/

British National Bibliography religion and theology data

Thanks are due to Dr Peter Webster for alerting BRIN to the recent release, by The British Library, of a subset of metadata from the British National Bibliography (BNB) for religion and theology (Dewey Decimal Classification 200-299). The dataset, covering 119,000 monographs and 4,200 serials published in Britain from 1950 to the present, is available for download and reuse on a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication basis. It will permit analysis of trends in religious publishing since the Second World War and can be downloaded from:

http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/download.html

Posted in Historical studies, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Alice Pyke, Andriy Danyliv, Anti-Semitism, British Library, British National Bibliography, British Social Attitudes Survey, census of population, Christianophobia, Christians, church growth, Ciaran O'Neill, David Goodhew, Eurotrack, euthanasia, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, Gemma Penny, general election, higher education, Irreligion, Islamophobia, James Lewis, Jews, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Leslie Francis, Muslims, NatCen Social Research, Office for National Statistics, physician-assisted suicide, poverty, Religious Affiliation, Religious diversity, Sikh Federation UK, Sikhs, Social Science and Medicine, theology, voting, YouGov | Leave a comment

Good Death and Other News

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Good death

Time was when religion was the cardinal attribute of a ‘good death’. But no more, it seems, according to a ComRes survey for the National Council for Palliative Care published on 18 May 2015, for which 2,016 adult Britons were interviewed online on 29-30 April. Asked to rank six factors in terms of importance for ensuring a ‘good death’, only 5% put ‘having your religious/spiritual needs met’ in first position while 60% placed it last, the mean score being 5.27 out of six. The next score was 3.68 for being involved in decisions about end-of-life care, and the lowest of all (and thus the most popular option) was 2.33 for being pain free. Indeed, for 33% the top priority was being pain free, for 17% being with family and friends, and for 13% retaining one’s dignity. There were comparatively few variations by demographics, apart from in London where having religious/spiritual needs met was the most important factor for 11%, although even here 47% rated it least significant. Data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/National-Council-for-Palliative-Care_Public-opinion-on-death-and-dying.pdf

Geographical knowledge

They may be among the most iconic landmarks in the country, but a significant minority of Brits are unable to recognize Canterbury Cathedral and St Paul’s Cathedral as being in the UK. This is according to a poll of 2,000 adults conducted on behalf of Mercure Hotels and published on 22 May 2015. Shown pictures of a number of famous locations, and given multiple choice answers, 65% correctly identified St Paul’s Cathedral but 28% confused it with The Vatican and 6% thought it was somewhere else. Canterbury Cathedral was recognized by 82% but 15% claimed it was Notre Dame in Paris, with 2% suggesting other places. A similar lack of knowledge was displayed for more secular landmarks. No data tables are available, and this summary is taken from the report at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3091436/Great-Stupid-Britain-New-survey-finds-Brits-think-Brighton-Pavilion-Taj-Mahal-Mr-Darcy-s-Pemberley-real-stately-home-St-Paul-s-Vatican.html

Meanwhile …

St Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, has been voted the nation’s favourite building in a survey for UKTV published on 21 May 2015, for which 2,000 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed online by OnePoll during April. St Paul’s Cathedral attracted a vote of 38%, with Stonehenge and the Houses of Parliament in second and third places (with 30% and 26%, respectively). Other ecclesiastical buildings to make the top 20 were Westminster Abbey (eighth, 14%), Durham Cathedral (eleventh, 8%), and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge (fourteenth, 8%). St Paul’s Cathedral also topped the poll for being the most impressive feat of design in the country, being voted for by 68%, almost double the figure for Westminster Abbey (38%). No data tables have been released, but UKTV’s press release can be found at:

http://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/nations-favourite-buildings-revealed/

Faith-based social action

The latest attempt to quantify faith-based social action was published by the Cinnamon Network on 20 May 2015: Cinnamon Faith Action Audit National Report. It derives from an online survey of 4,440 local churches and other faith groups in 57 locations throughout the UK in February 2015, of which 2,110 responded saying they were actively working to support their local community; 94% of them were Christian. These 2,110 groups were mobilizing 139,600 volunteers and 9,177 paid staff to benefit 3,494,634 individuals in 2014 through 16,068 projects with a total financial value of £235 million (including a calculation of volunteer hours at the living wage level). Scaled up for the 60,761 faith groups in the UK, faith-based social action is estimated by the Cinnamon Network to be worth over £3 billion per annum and to support over 47 million beneficiaries. However, it should be noted that the sample was recruited through the invitation of local champions and may not be statistically representative. The report is available at:

http://www.cinnamonnetwork.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Final-National-Report.pdf

Ethnic minorities and the general election

Black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons have traditionally favoured the Labour Party, but one-third voted for the Conservatives in the 2015 general election (held on 7 May), according to a Survation poll for British Future conducted among an online sample of 2,067 BMEs between 8 and 15 May 2015. Voting by religious groups (for the 79% of the sample who voted) is tabulated below, from which it will be seen that the Conservatives especially appealed to Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh electors, Labour to Muslims, and the smaller parties to Buddhists and the non-religious. British Future’s press release of 25 May 2015 is available at:

http://www.britishfuture.org/articles/ethnic-minority-votes-up-for-grabs/

Full data tables can be found at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BFBME-Tables-25-05-15.pdf

% across	Conservative	Labour	Other parties
All BMEs	33	52	15
Christian	31	56	13
Muslim	25	64	11
Buddhist	54	25	21
Hindu	49	41	10
Sikh	49	41	10
Not religious	26	50	24

Young people and Muslims

There is significant negativity toward Muslims on the part of young people, according to findings from a study of 5,945 10-16-year-olds at 60 English schools in 2012-14 and published by Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC) on 19 May 2015. This is associated with an exaggerated notion of the size of the Muslim presence in England, the average estimate by pupils being 36% of the population, seven times the real figure. Questionnaires had been sent to schools ahead of visits by the SRTRC team, and, although the sample is not claimed as being representative, the ethnic and religious profile is said to broadly match the 2011 census.

Summary data have been published by The Guardian at:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/may/19/most-children-think-immigrants-are-stealing-jobs-schools-study-shows

They reveal that:

42% acknowledge there are poor relations between Muslims and non-Muslims
41% view forced marriages as being common in Islam
31% agree that Muslims are taking over England
29% think Muslim women are oppressed
26% believe Islam encourages terrorism and extremism
19% disagree that Muslims make a positive contribution to English society
14% disagree that Islam is a peaceful religion

Slightly different figures are quoted in the SRTRC press release at:

http://www.srtrc.org/news/news-and-events?news=5776

Islamic State

There has been limited British polling of attitudes to Islamic State (IS) thus far this year, doubtless because of pollsters’ preoccupation with the general election campaign but also perhaps because of a perception that IS has suffered some setbacks (until very recently, that is). However, a YouGov survey published on 22 May 2015, and conducted online among 1,494 Britons on 18-19 May, has found that 50% of all adults (and 63% of over-60s) assess that IS has become more powerful over the past six months and only 5% less, with 32% detecting its position as stable. Although only 33% are aware for certain that the RAF is currently taking part in air strikes against IS, 59% approve of such RAF participation and 55% would like to see it scaled up (men particularly so, 67%). Full data tables, minus breaks by voting intention (which seem to have all but disappeared from pollsters’ websites following their poor performance in the general election, now the subject of independent audit), are available via the link in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/05/23/public-back-raf-air-strikes-worry-isis-winning/

Anti-Semitism

On 13 May 2015 the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) published an important 32-page policy paper summarizing some (but by no means all) recent research into British anti-Semitism and outlining the principles of a future research strategy in this area: Jonathan Boyd and L. Daniel Staetsky, Could it Happen Here? What Existing Data Tell Us about Contemporary Antisemitism in the UK. The paper covers: a) the attitudes of non-Jews toward Jews, principally on the basis of surveys undertaken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project and the Anti-Defamation League and of anti-Semitic incidents recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST); b) Jewish responses to anti-Semitism, taken from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) studies and the JPR’s 2013 National Jewish Community Survey; and c) an analysis of the perpetrators of anti-Semitism, mainly from CST and FRA data. The report is available for download at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.2015.Policy_Debate_-_Contemporary_Antisemitism.pdf

To quote JPR: ‘The report demonstrates that existing data present a complex and multi-faceted picture of reality, proving some existing hypotheses beyond any reasonable doubt, but challenging others. It further maintains that research data on antisemitism in the UK vary in quality, and many of the outputs seem to generate far more heat than light. It argues that much more work needs to be done in coordinating research efforts, maximising the value of existing datasets, focusing on the areas of greatest concern, and ensuring that any data collected and analysed are strongly concentrated on the most important issues: understanding the threat, assessing whether it is growing, declining or stable, and providing genuine policy insights for international, national and Jewish communal leaders, as well as Jews more generally.’ Significantly, there is no mention here of non-Jewish (including academic) audiences for research data in this field.

Reflections on religious surveys

Abdul-Azim Ahmed reflects on the utility (and pitfalls) of sample surveys on religion and belief in a post on the On Religion blog on 5 May 2015 at:

http://www.onreligion.co.uk/7-out-of-10-people-are-sick-of-surveys/

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged Abdul-Azim Ahmed, Anti-Semitism, British Future, Canterbury Cathedral, Cinnamon Network, ComRes, Daniel Staetsky, end-of-life care, ethnic minorities, faith-based social action, general election, good death, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Islam, Islamic State, Jonathan Boyd, Mercure Hotels, Muslims, National Council for Palliative Care, On Religion, OnePoll, RAF, religious/spiritual needs, Show Racism the Red Card, Social Capital, St Paul's Cathedral, Survation, UKTV, voting, Westminster Abbey, YouGov, young people | Leave a comment

General Election Voting and Other News

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Clive D. Field

How religious groups actually voted

BRIN has covered several surveys which sought to ascertain how members of faith groups intended to vote in the UK general election of 7 May 2015. Thanks to Lord Ashcroft, we now have some information about what the three major groups (Christian, non-Christian, no religion) actually did, both as regards voting behaviour and the factors influencing it. Between 5 and 7 May 2015 Ashcroft interviewed, by a combination of online and telephone, 12,253 Britons who claimed to have voted (and it should be remembered that one-third of the country did not cast their vote on 7 May), of whom 31% had done so by post beforehand and 68% in person on the day. A selection of findings is tabulated below, with the full data available at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Post-vote-poll-GE-2015-150507-Full-tables.pdf

In terms of voting at the 2015 general election, the data confirm the findings of other research, that:

Christians are disproportionately Conservative
Non-Christians are disproportionately Labour
No religionists disproportionately favour the smaller parties

% down	All	Christian	Non-Christian	No religion
Party voted for in 2015
Conservative	34	41	28	24
Labour	31	28	43	34
UKIP	14	16	8	13
LibDem	9	8	8	11
Other	12	9	14	18
When voting decision was made
On polling day	11	10	13	12
Within previous week	22	20	23	23
Within previous month	18	17	19	18
Longer ago	50	53	45	46
Single most important reason for vote
Trusted motives/value of party	38	36	34	42
Preferred promises made by party	18	18	18	18
Always voted for party	10	12	10	8
Party leader would make better Prime Minister	10	11	12	7
Best local candidate regardless of party	9	9	12	9
Voted tactically to stop another party	9	8	9	11
Senior party members make competent government	5	6	4	5
Party voted for in 2010
Conservative	39	46	33	28
Labour	26	25	33	28
UKIP	4	4	3	3
LibDem	24	21	24	31
Other	8	5	6	10
Most important issues for country
Improving NHS	55	55	57	56
Growing economy/creating jobs	51	51	46	53
Controlling immigration	41	48	32	32
Cutting deficit	30	33	24	28
Tackling cost of living	25	21	30	30
Reforming welfare	20	22	17	18
Defending Britain’s interests in Europe	18	21	15	14
Improving schools	13	11	16	15
Protecting environment	9	5	11	13
Dealing with crime	6	6	9	5
Most important issues for self/family
Improving NHS	58	58	56	57
Tackling cost of living	44	42	45	47
Growing economy/creating jobs	42	41	38	43
Controlling immigration	29	34	23	23
Cutting deficit	20	22	17	18
Improving schools	17	16	20	18
Defending Britain’s interests in Europe	13	16	9	10
Reforming welfare	12	14	10	10
Protecting environment	12	9	15	16
Dealing with crime	10	10	15	9
Would make better Prime Minister
David Cameron	50	57	40	40
Ed Miliband	33	28	43	40
Feeling benefits of economic recovery
Already	26	29	21	23
Not yet but expect to at some point	37	38	40	34
No and do not expect to	37	33	38	44
Austerity/cuts in government expenditure
Still needed over next five years	46	51	38	40
Needed in past but not over next five years	30	31	29	28
Never really needed	24	18	33	32

British Election Study constituency results file

Thanks to Ben Clements for pointing out that on 15 May 2015 the British Election Study (BES) 2015 team released the first version of the 2015 general election results file. This comprises, for each constituency, voting from both the 2015 and 2010 general elections alongside a range of contextual information, including religious affiliation data from the 2011 population census. See the BES press release at:

http://www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-resources/2015-general-election-results-data-released-by-the-bes/#.VVYrfelFDX6

Demise of the Methodist MP

The Methodist Recorder (15 May 2015, p. 1) thinks there are no Methodist MPs following the 2015 general election, Sir Alan Beith, Meg Munn, and Sir Andrew Stunell all having stood down when the last Parliament was dissolved. The newspaper regrets the disappearance of the long tradition of Methodist involvement in the House of Commons. A century ago, following the 1906 Liberal landslide, there were as many as 49 Methodist MPs, 37 of them Liberals.

Catholics and voting

The Tablet (16 May 2015, pp. 47, 51) has partially released the topline findings of an online poll of the voting intentions of 1,260 self-identifying British Catholics which it commissioned YouGov to undertake in the run-up to the general election on 7 May 2015. The weekly’s coverage particularly focused on the situation in Scotland, where 48% of Catholics indicated their support for the Scottish National Party and only 38% for the Scottish Labour Party, which has traditionally been very dependent on the Catholic vote. In Britain as a whole a plurality of 41% of Catholics intended to support Labour (12% less than in an Ipsos MORI survey for The Tablet before the 2005 general election), 31% the Conservatives, and 13% the United Kingdom Independence Party. Neither The Tablet nor YouGov have released the full data tables as yet, but one of the weekly’s articles is freely available online at:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/2075/0/catholics-desert-labour-in-scotland-exclusive-tablet-poll-reveals-

Catholics and climate change

The encyclical on the environment and human ecology due to be promulgated by Pope Francis this summer could have a far greater influence over the lives and lifestyle of English and Welsh Catholics than any other areas of pontifical direction in recent decades, according to one reading of YouGov research for aid agency CAFOD which was reported by Catholic and some secular media last week. A sample of 1,049 Catholics was interviewed online, 80% of whom said they felt a duty to care for God’s creation, with 72% expressing concern about the impact of climate change on the world’s poorest people, and 64% claiming they had paid at least some attention to the climate debate. Seven in ten anticipated the Catholic community would heed any papal message on climate change, albeit only 33% thought themselves likely to alter their own behaviour as a result (against 54% thinking it unlikely). Frustratingly, neither CAFOD nor YouGov have yet released the full data for this survey, which has forced BRIN to rely upon news stories in the Catholic Times and The Tablet as its sources, the latter being available at:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/2036/0/one-in-three-catholics-says-francis-document-on-climate-change-will-inspire-them-to-live-a-greener-lifestyle-

Religious leaders

Religious leaders exercise relatively little influence over the British population, according to a YouGov poll for The Tablet among a sample of 3,211 adults interviewed online between 30 March and 1 April 2015. Only 19% acknowledged that they had been influenced by one or more religious leaders (even by one they had personally known) during the course of their lifetime. The proportion did not exceed one-quarter in any demographic sub-group apart from Catholics (41%) and non-Christians (33%) while predictably falling to as low as 7% for the religious nones. Asked which of seven religious leaders (including the current and former Popes) had made the best contribution to moral and religious life in Britain, 72% of the whole sample replied none of them or that they did not know, the present Archbishop of Canterbury receiving the best individual score (8%). Just 28% said that they took notice when religious leaders made public comments on political or economic matters and even fewer (23%) when they spoke about issues of personal morality (peaking at 41% among Catholics). At the same time, favourability ratings for a few international religious leaders were fairly high, notably for the Dalai Lama (57%), Desmond Tutu (46%), and Pope Francis (40%). This apparent paradox of low influence and some residual popularity is explored in Linda Woodhead’s article accompanying the survey, published in The Tablet, 16 May 2015, pp. 6, 8. Full data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ktmkf5g7qy/TheTablet_Results_150401_religious_leaders_Website.pdf

Religious extremism

Almost one in five UK residents considers religious extremism to be one of the most important challenges to the security of EU citizens at present, according to the newly-published report on Europeans’ Attitudes towards Security, based on Special Eurobarometer 432, for which 1,302 UK adults were interviewed face-to-face by TNS UK between 21 and 30 March 2015. Respondents were presented with a list of 15 security challenges from which they could select a maximum of three. The UK’s 19% figure for religious extremism was on a par with the EU average of 20% but it had risen considerably from 10% in June 2011. The report is at:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_432_en.pdf

Britain uncovered poll

In our post of 26 April 2015 we noted some of the headline findings from an online poll pf UK adults by Opinium Research on behalf of The Observer on 13-16 February, especially as regards five specific questions on religion. Opinium released the full data tables on 13 May, extending to 967 pages, and these include, not just breaks by demographics for the religion questions, but breaks by religious affiliation for all the other (secular) questions. The tables can be found at:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/sites/ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/files/op5186_tables_-_banner1_-_published.pdf

To illustrate the correlates of religious affiliation, we tabulate below the results for some questions about the incidence of lying on various types of form (‘yes’ answers only shown):

Admitted lying (%)	All	Anglican	Catholic	Other Christian	Non-Christian	Agnostic or atheist
Job application form	18	15	26	14	18	20
Insurance form	9	9	19	8	10	7
Tax form	10	11	22	9	13	6
Mortgage application	8	8	20	7	11	5

Sub-sample sizes are rather small, but it is interesting that the group most consistently prone to admit being economical with the truth are not agnostics or atheists but Roman Catholics. Matters were somewhat different when it came to what to do about finding a wallet containing £200, the proportion saying they would keep it being similar for Catholics (30%) as for agnostics and atheists (29%), against 25% for the population as a whole.

New Churches in the North East

BRIN is indebted to David Goodhew for the following update: The ‘New Churches in the North East’ Project, funded by a Leech Fellowship, is close to completion. At a conference at St Johns College, Durham on 17 April 2015 draft findings were presented. The research team estimate that 120 new churches have been founded in the North East of England since 1980. Of these, around 40 are based in minority ethnic communities. The new churches represent a major new feature on the religious landscape of the North East. Their existence indicates that the regions of England are seeing some of the new church activity that has been noted in London in the work of Peter Brierley and Andrew Rogers. The prominence of black and minority ethnic communities amongst the new churches shows that the North East (and the North East church) is significantly more diverse than is often assumed. The final report for the project will be issued in September 2015. For more information about the project, go to:

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

Self-supporting ministers

A survey of 296 self-supporting ministers in four Church of England dioceses (Bristol, Gloucester, Lichfield, and Worcester) has revealed significant sources of frustration among them, including the fact that nearly half feel they are seen as ‘second-class’ by their stipendiary colleagues. Full results are not yet available online, but a summary of the research can be found in the Church Times at:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/15-may/news/uk/ssms-survey-finds-joy-tempered-by-frustrations

Posted in Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged British Election Study, CAFOD, church growth, Church of England, Church Times, climate change, Eurobarometer, general election, honesty, Linda Woodhead, Lord Ashcroft, Methodist MPs, Methodist Recorder, North East England, Opinium Research, religious extremism, religious leaders, Roman Catholics, self-supporting ministry, The Observer, The Tablet, TNS UK, voting, YouGov | 1 Comment

Religion and the General Election

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Clive D. Field

With the 2015 general election only four days away, on 7 May, a round-up of recent research on religion and politics in Britain seems appropriate. Here we report on several new stories and remind BRIN readers of other pertinent research which we have covered in posts during the past few weeks.

Density of religious groups

Several attempts have been made to assess the potential impact of the ‘religious vote’ by examining the density of religious groups in individual parliamentary constituencies, as recorded in the 2011 population census, and comparing it with constituency-level voting patterns at the 2010 general election, especially in the light of the size of the majority obtained by the successful candidate five years ago.

General

A multi-group analysis is offered in a new 28-page briefing paper published by the Henry Jackson Society on 30 April 2015: Alan Mendoza, Religious Diversity in British Parliamentary Constituencies. In a series of maps and tables it charts the density of nine major religions groups (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, other religion, no religion, and religion not stated) in each of Britain’s 632 parliamentary constituencies (Northern Ireland is not covered), set alongside political data from the 2010 general election. The religious and political composition of 193 marginal seats is particularly investigated. It is concluded that the five principal minority religions are likely to have a greater impact on the electoral outcome of marginal seats than in constituencies overall. For example, in 47% of marginals the number of Muslims is greater than the margin of victory in 2010, the equivalent figures for Hindus being 21% of marginals, for Sikhs 13%, for Buddhists 8%, and for Jews 6%. In all, there are 93 marginals where the number of one or more of the five main minority religions outweighs the margin of victory. However, it is argued that the impact will be lessened by the fact that religious minorities will probably not vote in a uniform way, with religion being only one determinant of their political behaviour, a topic to which the Henry Jackson Society promises to return in future. The report can be downloaded from:

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2015/04/30/religious-diversity-in-british-parliamentary-constituencies/

Jews

On 29 April 2015, the day before the Henry Jackson Society’s briefing, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research published Where Jewish Votes May Matter Most: The Institute for Jewish Policy Research Guide to the 2015 General Election in the UK by Jonathan Boyd. Although Jews form less than half a per cent of the population of the whole country, they tend to be spatially clustered. In his report Boyd profiles the 20 English and Welsh constituencies with the largest number of Jews, showing that there are just five where Jews comprise more than 10% of the electorate and six in which Jews are the largest religious minority. He argues that it is only mathematically possible in eight to ten constituencies for Jews to be able to overturn the existing majority (assuming no change in non-Jewish voting), and in four of these cases it would require a level of uniformity in Jewish voting patterns that is, statistically, improbable. He concludes that the two constituencies in which Jews are most likely to play a key role at the general election are Hendon (Conservative in 2010) and Hampstead and Kilburn (Labour in 2010) where a combination of the size of the Jewish population and the tiny majorities of the outgoing MPs creates a situation where how Jews decide to vote could be critical. The particularly large Jewish communities in Finchley and Golders Green, Bury South, and Harrow East could also be influential, Boyd suggests, since, in all three instances, Jews exceed the size of the 2010 electoral majority. The 23-page report can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.Where_Jewish_votes_may_matter_most.Guide_to_2015_General_Election.pdf

Muslims

The Muslim News seems to have somewhat updated its analysis of parliamentary seats where Muslims may be influential, which BRIN originally covered in our post of 5 February 2015. The newspaper claims that the Muslim vote could be important in as many as 40 constituencies in England, 39 of them held by Labour or priority Labour targets. Of the 40, 25 are classed as marginal seats, which are profiled in detail, and 15 as safe seats. In all, there are said to be 80 constituencies where Muslims exceed 10% of the residents. For more information, and a link to the methodology employed, see:

http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/blog/seats-where-muslims-are-influential/

Voting of religious groups

There has long been a debate about whether a ‘religious vote’ still exists in Britain. Here we present some recent evidence about the correlation of religion and intended voting. However, it should be remembered that correlation does not equate with causation, and that underlying differential demographics of religious groups doubtless contribute to the results described. Eliza Filby (author of the book God & Mrs Thatcher) has a new essay on the religious vote on the Standpoint magazine blog. She concludes that such a vote continues to matter but asks for how much longer? See:

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/features-may-2015-eliza-filby-is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-religious-vote?

General

The British Election Study (BES) 2015, a consortium of the Universities of Manchester, Oxford, and Nottingham, will ultimately be a vital source of information about the interaction of religion and politics. The BES 2015 internet panel, now in its fourth wave, is likely to be especially revealing. BRIN expects to report on this more fully in the future, but readers might recall the preliminary analysis of wave 1 (February-March 2014) data on religion and voting which Ben Clements published on the BRIN website on 17 October 2014 at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2014/the-british-election-study-2015-religious-affiliation-and-attitudes/

Meanwhile, the most current data on voting intentions by religious groups derive from two online polls conducted by Populus (n = 2,048, 17-19 April 2015) and ORB International (n = 2,051, 22-23 April 2015). Summary figures are tabulated below, for the four main political parties only, also excluding those who said they would not vote, declined to answer, or did not know. It will be seen that Christians are disproportionately Conservative and UKIP supporters, non-Christians disproportionately Labour, with almost two-fifths of no religionists favouring smaller parties or not declaring their hand. Full data tables are available at, respectively:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/FT-Economy-Qs-200415.pdf

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

% down	Populus	ORB
Christians
Conservative	32	31
Labour	23	24
LibDem	7	5
UKIP	14	18
Non-Christians
Conservative	16	29
Labour	51	43
LibDem	8	4
UKIP	4	4
No religion
Conservative	16	17
Labour	28	28
LibDem	7	7
UKIP	10	10
All electors
Conservative	25	25
Labour	26	27
LibDem	7	5
UKIP	12	14

Anglicans

An online poll by YouGov of 5,552 self-identifying Anglicans between 1 and 28 March 2015 recorded their current voting intention (excluding don’t knows and would not votes, and taking into account likelihood to vote) as: Conservative 48% (national average 34%), Labour 27% (national average 34%), Liberal Democrats 6% (national average 7%), UKIP 16% (national average 14%), and other parties 3% (national average 11%). Anglicans thus remain disproportionately Conservative. Data table at:

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

Roman Catholics

According to the same YouGov poll, which also interviewed 1,574 self-identifying Catholics, they remain disproportionately Labour, the pattern of voting intentions being: Conservative 31%, Labour 42%, Liberal Democrats 4%, UKIP 12%, and other parties 10%.

Jews

A Survation telephone poll of 566 self-identifying British Jews on 2-7 April 2015 revealed that a substantial majority (69%) was Conservative, with 22% Labour, and no more than 9% for all other parties. Their pro-Conservative stance doubtless reflected their relatively affluent status, but it also appears to have been determined by perspectives on Israel and the Middle East, a policy area where the Conservative Party in general and David Cameron in particular have a clear edge over Labour. For a fuller report, see the BRIN post of 12 April 2015 at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2015/religion-and-public-affairs/

Muslims

Conventionally-sized polls include too few Muslims to be statistically reliable. However, occasionally large-scale political surveys are conducted or created by aggregation which include a respectable number of Muslims. Two such examples were the online polls from Populus on 4-27 February 2015 and Lord Ashcroft on 20-27 February 2015 which included, respectively, 331 and 170 Muslim electors. In both studies three-fifths of Muslims favoured Labour (partly a function of class-based voting) and fewer than one in ten the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats on 3%. BRIN’s post of 8 March 2015 contains further details and links at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2015/religious-voting-intentions-and-other-news/

Churches as polling places

Of the UK’s 31,855 polling places 5,967 (or 19%) are located in church buildings, according to research released by the National Churches Trust (NCT) on 29 April 2015. The proportion varies by sub-nation and region, ranging from 25% in Greater London down to 12% in Scotland and Northern Ireland (with 20% in Wales and 19% in England as a whole). Constituency-level variations are even greater; for instance, in Sheffield Hallam (seat of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats) two-fifths of polling places are in church buildings. Figures are based on information collected from local authorities during the last UK-wide election, for the European Parliament in May 2014. A number of non-Christian places of worship also serve as polling places but the NCT did not analyse these. The NCT’s press release is at:

http://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/news/church-buildings-play-vital-role-2015-general-election

Posted in Religion and Politics, Survey news | Tagged Alan Mendoza, Anglicans, Ben Clements, British Election Study, Christians, Eliza Filby, general election, Henry Jackson Society, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Jews, Jonathan Boyd, Lord Ashcroft, Muslim News, Muslims, National Churches Trust, ORB International, politics, polling places, Populus, Religious Affiliation, Roman Catholics, Standpoint, Survation, voting, YouGov | Leave a comment

Religion and Public Affairs

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Britons on Christianity in the public square

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

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

Britons on assisted dying

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

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

% across	All	Christians	Non-Christians	Nones
Attitude to assisted dying becoming law
Support	82	80	68	88
Oppose	12	14	26	6
Attitude to own MP backing such a law
More positive to them	53	49	47	61
More negative to them	10	11	23	5
MPs voting on legalizing assisted dying
Should take account of constituents’ views	67	69	60	68
Should vote according to own opinion	21	22	24	20
House of Commons should allocate time after general election for full debate on assisted dying
Agree	79	80	64	81
Disagree	11	12	23	8
Would assist terminally ill loved one to die even if it meant breaking the law
Would assist	44	43	37	49
Would not assist	29	32	39	23

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

Britons on Scientology

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

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

Professing Anglicans and the general election

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

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

% down	All electors	Anglican electors
Conservative	34	48
Labour	34	27
Liberal Democrat	7	6
UKIP	14	16
Other parties	11	3

Practising Christians and the general election

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

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

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

Leaders of four main parties associated with … (%)	None of them	David Cameron
Places importance on own faith in political decision-making	78	12
Exhibits Christian values in political beliefs	68	20
Exhibits Christian values in personal life	66	23
Likely to build on Britain’s Christian cultural/political heritage	59	23
Encourages involvement of faith groups in politics	58	24
Committed to protecting religious freedom	55	18

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

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

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

Jews and the general election

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

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

% down	Jewish electors	All electors
Conservative	69	30
Labour	22	36
Liberal Democrat	2	8
UKIP	2	15
Other parties	5	11

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

Muslims and current issues

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

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

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

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

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

Easter Religion and Other News

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Easter religion

In what, for many, will be a welcome break from the general election coverage, YouGov has undertaken a replication for the Sunday Times of several questions about Easter and religion first asked two years ago. The latest sample comprised 1,906 adult Britons interviewed online on 3-4 April 2015. Detailed results, including breaks by standard demographics and by self-assessed religiosity, can be found on YouGov’s archive pages for 5 April 2015 at:

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

A topline comparison of the 2013 and 2015 results is tabulated below; breaks for the youngest and oldest cohorts are also shown. Obviously, because of sampling error, too much should not be made of the differences between the two surveys, but it is noticeable that, for all the indicators, the movement is in the direction of the least religious position. Easter is overwhelmingly regarded as a secular occasion, and more than three-fifths of Britons no longer describe themselves as religious, deem religion of importance in their lives, nor regard themselves as a practising member of a faith.

%	2013 all	2015 all	2015 18-24	2015 60+
Religiosity
Religious	NA	36	NA	NA
Not religious	NA	62	NA	NA
Importance of religion to own life
Important	31	29	23	39
Not important	66	68	72	59
Practising member of a religion
Yes	NA	35	31	39
No	NA	62	68	59
Belief in God
Believe in God	38	35	24	44
Believe in spiritual higher power	21	20	19	21
Believe in neither	30	34	47	27
Belief in Jesus Christ
Son of God	39	30	16	38
Real historical figure but not Son of God	30	37	49	37
Probably did not exist	13	14	18	9
Most important part of Easter
Spending time with friends/family	47	42	38	45
Having time off work	19	21	21	5
Religious importance	15	13	8	21
Planned churchgoing over Easter
Yes	15	14	16	18
No	79	83	79	80
Belief in Resurrection
Christ came back to life after crucifixion	31	29	18	36
Christ not come back to life after crucifixion	47	50	63	40

Religious liberty in business

In last week’s news blog we reported on a ComRes survey for the Christian Institute in which a sample of Northern Irish adults was asked for their views about the right of business people to freedom of speech and religious liberty when providing goods or services to customers. The poll results had been released to coincide with civil court action in Belfast against a Christian bakery which had declined to ice a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage. Court proceedings have concluded, but no judgment has been made. A comparable survey has also been undertaken by ComRes in Britain for the Christian Institute, among 2,020 adults interviewed online on 18-19 March 2015, and the data tables (including breaks by demographics and religious affiliation) published on 30 March at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Christian-Institute-_Freedom-of-Speech.pdf

Respondents were asked whether it was appropriate for court action to be taken against business people in a variety of scenarios, several of which had a religious component, as follows:

%	Go to court	Not go to court
Muslim printer refusing to print cartoons of Prophet Mohammed	10	71
Atheist web designer refusing to design a website promoting creationism	8	72
Muslim film company refusing to produce a pornographic film	7	76
Christian bakery refusing to make a cake celebrating Satanism	9	71
Roman Catholic printing company declining to produce adverts for abortion	12	68
Christian bakery refusing to make a cake promoting same-sex marriage	13	68

It will be seen that the findings are reasonably consistent for all six scenarios, with around seven in ten thinking the actions of the business people did not constitute grounds for court proceedings and only one in ten believing that they did. Even among persons professing no religion never more than 18% (in the case of the Christian bakery and the cake promoting same-sex marriage) favoured court action being taken. Of course, it would have been possible to have asked the questions in reverse, with the rights of the spurned customers paramount, in which case – consistent with general public support for diversity legislation – the results for several of the scenarios would probably have been rather different.

Future of world religions

The UK will cease to have a Christian majority by 2050, according to a report published by the Pew Research Center on 2 April 2015: The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050. It forecasts that, by the middle of this century, Christians will account for only 45% of the UK population, compared with 64% in 2010. Over the same four decades, the proportion of religiously unaffiliated is expected to rise from 28% to 39% (which seems rather modest, given the rate of increase among adults between the 2001 and 2011 censuses was running at 1% per annum), of Muslims from 5% to 11%, and of all other religions from 3% to 4%. Baseline numbers are derived from the census, which uses a particular question-wording to determine religious affiliation; other formulations produce higher figures for religious ‘nones’. Pew has used a range of sources to compute trends in fertility, life expectancy, age structure, migration, and religious switching (regarded as the five principal drivers of population growth) in the years to come. For a detailed explanation of the methodology, as well as the complete results by countries (including the Channel Islands), regions, and religious groups, consult the report at:

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2015/03/PF_15.04.02_ProjectionsFullReport.pdf

News from Brierley Consultancy

The April 2015 membership mailing by Brierley Consultancy included a couple of items which some BRIN readers may find of interest. One is No. 38 of the bimonthly magazine FutureFirst, which contained the usual mix of longer and shorter news contributions, among them a lead article by Philip Hughes on ‘Does Faith Give You Better Health?’ The answer to the question, based on British data from the 2011 International Social Survey Programme, was generally that ‘attendance at religious services has little impact on health’, in that it was not one of the top five demographic determinants of health. However, at the level of causation, it was found that smoking and alcohol consumption were the biggest negative influences on self-reported health status, and that those who attended church monthly or more often were much more likely never to have smoked or never to have drunk alcohol than non-attenders at church, the differences being statistically significant. The article is best read in the full version, available on request from Brierley Consultancy. The second item is a 16-page report by Peter Brierley entitled Growing Churches: The Encouragements and Challenges Highlighted by the 2014 Grace Baptist Church Census. The census covered all UK Grace Baptist churches, which have a combined membership of 7,900, and revealed that there was an overall growth in worshippers of 7% between 2010 and 2014, with just 14% of congregations experiencing decline and 48% of Grace Baptists attending two services on Sunday (three times the number of all English churchgoers in 2005). For more information about these items, contact:

peter@brierleyres.com

Nonconformist historical statistics

The latest and, regrettably, final volume in Michael Watts’ history of Protestant Nonconformity in England and Wales was published on 19 March 2015: The Dissenters, Volume III: The Crisis and Conscience of Nonconformity, by Michael Watts with the assistance of Chris Wrigley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, xviii + 493p., ISBN 978-0-19-822969-8, £85.00, hardback). It covers the years 1860-1906, the previous volumes, published in 1978 and 1995, respectively dealing with the period between the Reformation and French Revolution and 1791-1859, the latter including an important statistical analysis of the results of the 1851 religious census and the pre-1837 non-parochial registers. Since the author died in 2011, his mooted fourth volume on the twentieth century will never appear.

The third volume makes good use of statistical evidence throughout and includes no fewer than 101 tables in the appendix. These are devoted to four main topics:

Members, adherents, and Sunday scholars by denomination (tables 1-6)
Church and chapel attendance by denomination in London, 1851, 1886-87, and 1902-03 (tables 7-27)
Church and chapel attendance by denomination in 50 towns and groups of villages, 1851 and 1881 (tables 28-78)
Occupations of male Dissenters by denomination recorded in baptismal and marriage registers for 22 cities and counties, 1850-59 to 1970-79 (tables 80-101)

There is also accompanying textual analysis of the data on membership and attendance on pp. 85-91 and on occupations on pp. 101-9. This demonstrates that, by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, both Nonconformist membership and attendance were beginning to decline relative to population and that the social basis of congregations was narrowing. The provision of occupational data for the twentieth century is an unexpected bonus and considerably extends current knowledge of the subject as hitherto summarized by Clive Field, ‘Zion’s People: Who Were the English Nonconformists?’ – a trilogy of articles published in the Local Historian in May, August, and November 2010.

Anglo-Jewry database, 1851

On 23 March 2015 the UK Data Service released, as Study Number 7668, the Anglo-Jewry Database, a prosopographical resource containing details of the vital events, residences, and occupations of 29,275 Jewish inhabitants of the British Isles in 1851, representing the overwhelming majority (90%) of the Jewish community at that time. The dataset was compiled by a team of 270 contributors worldwide from the population census and a wide variety of other sources, published and unpublished. More information, including links to documentation, is available at:

http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7668

It is also possible to search the database on the JewishGen website at:

http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/1851/introduction.htm

and to order a print-on-demand index at:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/petra-laidlaw/an-index-to-the-jewish-community-of-the-british-isles-in-1851/paperback/product-21815428.html

Finally, it can be mentioned that Petra Laidlaw, principal investigator for the project, has two analytical articles on ‘Jews in the British Isles in 1851’ in Jewish Journal of Sociology, Vol. 53, No. 1, 2011, pp. 29-56 and Vol. 55, No. 1, 2013, pp. 114-57.

European Jewish Research Archive

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research has recently soft-launched the European Jewish Research Archive, which it has set up with financial support from the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe. The archive is a free-to-use online repository of research on European Jewish communities that has been published in the form of books, reports, articles, or other media since 1990 and, wherever possible, includes the full text for downloading. It can be searched by author, title, topic, publication year, genre, original language, and geographic coverage. A search under UK currently results in 191 hits. To consult the archive, go to:

http://archive.jpr.org.uk/home

Islam and British values

A majority of Britons (55%) think there is a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of British society, according to a YouGov survey for YouGov@Cambridge released on 26 March 2015 and featured in the online edition of the Daily Telegraph four days later. The sample comprised 1,641 adults interviewed online on 22-23 March. The proportion discerning a fundamental clash was highest among UKIP voters (89%), Conservatives (68%), and over-60s (67%). Only 22% deemed Islam to be compatible with British values, including 39% of both 18-24s and Liberal Democrats, while 10% disagreed with both propositions and 13% did not express an opinion. Data tables are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/03/30/majority-voters-doubt-islam-compatible-british-val/

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, Survey news | Tagged Anglo-Jewry Database, Brierley Consultancy, British values, business people, Chris Wrigley, Christian Institute, Christians, church attendance, church growth, ComRes, court action, customers, Easter, European Jewish Research Archive, freedom of speech, God, Grace Baptist Churches, Health, importance of religion, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, International Social Survey Programme, Islam, Jesus Christ, Jewish Journal of Sociology, Jews, Michael Watts, Muslims, Nonconformity, occupations, Peter Brierley, Petra Laidlaw, Pew Research Center, Philip Hughes, Religious Affiliation, religious festivals, Religious Liberty, Resurrection, self-assessed religiosity, Sunday Times, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

Grace Davie on Religion and Other News

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Grace Davie on Religion in Britain

Twenty-one years ago, in 1994, Grace Davie published her seminal Religion in Britain since 1945, a sociological account which became a standard textbook for students of the sociology of religion and contemporary British history. It perhaps became best known for its sub-title of ‘believing without belonging’, encapsulating the persistence of the sacred alongside an ongoing decline in traditional forms of religious behaviour. A second edition of the book has just appeared: Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox (Wiley Blackwell, xv + 264pp., ISBN 9781405135962, £21.99, paperback). It has been so extensively revised and restructured as, in effect, to constitute an entirely new work. Its masterly survey of a wide and dynamic field, and the clarity and concision of the writing, are certain to ensure it a wide readership.

Although the narrative still nominally starts in 1945, in practice the focus is on more recent decades, and coverage of the secondary historical literature is relatively sparse. Contemporary socio-religious scholarship and primary sources (including websites) are more heavily drawn upon, and this is especially true of research outputs from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (2007-13). Even so, given space constraints, the range of topics dealt with is necessarily selective, and some themes which had separate chapters in the first edition (such as age and gender or religious professionals) feature less prominently in the second. At the same time, more attention is devoted to religious issues in the public square. ‘Believing without belonging’ retains its pride of place, albeit in refined and developed form, together with the concept of vicarious religion (religious behaviour by proxy), which only emerged after the first edition of Religion in Britain was published.

The second edition is informed throughout by statistics, but they are presented with a light touch. There are only eight figures and two tables, several of the former not being terribly clear when reproduced in black and white. This compares with one figure and eight tables in the first edition. The statistics derive from today’s standard sources, such as the census of population, sample surveys, and church data collected by Peter Brierley. In addition, good use has been made by Davie of the BRIN website, which ‘provides a huge amount of information about religion in Britain, and includes some helpful professional commentaries’.

Religious freedom

In a further testimony to the declining significance of faith in contemporary Britain, religious freedom is regarded as an important ‘British value’ by just 13% of adults, being most prized by the over-65s (20%), Scots (17%), and Conservative voters (17%). Overall, freedom of speech (46%), respect for the rule of law (33%), a sense of humour (29%), politeness (27%), and tolerance of others (26%) are judged the most significant attributes. Data derive from a ComRes survey for Grassroots Conservatives, for which 2,017 Britons were interviewed online on 11-12 February 2015. Data tables were published on 10 March 2015 at:

http://comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/February2015_Poll_Tables.pdf

Apocalypse

Just under one-quarter (23%) of Britons think it very or somewhat likely that an apocalyptic disaster will strike the world during their lifetime, according to a YouGov poll conducted among an online sample of 1,745 on 8-9 March 2015. This is a smaller proportion than in the United States where 31% consider such a disaster to be very or somewhat likely. Although the publics in both countries identify nuclear war as the most probable single cause of the apocalypse, as many as 16% of Americans attribute it to Judgement Day, compared with just 3% of Britons (albeit 7% of Londoners and 6% of young people aged 18-24). YouGov’s blog on the survey, posted on 10 March and including links to both national results, can be read at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/03/10/apocalypse/

Mums in ministry

On 5-9 March 2015, in the run-up to Mothering Sunday, Christian Research undertook an online survey (presumably via its Resonate panel) of 176 mothers in Britain who were engaged in full-time Christian ministry, 13% of them still with children of primary school age. The vast majority (82%) felt really or pretty satisfied in their ministerial role, although 22% had had cause fundamentally to question their calling. Three-quarters (73%) said that having children of their own had made them a better minister, the positive impact being most keenly felt in relation to pastoral work (72%) and community outreach (51%). However, 48% of mums in ministry reported that finding sufficient time to spend with their children was a major or significant challenge. Even more struggled to find time to pursue a hobby (60%), generally relax (58%), or be with their closest friends (57%). The full report will only be made available to Christian Research’s subscribers, but a press release about the study can be found at:

http://www.christian-research.org/mums/

Chaplaincy

The latest research report from Theos, this time prepared in partnership with the Cardiff Centre for Chaplaincy Studies, was published on 11 March 2015: Ben Ryan, A Very Modern Ministry: Chaplaincy in the UK. It provides an interesting overview of contemporary chaplaincy, from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, perceiving it as an area of religious growth and innovation which is complementary to the notion of the ‘gathered congregation’ and has now broadened out somewhat from its Christian roots. Terminological issues, about what constitutes a chaplain, are aired but not completely resolved. For example, are street pastors – who are now thought to number 11,000 trained volunteers – to be considered as chaplains or not? The quantitative evidence is reviewed in part 1 of the report, with chaplains being found in areas as diverse as higher education (1,000), prisons (1,000 with 7,000 volunteers), police (650), armed forces (500), hospitals (350 full-time and 3,000 part-time), and sport (300). A survey in Luton in October-November 2014 identified 169 chaplains working in eight primary and eight secondary fields, equivalent to one for every 1,200 residents, albeit only 20 of these personnel were salaried. The Luton chaplains were overwhelmingly Christian, even though Christianity was professed by a minority of the town’s population (47%), with 25% Muslim. The report can be read at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Modern%20Ministry%20combined.pdf

Church social action

Jubilee+ published the results of the third biennial National Church and Social Action Survey on 7 March 2015: Geoff Knott, Investing More for the Common Good. ‘Several thousand’ places of worship of all denominations and all sizes across the UK were contacted, with replies being received from just 229 – a very small and potentially unrepresentative response. Scaled up nationally, factoring in church size, the report suggests that between 1.1 and 1.4 million volunteers participated in church-based social action in the UK in 2014, the number of volunteer hours having risen by 59% since the first survey in 2010. Direct church spending on social action grew by 37% over the same four years, to reach £393 million, but the total full economic cost to churches of their social initiatives is estimated at £3.5 billion per annum. The top three activities were food distribution (80%); parents and toddlers groups (70%); and school assemblies or religious education work (66%). The majority of churches (58%) planned to increase their social initiatives over the coming year. Volunteering by Christians in the community that is not initiated by a church is excluded from all these calculations. The report is at:

http://www.jubilee-plus.org/Articles/431253/Jubilee_Plus/Research/RESULTS_OF_THE.aspx

British Jews and Israel’s elections

Despite an otherwise generally close identification with Israel, large numbers of Britain’s Jews do not immerse themselves in the complex world of Israeli politics, even on the eve of elections to the Knesset (to be held on 17 March 2015). This is according to the latest in a series of polls conducted by Survation for the Jewish Chronicle, for which 1,000 self-identifying Jewish adults in Britain were interviewed by telephone between 4 and 9 March. Exactly 50% of respondents admitted not to follow Israeli politics much or at all, 46% did not know whom they would vote for in the elections (assuming they had a vote), and 41% could not say whether they preferred as next Israeli prime minister the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu (the incumbent prime minister) or the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog. Among those expressing an opinion, support for Netanyahu was more than double that for Herzog, whereas in Israel itself the latest polling shows the Zionist Union to be narrowly ahead of Likud. However, since only 31% of British Jews stated that they would vote for Netanyahu, the Jewish Chronicle’s claim (on the front page of its edition of 13 March 2015) that there was ‘huge backing’ for him among UK Jews seems inflated. Data tables were published on 11 March at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Israeli-Elections-Poll-Tables.pdf

Religion in the workplace and service delivery

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published a major (226-page) report on religion and belief in the workplace and in service delivery in Britain on 12 March 2015: Martin Mitchell and Kelsey Beninger with Alice Donald and Erica Howard, Religion or Belief in the Workplace and Service Delivery: Findings from a Call for Evidence. Prepared by NatCen Social Research on behalf of the EHRC, it comprises an analysis of replies from 2,483 individuals and organizations to an online survey between 14 August and 31 October 2014. Respondents did not constitute a random sample but had been ‘invited to take part in order to ensure the widest possible range of views and experiences was gathered’. This is described as ‘a purposive and snowball approach to recruitment’. Although the report includes 25 tables and sundry other statistics, NatCen is at repeated pains to point out that ‘the study did not aim to measure the extent of perceived religious discrimination and unfair treatment because of religion or belief’. It is explained that the research was of an entirely qualitative nature and that any figures were tabulated for monitoring purposes only and cannot be generalized to the wider population. Predictably, some of the media coverage has failed to heed these important caveats. To judge by its press release, the principal conclusion drawn by the EHRC from the report concerns widespread public confusion and misunderstanding over the laws protecting freedom of religion or belief. The report can be found at:

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/RoB%20Call%20for%20Evidence%20Report.pdf

Posted in Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, People news, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged apocalyptic disaster, believing without belonging, Ben Ryan, Benjamin Netanyahu, chaplaincy, Christian Research, church social action, ComRes, elections, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Geoff Knott, Grace Davie, Grassroots Conservatives, Isaac Herzog, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, jubilee, Judgement Day, Kelsey Beninger, Luton, Martin Mitchell, ministry, mothers, NatCen Social Research, Religious discrimination, religious freedom, service delivery, Social Capital, Survation, Theos, United States, Wiley Blackwell, workplace, YouGov | Leave a comment

Religious Voting Intentions and Other News

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Religious voting intentions

Two large-scale online polls were released last week containing breaks of voting intentions by religious affiliation. There will naturally be heightened interest in these as we are now less than two months away from a general election.

The first survey was a cumulation of political polling conducted by Populus between 4 and 27 February 2015, involving interviews with 14,201 voters. Data tables (table 22 being the most relevant) can be found at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/OmOnline_Vote_February_2015-BPC.pdf

The second survey was undertaken for Lord Ashcroft and involved interviews with 8,072 electors between 20 and 27 February 2015. Data tables (table 54 being the most relevant) can be found at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/National-poll-tables-March-2015-LAM124A.pdf

Voting intentions from both polls for the four main parties only, i.e. excluding ‘minor’ parties and undecideds, are tabulated below. The most striking finding is that Muslims are more than twice as likely as the population as a whole to support Labour, which will partly be a function of their relatively deprived socio-economic status and thus of class-based voting. Other non-Christians are also disproportionately Labour supporters. However, although Labour was ahead in both polls, the Conservatives attracted the biggest single share of the Christian vote. People of no religion were significantly underrepresented among Conservatives, doubtless reflecting the concentration of ‘nones’ in the youngest age cohorts. In religious terms, UKIP had a fairly broad appeal, apart from to Muslims.

% across	Con	Lab	LD	UKIP
Populus
All	23.1	24.9	6.9	11.4
Christian	29.5	22.4	7.0	13.3
Muslim	9.7	59.8	3.0	1.2
Other non-Christian	21.5	33.2	8.9	6.5
No religion	15.8	25.4	6.9	10.1
Ashcroft
All	24.0	27.2	4.6	13.8
Christian	29.4	26.1	4.6	15.5
Muslim	8.8	60.6	2.9	2,9
Other non-Christian	23.1	33.3	5.3	9.4
No religion	17.9	26.1	4.7	13.0

Meanwhile, an online poll by YouGov for the British Youth Council, for which 1,175 young adults (aged 16-24) were interviewed on 20-26 February 2015, reported on current voting intentions both by religious affiliation and by self-assessed religiosity. Since more than twice as many respondents claimed to be non-religious as religious and to disavow any religion as to profess an affiliation, sub-groups were often too small to draw meaningful conclusions. However, those describing themselves as religious were somewhat more likely to favour either the Conservative or the Labour Party than were ‘nones’, the latter being more attracted to the smaller parties (especially nationalists and the Green Party). Data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/xmdkfy1i2e/BritishYouthCouncilUpdatedResults_150302_website.pdf

Curative astrology?

Conservative MP David Tredinnick, who sits on the House of Commons health and science and technology committees, recently suggested that integrating astrology into medicine could ‘take huge pressure off doctors’, and predicted that reading the stars will ‘have a role to play in healthcare’. Despite otherwise being mostly supportive of alternative medicine (especially acupuncture, chiropractic, and osteopathy), the British public was found to be unsympathetic to Tredinnick’s reasoning in an online poll by YouGov among 1,638 adults on 25-26 February 2015. Four-fifths suggested that astrology was not effective at treating illnesses, no more than 6% in any demographic sub-group thinking it would be effective, and 84% opposed astrology being made available for free through the NHS. Data tables can be accessed via YouGov’s blog on the poll, published on 6 March, at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/03/06/many-believe-alternative-medicine-effective/

Profile of Quakers

The most recent issue (Vol. 19, No. 1, September 2014) of Quaker Studies contains a very substantial article (pp. 7-136, mainly comprising appendices) by Jennifer May Hampton describing the principal findings of an important new survey of Quakers undertaken under the auspices of the Woodbrooke Quaker Studies Centre in 2013. The article, ‘British Quaker Survey: Examining Religious Beliefs and Practices in the Twenty-First Century’, is based on the author’s unpublished 2013 Lancaster University MSc statistics thesis of the same title. Data derived from a self-completion questionnaire answered by ‘a quasi-random’ sample of 649 adult members (70%) and attenders (29%) from 48 local meetings in Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, a response rate of 79%. Besides demographics, topics covered included religious beliefs and practices and attitudes to moral issues. The article reproduces the full text of the questionnaire (appendix A) and results in (rather small) diagrammatic form (appendix B).

Some questions replicated those in broadly equivalent national Quaker surveys conducted in 1990 and 2003 (recorded in the BRIN source database), revealing quite substantial changes over time. Some of these were demographic, notably an ageing in the Quaker community (the number over 60 increasing from 37% in 1990 to 70% in 2013, when the mean age was 64 years) and a doubling in those educated to postgraduate degree level (from 17% to 32%). Other changes related to beliefs, such as the big declines in Quakers who believed in God (from 75% in 1990 to 58% in 2013) or self-identifying as Christian (from 52% to 37%). As many as 16% of these members and attenders did not even self-identify as Quakers. Among the 84% who did, latent class analysis enabled them to be categorized into ‘traditional’ Quakers (32%), non-theist Quakers (18%), and ‘liberal’ Quakers (50%). The article does not appear to be available online, but copies of the journal issue can be purchased for £10 from the Quaker Studies Research Association, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, 1046 Bristol Road, Birmingham, B29 6LJ (cheques should be made payable to the Association).

Revision to 2011 census data

On 26 February 2015 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) issued an amended spreadsheet for the results of the religion question in the 2011 census of population in England and Wales. This followed the detection of a data processing error whereby the number of usual residents in the ‘religion not stated’ category had been overestimated by a total of 62,000 for three local authorities in London (Camden, Islington, and Tower Hamlets). This number has now been redistributed to the stated religion categories, with important changes for the three local authorities concerned and some knock-on effects at national level (for example, an additional 24,900 Christians, 14,400 Muslims, and 18,100 people of no religion in England and Wales). To locate the spreadsheet, search the ONS website for ‘Religion correction factors’.

Gallup Poll religion data

Sample surveys are a vital source of religious statistics. They were pioneered in Britain by the Gallup Poll, formerly known as the British Institute of Public Opinion, which was founded by Henry Durant in 1937. Over the years, Gallup developed quite a strong interest in investigating religion, especially during Gordon Heald’s service with the company as director (1969-80) and managing director (1980-94). Topline time series of Gallup’s principal published (and some unpublished) data on religion and the paranormal between 1939 and 1999 have now been collated for the first time by Clive Field in a new 64-page BRIN working paper: Religion in Great Britain, 1939-99: A Compendium of Gallup Poll Data. It includes 111 thematically-arranged tables, together with a subject index. The introduction also provides a brief account of the history and methods of the Gallup Poll and of its publications and archives. The working paper can be found at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Religion-in-Great-Britain-1939-99-A-Compendium-of-Gallup-Poll-Data.pdf

Religion in the ‘long’ 1950s

Historians and sociologists continue to debate the nature, causation, and chronology of secularization in Britain. Latterly, there has been increased scholarly attention on what happened immediately after the Second World War, not least in view of Callum Brown’s claims that the late 1940s and early 1950s in Britain were a period of religious resurgence prior to the onset of revolutionary secularization in the 1960s. In a new book, these claims are substantially rejected by Clive Field on the basis of the first systematic analysis of a balanced portfolio of quantitative performance measures, published and unpublished, for all faith traditions. They subsume the three dimensions of belonging, behaving, and believing – the typology increasingly applied to the study of religiosity. Field concludes that the long 1950s accord better with a gradualist interpretation of religious decline in modern Britain. An up-to-date historiographical and bibliographical review is also offered. His Britain’s Last Religious Revival? Quantifying Belonging, Behaving, and Believing in the Long 1950s is published by Palgrave Macmillan (xii + 140pp., ISBN 9781137512529, £45.00 hardback, also available in PDF and EPUB formats) and can be ordered via online sites such as Amazon or from the publisher at:

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/britain’s-last-religious-revival-clive-d-field/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137512529

Religion in the ‘long’ 1980s

Another key decade in Britain’s secularization history, the 1980s, dominated by the premiership of Margaret Thatcher between 1979 and 1990, is examined in a second recent book: Eliza Filby, God & Mrs Thatcher: The Battle for Britain’s Soul (Biteback Publishing, 2015, xxiii + 407pp., ISBN 9781849547857, £25.00 hardback). Filby focuses on the interrelationship of religion and politics in post-war Britain, with reference both to the politicization of Christianity and the Christianization of politics. The story is exemplified in the life and career of Thatcher, whom she describes as the country’s ‘most religious prime minister since William Gladstone’, and who is perhaps now best remembered religiously for the confrontations between the Conservative Party and the Church of England, the former lurching to the political right in Thatcher’s day and the latter seemingly shifting leftwards.

The origins and nature of Thatcher’s ‘theology’ are expounded. Paradoxically, Filby contends, Thatcher’s attempts to imbue the nation with the religious and moral values learned in her own Methodist childhood ended in failure. ‘It was not the sexual revolution of the 1960s … which ultimately undermined the Christian fabric of Britain, but the changes, struggles and upheavals of the 1980s … Margaret Thatcher’s time in office may have heralded a renaissance of individual freedom, but in doing so also hastened the death of Christian Britain … In her crusade to raise Albion from the ashes, Thatcher ended up destroying all that was familiar. The future was not to be conservative but consumerist, not English, but cosmopolitan, not Christian, but secular.’

This is an interesting argument but, despite the wide range of primary sources which are mined (including manuscripts, interviews, and memoirs), the thesis is not entirely substantiated, partly because criteria for measuring and evaluating ‘secularization’ are never properly articulated and operationalized. While Filby sensibly rejects the level of churchgoing as a complete indicator of the spiritual health of the country, viable alternatives are not really explicitly proposed. Minimal use is made of statistical sources, not even the contemporary sample surveys which could so profitably have illuminated the intersection of religion and politics at grass-roots level. Indeed, for all its readability and erudition, Filby’s portrait of the ‘soul’ of Britain in the 1980s is essentially a top-down one, more a study of politico-religious ideas than of religion and society.

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religious beliefs, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged 1950s, 1980s, alternative medicine, astrology, Biteback Publishing, British Youth Council, census of population, Clive Field, David Tredinnick, Eliza Filby, Gallup Poll, Jennifer May Hampton, Lord Ashcroft, Margaret Thatcher, moral issues, Office for National Statistics, Palgrave Macmillan, Populus, Quaker Studies, Quakers, Religious Affiliation, secularization, voting intentions, Woodbrooke Quaker Studies Centre, YouGov | Leave a comment

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