News |

Je suis Charlie and Other News

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Last week’s news was dominated by a series of Islamist outrages in France, in which seventeen innocent people died, three police officers, four shoppers at a kosher supermarket, and ten journalists working for the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which in 2011 and 2012 had controversially published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The attack on Charlie Hebdo prompted an international campaign in defence of freedom of speech under the banner ‘Je suis Charlie’.

Unsurprisingly, these Paris shootings were the most noticed news story of last week, according to an online poll of 2,047 Britons aged 18 and over by Populus on 7-8 January 2015. The then still unfolding events in France topped the list with 42%, far ahead of the AirAsia plane crash (9%) and the crisis in NHS hospitals (6%), which were in second and third places respectively. In another online poll, by YouGov on 8-9 January 2015 (explored in the next two items, below), only 4% of the 1,684 respondents were unaware of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, with 72% closely following the story. The implications of this new spike in radical Islamism will doubtless be the subject of further surveys in the days and weeks ahead.

Perceptions of Islam

The toll which Islamist terrorism takes on public perceptions of Islam was exemplified in an internally commissioned module of the YouGov poll taken in the immediate aftermath of the murders at Charlie Hebdo’s offices, on 8 and 9 January 2015. Three-fifths (61%) of the sample said that they entertained a wholly or mainly negative view of Islam, the range by demographic sub-groups being from 48% (Liberal Democrat voters) to 77% (in the case of UKIP supporters). The national figure was double the proportion holding a wholly or mainly negative view of Christianity (31%). Merely 2% regarded Islam completely positively (presumably mostly if not entirely Muslims), with 23% voicing criticisms alongside a generally positive view, and 15% unable to make their minds up. Moreover, the majority (57%) said they would feel comfortable expressing criticisms of Islam to people they knew, against 25% who would feel uncomfortable, worried, or scared about doing so (two and a half times the number saying the same about criticizing Christianity). A plurality (34%) of the whole sample and a majority (51%) of UKIP voters thought the media were more willing to criticize Christianity than Islam, with 15% saying the opposite. Data tables can be accessed via a link on a blog about the survey, posted on 9 January at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/09/britains-cautious-attitude-criticising-islam/

Freedom of speech

A second module in the same YouGov poll, undertaken for the Sunday Times, demonstrated majority support for the media’s right to publish content which could upset some religious believers, with a minority expressing reservations. On the original publication of the cartoons of the Prophet in Charlie Hebdo, 69% deemed it acceptable and 14% unacceptable, while 63% defended other newspapers which had chosen to reprint the cartoons. More generally, 71% agreed that the media have an obligation to show controversial items which are newsworthy even if they might offend the religious views of some people, with 11% prioritizing the avoidance of causing offence and 18% undecided. Three-fifths or more also endorsed publication in newspapers or magazines of certain specific controversial religious content, as summarized below. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/10nth9jzk9/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-090115.pdf

% across	Allow	Disallow
Articles or drawings criticizing and questioning the beliefs and practices of any religion	70	18
Drawings, pictures, or cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed	68	17
Articles or drawings mocking and ridiculing the beliefs and practices of any religion	61	25
Articles or drawings deliberately mocking and ridiculing religious figures like Jesus or the Prophet Mohammed	60	24

Trust in religious professionals (1)

The reputation of clergy/priests for telling the truth has improved slightly during the past couple of years, according to the results of the latest Ipsos MORI veracity index, which was published on 5 January 2015 (and for which 1,116 Britons aged 15 and over were interviewed by telephone between 5 and 19 December 2014). Clergy/priests now rank fifth among eighteen groups of professionals in terms of the public’s trust in them to tell the truth, securing a confidence vote of 71% against 24% who mistrust their veracity (albeit rising to 30% with the under-35s). However, this only restores the standing of clergy/priests to 2009 levels, and they are still 14 points below the trust figure for 1983, the first year of the index. Doctors remain the group most trusted to tell the truth (by 90% of the public) and politicians generally the least (by 16%). Full computer tables for the 2014 survey will be found at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/veracity%202014%20tables.pdf

Trend data back to 1983 are at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/15/Trust-in-Professions.aspx?view=wide

Trust in religious professionals (2)

Clergy may still be trusted to tell the truth, but religious leaders are not trusted across the board, according to the newly-released British results of the WIN/Gallup International End of Year 2014 poll, the fieldwork for which was undertaken by ORB International between 19 and 28 November 2014 among an online sample of 1,000 adults aged 18 and over (the survey was also carried out in 64 other countries). Indeed, 53% of Britons claimed not to trust religious leaders, who ranked just seventh out of ten occupations in terms of the degree of trust which they commanded, 23%, only slightly ahead of the traditional trinity of professional ‘villains’ – bankers, journalists, and politicians. The full scores are as follows:

% across	Trust	Distrust	Don’t know
Healthcare workers	82	10	9
Teachers	75	13	12
Military	67	19	14
Judges	61	20	18
Police	59	28	13
Business people	27	50	24
Religious leaders	23	53	24
Bankers	13	75	13
Journalists	10	80	11
Politicians	7	84	10

The poll also included a couple of other questions measuring the saliency of religion in respondents’ lives. In the first, asked which of five identities was most important to them, only 7% chose religion, against 35% nationality and 25% locality. In answer to the second question, and irrespective of attendance at religious services, 30% described themselves as a religious person, peaking at 45% of over-65s, with 53% declaring they were not religious and an additional 13% they were convinced atheists. These figures demonstrate a marked secularizing shift since the question was first asked by Gallup in Britain, in March 1981, when 58% identified as a religious person, 36% as not religious, and 4% as a convinced atheist. The British WIN/Gallup International 2014 data tables are at:

http://www.wingia.com/web/files/richeditor/filemanager/UK_Tables_V3_a.pdf

Opinium on religion

Self-assessed religiosity was also one of the questions posed in a survey released by Opinium Research on 5 January 2015, for which 2,003 UK adults were interviewed online between 19 and 23 December 2014. Results were broadly comparable with those obtained by WIN/Gallup International, with 26% agreeing they were religious (10% strongly and 17% somewhat) and 52% disagreeing (17% somewhat and 35% strongly); the remaining 22% said they were neither religious nor irreligious. In light of these findings, it was unsurprising that 70% of the sample believed that it was not important to be a Christian in order for a country to be defined as a democracy, residents of Scotland particularly taking this position (82%). Data tables, which complement those for a sample of first-time voters (already reported by BRIN), are at:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/sites/ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/files/op4966_first_time_voters_-_omnibus_-_tables_0.pdf

School choice

The low score for religion in defining personal identity, reported by WIN/Gallup International, was matched by an identical vote of 7% for religious ethos as the most important factor in parental choice of a school or college for their children aged 5-18, even though respondents were allowed to select up to five options. This emerged on 9 January 2015 when ComRes released the results of a poll commissioned by NASUWT (the teachers’ union), for which 1,019 UK parents were interviewed online on 19-21 September 2014. The most influential factors determining parental choice were: a school’s location (67%), supportive staff (54%), curriculum (41%), inspection reports (39%), reputation for dealing with bullying or behaviour (38%), and buildings and facilities (36%). The relatively low value attached to religious ethos, which was the least important factor along with a smart school uniform, chimes in with some of Linda Woodhead’s YouGov research in 2013. She found that, while faith schools might be popular with parents, it is predominantly for non-religious reasons. The ComRes data tables are at:

http://comres.co.uk/polls/NASUWT_Parents_views_of_schools_or_colleges_Tables_pt1.pdf

Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo’s stunning Old Testament frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, completed in 1512, has been judged the greatest work of art ever made in an online poll of 1,642 Britons by YouGov on 21-22 December 2014, netting 25% of the vote (rising to 32% among UKIP supporters). This put him well ahead of Leonardo da Vinci, who occupied second and third places with, respectively, Mona Lisa (7%) and The Last Supper (5%). YouGov conducted its survey in two stages, first asking one set of panellists, with no prompting, ‘in your opinion, what is the greatest work of art ever made?’; and then posing the identical question to a second set, inviting them to choose from the top 15 responses volunteered by the first set. The story, incorporating a link to the full data table, is featured in a blog dated 4 January 2015 on YouGov’s website at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/04/sistine-chapel-ceiling-greatest-work-art-ever-made/

Christian conferences

The majority of speakers at 22 of the largest Christian conferences and festivals in the UK continue to be men, although the proportion of women on the platform increased from 24% in 2013 to 34% in 2014. The most ‘male-heavy’ events were the Keswick Convention and the Big Church Day Out, both of which had only 14% female speakers in 2014 (with Keswick having none in 2013). The analysis was made by Natalie Collins for Project 3:28’s UK National Christian Conferences Male/Female Speaker Statistics Report, 2014, which was published on 6 January 2015 and can be downloaded from:

http://media.wix.com/ugd/7c3a0c_faf74569d68a4609bfd143369233fca1.pdf

Missed opportunity (1)

The current issue of The Tablet (10 January 2015, p. 34) reports that there will be no 2015 print edition of the Catholic Directory of England and Wales. The title has been published on behalf of what is now the Bishops’ Conference ever since 1838 and, inter alia, has been the principal public domain source for Catholic statistics in England and Wales, albeit their quality has left much to be desired, as frequent critiques by Tony Spencer of the Pastoral Research Centre clearly demonstrate. Although the Bishops’ Conference will be launching a new online directory on 19 January, it will apparently not include any pastoral statistics, which will be the responsibility of the 22 individual dioceses. Hopefully, this decision will be rethought, and some new published collation of national Catholic data will emerge in due course.

Missed opportunity (2)

Modern overviews of religion in Wales are comparatively rare, so expectations were inevitably raised with the recent appearance of The Religious History of Wales: Religious Life and Practice in Wales from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day, edited by Richard Allen and David Ceri Jones with Trystan Hughes (Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press, 2014, vii + 281p., paperback, ISBN 978 1 86057 079 7). With a focus on ‘the religious multiplicity of Wales’, the volume comprises 21 chapters, 19 of them on particular faith traditions (there are also cross-cutting accounts of evangelicalism and ecumenism), written by 18 different authors (a mixture of academics and faith leaders). As with most such collaborative enterprises, the contributions vary somewhat in terms of length, approach, originality of research, and quality. But a clear weakness of pretty well the whole venture is the failure to engage with religious statistics in any meaningful and holistic way, and the lack of currency in those few data which are cited; thus, there are references to the results of the 2001 but not 2011 census of religion. This exemplifies other internal evidence which suggests that the book has been several years in the making and its publication delayed. BRIN readers will certainly regret the absence of a chapter or an appendix which pulls together the key historical and contemporary Welsh religious statistics.

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Catholic Directory of England and Wales, Charlie Hebdo, Christian conferences, Christianity, clergy, ComRes, David Ceri Jones, democracy, France, Ipsos-MORI, Islam, Islamism, Islamophobia, media, Michelangelo, NASUWT, Natalie Collins, Opinium Research, ORB International, parents, Populus, Project 3:28, Prophet Mohammed, religious ethos, religious leaders, Richard Allen, schools, self-assessed religiosity, Sistine Chapel, Sunday Times, trust, Wales, WIN/Gallup International, women speakers, works of art, YouGov | Leave a comment

Personal Values and Other News

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Personal values

Religion is not regarded as a particularly important value either in the UK or in the European Union (EU) generally, according to newly-released data from Special Eurobarometer 415, which was undertaken in March 2014 as wave 81.2 of Eurobarometer among representative samples of adults aged 15 and over in each of the 28 member states of the EU. UK fieldwork was conducted by TNS UK on 15-24 March 2014 with 1,296 respondents.

Interviewees were presented with a list of twelve values and asked to select a maximum of three which were most important to them personally. Only 7% in the UK picked religion (the same figures as a year previously), which relegated it to eleventh position, just ahead of solidarity (a concept which very few related to in the UK compared with other European countries – otherwise, religion might have come bottom of the list). As in the EU as a whole, the top three UK values were respect for human life, human rights, and peace. The highest priority to religion was accorded in Cyprus (21%), Malta (17%), Greece (15%), and Romania (12%). Summary data are tabulated below, with the full topline statistics available on pp. T60-61 of the report at:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_415_data_en.pdf

%	UK	EU
Respect for human life	44	40
Human rights	35	43
Peace	35	41
Equality	33	20
Rule of law	27	18
Individual freedom	24	23
Democracy	22	26
Respect for other cultures	18	9
Tolerance	16	14
Self-fulfilment	8	9
Religion	7	5
Solidarity	5	15

Church membership

There were 5,436,500 church members in the UK in 2013, 4.5% fewer in absolute terms than in 2008 (with an even bigger fall relative to the rising population), according to Dr Peter Brierley writing in the June 2014 issue of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy. The 2013 figures derive from a form sent to each of the UK’s almost 300 denominations augmented by estimates in the case of non-response or missing data. The overall rate of decline appears to have lessened from the preceding period, and this is attributed to two principal factors: the establishment of new black and other immigrant churches, and Fresh Expressions of church.

However, the absolute decrease in members between 2008 and 2013 was unevenly distributed across the four home nations, reaching 8.4% in Wales, 11.7% in Northern Ireland, and 17.3% in Scotland (the contraction being especially concentrated in, respectively, the Union of Welsh Independents, Roman Catholic Church, and Church of Scotland). England actually registered a small increase (0.4%) over the five years, thanks to growth among the New Churches, Orthodox Churches, and Pentecostal Churches. A full analysis of the data will appear in the forthcoming second edition of Brierley’s UK Church Statistics.

Same-sex marriage

Prime Minister David Cameron may have recently extolled the virtues of Britain as a Christian country, but, in a poll chiefly about same-sex marriage, 34% of its citizens think he has actually undermined Christianity in the nation, the figure rising to 41% of over-65s and 60% of UKIP voters. Dissentients to the proposition number 42%, including 62% of Conservatives, with 25% don’t knows.

Likewise, a plurality of 45% disagrees that Cameron has improved religious freedom in the UK, with 63% for UKIP supporters. Only 19% consider that he has enhanced religious liberty (among them 37% of Conservatives and 30% of Liberal Democrats), a substantial 35% being undecided.

Notwithstanding the multiple locks (to protect religious sensibilities) built into the English and Welsh legislation for same-sex marriage, 44% feel it inevitable that the Church of England will be forced to conduct such unions (the Welsh being especially pessimistic, on 58%), 30% disagreeing and 26% uncertain.

The findings come from a survey commissioned by the Christian Institute from ComRes, and for which 2,056 adult Britons were interviewed online between 9 and 11 May 2014. Full data tables were published on 19 May at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/CI_SSM_Poll_May_2014.pdf

YouGov miscellany

YouGov’s final European election polling for The Times on 20-21 May 2014, employing an especially large sample of 6,124 adults, included several questions on miscellaneous topics, a couple of which are relevant to BRIN.

The first asked respondents to reflect on various changes in Britain in recent times and to say whether, on balance, each had been good or bad for the country. On the list was allowing supermarkets and other big shops to open on Sundays. This legislative change was approved by 63%, with 17% neutral and 16% opposed. Support was greater among the under-40s than over-40s, the figure for women over 40 falling to 55%.

The second question of interest to BRIN posed the statement: ‘Even in its more moderate forms, Islam is a serious danger to western civilisation’. A plurality of 47% agreed, rising to 75% of UKIP voters. Endorsement was much greater among the over-40s than under-40s (22% more in the case of men and 23% for women). Disagreement to the proposition ran at 28%, peaking at 46% of Liberal Democrats and 58% of Greens, with 18% undecided. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/n966r6px4w/Full_EU_Poll_Final_CUKIP.pdf

Armed forces

FOI releases published by the Ministry of Defence on 28 and 29 May 2014 provide details of the religious affiliation of regular members of the UK armed forces as at 1 October 2013, thereby updating the statistics for 1 April 2013 which were noted in our post of 3 October 2013.

The newly-released data may be summarized (aggregating all non-Christian religions) thus:

	Army	Navy	RAF	Total	%
Church of England	47,950	15,820	18,380	82,150	49.3
Roman Catholic	11,600	3,790	3,800	19,190	11.5
Other Christian	21,070	5,680	5,310	32,060	19.3
Non-Christian	2,470	290	310	3,070	1.8
No religion	13,770	7,860	6,800	28,430	17.1
Undeclared	170	80	1,320	1,570	0.9
Total	97,030	33,520	35,920	166,470	99.9

The breakdown of the 3,070 non-Christians was as follows: 870 Hindus, 650 Muslims, 550 Buddhists, 160 Sikhs, 120 Pagans, 120 Rastafarians, 70 Jews, 40 Spiritualists, 30 Kiratis, 20 Wiccas, 10 Baha’is, and 430 other religions. The two FOI releases are at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315082/PUBLIC_1391420325.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315106/PUBLIC_1391430963.pdf

Women bishops

The Church of England’s internal strife over female bishops may be coming to an end, according to the final tabulation (published on 23 May 2014) of voting in diocesan synods on the current draft legislation to permit women to be appointed to the episcopate. In aggregate, the bishops were 94.9% in favour, clergy representatives 87.7%, and lay representatives 88.6%. Apart from Europe (which could not arrange a vote in time), every diocese voted in favour, including London and Chichester (which had rejected the then proposal for women bishops in 2011), albeit 31.4% of the members of the Chichester synod still remain opposed (among them the Bishop of Chichester). The legislation will now go to the Church’s General Synod in July for final approval. The full diocesan record of voting is at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1995951/pr%2064.14%20diocese%20vote%20table.jpg

Anglican school chaplaincy

The extent and nature of chaplaincy in Anglican secondary schools was revealed in a report published on 25 May 2014 by the Church of England Archbishops’ Council Education Division and the National Society. The underlying research was conducted by Michael Camp in the spring and summer terms of 2013, on the basis of an online survey of 198 schools, of which 72 replied, with 27 follow-up visits or structured telephone interviews. The Public Face of God: Chaplaincy in Anglican Secondary Schools and Academies in England and Wales is available at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1989177/nschaplaincyreport.pdf

Four-fifths (58) of the responding secondary schools were found to have a designated chaplain (or chaplaincy team). A majority of individual chaplains (34) were ordained, 22 were lay, and one was a religious. A plurality (26) were full-time appointments, 23 part-time employees, and eight were volunteers. Employed chaplains were more likely to be on support staff rather than teaching staff contracts.

Events

A reminder that the Church of England’s annual Faith in Research Conference is taking place this coming Wednesday (4 June 2014) at the Novotel, 70 Broad Street, Birmingham, with the Bishop of Manchester in the chair. The programme of keynote and breakout sessions can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1957190/session%20and%20speakers.pdf

Meanwhile, BRIN readers who live within reach of North-East England may be interested to attend a forthcoming public lecture by Dr Peter Brierley on ‘Church Statistics: the Latest Picture’. This will be given at 5 pm on Monday, 23 June 2014 at Etchells House, Cranmer Hall, 16 South Bailey, Durham. The lecture has been arranged by the Centre for Church Growth Research at St Johns College, Durham University, where Peter is a Visiting Fellow. Anybody intending to attend the lecture is kindly requested to email in advance to: d.j.goodhew@durham.ac.uk.

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged armed forces, Centre for Church Growth Research, Christian Institute, Christianity, church membership, Church of England, ComRes, David Cameron, Eurobarometer, European Commission, European Union, Faith in Research conference, Islam, Michael Camp, Ministry of Defence, National Society, Peter Brierley, Religious Affiliation, same-sex marriage, school chaplaincy, Sunday shopping, Sunday trading, The Times, TNS UK, values, Western civilization, women bishops, YouGov | Leave a comment

Is being Christian important for being British?

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Ben Clements

The most recent BRIN post presented across-time data on public opinion looking at (i) whether Britain is a Christian country and (ii) whether Britain should be a Christian country. Another perspective on public attitudes in this area is provided by a question asked as part of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) surveys. It focused on whether it is important to be Christian in order to be truly British. The question was asked on the 1995, 2003 and 2008 surveys. The full question wordings were as follows:

1995 and 2003

Some people say the following things are important for being truly British. Others say they are not important. How important do you think it is … to be a Christian?

2008

‘Some people say that being Christian is important for being truly British. Others say it is not important. How important do you think it is?’

Have the public’s response to this question changed over time, as the majorities who believed Britain should be a Christian country had declined over the years and as the level of Christian affiliation has fallen. Table 1 shows the distribution of responses for the BSA surveys for 1995, 2003 and 2008. Overall, in each survey a clear majority thinks that it is not very important or not at all important to be Christian in order to be truly British. This majority increases somewhat over time, from 64.5% and 65.9% in 1995 and 2003 to 75.1% in 2008 (shown in the row ‘COMBINED: NOT VERY OR NOT AT ALL’). Accordingly, the minority thinking that is very or fairly important falls from around a third in 1995 (33.1%) to just under a quarter in 2008 (23.7%) (shown in the row ‘COMBINED: VERY OR FAIRLY’).

Table 1: Attitudes towards whether being Christian is important for being truly British

	1995 (%)	2003 (%)	2008 (%)
Very important	19.1	15.6	6.2
Fairly important	14.0	16.2	17.5
COMBINED: VERY OR FAIRLY	33.1	31.8	23.7
Not very important	28.2	24.5	37.4
Not at all important	36.3	40.4	37.7
COMBINED: NOT VERY OR NOT AT ALL	64.5	64.9	75.1
Don’t know	2.4	3.2	1.2

Source: Compiled by the author from BSA surveys.

Given the overall state of opinion on this question in the three surveys, what about sub-group variation in attitudes? Figure 1 presents data for various subgroups using the BSA 2008 survey. It shows the proportion in each group thinking that it is fairly important or very important to be Christian in order to be truly British. There is little difference of view between men and women (respectively, 22.6% and 24.7%). There is a clear difference based on age, with those aged 65 and older most likely to think it is fairly or very important (38.5%), which is around double that recorded by those aged 18-29 years old (19.4%). The other age groups (30-49 years and 50-64 years) are much closer to the youngest cohort in their views. Based on educational attainment, those with degree-level qualifications (or higher) are less likely to think it is fairly or very important (14.4%) compared to those with lower-level or no qualifications (25.9%).

As could be expected, there are variations in opinion based on different religious factors: affiliation, attendance, and being a religious person or not. Those with some form of Christian affiliation are much more likely to say it is fairly or very important (highest at 37.3% for Anglicans) than are members of non-Christian faiths (14.5%) and those with no affiliation (12.8%). Based on frequency of attendance at religious services, regular attenders (once a month or more) and irregular attenders (less than once a month) are more likely to say that it is fairly or very important (respectively, 31.4% and 28.9%) compared to those who do not attend services at all (20%). Based on self-perceptions of oneself as a religious person or not, those who see themselves as religious are more likely to respond that it is fairly or very important (35.4%) compared to those who are not religious (10.5%), with those who do not choose either label positioned between the religious and non-religious (at 22.8%).

Finally, looking at views based on political party affiliation, we see that Conservative and Labour supporters are somewhat more likely to say it is fairly or very important (respectively, 27.2% and 26.8%) compared to Lib Dem supporters (17.9%), those who affiliate with minor parties (21.1%) and those with no party affiliation (19.8%).

Figure 1: Per cent saying ‘very important’ or ‘fairly important’

Source: Compiled by the author from the BSA 2008 survey.

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, Religion in public debate, Survey news, Uncategorized | Tagged British Social Attitudes, Christianity, Christians, Survey Data | Leave a comment

Muslim Distinctiveness and Other News

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s round-up of eight religious statistical news stories leads on the first substantive output from an important and academic-led four-year-old sample survey of British Muslims.

Muslim distinctiveness

The distinctiveness of British Muslims is explored in a short but highly significant article by Valerie Lewis and Ridhi Kashyap, ‘Are Muslims a Distinctive Minority? An Empirical Analysis of Religiosity, Social Attitudes, and Islam’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 52, No. 3, September 2013, pp. 617-26. Data derive from face-to-face interviews by Ipsos MORI with a sample of 480 British Muslims between January and May 2009; and from face-to-face interviews by NatCen with samples of Britons of other religious persuasions (n = 2,457) and none (n = 1,903) from the contemporaneous British Social Attitudes Survey. Muslims were found to be more religious than other Britons in terms of beliefs, practices (public and private), and salience. They were also more socially conservative on a range of topics: gender roles in the home, divorce, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage. In terms of premarital sex and homosexuality, an independent effect of Islam was documented; on other social issues Muslim attitudes tended to resemble those of other religious people. Indeed, more generally, multivariate analysis revealed that much of the difference on socio-moral opinions was due to socio-economic disadvantage and high religiosity, both factors which – Lewis and Kashyap argue – predict social conservatism among all Britons and not just Muslims. The distinctiveness of Muslims, therefore, may not be as great as it superficially seems. It should be noted that no weights were applied to the Muslim data, and that there are several caveats from the authors concerning the representative nature of the Muslim sample (including a high rate of non-response). For access options for this article, go to:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jssr.12044/abstract

Civic core

Two-thirds of all charitable activity (charitable donations and volunteering) in this country is attributable to just 9% of its citizens (the ‘civic core’). This is according to a report published by the Charities Aid Foundation on 13 September 2013 and entitled Britain’s Civic Core: Who are the People Powering Britain’s Charities? A further 67% of individuals account for the remaining 34% of charitable activity (the so-called ‘middle ground’), while 24% of the population undertake little or no charitable activity (‘zero givers’). Members of the ‘civic core’ have the greatest interest (37%) in supporting religious organizations (including places of worship), with ‘zero givers’ showing the least (10%); among the ‘middle ground’ the proportion is 20%. This trend reflects the fact that the ‘civic core’ is disproportionately composed of women, the over-65s, and people from professional/managerial backgrounds – precisely those groups most inclined to be involved with organized religion. The data derive from an online survey of 2,027 Britons aged 18 and over conducted by ComRes on 31 July and 1 August 2013, and the report is available at:

https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/CAF_Britains_Civic_Core_Sept13.pdf

Full data tables for the poll were released by ComRes on 16 September. Table 21 provides breaks for interest in religious organizations by gender, age, social grade, employment sector, region, ethnicity, and the monetary value of volunteering and charitable donations. Table 64 gives details about volunteering for religious organizations during the past year among the sub-group of respondents who have given practical help to a social cause. Table 89 records self-assigned ‘membership’ of religious groups (56% Christian, 8% non-Christian, 34% none). Unfortunately, religious affiliation is not used in this set of tables as a variable to analyse answers to all the other questions about charitable disposition and activity. The data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/CAF_People_Power_9_August_2013_Sig.pdf

Confessions

The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales reported on 2 September 2013 that the number of confessions (Sacrament of Reconciliation) is rising at many of its cathedrals. Twenty-two cathedrals were contacted by telephone or email on 21 August, of which 20 replied. Overall, 65% (i.e. 13 cathedrals) noted an increase in confessions, mostly attributing it to a ‘papal effect’ (either the visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, the inauguration of Pope Francis I in 2013, or both), while the remaining 35% (7 cathedrals) said confessions were ‘steady’ or ‘normal’. Actual statistics of those confessing were not cited by the Church, and it is possible that they constitute a relatively small proportion of professing Catholics. The Church’s press release is at:

http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/Home/News/Back-to-Church

The story was picked up by all the UK’s Catholic newspapers and by the Church Times, including a particularly upbeat report and leader in the Catholic Herald. Responding to the latter, in a letter to the editor published in the Catholic Herald for 13 September 2013 (p. 13), Anthony Hofler of Wolverhampton was in little doubt from his own experience that confession is falling out of fashion among Catholics, except, relatively, at Christmas and Easter. Undaunted, the front page of the same edition of the Catholic Herald highlighted responses by 32 priests to a survey about a three-year-long initiative in the Diocese of Lancaster to boost the uptake of confessions, apparently also with encouraging results. Significantly, again, no hard data were cited in this report, and none currently appear on the websites of the diocese or the diocesan newspaper, Catholic Voice.

With regard to the ‘papal bounce’, as already noted by BRIN in our post of 28 January 2012, average weekly Mass attendance was actually lower after the papal visit in 2010 than before. And, in gearing up for its Home Mission Sunday (which took place on 15 September 2013), the Church itself conceded there are ‘four million baptised Catholics who rarely or never attend Mass’ in England and Wales.

Fracking

Recent public divisions about fracking within the Church of England and other Christian groups are evidenced in new research briefly reported in the latest issue of Christian Research’s monthly ezine, Research Brief, which was emailed to subscribers on 6 September 2013:

CRACKS APPEAR IN FRACKING ARGUMENT

‘Our Resonate August omnibus, completed by 1.520 Resonate panellists, revealed that two-thirds of practising Christians regard it as valid that the church should derive income from mineral rights on property it owns (marginally higher support amongst church leaders). More than 2 in 5 regular churchgoers felt that the church should be able to profit from shale gas reserves located under land it owns, 1 in 3 were uncertain and 1 in 4 objected (to some degree). Interestingly, men (significantly so) and Londoners agreed more strongly than others. The results see-sawed the other way, 1 in 3 opposed and 1 in 5 in favour, if the land was dwelt on.’

University students’ religion

On 27 April 2013 BRIN provided preliminary coverage of research into English university students and Christianity, undertaken by a team led by Mathew Guest of Durham University, with funding from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. A major aim of the project, which collected data via online questionnaires completed by 4,341 undergraduates in 2010-11 and via in-depth interviews, was to test empirically the widespread assumption that higher education is a force for secularization. Full details of the findings were published on 12 September 2013 in Mathew Guest, Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma and Rob Warner, Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith (Bloomsbury Academic, ISBN 9781780937847, paperback, £19.99 – also available in hardback and ebook editions). The volume was reviewed by Gerald Pillay in Times Higher Education on 12 September 2013. Guest has also contributed a substantial article about the research – entitled ‘What Really Happens at University?’ – to Church Times, 13 September 2013, pp. 27-8.

Scottish religious affiliation

The results from the religion question in the 2011 census of population for Scotland are still not available (they are expected to be included in release 2A of the census data on 26 September 2013). Meanwhile, we can note the religious affiliation question from the latest Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS), conducted by ScotCen Social Research among 1,229 residents of Scotland aged 18 and over between July and November 2012. The marginals on the UK Data Service Nesstar site show that a majority of Scots (52%) now regard themselves as belonging to no religion, compared with 40% when SSAS commenced in 1999. A further 22% regard themselves as Church of Scotland (35% in 1999), 11% as Catholics (15%), 12% as other Christians (10%), and 2% as non-Christians (1%). This ‘belonging’ form of question-wording is known to maximize the number of religious ‘nones’, and a similar formulation is used in the Scottish census (‘what religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’). Claimed attendance at religious services (other than rites of passage) in the 2012 SSAS was 19% at least monthly, including 12% weekly or more often. These figures are down on 1999 levels (27% and 17% respectively) but are probably still aspirational to a considerable degree. The latest Scottish church attendance census, conducted by Christian Research on 12 May 2002, revealed a weekly participation rate of 11%, with no deduction for ‘twicing’.

Churchgoing in the Presbytery of Dunfermline

As noted in the previous entry, there has been no Scottish church attendance census since 2002. Nor does the Church of Scotland – as the ‘national church’ – routinely collect attendance data (in the way that the Church of England has since 1968). So there is added interest to annual churchgoing counts organized in the Church of Scotland’s Presbytery of Dunfermline since 2009, the latest on 17 and 24 March 2013. Through the kindness of Allan Vint, summary data for the Presbytery’s 24 congregations have been made available to BRIN. Total attendance in 2013 was 2,493, 4% down on the 2012 total and 14% on 2009. Attendees comprised 34% men and 66% women; 9% children, 3% teenagers, and 88% adults (with an average adult age of 63, up by four years since 2009).

Baby names

Biblical forenames remain fashionable for Jewish boys, according to a list compiled by the Jewish Baby Directory website. Analysing around 1,000 birth announcements in the Jewish Chronicle, Samuel was found to be first equal in the list of boys’ names for the Jewish year September 2012 to September 2013, with Jacob and Joshua joint third, Joseph joint fifth, and Benjamin, Ethan, Nathan and Noah in joint eleventh position. The attraction of female biblical names was less strong, with Leah in fourth place, Rachel in ninth, and Rebecca in eleventh equal. Previously popular biblical names for girls, such as Sarah and Naomi, failed to make it to the top twenty. The rankings are at:

http://www.jewishbabydirectory.com/top-baby-names-of-5773-september-2012-present/

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged baby names, biblical names, British Social Attitudes Survey, Cathedrals, Catholic Herald, charitable giving, Charities Aid Foundation, Christian Research, Christianity, church attendance, Church of Scotland, Church Times, ComRes, confessions, Diocese of Lancaster, distinctiveness, England, fracking, Ipsos-MORI, Jewish Baby Directory, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Kristin Aune, Mathew Guest, Muslims, NatCen, Pope, Presbytery of Dunfermline, Religiosity, Religious Affiliation, religious organizations, Resonate, Ridhi Kashyap, Rob Warner, Roman Catholic Church, Sacrament of Reconciliation, ScotCen, Scotland, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, Social Capital, social conservatism, Sonya Sharma, university students, Valerie Lewis, volunteering | Leave a comment

Profile of Anglicans and Other News

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s mix of religious statistical news stories includes a segmentation analysis of self-identifying Anglicans, support for St George’s Day as a public holiday, the faith of undergraduates, and an updated interactive gateway to important serial survey data covering religion in Britain.

Profile of Anglicans

The YouGov survey which Professor Linda Woodhead commissioned to inform the 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates, and which BRIN has been reporting after each debate, is likely to prove a very valuable dataset for subsequent secondary analysis. To illustrate the point, Professor Woodhead, with statistical support from the Revd Professor Bernard Silverman, has used the poll (conducted online among 4,437 Britons aged 18 and over on 25-30 January 2013) to undertake a segmentation analysis of contemporary Anglicans (1,261 identified themselves as such in the survey). Her findings are presented in her article ‘”Nominals” are the Church’s Hidden Strength’ in the current issue (26 April 2013, p. 16) of the Church Times. This is only available online to subscribers of the newspaper.

The analysis proper, which forms the first part of the article, distinguishes four types of Anglicans:

Godfearing Churchgoers (5% of Anglicans) – These are Anglicans who attend church, are very certain in their belief in God, and who say that God is the main source of authority in their lives. They are also likely to score highly on other indicators of religiosity (such as prayer and Bible-reading) and to hold conservative views on many issues of personal morality, particularly sexuality (setting them apart with Baptists and Muslims rather than fellow Anglicans).
Mainstream Churchgoers (12% of Anglicans) – These have more in common with Non-Churchgoing Believers than with the Godfearers. Apart from their churchgoing, they differ in being a little more religious than Non-Churchgoing Believers on a number of measures and a little more morally conservative.
Non-Churchgoing Believers (50% of Anglicans) – These share a good many of the attributes of Mainstream Churchgoers, notwithstanding that they do not attend church. They all believe in God (although some prefer the word Spirit), and significant numbers practise religious or spiritual activities regularly. ‘These “nominals” are more than Anglican in name only: they believe, practise, and identify with Anglicanism.’
Non-Churchgoing Doubters (33% of Anglicans) – These Anglicans are also more than merely nominal. Only 15% are outright atheists, most being agnostic or unsure about God, and more than one-fifth claim to practise some religious or spiritual activity in private. They are the most morally permissive of the four groups.

The second half of the article is an impassioned – some may say occasionally idealized – plea for the Church of England to take more seriously non-churchgoing Anglicans in general, and Non-Churchgoing Believers in particular, rather than representing Godfearing Churchgoers as the ‘most real Anglicans’. Woodhead contends that the Church is in danger of becoming too clerical and congregationally-based, and of abandoning its sense of being a lay institution governed by monarch and Parliament, and responsible to the people.

St George’s Day

Hopefully, you noticed – or at least did not forget – that last Tuesday (23 April) was St George’s Day, commemorating England’s patron saint. To mark the occasion, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Cardiff University, and the University of Edinburgh released some initial findings from YouGov polling commissioned for their collaborative ‘Future of England Survey, 2012’. Online fieldwork was undertaken between 23 and 28 November 2012 among samples of 3,600 English residents, 3,401 white English adults, and 651 black and minority ethnic (BME) English adults.

Respondents were asked whether St George’s Day should be a public holiday. Whereas two-thirds of all English and whites agreed with the proposition, under half (47%) of BMEs did so. Some 41% of BMEs were neutral on the matter or did not know what to think, compared with under a quarter of all English and whites. These differences appear to be related to the fact that BMEs are four times more likely than English and whites to identify themselves as British but not English, and three times less likely as English but not British. Strong agreement with St George’s Day becoming a public holiday was registered by 43% of English overall but by 60% of UKIP supporters, falling to 32% of Liberal Democrat voters. IPPR’s press release and the summary table can be found, respectively, at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/h00jyfvifw/YG-Archive-University-of-Cardiff-results-281112-english-british-st-george’s-day.pdf

http://www.ippr.org/press-releases/111/10678/7-out-of-10-want-st-georges-day-as-bank-holiday

Student faith

‘Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England’ was one of the projects funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme between 2009 and 2012. It sought to take the religious temperature of undergraduates attending 13 English universities through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods. The full results of the research will be published by Bloomsbury on 12 September 2013 in a book by Mathew Guest (principal investigator for the project), Kristin Aune, Sonya Sharma, and Rob Warner, Christianity and the University Experience: Understanding Student Faith. Meanwhile, some findings are also being reported in academic journals, most recently in the May 2013 issue (Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 207-23) of Journal of Contemporary Religion, in which the same four authors have an article ‘Challenging “Belief” and the Evangelical Bias: Student Christianity in English Universities’.

Evangelicalism is often seen as the dominant form of campus-based Christianity, but this essay presents something of a corrective to that simplistic picture, by drawing upon the replies to an online questionnaire notified to a random selection of students at each university in 2010-11. The response rate was 12%, amounting to 4,341 undergraduates, and while weighting was able to correct for certain types of non-response bias, it is conceded that ‘our survey could be skewed, perhaps, in favour of those who are most interested in religion or who are religious themselves’. This may help to explain why the proportion of students professing a faith is somewhat higher than for equivalent age cohorts in surveys of the general population, as a consequence of ‘the religiously indifferent opting out’, albeit (more optimistically than I would be) the authors do not consider the ‘inflation’ to be ’dramatic’.

Overall, 34% of students said that they had no religion, while 51% were Christian, and 15% were of other faiths. Asked whether they considered themselves to be religious or spiritual, only 25% opted for religious, 31% for spiritual but not religious, 33% for neither religious nor spiritual, with 11% unsure. Among self-identifying Christians, more (40%) viewed themselves as religious, 31% as spiritual, 15% as neither, and 13% were uncertain. Again, for Christians, attending university had a net effect in marginally increasing religiosity, with 15% claiming they had become more religious, 12% less religious, and 71% remaining the same. Weekly churchgoing in term-time was reported by 29% of Christian undergraduates, outside term by 35%, which (if true) suggests less nominalism than in society at large. For all students, 75% described their religious perspective as unchanged since arriving at university, heightened or lessened religiosity cancelling each other out at 11%.

CCESD Information System

The CCESD Information System, hosted by the Centre for Comparative European Survey Data at London Metropolitan University, has recently been extended in scope. It now includes seven sub-sites, of which six are especially important for British and comparative data on religion and related topics. These are: British Social Attitudes Survey, British Election Study, Eurobarometer, European Social Survey, International Social Survey Programme, and European Values Survey. The sources can be browsed and searched, and analyses of data undertaken at topline level or through cross-tabulations by standard demographic variables. Data can be exported in a variety of formats. This is a reasonably simple and interactive system which requires no great statistical expertise, and registration for and use of it are entirely free. To access the CCESD Information System, go to:

http://www.ccesd.ac.uk/Home

Posted in church attendance, Religion and Ethnicity, Survey news | Tagged Anglicans, Bernard Silverman, Cardiff University, CCESD Information System, Centre for Comparative European Survey Data, Christianity, Church of England, Church Times, Institute for Public Policy Research, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Kristin Aune, Linda Woodhead, London Metropolitan University, Mathew Guest, patron saints, public holidays, Rob Warner, Sonya Sharma, St George's Day, undergraduate students, University of Edinburgh, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | 6 Comments

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

Religious Census 2011 – What happened to the Christians?

Posted on December 13, 2012 by David Voas

When it comes to religion, the sharp fall in the ‘Christian’ population has been the big story of the 2011 census. If the 2001 results posed one problem for religious statisticians – why was the Christian figure so high? – the latest findings are just as puzzling: why has it fallen so fast?

The surge of 2001

Ten years ago, the surprise was that far more people identified themselves as Christian on the census (nearly 72%) than in various national surveys (54% in the British Social Attitudes survey). In an article published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion, Steve Bruce and I argued that the difference in England and Wales arose because

census forms are often completed by one individual on behalf of the entire household (although we offered evidence that this factor was less influential than had been thought);
the census religion question immediately followed the one on ethnicity and seemed to be simply a supplementary question on the same topic;
the wording of the question (“What is your religion?”) implies that a religious identity is expected;
the form offered a single, undifferentiated ‘Christian’ category, and would frequently have been viewed as part of a system of cultural classification;
and finally, anxiety about immigration and political Islam led many respondents to assert their identification with the country’s Christian heritage.

The fall in 2011

This time the issue is different. Analysis of the full set of British Social Attitudes datasets since the survey began in 1983 shows that religious affiliation is remarkably stable, on average, over the adult life course. Many individuals gain or lose a religious identity (or being little concerned about such matters, vacillate in what they report), but very little aggregate change is found within any given generation. The overall decline in religious identification is not the product of individuals defecting to no religion, but rather of elderly Christians being replaced in the population by young people who are – and remain – less religious.

That being so, it was natural to expect a similar stability in the census returns. Of course the Christian percentage was bound to drop somewhat both because of cohort replacement and as a result of growth in the Muslim and other minority populations, but there was little reason to think that people who called themselves ‘Christian’ in 2001 would not do so again in 2011.

In the event, the outcome has been very different. The total population of England and Wales has gone up by four million, but the number of self-described Christians has gone down by the same amount. The Christian percentage has fallen, according to the census, from 71.7% to 59.3% between 2001 and 2011. A decline of that magnitude can only occur if some people have decided that they don’t have a religion after all.

How many such people are there? We’ll have a much better idea when the cross-tabulations by age, ethnicity and so on are available in the spring. In due course it will even be possible to estimate the figure directly (and very accurately) using the Longitudinal Survey, which links records from successive censuses for a sample of the population. In the meantime, here is a conservative estimate based on the statistics currently available.

The relative decline in Christian affiliation is the product of three factors: replacement, dilution and defection. Old people who in overwhelming majority have a religious identity are replaced in the population by a new generation that does not. Even if there were no absolute losses, the Christian proportion would decline as the number of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others rises. Once we account for these two factors, we can estimate the amount of drift into no religion.

Cohort replacement

We know from vital statistics that some 5,122,500 deaths were recorded in England and Wales between the two census dates. We could use life tables to distribute those deaths by age, but for present purposes we can be content with a more straightforward procedure: we will simply assume that the oldest people are those who died. Excluding about 97,200 non-Christians, 87% of the most elderly group called themselves Christian. Based on the trajectory of generational decline in the figures from 2001, only 56% of their replacements in the population will be Christian, even omitting people of other faiths. In a stationary population, we could thereby project that the absolute number of Christians would fall by one and a half million, and their share would drop from 72% to 69%.

Dilution from growth in other religions

As we know, however, the population is growing, and 42% of that growth has been in the non-Christian population. Once the additional Muslims, Hindus and so on are considered, there are still 2,320,000 more people in the country at the end than at the beginning of the period. The challenge is to decide what assumptions to make about their religious identities. A large proportion will be Africans and Eastern Europeans, large majorities of whom choose the Christian option. For the moment I propose simply to apply the 2001 value (with people of other faiths omitted, 76% were Christian) to the 2011 population boost. The net effect of growth is to dilute the Christian share to 67%. At the same time, however, the projected number of Christians is in excess of 37.5 million, slightly higher than in 2001.

Defection

As shown above, much of the change in the Christian share of the population is the result of natural causes: the death of elderly Christians and their replacement by young people who have no religion, and a continuing growth of non-Christian groups through immigration and natural increase. Using very generous assumptions about the amount of change produced by cohort replacement, and relatively conservative assumptions about growth through immigration, we have managed to explain about 40% of the fall in the Christian percentage of the population. Nevertheless the calculations would not have led us to expect a drop in the Christian headcount between 2001 and 2011.

I estimate that about 4,300,000 people in England and Wales were identified as Christian in 2001 and as having no religion in 2011. (To be more accurate, this value gives the net change: it is very likely that many people called themselves Christian in 2011 having not done so in 2001, and hence the actual number going the other way would be correspondingly larger.) This figure is 13% of the total number of 2001 Christians who were still alive in 2011.

The analysis underlines the remarkable amount of change that has occurred in the relatively short period between the last two censuses. Nearly a quarter of the people who called themselves Christian in 2001 no longer appear in that column, casualties of old age or disaffiliation. Many of them have been replaced via natural increase and immigration, but the situation is intriguingly fluid.

What happened to the Christians?

The 72% figure was never a good indication of the religious state of the nation, and likewise the 12.5 percentage point fall between 2001 and 2011 is unlikely to be evidence of a previously unnoticed shift towards secularity. The census findings are somewhat better aligned than before with national survey data, though for the reasons mentioned at the outset the Christian share is still on the high side. Why the proportion has dropped by so much, though, is a question that is likely to occupy us for some time to come.

David Voas is Professor of Population Studies at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, and co-Director of British Religion in Numbers.

Posted in Official data, Religious Census | Tagged Census 2011, Christianity, David Voas, Religious change, Secularisation, Steve Bruce | 2 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

Posted in Official data | Tagged British Social Attitudes Surveys, census of population, Christianity, England and Wales, Islam, no religion, nones, Office for National Statistics, Religious Affiliation | 3 Comments

Teaching Christianity and Other News

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Today’s round-up of religious news highlights poll data in support of the improved teaching of religious education (RE) in schools and presents a gender breakdown of last week’s vote on women bishops in the Church of England’s General Synod.

Teaching Christianity in RE

There is ‘widespread support in England for the teaching of Christianity as part of Religious Education’ in schools, according to newly-released data. Two-thirds (64%) of English adults agree that children need to learn about Christianity in order to understand English history, and 57% to comprehend the English culture and way-of-life. Even among those describing themselves as not religious the figures are 54% and 41% respectively.

Just under one-half (44%) of the English also say that more attention should be given to the teaching of Christianity in schools, and this is particularly true of the over-55s, albeit much less so (26%) among those identifying as not religious. But 37% of all adults feel that many RE teachers do not know enough about Christianity themselves in order to be able to teach it effectively.

Areas of Christianity which people regard as especially important for children to learn about in RE are the history of Christianity (58%), major Christian events and festivals (56%), and how Christianity distinguishes right from wrong (51%). Fewer (38%) mention that pupils should be taught the Bible, with no more than 30% wanting them to learn the Lord’s Prayer.

It would naturally be wrong to infer from these results that adults solely wish to prioritize the teaching of Christianity in RE at the expense of other world faiths (or none). Indeed, other polls indicate strong support for a pluralistic approach to RE, but (apparently) this was not explored in this particular investigation.

Source: Online survey by YouGov among 1,832 adults aged 18 and over in England between 16 and 18 May 2012. The poll was conducted on behalf of Oxford University’s Department of Education as the initial stage of a national intervention project, led by Dr Nigel Fancourt and funded by various charitable trusts, to support teachers tackling the subject of Christianity in schools. It seeks to address concerns raised by Ofsted inspectors and others about how Christianity is currently being taught.

The full data from the survey have yet to be released into the public domain. This BRIN report is therefore based upon various online media coverage on 26 November 2012, when some of the findings were published, particularly in a press release by Oxford University at:

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_releases_for_journalists/121126.html

Gender analysis of General Synod vote on women bishops

The Church of England published on 26 November 2012 the General Synod electronic voting results for the Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure, debated (and lost) on 20 November 2012. The list appears at:

http://churchofengland.org/media/1588752/item%20501.pdf

From the list of names BRIN has compiled an analysis of voting by the gender of General Synod members in each of the three Houses (of Bishops, Clergy, Laity), excluding the two episcopal abstentions, as follows:

	Men	Men	Women	Women	Total	Total
	For	Against	For	Against	For	Against
Bishops	44	3	0	0	44	3
Clergy	94	44	54	1	148	45
Laity	74	41	58	33	132	74
Total	212	88	112	34	324	122

It can be calculated that, across the Synod as a whole, opposition to the Measure to permit women bishops stood at 29% among male members and 23% for female members (with an average of 27%). However, whereas only one of the women in the House of Clergy, or 2%, was opposed, the proportion was 36% in the House of Laity. Indeed, in the House of Laity the Measure failed to attain the requisite two-thirds majority for passing among both male and female members (64% each voting in favour).

Social welfare

There are a few – but not fully consistent – religious differences in attitudes to social welfare, according to a new study. Christians (75%) are somewhat more likely than those with no religion (66%) to say that ‘the creation of the welfare state is one of Britain’s proudest achievements’. However, more of the latter (76%) than the former (68%) agree that ‘everyone has the right to a minimum standard of living which should be paid for if necessary by the welfare state’. Slightly more Christians (67%) than nones (62%) consider that the benefits system is not working well and needs improvement or radical overhaul.

In the view of 48% of Christians and 40% of nones the level of benefits people receive should be proportionate to the amount of tax which they have paid. Larger numbers of Christians than those of no religion favour universal state pensions (77% versus 72%) and winter fuel allowance (25% against 20%), but the reverse is true of universal child benefit (supported by 39% compared with 43%).

Source: Telephone survey of 1,001 Britons aged 18 and over by ComRes for BBC Radio 4 on 16-18 November 2012. The number of respondents for religious groups other than Christians and none (n = 548 and 297 respectively) is too small to be meaningful. Full data tables published on 27 November and available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/BBC_Welfare_Poll_November2012.pdf

Profiling the ‘nones’

The number of Britons professing to have no religion reached 36% in a recent poll, but they are not evenly spread across the demographic groups. They are particularly to be found among those aged 18-34, of whom they constitute 47%, and they account for only 26% of the over-65s. Doubtless in reflection of this youthful profile, the nones comprise 42% of persons with the lowest annual household income (up to £14,000). They also have an above-average representation in South-West and Northern England and Wales (41%). By contrast, they are under-represented (28%) among Conservative voters, 69% of the latter being Christians (13% more than for all adults).

Source: Online survey of 2,066 Britons aged 18 and over, conducted by Populus on 24-26 October 2012 on behalf of the Conservative Party. Details contained in table 18 at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/OmChild_Benefit.pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged BBC Radio 4, benefits, Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure, Christianity, Christians, Church of England, ComRes, Conservative Party, gender, General Synod, Nigel Fancourt, nones, Oxford University Department of Education, Populus, Religious Affiliation, religious education, schools, social welfare, teaching, welfare state, women bishops, YouGov | 5 Comments

God Trumped by Aliens – and Other News

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Clive D. Field

God Trumped by Aliens

More people believe in the existence of life on other planets (53%) than believe in God (44%, which is a lower proportion than in other polls, possibly explained by a difference in question-wording). Only Northern Ireland bucks the trend; here belief in aliens stands at 30%. One-fifth think unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have landed on earth, and one-tenth claim to have seen one (more so among men than women). A staggering 52% contend that evidence of UFOs has been covered up in order not to compromise the stability of government.

Source: Survey by Opinion Matters conducted online among a representative sample of 1,359 UK adults, and on behalf of 2k Games, publishers of the new alien-themed videogame XCOM: Enemy Unknown, where the task is to save the world from enemy invasion. Full data are not in the public domain (although BRIN has requested them), and details for this post have been taken from coverage in various online media following the launch of the product on 12 October.

Religion and Ageing

Religious affiliation remains at a relatively high level among the over-50s, although (as with most religious indicators) it is greater among women (89%) than men (79%). There is also variation by age, the proportion with no religion falling steadily from the 55-59 cohort (27% of men and 20% of women) to those aged 80 and over (13% and 5% respectively). Wealth likewise makes a difference, both men and women in the lower wealth groups being more likely to espouse a religion than those in higher wealth groups; in the highest wealth group the number with no religion stands at 27% of men and 17% of women. The religion reported is overwhelmingly Christian, with non-Christians amounting to only 3% of older men and 2% of women.

Moreover, those over-50s who actively practise their faith by attending religious services have somewhat enhanced levels of psychological well-being compared with those who never attend worship. This effect, which is statistically significant, is reflected in ‘less depression, greater affective well-being, higher eudemonic well-being and greater life satisfaction’. Frequency of attendance (‘“dose-response” effects’) is not necessarily material: ‘participants who reported attending religious services a few times a year had similar levels of psychological well-being on several measures to those who were regular attenders’. In the case of life satisfaction, mean scores are 19.8 for non-attenders, 20.9 for those worshipping a few times a year, and 21.4 for those attending two or three times a month or more often.

Source: Wave 5 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), in which 10,274 English adults aged 52 and over were surveyed by NatCen between July 2010 and June 2011, through a combination of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire. The dataset is available at the Economic and Social Data Service as SN 5050. The report, The Dynamics of Ageing, edited by James Banks, James Nazroo and Andrew Steptoe, was published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on 15 October 2012. Tables 4A.81-85 (pp. 175-7) and S3a-b (p. 271) are especially relevant for BRIN users. The document can be downloaded from:

http://www.ifs.org.uk/elsa/report12/elsaW5-1.pdf

Challenges to the Christian Journey

Male and female Christians face somewhat different challenges in their faith journey, according to a recent poll of regular churchgoers. For men the top six (out of thirteen) hurdles are perceived to be: societal pressure to behave in certain ways (50%), work-life balance (47%), pornography (39%), financial pressures (38%), integrity in the workplace (36%), and materialism (35%). For women the greatest challenge is considered to be family life problems (54%, 22% more than is thought to affect men), followed by work-life balance (51%), societal pressure to behave in certain ways (50%), media portrayal of women (45% – twice the difficulty of media portrayal of men), materialism (30%), and sexual pressures (27%).

Pornography comes last on the list of challenges said to be faced by women; at 3%, it is deemed to be an insignificant problem compared with the thirteen-fold greater temptation for Christian men. Interestingly, more male churchgoers (43%) than female (34%) think pornography is an issue for men, although there is an even greater difference by age, 62% of the 18-34s citing pornography as a male problem against 25% of the over-65s. Denominationally, members of New Churches (63%) and Pentecostals (48%) are most exercised by the snare of pornography for men, albeit the sub-samples are small. Pornography causes far more angst than alcohol and drugs, the latter combination said by 15% to be a challenge for men and 6% for women.

Source: Online survey of 510 churchgoing Christians in the UK, conducted by ComRes for Premier Christian Media via Cpanel between 14 and 28 September 2012. Full data tables published on 23 October at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_Men_and_Women_Christian_Journey_04Oct2012.pdf

Halloween

There are signs that the commercialization of Halloween, the curious hybrid of paganism and a Christian feast of the dead (All Hallows’ Eve, on 31 October), may have peaked. Despite the best (and hitherto very successful) efforts of the superstore chains to manufacture a Halloween market, its value may have dipped this year. It is anticipated that UK consumers will spend £268 million on Halloween-related products in 2012 (including £78 million on dressing up), which is less than Planet Retail’s estimates of the size of the Halloween market in 2011 (£315 million) and 2010 (£280 million). The biggest spenders on Halloween are younger adults and those with families.

Although 53% of UK adults agree that Halloween is a ‘fun event for kids’, 45% dismiss it as an ‘unwelcome American cultural import’ and 33% fail to see the funny side of trick or treating. Only 23% claim that they will participate in a Halloween activity in 2012, 6% fewer than expect to take part in a Bonfire Night event. In terms of specific Halloween activities, 4% of adults plan to go trick or treating with children, 7% to dress up their children, 6% to dress up themselves, 7% to attend a party, 4% to host a party, and 8% to carve a pumpkin. Pumpkin-carving is forecast to be down significantly in 2012, doubtless because prices of the fruit have risen as a consequence of the poor weather.

Source: Online survey by YouGov among 2,167 UK adults aged 16 and over, undertaken between 1 and 8 October 2012. Part of a business intelligence report on Halloween and Bonfire Night by YouGov’s Sixth Sense arm, which costs £1,750. This is a bit beyond the means of BRIN, so we have been unable to view the full data. However, there was a press release on 24 October about the research, and that is freely available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/x6n5fpfblc/Bonfire%20Night%20Halloween%20press%20release.pdf

Posted in church attendance, Survey news | Tagged 2k Games, ageing, Aliens, Andrew Steptoe, Christian journey, Christianity, church attendance, ComRes, Cpanel, English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, God, Halloween, Institute for Fiscal Studies, James Banks, James Nazroo, NatCen, Opinion Matters, Planet Retail, pornography, Premier Christian Media, psychological well-being, Religious Affiliation, Sixth Sense, UFOs, unidentified flying objects, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, YouGov | Leave a comment

Je suis Charlie and Other News

Personal Values and Other News

Profile of Anglicans and Other News

Religious Census 2011 – What happened to the Christians?

God Trumped by Aliens – and Other News

Recent News

Recent Sources

Archives

Recent Comments

British Religion in Numbers is funded as a British Academy Research Project