Prayer in a Spin

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

 

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Money for Good and Other News

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

 

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Sunday Times Religion Poll

YouGov conducts a weekly online poll for The Sunday Times, and today’s edition includes a special module on religion (with particular reference to attitudes to the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church), as well as analysing responses to political questions by religious affiliation (the upcoming budget and press regulation post-Leveson being prominent in this survey). Full data tables can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/qnktt3jc19/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-15-170313.pdf

Coverage of the poll in the print edition of the newspaper is minimal, confined to just a couple of findings relating to the Catholic Church which are reported on page 25 of the main section. There seems to have been more editorial interest in the drinking habits of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, which makes the lead story on the front page!

The sample comprised 1,918 Britons aged 18 and over interviewed on 14 and 15 March 2013, 71% of whom professed no religion. This is an unprecedentedly high number of ‘nones’, even by YouGov’s standards, and would suggest caution in using the affiliation data. Unfortunately, also, YouGov coded Church of Scotland to the Anglican responses, thus somewhat compromising the integrity of the category.

Attitudes to the Church of England

A majority of Britons (61%) consider the Church of England to be out of touch, peaking at 69% for those professing no religion and 73% among UKIP supporters. One-fifth (21%) see it as in touch, ranging regionally from 11% of Scots to 29% of Londoners, with 18% undecided. Among Anglicans a few more regard their Church as being in touch (45%) than not (43%), but that still constitutes substantial dissatisfaction.

A plurality of adults (48%, the same as in November 2012) criticizes the Church of England for opposing same-sex marriage, rising to 67% among the 18-24s and Liberal Democrats. Around two-fifths (39%) support the Church’s opposition, including 51% of Conservative and 72% of UKIP voters. Majorities of Anglicans (57%), Catholics (55%), and other Christians (53%) side with the Church. One in seven (14%) of the entire sample remain undecided.

Exactly four-fifths of Britons want the Church of England to allow women to become bishops, including 88% of Liberal Democrats and 82% of people with no religion. Just 11% do not favour women bishops (16% of Anglicans and 23% of non-Christians) and 10% cannot make up their minds.

A majority of adults (69%, including 76% of those professing no faith) believe Justin Welby to be wrong in condemning sex outside marriage, while 17% think he is right (including 30% of Anglicans and UKIP supporters), and 13% are unsure.  

A plurality of Britons (44%) disapprove of the recent criticism by Anglican bishops of the Coalition Government’s 1% cap on welfare benefits for the next three years, which is less than the current rate of inflation. The proportion increases to 72% among Conservative voters and even reaches 51% for Anglicans. Two-fifths (39%, but 60% of Labour voters and 56% of Catholics) back the bishops’ stance, with 17% uncertain what to think.

The country is evenly divided about whether bishops and other senior clergy should comment on political issues and Government policies: 44% contend they should and 43% that they should not. Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters are most likely to favour episcopal intervention, Conservative and UKIP voters to oppose it. Around three-fifths of Christians (58% of Anglicans, 59% of Catholics, 63% of other Christians) want bishops and other senior clergy to speak out, with 35% of Anglicans in disagreement. As many as 38% of people with no religion back the right of the Church to enter the political arena.

Attitudes to the Roman Catholic Church

Even more Britons (77%) regard the Roman Catholic Church as out of touch than do the Church of England, the figure hitting 82% among those with no religion and 87% among prospective UKIP voters. Just 10% view the Church as being in touch, with scarcely any variation by secular demographics, and 14% have no view on the matter. Most professing Catholics (59%) think their Church is out of touch, against 34% who say the opposite. 

Most Britons (78%) want the Catholic Church to allow priests to marry, albeit somewhat fewer of Catholics (70%). Only 7% (but 21% of Catholics) opt to uphold the celibacy rule, with 15% expressing no opinion.

Most adults (79%) consider the Church to have dealt badly with the issue of child abuse by its priests, the over-60s (87%) being particularly likely to say so. The majority of Catholics (62%) agree. A mere 7% of Britons think the Church has handled the crisis well, rising to 27% of Catholics, with 13% unsure.   

Asked whether the Catholic Church was right or wrong to have elected a new Pope from South America (Cardinal Bergoglio, now Francis I), 47% say that they do not know. Of the rest, 48% agree with the decision (among them 54% of the over-60s, 55% of Scots, and 77% of Catholics) and 5% disagree (peaking at 14% for non-Christians).

Religion and political attitudes

The relatively small number of interviewees professing a faith (29%) somewhat limits the potential of analysing political attitudes by religion. In general, the profile of replies for the no religion category does not vary markedly from that for all adults.

However, Anglicans are somewhat more likely than average to align with the Conservatives. For example, 38% say they would vote Conservative (against 29% of the whole sample), 35% approve of David Cameron’s performance as Prime Minister (32%), 24% consider George Osborne is doing well as Chancellor of the Exchequer (17%), and 25% want Osborne to remain in post (17%).

On the other hand, Catholics incline to back the Labour Party: 48% indicate that they would vote Labour (41% nationally), and 39% think Ed Miliband is doing well as Labour leader (30%). Catholics are similarly more unconvinced than all Britons (51% versus 45%) that the Coalition Government’s strategy for managing the economy will work over the long term.

 

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Gender and Religion and Other News

Today BRIN features the third instalment of findings from the YouGov poll commissioned in connection with the 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates, plus the usual miscellany of other British religious statistical news.

Gender and religion

There is little public sympathy for gender segregation and discrimination in organized religion, according to the latest batch of findings from the YouGov poll of 25-30 January 2013 commissioned by Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University to provide background for the 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates. Online interviews were undertaken with 4,437 adult Britons. An innovative set of questions about the gender aspects of religion was posed, summarized in the press release to be found at:  

http://religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/press_release_westminster_faith_debate_3_gender_and_religion

The full data tables, incorporating numerous cross-breaks, have also been uploaded by YouGov at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/byjw8evl6d/YG-University-of-Lancaster-results-Archive-300130-religion-gender-debate.pdf

Hardly anybody (relatively) thinks it acceptable for the major religions to differentiate between men and women in various practical ways. Thus, only 4% find it appropriate that the sexes should be separated in public worship and other religious contexts; 12% that religions should strongly encourage men and women to dress differently; 11% that they should offer men and women different teachings about how to lead a good life; and 5% that they should insist on the sexes being educated separately.

Unsurprisingly, the most religious, those who currently engage in some form of religious activity, are generally more well-disposed to these forms of differentiation; even so, the majority still say that they are inappropriate. Of the various denominations and faiths, Muslims are a notable exception, with as many as 54% supporting different dress for the sexes, 50% gender segregation in religious contexts, and 44% separate education. 

A good many people (43%) think that major religions would be better off if more women held senior leadership positions. Just 5% say that religions would be worse off, with 52% neutral or undecided. A somewhat larger proportion (49%, rising to 55% of females) believe that more women should lead major religions in Britain, with a mere 6% against, and 32% contending that it is a matter for the religions to determine. Yet more (74%) are of the view that women are just as suited to religious leadership as men, and 3% that they are better suited (8% saying the contrary).

The Church of England (in the gender news recently because of the unresolved issue of women bishops) comes in for a fair amount of implied criticism in the poll. Only 10% of all adults approve of the way in which women are depicted in its teachings and traditions, with the figures not much better for nominal Anglicans (15%) and practising Anglicans (23%). No more than 8% approve of the Established Church’s current policies towards women (against 11% of nominal and 16% of practising Anglicans). Even considering the parish level, just 13% endorse the way in which women are treated (20% of nominal Anglicans, albeit a more respectable 47% of practising Anglicans).

The Roman Catholic Church comes off even worse on the same measures, with 6% of Britons approving of the way in which women are depicted in its teachings and traditions (rising to 23% of nominal Catholics and 32% of practising ones). The same number back its current policies towards women (22% of nominal and 31% of practising Catholics). At local parish level, just 7% support the way in which women are treated (28% of nominal and 38% of practising Catholics).

Summing up, Woodhead concludes: ‘These new findings show that the churches are seriously out of step not only with society but with their own members’. The same trend has emerged from the results released in connection with the two previous Westminster Faith Debates. It would seem that, in matters of religion and personal life, there is a real clash of sources of authority, between revelation, scripture, and religious teachings on the one hand and the standards, expectations, and behaviours of society (and perhaps the state) on the other.

Pope-making

The election of Pope Francis I on the evening of 13 March 2013 has partly overtaken the papal survey released by ComRes and Premier Media Group the day before, based on online interviews with 2,030 Britons aged 18 and over on 6 and 7 March, i.e. before the commencement of the papal conclave. Nevertheless, some of the findings remain topical. The full data tables can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_Papal_Survey_8_March_2013.pdf

According to the British public, by far and away the most important issue facing the new pope is child abuse in the Catholic Church, mentioned by 47%, followed by improving the Church’s global image (16%). Few support prioritizing the promotion of the Church’s teachings on same-sex marriage (3%), contraception (3%), euthanasia (1%), or abortion (1%). There is likewise limited interest in respecting diversity (5%), caring for the vulnerable (4%), celibacy of priests (4%), and women priests (3%). In a separate question, 80% agreed that it is part of the new pope’s role to try and enhance the Church’s reputation.

As for the conclave itself, 50% of respondents considered that the process of appointing a new pope needs updating, while 56% thought that it should be more transparent. Although 58% favoured an upper age limit in papal elections (80 was quoted by ComRes, which is already the de facto position), fewer (43%) concurred that popes should have to retire at 85 (with 28% disagreeing). Most (69%) wanted the pope to be free to retire whenever he wished, whereas death in office has been the papal tradition. There was no great enthusiasm for a pope being appointed from outside Europe (18%), 53% having no opinion on the matter; from this perspective, there is a certain irony that Francis I is an Argentinian.  

Anti-Muslim incidents

On 10 March 2013 the Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) campaign published preliminary statistics of anti-Muslim hate incidents in the UK which have been reported to it during its first year of operation, with a fuller analysis to follow in July. Cases logged thus far total 632, 74% of which occurred on social media sites. A majority of victims (58%) were women, and the overwhelming majority of perpetrators (75%) men, mostly in their twenties. MAMA claims to have identified 54% of the perpetrators as supporters of the British National Party or English Defence League. More details at:

http://tellmamauk.org

European values

A second edition of the Atlas of European Values, which first appeared in 2005, has recently been published. It incorporates results from the latest (2008) wave of the European Values Study, the fieldwork for which was actually conducted in Great Britain in 2009-10. Maps, charts, and some commentary (but no data tables) present the main findings thematically. There is a chapter on religion (pp. 54-72) which covers the full range of religious affiliation, practice, belief, and attitudes. Details of the book are: Loek Halman, Inge Sieben, and Marga van Zundert, Atlas of European Values: Trends and Traditions at the Turn of the Century (Leiden: Brill, 2012, xi + 141p., €139 hardback, €69 paperback).

Hymns and mental health

Feeling down or depressed? Forget the G&T, for a good hymn could be your pick-me-up, especially if you sing it, and particularly if you are a woman and/or consider yourself highly religious. For hymns can ‘raise your spirits and make you feel better’, according to a survey of ‘what hymns mean to you’, undertaken by members of the Research Group of the Christian Council on Ageing: Michael J. Lowis, Janet Eldred, Albert J. Jewell, and Michael I. Jackson, ‘Hymns and Mental Health: A Survey of Church Attendees’, Journal of Applied Arts & Health, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2012, pp. 149-61.

It is freely admitted by the authors that ‘this study is not without its shortcomings’, and certainly the sample may not be entirely representative, even of churchgoers, although it was mostly recruited through religious organizations. It comprises 394 adults, almost entirely from England, of whom 75% were female and 95% Protestants (disproportionately from the Free Churches). For abstract and article purchase option, go to:

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/intellect/jaah/2012/00000003/00000002/art00005

 

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Religion and Voting and Other News

Four stories are covered in today’s BRIN post, including new data on religion and prospective voting behaviour.

Religion and voting

Two new large-scale polls (from YouGov and Populus) shed light on the relationship between religion and voting intentions since UKIP’s emergence as the fourth force in British politics (so clearly demonstrated in the recent Eastleigh by-election). The studies show that prospective voters for the two parties towards the right of the political spectrum (Conservative and UKIP) are more likely to espouse a religion than those towards the left (Labour and Liberal Democrat). Summary results are set out in the table below, percentages reading downwards. 

  All Con Lab LibDem UKIP
YouGov

 

 

 

 

 

No religion

46

40

46

NA

39

Any religion

50

56

50

NA

59

No answer

4

4

4

NA

2

Populus

 

 

 

 

 

No religion

36

28

36

36

31

Any religion

62

71

62

62

68

No answer

2

2

2

2

1

It should be noted that the polls used different measures of religious affiliation, which explains why people of faith were less numerous in one than the other. The YouGov question wording is fairly neutral, making no assumptions about religious affiliation, whereas the Populus one might be considered to be somewhat leading, implying some expectation that respondents will belong to one of the religious groups.

The religious category was sub-divided in the Populus survey, enabling an assessment of the current voting intentions of adherents of the major faiths. The single most striking finding is that the majority (58%) of Muslims now incline to follow Labour, contrasting with the 2010 general election in which around one-third (36%) of Muslims recalled that they had actually voted for Labour, at a time when the party (then in government) was unpopular with Muslims because (especially) of its perceived anti-Islamic foreign policy. Also notable is that 54% of Jews support either the Conservatives or UKIP. Details are below (percentages reading across in this instance):

  Con Lab LibDem UKIP Other/none
Populus

 

 

 

 

 

No religion

18

29

7

7

39

Christian

27

28

6

10

29

Non-Christian

16

36

9

6

33

Muslim

8

58

8

1

25

Hindu

20

39

11

1

29

Jew

42

16

4

12

26

Buddhist

9

27

16

6

42

Source: Online surveys of adult Britons aged 18 and over conducted by a) YouGov throughout February 2013 (n = 28,944), the religious affiliation question being ‘do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’; and b) Populus for Lord Ashcroft on 22-31 January 2013 (n = 20,022), the religious affiliation question being ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’

The YouGov data were published on 5 March 2013 and are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/mse55iouje/UKIP-profile-Feb-2103.pdf

The Populus/Ashcroft data were published on 8 March 2013 and can be found in table 100 at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/LibDem_Poll.pdf

Attitudes to Muslims

British Muslims continue to have a major public image problem, according to two recent polls commissioned by Matthew Goodwin of the University of Nottingham in connection with his Chatham House briefing paper on the English Defence League (EDL). This was published on 6 March 2013 as: The Roots of Extremism: The English Defence League and the Counter-Jihad Challenge.

In the second of Goodwin’s surveys, the proportion of all adult Britons responding to various statements about Muslims was as follows: 

  • 50% anticipated there will be a ‘clash of civilizations’ between British Muslims and native white Britons (26% disagreeing)
  • 44% agreed that free speech in Britain is threatened by the influence of Muslims in the media (32% disagreeing)
  • 43% agreed that differences in culture and values make future conflict between British-born Muslims and white Britons inevitable (28% disagreeing)
  • 31% disagreed that British-born Muslims generally share the culture and values of the majority society (36% agreeing)
  • 30% agreed that British Muslims pose a serious threat to democracy (41% disagreeing)
  • 23% disagreed that Muslims make an important contribution to British society (41% agreeing)
  • 12% disagreed that the vast majority of Muslims are good British citizens (62% agreeing)
  • 12% agreed that British Muslims are part of an international plot to abolish Parliament (54% disagreeing)

Source: Online survey by YouGov of 1,691 Britons aged 18 and over on 20-21 November 2012. Detailed table (with breaks by gender, age, social grade, region, and vote) available at:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin_dataconflict.pdf

The first poll, likewise by YouGov and conducted online on 21-22 October 2012 among a sample of 1,666 Britons, focused on knowledge of and attitudes to the EDL. But it also posed several additional questions about Islam and Muslims, four of which are worth highlighting: 

  • 63% wanted the number of Muslims coming to Britain to be reduced
  • 57% considered Islam to present a serious danger to Western civilization
  • 52% believed higher Muslim birth rates threaten British national identity
  • 48% argued that Muslims are incompatible with the British way of life

The detailed tables from this poll are available as follows:

a) breaks by general demographics:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/nvm151779n/YG-Archive-221012-EDL-National-sample.pdf

b) breaks by general demographics and degree of support for the EDL:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin_dataissues.pdf

Goodwin’s Chatham House paper is at:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin.pdf

Islamist terrorism

Britons are somewhat less apprehensive about the threat of terrorism than they were in 2010, on the fifth anniversary of the London bombings. Even so, 44% currently think that a terrorist attack within the UK is very or moderately likely to happen in the next year, while 70% anticipate an incident as deadly as the 2005 London bombings occurring during their lifetimes. The source of the threat is most widely perceived to be al-Qaeda and ‘other Islamic-based terrorist groups’, with 68% currently concerned about them compared with 3% for residual terrorist groups in Northern Ireland. Anxiety about Islamist terrorism builds steadily with age, from 50% of the 18-34s to 81% of the over-55s, but otherwise varies little by key demographics.   

Source: Online survey by Angus Reid Public Opinion among 2,013 Britons aged 18 and over on 26-28 February 2013. Report and full data tables published on 4 March 2013 and available at:

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/48686/fears-of-an-imminent-terrorist-attack-subside-in-britain/

Flesh and blood

Regular churchgoers in the UK are more likely to have given blood than the general public, according to new research. Whereas 9% of the former say they have given blood during the last year, no more than 4% of all adults have given blood in the past two years. Moreover, 33% of regular churchgoers claim to have registered as a blood donor (apparently with no statistically significant differences by denomination, gender, or age); while 48% report they have joined the NHS organ donor register, which is 17% more than in the population as a whole. Blood and organ donation is already considered as part of their personal Christian giving by 28% (rising to 35% of clergy and church leaders), with a further 42% being open to the idea. However, as experienced by these worshippers, three-quarters of churches do not mention or encourage either blood or organ donation.

Source: Survey of a representative sample of 3,171 UK Christians of all denominations attending church at least two to three times a month and agreeing that their faith is either the most important thing in their life or more important than most other things. They were drawn from the Christian Research Resonate panel of both church leaders and laity and interviewed online between 10 December 2012 and 9 January 2013. The study was undertaken on behalf of Kore in connection with the launch of the fleshandblood campaign, a partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant to mobilize the Church to increase the number of blood and organ donors in the UK. A summary report, Fleshandblood 2013 Research Results, was published on 5 March 2013 and is available at:

http://fleshandblood.org/resource/2013-research-results/

 

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Scottish Social Attitudes and Other News

Start your week with BRIN’s latest selection of British religious statistical news, comprising three sources of data on the contemporary scene plus a reassessment of religious belonging in the Edwardian era a century ago.

Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 2011

The dataset for the 2011 (June-September) Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) Survey was released by the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) on 20 February 2013 and can be interrogated by registered users via the ESDS Nesstar catalogue. The sample comprised 1,197 Scots aged 18 and over interviewed face-to-face by ScotCen Social Research.

The religion-related content was confined in 2011 to standard questions on religious affiliation and attendance at religious services. However, since the results for religion from the Scottish census of population in 2011 have yet to appear, it may be useful to note here the weighted SSA results for 2001 and 2011.

The SSA religious affiliation question (‘do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’) reveals that the majority (53%) of Scottish adults in 2011 professed no faith, up by 16% from 2001. The Christian share fell from 61% to 44% during the decade, mostly among the Church of Scotland (down from 36% to 22%). The details are given below: 

 

2001

2011

No religion

37

53

Church of Scotland

36

22

Roman Catholic

14

12

Other Christian

11

10

Non-Christian

1

3

Interestingly, claimed attendance at religious services showed less change between 2001 and 2011, albeit this is an indicator notoriously liable to inflated self-reporting. Nevertheless, regular (monthly or more) churchgoing reduced from 24% to 19%. 

 

2001

2011

Once a week or more

15

13

Once a month or more

9

6

At least once a year

14

10

Less often

3

4

Never/practically never

48

47

No religion/family religion

11

20

Evangelicals and education

Evangelical Christians ‘are a highly-educated group who appreciate and value the education they have received. Many are committed to lifelong learning and have undertaken study to better understand their faith and serve the Church. Significant numbers are involved in education as teachers, other staff or school governors.’

These are among some of the major findings in the latest report from the Evangelical Alliance’s 21st Century Evangelicals research programme, in which a self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) panel of evangelicals are periodically invited to complete an online questionnaire on selected topics. This particular survey was carried out in November 2012 and elicited 1,377 responses, 77% from persons with a university education. The report Do We Value Education? was published on 26 February 2013 and is at:

http://eauk.org/church/resources/snapshot/upload/Education-report-February-2013.pdf

The content of the survey is too extensive to summarize here. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that there was not complete unanimity among evangelicals about the role of religion in state schools. Although 69% agreed that all schools should have regular assemblies including a Christian act of collective worship, no more than 31% felt that religious education (with a predominantly Christian emphasis) should be a compulsory component of the curriculum for all children throughout their entire school life. This was far behind the figures for English language (82%), mathematics (76%), science (50%), physical education (39%), and computing and technology (48%).

When it came to faith schools, one-third failed to disagree with the proposition that they tend to divide communities in harmful ways, and no more than 52% agreed that church schools generally offer a higher standard of education than non-church schools. Somewhat controversially, 51% argued that church schools should always give priority in admissions to children from churchgoing families, despite the fact that 42% acknowledged that church schools do not seem to be doing a very good job at producing committed Christians among their students.

Halloween

Children’s engagement with and perceptions of the autumnal and now largely secular and commercialized festival of Halloween (abbreviated from All Hallows Eve, All Hallows being an alternative rendering of All Saints Day in the Christian calendar) are illuminated in a new article by Mark Plater: ‘Children, Schools, and Hallowe’en’, British Journal of Religious Education, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2013, pp. 201-17. This is available to subscribers or on a pay-per-view basis at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01416200.2012.750594

Short questionnaires were completed in class in 2007 by 493 primary school pupils aged 7 (n = 127) and 11 (n = 366) in the London borough of Redbridge and Lincolnshire. The overwhelming majority of children were found to have participated in Halloween activities in some way in recent years, with 66% having significant and 23% some involvement. The combined figure of 89% ranged from 74% of those whose family background was religious to 93% in the case of non-religious. Participation was higher among pupils aged 11 (92%) than aged 7 (78%).  

The commonest Halloween activities reported by the children were: trick or treating (72%), dressing up for Halloween (70%), attending Halloween parties (57%), playing Halloween games (45%), watching scary movies (40%), walking around the streets in the dark (39%), and making Halloween-related artwork (39%). In 84% of families various forms of merchandise had been bought to support these activities at some point in recent years.

Most children (79%) said that they enjoyed Halloween but 9% did not (three-fifths of the latter being from religious families). Enjoyment was much higher in Lincolnshire (86%) than inner-city Redbridge (56%)  Asked to choose from a list of adjectives to describe Halloween, 74% selected positive (typically fun-scary and/or exciting) and 13% negative terms. Plater contrasts the relative enthusiasm of the pupils for Halloween with the reluctance of teachers to tackle it in the curriculum, which was revealed in his earlier research.

Edwardian religion

In his book Religion and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain (2006, pp. 40-87), Callum Brown characterizes Edwardian Britain as ‘the faith society’, in which there was a ‘buoyancy of Christian culture’, ‘religiosity marked the social values of almost the entire society …’, and ‘nearly every person would claim some attachment to a religion, most would be able to show an attachment to a church …’ These assertions are (partly) put to the quantitative test in a new article by Clive Field, ‘“The Faith Society”? Quantifying Religious Belonging in Edwardian Britain, 1901-1914’, Journal of Religious History, Vol. 37, No. 1, March 2013, pp. 39-63. The article can be accessed (on a pay-per-view basis) at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9809.12003/abstract

In this paper Field collates the extant statistical evidence for church attendance and church membership/affiliation in the years before the First World War. A mixed picture is reported, with elements of sacralization and secularization co-existing. Although churchgoing was already in relative and absolute decline, one-quarter of adults (disproportionately women) still worshipped on any given Sunday, and two-fifths at least monthly. Moreover, hardly anybody failed to be reached by a rite of passage conducted in religious premises. Only 1% professed no faith and just over one-half had some reasonably regular and meaningful relationship with organized religion in terms of church membership or adherence. For children, perhaps nine-tenths attended Sunday school, however briefly.

 

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Sex, Guilt, and Religion and Other News

Our lead story today features the second instalment of findings from the YouGov survey commissioned for this year’s series of Westminster Faith Debates. There are also four other items of more general religious statistical news.

Sex, guilt, and religion

The second of this year’s Westminster Faith Debates, organized by Linda Woodhead and Charles Clarke with support from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme and Lancaster University, took place last Wednesday before a capacity audience. The theme was ‘Too Much Sex These Days – the Sexualisation of Society?’ To provide context for the discussion, the organizers issued a press release which included the main findings from a survey commissioned from YouGov, in which 4,437 adults were interviewed online on 25-30 January 2013. The press release, which has been picked up by The Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, and other media, can be read at:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/westminster_faith_debate_27_2_2013_too_much_sex_press_release

The full data tables are located at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/f9g2ypxea3/University-of-Lancaster-Results-130130-Faith-Matters_sex-debate.pd

A particular focus of the questions asked was on the degree of guilt respondents would feel if they engaged in four different sexual activities, all of which are condemned by the Roman Catholic Church. But while those who affiliated to a religion were somewhat more likely to feel guilty than individuals who had no faith, Catholics did not generally experience a deeper sense of guilt than religious people as a whole. Indeed, it was Baptists, Pentecostals, and Muslims who stood out as most guilt-ridden, albeit the sub-samples were fairly small.

The least acceptable of the four sexual activities was extra-marital intercourse, the prospect of which incited guilt in 56% of all adults (64% of the religious and 48% of the non-religious). The other three activities precipitated guilt in only a minority of the sample: 26% said they would feel guilty if they used pornography for sexual stimulation (33% of the religious – albeit 55% of practising Anglicans – and 15% of non-religious); 13% if they engaged in pre-marital sex (20% of the religious and 5% of the non-religious); and 5% if they used contraception (6% of the religious and 3% of the non-religious).

Multivariate analysis filled out this picture in an intriguing way. It revealed that the group least likely to feel guilty about indulging in these sexual activities were men who regarded their own judgement or intuition as the authoritative guide, did not identify with nor participate in a religion, and were definite that there is no God. Most susceptible to guilt were women who described themselves as religious, regarded religious sources as authoritative, were active members of a religion, and definitely believed in God. They felt four times as much guilt as the most guilt-free men. 

Although religious and non-religious adults did not differ markedly in their agreement that sex is important to a fulfilled life (the national average being 68%), there was a big gender gap in those who strongly took this line, with men almost twice as likely as women to do so, and this was true of both religious and non-religious people. However, religious affiliates were more inclined than the norm (66%) to consider that the profile of sex is too high in society, rising to 70% for professing Anglicans, 74% for Catholics, 79% for Baptists, 81% for Muslims, and 81% for all religious respondents who currently participate in religious activities; these figures compare with 61% of the non-religious.

On the vexed subject of birth control, only 9% of nominal Catholics and 12% of practising Catholics entertained any reservations against using it, 89% and 87% respectively feeling no guilt. This bears out other surveys (such as that by the Von Hügel Institute for The Tablet in 2008, which found extensive recourse by mass-going Catholics to a variety of contraceptive practices). The religious body with most qualms about the use of contraception are now the Muslims, but even their guilt factor only reaches 23%.

This particular finding, together with the general claim in the press release that Catholic guilt about sex is a myth, will make uncomfortable reading for the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church which is in a state of some turmoil following the resignations of both the Pope and the most senior British Catholic leader. For Woodhead the clear message of the poll is that ‘most Catholics are taking authority more from their own reason than from the Church’s teaching’.

Jewish neighbourhoods

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) has recently (19 February 2013) published its second report on the Jewish population of England and Wales as revealed by the 2011 census, and correcting for non-response. It reveals that Jews are spatially concentrated, with nine-tenths living in under one-fifth of the country’s 8,500 wards, and one-half in just 66, although no individual ward actually contains a Jewish majority (Kersal in Salford has the highest Jewish density, of 41%).

The largest single Jewish neighbourhood is Golders Green in London, which experienced one-third growth between 2001 and 2011, now numbering 7,661 Jews. Even bigger decennial increases were recorded by Sedgley in Bury (42%) and New River in Hackney (35%), both predominantly haredi (strictly Orthodox) communities with 4,748 and 4,093 Jews respectively. Another haredi neighbourhood, Seven Sisters in Haringey, expanded by 103% from a lower 2001 base, to reach 3,162 Jews. By contrast, significant decline was recorded in some formerly dominant Jewish communities, notably by 43-55% in four Redbridge wards, and 26-29% in three Harrow wards. Natural increase and migration are identified as the two principal engines of Jewish demographic change.

The report 2011 Census Results (England and Wales): Initial Insights into Jewish Neighbourhoods by David Graham is available to download from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/2011%20Census%20Jewish%20neighbourhoods%20Final.pdf

JPR intends to complement the information which can be gleaned from the census with its own National Jewish Community Study, sponsored by many major Jewish organizations, and to be conducted early this year.

Knowledge of historical documents

When it comes to key historical documents, the British public seems to have a better knowledge of those with ‘political’ as opposed to ‘religious’ interest. This is according to an Ipsos MORI survey for King’s College London which was reported recently, although the actual fieldwork took place on 20-24 October 2012. Telephone interviews were held with 1,005 adults aged 18 and over.

Read a list of eight historical documents, 90% professed to have heard of the United States Declaration of Independence, 89% of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, 87% of the Domesday Book, and 85% of Magna Carta (whose 800th anniversary will be commemorated in 2015). Knowledge was a little shakier about the actual details of Magna Carta, although 25% thought that it had guaranteed freedom of religion (presumably a reference to clause 1, which concerned the freedom of the English Church).

The other four documents on the list had a stronger religious component. Seven-tenths of the public were aware of the King James Bible (Authorized Version), a relatively high visibility which presumably owed something to the 2011 quatercentennial celebrations. However, far fewer claimed to know about the three manuscripts: 39% about the Lindisfarne Gospels (held at the British Library), 13% about the Codex Sinaiticus (substantially at the British Library, and bought for the nation following a public appeal in 1933-34), and 5% about the Textus Roffensis (at Medway Archives). The Textus is a hybrid document subsuming the oldest English law code and the oldest register of Rochester Cathedral.

As with all such polls about professed knowledge, we should be on our guard against inflated claims. These may arise either from an unwillingness to admit ignorance about something which people think they ought to know about (or believe they would be expected by others to know about) or from genuine confusion, misunderstanding, or misrecollection.

There is a blog about the survey, written by Sir Robert Worcester (chair of the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Committee), at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/newsevents/ca/1286/85-of-British-adults-say-they-have-heard-of-the-Magna-Carta.aspx

Pastoral Research Centre reports

The Pastoral Research Centre (PRC) Trust has started to make available a number of past PRC reports as free downloads via the Trust website. The first batch of three such downloads includes: Pastoral & Population Statistics of the Catholic Community in England & Wales, 1958-2002: A Report to Parishes, edited by Tony Spencer (2004); and Tony Spencer, Secrecy in the Catholic Church: The Case of Catholic School Statistics in England and Wales (2010). They can be found at:

http://www.prct.org.uk/free-downloads

Faith in Research Conference

The seventh annual Faith in Research Conference takes place on Thursday, 20 June 2013 (please note the new date) at Church House, Westminster. It has been organized by the Church of England’s Research and Statistics Department and the Oxford Centre for Ecclesiology and Practical Theology. Bishop John Packer will take the chair. The programme begins with a keynote session by Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University on ‘The Church of England Today: A Changing Church in a Changing Culture’, followed by sessions on three parallel themes: Church and society; mission; and ministry. Full programme details are available at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1668581/fir_programmeupdatedv1.pdf

The standard conference fee is £65 (£55 if paid before 5 April), or £25 for students. Registration is online at:

http://faithinresearch2013.eventbrite.co.uk/#

 

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Pope Benedict Departs and Other News

Benedict XVI leaves the papal office today following his resignation earlier in the month, and it is fitting that he should be the lead story in our latest BRIN post. This mostly derives from YouGov’s February 2013 Eurotrack survey, but space has been found for a couple of miscellaneous items, too.

Pope Benedict departs

YouGov has taken the opportunity of Benedict XVI’s departure to ask the publics of six Western European countries (Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden) how they rate his pontificate. Questions were included in the regular online Eurotrack undertaken between 21 and 27 February 2013, with 1,704 Britons aged 18 and over being interviewed (among them 117 professed Roman Catholics). Results have been disaggregated by religious affiliation within country (but not by other demographics) at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/auqvjc212x/Eurotrack-February-2013.pdf

A press release about the survey has also been issued and can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/onzs1ox195/Pope_press_release.pdf

Asked whether Benedict had been right or wrong to resign as pope, 68% of Britons said right, similar to Denmark (67%), but lower than in Finland (71%), Sweden (72%), France (75%), and Germany (82%). In Britain 77% of the religious contended that he had made the right decision, including 79% of Catholics, compared with 64% of the religiously unaffiliated (29% of whom did not know what to think). Only 8% of Britons said that Benedict had been wrong to resign.

When it came to assessing how well or badly Benedict had done during his eight years as pope, a plurality of Britons (41%) expressed no view, with 36% thinking he had done well, and 23% badly. The positive figure was better than Sweden (18%), Denmark (24%), and France (33%), but nowhere near as good as in Germany (52%, the country from which he hails). Benedict’s performance was rated as good by 72% of British Catholics, 50% of all those professing a religion, 28% of non-Christians, and 26% of people without faith.

On specific aspects of his pontificate, Benedict was often judged to have been too conservative and to have changed things too little. In Britain 43% said that this had been true of theological issues such as women priests; 47% of moral issues such as birth control, abortion, and homosexuality; and 33% of social issues such as wealth and poverty. Catholics were as inclined to reach this verdict as the rest of the population. Otherwise, a principal difference by religious affiliation was the large number of ‘don’t knows’ to be found among non-Christians and those without religion.

In terms of Benedict’s political clout, only 9% of Britons considered that leading politicians in Britain had paid a great deal or a fair amount of notice to the views of Benedict and the British Catholic hierarchy, less than in Germany (33%) or France (18%), but fractionally more than in the Scandinavian countries. The overwhelming majority of Britons (71%), and even 78% of British Catholics, accepted that politicians had paid little or no notice to the pope and his bishops. Moreover, three-fifths of all Britons and 72% of the irreligious thought that politicians had been right not to have taken such notice, albeit 57% of Catholics disagreed.

More generally, respondents were asked whether four groups of religious leaders play a positive or negative role in the life of each country. In Britain (as can be seen from the table, below) a majority in three cases and a plurality in the other selected neither of these options, replying instead that they did not know or that the leaders made a limited impact on national life or that their role was equally positive and negative. 

 

Positive

Negative

Other

Protestant bishops and archbishops

21

22

57

Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops

16

33

51

Leading Jewish rabbis

19

17

64

Leading Muslim clerics

10

44

46

Among those expressing a clear opinion, Roman Catholic and Muslim leaders were especially seen in a critical light. Not unexpectedly, people who espoused a religion tended to be disproportionately more positive about religious leaders and the irreligious disproportionately more negative; however, when it came to Muslim leaders, both religious and irreligious were similarly negative. Catholics were most positive about their own bishops and archbishops.

On the characteristics of the next pope, many Britons could not get hugely exercised. They became most animated (in the sense of 44% saying they would be delighted) at the prospect of a pope who wanted to permit Catholic couples to use contraception. The proportion expressing delight at other scenarios was: a pope who advocated much stronger action to redistribute money within countries from rich to poor (24%); a pope who advocated that rich countries should spend far more on overseas aid (17%); a pope from Africa (11%); and a pope from South America (9%).

Religion and the current politico-economic situation

The YouGov Eurotrack study also included questions about current political and economic issues in Europe, the answers to which will be of interest to BRIN readers because they have been broken down by religious affiliation. Here we report on some of those for Britain alone, albeit the same level of detail is also available for the other five countries included in the survey.

Although most Britons (60%) disapprove of the Coalition Government’s record to date, the proportion is notably higher among those without a religion (65%) than those who profess some faith (56%), apart from Roman Catholics (68%, whose politics tend to be left-of-centre – see the next item, on the religious right). There is a corresponding gap in approval ratings of the Government: 32% by the religious (rising to 35% of non-Catholic Christians) and 20% of the faithless, with a national mean of 24%.

These judgments on the Government do not appear to correlate with perceived changes to the financial situation of respondents’ households during the previous twelve months. Whereas the religious are relatively more positive about the Government than the irreligious, it is the former whose households have suffered most: 60% reported that their finances had worsened a lot or a little against 51% of the religiously unaffiliated, with the number observing an improvement standing at 9% and 12% respectively.

On Britain’s membership of the European Union, people without religion (41%) were more likely than those with (33%) to say that they would vote in favour of continuing membership, in the event of a referendum being held, the national average being 36%. Nationally, 42% stated that they would vote to leave the European Union, comprising 49% of the religious and 38% of the irreligious. Among the religious, Catholics were most in favour of leaving (55%) and non-Christians the least (34%, with 43% wishing to stay in membership).

Naturally, it cannot be assumed that this spread of opinions is solely the function of the religion/irreligion factor, which is the only variable to be included in the YouGov tables. We know from other surveys that both religion and politics are independently impacted by secular demographics, and they will doubtless explain some of the variance noted above.

Religious right

In a new report from the Theos think-tank, Andy Walton (with Andrea Hatcher and Nick Spencer) asks Is There a ‘Religious Right’ Emerging in Britain? The question is answered in the negative, in the sense of there not being an American-style religious right at present, and the judgment being that there is little chance of one developing in the immediate future. Part of the evidence base for this conclusion is a ‘brief foray’ (pp. 34-45) into relevant social surveys, particularly the British Social Attitudes Surveys and the British Election Studies, although some use is also made of BRIN.

The findings which the authors particularly highlight are: a) the number of committed Christians in Britain is a relatively small proportion of the electorate, particularly in terms of evangelicals and Catholics, who form the backbone of the US religious right; b) only 9% of Britons with a religious affiliation say religion is very important in making political decisions, with less fixation with some of the specific issues which dominate the US political scene; and c) practising believers, albeit socially conservative, disproportionately espouse economic views which are left-of-centre, especially among Catholics. Is There a ‘Religious Right’ Emerging in Britain? can be found at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Reports/IS%20THERE%20A%20RELIGIOUS%20RIGHT%20(NEW).pdf

Religion and education

The December 2012 issue (Vol. 33, No. 3) of Journal of Beliefs & Values is a special number, guest-edited by Elisabeth Arweck and Robert Jackson, devoted to religion and education. Specifically, it comprises a dozen articles reporting research projects which have been funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. Although the majority of contributions are of a qualitative nature, several authors deploy quantitative methods to varying degrees. From this standpoint, BRIN readers will probably be most interested in the two articles on young people’s attitudes to religious diversity by Leslie Francis and members of his research group (pp. 279-92, 293-307), which apply techniques from the psychology of religion and empirical theology. The papers include details of the theoretical underpinning, design and scope, and preliminary results of a study of approximately 10,000 years 9 and 10 pupils (aged 13-15) in state-maintained secondary schools in London, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. They report, respectively, on interim datasets of 3,020 and 5,993 cases.

An interesting revelation from the first paper is that ‘a negative view of Muslims is more prevalent among secular young people than among young people who are practising members of Christian churches. In this sense, Christianity is seen to promote acceptance, not rejection, of adherents of Islam.’ The second article illustrates how empathic capacity (in terms of attitudes to other religious groups) is more strongly related to God images than to religious affiliation or religious attendance. Secular factors (such as gender, neuroticism, and psychoticism) also make a difference in predicting the empathy of individuals. For titles, abstracts, and access options for all the articles in this special issue, go to:      

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjbv20/33/3

 

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Climbing the Papal Mountain and Other News

 

Today’s post covers three news stories, two of which test public reactions to the religious landscape following, respectively, the resignation of the Pope and last month’s four cases of alleged religious discrimination appealed to the European courts.

Climbing the papal mountain

As Pope Benedict XVI prepares to leave office at the end of this month, following the announcement of his resignation, his successor will have a veritable mountain to climb, if he is to hold together the Roman Catholic Church and improve its image and influence with non-Catholics.

In a post-resignation poll only about one-fifth (22%) of adults in Britain now consider the Catholic Church to be a force for good in the world, 45% disagreeing (and thus implicitly saying it is a force for ill), and 32% undecided. If we assume that all professing Catholics reckon their Church to be a force for good, then the corollary is that not much more than one-tenth of the rest of the population does so.

Among all Britons, the number in agreement with the proposition never rises above 28% for any major demographic group (and that for the over-65s, Welsh, and Scots), while dissentients represent a majority of the 45-64s, in the South and North-East of England, and among supporters of several smaller political parties.

Comparison with surveys around the time of the papal visit to Scotland and England in September 2010 indicates that the public standing of the Church has taken a real battering during the final two and a half years of Benedict XVI’s pontificate.

The current 22% positive rating of the Catholic Church contrasts with 31-33% recorded by Opinion Research Business in identical questions about the Church as a force for good on 14-16 and 22-24 September 2010 and 9-11 September 2011; with 41% by Ipsos MORI on 20-26 August 2010; and 47% by Populus on 10-12 September 2010.

Some commentators have argued that modernization of the Catholic Church demands the appointment of the next Pope from the developing rather than the developed world, reflecting the fact that it is in the former that the Church is growing while in the latter it is in decline, notably losing the battle against secularism in Western Europe. The possibility of an African Pope is often mentioned in this context, with Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana the most cited name and, currently, a bookie’s favourite.

Britons, however, do not seem hugely enthusiastic about the prospect of the Church moving in this direction. Asked whether ‘it would be a positive step for the Catholic Church if they chose an African for their next Pope’, 33% agree, with 19% disagreeing, and 48% having no opinion (and probably no real interest in the matter either). The groups most in favour of an African Pope are the 25-34s (42%), Scots (41%), and Labour voters (43%). Most opposed are men (24%), residents of South-West England (28%), and UKIP supporters (26%).

Source: The two questions about the Roman Catholic Church were included in the online regular political survey by ComRes for The Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror on 13-14 February 2013, although it appears that, in the end, neither newspaper made use of these particular findings. The sample comprised 2,002 Britons aged 18 and over. Full data appear on pp. 89-96 of the tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/IoS_SM_Political_Poll_Feb_2013.pdf

Wearing religious clothing and symbols at work

Public attitudes to the wearing of religious clothing and symbols in the workplace vary according to the clothing or symbol concerned and to the occupation of the person wearing it.

So finds new research commissioned in the wake of the four British cases of alleged faith discrimination recently adjudicated by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In one of them, the ECHR found against the UK Government in the action brought by Nadia Eweida, who was sent home by her employer (British Airways) in 2006 for refusing to remove a chain necklace with a small silver Christian cross.

In the study, opinion was sought about the entitlement to wear three religious items (a chain necklace with a Christian cross, a Jewish kippah/skullcap, and an Islamic burka) in four professional situations: flight attendant, nurse, teacher, and accountant. The number believing that people in the UK should be allowed to wear the item under each circumstance is as follows: 

 

Cross

Kippah

Burka

Flight attendant

81

68

22

Nurse

70

60

18

Teacher

77

68

22

Accountant

85

77

47

Mean

78

68

27

The table reveals greatest comfort with individuals wearing the Christian cross at work, albeit this is deemed somewhat less acceptable for a nurse than for the other three occupations. This caveat doubtless reflects recall of the case of Shirley Chaplin whose employers, Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, had ordered the removal of her crucifix and chain on health and safety grounds. Chaplin had also appealed to the ECHR but, unlike Eweida, unsuccessfully. Opposition to a nurse wearing a cross peaked at 30% among the 18-24s and Liberal Democrat voters.

The Jewish article of clothing, the kippah, is deemed slightly less acceptable than the Christian symbol, with a mean score ten points lower. Some may find a slight hint of anti-Semitism here. However, a majority of adults still support its wearing in all four contexts, even by nurses where disagreement is greatest (30% overall, and rather more among the over-60s and Conservative voters).

But the burka worn by female Muslims finds no real favour at all, even when worn by an accountant, who is presumably less likely to come into regular contact with the public than a flight attendant, nurse, or teacher. Of course, the fact that the burka is so much larger and more ‘intrusive’ than the other two items (respondents were reminded that it covers the body and face) may well have influenced thinking.

Nevertheless, a plurality (47%) do endorse an accountant wearing a burka, whereas for the other three occupations opposition ranges from 67% to 72%. The over-60s are especially hostile, from 81% to a burka worn by a flight attendant to 86% when worn by a nurse, and a majority (51%) even arguing an accountant should not be allowed to wear it.   

Public hostility to the burka has been evidenced in numerous other opinion polls during recent years, as already noted by BRIN. The garment is clearly widely seen as ‘un-British’ and as a manifestation of Muslim reluctance to integrate into mainstream society. Therefore, attitudes to the burka are inextricably bound up with views of Islam, about which there continue to be many reservations relative to Judaism and, still more, to Christianity which is still implicitly regarded as defining Britain’s heritage and culture. 

The research is an interesting example of how principles of religious equality and liberty, to which most Britons would doubtless say they are committed, can be qualified when translated into real-life situations which are the cause of controversy and annoyance.

Source: Three online surveys undertaken among Britons aged 18 and over by YouGov for the YouGov-Cambridge think-tank: on 29-30 January 2013 (n = 1,939, on attitudes to the cross); 3-4 February 2013 (n = 1,712, on attitudes to the kippah); and on 30-31 January 2013 (n = 1,914, on attitudes to the burka). The results are discussed in a YouGov-Cambrdige blog post of 20 February 2013 at:

http://www.yougov.polis.cam.ac.uk/?p=4412

The detailed data tables are located at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/3xu7auqj0x/YGCam-Archive-results-300113-European-Court-Human-Rights.pdf

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/es1qzi4mv7/YGCam-Archive-results-040213-European-Court-Human-Rights-Kippah.pdf

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ep1emkef5f/YGCam-Archive-results-310113-European-Court-Human-Rights-Burka.pdf

Anglican church-led social action

Four-fifths (82%) of parishes in the Church of England have provided informal support to people in their community who have requested help, and 54% run organized activities to address at least one local social need. The latter figure ranges from 39% of churches whose congregation numbers fewer than 50 people to 94% where it exceeds 250; and from 80% in parishes based on council estates to 47% in the most rural areas. More than one social need is being formally met in 29% of parishes. Activities most commonly offered are: support with school work (69%), care for the elderly (54%), and parent and toddler groups (51%). Food banks are managed by 28% of parishes, although this is now likely to be an underestimate.

Community problems being tackled, formally or informally, by more than two-thirds of parishes comprise lack of self-esteem/hope, homelessness, mental health, and family breakdown/poor parenting. At the other end of the spectrum, more than one-half of parishes admit to doing very little or nothing to alleviate poor housing, benefit dependency, unemployment, unhealthy lifestyles, low education, crime/anti-social behaviour, or low income. While working relationships with schools are active and very close in three-quarters of parishes, the same is true of less than one-fifth in the case of the police, poverty charities, councils, local businesses, and social services.

Source: Online sample survey of Anglican incumbents undertaken by the Church Urban Fund (CUF) on behalf of the Church of England in December 2011. Of the 2,960 clergy invited to participate, 865 or 30% did so. There was an under-representation of rural parishes and small churches in the responses. Key findings are summarized in Bethany Eckley, The Church in Action: A National Survey of Church-Led Social Action, newly published and available at:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/Research/The_Church_in_Action_Church_Urban_Fund_2013.pdf

It should be noted that this is actually the third report to have been issued by CUF on this survey. The first was Growing Church Through Social Action: A National Survey of Church-Based Action to Tackle Poverty, prepared by Benita Hewitt of Christian Research Consultancy, the agency which undertook the fieldwork; and the second a four-page summary of it, Growing Church Through Social Action. As their titles imply, their focus was especially on the church growth aspects of the research. These earlier reports have already been discussed on BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/church-growth-and-social-action/

 

 

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Trust in Clergy and Other News

While waiting for the first tests of public opinion to the sudden resignation of Benedict XVI as Pope, here is a batch of six recently-published sources of British religious statistics on a miscellany of subjects.

Trust in clergy

Clergy/priests are the sixth most trusted group in a list of seventeen read out by Ipsos MORI in a telephone survey of 1,018 Britons aged 18 and over conducted on 9-11 February 2013 and published on 15 February. Clergy/priests were trusted to tell the truth by 66% of the sample, a figure exceeded only for doctors (89%), teachers (86%), scientists (83%), judges (82%), and television news readers (69%).

As might have been anticipated, the list was propped up by estate agents, MPs in general, bankers, journalists, and politicians in general; in each of these cases seven-tenths or more of adults stated that they did not trust these groups to tell the truth. However, 27% also said the same about clergy/priests, with 7% expressing no opinion.

The truthfulness of clergy/priests was not subject to major demographic variations, but it is interesting to note that some of the highest scores came from the 18-24s (72%), owner occupiers (70%), Scots (74%), intending voters for the Conservatives (76%) and UKIP (72%), and from those satisfied with the Coalition Government (75%).

For both topline and detailed data, go to:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3133/Politicians-trusted-less-than-estate-agents-bankers-and-journalists.aspx

Although clergy/priests might well take comfort from their relatively positive performance in this poll, they should not get too complacent. An Ipsos MORI time series clearly shows that trust in them to tell the truth has fallen fairly steadily from 85% in 1983, with the level of distrust rising from 11% in the same year. See:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/Veracity2011.pdf

Beginning of life

People of faith are more likely than those without religion to say that human life begins at conception. Overall, a plurality (44%) of Britons takes this view, but the proportion rises to 50% among Anglicans and Muslims and 60% among Catholics and Baptists, whereas for the ‘nones’ it falls to 34%. For the ‘very religious’, it is higher still: two-thirds of those who say they get some guidance in life from God, religion, religious leaders, or religious teachings. This same set of groups is also three times more likely than the norm to want to see abortion banned altogether: one-fifth or more as opposed to 7% for all respondents.

For adults as a whole, life is thought to start at some point during pregnancy by 30% but not until the baby is born by 17%, both options being selected by an above-average number of persons professing no religion (36% and 21% respectively). Don’t knows amounted to 8%, including one-third of those who preferred not to declare what their religious affiliation was.

The data come from the YouGov survey of 25-30 January 2013 for the 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates, the abortion aspects of which we have already covered in our post of 12 February. The full data tables for all these questions were released on 14 February and are available at:  

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/a0c0uf8c2g/YouGov-Survey-University-of-Lancaster-Results-130130.pdf

Lenten intentions II

Further to the coverage in our post of 9 February, YouGov has conducted a second online poll about the intended observance of Lent this year. Fieldwork took place on 10-11 February 2013 (before the start of Lent on 13 February) among 1,691 adult Britons aged 18 and over. Of these 27% said that they had plans to give something up for Lent, not dissimilar to the 24% recorded in the earlier poll. Full data tables (which also cover the anticipated consumption of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday) are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/9szci1h69s/YG-Archive-110213-Pancake-Day.pdf

Religious affiliation

The latest survey to collect information about religious affiliation was conducted by ComRes for Marie Curie Cancer Care on 6-8 February 2013. A total of 2,601 Britons aged 18 and over was interviewed online. In reply to the question ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ 53% said Christian, 8% non-Christian, and 37% none, with 2% preferring not to say.

The number professing no religion peaked among the under-45s (49% for the 18-24s, 46% for the 25-34s, 43% for the 35-44s), falling to 22% with the over-65s. There was also an above-average proportion of ‘nones’ in the lowest (DE) social group (42%), among private sector workers (42%), in the North East (42%), and in the South East (44%).

People who reported that somebody close to them (a relative or friend) had died in the last three years were somewhat less likely to declare themselves to have no religion (35%) than those who had not been bereaved on this timescale (39%); they were also more prone to say that they were Christian (55% against 52%). Perhaps the proximity of death still exercises a marginal pull towards the religiosity end of the religious-secular spectrum? For more detail, see Table 43 in the dataset at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Marie_Curie_Perceptions_of_Death_Data_February_2013.pdf

Inflated churchgoing

The tendency for respondents in sample surveys to exaggerate the frequency with which they attend public religious services is a well-known fact. It is described, somewhat euphemistically, as ‘measurement error’.

The outcome of the ‘prestige effect’, whereby people are still reluctant to admit that they are not so ‘religious’ as they or society feel they should be, the gap between reality and aspiration can be clearly seen by comparing the number who attended church on a typical Sunday in the last (2005) English Church Census with those claiming to worship weekly in polls around the same time.

However, the phenomenon is by no means peculiarly British but can be found internationally, too, including in North America. Philip Brenner, a sociologist from the University of Massachusetts Boston, is one of the scholars who has studied it, with his most recent research reported in the Winter 2012 issue (Vol. 72, No. 4, pp. 361-83) of Sociology of Religion: ‘Investigating the Effect of Bias in Survey Measures of Church Attendance’. It is far from being a light read and will win no prizes for linguistic accessibility! Although this is normally a subscription journal, Brenner’s article is, at the time of writing, free to view (apart from the three appendices) at:

http://socrel.oxfordjournals.org/content/73/4/361.full.pdf+html

Brenner’s approach is to compare the reports of churchgoing in time use diaries with claims made in national sample surveys between the 1970s and early 2000s. Fourteen countries are investigated (United States, Canada, and twelve in Europe). In the case of Great Britain, the evidence derives from a comparison of time diaries for 1974-75, 1983-84, 1987, 2000-01, and 2005 with fifteen multinational surveys of adults from 1975 to 2006 in which fieldwork was undertaken in Britain.

The author’s particular concern is to establish whether the over-reporting of church attendance in surveys is related to the individual demographic ‘predictors’ commonly associated with religious practice. He has therefore compared the replies of sub-groups with regard to Sunday churchgoing in both the diaries and the surveys by means of logistic regression models. The demographic variables employed were: gender, age, marital status, presence of children in the household, educational attainment, and household income. Religious affiliation was excluded through insufficiency of data.

The core of this analysis is to be found in Table 1, which is entitled ‘testing the equality of residual variation assumptions and equality of underlying coefficients’. His principal conclusion (to paraphrase) is that there is very little evidence to suggest that demographic sub-groups respond differentially when reporting churchgoing in sample surveys against time diaries.

The over-reporting of church attendance which Brenner presupposes to exist in North American surveys (but generally not in European ones) is said at one point of the text not to be rooted in demography but to reflect the tendency of North Americans to ‘view religiosity as a more central part of their identities’.

However, in the conclusion, it is admitted (perhaps somewhat contradictorily) that the gap between time diaries and survey results probably reflects differences in data collection method, between directive (in the surveys) and non-directive (in the diaries) techniques.

Anglican episcopate

‘Bishops are a touchy subject within the Anglican Church. They wield a lot of power and matter more than most people realise, but because of this their origins have rarely been studied in a dispassionate way nor their present functions honestly weighed up in the light of the needs of the Church within a modern society’.

In his new book, deriving from his D.Min. thesis at the University of Wales Bangor in 2009, Michael Keulemans (an associate priest of the Church in Wales) attempts to rectify these deficiencies. Bishops: The Changing Nature of the Anglican Episcopate in Mainland Britain (2012) is available in hardcover, softcover, and ebook editions from http://www.XlibrisPublishing.co.uk

Apart from a good deal of historical context, two major surveys are included in the work. The first examines the background and careers of diocesan bishops in England, Wales, and Scotland at twenty-year intervals between 1905 and 2005 (chapters 6, 7, and 8). The second, employing a self-completion postal questionnaire, looks at attitudes towards the bishop’s role of 255 serving clergy and 358 leading laity (churchwardens or equivalent) in four Anglican dioceses (two in England, one each in Wales and Scotland), and compares them with those of 25 bishops who retired between 2000 and 2008 (chapters 10 and 11).

Although now around five years old, the second survey inevitably touches on a couple of issues which remain (controversially) current in the Anglican Communion: practising gay and women bishops. On the latter, 72% of clergy, 67% of laity, and 84% of retired bishops endorsed female bishops. Respondents from the Scottish diocese (Edinburgh) were notably supportive (83% of clergy and 82% of laity). There was much less enthusiasm for practising gay bishops: 30% of clergy, 17% of laity, and 25% of retired bishops.

 

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