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Lenten Intentions and Other News

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Clive D. Field

With Lent starting next Wednesday, 13 February, our lead story this week concerns what people say they will be giving up this year, but there is the usual miscellany of other religious statistical news items, too.

Lenten intentions

One-quarter (24%) of British adults said that they intended giving something up for Lent this year, when they were interviewed online by YouGov on 16-18 January 2013, about four weeks before the start of Lent. Chocolate (10%) headed the list of forfeits, followed by alcohol (4%), smoking (3%), and meat (2%).

The poll, of 2,222 persons, was commissioned by the Church Times as part of its sesquicentennial celebrations and is published (with the full data table) in the 8 February issue of the newspaper (p. 5). The article is freely available online at:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2013/8-february/news/uk/(tropical)-fish-for-lent-%e2%80%94-young-to-give-up-most

The proportion planning to give something up for Lent varied by demographics, perhaps most interestingly by age. Whereas only one-fifth of the over-35s had abstinence on their mind, the number rose to 30% for the 25-34s and 35% for the 18-24s. Women (27%) aimed to be more observant than men (21%), and non-manuals (26%) more than manuals (22%). Geographically, Scots were least inclined to make any sacrifices (16%) and Midlanders the most (29%).

It would seem reasonable (if cynical) to assume that many of these good intentions will not translate into reality once Lent begins. Certainly, a YouGov poll on 22-23 February 2012, when Lent had already started, discovered that only 12% had actually given anything up. However, in age terms, it also found Lenten observance peaking among the 18-24s (19%), albeit the most dutiful group of all last year was the self-proclaimed very or fairly religious (28% of whom had given something up).

Respondents this year were additionally asked to write down, in free text, what they understood Lent to mean. Only 10% had to admit that they did not know what it was. A plurality (49%) described it as a time for giving things up, 43% as the period before Easter, 40% as a Christian festival, and 28% mentioned that it lasted 40 days or six weeks. These answers were not mutually exclusive. Possibly the most intriguing definition to be offered was that Lent is ‘a type of tropical fish’.

Opinion formers and same-sex marriage

An online survey of UK opinion formers (or ‘influentials’, drawn from politics, business, media, academia, non-governmental organizations, and the public sector), undertaken by YouGov in late January 2013, has revealed a division of view about the provisions of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill as regards the marriage of sex-sex couples in places of worship. Essentially, the Bill permits most religious organizations to conduct such marriages but on an opt-in basis, the exceptions being the Church of England and Church in Wales who are effectively banned from marrying same-sex couples.

Among influentials, 39% are in support of these provisions regarding same-sex marriages in places of worship, 38% are opposed, and 23% undecided. This spread of opinion was found to be consistent across political party lines. The proportion opposed to these provisions is lower than reject the whole concept of same-sex marriage (27%), perhaps suggesting that many influentials favour same-sex marriage but feel it should be possible to be conducted in places of worship without restriction, and not just in civil venues. Overall, 58% of influentials back same-sex marriage, a similar number to the British public in other recent YouGov surveys.

Full data are not yet available online, but there is a YouGov press release at:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/02/07/uk-influentials-back-gay-marriage/

Catholic MPs and same-sex marriage

Notwithstanding the strong opposition to same-sex marriage of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales, the majority of Catholic MPs voted for the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill in the crucial Second Reading debate in the House of Commons on 5 February 2013. This is according to an analysis by The Tablet (9 February 2013, p. 30). Out of at least 82 Catholic MPs, 57% voted for the Bill, 34% against, and 9% did not register a vote. The figures of Catholic MPs for the three main political parties are:

	Con	LibDem	Lab
For the Bill	12	2	32
Against the Bill	11	2	15

Roman Missal

It is over a year since Catholic parishes in English-speaking countries started to use the revised English translation of the Missale Romanum edition tertia, which aimed to offer a more literal rendition of the Latin, replacing the translation introduced after Vatican II, with its emphasis on capturing the sense of the words.

However, ‘Catholic opinion remains split down the middle over the new English text of the Mass, an online survey by The Tablet has revealed. Catholics in the UK and Ireland are more critical of the document than their counterparts in the United States. Overall, 70 per cent of the clergy who responded to our questions are unhappy with the new text and want to see it revised’. The survey ran from 5 December 2012 to 9 January 2013.

A self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) group of 5,795 persons completed the questionnaire. Virtually all described themselves as practising Catholics attending Mass at least once a week. Of these 2,538 lived in the UK and Ireland.

A summary of the survey by Abigail Frymann and Elena Curti appears in the print edition of The Tablet for 9 February 2013 (pp. 8-9), as well as on the magazine’s website. On the latter will also be found eight detailed reports, of results for: all respondents; UK and Ireland; USA; Australia; clergy; religious and consecrated; those preferring the Ordinary Form; and those preferring the Extraordinary Form. These can be read at:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/468/26

Focusing on the UK and Ireland data, we find that 63% of Catholics dislike the new translation against just 35% who like it, with 2% not noticing much difference. There has been some changing of minds: before its introduction, 5% were looking forward to the translation but now do not like it, whereas 7% were previously apprehensive but have grown to like the new translation. On the other hand, given the choice, only 22% elect for the new translation, 63% wanting to revert to the old translation, and 15% to the Latin version in either the Ordinary or Extraordinary Form.

Among the more unpopular features of the new text in the UK and Ireland are the ‘obsequious and distracting florid language’ (disapproved of by 64%), the ‘special language’ used to address God (60%), and the more formal style (59%). Three-quarters (76%) report that they always or sometimes see people around them in the pews struggling to follow the text, and 57% that the priest had experienced difficulties in saying the new eucharistic prayers (31% that he continues to do so). Three-fifths (62%) agree that the new translation requires urgent revision.

Mapping the 2011 religion census

The Office for National Statistics has released a searchable interactive map for the 2011 religion census of England and Wales, which will enable BRIN users to visualize the high-level (nine-category) religious profile of their local areas and to make comparisons with 2001. Go to:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/interactive/census-map-2-1—religion/index.html

Meanwhile, Alex Singleton (Lecturer in Geographic Information Science at the University of Liverpool) has launched the 2011 Census Open Atlas, utilizing the Key Statistics variables from the 2011 census of England and Wales to generate an atlas of vector PDF maps of the results for each local authority area. The high-level (nine-category) religion variable (KS209EW) is one of those to be mapped in each atlas. For more information, and to download each local atlas (note: the files are necessarily large), go to:

http://www.alex-singleton.com/2011-census-open-atlas-project/

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news, visualisation | Tagged Abigail Frymann, abstinence, Alex Singleton, Catholic MPs, census of population, Census Open Atlas, Church Times, Elena Curti, Lent, mapping, Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, Mass, Missale Romanum edition tertia, Office for National Statistics, opinion formers, places of worship, religious festivals, Roman Catholic Church, Roman Missal, same-sex marriage, The Tablet, YouGov | Leave a comment

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The increasingly heated controversy over the Coalition Government’s Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill for England and Wales shifts to Parliament tomorrow (5 February 2013), with the Second Reading debate in the House of Commons. It therefore seems a good point to take stock of what we know about the religious dimensions of the same-sex marriage issue.

Attitudes of faith groups to same-sex marriage

In terms of British public opinion overall, most recent polls are reporting that an absolute majority of adults now favours the legalization of same-sex marriage. YouGov’s last three polls (between December 2012 and February 2013) have all recorded 55% for and 36% against. The latest surveys (December 2012) by Survation, ICM, and Ipsos MORI found majorities of 60%, 62%, and 73% respectively. Where trend data exist, holding question-wording constant, they reveal that support for same-sex marriage has been building slowly but steadily over time.

Notwithstanding there have been many polls on the subject, and that religious leaders have been at the forefront of opposition to same-sex marriage, few data exist about the attitudes to it of adherents of particular faiths. A notable (but limited) exception has been YouGov, whose surveys in March and November 2012 both included breaks for professing Anglicans, who were less positive than average about same-sex marriage.

For example, in November 2012, when 51% of all adult Britons wanted the law changed to permit same-sex marriage, the proportion among Anglicans stood at only 41%, with a plurality of Anglicans (47%) actually opposed to the legislation. Back in March 2012, a mere 24% of Anglicans said that they would support same-sex marriage, against 46% who endorsed civil partnerships. Moreover, 65% vindicated the Church of England’s stance in defending marriage as an institution for just heterosexual couples (18% more than in the population as a whole).

Another YouGov poll (November-December 2011) contrasted the views of those professing some religion and those who had none. At that stage, 71% of Britons agreed with Government plans to ‘extend the legal form and name of civil marriage to same-sex couples’, but the number rose to 82% among those with no religion and fell to 58% for those professing some faith. Similarly, 15% more of the former than the latter (88% versus 73%) backed civil partnerships.

Beyond that, at least in terms of poll data which have fully entered the public domain, one has to go back to the British Social Attitudes Surveys in 2007 and 2008 for a full profile of attitudes to same-sex marriage by religion. Different questions were asked in each year, so direct comparison is not possible. However, in 2007 people of no faith had an 11% more positive attitude to same-sex marriage than the norm and in 2008 9% more. Almost at the other end of the spectrum, Anglicans had, respectively, 27% and 22% less positive views than those without a religion. Christians other than Anglicans and Catholics were also relatively unsympathetic to same-sex marriage at that point.

An even firmer line has been taken by regular churchgoers, surveyed by ComRes in October 2011 and June-July 2012. At the former date, 83% declared their opposition to Government plans to legalize same-sex marriage, 93% fearing that ministers of religion would have to conduct gay marriages against their conscience, 88% that schools would be required to teach children that same-sex relationships are on an equal footing as heterosexual relationships, and 85% that the value of marriage would be further undermined.

As many as 57% of regular churchgoers in October 2011 claimed that they would be less likely to vote Conservative as a result of Prime Minister David Cameron’s commitment to legalize same-sex marriage, and the figure was still 58% in June-July 2012. At this second date, 75% reported that their perceptions of Cameron had worsened in the light of his Government’s desire to change the definition of marriage, while 65% said the same about Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. The suggestion that the threat to the institution of marriage posed by same-sex unions might have been overblown was dismissed by 69%.

Same-sex marriages in places of worship

In an endeavour to placate religious opinion, the Government, in drafting the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, has tried to ensure that no religious body would be forced to conduct same-sex weddings in places of worship against its will. The measure contains a so-called ‘quadruple lock’ to guard against this possibility, including clarification that the duty of the Church of England and the Church in Wales to marry parishioners ‘does not extend to same-sex couples’, thereby (it is claimed) protecting them from legal challenge.

The ‘compromise’, albeit most faith bodies do not necessarily regard it in that light, seems to have muddied the waters somewhat so far as public opinion is concerned. In its latest poll (January-February 2013) YouGov charted a spread of views: 9% feeling that all religions should be required to conduct same-sex marriages; 40% that all religions should be empowered to perform such ceremonies if they wished to; 24% that religions should be so empowered but that the law should protect the freedom of those bodies who wished to prevent same-sex marriages occurring on their premises; and 20% that no religion should be entitled to conduct same-sex marriages.

Ipsos MORI’s poll in December 2012 revealed a bigger proportion (28%) wanting the law to require religions to provide weddings for same-sex couples, but far more (45%) wished to see no such requirement, the residuum of 24% opposing same-sex marriages in any location. On the other hand, as many as 40% of Britons in the OnePoll study in May 2012 wished to see same-sex couples having the opportunity to get married in church if that is what they desired to do.

In another YouGov survey (December 2012), which predated publication of the Bill, the topic was approached in a different way. British adults were then inclined, in the matter of religious marriages, to put the interests of faith bodies above sexual equality: 46% believed that, ultimately the right of Churches to restrict religious marriages to men and women should take precedence over the rights of same-sex couples, with only 27% taking the opposite line. A slim plurality (45%) wanted the law to keep religious weddings to those between a man and a woman, just 4% ahead of those who disagreed. However, a majority (53%) also wanted religions to have the legal option to offer same-sex marriages, if they wanted, albeit this was 18% down on the level in the YouGov survey of November-December 2011.

As for the position of the Church of England, Survation found in December 2012 that a majority (58%) defended its entitlement to oppose same-sex marriage, twice the number in disagreement, but in a YouGov poll in November 2012 more said that the Church was wrong (48%) than right (39%) to oppose same-sex marriage. At the same time, certainly by December 2012, most Britons wanted individual Anglican clergy to have the discretion to offer religious weddings to same-sex couples if they could do so in good conscience: 62% expressed this desire in a ComRes poll and 54% in the Survation one (with 35% arguing the opposite, that the Government should make it illegal for any Anglican clergy to conduct same-sex marriages until such time as the Church’s governing body approves the idea).

The concern for faith bodies, of course, is that however confident the Government may be about the security of its ‘quadruple lock’, the courts – whether British or European – might have other ideas. The public feels that there may be some ground for this anxiety, 34% in YouGov’s poll in December 2012 considering there was a risk, following legislation, that the courts would force places of worship to conduct same-sex marriages whether they wanted to or not; 43% deemed the prospect unlikely, with 23% undecided.

Regular churchgoers have particular concerns in this regard. In the ComRes survey of June-July 2012, 79% disbelieved Government assurances that places of worship would not be forced to conduct same-sex marriages, and 86% were apprehensive that the courts in Britain or the European Court of Human Rights would overturn any legal protections.

These churchgoers will be further discouraged by the fact that 50% of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people (LGBs) interviewed by ComRes in January 2013 fully expected the European courts eventually to remove any statutory restrictions on access to same-sex weddings in places of worship. Three-fifths of LGBs at that time, and in another ComRes poll in April-May 2012, contended that true marriage equality would only be achieved when same-sex couples had the identical choice of marriage locations as heterosexuals. Indeed, 35% of LGBs at the earlier date wanted the Government to force faith groups to offer religious ceremonies from the start.

Conclusion

Although more research is needed into the attitudes of members of faith groups to same-sex marriage, it seems undeniable that the opposition to the Government’s plans does come disproportionately from people of faith, and that the more committed that faith (for example, in terms of regular churchgoing), the stronger the defence of the ‘traditional’ concept of marriage between a man and a woman. Even 42% of all Britons interviewed by Survation in December 2012 recognized that ‘marriage is a sacred act between a man and a woman and cannot be a sacred act between same-sex couples’.

The opposition to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill on the part of most major faith bodies (the exceptions are really quite small in terms of their active memberships) has undoubtedly been accentuated by fears that the ‘quadruple lock’ would not withstand serious legal challenge, particularly from Europe, and by what appear to many to be the muddying of the divide between civil and religious marriages in the provisions of the Bill. The latter undoubtedly seem to have triggered quite a wide range of views.

In practice, most pundits expect that, notwithstanding the prospect of blood on the Conservative benches, the Bill will clear the House of Commons, thanks to Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs’ support. In its blog of 16 January 2013, the Coalition for Equal Marriage, the pro-same-sex marriage lobby, reported that ‘for the first time, a majority of MPs have committed to vote for a change in the law to lift the ban on same-sex marriage in England and Wales’. The Bill’s passage in the House of Lords is less predictable. As BRIN noted on 12 January, the latest ComRes survey among peers suggests there could be major resistance on the Conservative benches.

It is hopefully superfluous to caution that it would be potentially misleading to generalize from attitudes to the specific measure of same-sex marriage to opinions of gay rights as a whole. It does not follow that, because faith bodies have significant objections in principle to what they see as the undermining of the traditional view of marriage, they are homophobic. We will have to leave for another day a broader review of the changing perceptions of homosexuality among faith groups. In the meantime, interested readers could start with the research by Dr Ben Clements of the University of Leicester, which was posted on BRIN on 12 June 2012.

In order to keep this post relatively brief and uncomplicated, source references have not been given to the many opinion polls mentioned above. In most cases, topline and/or disaggregated data can be found on the websites of the polling agencies concerned. BRIN has collated all recent opinion polls on the subject of same-sex marriage, not just those pertaining to the religious aspects, in connection with research for the 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates. This collation will eventually appear on the BRIN website.

Posted in Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Research note, Survey news | Tagged British Social Attitudes Surveys, Church of England, ComRes, courts, David Cameron, government, homosexuality, ICM, Ipsos-MORI, legislation, lesbians/gays/bisexuals, Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, OnePoll, places of worship, religious marriages, same-sex marriage, Survation, YouGov | 1 Comment

More Census Data and Other News

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Clive D. Field

It is a matter of two quantitative steps forward and one back this week. On the upside, more religion data have been released from the 2011 census and new survey research has been commissioned for the 2013 Westminster Faith Debates. On the downside, the standard published source of national-level Roman Catholic statistics in England and Wales has been discontinued.

More census data

The Office for National Statistics released further micro-level data from the 2011 religion census of England and Wales on 30 January 2013. The following religion reference tables are now available in Excel format by clicking the links to ‘key statistics’ and ‘quick statistics’ at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-and-quick-statistics-for-parishes-and-parliamentary-constituencies-in-england-and-wales/index.html

TABLE KS209EW – 9 category classification of religion for:

regions, counties, London boroughs, districts, and unitary authorities in England and Wales
unitary authorities in Wales

TABLE QS210EW – 58 category classification of religion for:

regions, counties, London boroughs, districts, and unitary authorities in England and Wales
regions, counties, London boroughs, districts, unitary authorities, and wards in England and Wales
regions, districts, Middle Layer Super Output Areas, and Lower Layer Super Output Areas in England and Wales
unitary authorities in Wales
unitary authorities and electoral districts in Wales
Middle Layer Super Output Areas, Lower Layer Super Output Areas, and Output Areas in London
Ditto in Eastern England
Ditto in the East Midlands
Ditto in the North East
Ditto in the North West
Ditto in the South East
Ditto in the South West
Ditto in the West Midlands
Ditto in Wales
Ditto in Yorkshire and the Humber

Meanwhile, church statistician Peter Brierley has continued his analysis of the 2011 religion census data in the current issue (No. 25, February 2013) of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy. There is an article on ‘Census Sense’ on pp. 1-2 of the main bulletin, and further detail on pp. 1-2 of an accompanying paper on ‘Religion, Age, and Gender from the 2011 Census’. Brierley is also offering (for £2) a 2,800-word report on Making Sense of the Census. For more information, contact Brierley Consultancy, 1 Thorpe Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent, TN10 4PW, email peter@brierleyres.com

In ‘Census Sense’ Brierley hypothesizes that the decrease of 3.8 million in the number of professing Christians in England between 2001 and 2011 is accounted for by an addition of 1 million new Christians less 4.3 million Christians who died during the decade less 0.5 million other losses to Christianity between 2001 and 2011.

In ‘Religion, Age, and Gender’ Brierley directly addresses the question of whether Christianity in Britain will die out. He concludes: ‘We are not yet in the final generation of Christians, and the next generation will not be the last either, but the Christian scene is likely to alter very considerably over the next 20 years or so’. He further suggests that ‘the Church of England’s actuaries forecasting that Anglican church attendance could drop 58% by 2030 is about right for most of the other denominations also’.

Westminster Faith Debates

The 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates, which aims to ‘bring the best research and thinking on religion into public debate’, is about to commence. Organized by Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University and Rt Hon Charles Clarke under the auspices of the Religion and Society Programme, the theme of the series is ‘Religion and personal life’. The debates take place in central London, as follows:

Wednesday, 13 February: ‘Stem cell research, abortion, and the “soul of the embryo”?’
Wednesday, 27 February: ‘Too much sex these days – the sexualisation of society?’
Thursday, 14 March: ‘Is it right for religions to treat men and women differently?’
Wednesday, 27 March: ‘What’s a traditional family and do we need it?’
Thursday, 18 April: ‘Do Christians really oppose gay marriage?’
Thursday, 2 May: Should we legislate to permit assisted dying?’

For full details of speakers and how to register to attend, go to:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/faith_debates

To inform this year’s series of debates, the organizers have commissioned YouGov to conduct original online research into the issues which will be covered. Fieldwork took place on 25-30 January 2013 with 4,437 adult Britons, a much larger sample than in most opinion polls. In addition to three or four topical questions for each debate, there are a dozen or so background questions to measure the religion of respondents, thus permitting multiple cross-tabulations.

Results of this YouGov survey will be incrementally released in connection with each of the debates and will also be selectively covered on BRIN at the same time. To contextualize the findings, BRIN has researched comparative poll data for Britain since 2005. Also watch out for the series of articles linked to the debates which will be published in The Tablet on 9 and 23 February, 9 and 23 March, and 13 and 27 April.

Roman Catholic statistics

The 2013 edition of the annual (commercially published) Catholic Directory of England and Wales is the first for exactly a century not to include a section on Catholic statistics. In the absence of any central statistical unit in the English and Welsh Church, the Catholic Directory has long performed a useful public service in collating the figures gathered annually by each of the 22 dioceses. The volume and range of this information had already been thinned out by the Catholic Directory over recent years, but now it has come to a grinding halt.

The editor of the publication explains the decision to discontinue the statistical section thus: ‘For some time I have been troubled by the lack of consistency from one year to the next. Rather than publish potentially misleading information, it would be better to apply to the individual dioceses for up-to-date details as and when required’.

Even though the data were known to be of variable quality, and have been extensively critiqued by commentators such as Tony Spencer, the Catholic Directory has been an accessible national-level source, especially for those outside the Church. The editor’s advice to make enquiries of multiple dioceses is hardly helpful or practicable, especially for the all important pastoral and population statistics.

One can but hope that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales will now act to plug the hole. We understand that the Conference’s Department of Evangelisation and Catechesis is in the process of scoping a project to obtain a more accurate picture of the make-up of the Catholic community in England and Wales. This is to be warmly welcomed and, if implemented, would address the internal data requirements of the Church as well as the public interest, thereby avoiding potentially ill-founded estimates.

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion in public debate, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Catholic Directory of England and Wales, census of population, Charles Clarke, Linda Woodhead, Office for National Statistics, personal life, Peter Brierley, religious census, Roman Catholic Church, The Tablet, Tony Spencer, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | Leave a comment

North African Islamism and Other News

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The threat posed by Islamism in North Africa is the lead story in today’s round-up of religious statistical news, with two of the other three items concerning the role of religion in state education.

North African Islamism

Recent events in Mali and Algeria have raised the profile of ‘Islamist militants in North Africa’ to such an extent that 23% of Britons now consider them to be a great threat to this country and a further 43% a minor threat. Those regarding them as some kind of threat are concentrated among Conservative voters (77%) and the over-60s (81%, almost double the number of 18-24s, 42%, holding this view). Only 19% of Britons deem North African Islamism to pose little or no threat, with 15% undecided (including more than one-fifth of the under-40s).

Source: Online survey by YouGov of 2,119 Britons aged 18 and over on 21 and 22 January 2013. Full data posted on 24 January at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/rnrn313ieq/YouGov-Survey-Terrorism-220113.pdf

Faith schools

Almost half (49%) of Britons support making all state schools secular, and thus severing existing links with particular religions. This is 11% more than implicitly back the status quo arrangement for faith schools, with 14% uncertain. The demographics of support for the proposition are interesting. Men (54%) are more in favour than women (44%), which was predictable. The age breaks are more surprising, almost the reverse of what might have been expected: it is the over-60s (54%) who most support ‘secularization’ of state schools and the 18-24s (42%) who are the least sure. Is this a tacit expression of the elderly’s suspicion of Islam and Muslim schools? Geographically, it is in Scotland (63%) where opposition to faith schools peaks, perhaps reflecting the long-standing controversies around the position of Roman Catholic state schools in Scotland. Parents of children in the state primary sector (where the majority of faith schools in Britain are to be found) are somewhat less in favour of secular schools than parents of children in the secondary sector, 42% versus 51% respectively. Conservative voters (48%) are only slightly less likely than Labourites (52%) to want to abolish faith schools.

Source: Online survey by YouGov of 1,750 Britons aged 18 and over undertaken on 6 and 7 January 2013 for Prospect magazine. Full data tables were posted on 24 January, to coincide with publication of Peter Kellner’s feature about the survey in the February 2013 issue of Prospect. The tables are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/gzklm8utri/YG-Archive-Prospect-results-070113-education-state-schools.pdf

EBacc and RE

The Government’s introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is having a negative impact on school provision of non-EBacc subjects, including religious education (RE), according to a new survey of schoolteachers. Among respondents, 13% reported a decline in provision for RE in their schools as a consequence of the EBacc (3% more than recorded that their schools were planning to cut RE in a similar survey in May 2011). Comparable reductions in provision for other non-EBacc subjects were: 14% for citizenship, music, and personal, social and health education; 15% for information and communication technology; and 16% for art, and design and technology.

Source: Online survey of over 2,500 schoolteachers by the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), the largest teachers’ union. No methodological details were given in the press release about the survey issued by the NASUWT on 23 January 2013. However, by analogy with the 2011 study, it seems probable that the sample comprised members of the NASUWT working in secondary schools in England, and reporting on the experiences of their own schools. The press release can be found at:

http://www.nasuwt.org.uk/Whatsnew/NASUWTNews/PressReleases/EBaccSurvey#

Ageing priests

Quite a bit is known about the age profile of Church of England clergy (see, for example, Tables 23 and 24 in Church Statistics, 2010/11), but less information has been available about Roman Catholic priests. Now, thanks to new research by the Movement for Married Clergy (MMC), we know that only 4% of secular clergy in England and Wales in 2012 were aged 40 and under, and 38% aged 60 and under. That left 27% aged 61-70 and 35% over 70 years. Projecting the data forward by a decade, the MMC notes ‘a danger sign about replacement’, not least considering that, although ‘secular priests continue to remain in parishes until 70, the most effective work is done by those below the age of 60’.

Source: Analysis by the MMC of the dates of birth of 1,074 secular priests in seven English and Welsh dioceses in 2012, representing 26% of all such priests in England and Wales. Information was either extracted from published diocesan directories or provided by diocesan offices. The analysis is unpublished but has been generously supplied to BRIN by Dr Michael Winter, MMC’s chairman. It should be noted that the snippet about the study in the Catholic Herald of 18 January 2013 is garbled.

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Survey news | Tagged EBacc, English Baccalaureate, Faith schools, Islamism, Islamist militants, Movement for Married Clergy, NASUWT, National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, North Africa, priests, Prospect, religious education, Roman Catholic Church, state schools, terrorism, YouGov | 1 Comment

Britishness and Other News

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The lead item in today’s round-up of religious statistical news sheds some light on the phenomenon of cultural Christianity which arises in connection with the 2011 religious census. In keeping with BRIN’s objectives, we also find space for some historical data which exemplify that the symptoms of what we now describe as secularization have chronologically deep roots.

Britishness

The number of professing Christians in England and Wales revealed by the 2011 census (59%) may have dropped significantly since 2001, but many commentators still feel the proportion to be inflated through an association in the popular mind between Christianity on the one hand and nationality or ethnicity on the other. To declare oneself to be Christian, it is argued, still seems for many, within the British cultural and historical context, to be a function of being British/English and/or of being white.

Notwithstanding, a new poll finds that just 7% of Britons agree that being Christian is an important attribute for being British. This compares with 50% who say that Britishness equates with respect for people’s right to free speech, 46% with respect for the law, 41% with speaking English, 38% with treating men and women equally, 29% with respect for all ethnic backgrounds, 26% with respect for all faiths, 26% with being born here, and 21% with voting in elections. Only being white (6%) scores lower than being Christian. Demographically, the number citing being Christian peaks among the over-45s (11%), those with no formal educational qualifications (11%), and readers of mid-market newspapers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Express (12%).

In answer to another question, tensions between different religions are (at 26%) the sixth most cited (of ten) causes of division in British society, after tensions between immigrants and people born in Britain (57%), between tax payers and welfare claimants (47%), between rich and poor (35%), between different ethnicities (33%), and between tax payers and tax avoiders (32%). However, tensions between different religions are ranked lower (seventh, at 16%) as a cause of division in the respondent’s local area. All percentages are the sums of those ranking each cause in first, second or third position.

Source: Online interviews with 2,515 Britons aged 16-75 between 23 and 27 November 2012, undertaken by Ipsos MORI on behalf of British Future, a think tank which seeks to encourage debates on identity, integration, migration, and opportunity. Topline data are available in State of the Nation: Where is Bittersweet Britain Heading?, edited by Rachael Jolley and published by British Future on 14 January 2013 at:

http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/State-of-the-Nation-2013.pdf

Detailed computer tabulations, with breaks by demographics, can be found at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/British%20Future_Weighted%20Tables%20FINAL.pdf

Church social action

Notwithstanding the economic recession, and the mounting difficulties of attracting external grants, the UK’s churches have actually increased their investment in local social action initiatives during the past two years, according to research released on 20 December 2012. Funds given by UK church members and which were spent on such initiatives climbed by 19% during this period, to reach £342 million. The amount of time spent by church volunteers on social action initiatives rose by 36% over the same timescale, to stand at 98 million hours. In addition, paid church staff members commit 55 million hours to these initiatives. The overall value of such voluntary and salaried endeavour in 2012 is estimated to have been worth £1.925 billion per annum, at the level of the average wage, rising to £2.5 billion if other direct and indirect church contributions are factored in. The mean number of social action projects undertaken by a church grew from 5.7 in 2010 to 8.2 in 2012, and 58% of churches plan to scale up their social activities in the next 12 months. All the statistics exclude voluntary work undertaken by Christians in the community outside a church context.

Source: Survey of several thousand churches of all denominations in the UK during the autumn of 2012, of whom 359 replied. This is a low response rate, and, accordingly, the sample may not necessarily be representative of all UK churches, which has implications for the scaling-up of data to national level. Specifically, it is acknowledged that the sample is skewed towards medium-sized places of worship. Results (sometimes broken down by church size and location, and including comparisons with a similar survey in autumn 2010) are summarized in Geoff Knott, Church and Community Involvement: National Church Social Action Survey Results, 2012, published by Jubilee+ and the ACT Network and available at:

http://www.jubilee-plus.org/Articles/337911/Jubilee_Plus/About_Us/Research/RESULTS_OF_THE.aspx

Thefts of metal from churches

Thefts of metal from Anglican churches in 2012 dropped to their lowest level since 2006. Last year, there were some 930 claims to Ecclesiastical Insurance from such churches in respect of the theft of lead and other metals from church exteriors, compared with over 2,600 in 2011 (the worst year on record). The cost of these claims fell from nearly £4.5 million in 2011 to £1.8 million in 2012. The improved situation follows concerted action to deter criminals by the Government and a range of other industries affected by metal thefts. Ecclesiastical has also been running its own campaign to fit sophisticated electronic alarm systems on the roofs of churches.

Source: Press release by Ecclesiastical (which insures 96% of Anglican churches in the UK) on 17 January 2013, and available at:

http://www.ecclesiastical.com/Images/Theft%20of%20metal%20from%20churches%20drops%20to%20lowest%20level%20in%20six%20years.pdf

Eighteenth-century diocesan statistics

Few national statistics were collected by the Church of England prior to its major administrative overhaul between 1832 and 1841, and even thereafter the pace of quantification was relatively slow. In terms of religious belonging, the number of confirmands (1872) and Easter Day communicants (1891) were among the first data to be collated and reported nationally, with usual Sunday attendance not being counted until as late as 1968.

Before these national Anglican figures become available, diocesan records often provide clues as to what was happening in the Established Church. Particularly important sources are the returns made by parochial clergy to queries issued in advance of an episcopal visitation of a diocese (which, in theory, took place every three years). Although the process of visitation antedated the Norman Conquest, the practice of sending out questionnaires to be answered by the clergy only took hold in the early eighteenth century.

The principal innovator of such parochial returns was William Wake when Bishop of Lincoln. A splendid scholarly edition of the abstract (speculum) compiled from the returns Wake obtained from his clergy in 1706, 1709, 1712, and 1715 has just been published: Bishop Wake’s Summary of Visitation Returns from the Diocese of Lincoln, 1706-1715, edited by John Broad (Records of Social and Economic History, New Series 49-50, Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 2012, 2 vols, xlii + 1,075pp., ISBN 978-0-19-726518-5, 978-0-19-725519-2, £190).

The edition is a mine of information about the state of parishes in the Diocese of Lincoln, which, at that time, covered no fewer than six counties: Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire (part), Huntingdonshire, and Leicestershire, in addition to Lincolnshire. Quite a lot of the detail is statistical, including numbers of communicants and estimates of the presence of nonconformists. Broad’s introduction contains (p. xxvii) a useful table summarizing changes in Dissenters (up by 61%) and Roman Catholics (down by 12%) across the Diocese between the Compton Census of 1676 and Wake’s surveys.

A rather later set of clergy visitation returns exist for the Diocese of Salisbury in 1783, instigated by Bishop Shute Barrington. These have recently been subjected to secondary analysis, alongside other contemporary evidence, in order to build up a semi-quantitative picture of religious life in the Diocese (which then comprised Berkshire and Wiltshire). The research is reported in Clive Field, ‘Status animarum: A Religious Profile of the Diocese of Salisbury in the 1780s’, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, Vol. 106, 2013, pp. 218-29.

In terms of religious profession, the Diocese of Salisbury in the 1780s was found to have had a higher proportion of nominal Anglicans, and fewer Dissenters and Roman Catholics, than England and Wales c irca 1800. Non-churchgoing was a genuine problem for the clergy, particularly in towns, although, relative to population, aggregate congregations seem to have been similar to the religious census of 1851, which revealed Wiltshire and western Berkshire to be areas of comparatively high observance.

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged ACT Network, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, British Future, Britishness, Buckinghamshire, Christianity, Church of England, Clive Field, Diocese of Lincoln, Diocese of Salisbury, Ecclesiastical Insurance, Geoff Knott, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Ipsos-MORI, John Broad, jubilee, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, metal theft, Oxford University Press, Rachael Jolley, Shute Barrington, social action, tensions, visitation returns, volunteering, William Wake, Wiltshire, Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine | 1 Comment

Anglican Comments on the Census and Other News

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The results of the 2011 religion census for England and Wales continue to reverberate around faith communities. The lead item in today’s BRIN post concerns coverage of the census in the country’s conservative evangelical newspaper for the Church of England.

Church of England Newspaper and the census

In the current issue (13 January 2013) of the Church of England Newspaper (CEN) no fewer than three of its columnists devote space to the religion results of the 2011 census of England and Wales, which were published on 11 December 2012.

The most extensive treatment (‘Making Sense of the Census’, p. 15) is by Peter Brierley, the veteran church statistician. He is unsurprised by the 11% fall in the number of professing Christians between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, which he sees as foreshadowed in the estimated 6% drop in church membership between 2000 and 2010 and the 14% decline in church attendance during the same period. He advances three possible explanations for decreasing Christian ‘adherence’: a) the surge in immigration (with Brierley reckoning the majority of the new immigrants to be non-Christians, although this claim is unevidenced); b) the death of elderly Christians since 2001 (said by Brierley to account for 8% of the 11% decline, which seems a rather high proportion in comparison with the calculation by David Voas on BRIN on 13 December last); and c) the relative lack of new people becoming Christians, the transmission of the faith being said to be at ‘an all-time low’.

The other two columnists take to task Arun Arora, the Church of England’s Director of Communications, who, from his press statement issued on 11 December onwards, has tried to cast the census results in the best possible light for the Church of England. In a CEN short entitled ‘Militant Communicator’ (p. E2), the compiler of ‘The Whispering Gallery’ explicitly criticizes Arora for his selective use of statistics (especially of baptisms) in his recent letter to The Times (31 December 2012), written in response to the call (28 December 2012) by that newspaper’s Phil Collins for the disestablishment of the Church. Arora should realize, the CEN continues, ‘inertia is the best defence of the establishment, not statistics that unravel when they are examined carefully’.

In his CEN column on ‘The Future for Evangelicalism’ (p. 16), Paul Richardson also fixes his sights on Arora, without actually naming him: ‘it will not do to dismiss the census as just showing the disappearance of “cultural Christians” … People who in the past wrote “C of E” on forms now write “no religion”. Long term this is going to make it difficult to sustain the Church of England’s position as an established church’. Richardson further contends that the Roman Catholic Church is in similar denial in its statement about the census, Richardson pointing out that ‘the census shows … large numbers of people entering Britain over the past 10 years from Poland and other Catholic areas but that this influx is not reflected in figures for mass attendance. These figures have risen only slightly, suggesting there has been a large exodus from the pews of indigenous Anglo-Irish Catholics’.

Twittering Christmas

The Church of England released figures on 8 January 2013 for its Christmas campaign on Twitter, #ChristmasStartsWithChrist (or #CSWC), aimed at the UK’s estimated 10 million ‘Twitterati’. In all, 8,878 Christmas-related tweets were sent by Anglicans (from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York downwards) using these two hashtags, with peak traffic occurring on Christmas Day around 11 am and a smaller peak on Christmas Eve around 11 pm. Over a 24-hour period from 11 pm on 24 December to 11 pm on 25 December there were an average of 370 tweets an hour. See the Church’s press release at:

http://churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/01/church-rejoicing-over-christmas-twitter-campaign.aspx

Same-sex marriage

As the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government continues to press ahead with its legislative plans for same-sex marriage, there are continuing indications that many Conservative Parliamentarians have serious misgivings about them. The latest evidence (published on 9 January 2013) comes from a ComRes poll (on behalf of the Coalition for Marriage) of 106 members of the House of Lords during the autumn of 2012, with 69% of Conservative peers wishing to see the proposals postponed until after the next general election and 100% opposing any use of the Parliament Act to steamroller opposition in the Lords.

Moreover, although Government believes it can ensure that churches and other places of worship will not have to perform same-sex marriages against their will, 51% of Conservative peers and 40% of all peers believe that there is no effective way of guaranteeing such an outcome. The proportion thinking this is four times as great for peers born before 1940 as after 1950, and more than 10% higher for peers who have sat in the Upper Chamber since before 1997 as those who became members after that date. Full results available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Same-Sex_Marriage_Peers_Final_Data_Tables_21_Dec_2012.pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Arun Arora, census of population, Christmas, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Coalition for Marriage, ComRes, House of Lords, Paul Richardson, Peter Brierley, Religious Affiliation, religious festivals, Roman Catholic Church, same-sex marriage, The Times, Twitter | Leave a comment

Attitudes to Muslims

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The year 2012 ended with the revelation that the Muslim community in England and Wales had grown by 75% between the 2001 and 2011 censuses of population. This basic demographic fact, combined with the increasingly prominent role and voice which Muslims have gained in national life and in the public square, seems bound to stimulate survey research measuring attitudes to them. And, indeed, the year 2013 starts with the publication of two sets of research findings on this very topic.

Offending Islam

Violent demonstrations against the United States (US) took place in a number of Muslim countries last September, following the distribution on YouTube of the short anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims, which had been made in the US. In a poll conducted in the immediate aftermath of the furore, but only just released, 24% of Britons agreed that the makers of the film ought to have been prosecuted by the US authorities for committing a hate crime, with 40% opposed to such action, and 36% uncertain. Support for prosecution was strongest among the over-60s (31%), Londoners (30%), Liberal Democrat voters (29%), and Scots (28%).

Opinion was also split about the subsequent publication, in direct response to the anti-American protests, by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad naked in front of a film director. One-third (33%) of Britons supported the magazine’s decision, as a defence of free expression, 35% criticized the publishers for causing unnecessary offence to Muslims, and 32% expressed no views. Charlie Hebdo’s greatest supporters were found among men (44%), Conservative voters (42%), and the 18-24s (41%); its greatest detractors among the over-60s (49%).

The potential tensions between free speech and religious sensibilities were explored in five more generic questions. Majorities of adults endorsed four of these statements about what should be legally allowed in Britain: saying a religion threatens world peace (60%), saying a particular religion is nonsense (59%), saying the founder of a particular religion never existed (56%), and producing visual images of the Prophet Muhammad (53%). The only statement to be approved by a plurality but not a majority of respondents was saying or printing insults about the founder of a particular religion; while 41% agreed that this should be allowed, 33% objected (14% to 18% more than to the other statements). The proportion of ‘don’t knows’ ranged from 22% to 31%, dependent upon the question.

Across all five statements, men, non-manual workers, Scots, and Conservative voters were consistently more likely to agree that the various activities should be lawful. The over-60s and Londoners were most prone to querying their legality. Since the explicit and implicit context of the entire survey was about causing offence to Muslims, the relatively pro-Islam stance of the over-60s is interesting since, on many other measures of attitudes to Islam and Muslims, this age cohort often holds the most negative views. Clearly, their position is tempered by a general sympathy for people of faith and by a sense that respect and tolerance should set appropriate limits on freedom of speech and expression; doubtless, there are also fears that mocking of Christianity might follow in the footsteps of lampooning Islam. The views of Londoners are readily explained by the fact that (as confirmed by the 2011 census) the capital is now the most diverse part of the country in terms of nationality, ethnicity, and religion, with a notable concentration of Muslims.

Source: Online survey by YouGov among 1,710 Britons aged 18 and over on 30 September and 1 October 2012. Full results released on 7 January 2013 and available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6xjwsgccth/YouGov-Results-121001-Muslim-protests.pdf

Integration of Muslims

Attitudes towards the integration of Muslims in British society are fairly evenly balanced, with 38% of adult Britons agreeing that Muslims want to ‘fit in’, 39% disagreeing, and 21% neutral. However, these results are not uniform across three sets of sociological, religious, and political-ideological independent variables, which have been newly investigated through two multinomial logistic regression models.

For sociological variables, no significant effects were discovered for ethnic group or age, and only a relatively weak influence for gender (women being more prone than men to take a neutral position). Yet education was significant: those with a degree-level qualification were more likely to offer a neutral response or to agree that Muslims want to fit in than disagree, compared to those with no qualifications.

Religious affiliation (denomination) had little impact overall, and frequency of attendance at religious services was not significant in terms of the fuller of the two models. But religious salience (measured by the importance attached to religion in daily life) did make a difference. Higher levels of religious salience increased the likelihood of respondents agreeing that Muslims wanted to fit in, thereby providing some support for the ‘solidarity of the religious’ thesis proposed by Joel Fetzer and Christopher Soper.

Several (but not all) of the political-ideological factors were found to have statistically significant effects. In particular, a socially authoritarian disposition was associated with negative perceptions of Muslim integration, as was anti-immigrant bias. Similarly, those with traditionalist or exclusivist views of the role of Christianity were less likely to think Muslims wanted to fit in. On the other hand, individuals who took a pro-religion line on the wearing of religious dress or the banning of religiously offensive material were more likely to give neutral responses or to agree about Muslim integration.

Source: Ben Clements, ‘Explaining Public Attitudes towards the Integration of Muslims in British Society: The “Solidarity of the Religious”?’ Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 28, No. 1, January 2013, pp. 49-65. The article is based on secondary analysis of one specific question (‘Do all Muslims living in Britain really want to fit in?’) posed to sub-samples A and B (n = 2,250) of the British Social Attitudes Survey of June-November 2008. Abstract and access options for the full text of the article can be found at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537903.2013.750836

Posted in Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Ben Clements, British Social Attitudes Surveys, cartoon, Charlie Hebdo, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, hate crime, Innocence of Muslims, integration, Islam, Islamophobia, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Muslims, offence, Prophet Muhammad, solidarity of the religious, United States, YouGov, Youtube | 3 Comments

Mental Health and Other News

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s round-up of religious statistical news leads on some freshly-published research into spirituality and mental health. We also report on another survey about same-sex marriage and the Church of England (for other recent polls, see our posts of 13 and 17 December 2012), and on a New Year’s honour for Professor Linda Woodhead.

Spirituality and mental health

‘People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder’, according to findings newly published by a research group based at University College London. Of a sample of English adults studied, 35% claimed a religious understanding of life, 19% were spiritual but not religious, and 46% were neither religious nor spiritual (albeit 53% of all adults gave a nominal religious affiliation). Religious people were found to be similar to those who were neither religious nor spiritual with regard to the prevalence of mental disorders (except that the former were less likely to have ever used drugs or be a hazardous drinker), thereby contradicting some North American research which suggests that holding a religious understanding of life provides protection against mental disorders.

However, self-identified spiritual people were more likely than those who were neither religious nor spiritual to have ever used or be dependent on drugs, and to have abnormal eating attitudes, generalized anxiety disorder, any phobia or any neurotic disorder. They were also more likely to be taking psychotropic medication. Possible explanations for these relationships are not adequately explored by the researchers, including the option that some individuals may be drawn to ‘spirituality’ as a ‘cure’ or a ‘palliative’ for their mental health symptoms.

Source: Face-to-face interviews with 7,403 English adults aged 16 and over undertaken by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) between October 2006 and December 2007, as part of the third National Psychiatric Morbidity Study. Results analysed in Michael King, Louise Marston, Sally McManus, Terry Brugha, Howard Meltzer and Paul Bebbington, ‘Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health: Results from a National Study of English Households’, British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 202, No. 1, January 2013, pp. 68-73.

The findings appear to support evidence from an earlier English survey of 4,281 members of black and minority ethnic groups on the vulnerability of people who describe themselves as spiritual; this was reported in Michael King, Scott Weich, James Nazroo and Robert Blizard, ‘Religion, Mental Health and Ethnicity: EMPIRIC – A National Survey of England’, Journal of Mental Health, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2006, pp. 153-62. The dataset and documentation for the 2006-07 study are available at the Economic and Social Data Service as SN 6379 and reveal that the core question asked was: ‘By “religion” we mean the actual practice of a faith … Some people do not follow a religion but do have spiritual beliefs or experiences. Some people make sense of their lives without any religious or spiritual beliefs. Would you say that you have a religious or a spiritual understanding of your life?’ The reply codes were religious, spiritual, and neither.

Same-sex marriage

By a margin of two to one, the British public opposes the Government’s plans to prohibit the Church of England from conducting same-sex marriages in its places of worship, thereby also cocking a snook at those Anglican and (particularly) Roman Catholic leaders who used their Christmastide messages to oppose the whole concept of same-sex marriage.

Asked whether Church of England vicars should be allowed, if they wanted to, to offer religious marriage ceremonies to gay couples, 62% of Britons replied in the affirmative and 31% in the negative, with 7% uncertain. Gender variations were slight, albeit women (64%) were somewhat more in favour than men (60%). Age differences, however, were very pronounced. Among the under-45s almost three-quarters supported the right of clergy to solemnize same-sex marriages, but 50% of the over-65s were opposed, with just 38% in favour.

Source: Telephone survey by ComRes for The Independent on 14-16 December 2012, in which 1,000 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed. The detailed tabulations are not yet available on the ComRes website, but the main findings were reported in Andrew Grice’s article in the newspaper on 26 December 2012, which can be found at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gay-marriage-public-say-church-is-wrong-8431263.html?origin=internalSearch

MBE for Linda Woodhead

Congratulations are in order to Linda Woodhead, Professor of the Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University, who was appointed MBE in the 2013 New Year’s Honours List, for services to higher education. In addition to her own impressive contribution to scholarship, and as a commentator and broadcaster on religion in the media, Linda directed the Religion and Society Programme between 2007 and 2012, funded to the tune of £12 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, and involving 240 academics from 29 different disciplines (including the BRIN team). Lancaster University issued a press release about Linda’s award on 4 January 2013, which can be viewed at:

http://news.lancs.ac.uk/Web/News/Pages/MBE-for-Linda-Woodhead.aspx

Posted in People news, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Andrew Grice, British Journal of Psychiatry, Church of England, clergy, ComRes, homosexuality, Howard Meltzer, Linda Woodhead, Louise Marston, Mental Health, Michael King, National Centre for Social Research, New Year's Honours, Paul Bebbington, religious marriages, Sally McManus, same-sex marriage, spirituality, Terry Brugha, The Independent | Leave a comment

Welcome to 2013

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Welcome to 2013! All of us at BRIN wish our readers every success and happiness in the New Year. We thank you for using our website (there have been over 360,000 page views to date). We sincerely hope that not many of you are triskaidekaphobic (afraid of the number 13), for it will doubtless seem a very long twelve months to you. We cover the phenomenon in the first item of our latest round-up of religious statistical news, which summarizes stories that have come to hand over the festive period.

Triskaidekaphobia

Britons remain a fairly superstitious lot, and apprehension about the number 13 is still quite widespread. We have already reported (in our post of 23 August 2012) that, even that far back, 8% of adults feared that the New Year would not be a good one for them because it contains the number 13 in the date. It presents particular challenges for drivers, as David Millward’s article in the Daily Telegraph on Boxing Day reminded us: ‘Unlucky 13 Plate Risks Driving Superstitious Motorists Away’. The story concerned discussions taking place between car manufacturers and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency about how they will cope with the number 13 registration plate for new vehicles, which comes into force in March and remains so until August, when the plate changes to 63.

The story is not new. The Automobile Association (AA) had got there first when it published, on 14 August 2012, a press release based on online interviews with 20,029 AA members aged 18 and over from the AA/Populus panel, conducted between 19 and 26 July 2012. The survey revealed that one-tenth of AA members were sufficiently superstitious themselves to suggest it best to avoid buying a new car with an ‘unlucky 13’ number plate. Disproportionately, they were older drivers and blue-collar workers. However, this concern was dwarfed by an anxiety about the potential difficulties of subsequently trying to sell the car on to other owners, who were anticipated to be even more superstitious. Overall, 29% had an anxiety on these grounds, ranging from 20% of drivers aged 18-24 to 33% of AA members over 65 years. The press release is still available at:

http://www.theaa.com/newsroom/news-2012/unlucky-13-number-plates.html

Top 10 Christmas carols

O Holy Night (written by a Frenchman in 1847 and translated into English in 1855) was the nation’s best-loved Christmas carol in 2012, according to an online poll of a self-selecting sample of thousands of listeners of Classic FM radio. It headed the chart for the tenth year in succession. The top 10 was as follows:

1. O Holy Night

2. Silent Night

3. In the Bleak Mid-Winter [Gustav Holst version]

4. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

5. In the Bleak Mid-Winter [Harold Darke version]

6. O Come All Ye Faithful

7. O Little Town of Bethlehem

8. Away in a Manger

9. Joy to the World

10. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

The full top 30 countdown of the Nation’s Favourite Christmas Carols was broadcast on Classic FM on Christmas Day and is listed at:

http://www.classicfm.com/discover/collections/christmas-music/nations-favourite-christmas-carol/

Cost of Anglican bishops

The office and working costs of the 44 diocesan and 69 suffragan and full-time assistant bishops of the Church of England amounted to £17,014,000 in the year-ending 31 December 2011. This represented an increase of £1,031,000 or 6.5% over the previous year. Most of this rise was due to an additional £782,000 of legal expenses (apparently linked to the consecration and enthronement of bishops and clergy discipline cases under the Discipline Measure). The principal budget line, staff costs (£8,729,000), grew by a more modest 2.7%. These office and working costs are met by the Church Commissioners, who also fund the stipends, employer’s national insurance and pension contributions of the bishops themselves (to the tune of £5,000,000 in 2011). Full details are contained in Bishops’ Office and Working Costs for the Year Ended 31 December 2011, published on 19 December 2012 and available at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1618308/2011%20final.pdf

Faith in the public sphere

The Muslim Council of Britain had a higher public profile throughout the noughties than did the Archbishop of Canterbury, according to new research published by the Henry Jackson Society (a cross-partisan British think-tank) on 17 December 2012. The report, Faith in the Public Sphere: A Study of Media Reporting of Faith-Based Claims, was written by Hannah Stuart and Houriya Ahmed, and derives from an analysis of ‘requests’ and ‘responses’ to public issues by five major world faiths in the UK, as recorded in three national newspapers (Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian) between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2010. A ‘request’ was identified as a call for the government, state, or a public institution to act; a ‘response’ as support for, opposition to, or criticism of the government, state, or a public institution or policy.

There were 3,945 religious ‘claims’ (requests and responses) made during this decade, of which 93% were single-faith and 7% multi-faith. Two-fifths of all claims were concentrated in 2005-07, when there was a peak of religious activity associated with anti-terrorism, discrimination, education, employment, pro-life, and public life issues. All told, 18% of claims related to public life, 14% to education, 11% to employment, 11% to public policy, 10% to pro-life, 7% to discrimination, 7% to anti-terrorism, 6% to foreign policy, 5% to family, and 5% to justice. Christians participated in 67% of the claims, Muslims in 31%, Jews in 7%, Sikhs in 4%, and Hindus in 3%. The list of religious ‘actors’ associated with these claims was headed by the Muslim Council of Britain (n = 410, 7%), followed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (n = 393, 7%) and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster (n = 264, 5%). The Chief Rabbi ranked seventh as a religious actor (n = 104, 2%).

The research generated a mass of information, within which it is easy to get lost. BRIN suggests that readers might wish to start with the fact sheet and then progress to the executive summary (pp. 6-15) of the main report. The report itself runs to 400 pages, while all the raw data are freely available for analysis. All three outputs can be downloaded from:

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2012/12/17/faith-in-the-public-sphere/

Religion and the demographic revolution

It is not often that BRIN recommends a new book before it has had the chance to examine it in depth, but one title certainly worth investing in if you had any vouchers given as presents for Christmas is Callum Brown, Religion and the Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularisation in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA since the 1960s (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, xiv + 302pp., ISBN 9781843837923, £55.00 hardback), which was published on 15 November 2012.

Brown (Professor of Religious and Cultural History at the University of Dundee) is already well-known for his many writings on secularization, not least for his thesis about the transformational religious changes of the 1960s. Indeed, his new book is conceived as the second in a trilogy of histories of religious decline, each deploying a different methodology – discourse analysis, statistics and demography, and autobiography and oral testimony. The Death of Christian Britain (originally published in 2001 and updated in 2009) was the first in the series, mostly rooted in discourse analysis of the successive dominance and recession of Christian culture in Britain. Whereas that title was single-nation in its focus, the second and third works are comparative and transnational in their approach.

Religion and the Demographic Revolution is brimming with quantitative data, from official, denominational, and survey sources. They leap off almost every page of text, as well as clustering in 55 tables and figures, of which 24 relate in whole or in part to the British Isles. Extensive use is made of Pearson’s rank correlations throughout. In many cases the data go back well before the 1960s, when the work theoretically commences. They cover a range of religious measures as well as statistics about sex, marriage, fertility, illegitimacy, and other socio-economic factors.

Through such quantification, Brown seeks to illustrate how the ‘two great social and cultural changes of the western world’, which began in the 1960s, became intertwined: ‘the rapid decline of Christian religious practice and identity and the rise of the people of “no religion”’ on the one hand and ‘the transformation in women’s lives that spawned a demographic revolution in sex, family and work’ on the other.

‘Starting with the distinctive features of the 1960s, the book quantifies secularisation’s scale, timing and character in each nation. Then, the intense links of women’s sexual revolution to religious decline are explored. From there, women’s changing patterns of marriage, coupling and birthing are correlated with diminishing religiosity. The final exploration is into the secularising consequences of economic change, higher education and women’s expanding work roles.’

Brown concludes: ‘To not have a religion has become in the twenty-first century an accepted part of cultural diversity, if not actually the norm or benchmark, of Europe. The people of no religion have emerged as the imminent majority in the bulk of the English-speaking world, as they are of most European nations. When once it was presumed that Europe was Christian, the presumption must be now that this civilisation exists without a defining religion. We should admit that Europe is now shaped by a people remoulding their demography and economy without the benefit of religion. They may not all be atheists, but they constitute the major cultural category in these parts.’

BRIN hopes to cover the work in greater detail in due course. Meanwhile, the publisher’s blurb can be found at:

http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=14096

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged 1960s, Archbishop of Canterbury, Automobile Association, Bishops, Boydell Press, Callum Brown, Christmas carols, Church Commissioners, Church of England, Classic FM, costs, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, demography, Hannah Stuart, Henry Jackson Society, Houriya Ahmed, media, Muslim Council of Britain, number 13, O Holy Night, Populus, public sphere, religious festivals, secularization, superstitions, The Guardian, triskaidekaphobia, vehicle registration plates, women | 2 Comments

BRIN’s Christmas Crackers

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Our jokes may be as bad, but hopefully our content is more informative than the average Christmas cracker’s! In this our last round-up of religious statistical news before Christmas, we feature eight stories which will hopefully be of interest to readers of this website. The whole BRIN team wishes you all an enjoyable festive season.

Global religious landscape

On 18 December 2012 the internationally respected Pew Research Center published The Global Religious Landscape: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Major Religious Groups as of 2010 as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project. At the core of the document (pp. 45-50) is a table setting out the estimated religious composition of 232 countries and territories in 2010 broken down as percentages for eight groups: Christians, Muslims, religiously unaffiliated, Hindus, Buddhists, folk religionists, other religions, and Jews. This table has been compiled, in consultation with many experts, in accordance with a rigorous methodology (outlined on pp. 51-67) and utilizing the best available evidence for each country (pp. 68-80). The report can be read at:

http://www.pewforum.org/uploadedFiles/Topics/Religious_Affiliation/globalReligion-full.pdf

Three of these countries and territories are the Channel Islands, Isle of Man, and the United Kingdom. The figures for the first two are derived from the World Religion Database. Those for the UK are described (on p. 80) as ‘estimates based on 2010 Office for National Statistics Annual Population Survey and 2001 Census for Northern Ireland, adjusted for missing data and to account for underrepresented religious groups’. Unfortunately, Pew’s UK data are superficially hard to square with the findings of the 2011 religious census of England and Wales, published on 11 December, not least in seemingly overestimating the number of Christians (which Pew reckons to amount to 71.1% of the UK population) and somewhat underestimating the religiously unaffiliated (at 21.3%). Conrad Hackett, one of the two primary researchers behind the report (the other being Brian Grim) has kindly offered to share with BRIN readers some possible explanations for the apparent discrepancy between Pew’s calculations and the census. His post will appear on the BRIN site in due course.

Membership of religious groups

Hard on the heels of the release of the 2011 religious census results for England and Wales comes the publication (on 18 December 2012) of a very large opinion poll which collected information about another facet of religious identity. It was commissioned by Lord Michael Ashcroft (international businessman, author, and philanthropist) as part of his regular series of polls on political issues, this one focused on the United Kingdom Independence Party. The survey was conducted online between 9 and 19 November 2012 among a sample of 20,066 Britons aged 18 and over. The religion question asked was rather different to that in the census: ‘To which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ The concept of membership was not defined. This formulation is more analogous to, but certainly not identical with, the ‘belonging’ question in the annual British Social Attitudes Surveys.

In reply, 55% of Ashcroft’s interviewees said Christian, 6% non-Christian, and 36% none, with 2% refusals. The most substantial demographic variations were by age and voting intention. The proportion of Christians was lowest (36%) among the 18-24s and rose steadily throughout the age cohorts to stand at 73% with the over-65s. For those saying they were members of no religious groups, the trend was in the opposite direction, starting high at 50% for the 18-24s and falling to reach 22% of the over-65s. Conservatives were 14% more likely to be Christians than Labour voters and 15% more than Liberal Democrats; and they were 11% less likely than the other two main parties to have no religion. For more details, see table 88 of the data tables at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/UKIP-poll-full-tables.pdf

Religion census in Wales

The Welsh Government published a statistical bulletin on 17 December 2012 setting out first results from the 2011 census for ethnicity, national identity, and religion for Wales. For those particularly interested in Welsh data, this summarizes in two simple tables the Welsh religious affiliation figures included in the Excel spreadsheets released for the whole of England and Wales on 11 December. Table 5 compares the religion results for 2011 with those in 2001 for the whole of Wales. The principal changes were the fall in the number of professing Christians, from 71.9% to 57.6%, and the increase in the proportion of those stating no religion, from 18.5% to 32.1%. Non-Christians were comparatively thin on the ground, only 2.7% (even if ‘any other religion’ is included), albeit Muslims rose from 0.7% to 1.5% of the Welsh population. Table 6 provides breakdowns for 2011 at local authority level. To read more, go to:

http://wales.gov.uk/docs/statistics/2012/121217sb1262012en.pdf

Andrew Brown on the census

From Andrew Brown’s weekly review of the press in Church Times, 14 December 2012, p. 24: ‘The Guardian had on its website a couple of really interesting little graphs showing the correlations between income and religious allegiance by local authority … “Nones” showed a fairly flat distribution across income areas. That strengthens the idea that they are now a kind of default state. Other religions, even Islam, showed up as growing more common with increasing prosperity. I think, though, that this is skewed by the fact that Bangladeshi immigrants were very suspicious of the religious question on the Census. But two groups really stood out. The poorest local authorities were also those likely to report high levels of Christian identification – which is hardly the pattern you would expect from church statistics. Buddhism shows just as clear a pattern as it grows, but in the opposite direction.’

Sharing the gospel

Evangelism is the theme of the latest (and seventh) report in the Evangelical Alliance’s 21st Century Evangelicals series, commissioned in partnership with eight other Christian organizations who are members of the Alliance’s Research Club. The research utilizes an online panel of evangelicals (‘an opportunity sample of self-selecting volunteers’), which is possibly unrepresentative of evangelical churchgoers as a whole. For this latest study, conducted in August 2012, 1,242 panel members participated. The summary of the findings, 21st Century Evangelicals: A Snapshot of the Beliefs and Habits of Evangelical Christians in the UK, Winter 2012 – Confidently Sharing the Gospel? is available at:

http://www.eauk.org/church/resources/snapshot/upload/Confidently-sharing-the-gospel-final-report.pdf

The research demonstrates that evangelicals come to faith at an early stage of their life – 72% before they are 20 years old (28% by the age of 11 and 44% in their teens). Girls (32%) are more likely than boys (24%) to commit to Christ by the time they are 11. Growing up in a Christian family or church environment (54%) and the influence of Christian friends who shared their faith (43%) are the most common routes to faith, with nine other factors scoring between 6% and 37%. Evangelicals are very solid in their convictions, 97% agreeing that Jesus is the only way to God, and 94% that everyone needs to be born again to become a Christian and be saved.

Notwithstanding, evangelicals do not necessarily embrace practical evangelism. They often stay within their religious comfort zone, 74% saying that all or most of their family or household members are Christians and 51% the same about their circle of friends; 43% accept that they do not come into contact with many non-Christians. Many (39%) lack the motivation to share their faith, 48% feel too scared to do so, and 60% acknowledge that they have missed an opportunity to speak to others about God during the past four months. These are acknowledged to be generic weaknesses, 87% recognizing that most Christians want the confidence to give testimony to their faith, and 76% that Christians do not pray enough for revival.

Of course, there are barriers on the other side, too, with 74% declaring that none of their non-Christian contacts seem interested in talking about spiritual things. The major hindrances to the advancement of faith among non-Christians are perceived by evangelicals to be: secular alternatives to Sunday worship (89%), the Church’s unattractive public image (87%), the Church’s middle class ethos (73%), an aversion to joining any kind of organization (68%), the Church’s narrow views on sex (62%), the inability of Christians to give meaningful answers to the problem of suffering (61%), popular knowledge of science (59%), and the attacks of atheists such as Richard Dawkins (51%).

Singing the gospel

Knowledge of the lyrics of traditional Christmas carols improves with age, according to a survey of 1,000 adult Britons commissioned by the online casino RoxyPalace. Whereas nobody aged 18-27 and only one-eighth of all under-37s feel they can ‘confidently sing’ every word to a well-known carol, four-fifths of pensioners aged 68-77 can accurately manage the task. Overall, more than one in ten is forced to mime or hum along to carols. Others simply invent the words they do not know, or substitute those which best seem to fit, such as ‘the cattle are mooing’ in Away in a Manger. The fullest report of this light-hearted seasonal research which has appeared to date can be found in the Daily Telegraph for 20 December 2012 at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/9757111/Oh-come-all-ye-faithful-learn-the-words-to-traditional-carols.html

Christmas cards without Christ

A mystery shopping survey carried out by Nielsen on behalf of the Bible Society on 3-7 December 2012 found that only 66 or 1.2% of 5,706 single and multipack Christmas card designs on sale in twelve shops in the Birmingham area (including branches of Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, and Morrison) depicted the nativity, with the total only rising to 2% even when all other religious designs were added in. Commenting on the results, Ann Holt from the Bible Society feared that ‘this means the nativity story will gradually slip from our consciousness’. The Society’s press release of 20 December is at:

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/news/survey-finds-just-over-1-per-cent-christmas-card-designs-in-shops-feature-scenes-from-the-nativity/

Meanwhile, the Society has now made available online the full data tables from the nativity awareness survey undertaken by ICM Research on 6-10 December 2012, which we covered in our post of 17 December. The tables can be found at:

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/uploads/content/news/files/Nativity_survey_data_tables.pdf

BRIN developments

BRIN has now opened a Twitter account: Brit Rel in Numbers @BritRelNumbers. A plugin has also been added to the BRIN website so that all new posts on the BRIN news pages will automatically broadcast a tweet to alert our followers on Twitter to fresh content. You can follow us at:

https://twitter.com/BritRelNumbers

The annual update of the BRIN sources database has just taken place. Methodological and bibliographical details of 115 new sources have been added, 84 from 2012 and 31 from previous years. This brings the total of sources described in the database to 2,115, the earliest from 1603. Revisions have also been made to 31 existing entries, typically to incorporate new bibliographical references, while corrections have been made to the sample size count field (which is not visible to end users) for many sources keyed in 2010 in order to improve the accuracy of advanced searching by sample size, especially for large datasets. There are naturally many other search options available, so do try the database out for yourself, at:

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

It is guaranteed to cost you less than shopping online on Christmas Day or Boxing Day!

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Andrew Brown, Bible Society, Brian Grim, census of population, Christmas cards, Christmas carols, Church Times, Conrad Hackett, Daily Telegraph, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, evangelism, Global Religious Landscape, ICM Research, Lord Ashcroft, membership of religious groups, Michael Ashcroft, nativity knowledge, Nielsen, Office for National Statistics, Pew Research Center, Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project, Religious Affiliation, religious festivals, RoxyPalace, The Guardian, Twitter, Wales, Welsh Government | 2 Comments

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