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Muslim and Anglican Miscellany

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Our latest round-up of religious statistical news publicizes seven stories of Muslim and Anglican interest.

Ramadan and Channel 4

The announcement (on 2 July 2013) by Channel 4 that it will broadcast (on television and its website) the Muslim call to prayer (adhan) during the festival of Ramadan, which runs from 9 July to 7 August, has been poorly received by the British public. According to a YouGov poll released on 4 July, and undertaken online among 1,923 adults on 2 and 3 July, 52% are opposed to the broadcaster’s decision and only 26% supportive, with 23% undecided. Opposition peaks among UKIP voters (84%), the over-60s (68%), and Conservatives (61%). Most in favour, with just over one-third in each case, are Labourites, Liberal Democrats, the under-40s, and Londoners. Unfortunately, no supplementary question was asked to seek reasons for opposition (or support), but anti-Muslim sentiment is likely to have featured strongly, especially with the heightening of tensions following the murder in Woolwich of Drummer Lee Rigby at the hands of two Islamists. Detailed computer tabulations have been posted at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/gwofmzpssr/YG-Archive-Ramadan-results-030713-Channel-4-call-to-prayer.pdf

YouGov’s commentary on the results, including analysis of the impact of Channel 4’s announcement as reflected on Twitter and Facebook, can be found at:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/07/04/public-oppose-ch4-muslim-call-prayer/

Anti-Muslim hate crime

The work of Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) in recording anti-Muslim hate incidents in England and Wales, and of the criticisms which it has received for allegedly misleading interpretations of its data, have been mentioned by BRIN twice before (see our posts of 15 March and 9 June 2013). We now highlight the publication, by Teesside University on 1 July, of a systematic analysis of the 584 incidents notified to Tell MAMA between 1 April 2012 and 30 April 2013: Nigel Copsey, Janet Dack, Mark Littler, and Matthew Feldman, Anti-Muslim Hate Crime and the Far Right, at pp. 14-27. The overwhelming majority of these incidents, which the authors accept are of a ‘fundamentally self-selecting nature’, occurred online (74%) and were not reported to the police (63%, thus making it difficult to say how many were technically crimes under the law). Most (56%) were said to be linked with far right groups, rising to 69% for online incidents alone. There is a useful ‘post-Woolwich addendum’ (pp. 27-8), which shows that there were 241 anti-Muslim incidents notified to Tell MAMA in the period between 22 May and 25 June 2013, equivalent to a daily rate four times as high as during the preceding thirteen months, although 46% of these cases occurred during the five days after Rigby’s murder. The report – which marks the official launch of the University’s Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist, and Post-Fascist Studies – is available at:

http://www.tees.ac.uk/docs/DocRepo/Research/Copsey_report3.pdf

True Vision, another hate crime reporting agency, has recently published a faith breakdown of the victims of religious hate crimes as recorded by the police in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 2011. Of the two-thirds of such crimes for which this information is available, 52% were committed against Muslims, 26% against Jews, and 14% against Christians. The data, which come with several caveats and have not been statistically validated, are at:

http://report-it.org.uk/files/religious_hate_crime_data_2011_published_(june_2013).pdf

How many Muslims?

The British public greatly overestimates the number of Muslims living in Britain, and underestimates the country’s Christian population, according to an Ipsos MORI poll for the Royal Statistical Society and King’s College London whose results were published on 9 July 2013 in connection with the International Year of Statistics. Interviews were conducted online with 1,015 adults aged 16-75 between 14 and 18 June 2013, and topline and detailed tables (pp. 121-8 of the latter being most relevant for our purposes) are available at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3188/Perceptions-are-not-reality-the-top-10-we-get-wrong.aspx

Asked ‘out of every 100 people in Britain, about how many do you think are Muslim?’ 35% could not venture an opinion, but, among those who did reply, 24% was the mean estimated proportion of Muslims, about five times the actual figure for England and Wales as revealed in the 2011 census. The estimated proportion of Muslims peaks among those with no formal educational qualifications (33%) and readers of tabloid newspapers (31%). All told, as many as two-fifths of Britons think that Muslims account for more than 10% of people in the country. By contrast, Christians are believed to comprise no more than 34% of the nation, 25% fewer than in England and Wales at the 2011 census.

Such misperceptions were not confined to religion but affected a whole swathe of topics covered in the survey, thereby highlighting ‘how wrong the British public can be on the make-up of the population and the scale of key social policy issues’. Clearly, the challenge of innumeracy and the deficit of evidence-based thinking remain very great.

Church of England – hardly a ‘national treasure’

In his first presidential address to General Synod this week, Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, warned the Church of England of ‘the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland’, and of an increasing gulf between public attitudes and those of the Church. Some reflection of this disenchantment with the Established Church can be found in a YouGov poll undertaken for Freeview between 7 and 10 June 2013, and published on 10 July 2013. The sample comprised 2,066 UK adults aged 18 and over.

Respondents were given a mixed bag of fifteen British organizations, and asked about the extent to which they valued them, on a scale running from 1 (‘don’t value at all’) to 10 (‘value a lot’). In the case of the Church of England, 21% stated that they did not value it at all, the fourth worst score after the Football Association (32%), BskyB (27%), and Barclays (27%). By contrast, lower figures were recorded by British Gas (18%), the House of Commons (16%), British Telecom (11%), British Airways (11%), BBC (6%), ITV (6%), Freeview (4%), National Trust (3%), Post Office (2%), Royal Mail (2%), and the National Health Service (1%). The Church of England’s worst rating was among Scots (43%) and unemployed people (38%).

At the other end of the spectrum, only 8% valued the Church of England a lot, peaking at 12% of over-55s, the retired, and residents of South-West England; and 18% of those with three or more children in the household. This compared with 54% for the National Health Service, 20% for the BBC, 20% for Royal Mail, 19% for the Post Office, 17% for Freeview, 14% for the National Trust, 8% for the House of Commons, 7% for ITV, 5% for British Telecom, 4% for British Airways, 3% for British Gas, 3% for the Football Association, 2% for BskyB, and 2% for Barclays.

If we assume that scores of 1, 2, 3, and 4 equate to negativity, then 41% of Britons attach limited or no value to the Church of England. One-quarter (24%) are neutral (giving a rating of 5 or 6), 29% are positive (opting for 7, 8, 9, or 10), and 5% are undecided. Full data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/orjnam7d6m/YouGov-survey-Freeview-research-part%201-130610.pdf

Part 2 of the same poll included a similar question about the value of sundry ‘national treasures’, all of which bar British television soaps (27%) achieved a lower 1 score than the Church of England had in part 1: Harry Potter (20%), Wimbledon tennis championship (15%), James Bond (14%), royal family (10%), the Beatles (10%), a cup of tea (8%), William Shakespeare (6%), Stonehenge (6%), Big Ben (6%), British pubs (5%), fish and chips (4%), and red post boxes (4%).

Part 2 also contained a slightly daft question about which one of ten things UK adults would give up in order to ensure continuing free access (through the television licence) to the main television channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5). Going to church was one of the forfeits and was selected by 14% of respondents, just behind using social media (18%) and smoking cigarettes (15%). The tables for Part 2 are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ftez3b2zxd/YouGov-survey-Freeview-research-part2-130610.pdf

Church of England finance statistics

The Church of England’s parochial finance statistics for 2011 were published on 1 July 2013. For the third year running, parishes were in overall deficit, albeit to a smaller extent in 2011 (£14 million) than 2010 (£22 million). Total income in 2011 was £916 million, £19 million more than the year before, while total expenditure was £930 million, up by £12 million. In 2007, the last year before the economic downturn, parishes had an aggregate surplus of £60 million, since when income has steadily fallen in real terms. The report, in the form of nine tables and ten figures, can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1791665/2011financestatistics.pdf

Church Times readership survey

As part of its 150th anniversary celebrations, the Church Times has launched a survey of its readership, broadly comparable to the one undertaken by self-completion postal questionnaire in 2001. A questionnaire was included in the 5 July 2013 edition of the newspaper but can alternatively be completed online. Results will be analysed by Professor Leslie Francis of the University of Warwick and Andrew Village of York St John University; they will be available in the autumn. The online questionnaire can be found at:

https://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/yorksj/ctsurvey

The principal publications arising from the 2001 survey are: Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins, and Jeff Astley, Fragmented Faith? Exploring the Fault-Lines in the Church of England (Bletchley: Paternoster Press, 2005); and Andrew Village and Leslie Francis, The Mind of the Anglican Clergy: Assessing Attitudes and Beliefs in the Church of England (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009).

Godparents for the royal baby

The birth of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child may be imminent, but a majority of Britons have no views about the baby’s godparents. Given a list of prospective godmothers, 53% say they have no idea or do not care who it will be, with 51% replying along the same lines about prospective godfathers. The figures rise to 70% and 71% respectively among those expressing no interest in the forthcoming royal birth. In so far as Britons have a preference for godparents, it is Prince Harry for godfather (35%) and Pippa Middleton for godmother (16%). YouGov interviewed 1,577 adults aged 18 and over online on 7-8 July 2013, and data tables were published on 11 July at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8xp56xnnvs/YG-Archive-Royal-baby-results-080713-memorabilia-and-godparents.pdf

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged adhan, Andrew Village, Anglicans, call to prayer, Channel 4, Christians, Church of England, Church Times, churchgoing, finance, Freeview, godparents, hate crime, Ipsos-MORI, Islamophobia, Janet Dack, King's College London, Lee Rigby, Leslie Francis, Mark Littler, Matthew Feldman, Muslims, Nigel Copsey, numeracy, Ramadan, royal baby, Royal Statistical Society, Teesside University, television, Tell MAMA, True Vision, value, Woolwich, YouGov | Leave a comment

Chaplaincy ‘Wars’ and Other News

Posted on July 1, 2013 by Clive D. Field

It is not an unusual occurrence for religious statistics to be debated and contested, but those relating to hospital chaplaincy seem to be especially prone to feature in public rows. Two competing pictures of what is happening to the number of chaplains lead today’s post, followed by the usual miscellany of seven other news stories.

Hospital chaplaincy

Two pieces of research into chaplaincy provision in NHS hospitals in England have produced seemingly conflicting results. On 27 June 2013 BBC Local Radio announced that the Freedom of Information (FOI) request which it had submitted to 163 acute hospital trusts (and to which 98% responded) had found that 39% had cut back on the chaplains (or full-time equivalents) they employed during the past five years (2009-13), against a backdrop of economies in the NHS. And 47% of trusts had reduced the number of hours chaplains were on duty, the lost hours amounting to 1,380 (or 8% of the total), although another 25% had increased hours. In the 114 trusts where chaplains had left in the past five years, their posts had not been replaced in 36% of cases while 46% of trusts had refilled them but on a lower pay band or shorter hours. BBC press releases on the study (the third including a link to an Excel file containing the data for each trust) are at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23011620 and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/lr-nhs-chaplain.html and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22990153

However, the National Secular Society (NSS), which has long campaigned against publicly-funded NHS chaplains, reported in Newsline (its weekly ezine) on 28 June that its own still incomplete research, again via FOI, among all 230 English health trusts (acute and non-acute) appeared to suggest that ‘since 2009 the number of chaplains has remained largely the same’, notwithstanding serious losses in NHS nursing posts over the same timescale. According to the NSS, 485 full-time equivalent hospital chaplains are employed by the 85% of trusts which have replied to date, compared to 546 in the completed NSS survey undertaken in 2009. The Newsline article, including a link to data from individual trusts which have responded thus far, is at:

http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/newsline-28-june-2013.pdf

Mappiness is …

Meditating and engaging in religious activities are the thirteenth most likely source (of forty) to make us feel happier, according to a ‘league table’ published in a feature article by Kathryn Cooper in The Sunday Times for 30 June 2013 (main section, p. 12, behind a paywall), and based on the ‘Mappiness’ research project at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Mappiness is an app for Apple iPhone, iPad, and iPod devices, which 56,900 UK users (presumably, disproportionately young) have downloaded since August 2010 as a tool for measuring their momentary well-being (in contrast to most research into well-being, which relies on recall of recent or past experiences). Each self-selecting participant receives a randomly-timed ‘ding’ once or more each day asking them to complete a short survey of well-being, including a note of their current activity and whereabouts, within one hour of the ‘ding’. Unsurprisingly, intimacy/making love topped the index, increasing happiness levels by 14.2%, while being sick in bed came bottom, depressing happiness by 20.4%. Meditating/religious activities improved perceptions of happiness by an average 4.9%, not far behind drinking alcohol, which was in eleventh position (with a positive score of 5.7%). More information about Mappiness is at:

http://www.mappiness.org.uk/

Short-term trends in religious affiliation

In our post of 22 June 2013 we included a news item about the ‘Making Sense of the Census’ study day and of Clive Field’s presentation there about changing patterns of religious affiliation. Some use was made in this presentation of data obtained by Populus (including in its polls for Lord Ashcroft) in response to the question ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ We can now present (below) the findings (as percentages) from these online Populus surveys of adult Britons aged 18 and over, aggregated into six-monthly periods from January 2011 to June 2013. No strong short-term trends emerge from the table, which is perhaps unsurprising, since there is always a degree of sampling error and other variations arising from such polls (not least with regard to non-Christian faiths). Nevertheless, the broad picture is clear. On this particular question-wording, just over half of adults profess to be Christians and about one-third claim to have no religion.

	1-6/11	7-12/11	1-6/12	7-11/12	1-6/13
Christian	56.6	55.7	56.4	54.9	55.4
Muslim	2.3	1.7	2.2	1.9	2.4
Hindu	1.3	1.0	1.0	0.8	0.9
Jew	1.0	0.8	0.8	0.8	0.7
Sikh	0.2	0.1	0.3	0.3	0.3
Buddhist	0.7	0.6	0.8	0.7	0.7
Other	2.4	2.5	2.5	2.2	2.1
No religion	32.8	35.4	33.6	36.1	35.3
Refused	2.8	2.1	2.4	2.2	2.3
N	23,454	21,097	19,339	49,147	38,260

Making sense of the census

Abby Day and Lois Lee have now prepared a summary report of the study day on ‘Making Sense of the Census’, hosted by the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group (SocRel) on 18 June 2013, which will be found at:

http://socrel.org.uk/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Day-Abby-and-Lois-Lee-2013-Making-Sense-of-the-Census-Report-FINAL-AD-LL.pdf

Black majority churches

The London Borough of Southwark is reputed to have been the home of the country’s first Black Majority Church (BMC), in 1906. It is therefore appropriate that the borough should have been the subject of a two-year study (from June 2011 to June 2013) of the so-called ‘new’ BMCs which have developed in Britain since the 1950s. In Southwark’s case, the phenomenon has been associated with people of African, and particularly West African, origin. Indeed, according to Andrew Rogers of the University of Roehampton, who was principal investigator for the project and wrote the final report on it which was published on 20 June 2013, ‘Southwark is the African capital of the UK’. It is home to at least 240 and possibly as many as 300 new BMCs, disproportionately in the north of the borough, and with no fewer than 25 to be found on the Old Kent Road alone, which is just a mile and a half long. Collectively, these new BMCs attract 24,000 congregants on a Sunday, more than 8% of the population, and perhaps representing ‘the greatest concentration of African Christianity in the world, outside of Africa’. Rogers and his team (a partnership drawn from the University, Southwark for Jesus, and Churches Together in South London) have deployed a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods to examine these new BMCs, from the perspective of demographics, ecclesiology, ethnicity and culture, community engagement, ecumenical matters, and premises and planning. The report – Being Built Together: A Story of New Black Majority Churches in the London Borough of Southwark – includes 22 tables and 9 figures. It can be found at:

http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/uploadedFiles/Page_Content/Courses/Humanities/Being_Built_Together/Being%20Built%20Together(SB)%20web%20(D).pdf

Religiously aggravated offending in Scotland

There was a 24% decrease in 2012-13 (over 2011-12) in charges reported with a religious aggravation under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, according to Amy Goulding and Ben Cavanagh, Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland, 2012-13, which was published by Scottish Government Social Research on 14 June 2013. Even if we factor in the 75 further charges for religious hatred brought under Section 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, which came into force on 1 March 2012, there was still a decline of 15% (from 901 to 762). The fall was particularly to be found in charges referring to Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, down respectively by 44% and 24%, but there were increases in charges where conduct was derogatory towards Islam (from 19 in 2011-12 to 80 in 2012-13) and Judaism (from 14 to 27). A single incident in Glasgow accounted for 57 of the anti-Islam charges. Overall, 41% of religiously aggravated charges were in Glasgow. Of all the accused, 91% were men, 91% were aged 16-50, and 49% were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offence. The main charges brought were threatening or abusive behaviour (56%) and breach of the peace (20%). Full details at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0042/00424865.pdf

Global Methodist statistics

David Jeremy provides an introduction to the historical statistics of world Methodism (including the UK) in his ‘Church Statistics and the Growth of Global Methodism: Some Preliminary Descriptive Statistics’, in The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism, edited by William Gibson, Peter Forsaith, and Martin Wellings (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, pp. 87-107). His account is drawn from several international (commencing with the Ecumenical Methodist Conference of 1881) and national sources which, not altogether unexpectedly, are sometimes difficult to reconcile with each other. This is even true of membership, which is the most commonly-cited measure of Methodist belonging. The data points which specifically refer to the UK and other individual countries are for 1880, 1910, 1955, and 2006, although global figures are also given for several further years. Membership/population density in the UK declined from 2.5% in 1880 to 2.4% in 1910 to 1.6% in 1955 to 0.5% in 2006. This decrease is symptomatic of a wider shift in global Methodism from developed to developing countries. The essay does not particularly enhance accessibility or understanding of UK Methodist statistics but it does conveniently locate them in a broader geographical context.

Inter-war religion

The timing of secularization in Britain remains a contested topic among historians and sociologists, some regarding it largely as a post-Second World War phenomenon (with the 1960s a critical decade), others viewing it as a more gradual process commencing in the Victorian era. The inter-war years (1918-39) have been little studied in this context, notwithstanding a coincidence of social, economic, and political circumstances which might have been expected to trigger religious change. In ‘Gradualist or Revolutionary Secularization? A Case Study of Religious Belonging in Inter-War Britain, 1918-1939’, Church History and Religious Culture, Vol. 93, No. 1, 2013, pp. 57-93, Clive Field reviews the extent of religious belonging during this period, with reference to quantitative evidence, from two perspectives: churchgoing, and church membership and affiliation. Trends in church attendance are documented, including the demographic variables which shaped it and the effect of innovations such as Sunday cinema and Sunday radio broadcasts of religious services. A conjectural religious profile of the adult population of Britain, c. 1939 reveals that, while, relative to population, there was only marginal growth in professed irreligion and non-Christian faiths since c. 1914, there was accelerated decline in religious worship (notably in terms of regularity) and active affiliation to Protestant denominations. This shift to nominalism particularly impacted the historic Free Churches (the phenomenon had long existed in the Church of England). Examination of these two religious indicators for the inter-war years thus lends further support to the view that secularization in Britain is best seen as a progressive and protracted process. In accordance with the policy of the publisher, Brill, the post-print version of the article has been made available on the author’s personal website at:

http://clivedfield.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/interwar-religion-chrc-2013-published.pdf

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Abby Day, Amy Goulding, Andrew Rogers, BBC Local Radio, Ben Cavanagh, black majority churches, BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group, census of population, church attendance, Church History and Religious Culture, church membership, Churches Together in South London, Clive Field, Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, David Jeremy, England, Freedom of Information, happiness, hospital chaplains, inter-war period, Kathryn Cooper, Lois Lee, London, London School of Economics, Mappiness, meditation, Methodism, National Health Service, National Secular Society, Populus, religious activities, Religious Affiliation, religious hatred, religiously aggravated offending, Scotland, SocRel, Southwark, Southwark for Jesus, Sunday Times, University of Roehampton, well-being | Leave a comment

Muslim and Christian News

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Clive D. Field

For a third week running, Muslims dominate the religious statistical news post-Woolwich, but we also find space for four short items on Christians.

‘Hate preachers’

The brutal murder by two Islamists of Drummer Lee Rigby on the streets of Woolwich continues to inform public opinion towards Islam and Muslims. In a newly-released poll, by ComRes for the Sunday Mirror (conducted online on 29 and 30 May 2013), 84% of the 2,015 adult Britons interviewed agreed that the Government should take action to silence so-called ‘hate preachers’ who radicalize young Muslims, the proportion reaching 94% among over-65s and 95% with UKIP voters. Just 6% disagreed with the proposition, with 10% undecided. Detailed tables, published on 2 June, can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Sunday_Mirror_Political_Poll_2_June_2013.pdf

Integration of Muslim migrants

Negative opinions about Muslims predate Rigby’s murder, of course. By way of illustration, migrants from Muslim countries were perceived by Britons as the least well integrated into British society of four migrant groups covered in two YouGov polls for YouGov@Cambridge, which were published on 3 June 2013, with online interviews of representative samples of adults aged 18 and over conducted on 7-8 and 16-17 May 2013. A summary table appears below, with full breaks by demographics available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/4opseuuz4d/YG-Archive-Cam-migrants-integration-results-080513.pdf

	Well integrated	Not well integrated
Migrants from Eastern Europe	34	54
Children of migrants from Eastern Europe	42	32
Migrants from Muslim countries	21	71
Children of migrants from Muslim countries	38	53
Migrants from Pakistan	28	57
Children of migrants from Pakistan	46	40
Migrants from African countries	31	46
Children of migrants from African countries	43	33

The proportion feeling that migrants from Muslim countries were poorly integrated into British society was 71% overall, 14% more than in the case of migrants from Pakistan (which is a preponderantly Muslim nation), 17% more than for migrants from Eastern Europe, and 25% more than migrants from African countries. Migrants from Muslim countries were especially seen as poorly integrated by Conservative and UKIP voters, the over-40s, and Midlanders and Welsh.

Children of migrants from Muslim countries were assessed as better integrated into British society than their parents, by a margin of 17%. Even so, a majority of Britons (53%) said that this second generation, too, was poorly assimilated, rising to 89% for UKIP supporters, 62% of Midlanders/Welsh, and 58% of over-40s. By contrast, pluralities felt that children from the other three migrant groups were well integrated.

Britishness of Muslims

But what Britons as a whole feel about Muslims may be at variance with how Muslims regard themselves. This is suggested by a briefing paper by Stephen Jivraj, Who Feels British? The Relationship between Ethnicity, Religion, and National Identity in England, which was published on 6 June 2013 by the University of Manchester’s Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity. The paper is at:

http://www.ethnicity.ac.uk/census/CoDE-National-Identity-Census-Briefing.pdf

Using evidence from the 2011 census of population, which included a question on national identity for the first time, Jivraj found that:

Muslims are more likely than Christians to report British national identity only (57% compared to 15%), with Sikhs on 62% and Hindus on 54%
Muslims are less likely to report other (foreign) national identity only than Buddhists or Hindus (24% compared to 42% and 32% respectively)
Christians (65%) and Jews (54%) are more likely to report English only national identity than any other faith group, Hindus (9%) and Muslims (13%) registering the lowest figures

Islamophobic incidents

Lee Rigby’s murder has prompted a degree of backlash against Britain’s Muslim community, with a number of demonstrations organized by far-right groups, several attacks on mosques and Islamic centres, and various other Islamophobic incidents. The question is how extensive has that backlash been? Here a row has blown up between the right-leaning media and the Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) project, whose first annual statistics were covered by BRIN on 15 March 2013, and which performs a similar role for Islamophobia as the Community Security Trust does for anti-Semitism, with start-up funding for Tell MAMA provided by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

According to Tell MAMA, there have been 212 Islamophobic incidents reported to it between Rigby’s death on 22 May and last weekend. For two successive weeks running Andrew Gilligan in his column in the Sunday Telegraph has criticized the ‘spin’ being placed on the figures by Tell MAMA, especially its claims of a growing ‘cycle of violence’. In today’s article (‘Muslim Hate Monitor to Lose Backing’, p. 14), Gilligan reiterates that 57% of the incidents occurred online, mainly in the form of offensive posts to Twitter and Facebook; 16% of reports have yet to be verified; and that physical targeting of Muslims featured in just 8% of cases and attacks on property in 6%.

Gilligan’s original article can be found at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10093568/The-truth-about-the-wave-of-attacks-on-Muslims-after-Woolwich-murder.html

Tell MAMA’s side of the story is set out in its blog at:

http://tellmamauk.org/news/

Fair Admissions Campaign

The Fair Admissions Campaign launched in London on 6 June 2013, with the objective of opening up all state-funded schools in England and Wales to all children, regardless of their parents’ religion. As part of the evidence base for its claim that the current system is discriminatory, the Campaign has published the results of a preliminary mapping of state schools against one socio-economic indicator, the eligibility of pupils for free school meals.

This found that ‘secondary schools without a religious character have on average 26 per cent more pupils eligible for free school meals than the first half of their post code and 30 per cent more pupils eligible than their local authority. In contrast, Roman Catholic secondary schools have 20 per cent fewer pupils in receipt of free school meals than the average for their postcode and 23 per cent fewer for the average for their local authority. Voluntary Aided Church of England secondary schools have eight per cent and 18 per cent fewer than the average for their post code and local authority respectively. Most Church schools were set up to serve children from poor families, so serving the better off in their community is a distortion to their original mission.’

For more details, see:

http://fairadmissions.org.uk/schools-map/

In a parallel development, on 3 June the Sutton Trust, which is dedicated to ‘improving social mobility through education’, published Selective Comprehensives: The Social Composition of Top Comprehensive Schools, focusing on the top 500 English comprehensive state secondary schools, based on their academic performance in 2012. These schools included a disproportionate number of faith schools (33% against 19% of all state-funded secondary schools) which scored relatively poorly on a measure of eligibility for and uptake of free school meals (8% compared with 12% for all faith schools and 17% for non-faith schools nationally). The report is at:

http://www.suttontrust.com/public/documents/1topcomprehensives.pdf

Singleness and the Church

Peter Brierley’s writes a monthly column on church statistics for the Church of England Newspaper. In his latest article (9 June 2013, p. 15) he focuses on ‘Being Single in Church’, picking up on the experiences of singles as recently reported in a survey of members of Christian Connection, a dating agency for Christian singles. Brierley compares the marital status of English churchgoers and population in 2012, the former data taken from a study of only seven evangelical congregations for the Langham International Partnership. He shows that adult ‘legally singles’ are far more numerous in society than in church, but this is because of the disproportionate concentration of cohabitees and single parents in the population; excluding these two categories, there were actually more ‘singles’ in church. Almost half of churchgoers aged 18-39 are single, and the great majority of these are women, who are therefore challenged to find a suitable marriage partner within the church. This is underlined by preliminary findings from Brierley’s London Church Census, 2012, five-sixths of those who joined the Church in the capital during the past decade being female. For those in their twenties 10,000 women joined between 2005 and 2012 against only 5,000 men.

Methodist diaconate

A quantitative demographic and attitudinal profile of the Methodist Order of Deacons (a neighbourhood form of ministry complementing, and having equal status with, the much larger Order of Presbyters) is offered by Lewis Burton, ‘The Methodist Diaconate: Profiling a Distinctive Order of Ministry’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Vol. 89, 2012-13, No. 2, pp. 15-32. The article is largely based upon a questionnaire survey of Deacons undertaken in 2006 to parallel the same author’s 2004 study of Methodist Presbyters.

Dean of Studies and Research, Bible Society

The Bible Society is advertising for a Dean of Studies and Research in order to spearhead its engagement with the higher education sector and to contribute to the programme of Christian Research, which is part of the Society. The closing date for applications is 23 June 2013. Further particulars of the post are available at:

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/about-bible-society/jobs/dean-of-studies-and-research/

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Andrew Gilligan, Bible Society, Britishness, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Census, Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity, children, Church of England Newspaper, comprehensive schools, ComRes, diaconate, Fair Admissions Campaign, Faith schools, government, hate preachers, integration, Islamophobia, Lewis Burton, Methodist Church, migrants, Muslims, Peter Brierley, radicalization, singles, Stephen Jivraj, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Telegraph, Sutton Trust, Tell MAMA, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

2011 Anglican Statistics and Other News

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Clive D. Field

As usual, there has been a lot of media interest today in the latest (2011) Statistics for Mission of the Church of England. They are always seen as something of a barometer of the spiritual state of England, and so it is appropriate that we give them a fair amount of space here, alongside five shorter items of religious statistical news.

Church of England statistics for mission, 2011

The Church of England has today released its Statistics for Mission, 2011, comprising 18 pages of tables with breaks to diocesan level and some national time series. This report (prepared by Archbishops’ Council, Research and Statistics), together with a brief press statement largely quoting the Bishop of Norwich on the more encouraging aspects of the data, can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/05/church-annual-statistics-for-2011.aspx

The short-term picture, comparing 2011 with 2010, is a mixed but largely downbeat one, which has been the story for several years past. On the credit side, the best news was the 14.5% increase in Christmas Day attendance, albeit this must be attributed in large part to the very poor weather at Christmas 2010, which negatively impacted congregations, and to the fact that Christmas Day fell on a Sunday in 2011, which probably gave them a boost. Christmas Day communicants were up by 13.3%, for the same reasons. Usual Sunday attendance grew by 0.8%, but the report ascribes this to a new estimation process for filling in gaps on the parochial schedules. Baptisms and thanksgivings were up by 4.6% in total, including by 2.6% for infant baptisms, 7.5% for baptisms of children aged 1-12, and 44.5% for thanksgivings of children.

On the debit side, there were falls in average weekly attendance (-0.3%), average Sunday attendance (-1.2%), Easter Day attendance (-1.6%), Easter Day communicants (-0.7%), electoral roll (-0.1%), confirmations (-0.5%), marriages and blessings (-3.1%), and funerals (-2.7%, although deaths in England and Wales also fell, by 1.8%, during the year). The decreases in two of the three rites of passage must be particularly disappointing for the Church, for this is an area where it has been investing resource of late and has traditionally held sway, especially over the ‘nominals’, about whom we have heard much in recent weeks. Anglican infant baptisms now account for just 12.1% of live births and Anglican funerals for 35.7% of deaths.

These are naturally national trends, which conceal some diocesan variation. For example, the average all age weekly attendance figure ranged from an increase between 2010 and 2011 of 11.0% for Southwell and Nottingham to a decrease of 10.6% in Canterbury. Will the new Archbishop make a difference in the latter see? Well, he comes from Durham, which recorded a decline of 8.0%, so it is too soon to tell.

Taking a ten-year view (2001-11), which gives a better feel for real trends, the position is summarized in the table below, which will make for rather bleak reading for the Church, even bleaker if we factor in that the mid-year population of England grew by 7.9% over the decade (invariably making the relative decline greater than suggested by the absolute numbers).

	2001	2011	% change
Average all age weekly attendance	1,205,000	1,091,500	-9.4
Average adult weekly attendance	976,000	874,600	-10.4
Average children/young people weekly attendance	229,000	216,900	-5.3
Average all age Sunday attendance	1,041,000	898,300	-13.7
Average adult Sunday attendance	868,000	763,300	-12.1
Average children/young people Sunday attendance	173,000	134,900	-22.0
Usual all age Sunday attendance	938,000	807,500	-13.9
Usual adult Sunday attendance	781,000	690,700	-11.6
Usual children/young people Sunday attendance	157,000	116,800	-25.6
All age Easter Day attendance	1,593,100	1,365,000	-14.3
Easter Day communicants	1,134,900	979,700	-13.7
All age Christmas Day/Eve attendance	2,608,000	2,618,000	+0.4
Christmas Day/Eve communicants	1,227,900	1,008,500	-17.9
Electoral roll	1,372,000	1,206,000	-12.1
Baptisms and thanksgivings	160,200	146,330	-8.7
Confirmations	33,367	22,242	-33.3
Marriages and blessings	63,600	55,540	-12.7
Funerals	228,000	162,530	-28.7

Google ties with religion

In the latest variant of a trust in organizations survey, Google and religious institutions shared fifth equal place, 17% of Britons aged 16 and over who were interviewed reckoning that each had their best interests at heart. The 2,000 respondents were invited to rank their top three institutions from a list of sixteen. Most trusted – despite its recent high-profile failings – was the National Health Service (37%), followed by police (26%), charities (21%), and – notwithstanding the horsemeat scandal – supermarkets (19%). Least regarded as having the public’s best interests at heart were politicians (3%), the media (6%), banks (7%), and lawyers (8%) also scoring badly. These findings were released by communications agency OMD UK on 30 April 2013 as an initial output from its ongoing ‘Future of Britain’ project, in collaboration with MMR Research. The trust in organizations table is reproduced on the Sky News website at:

http://news.sky.com/story/1084991/britons-trust-google-as-much-as-religion

Religious opposition to same-sex marriage

Religious opposition to same-sex marriage in Britain is reviewed by Steven Kettell in a new article entitled ‘I Do, Thou Shalt Not’ published on 2 May 2013 in the ‘early view’ online version of Political Quarterly. Developments in Scotland are covered as well as in England and Wales. Religious arguments against same-sex marriage are analysed, the author noting how relatively little they deploy theology but rather invoke secular justifications. Some use is made of opinion poll evidence, although – inevitably for an academic journal – this is not absolutely up-to-date. Unsurprisingly, Kettell concludes that religious opposition to same-sex marriage has failed, with broader implications for religion’s public role. This is a subscription title; for access options, go to:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2013.12009.x/abstract

Equality and Muslims

Almost three-quarters of adults (73%, rising to 81% of over-60s) think it a very or fairly big problem in Britain that Muslim girls suffer discrimination at the hands of their own families by being told when to leave school and/or whom to marry, and 26% rate it as one of the most urgent problems facing the country (35% among the 18-24s and 34% among Conservatives and the highest income earners). By contrast, only 3% consider that unfair treatment of Muslim workers by their employers is an urgent problem (bottom of a list of ten equality challenges), with 73% contending that it is either not a problem at all or a fairly small problem (and 27% that it is a very or fairly big problem). These two questions were included in a survey of equality issues undertaken by YouGov for the YouGov@Cambridge think tank, with 1,925 Britons aged 18 and over being interviewed online on 25 and 26 February 2013. The detailed tables were released on 1 May and can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/9a679g3m9i/YG-Archive-Cam-equality%20results-260213.pdf

National Jewish Community Survey

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) launched the National Jewish Community Survey on 1 May, with the intention of collecting data which will complement the 2011 civilian census for ‘Jewish people living in Britain, irrespective of the nature of their Jewish identity and level of involvement in the community.’ In addition to probing Jewish identity, questions are being asked about the demographic profile and charitable behaviour of Jews. The survey, which is being funded by a consortium of Jewish community organizations and foundations, is being conducted online during May and June 2013 in association with Ipsos MORI. According to an interview given to the current issue (3 May 2013, p. 2) of the Jewish Chronicle, JPR is confident that its online methodology will not lead to under-representation of strictly Orthodox Jews ‘as Charedim have greater access to the internet than many people think’. Respondents to the survey will be recruited by invitation only, initially on a random basis, and will thus not be self-selecting. Further information about the survey is available in the FAQs posted at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/census-faqs.pdf

BRIN on BRIN

The latest BRIN site traffic statistics, kindly collated by Siobhan McAndrew, demonstrate that usage of BRIN has continued to build since the official launch of the website just over three years ago. Since that time there have been 186,000 visits to the site by 152,000 unique visitors who have viewed 422,000 pages. Judging by their IP addresses, 70% of visitors are from the United Kingdom and 11% from the United States, although 187 different countries are represented in all. The majority of visitors (65%) arrive at the BRIN website via Google, but 13% key the BRIN URL directly, and a similar proportion come as referrals from other sites (of which guardian.co.uk heads the list). The most frequently accessed blog post to date was from 21 September 2010 on ‘How Many Muslims?’ which accounts for just over 3% of all BRIN page views.

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Rites of Passage, Survey news | Tagged Archbishops' Council, church attendance, Church of England, discrimination, equality, Google, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Ipsos-MORI, Jews, MMR Research, Muslims, National Jewish Community Survey, OMD UK, Political Quarterly, religious festivals, religious institutions, rites of passage, same-sex marriage, Siobhan McAndrew, Steven Kettell, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | 1 Comment

Assisted Dying and Other News

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Assisted dying heads the list of five religious statistical news stories today, rounding off BRIN’s coverage of the exclusive YouGov survey on religion and personal morality commissioned to inform the 2013 Westminster Faith Debates.

Assisted dying

The British public overwhelmingly (70%, with just 16% in disagreement) favours a change in the law to enable persons with incurable diseases to have the right to ask close friends or relatives to help them commit suicide, and without those friends or relatives running the risk of prosecution (as is currently the case). Moreover, while those who profess no religion are especially likely (81% versus 9%) to support reform, even people of faith back it overall (64% versus 21%), with the conspicuous exception of Muslims, who take the contrary line (by 55% to 26%). A plurality (49%, with 36% against) of individuals who actively participate in a religious group also wants to see the law amended. Not until we reach the ‘strict believers’ – the 9% of the population who take their authority in life from religious sources, who certainly believe in God, and who actively participate in a religious group – is there a religious core hostile to legalizing assisted dying and thus in tune with the teaching of many mainstream faiths and denominations. These believers’ motivations are that ‘human life is sacred’ (80%) and/or ‘death should take its natural course’ (69%).

These are some of the headlines from the sixth and final instalment of the YouGov poll commissioned by Professor Linda Woodhead in connection with the 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates, which conclude today with a discussion of ‘Should We Legislate to Permit Assisted Dying?’ The poll was undertaken through online interviews with 4,437 Britons aged 18 and over between 25 and 30 January 2013. The detailed computer tables for the assisted dying module, including the two questions exploring the reasons for supporting or opposing a change in the law, have been posted at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/qsaixtu2j4/YG-Archive-University-of-Lancaster-300113-faith-matters-euthanasia.pdf

The press release for these results is at:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/press_release_westminster_faith_debate_6_should_we_legislate_to_permit_assisted_dying

A consolidated list of media coverage for all six debates in the series is at:

http://religionandsociety.org.uk/faith_debates-2013/media_coverage

Assisted dying has been a contested matter for decades. The campaign organization now known as Dignity in Dying was founded as the Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society as far back as 1935. Soon afterwards, in 1937, Gallup conducted the first opinion poll on the subject, asking its sample whether ‘doctors should be given power to end the life of a person incurably ill’, and finding that 69% thought that they should. The proportion in favour of physician-assisted suicide has grown since, hovering around four-fifths in six British Social Attitudes Surveys from 1983 to 2008; in 2008 it stood at 82% (90% for those of no religion, 85% for Anglicans, 75% for Catholics, 70% for other Christians, and 63% for non-Christians). Endorsement of non-doctor-assisted suicide has run at a somewhat lower but still high level; a question worded not dissimilarly to that in the Westminster Faith Debates poll, asking about a change in the law to enable friends and relatives to assist in a suicide, was posed by YouGov on five occasions between 2008 and 2012, recording majorities for legislative reform of between 68% and 74%. However, it should be noted that the public is less approving of suicide in instances where an incurable disease does not exist; indeed, in the most recent (January 2013) Angus Reid poll only 29% of Britons deemed suicide in general to be morally acceptable.

Lent, 2013

No, there is nothing wrong with BRIN’s ecclesiastical clock; we know that Lent is long past! It is just that, after Easter this year, on 10 April, Opinium put out a press release about two online surveys of UK adults aged 18 and over which it had undertaken on behalf of the charity Street Kids International, and in connection with the latter’s ‘Give it Up for a Day’ campaign to coincide with the International Day for Street Children on 12 April. Thanks to the generosity of both Opinium and Street Kids, BRIN has been given access to both topline and detailed data from these surveys, and we are able to share some highlights from them with our constituency.

The first survey was completed by 2,021 adults and conducted between 12 and 15 February 2013, broadly coinciding with the start of Lent (13 February). Asked whether they had any plans to give anything up for Lent, 11% said yes, ranging from 14% of women to 8% of men, and from 17% of the 18-34s to 8% of the over-55s. Three-fifths of these prospective abstainers anticipated that they would sustain their sacrifice throughout the whole of Lent (66% of females and 72% of the 35-54s). Four-fifths (79%) had no intentions of giving anything up, with 65% of them attributing this to the fact that they did not celebrate Lent or were not religious; 29% could see no purpose in Lent, 10% confessed they could not be bothered, and 6% blamed a lack of willpower. 72% of the non-abstainers thought that they might manage to give up something for one day instead (which was the driver behind the Street Kids campaign). One in ten of all respondents admitted to being uncertain about their Lenten observance.

The second survey, in which 2,006 adults were interviewed, took place between 2 and 4 April 2013, immediately after the conclusion of Lent. A similar number to the first survey (10%) claimed that they had tried to give something up for Lent, peaking at 12% of women, 15% of the 18-34s, and 16% of Londoners, while 89% acknowledged that they had not. The top forfeits were very much the ‘traditional’ ones: eating chocolate (32% of the abstainers), drinking alcohol (19%), eating crisps (18%), eating sweets (16%), swearing (12%), drinking fizzy drinks (10%), and smoking (10%). By contrast, virtually nobody could bear to be parted from the technological trappings of modern life, such as television, mobile phones, social media, internet shopping, computer games, or Ipod music. Fewer than half (47%) of the abstainers had kept up their sacrifice throughout the whole of Lent, with the Welsh (69%) and Scots (62%) having the most staying power; at the other end of the spectrum, 31% had lasted seven days or less. Lack of willpower (30%), the temptation of a special occasion (19%), stress (19%), and forgetfulness (18%) were the most commonly cited reasons for caving in early.

Church music

The current state of, in particular, Anglican church music is partially illuminated in the results of a survey undertaken by the Royal School of Church Music and published on 20 April 2013 in connection with the conference ‘Church Music: Sound Ministry?’ held at Canterbury Christ Church University. The survey was open during a three-week period in March 2013, for completion either online or by post, and the 205 respondents were entirely self-selecting. They were also disproportionately from the UK, Anglican, and from churches’ music departments (meaning that they probably reflect the views of larger churches, which can afford to sustain such departments). The research must therefore be considered as illustrative rather than statistically representative. The principal question topic concerned the demand for music genres outside the ‘usual repertoire’ of churches, notably the spread of pre-recorded music at services, including the rites of passage, with pop, classical, and other secular music recordings being prevalent at weddings and funerals. One-quarter of respondents reported that their church had refused to perform or provide some requested music on the grounds that it was inappropriate. A summary of the survey, prepared by Stuart Robinson, is at:

http://www.rscm.com/assets/info_resources/SurveyReport.pdf

Prejudice against groups

Muslims are perceived to be the religious or ethnic group likely to experience most prejudice in Britain today, according to an online survey by Britain Thinks on behalf of British Future think tank, in which 2,032 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed on 16 and 17 March 2013. Topline results were published on 21 April in the appendix to Sunder Katwala, The Integration Consensus, 1993-2013: How Britain Changed Since Stephen Lawrence, which is available at:

http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/BRFJ726-Integration-Consensus_v8.pdf

Muslims were deemed to experience ‘a lot’ of prejudice by 54% of Britons, compared with 29% who said the same about Asians, 27% about white (Eastern) Europeans, 24% about blacks, 17% about Hindus, 17% about Sikhs, 14% about Jews, 11% about white British, 11% about Christians, 9% about people of mixed race, and 5% about atheists. Only 7% of the sample considered that Muslims suffered ‘hardly any’ prejudice, whereas for Hindus and Sikhs it was 23%, for Jews 28%, for Christians 50%, and for atheists 60%. These trends are broadly in line with previous poll evidence, including the widespread acceptability of atheism.

Abu Qatada

The British public generally shares the frustration of Home Secretary Theresa May and Prime Minister David Cameron about the current legal impasse with regard to the deportation to his native Jordan of Abu Qatada al-Filistini, the radical Muslim cleric given asylum in Britain in 1994 but who has since been implicated in Islamist terrorism, albeit he has not been convicted of any offences in the UK. A British court ruled in 2005 that Abu Qatada should be deported, but so far he has been able to block this in the British and European courts on the grounds that he would not receive a fair trial in Jordan as evidence obtained from torture might be used against him, despite new treaty guarantees from the Jordanian authorities that this would not be the case.

Although 51% of Britons agree that it would not be acceptable for evidence obtained by torture to be used against Abu Qatada (compared with 28% who say the opposite), far fewer (25%) argue that he should not be deported until the British Government is satisfied that the new treaty categorically ensures that evidence from torture will not be deployed. A clear majority (61%) wants Britain to deport Abu Qatada regardless of legal challenges and of what subsequently happens to him in Jordan; this view is strongly held by UKIP (90%) and Conservative (74%) supporters and by the over-60s (73%). Moreover, as many as 52% favour Britain’s temporary withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights in order to be able to deport Abu Qatada, with 30% opposing this step (rising to 59% of Liberal Democrats) and 18% undecided.

These findings derive from a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, conducted online on 25 and 26 April 2013 among a sample of 1,898 Britons aged 18 and over. Data tables appear on pp. 12-13 at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/lhnabrjag7/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-260413.pdf

BRIN’s coverage of previous YouGov/Sunday Times polls relating to the Abu Qatada case can be found at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/theresa-mays-bad-hair-day/

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/abu-qatada/

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged abstinence, Abu Qatada al-Filistini, assisted dying, atheists, Britain Thinks, British Future, Christians, church music, deportation, European Convention on Human Rights, euthanasia, Hindus, Islamism, Islamophobia, Jews, Jordan, legislation, Lent, Linda Woodhead, Muslims, Opinium, pre-recorded music, prejudice, religious festivals, Royal School of Church Music, Sikhs, Street Kids International, Stuart Robinson, Sunday Times, Sunder Katwala, terrorism, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | 1 Comment

Politico-Religious News

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s post (the 600th on BRIN in just over three years) examines three newly-released surveys which explore the intersection between religion and political issues.

Same-sex marriage

The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill for England and Wales has now completed the Committee Stage in the House of Commons and is awaiting a date for Report and Third Reading Stage prior to the measure’s consideration by the House of Lords. Meanwhile, New Zealand last week became the thirteenth country to legislate for same-sex marriage, with a final vote to take place on the issue (and same-sex adoption) in France’s National Assembly next Tuesday.

Christian views on the matter in Britain were openly discussed last Thursday in the fifth of this year’s series of Westminster Faith Debates, and, as with the other debates, the discussion was informed by new survey data from a YouGov poll commissioned by Professor Linda Woodhead and conducted online between 25 and 30 January 2013 among a representative sample of 4,437 adult Britons. The data tables should be posted on YouGov’s public archive site during the next few days, at:

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

More immediately, there is some coverage of the results (especially as they affect Catholics) in The Tablet for 20 April 2013 (pp. 10 and 30) and also a press release at:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/press_release_do_christians_really_oppose_gay_marriage

Among Britons as a whole, 52% thought that same-sex couples should be allowed to get married, 34% disagreed, and 14% did not know what to think. There were significant differences between people of faith and those without: whereas 69% of those professing no religion favoured same-sex marriage, and only 20% dissented, persons affiliating to a religion evenly split at 43% for and against.

In terms of faith traditions, the greatest opposition to same-sex marriage was to be found with Muslims (59%), followed by Baptists (50%). Hostility also correlated with strength of religious attachment. Thus, it reached above-average levels among those describing themselves as religious (53%), actively practising their faith (46%), definite believers in God or a higher power (48%), also those who said their lives were guided by religious leaders (67%), their religion (58%), religious teachings (56%), or God (54%).

A second question asked respondents whether they felt same-sex marriage to be right or wrong. Among all Britons, 46% said right and 34% wrong, but religious people were more likely to say wrong (44%) than right (37%), while the no religion group was strongly inclined to say right (63% compared with 20% wrong). Muslims (64%), Baptists (55%), and Sikhs (54%) were especially prone to regard same-sex marriage as wrong, as were the self-assessed religious (54%), and those deriving guidance from religious leaders (67%), their religion (59%), religious teachings (58%), or God (57%). Excluding don’t knows, Christians divided 56% wrong and 44% right.

Overall, 44% of Britons disapproved of the opposition to same-sex marriage of the mainstream Christian Churches, with 33% choosing to back the Churches, and 23% uncertain. Hostility to the Churches’ stance against same-sex marriage was notable among Labour and Liberal Democrat voters (54% and 56% respectively), the 18-24s (56%), Scots (52%), degree-holders (54%), those professing no religion (60%), definite disbelievers in God (60%), and those whose lives were guided by science (55%). Agreement with the Churches’ line was concentrated among Conservatives (46%), the over-60s (51%), Baptists (60%), Muslims (52%), the self-styled religious (54%), individuals practising their faith (51%), definite believers in God (50%), and among those guided by religious leaders (65%), their religion (58%), religious teachings (57%), or God (56%).

Notwithstanding a tendency for people of faith to be disproportionately less disposed to same-sex marriage, among Christians who contended that same-sex marriage is wrong only 26% explicitly cited religion or scripture as the basis for their opposition. More common explanations of their position were the assertion that marriage should be between a man and a woman (79%), the claim that same-sex marriage would undermine the traditional family of a mother and a father (63%), and the conviction that it is not the best context in which to bring up children (52%). Christians who regarded same-sex marriage as right viewed the matter in terms of equality (77%) and the non-exclusivity of faithful love to heterosexual couples (70%).

It should be remembered that the fieldwork for this YouGov poll took place immediately before the Second Reading debate on the Bill on 5 February, when the salience of same-sex marriage was very high in respect of public opinion and the media. It is possible that views have shifted somewhat since, because either a) the salience of the issue has dropped, b) the fall-out from the Cardinal O’Brien affair in Scotland has made Church lobbying against the Bill somewhat less credible in England and Wales, or c) some Christians accept the inevitability of the Bill becoming law, given the substantial Commons majority at Second Reading.

On the last point, it is certainly the case that the Churches have had to accommodate themselves to all manner of things over the years which instinctively they did not like the sound of. These include civil partnerships which, however lauded by most Church leaders now (as justification for same-sex marriage not being needed), were widely opposed by people of faith at the time of their introduction.

Politics, ethnicity, and religion

Lord Ashcroft has taken advantage of the forty-fifth anniversary of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech on immigration to commission Populus to undertake a survey of black and minority ethnic (BME) opinions on politics and multiculturalism. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,035 BME Britons aged 18 and over between 22 March and 15 April 2013, comprising 501 Muslims, 150 Hindus, 100 Sikhs, 265 affiliates of other faiths, and a mere 18 persons (2%) professing no religion. Results, with breaks by religion, were published on 19 April in the form of both summary and full tables, available at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lord-Ashcroft-Ethnic-Minority-Voters-poll-summary-April-2013.pdf

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ethnic-minority-survey-April-2013-full-tables.pdf

The economic situation was viewed as the most important issue facing the country by most BMEs, including 57% of Muslims, 57% of Hindus, and 60% of Sikhs. Muslims and Sikhs had more confidence in the Labour team (Ed Miliband and Ed Balls) than the Conservative team (David Cameron and George Osborne) to manage the economy, 54% versus 30% for Muslims, and 51% versus 41% for Sikhs. Hindus, by contrast, placed more trust in the Conservative than Labour team (51% compared with 43%). A majority of Muslims (51%) and a plurality of Hindus (45%) and Sikhs (46%) also thought that Labour had the best plans for dealing with Britain’s overall problems.

Majorities of the three religious groups agreed that ‘if you work hard, it is possible to be very successful in Britain, no matter what your background’ (68% of Muslims, 73% of Hindus, and 70% of Sikhs). They also felt that their children’s lives would be better than theirs (57%, 60%, and 62% respectively), and – overwhelmingly – that Britain had become a multicultural nation (88%, 91%, and 88%). The Labour Party and its leader were seen as most supportive of multiculturalism by all three faith communities, followed by the Liberal Democrats, and with the Conservatives last. Most Muslims (62%) and Hindus (55%) had never heard of Enoch Powell, but the proportion was less (38%) for Sikhs, albeit only 40% even of these knew who Powell was and what he had said. Somewhat ironically, 32% of Muslims, 37% of Hindus, and 49% of Sikhs thought immigration into Britain had been ‘a bad thing’.

Jews and the news

The BBC is by far the most important provider of terrestrial television news (88% in the past seven days) and online news (52% in the past seven days) for British Jews, but the vast majority (79%, rising to 93% of Conservative voters) consider BBC news coverage to be biased against Israel (36% heavily so and 43% somewhat). Only 14% regard the coverage as generally balanced. In terms of newspapers, The Times and Sunday Times are the most widely read titles (46% of Jews having read the print version and 23% the online version during the previous week), as was also the case in 1995.

These are among the headlines from a report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research which was published on 15 April 2013. Coincidentally, they are appearing at the same time as it was announced that James Harding, the Jewish former editor of The Times, has been appointed as the BBC’s new director of current affairs and news. David Graham’s Jews and the News: News Consumption Habits and Opinions of Jews in Britain is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/JPR%20Jewish%20news%20media%20report%20final.pdf

As is acknowledged in the introduction, the research now entering the public domain is actually relatively old, being undertaken between 7 January and 14 February 2010 among a self-selecting sample of 4,081 British Jews who completed an online questionnaire hosted by Ipsos MORI. Although the data have been weighted by synagogue membership, secular-religious outlook, and educational attainment, it is conceded that they may over-represent individuals interested in politics and international affairs. BRIN has already covered the first report from the survey (2010), dealing with the attitudes of British Jews toward Israel, at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2010/jewish-attitudes-toward-israel/

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged BBC, David Graham, economy, Enoch Powell, ethnic minorities, Hindus, homosexuality, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Ipsos-MORI, Israel, Jews, Linda Woodhead, Lord Ashcroft, multiculturalism, Muslims, news, politics. Populus, same-sex marriage, Sikhs, The Times, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | Leave a comment

Winter 2013 Cpanel

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The results of two modules from the winter 2013 Cpanel of churchgoers have been released by their sponsors this Eastertide, doubtless in a bid to grab the public’s attention at a time of year when religion has traditionally taken centre stage.

Premier Christian Radio module – image of the Church

Two-thirds of practising UK Christians believe that the Christian Church in the UK needs a new image, with only 14% saying that its current image is fine. This is according to a module from the winter Cpanel study by ComRes for Premier Christian Radio, which was published on 29 March 2013, and for which 535 churchgoers aged 18 and over were interviewed online between 18 January and 4 February 2013. Data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_Cpanel_Results_Church_Image_Feb_2013.pdf

Although just 22% of practising Christians consider that the Church should spend money on advertising in a bid to improve its image, with 67% opposed, follow-on questions were still asked about an advertising campaign for the Church. Television (29%) and social media sites (17%) are viewed as being potentially the most effective places to carry the Christian message. Almost half (45%) accept that such a campaign would benefit from the involvement of a celebrity, but 34% disagree. A similar number (42%, including 61% of Anglicans) think that the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, might help improve the Church’s image.

These practising Christians tend to cast the media as the villains of the piece. The overwhelming majority (83%) consider that the UK media unfairly represent the Christian Church, while 85% assert that the media portray the Church in a negative light. By contrast, hardly anybody seems to fault local places of worship; indeed, only 10% concede that they are unwelcoming, with 88% saying the opposite.

Coalition for Marriage module – same-sex marriage

The same sense of churchgoers feeling somewhat embattled is carried over into a second module from the same Cpanel study, this time sponsored by the Coalition for Marriage (C4M), which was published on 30 March 2013. The data tables for this can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/C4M_Cpanel_Results_Feb_2013.pdf

There are a few general questions about the challenges perceived to be facing Christianity in the UK. A large majority (76%) of these practising Christians is critical of the Government for failing to give sufficient protection to the rights of Christians to exercise their freedom of religious expression, while 67% contend that they sometimes or often feel a member of ‘a persecuted minority’ because of constraints on religious expression (albeit 29% disagree). A similar proportion (71%) says that they will vote for a party or candidate promising to give more protection to the rights of Christians to practice their faith more openly.

However, the main purpose of the C4M module was to test the attitudes of churchgoers to same-sex marriage, on the eve of the Second Reading in the House of Commons of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill for England and Wales. This took place on 5 February, with the Cpanel fieldwork finishing the day before, so these data do not tell us whether churchgoing opinion has changed at all in the light of the very substantial majority for the Bill at Second Reading.

The newly-reported findings are broadly in line with those obtained in previous Cpanel enquiries on the subject, in June-July 2012 and October 2011, thereby suggesting that churchgoers are overwhelmingly against the legalization of same-sex marriage, although (strangely) an overt question along these lines was not actually asked. Some key results include:

92% disagree that people who oppose same-sex marriage are bigots
85% agree that marriage should continue to be defined as an exclusive commitment between a man and a woman
83% disagree that keeping civil partnership and marriage separate worsens public attitudes towards gay people
77% agree that legalization of same-sex marriage might lead to more cases of dismissal or demotion of employees who hold traditional views about marriage
76% agree that many people who would oppose same-sex marriage are reluctant to say so for fear of being called a bigot
73% disagree that once same-sex marriage is legalized most opponents will change their minds
53% want a national referendum to decide the issue

Attitudes of churchgoers towards Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party (for which 38% recalled they had voted at the 2010 general election) seem generally negative on account of the move to legalize same-sex marriage:

77% disagree that Cameron has been in listening mode on the issue
69% disagree that same-sex marriage will help the Conservative Party win at the next general election
67% think that Cameron’s plan to legalize same-sex marriage has more to do with making the Conservative Party look modern than stemming from his personal convictions
46% agree that they would have considered voting Conservative at the next election but will definitely not do so if same-sex marriage is legalized

Some may feel these implied ‘threats’ to wreak electoral ‘revenge’ on the Conservative Party at the next general election are rather disagreeable tactics for practising Christians to be identified with. Be that as it may, the ‘threats’ may well prove to be empty ones, for much psephological opinion seems to suggest that, whatever people may say between elections, few actually cast their vote at an election on the basis of a single issue.

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged advertising, Archbishop of Canterbury, C4M, churchgoers, Coalition for Marriage, ComRes, Conservative Party, Cpanel, David Cameron, freedom of religious expression, government, homosexuality, image of the Church, Justin Welby, local places of worship, media, Premier Christian Radio, rights of Christians, same-sex marriage, voting | Leave a comment

Two YouGov Pre-Easter Polls

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Our focus today is on the headlines from two newly-released YouGov polls, one Easter-related and one not (being the latest instalment of data from the Westminster Faith Debates survey).

Easter observance

Around 6,000,000 British adults should be in church congregations in a few days’ time, on Easter Sunday, if they act upon the intentions announced in the latest YouGov EuroTrack survey, conducted online between 21 and 27 March 2013 among representative samples in Great Britain (n = 2,047) and six other western European nations, and published on 28 March. For 12% of Britons said that they planned to go to church on Easter Day, including – somewhat implausibly – 20% of non-Christians and 3% of those professing no religion.

The press release for the poll can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ksrmk6dw12/EuroTrackEaster.pdf

and the full data tables at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/eh65gpse1v/YG-Archive_Eurotrack-March-Cyprus-EU-representatives-Easter.pdf

The real number of Easter Day worshippers is likely to be an absolute maximum of half that six million. Unfortunately, the Church of England is the only major denomination routinely to report its Easter Day attendances, which were 1,395,000 in 2010 (the latest year available). However, this total will have included children and young people under 16, so the number of adults worshipping in Anglican churches on Easter Day was perhaps no more than 1,100,000. Even if we factor in other Protestants and Catholics, it seems hard to imagine that more than 3,000,000 British adults worship on Easter Day in a ‘good’ year (when the weather is favourable, which it certainly will not be in 2013), and perhaps considerably less.

As often happens with surveys on religion, therefore, YouGov’s respondents probably gave somewhat aspirational answers, reflecting what they felt they ought to be doing to celebrate this high point in the Christian calendar. Besides the 12%, a further 3% said that they would not go to church on Easter Day itself but would do so on another Sunday near Easter. The combined Easter churchgoing score of 15% reached 29% for Christians alone. The national figure was four points lower than in Germany (19%), equal to that in France, and higher than in Norway (13%), Denmark (11%), Sweden (10%), and Finland (10%).

Asked to identify the most important part of Easter for them, a plurality of Britons (47%) said spending time with friends and family, with still more (49%) for Christians alone. This was followed, a long way behind, by having time off work (19%) and, in third place, by the religious significance of the festival, the crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ (15%, albeit 30% for Christians). Even so, more chose the religious option in Britain than in any of the other six countries surveyed, France and Germany being closest on 13%, and falling to 5% in Denmark.

Remarkably few Britons (2%) selected exchanging Easter eggs as the most important part of Easter. Nevertheless, in a separate YouGov poll (undertaken on 26 and 27 March with a sample of 1,867), 60% of adults indicated that they expected to buy at least one large chocolate egg this Easter and 46% to eat at least one. A very keen 8% (which would certainly have included yours truly) thought that Easter eggs should be on sale throughout the entire year. These tabulations are online at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8imm4jy58r/YG-Archive-Easter-results-130327.pdf

Family issues

The family-centric nature of Easter revealed in our first poll neatly aligns with the release, on 27 March, of the results from the family module of the YouGov survey commissioned by Linda Woodhead for the 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates, in which 4,437 adult Britons were interviewed online between 25 and 30 January 2013. The data tables can be found at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/hai8zqy0i7/YG-Archive-University-of-Lancaster-300113-faith-matters-family-debate.pdf

and a press release at:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/press_release_westminster_faith_debate_4_old_tory_men_have_the_narrowest_view_of_family

The first question listed 13 different models of human relationships and asked respondents whether they considered each to constitute a ‘family’ or not. A majority were found to have a fairly narrow view of the family as a biological unit, such as married or cohabiting couples with children, but sizeable proportions also took a broader view of the family, including definitions which did not involve marriage or the presence of children.

People professing a faith differed little in their replies from the population as a whole, even when it came to definitions based on household units comprising same-sex couples with or without children. The main exception was the sub-set of the religious whose authority in life derived from God or religious teachings, who tended to take a narrow view of the family, whereas those having no religion inclined to take a broader view.

The second question outlined eight changes affecting the family and asked whether they were perceived as good or bad for society. In each case, a majority or plurality of replies opted for the neutral (neither good nor bad) position. However, it was noticeable that, with one exception, people of faith who currently engaged in some form of public religious activity took a more conservative line than adults in general. The percentages saying that each scenario was bad for society were as follows:

	All adults	Religiously active
More women never having children	21	30
More unmarried couples raising children	22	37
More single women having children without a male partner	58	68
More gay and lesbian couples raising children	31	41
More people living together without getting married	18	35
More mothers of young children working outside the home	24	33
More people of different races marrying each other	9	8
More couples living ‘together apart’	38	48

This conservatism among the practising faithful is seen by the public particularly to play out in the relatively cool reception which most Christian churches in the UK are thought to give to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people (LGBs). Whereas 80% of all adults consider the churches to welcome married couples with children, 76% married couples without children, and 74% single persons, only 21% feel they embrace LGBs, with 53% claiming that churches are unwelcoming to LGBs. Three-tenths also believe churches are unwelcoming to divorced people.

Those without faith are especially critical of the lack of welcome perceived to be given to LGBs by the churches (62%), but even many of the religious seem to admit that the criticism is well-founded. Thus, 43% of the practising religious accept that churches are mostly unwelcoming to LGBs, six points more than deny it. In particular, majorities of both professing Catholics (58%) and practising Catholics (55%) agree that churches do not welcome LGBs, which is doubtless (in part) a reflection of the vigorous line which the Catholic Church has recently been taking against same-sex marriage.

Posted in church attendance, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged church attendance, Denmark, Easter, Easter eggs, Eurotrack, family, Finland, France, Germany, homosexuality, lesbian gay and bisexual people, Linda Woodhead, Norway, religious festivals, Sweden, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | Leave a comment

Prayer in a Spin

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The Church of England seems to have raised a few statistical eyebrows with its confident declaration, contained in a press release on 26 March 2013, that ‘four out of five believe in the power of prayer’. The Church was seeking to mark the start of Holy Week and to refresh its Pray One for Me website, which it had launched last year. The press release is available at:

http://churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/03/four-out-of-five-believe-in-the-power-of-prayer.aspx

The Church based its claim on a misreading of the fact that 81% of the 2,015 adult Britons interviewed online by ICM Research on 13-14 March 2013, in a poll commissioned by the Church, had replied ‘something’ in answer to the question ‘irrespective of whether you currently pray or not, if you were to pray for something at the moment, what would it be for?’ This was slightly below the figure (85%) in the equivalent poll this time last year, covered by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/eastertide-anglican-news/

The number saying they would never pray for anything was 14%, peaking at 19% among men and those aged 35-44, and falling to 9% for the over-65s and the youngest (18-24 years) cohort. The score for this latter age group (85% stated they would pray for something) was boosted by the 15% of them who said they would pray for their studies, which was five times as many as in the nation as a whole. The score was equalled by women but exceeded by the over-65s (89%).

Overall, the most popular subjects of prospective prayer were: peace in the world (31%), an end to poverty in the world (27%), a family member (26%), and healing for another (22%). Multiple responses were permitted. Overtly religious topics were not especially popular; only 8% wanted to pray for their spiritual life and 4% for their church, both figures being highest for the over-65s. The full data table, including breaks by demographics, can be viewed at:

http://churchofengland.org/media/1704430/prayersurvey.pdf

In his coverage of the ICM poll on page 10 of the print edition of the Daily Telegraph for 26 March, John Bingham rather added to the Anglican spin on the results. Not only was ‘four in five’ somewhat inflated to ‘the power of prayer endures for six people out of seven’, by omitting the don’t knows, but the article (expressing similar sentiments to the Church’s own press release) commenced with the unwarranted interpretation of the findings that ‘a large majority of people still believe that prayers can be answered …’ (which they were never asked about). The version of Bingham’s piece now available online has evidently been ‘toned down’ from the print copy so is perhaps of diminished interest; it can be read at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9953128/Britons-still-believe-in-prayer-and-young-lead-the-way-poll-suggests.html

Two prominent bloggers have already hit back at the apparent spin. Writing on the New Statesman website, Alex Hern declared that ‘for a bunch of people who want to save our souls, the Church of England is remarkably happy to commit sins against statistics’. See:

http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/2013/03/church-england-commits-sins-against-statistics

Similarly, Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report argued that ‘the Church of England have gone rather rogue in interpreting the results’, and that ‘the Telegraph has gone on a similar flight of fancy’. See his blog for 26 March 2013 at:

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

Whatever the spin, it is also the case that the incidence of regular prayer is much lower than some might infer from the ICM question, which was deliberately phrased to be aspirational. In the most recent survey to cover the matter (undertaken by YouGov on 25-30 January 2013 for this year’s Westminster Faith Debates), 21% of the 4,437 respondents claimed to have engaged in private prayer during the last month. In terms of secular demographics, the proportion was highest among the over-60s (25%), Londoners (25%), degree-holders (25%), and women (26%).

In this poll, YouGov found above-average claims of monthly prayer among all those professing a faith, but particularly by Baptists (68%) and Muslims (72%). Some of the highest figures were for those deriving authority in their life from religious leaders (81%), religion (75%), and God (71%). Reported monthly prayer was five times as great for those practising their faith in public (67%) as for those who did not (13%). Thanks are due to Linda Woodhead for granting permission to quote these unpublished data.

A previous YouGov survey, this time conducted for The Sun on 3-4 April 2012 with a sample of 1,742, discovered rather more Britons (28%) who claimed to pray monthly or more often, 23% less frequently, with 45% never praying (ranging from 55% of 18-24s to 33% of over-60s). However, fewer (31%, and no more than 40% even among the over-60s) believed that prayer actually works (in that it is heard by God or physically answered in some other way), with 45% disbelieving, and 25% unsure. The tables are still available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/qtsd1ldqta/YG-Archives-Pol-Sun-EasterReligionresults-120412.pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Alex Hern, Anthony Wells, Church of England, Daily Telegraph, ICM Research, John Bingham, Linda Woodhead, New Statesman, prayer, The Sun, UK Polling Report, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | Leave a comment

Money for Good and Other News

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Clive D. Field

BRIN certainly cannot trump the unprecedented inauguration of new leaders of the global Catholic and Anglican communions within the same week. But, on a business-as-usual level, here are six more religious statistical stories for your edification.

Money for good UK

So-called ‘faith-based donors’ make a significant contribution to the UK’s charitable giving and volunteering scene, according to a report – Money for Good UK: Understanding Donor Motivation and Behaviour (by Sally Bagwell, Lucy de Las Casas, Matt van Poortvliet, and Rob Abercrombie) – released on 14 March 2013 by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC). It is based on online research conducted by Ipsos MORI in October 2012 among 3,005 UK adults aged 18 and over, sub-divided into six groups: donors and non-donors for each of three income bands.

Donors were segmented into seven categories, one of them being ‘faith-based donors’. They were motivated by faith and community interests, being particularly likely to state a religious affiliation and to give money at their place of worship. They were disproportionately over-65 and from ethnic minorities. They especially supported religious causes and overseas aid agencies. They were also above-average volunteers, especially giving time to religious organizations and children.

‘Faith-based donors’ comprised 11% of all ‘mainstream donors’ (those having a household income up to £150,000) but they accounted for 32% of all charitable donations during the past year, with an average donation of £906, six times the amount given by ‘ad hoc givers’. Likewise, only 4% of ‘high-income donors’ (with a household income in excess of £150,000) were ‘faith-based donors’, yet they contributed 12% of all donations for this sub-sample, the average donation of £3,687 being six and a half times greater than for the ‘ad hoc givers’. Across both ‘mainstream’ and ‘high-income donors’, ‘faith-based donors’ also showed the greatest potential increase for giving, in cash terms.

For ‘mainstream donors’ as a whole, 34% had no religion, 58% were Christians, and 7% non-Christians. Religious organizations (including places of worship) came ninth equal on the list of causes financially supported by ‘mainstream donors’ during the previous year, 23% having made a donation to them. The list was headed by medical research (to which 49% of ‘mainstream donors’ had given), hospitals and hospices (45%), children or young people (40%), and animal welfare (40%). However, religious organizations topped the table of causes to which ‘mainstream donors’ had given time during the past year, 12% having done so. For ‘high-income donors’ 23% had given money and 8% time to religious organizations during the previous twelve months.

A range of documentation relating to the survey, including a link to the NPC website, can be accessed from:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3142/Money-For-Good-UK.aspx

Same-sex marriage

By a curious coincidence, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill completed its committee stage in the House of Commons on 12 March 2013 just a day before Oxford University Press published the advance access version of a new article which will eventually appear in the online and print versions of the journal Parliamentary Affairs: Ben Clements (University of Leicester), ‘Partisan Attachments and Attitudes towards Same-Sex Marriage in Britain’. A pay-per-view option is already available at:

http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/recent

At the core of the article is a review of British public opinion towards same-sex marriage at two points in time: June-November 2008 (NatCen/British Social Attitudes Survey) and March 2012 (a YouGov survey). Results are reviewed by sex, age, ethnicity, education, political partisanship (the author’s predominant concern), newspaper readership, and religious affiliation, initially through bivariate and then by multivariate analysis.

The overall increase in support for same-sex marriage between these two surveys was found to be 10%, reaching 13% for those professing no faith, among whom the majority (56%) in 2012 endorsed same-sex marriage. Below-average increases (3% and 4% respectively) were recorded for Anglicans and Catholics, with only 24% of the former and 39% of the latter favouring same-sex marriage in 2012. The leaders of both these Churches have been at the forefront of opposing the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. For non-Christians support for same-sex marriage actually declined by 6% between 2008 and 2012, to stand at 34%, but the numbers sampled were small.

The subsequent multivariate analysis revealed that, in terms of religious affiliation, ‘regardless of faith or denomination, all adherents are less supportive of same-sex marriage than those with no religion. A similar pattern is evident for attitudes towards civil partnerships, with the exception that there is no significant difference for Catholics. The clear religious basis of opposition to gay marriage parallels the US public literature on this issue, which shows strong effects for affiliation, as well as confirming findings from earlier research into religious identification and moral attitudes in Britain, whereby those with no religious affiliation tended to be more liberal on moral issues.’

Church of England ordinands

The number of Church of England ordinands in training for the ministry in 2012/13 is 3% up on 2011/12, according to figures released by the Church of England on 11 March 2013. Of the total of 1,232, 581 (47%) are attending one of the dozen theological colleges and 651 are being trained on one of the sixteen available courses. The number at college is 6% up on the previous year compared with just 1% on the courses.

Two in five ordinands (39%) are women, but the proportion is only 29% for ordinands at college against 48% on courses. The number of under-30s who commenced training in 2012 was 113, the highest since 1993, and 22% of all accepted as ordinands. The figure for 2011 was only 77. The Ministry Division of the Archbishops’ Council is continuing to be proactive in recruiting both young ordinands and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Its press release can be found at:

http://churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/03/twenty-year-high-for-young-priests.aspx

Centre for Church Growth Research

A Centre for Church Growth Research has recently started at Cranmer Hall, part of St Johns College, Durham. Its primary focus will be the UK, but it will also explore international dimensions of church growth. Cranmer Hall’s current research for the Church of England’s church growth programme will come under the auspices of the Centre. Among future projects will be a study of new churches in the north of England.

The Centre, which will be run on a day-to-day basis by Dr David Goodhew, has an advisory board whose members include Professor David Martin (London School of Economics), Dr Alana Harris (Lincoln College, Oxford), Dr Peter Brierley (Brierley Consulting), and Professor David Bebbington (University of Stirling). The first major event of the Centre is a conference ‘Towards a Theology of Church Growth’ to be held on 12-13 September 2013. More information can be found on the Centre’s website at:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/churchgrowth.research

Religious education in English schools

A fairly downbeat assessment of the state of religious education (RE) in schools is contained in a report published on 18 March 2013 by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education, chaired by Stephen Lloyd, MP. Much of the blame for the situation is lain at the door of the Government: ‘A raft of recent policies have had the effect of downgrading RE in status on the school curriculum, and the subject is now under threat as never before … ’

The Group’s findings are based on a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence. Oral evidence was taken from 12 organizational leaders and written evidence submitted by 65 corporate bodies and individuals. The quantitative content derives from a reworking of existing statistics (Department for Education workforce census, Ofsted reports, and so forth) and a questionnaire survey among RE leaders/heads of department in English primary and secondary schools, of whom 300 and 130 respectively responded.

In 56% of the primary schools surveyed pupils are being taught RE by someone other than their class teacher, and in 24% some or all classes are taught RE by teaching assistants. Although all but two schools have a named RE leader, four-fifths report a regular turnover in the incumbents, few remaining in post for more than three years. The majority of leaders either have no qualification in RE (37%) or no qualification beyond GCSE/O Level (29%), and 9% have received no RE-specific CPD during the past three years.

RE: The Truth Unmasked – The Supply of and Support for Religious Education Teachers is available to download from:

http://www.retoday.org.uk/media/display/APPG_RE_-_The_Truth_Unmasked.pdf

Meditation

Workplace pressures have induced 16% of Britons to resort to meditation at some point, according to a Populus poll for Mind released on 19 March, and based on online interviews with 2,117 full- or part-time adult workers between 6 and 10 March 2013. The proportion using meditation as a coping mechanism peaked among Londoners (27%), people aged 25-34 (21%), and the highest (AB) social group (20%). Workers meditating on a weekly basis numbered 11% and daily 4%. Full details contained in table 15 at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/130320%20Mind%20Workplace%20Survey%20GB%20Sample(1).pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education, Ben Clements, British Social Attitudes Survey, Centre for Church Growth Research, charitable giving, church growth, Church of England, Cranmer Hall, David Goodhew, homosexuality, Ipsos-MORI, Lucy de Las Casas, Matt van Poortvliet, meditation, Mind, ministry, Money for Good UK, NatCen, New Philanthropy Capital, ordinands, Parliamentary Affairs, Populus, religious education, Rob Abercrombie, Sally Bagwell, same-sex marriage, Stephen Lloyd, volunteering, YouGov | Leave a comment

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