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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 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 , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Religious Census 2011 – England and Wales

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Clive D. Field

There have been some marked changes in the religious composition of England and Wales during the past decade, according to the first results from the 2011 census of population which were released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 11 December 2012.

A statistical bulletin containing the principal findings, with analysis and commentary, is available at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290510.pdf

A spreadsheet of statistics for each local or unitary authority, expressed as numbers, percentages and rankings for nine main religious categories, can be found in Table KS209EW at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-286262

At the same URL is Table QS210EW which contains the same information for local authorities broken down by a 58-category classification, utilizing the write-in responses given by those claiming to be of ‘any other religion’.

A podcast featuring audio and graphical animations is on the ONS YouTube channel at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXdZJoXuxC8

The census was taken on 27 March 2011. The question asked on religion was the same as in 2001: ‘What is your religion?’ This formulation, which some interpret as implying that a respondent would/should have a faith, is known to give higher positive answers than the more open sort of question asked in the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys, which is: ‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion? If yes, which?’ The 2011 BSA reported 46.1% as having no religion on this basis.

The census reply options (in this order on the self-completion schedule) were: no religion, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and any other religion (write in). However, it should be noted that ‘no religion’ replaced ‘none’ (which had been used in 2001), ‘for clarity’ and consistency with other questions, as ONS explains. Where appropriate, ONS reassigned the ‘other religion’ given to one of the main religious categories (including ‘no religion’).

The religion question was entirely voluntary, and 7.2% chose not to answer it, slightly down on the 7.7% in 2001. It cannot be assumed that the religion of these people will exactly match the distribution of those who did reply, so it is not recommended that the data are rebaselined to exclude non-respondents.

Reasons for refusing to answer were not sought, although, clearly, some will have been motivated by an aversion to ‘the state’ enquiring into such a private matter as religion, while others will have proceeded on the principle of never volunteering information which is not mandatory.

Another methodological consideration to be borne in mind is that the census question on religion will often have been answered by the head of household on behalf of all members of the household and thus may reflect his/her interpretation rather than their actual views, especially if the head of household held strong religious convictions one way or another. 

Finally, we should note that there was some apparent ‘trivialization’ in the responses. The social media campaign to have ‘heavy metal’ inserted as a religion did not have much impact, since only 6,000 eventually declared themselves as such on the census form. However, the ‘Jedi knight’ (from the Star Wars films) campaign, which had been so influential in 2001, continued to have an effect, with 177,000 adherents, albeit very many fewer than a decade previously (when there were 390,000).   

Moving to the picture which emerges from the census, there has been a big increase (over two-thirds), from 14.8% to 25.1% (the latter equating to 14,100,000 individuals), in those professing no religion. It is hard to say whether the alteration in the wording of the reply option contributed to this or not, or the reassignment to ‘no religion’ of 32,000 agnostics, 29,000 atheists, and 15,000 humanists.

At ‘regional’ level, the proportion with no religion peaked in Wales (32.1%), once renowned for its Nonconformity, and at local authority level in Norwich (42.5%), closely followed by Brighton and Hove (42.4%). Regionally, the North-West had the fewest with no religion (19.8%). Local authorities with unusually low numbers of the non-religious superficially correlated with the strong presence of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs, albeit this requires further investigation. 

There has been a correspondingly big reduction, almost one-fifth, in the number of people claiming to be Christian, from 71.7% in 2001 to 59.3% in 2011, although Christianity still remains by far the biggest religious group. The fall has occurred across all local authorities, with the largest drop (16.8%) in Kingston-upon-Hull. The North-East (67.5%) and North-West of England (67.3%) had the highest proportion of Christians, reaching 80.9% in Knowsley (perhaps due to the Roman Catholic heritage). London had the least (48.4%), linked to the fact that only a minority of Londoners now describe themselves as white British.

The census did not seek to differentiate between the various denominations which make up Christianity, and this is also true of other Government sources. However, it is clear from other sample surveys that the main reason for Christianity losing ground is the collapse in nominal allegiance to the Church of England.

A crude comparison of the BSA data for 2001 and 2011 shows that the Church of England’s ‘market share’ of the adult population fell by 28.1% during the decade. According to a very large (64,000) sample of adult Britons interviewed by YouGov in April-May 2011, i.e. about the same time as the census, one-third affiliate to the Church of England (and its Anglican equivalents in Wales and Scotland); in 1947-49 it had been 51% in a series of Gallup polls.

The next largest faith after Christianity in the census was Islam. Muslims now account for 4.8% of English and Welsh residents, up from 3.0% in 2001. The increase, to 2,706,000, is broadly in line with expectation. It probably substantially reflects the youthful profile of the Muslim community, with a greater concentration in the child-bearing cohorts (although age by religion breakdowns have yet to be published by ONS, so this assumption cannot be empirically validated). Migration may also have played a part.

London had the highest proportion of Muslims (12.4%), and the fastest rate of growth since 2001, Tower Hamlets being the local authority with the largest concentration (34.5%, 7.4% more than Christians), and Newham the next (32.0%). More generally, the capital was the most diverse region, with 22.4% identifying with a faith other than Christianity.

All other religions, apart from Christianity and Islam, comprised 3.6% of the population, against 2.8% in 2001. They include Hindus (1.5%), Sikhs (0.8%), Jews (0.5%), Buddhists (0.4%), and others (0.4%). Sikhs were disproportionately resident in the West Midlands, but Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews were most prevalent in London. Among the 0.4% of others, Pagans (57,000) and Spiritualists (39,000) were most numerous.

A second post by me, summarizing public comment on the English and Welsh religious census data, will appear over the next few days. BRIN’s co-director, Professor David Voas, hopes to post his own analysis on BRIN in due course.

Religion results for the 2011 census in Scotland (which was organized by the National Records of Scotland) have not been published yet, but are expected to be released shortly (and will be covered by BRIN as soon as possible). Those for Northern Ireland (where the census is run by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency) are summarized at:

http://www.nisra.gov.uk/Census/key_stats_bulletin_2011.pdf

 

 

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Faith of the Faithless

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Clive D. Field

‘Whatever the trends in affiliation to formalised religion in Britain, we are not a post-religious, still less a post-spiritual, society, and … even those “beyond the fringe” – who do not call themselves religious, attend religious services or believe in religious teachings – still have vestiges (and sometimes more than that) of religious and spiritual faith.’

‘It is quite wrong to assume that the … population falls into two categories: those who are committed religious believers and those who are wholly secularised. The reality is that there are many shades of gray between these two poles.’ Indeed, ‘overall, the proportion of people who are consistently non-religious … is very low at 9%.’

These are the conclusions of a new report by Nick Spencer and Holly Weldin, Post-Religious Britain? The Faith of the Faithless, which was published on 3 December 2012 by the Theos think tank and is available on its website at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Post%20Religious%20Britain%20pdf.pdf

The Theos claims are based upon secondary analysis of three existing datasets: the NatCen/British Social Attitudes Survey of 2,229 British adults in June-November 2008 (BSA); a ComRes/Theos survey of 2,060 UK adults in October-November 2008 on attitudes to Charles Darwin (Darwin); and a ComRes/Theos survey of 1,749 English adults in August 2012 on attitudes to English cathedrals (Cathedrals).

Using these data, Theos investigated three groups of ‘faithless’: the ‘nevers’, those who say that they never participate in a religious service as a worshipper, amounting to 47% of the population (Cathedrals); ‘atheists’, those who say they disbelieve in God, representing 24% (Cathedrals); and the ‘non-religious’, the 44% (BSA) who reply ‘no religion’ in answer to the question ‘do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’

The report reviews the socio-demographic attributes of the ‘nevers’ and ‘atheists’ (pp. 11-15) before turning to the evidence for residual Christianity or spirituality to be found among all three groups (pp. 16-31). Specifically (data based on Cathedrals study, unless otherwise stated):

  • Nevers: 31% identify themselves as Christians, while 44% believe in a human soul, 35% in God or a higher power, 28% in life after death, 22% in reincarnation, 21% in angels, 20% in God as a universal life force, and 13% in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead 
  • Atheists: 11% identify themselves as Christians, 8% claim to worship at least once a year, with 23% believing in a human soul, 15% in life after death, 14% in reincarnation, 7% in angels, 5% in God as a universal life force, and 4% in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead 
  • Non-religious: 16% consider themselves to be very or moderately spiritual (BSA), 18% pray at least once a year (Darwin), 17% read the Bible at least once a year (Darwin), 22% attend a religious service at least once a year (Darwin), 34% (BSA) or 28% (Darwin) believe in life after death, 24% in heaven (BSA), 20% in the supernatural powers of deceased ancestors (BSA), 15% in hell (BSA), 10% that God designed and created the universe and remains involved with it (Darwin), and 7% that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God (Darwin)

It seems inevitable that the report will excite some controversy, not least on the eve of the publication of the 2011 census of religious affiliation, which is likely to reveal an increase in those professing no religion since 2001. Some cynics (but naturally not BRIN) may even suggest that the timing of the release by Theos is designed to mitigate the ‘bad news’ which the census may well bring to people of faith.

The potential for such a row is notwithstanding the assurance of Spencer and Weldin that ‘there is no intended polemic within these findings’, their hope simply being that they will ‘prompt further research into non-religiosity in Britain’ (which is obviously a desirable goal). They warn that ‘using this data as ammunition in an on-going conflict’ between atheist and religious apologists would be ‘somewhat counterproductive’. But that is precisely what seems likely to happen.

Of all the statistics in this report, the claim that ‘those who are consistent in their rejection of all forms of religious and spiritual belief, affiliation and practice’ number a mere 9%, which appears on pp. 7 and 32, could prove most contentious, unless and until Theos can produce the detailed workings which show how they have arrived at this figure. Hopefully, they will provide such clarification at an early opportunity.

Other findings will come as no great surprise to many BRIN readers. Thus, while a decline in churchgoing is one legitimate indicator of ‘secularization’, few would regard it as the sole measure or mutually exclusive of faith. It is a practice upheld by the Church over two millennia, and backed up by legislation in England and Wales until (theoretically) as late as 1969. In opposition to it, it has long been a popular assertion, made well before the days of national sample surveys, that it is unnecessary to go to church to be a religious believer, ‘good Christian’, and so forth.

The fact that apparent ‘non-believers’ exhibit residual characteristics of religious belief and practice is also well-established. It was quantified in the first real sample survey devoted to religion, undertaken by Mass-Observation in the London Borough of Hammersmith in 1944-45, and published as Puzzled People in 1947. But it has also been demonstrated qualitatively in several important oral history projects at the start of the twentieth century.

There may be several explanations for the phenomenon, including the simple one that many people do not subscribe to a systematic, logical and consistent set of beliefs, in the way that theologians might like to expect us to behave. Rather, individuals assemble their own ‘theology’ from a spectrum of options spanning the orthodox to folklore and alternative.

Additionally, the ‘prestige factor’ associated with surveys on religion may still cause some to be wary of admitting that, in reality, they have rejected some conventional religious belief or practice. There is a particular tendency to exaggerate claims of churchgoing frequency, noted by Kathleen Bliss as early as 1948 in the Christian News-Letter, in which she quoted the experience of Mass-Observation and the BBC as pointing towards an inflator of two, i.e. halve the claim and you get somewhere near the ‘truth’.

It is likewise worth remembering that similar inconsistencies are to be found among many professing Christians, who appear to have abandoned much traditional Christian belief and practice and to be, effectively, secularized. The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science made much of these anomalies in publicizing its Ipsos MORI poll of April 2011, as featured by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/census-christians/

So, while Post-Religious Britain? is certainly to be welcomed, not least for providing further data from the Cathedrals study to set alongside those previously reported by Theos in Spiritual Capital, as well as for stimulating debate, perhaps it does not really tell us quite so much that is new.

Certainly, for understanding the socio-demographics of those who claim no religious affiliation, the forthcoming 2011 census data will be a far more authoritative source.

Finally, watch out for Professor Linda Woodhead’s blog provoked by Post-Religious Britain? This is forthcoming on The Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

 

Posted in Measuring religion, News from religious organisations, Survey news | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

British Cohort Study + Fostering

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Our main story in today’s round-up of religious statistical news features initial findings from the current wave of one of the few genuinely longitudinal studies covering religion in this country, which further illustrates some of the methodological challenges involved in framing questions about religious affiliation. We also briefly note a survey of attitudes to inter-religious fostering in the wake of the recent row over fostering in Rotherham.

British Cohort Study: art of asking questions about religion

Among adult Britons now (2012) aged 42 years, 68% recall that they had some form of religious upbringing (32% as Anglicans, 10% as Roman Catholics, 8% as Christians in a specified denomination, 14% as undenominational Christians, 4% as non-Christians) and 32% none. However, today almost half (47%) regard themselves as belonging to no particular religion, with the biggest drop in affiliation (11%) being among those raised as Anglicans. Moreover, claimed attendance at religious services or meetings by these 42-year-olds is a distinctly minority activity, 74% never or rarely going, 16% occasionally but less than once a month, with 11% monthly or more often.

In terms of belief, 43% of these 42-year-olds say they believe in God (13% without doubts, 18% with doubts, and 12% some of the time). A further 14% believe in a higher power but not a personal God. Of the rest, 22% definitely do not believe in God and 20% are uncertain. The proportion who believe in life after death is slightly higher than in a personal God (49%, 19% definitely and 30% probably), with 18% replying definitely not and 34% probably not. In an echo of Mass-Observation’s classic 1947 study of Puzzled People, 23% of those who believe in God do not believe in life after death, and 21% of those who disbelieve in, or are uncertain about the existence of, God do believe in an afterlife.

Source: Analysis of initial responses (n = 2,197) to the May-December 2012 wave of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70), which is following the lives of more than 17,000 people born in Britain in a single week during Spring 1970. By 2012 panel members were, accordingly, aged 42. They supplied information about religion by means of self-completion questionnaire in connection with the face-to-face interviews being conducted by TNS-BMRB. An important health warning is given by the researchers: ‘These [initial] responses may not be representative of the sample as a whole, and we have not investigated the characteristics of this subsample.’

The preliminary analysis appears in Alice Sullivan, David Voas and Matt Brown, The Art of Asking Questions about Religion, published on 28 November 2012 by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), Institute of Education, University of London. The CLS, which oversees BCS70, is a resource centre funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The report also summarizes the replies to religious affiliation questions given by cohort members in 1986, 1996, 2000, and 2004, making comparisons with British Social Attitudes Surveys, and highlighting how ‘apparently small differences in question wording can lead to dramatic differences in responses’. Of course, the fact that consistent question-wording has not been used for each wave of BCS70 does somewhat undermine the value of the longitudinal approach in charting changes in the behaviour of panel members as they age. 

The press release by CLS, with a link for downloading the report, and observations on the findings by BRIN’s David Voas, can be found at:

http://www.cls.ioe.ac.uk/news.aspx?itemid=2431&itemTitle=More+people+may+believe+in+life+after+death+than+God%2c+study+finds&sitesectionid=905&sitesectiontitle=Press+Releases

Fostering

The majority (70%) of Britons think it definitely or usually acceptable for children to be fostered by foster parents who practice a different religion to that of the children being fostered. This is a higher proportion than believe that people with criminal records should be allowed to foster children (15%), or those with extreme political views (36%), the over-65s (44%), smokers (46%), and gays or lesbians (66%).

However, there is somewhat less approval of fostering by persons of a different religion to the foster child than is the case with fostering by unmarried couples (81%) or people of a different racial group to the child (85%). One-fifth (20%) contend that fostering across the religious divide should not be permitted, with Londoners and Conservative voters (each on 23%) and men (22%) being most likely to hold this view. The remaining 11% express no opinion.

Source: Online survey of 1,910 Britons aged 18 and over, undertaken by YouGov on 26-27 November 2012, and prompted by the current row in Rotherham where foster children have been taken away from foster parents who are members of the United Kingdom Independence Party. Full data tables, published on 28 November, are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/q1p1s7kwva/Fostering_Results_121127.pdf

 

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What Anglicans (and others) think about homosexuality and disestablishment

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Siobhan McAndrew

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier today, the Church of England responded to the Government’s proposals to introduce same-sex marriage. For further information, follow these links to coverage by BBC News, the Guardian, and the Telegraph; furthermore, the Church of England’s full response is available here.

In view of the discussion generated by the response, it is worth examining what Anglicans themselves think about gay relationships. My colleague Ben Clements at the University of Leicester has recently looked at data from the British Social Attitudes surveys and the European Values Surveys to see how attitudes to homosexual relationship have changed over the past three decades or so.

We recently published his full report here as part of our Figures section, which provides an array of statistics on attitudes to gay relationships, towards gay people, to adoption and other issues. To summarise:

  • In 1983, 70 per cent of Anglicans considered sexual relationships between people of the same sex were always or almost always wrong. By 2010, this had nearly halved to 37 per cent.
  • In 1983, 75 per cent of Catholics considered same sex relationships were always or almost always wrong; by 2010, this had fallen to 41 per cent.
  • In 1983, 80 per cent of Other Christians considered such rlationships wrong; by 2010, this had fallen to 47 per cent.
  • In 1983, 58 per cent of those with no religion considered such relationships wrong; by 2010, this had fallen to 21 per cent.

A specific question on the right to marriage was asked on the British Social Attitudes survey in 2007:

‘How much do you agree or disagree that … gay or lesbian couples should have the right to marry one another if they want to?’

Again, Ben broke the responses down by religious affiliation. There is some variation by religious affiliation, although note that age or ‘social generation’ effects may also be a key driver here: those of no religion are generally considerably younger than Anglicans. More complex analysis would be required to assess how far religious affiliation determines attitudes compared with other socio-demographic variables such as sex, education, socioeconomic status, and so forth.

 

Discussion today has also focused on the position of the Church of England as the established church. The Church of England argues that the proposals mean that the institution of marriage would be redefined in law to mean something the Church would ‘struggle to recognise’ as marriage:

‘the institution of marriage would have been redefined generally for the purposes of English law. At the very least that raises new and as yet unexplored questions about the implications for the current duties which English law imposes on clergy of the Established Church’ [Annex, paragraphs 21, 22].

Relatedly, Ben has also recently looked at attitudes to disestablishment of the Church of England. He analysed data from the British Election Study (BES) AV Referendum Study, undertaken in spring 2011, which included a number of questions regarding reform of British institutions. The full report is also available here in the Figures section.

The question on disestablishment, which was asked on the post-campaign survey wave, was:

 ‘The Church of England should keep its status as the official established church in England.’

The response options were: ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’, ‘neither agree nor disagree’, ‘disagree’ and ‘strongly disagree’.

While the BES does not ask respondents their religious affiliation, we can break down responses by other demographics. To simplify, the ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ response categories were collapsed. To summarise:

  • Overall, 54 per cent of respondents agreed the Church of England should remain the established church, 22 per cent neither agreed nor disagreed, 16 per cent disagreed (i.e. favoured disestablishment), and 8 per cent didn’t know.
  • Women are more in favour of the status quo than men ( 57 per cent of women agreed with the proposal compared with 50 per cent of men; 12 per cent disagreed compared with 19 per cent of men).
  • 54 per cent of Whites and 55 per cent of Black respondents are in favour of the status quo compared with 40 per cent of Asian respondents. However, the percentage disagreeing was similar for White and Asian respondents (16 and 15 per cent respectively) while that for Black respondents was 8 per cent – notably, 20 per cent of Asian respondents replied that they didn’t know.
  • There is some variation by age category. 63 per cent of those aged 65 and over favour the status quo compared with 41 per cent of those aged 18 to 24; 13 per cent of those aged 65 and over disagreed with the proposition (presumably, therefore, favouring disestablishment) compared with 19 per cent of those aged 18 to 24.
  • English respondents were more likely to support the Church of England continuing as the established church: 56 per cent agreed compared with 51 per cent in Wales, where the Anglican ‘Church in Wales’ was disestablished in 1920, and 31 per cent in Scotland (where the Church of Scotland is recognised as the national church but is not established). 15 per cent of English respondents disagreed, compared with 17 per cent of Welsh respondents, and 24 per cent of Scottish respondents.
  • Conservative Party supporters are more likely to favour continuing establishment: 69 per cent compared with 49 per cent of Labour supporters, 46 per cent of Lib Dems, and 45 per cent favouring no particular party. 8 per cent of Conservative Party supporters disagreed, thereby favouring disestablishment, compared with 19 per cent of Labour supporters, 25 per cent of Lib Dems, and 18 per cent of those favouring no particular party.
  • 74 per cent of Daily Mail readers favour the Church of England remaining established, compared with 65 per cent of Telegraph readers, 61 per cent of Sun readers, 52 per cent of Times readers, 36 per cent of Independent readers, and 28 per cent of Guardian readers.  7 per cent of Daily Mail readers favour disestablishment, compared with 13 percent of Telegraph readers, 7 per cent of Sun readers, 25 per cent of Times readers, 34 per cent of Independent readers, and 45 per cent of Guardian readers.

Again, the full reports and breakdowns are available in the Figures section via the drop-down menu, where the contact details for Ben are also available (although note that he is currently on paternity leave – congratulations Ben!).

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Integrated Household Survey, 2010-11

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Integrated Household Survey (IHS) is the biggest pool of UK social data after the decennial population census, so there will be special interest in the statistical bulletin containing headline results for the period April 2010 to March 2011, published by the Office for National Statistics on 28 September at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_227150.pdf

The question on religious affiliation (‘What is your religion, even if you are not currently practising?’) was answered by 413,832 individuals (including under-16s) in Great Britain. Different question-wording was used in Northern Ireland, and results from that province are not reported in the bulletin.

In Great Britain as a whole 23.2% professed no religion, with 68.5% being Christian, 4.4% Muslim, 1.3% Hindu, 0.7% Sikh, 0.4% Jewish, 0.4% Buddhist, and 1.1% subscribing to other religions.

The proportion with no religion was lowest in England (22.4%) and highest in Wales (30.6%), with 27.2% in Scotland. Scotland had the most Christians (69.6%) and Wales – historically synonymous with Nonconformity – the fewest (66.1%).

All the non-Christian faiths were relatively stronger in England than in the other two home nations, and this was particularly true of Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs. For example, Muslims represented 4.9% of people in England, 1.2% in Wales, and 1.3% in Scotland.

There was an above-average number of persons with no religion among all the under-50 age cohorts. This was notably so for the 16-24s (31.6%) and the 25-34s (32.5%). For the over-65s the figure was only 8.4%. It was also among the over-65s that the proportion of Christians peaked (87.6%).

By contrast, Muslims had a very youthful profile, accounting for 7.9% of all under-16s, 5.5% of 16-24s, and 6.4% of 25-34s. Even assuming standard rates of fertility, this concentration presages an above-the-norm growth in the Muslim population of Britain over the next decade.

The principal changes since the 2009-10 IHS have been an increase of 2.7% in the number professing no religion and a decrease of 2.9% for Christians. Muslims were up 0.2%. BRIN covered the 2009-10 data at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=603

As discussed in the present author’s forthcoming essay on ‘Repurposing Religious Surveys’, there are several ways of enquiring into religious affiliation, each producing different results.

This explains the big discrepancy in the size of the no religion category between the ‘What is your religion?’ formulation employed in the census and IHS and the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys’ approach of ‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’, the one assuming and the other ‘discouraging’ a faith identity.

In the latest BSA to be published, for 2009, and for the first time in the history of BSA back to 1983, a slim majority of respondents said they had no religion, as already noted by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=891

Thus, the accuracy and meaning of the 2010-11 IHS statistics of religious affiliation are likely to be the subject of some debate. They seem bound to be deployed or controverted to support opposing views on the place of religion in modern society.

Already, in its article on the IHS, the Daily Mail has claimed it demonstrates ‘the nation remains overwhelmingly Christian … days after it emerged that BBC programme-makers have been put under pressure to stop describing dates as BC or AD.’ See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2043045/Modern-Britain-70-claim-Christians-1-5-gay.html

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Theos Civil Unrest Survey

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Britain may be poised for a period of protest and civil unrest, according to a new survey by ComRes for Theos, the public theology think-tank, released on 3 March. Fieldwork was conducted online on 23-25 February 2011, among 2,003 adults aged 18 and over.

However, although 36% of all adults and 46% of the 18-24s exhibit a definite appetite to take direct action of some form, whether legal or illegal, in an effort to influence rules, laws or policies, religious liberty is the cause least likely to get citizens out on the metaphorical streets.

Given a list of ten issues which they might take direct action about, just 13% of interviewees picked religious liberty. This compared with 52% for fuel prices, 47% for public service cuts, 41% for tax rises, 35% for bank bonuses, 33% for the threat of losing one’s job, 25% for tax-avoidance by businesses, 19% for global poverty, 19% for student fees, and 17% for climate change. Short-term material concerns thus appear to have won out over moral agendas.

The sub-samples most exercised about religious liberty were the top (AB) social group (20%) and the over-65s (18%). Those least interested were 18-24s (6%), skilled manual workers (7%) and residents of Wales and South-West England (8%).

People concerned about religious liberty were found to prefer traditional methods of protest (such as signing a petition, lobbying a politician or wearing a campaign badge) rather than newer mechanisms (such as social media).

Respondents were also asked about their belief in God. 23% said that they did not believe in God; 19% that they did not know whether there is a God but there was no means of finding out; 17% had doubts but on balance did believe in God; 15% were convinced that God really exists and had no doubts; 13% disbelieved in a personal God but did believe in a higher power; and 10% believed in God some of the time but not at other times.

Combining the last four categories, we arrive at a figure of 55% for those who believed in God or a life force, but not necessarily without doubts or all of the time. The highs were 61% for women, 64% for the over-65s and 63% for residents of the South-East; the lows were 48% among men and 49% with the 18-24s. Outright disbelievers were especially concentrated in the 18-24 age cohort (33%).

The God question replicated the one used in the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys. When this had first been put by BSA, in 1991, 74% believed, on this rather generous definition. The number was still 72% in 1998 but had fallen to 62% by 2008.  

A final ComRes question about religious affiliation revealed that 33% of Britons espouse no religion, 58% profess to be Christian and 7% to subscribe to other belief systems. Irreligion is most prevalent among the young (52% with the 18-24s, 44% with the 25-34s) and least likely to be found among the over-65s (19%).

A summary of the ComRes/Theos research is available at:

http://campaigndirector.moodia.com/Client/Theos/Files/Civil_Unrest_Summary_of_research_findings_final.doc

and the full data tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/page165774311.aspx

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‘Aggressive Atheism’

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Many have judged the recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Scotland and England to have been a relative success, but it was almost derailed at the eleventh hour by comments made by one of his closest aides, Cardinal Walter Kasper, in an interview with the German news magazine Focus, published on 13 September.

Kasper was widely quoted as making various seemingly disparaging remarks about the islands he was shortly to visit with the Pope, including references to a ‘third-world country’ in the grip of ‘aggressive neo-atheism’. Kasper was pulled from the papal entourage at the last minute, ostensibly on the grounds of his illness (gout).

In a YouGov poll conducted for The Sunday Times on 16-17 September among a representative online sample of 1,984 Britons aged 18 and over, respondents were asked what they thought about Kasper’s views. These questions do not seem to have been used in the printed edition of the newspaper, but the results are now available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-170910.pdf

Putting on one side Kasper’s perceived experiences of landing at Heathrow Airport, with which many travellers might concur, 23% of interviewees agreed with him that aggressive neo-atheism is widespread in Britain, 37% disagreed, 25% were neutral and 16% expressed no opinion.

Those most likely to think that neo-atheism was taking root comprised men (27%), the over-60s (30%), Scots (29%) and Conservative voters (29%). The proportion fell to 16% among the 18-24s, but this was mainly because 54% of them were neutral or did not know. Disagreement was notably higher among the ABC1s than the C2DEs (non-manuals and manuals, respectively).

One of Britain’s most outspoken atheists, and probably to the fore of Kasper’s mind in making his comments, is Richard Dawkins. His was one of the names included in a separate YouGov survey of 3,161 adults on 24-26 August in which they were asked to decide who was a ‘national treasure’.

7% of the sample thought that Dawkins was definitely a national treasure, and a further 16% that he was admirable but not quite a national treasure. His admirers were especially to be found among Londoners (32%) and Liberal Democrats (30%). Another 30% were convinced that Dawkins was not a national treasure, while 38% did not know who he was and 9% had no opinion. Detailed results are at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/YG-Archives-Life-YouGov-NationalTreasures-260810.pdf

Quantitative evidence about the extent of atheism in contemporary Britain is somewhat affected by definitional issues. Equating it with those who positively and consistently disbelieve in God, the number of atheists has risen from 10% in 1991 to 12% in 2000 to 18% in 2008, according to the British Social Attitudes Surveys. In 2008 atheists were disproportionately (23%) men or aged 18-34.

International survey findings are reviewed in Phil Zuckerman, ‘Atheism: Contemporary Numbers and Patterns’, in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. Michael Martin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 47-65.

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Zion’s People: Profile of English Nonconformity

Posted on May 28, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Protestant Nonconformity, formerly known as Religious Dissent and latterly as the Free Churches, has made a major contribution to all walks of British life, not just the religious. The movement had its origins in the puritans and separatists of Elizabethan England but traces its formal foundations to the Act of Uniformity 1662 and the subsequent ejection from their livings in the Church of England of some 2,000 Presbyterian and other ministers who refused to conform to this legislation.

In England and Wales approximately 4.4% of people were Nonconformists in 1680 and 6.6% in 1720, following the Toleration Act 1689, which introduced qualified religious liberty for Trinitarian Protestant Religious Dissent. There was then a contraction, to 5.2% in 1760 before growth resumed through the Evangelical Revival. By 1800 one in ten persons was a Nonconformist and by 1840 one in five, one-half of them Arminian Methodists.

The heyday of Nonconformity is conventionally seen as the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, although, relative to population, decline had already set in by c. 1880 and absolutely from about 1905. For the traditional Free Churches, such as the Baptists, Congregationalists and Methodists, the twentieth century was characterized by increasingly rapid numerical declension.

During the course of the past three and a half centuries, therefore, tens of millions of people have been Nonconformists. But what do we know of their backgrounds? In a new three-part study which combines original research and synthesis of existing scholarship, Clive Field has sought to answer the question: ‘Zion’s People: Who were the English Nonconformists?’ It is being published in the May, August and November 2010 issues of The Local Historian, with the first part just out (Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 91-112). This journal is widely available in public and academic libraries.

Field confines his attentions to England and to Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers and Methodists. He provides a quantitative picture (in text and 40 tables) of gender, age, marital status and ethnicity (in part 1) and occupation (in parts 2 and 3), based upon a range of national and local sources from the seventeenth century to the present day. The latest data derive from a special analysis, run by BRIN at the University of Manchester, of the merged dataset from the British Social Attitudes Surveys, 1983-2008. Wherever possible, three layers of Nonconformist belonging are distinguished: membership, adherence and affiliation.

It is obviously impossible to summarize all the principal findings here. However, it is worth emphasizing that contemporary stereotypes of the Free Churches as mostly comprised of women, the elderly, the single and widowed, white racial groups and the middle class sometimes have deep historical roots. By way of a ‘taster’, here are edited summaries of the conclusions (in part 3) relating to gender and marital status:

‘In terms of gender, Baptist and Congregational membership has consistently displayed a female majority of two-thirds, except for the late eighteenth century. This ratio has been greatly in excess of the wider society. For most of its history the imbalance in Methodism’s membership was generally less pronounced but has also reached two-thirds from the 1960s. Of our four denominations, the Quakers have had the fewest women members, the proportion moving quite slowly from a position of near parity of the sexes during their early years to one where it has only very recently reached three-fifths. Although women have constituted a majority of Free Church attenders throughout the twentieth century, with the figure always surpassing the population norm, before the Second World War the ratio appears to have been better than in the membership and also lower than among churchgoers as a whole. Thereafter, the position has worsened, and, relative to overall church attendance, Nonconformist congregations have become distinctly feminized. Apart from the Baptists, the proportion of women among members and worshippers is now very similar, with Methodists having the most female attenders and the Friends the fewest. Affiliates have traditionally reported a much smaller female majority than members and attenders, suggesting that men gravitate towards the least demanding of the various levels of religious allegiance and commitment, with women seeking the maximum degree of involvement. However, even at the outset Nonconformist affiliates still had somewhat more women than in the population, with the proportion rising over time. Among Baptist, United Reformed and Methodist affiliates there are now almost as many women as among their attenders.’

‘The evidence [for marital status] suggests a strong Free Church commitment to marriage, with about two-thirds of its adherents being married throughout the eighteenth-twentieth centuries, a somewhat higher ratio than in the population as a whole, especially for the most recent decades when marriage has lost ground as a social institution. This is notwithstanding a creeping contemporary incidence of cohabitation, separation and divorce among the Nonconformist faithful. The proportion of single people, typically around one in four, was possibly below the norm during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as it is today (largely because the Free Churches have lost their appeal to the young, who are most likely to be single). But it was thought to be unusually large during much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and especially pronounced among females (it was naturally partly linked to the ‘surplus women’ problem at this time). The number of widowed seems to have been a more normative one in ten until very recent decades when it has climbed above the average, to reach one in five among Methodist and United Reformed worshippers in 2001. This is linked to the progressive ageing of Free Church membership and congregations.’

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