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Counting Religion in Britain, December 2018

Posted on December 31, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 39, December 2018 features 20 new sources of British religious statistics. The contents list appears below and a PDF version of the full text can be downloaded from the following link: No 39 December 2018

OPINION POLLS

The Times end-of-year religion poll
Eurobarometer: valuing religion
Understanding religious festivals
Christmas carols
Religious education in schools
Racial bias
Perils of perception, 2018
Islam and British society
Sexual violence

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Faith schools and school choice
Barna’s Pastor Poll
Jewish brain drain
European Union survey of anti-Semitism

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Census of population, England and Wales, 2021

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Marriage law: religious elements in civil marriage
Religious education teachers
Anglican self-identity
Anglican clerical burnout
Violence against Anglican clergy

PEOPLE NEWS

Ben Clements: research grant to survey Catholics

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2018

Posted in church attendance, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, Religious Census, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Andrew Village, Anti-Semitism, Archbishop of Canterbury, Arts and Humanities Research Council, Barna Global, Ben Clements, brain drain, British values, carols, census of population, Child and Family Law Quarterly, Christmas, church attendance, Church of England, Church Times, civil marriage, clergy, ComRes, Daily Telegraph, David Smith, David Voas, discrimination, End Violence against Women Coalition, engagement in Jewish life, ethnicity, Eurobarometer, European Union, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Faith schools, God, Graeme Nixon, hate crime, ICM Unlimited, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Ipsos-MORI, Islam, Islamophobia, Jews, Jo Pearce, Journal of Empirical Theology, Justin Welby, Kantar UK, Leslie Francis, liberalism-conservatism scale, Muslims, National Association of Teachers of Religious Education, National Secular Society, Pastor Poll, Perils of Perception, politics, prayer, primary schools, racial bias, Rebecca Probert, Religions, Religious Affiliation, religious education, Religious Education Council of England and Wales, religious education teachers, religious festivals, Roman Catholics, Royal Holloway University of London, sexual violence, Stephanie Pywell, Stephen Bullivant, Stephen Miller, stress, The Guardian, The Times, Theos, values, violence, Yahoo, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, November 2018

Posted on December 2, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 38, November 2018 features 20 new sources of British religious statistics. The contents list appears below and a PDF version of the full text can be downloaded from the following link: No 38 November 2018

OPINION POLLS

Trust in clergy and priests
Trust in religious leaders and other matters
Clergy as lawmakers
Child sexual abuse
Religion and sex
Church social action
Christmas traditions
Religion in Europe
Anti-Semitism

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Christians making a difference
Church of England social action
Church of England statistics for mission
Church of England digital report
Church of England gender pay gap
Distance to church
Jewish charity

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

National barometer of prejudice

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Anglican church growth
Muslims and education

PEOPLE NEWS

Ceri Peach (1939-2018)

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2018

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Rites of Passage, Survey news | Tagged Aliens, Aly Hawkins, Anti-Semitism, Barna Group, BBC Radio 5 Live, Bill of Rights, British Journal of Sociology of Education, carols, Ceri Peach, charitable giving, Chester-le-Street, child sexual abuse, Christmas traditions, church attendance, church growth, church membership, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, church social action, clergy, CNN, ComRes, conspiracy theories, Constitutional Commission, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Diane Houston, digital evangelism, discrimination, distance to church, Dominic Abrams, equal opportunities, Equality and Human Rights Commission, freedom of religion, FutureFirst, gender pay gap, God, Hannah Swift, higher force, holocaust, Ideal Home Show Christmas, Immigration, Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Ipsos-MORI, Islamophobia, Israel, Jews, Journal of Anglican Studies, laws, Muslims, Nabil Khattab, NatCen Social Research, National Church Institutions, Oxford Mail, Panelbase, Peter Brierley, Pew Research Center, Philip Lockley, Populus, poverty, religious institutions, religious leaders, religious prejudice, rites of passage, Sarah Salisbury, school performance, Scotland, sex, sexual relationship, social action, Social Capital, Social Distance, social media, Survation, Tariq Modood, Tearfund, Theos, trust, truth, Veracity Index, World Jewish Relief, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, August 2018

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 35, August 2018 features 22 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 35 August 2018

OPINION POLLS

Boris Johnson and the burka

The debate over the wearing of the burka/full face-veil in public in Britain has reignited following a colourfully-worded column in the Daily Telegraph by Conservative politician Boris Johnson. Although the former British Foreign Secretary opposed a ban on the burka, as recently introduced in Denmark, he described the garment as ‘oppressive and ridiculous’ and likened Muslims who wore it to ‘letter boxes’ and ‘bank robbers’. His comments caused a great deal of offence and there have been many calls for him to apologize, among them from the Prime Minister. The possibility of a disciplinary investigation of Johnson by the Conservative Party has also been mooted.

In the first test of the public mood on the subject, Sky Data interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,649 British Sky customers by SMS on 8 August 2018. Asked whether Johnson should apologize for his choice of words, the country was divided, 45% saying he should (peaking at 58% of under-35s) and 48% that he should not (peaking at 58% of over-55s), with the remaining 7% undecided. But a clear majority (60%) thought it was not racist to describe women in burkas as looking like letter boxes or bank robbers, with 33% saying it was racist. A similar number (59%, including 69% of over-55s) expressed support for banning burkas in public places, 26% being opposed and 15% undecided. Full data tables are available at:

https://interactive.news.sky.com/BURKAS_TABS_080818.pdf

In another online poll, of 4,673 adult Britons on 8 August 2018, YouGov also discovered the nation was split down the middle about whether Johnson should apologize for the language he had used in his column: 45% thought he should, 44% that he should not, and 11% were unsure. The number opposed to him apologizing was greatest among over-65s (61%), Conservatives (65%), and UKIP voters (91%). Full data tables are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/bbb6679f-9aed-11e8-977e-859e8ee4b8db

A third survey was undertaken by ComRes for the Sunday Express among an online sample of 1,045 adults aged 18 and over on 10 August 2018. They were asked whether they thought Johnson should be disciplined (implicitly by the Conservative Party) for his comments. Two-fifths believed that he should be, including the majority of younger age groups (62% of under-25s and 55% of those aged 25-34) and one-half of Londoners. Among the entire sample, 53% opposed the imposition of discipline on Johnson, peaking at 77% of over-65s, while 7% expressed no opinion or preferred not to say. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Sunday-Express-Boris-and-Brexit-Results-August-2018.pdf

Deltapoll brought up the rear with an online poll of 1,904 Britons for the Sun on Sunday on 14-16 August 2018. Asked about Boris Johnson’s comments on the burka, 23% considered them offensive and that he should apologize for them; 28% judged that they were ‘over the top’ and that he should apologize for that but not for starting a debate on a sensitive issue; 36% said that the remarks were correct and Johnson had nothing to apologize for; and 12% were undecided. The pro-Boris camp was strongest among Conservatives (54%), ‘Leave’ voters in the 2016 referendum on European Union membership (60%), and over-65s (61%). Full data tables are available at:

http://www.deltapoll.co.uk/polls/sunonsunday-augst18

Religious prejudice in political parties

On behalf of The Observer, Opinium Research broadened the agenda to perceptions of religious prejudice in the two main political parties, asking 2,003 members of its UK online panel on 14-17 August 2018 whether the Conservative Party and Labour Party were prejudiced against six groups: British Christians, British Jews, British Muslims, British Hindus, British Sikhs, and atheists. In the case of the Conservative Party, definite or probable prejudice was said to range from 13% (against Christians) to 27% (against Muslims); for the Labour Party, the range was from 11% (against atheists) to 36% (against Jews). The Conservative Party was believed to tolerate Islamophobia by 26% and the Labour Party to tolerate anti-Semitism by 34%. Boris Johnson was regarded as Islamophobic by 26% and Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party leader, as anti-Semitic by 32%. Full data tables are available at:

https://www.opinium.co.uk/political-polling-14th-august-2018/

BMG Research also asked its own sample, of 1,481 adult Britons interviewed online for The Independent on 6-10 August 2018, whether Corbyn was anti-Semitic and found 27% in agreement, with 23% considering the Labour Party itself as institutionally anti-Semitic. Three-fifths judged that allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party had been handled badly. Respondents were additionally given a list of four actions (which had surfaced in debates about Labour and anti-Semitism) and invited to say whether each was anti-Semitic or not. Accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country was labelled as anti-Semitic by 26%; claiming that Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour by 38%; requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations by 36%; and comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis by 47%. For all questions in this survey, approximately one-third were recorded as don’t knows. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/labour-handling-anti-semitism-allegations/

The Labour and anti-Semitism controversy took a new turn when it was revealed that in 2014 Corbyn had taken part in a wreath-laying ceremony in Tunisia for people who had been accused of involvement in the terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. This dimension was explored by YouGov in an online poll of 1,640 Britons on 14-15 August 2018. Although three-quarters of the public were aware of the story, only one-quarter admitted to following it closely. Of those who were aware, 44% assessed that Corbyn had not given an honest account of his attendance at the ceremony and the same number believed that he probably had taken part in laying a wreath on the graves of those responsible for organizing the 1972 attack. The whole affair has tarnished Corbyn’s reputation somewhat, 16% of respondents who were aware of the story now thinking worse of him in the light of it, albeit a plurality of 47% already held a negative opinion of the Labour leader in any case. For a blog on the survey, with links to full data tables, see:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/08/16/has-jeremy-corbyn-wreath-laying-controversy-change/

Deltapoll’s survey for the Sun on Sunday, noted above (with link), also covered attitudes to anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. One-half the sample felt that the party had a problem with anti-Semitism, 28% agreeing that it was riddled with people holding anti-Semitic views and 22% that there were pockets of anti-Semitism, while 36% judged Jeremy Corbyn to be personally anti-Semitic. One-quarter of respondents believed that anti-Semitism was more common in the Labour Party than in other political parties, but two-fifths were unable to say.

Lifestyle

On behalf of the BBC Asian Network, ComRes has surveyed two samples on lifestyle issues, including in relation to religion. The first sample was of 2,001 British adults, interviewed online on 13-15 July 2018. The second was of 2,026 British Asians, interviewed by telephone during July 2018. Most questions were put to both samples. Full data tables, with breaks by religious affiliation for British Asians (including 1,021 Muslims, 475 Hindus, 189 Sikhs, and 341 others), can be accessed via the links at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/bbc-asian-network-lifestyle-survey-july-2018/

The omnibus survey of British adults was mainly intended to provide comparisons with the replies of British Asians but is also of intrinsic interest in demonstrating the relatively low significance attached to religion by a cross-section of the population. Given 12 options for helping to define personal identity, and invited to select the two most important to them, just 7% chose religion. Asked how important religion was to them, 72% replied that it was not important against 26% claiming it to be important, and with a majority (52%) stating it was not at all important. Three-quarters of Britons agreed with the proposition that religion is a cause of division and conflict in society. Low saliency of religion was also demonstrated by the fact that 90% of Britons would not be offended if a family member had a relationship with someone of a different faith, while 73% anticipated that neither they nor their family would be offended if a family member married someone of a different religion.

More than one-third (36%) of British Asians selected religion as an important factor in helping define their identity, greater even than nationality (33%) or ethnicity (22%). Almost three in four (73%) indicated that religion was very or fairly important to them personally, including 89% of Muslims, and 86% that it was important to their family (94% among Muslims). However, 48% of British Asians and majorities of Hindus and Sikhs acknowledged that religion is a cause of division and conflict. On social issues, Muslims were more conservative than Hindus or Sikhs, particularly when it came to same-sex relationships, which 48% of Muslims declared not to be morally acceptable, with a further 26% not revealing their hand. But there were no differences between the three religious groups when it came to expressing strong confidence in Britain as a place where they could fulfil their aspirations and ambitions.

Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day is the three-minute ‘pause’ in Today, BBC Radio 4’s prime-time flagship morning news and current affairs programme, when invited guests reflect on a topical issue from a religious standpoint. Reform of the slot, to encompass non-religious voices, has long been an ambition of the National Secular Society (NSS), which has recently released partial results of a poll it commissioned from Censuswide with an online sample of 2,003 UK adults on 18-21 May 2018. Asked whether Thought for the Day should still be broadcast by the BBC, 36% of respondents agreed that it should (including 41% of over-55s) and 10% disagreed, but the majority (54%) neither agreed nor disagreed, perhaps indicating indifference or lack of knowledge. Less than one-fifth (18%) considered that Thought for the Day should always feature religious content, while 32% disagreed (peaking at 40% in the South-West and among adults aged 45-54) and 50% were undecided. Full data tables have been supplied to BRIN by NSS and the NSS press release can be found at:

https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2018/07/public-backs-reform-of-thought-for-the-day-poll-finds

Criticizing Christianity

One-quarter (27%) of 5,525 adult Britons interviewed by YouGov via app on 14 August 2018 felt it to be more acceptable to criticize Christianity (and Christians) than other religions in the UK, UKIP voters (35%), men (34%), and under-25s (33%) being especially likely to say so. By contrast, just 7% deemed it less acceptable, and the plurality (49%) suggested that it was neither more nor less acceptable to criticize Christianity than other religions. The remainder of the respondents (17%) were undecided. Data tables are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/79ae70be-9fa7-11e8-8abf-cd74e8917bdd

Volunteering

Regular worshippers volunteer twice as often as those who are not regular worshippers, but the proportion has dropped for both groups between 2012 and 2017, according to a recent report by nfpSynergy on Volunteering Trend Data. In 2012, 40% of regular worshippers and 19% of other Britons claimed to have given time as a volunteer during the previous three months, either to a charity or other organization or in their local community. In 2017, the figures were 37% and 15%, respectively. Data derive from the Charity Awareness Monitor, for which 2,000 adults aged 16 and over were interviewed in each year. The report can be downloaded (after registration) from:

https://nfpsynergy.net/press-release/volunteering-trend-data

Uniformed organizations

On behalf of the Youth United Foundation, a charitable consortium of 11 uniformed organizations, ComRes has recently completed a report on Social Integration: The Role of Uniformed Youth Groups. The quantitative evidence base was an online survey of 2,015 young people aged 11-18, comprising 569 members and 1,426 non-members of uniformed organizations, between 21 November and 19 December 2017. One of the principal findings was that uniformed youth were significantly more likely than non-uniformed youth to mix with people who were different from them, including persons of a different religion, and to regard it as important so to do. They were also more likely to participate regularly in social action. The report, which includes a profile of uniformed and non-uniformed youth by religion (Christian, non-Christian, unsure, and atheist) and a breakdown by religion of reasons for joining or not joining a uniformed youth group, can be found at:

http://yuf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/FULL-REPORT-COMJ6149-Social-Integration-Youth-Groups-Report-0106-WEB.pdf

Young people and immigration

The Ipsos MORI Young People in Scotland Survey, 2017, for which 1,781 state secondary school pupils were interviewed online between September and November, included a module on attitudes to immigration, which was commissioned by the Scottish Government. The responses were disaggregated by religious affiliation, albeit only three categories were deemed statistically viable: no religion (professed by 57% of the sample), Christian (24%), and non-Christian (4%). In general, there were few differences of opinion between religious nones and Christians, but non-Christians tended to have outlier views, possibly a function of small cell size (only 101 cases). On the specific matter of whether Scotland would lose its identity if more Muslims came to live there, 28% of all young people agreed and 42% disagreed. A report on the module is available at:

https://www.gov.scot/Resource/0053/00539137.pdf

Scottish religion

Religion appears to be losing its hold over once God-fearing Scotland, according to a poll by Survation for the Humanist Society Scotland (HSS), for which 1,002 Scottish adults were interviewed online on 5-10 July 2018. Although 61% of respondents said they had been raised in some religion, the majority (59%, including 69% of under-45s) currently described themselves as not religious, with 37% being Christian (almost three-fifths of whom were Church of Scotland and one-fifth Catholic) and 4% non-Christian. Seven in ten never or hardly ever prayed outside religious services and three-quarters had never or hardly ever attended such services during the past year, apart from for rites of passage. Less than one-third (31%) believed in God while 49% did not; 34% believed and 51% disbelieved in life after death; 33% believed and 56% disbelieved in heaven; 20% believed and 68% disbelieved in hell; 21% believed and 67% disbelieved in divine miracles; 21% believed and 63% disbelieved in reincarnation; 19% believed and 68% disbelieved in supernatural powers of deceased ancestors; 29% believed and 60% disbelieved in angels; 25% believed and 65% disbelieved in demons or evil spirits; and 18% believed and 71% disbelieved in a judgement day. Full data tables are available at:

https://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Tables-Humanist-Society-Scotland.pdf

HSS has issued a 12-page report on the poll: Fraser Sutherland, Beliefs in Scotland, 2018: A Study of Religion and Belief in Scotland, available to download at:

https://www.humanism.scot/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Beliefs-in-Scotland-e2018.pdf

Dating apps and religion

On behalf of the BBC’s Newsbeat programme, YouGov conducted an online poll among 2,066 16- to 34-year-olds in the UK between 3 and 10 April 2018 to ascertain their views on dating apps/websites. Interviewees were asked about the importance of nine attributes when deciding whether or not to meet up with somebody they had met through a dating app/website. One of the attributes was the religion of the prospective friend, which 11% said would be very important to their decision, 25% fairly important, 35% not very important, 21% not at all important, with 8% undecided or preferring not to say. Full data tables can be found at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/mv1fnnhj8v/YG-Archive-030318-BBCNewsbeat.pdf

Asian elephants

On 22-24 June 2018, Populus conducted an online survey into the attitudes of 2,065 adult Britons towards the role played by Asian elephants in tourism in India and South-East Asia. One of the questions concerned the taking of elephants from the wild for use in temples in connection with religious services or festivals. The overwhelming majority (88%) of respondents thought this practice was not justified, with only 6% approving it. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/polls/

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Church of England ministry

The Church of England has published two new annual reports on its ministry. The 2018 report on vocations highlights: growth in the overall number of recommended candidates; growth in the number of young candidates (under 32 years); and growth in the number of female candidates, who are now in the majority. The 56-page Ministry Statistics, 2017 presents a wealth of information in 23 figures and 25 tables. Of the 20,040 active ordained clergy in the Church of England, 39% are stipendiary (92% of whom are full-time and 28% women), 15% are self-supporting, 36% (mostly retired) have permission to officiate, 5% are chaplains, and 5% fill other roles. The reports can be accessed via the news release at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/news/growing-numbers-young-people-train-priests

Humanists UK

Humanists UK, formerly the British Humanist Association (BHA), announced on 8 August 2018 that it had reached a new milestone in its history: 70,000 members and supporters across the UK and crown dependencies. The BHA was formed in 1963 as a common front for the Rationalist Press Association and the Ethical Union but grew very slowly in its early years, having only 3,000 members in 1970.

Islamophobic incidents

Beyond the Incident: Outcomes for Victims of Anti-Muslim Prejudice is the title of Tell MAMA’s annual report for 2017. It documents 1,201 verified incidents of anti-Muslim hatred in the UK during the year, seven in ten of them taking place offline, at street level, and the remainder online, generally on Twitter or Facebook. Most victims were women but most perpetrators were men. The report is available at:

https://tellmamauk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Tell-MAMA-Report-2017.pdf

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

England and Wales census of population, 2021

In the July 2018 edition of Counting Religion in Britain, we reported on proposals to enable Sikhs to be recorded as an ethnic as well as a religious group in the 2021 census of population of England and Wales. There is a similar proposal for Jews to be considered in the same way, by adding a ‘Jewish’ tick-box to the response options for the question on ethnicity. However, senior Jewish community figures, including from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, are understood to have expressed doubts about the wisdom of doing so, fearing it would impact negatively on comparability with data obtained from the 2001 and 2011 censuses in respect of the question on religion. By contrast, Jewish leaders in Scotland (where the census is arranged by the National Records of Scotland) are inclined to favour the proposal, in order to capture thousands of ‘missing Jews’. The issue has been covered by the Jewish News at:

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/exclusive-ethnicity-option-on-next-census-could-show-400000-jews-in-uk/

Scotland census of population, 2021

The National Records of Scotland have initiated a consultation, which remains live until 7 September 2018, about proposed changes in the way in which outputs will be created from the religion question in the census, specifically disaggregation by denominations. For more information, and a link to the SurveyMonkey website for the provision of feedback, go to:

http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/religion-data-and-outputs-survey

Religious Studies GCE A Levels

Following years of steady advance, Religious Studies (RS) is now losing ground as a subject in the wake of the ongoing reforms of GCE A Level examinations and of secondary education more generally. According to the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), there were 20,527 entries for GCE A Level RS in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in the June 2018 examinations, representing a decline of 21.3% on the 2017 total, compared with a decrease of 2.0% for all subjects and of 3.5% in the population of 18-year-olds. RS candidates were predominantly female, at 71.6%, the mean for all subjects being 55.0%. The proportion of RS examinees securing a pass at A* to C grade was 78.8%, against 77.0% for all subjects, although there were fewer than average RS successes at A*. Additionally, there were 8,454 entries for GCE AS Level RS, 55.6% less than in 2017. Full provisional tables for both A and AS Level, showing breaks by gender and grade within home nation, are available, together with an important note and press release outlining changes affecting comparability of results year-on-year, at:

https://www.jcq.org.uk/examination-results/a-levels/2018

Religious Studies GCSE

GCSE Level RS is also in decline, according to results released by the JCQ the week after the A Level data were published. There were 253,618 entries for the full course GCSE in RS in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in June 2018, a decrease of 10.1% on June 2017, compared with an increase of 0.2% in entries for all subjects (notwithstanding a fall of 2.7% in the 16-year-old population). A much smaller proportion of candidates for GCSE RS was female (54.1%) than for GCE A Level RS. The cumulative number obtaining a pass between A* and C for the full course GCSE RS was 72.0%, five points more than the average across all subjects. The short course in GCSE RS (traditionally equivalent to half a GCSE) is in freefall, with 34.4% fewer candidates in June 2018 than in June 2017, in line with the progressive disappearance of short courses generally. Full tables, again with an important note and press release outlining changes in the examination system affecting year-on-year comparability, are available at:

https://www.jcq.org.uk/examination-results/gcses/2018

School admissions

The vexed issue of the inclusivity of church schools is likely to be reopened following publication of a new research report commissioned by the Department for Education and covering admissions to secondary schools in England: Matthew Weldon, Secondary School Choice and Selection: Insights from New National Preferences Data. In the case of church schools, which determine their own admissions policies (within government parameters), it highlighted that children from black families are significantly less likely to be admitted to a church school to which they apply than those from a similar white family living nearby; and that children from disadvantaged backgrounds (Pupil Premium-eligible) are significantly less likely to be admitted into a church school than a non-Pupil Premium child living nearby. The report is available at:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/732881/Secondary_school_choice_and_selection.pdf

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Populism and the Church of England

Self-identification as Church of England was an important independent predictor of voting ‘Leave’ in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union, according to Greg Smith and Linda Woodhead, ‘Religion and Brexit: Populism and the Church of England’, Religion, State, and Society, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2018, pp. 206-23. This finding, which held good even when controlling for age and region, principally derived from an exit poll commissioned by Woodhead from YouGov in June 2016 but was supplemented by analyses from an earlier (and thus pre-referendum) YouGov study, in June 2013, also commissioned by Woodhead. Comparisons are drawn with the results of Smith’s Spring 2016 survey of an opportunity sample of self-defined UK evangelicals, who inclined to a ‘Remain’ position, had a more internationalist outlook, and were decidedly not in the populist mould of US evangelicals who proved such strong supporters of Donald Trump at the 2016 US presidential election. Possible explanations for this pattern and UK-US differences are advanced, and reasons are given why Brexit-backing Anglicans do not qualify to be described as populist. Access options to the article are outlined at:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09637494.2018.1483861

Church of Scotland statistics

The extent and nature of the often strained relationship between religious statistics on the one hand and religious mission and planning on the other are explored by Allan Vint in his ‘Statistics, Planning, and the Mission of the Church of Scotland: A Critical Examination of Quantitative Data as a Resource for National, Regional, and Local Engagement’ (PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2018, 309pp., including 28 tables and 25 graphs). The introductory chapters consider the rationale and background to the collection and deployment of church statistics from historical, theological, and ecclesiological/ missiological standpoints. The core original research is concentrated in chapters 5-9 and in the 14 supporting appendices, commencing with a presentation of the findings of three online surveys which the author conducted among local leaders and ministers of the Kirk, in 2013, 2015, and 2017. There then follow three case studies of the Church of Scotland’s recent engagement with statistics, one for each of its three tiers of governance: national (the General Assembly and its councils and committee); regional (Presbytery of Glasgow); and local (Kilsyth Anderson Church). The conclusion is that ‘there is currently a significant deficit in fully appropriating and deploying statistical data for church planning and mission’ in the Church of Scotland, and 28 recommendations are made for improvement. The thesis can be downloaded from:

http://theses.gla.ac.uk/9113/1/2017VintPhD.pdf

Muslims in politics

The challenges which political parties face in seeking to incorporate ethnic and religious minorities are exemplified in Rafaela Dancygier’s Dilemmas of Inclusion: Muslims in European Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017, xiv + 242pp., ISBN: 9780691172606, £24, paperback). She emphasizes the trade-offs which may arise when parties reach out to newer groups who are disliked by a set of existing voters and demonstrates how their short-term inclusion strategies can undercut their ideological coherence and electoral performance in the long run. Her research employs mixed methods but the core source is a database of the background of over 80,000 local politicians in the most populous municipalities of Austria, Belgium, England (68 municipalities), and Germany during the ‘long noughties’ (elected politicians in all four countries together with unsuccessful candidates in Belgium and England). Muslim (and other religious minority) politicians were identified through an onomastic approach, by their first and last names, additionally using the Onomap software program in the case of the English sample. The book’s webpage is at:

https://press.princeton.edu/titles/11189.html

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2018

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Counting Religion in Britain, July 2018

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 34, July 2018 features 18 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 34 July 2018

OPINION POLLS

Attitudes to Christians and Christianity

In connection with the recent publication of Krish Kandiah’s Fatheism: Why Christians and Atheists Have More in Common than You Think (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2018), Home for Good and Hodder Faith commissioned ComRes to undertake an online survey of attitudes to Christians and Christianity among 4,087 adult Britons on 2-6 March 2018. The core of the poll comprised ten statements to which respondents were invited to indicate agreement or disagreement. Topline results are as follows, revealing a very large number choosing the neither agree nor disagree option (perhaps reflecting a lack of engagement with, or knowledge of, the subject matter):

‘I believe that Christians are a negative force in society’ – agree 10%, disagree 51%, neither 39%
‘When I meet somebody new, I assume that they hold no religious beliefs unless they tell me otherwise’ – agree 39%, disagree 17%, neither 44%
‘When I know that someone is a Christian, I find it harder to talk to them’ – agree 9%, disagree 65%, neither 27%
‘I would be more likely to trust a person with no religious beliefs than a Christian’ – agree 12%, disagree 45%, neither 43%
‘I would be cautious about leaving my children in the care of a Christian’ – agree 7%, disagree 62%, neither 31%
‘I would have more fun socialising with a Christian than an atheist’ – agree 7%, disagree 37%, neither 56%
‘I think that being an atheist or non-religious is more normal than being a Christian’ – agree 28%, disagree 26%, neither 46%
‘Overall, I have had a positive experience of Christians and Christianity’ – agree 44%, disagree 15%, neither 41%
‘I feel comfortable discussing my religious beliefs with people at work’ – agree 46%, disagree 16%, neither 39%
‘Christians are more tolerant than other people’ – agree 19%, disagree 32%, neither 49%

Full data tables, including breaks by standard demographics and frequency of church attendance (but not by religious affiliation), can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/home-for-good-and-hodder-faith-faitheism-survey/

Religion and violence

ComRes was commissioned by Theos to run another set of attitude statements, this time exploring the relationship between religion and violence, among an online sample of 2,042 Britons on 6-7 June 2018. Topline results were as follows:

‘Religions are inherently violent’ – agree 32%, disagree 55%, don’t know 13%
‘The teachings of religion are essentially peaceful’ – agree 61%, disagree 27%, don’t know 12%
‘Most religious violence is really about things like politics, socio-economic issues, or Western foreign policy’ – agree 64%, disagree 21%, don’t know 15%
‘It is religious extremists, not religions themselves, that are violent’ – agree 81%, disagree 12%, don’t know 7%
‘Most of the wars in world history have been caused by religions’ – agree 70%, disagree 21%, don’t know 9%
‘On balance, religions are much more peaceful today than violent’ – agree 40%, disagree 44%, don’t know 16%
‘The world would be a more peaceful place if no one was religious’ – agree 47%, disagree 38%, don’t know 16%
‘The world would be a more peaceful place if no one believed in God’ – agree 35%, disagree 45%, don’t know 19%

Opinion on the subject was thus divided, and dependent on question-wording. Higher levels of negativity would doubtless have been on display had the topic of Islam and violence been explicitly raised. Data tables, including breaks by religious affiliation, can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/theos-religion-and-violence-survey/

The poll findings are touched upon in Nick Spencer’s foreword to a new Theos report by Robin Gill on Killing in the Name of God: Addressing Religiously Inspired Violence, which was published on 16 July 2018 and can be downloaded from:

https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/Killing-in-the-Name-of-God.pdf

Pride in the Church

Asked which of 13 British institutions they had pride in, just 33% of 1,693 adults interviewed online by YouGov on 28-29 June 2018 said they were very (8%) or fairly (25%) proud of the Church of England/Church in Wales/Church of Scotland, only the House of Commons (28%) and House of Lords (21%) being ranked lower. The institutions in which most pride was taken were the fire brigade (91%), National Health Service (87%), and armed forces (83%). Half the sample claimed they were not very (24%) or not at all (26%) proud of the ‘national’ Churches, including three-fifths of Scots. Full data tables are accessible via the link in the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/07/04/nhs-british-institution-brits-are-second-most-prou/

Religious affiliation

Representative samples of adult Britons drawn from an online panel are regularly asked by Populus ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ An aggregation of the responses to this question for 27,000 individuals across 13 polls between January and June 2018 revealed that 49.3% self-identified as Christians, 6.1% as non-Christians, 42.9% as of no religion, and 1.7% preferring not to say. Compared with the pooled sample for the period July to December 2017, there were 1.4% fewer Christians and 1.4% more religious nones. Weighted data were extracted from sundry tables on the Populus website.

Godparents

One-half of adults have no godparents, presumably because they have not been baptised, according to an online poll by YouGov of 4,886 Britons on 13 July 2018. The proportion was highest in Scotland (56%) and among Scottish National Party voters (62%). An additional 17% of respondents did not know whether they had any godparents or not, including 21% of both men and over-65s. Data tables are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/8701aa4a-867c-11e8-80e4-c9623beb00b4

Human rights

Freedom of thought and religion is provided for in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In a recent Ipsos Global Advisor survey, conducted among online samples of adults in 28 countries between 25 May and 8 June 2018, 56% of 1,000 Britons aged 16-64 correctly identified this particular right as being covered in the Declaration. However, when asked to prioritize the four or five which were most important to protect from a list of 28 possible human rights, just 20% of Britons selected freedom of thought and religion, five points fewer than the multinational mean, with freedom from discrimination the top priority in Britain (on 33%). Given a list of 16 groups needing most protection with regard to their human rights, religious minorities were ranked twelfth in importance in Britain (on 21%). Topline results only are available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/britons-split-whether-human-rights-abuse-uk-problem

Anti-Semitism and the Labour Party

The controversy surrounding anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has flared up yet again. In a further test of public opinion, the Jewish News and Jewish Leadership Council commissioned ComRes to poll an online sample of 2,036 Britons on 20-22 July 2018. This revealed that 34% of the entire electorate and even 16% of Labour voters believe the party has a serious problem with anti-Semitism; and that similar proportions, respectively 31% and 13%, considered the former Labour minister Margaret Hodge had been right to call party leader Jeremy Corbyn anti-Semitic. Almost half (48%) of all adults and 29% of Labour voters agreed with the proposition that Corbyn is letting the Labour Party down by failing to tackle anti-Semitism in its midst. More generally, 32% judged anti-Semitism to be on the rise in the UK, while 25% disagreed and 43% were undecided. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/jewish-news-the-labour-party-and-anti-semitism/

Coverage of the survey in the Jewish News can be read at:

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/exclusive-third-of-labour-voters-say-corbyn-letting-down-party-on-anti-semitism/

Islamism

One-quarter of 1,668 Britons questioned by YouGov for the Sunday Times on 19-20 July 2018 said that they would be very (13%) or fairly (11%) likely to vote for a new political party on the far right which was committed to opposing Islamism and immigration and supporting Brexit. The proportion rose to 38% with Conservatives and 44% among those who had voted ‘leave’ in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union. Almost three-fifths of the entire sample declared they would be unlikely to vote for a new party with this sort of agenda and 18% were undecided. Full data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/vxuhlu27eg/SundayTimesResults_180720_for_web.pdf

Islamic State

The British government recently became embroiled in controversy when it became known that it was willing to waive its longstanding opposition to the use of capital punishment by foreign governments in the cases of Alexanda Kotey and Shafee el-Sheikh. They are two alleged members of an Islamic State (ISIS) cell which carried out the torture and murder of western hostages in the former ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Originally from Britain, they have been stripped of their British citizenship and are due to face trial in the United States, where the death penalty is still in operation. In an online YouGov poll of 7,177 adult Britons on 24 July 2018, 62% of respondents agreed that the British government had been right to make an exception to its policy and to allow the pair to be prosecuted in a jurisdiction where the death penalty could be imposed. The proportion peaked at 82% among Conservatives and 89% of UKIP voters. Only 20% of the whole sample opposed the government’s course of action, while 18% were undecided. Full results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/9db2aa33-8f1f-11e8-b93a-d77d9dded8f6/question/00cfbd71-8f20-11e8-bcee-bbcd6aeec1e0/social

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Methodist Statistics for Mission

The Methodist Church has an unbroken record of annual statistical returns stretching back to 1766. The series, known officially as Statistics for Mission and unofficially as the October count, has been a real boon to church historians and statisticians as well as the envy of many other denominations. However, the arrangements are now set to change. For the Methodist Conference, meeting in Nottingham between 28 June and 5 July 2018, accepted Memorial M13 from the Newcastle-upon-Tyne District Synod to the effect that the burden of data collection should be reduced significantly (‘only minimal data should be collected’ in future, Conference determined, comprising membership numbers and average attendance) and the effort freed up as a result redirected towards missional activity. Methodist Council has been instructed by Conference to operationalize this new policy, which will transitionally mean much lighter reporting by Methodist circuits and districts in the connexional years 2018/19 and 2019/20. For the text of the memorial and the Conference’s reply, go to:

http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/8217/conf-2018-memorials-to-the-conference.pdf

Anti-Semitic incidents

The Community Security Trust recorded 727 anti-Semitic incidents across the UK during the first half of 2018, the second highest total for a January-June period since statistics were first kept, albeit 8% fewer than between January and June 2017. With only two exceptions, the monthly total of incidents has exceeded 100 in every month since April 2016. The 16-page report on Antisemitic Incidents, January-June 2018 can be downloaded from:

https://cst.org.uk/public/data/file/e/5/Incidents%20Report%20January-June%202018.pdf

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

LGBT people

The Government has published the results of its national LGBT survey, completed online in July-September 2017, and associated action plan. The survey attracted responses from a self-selecting sample of 108,100 adults aged 16 and over living in the UK who self-identified as having a minority sexual orientation or gender identity or as intersex, the largest groups being gay or lesbian (61%) and bisexual (26%). Religion or belief was one of the background characteristics investigated, 69% of interviewees claiming to have none, with 18% professing to be Christians. Further information, including a 304-page research report with some religious breaks (for example, in respect of having undergone or been offered sexual ‘conversion’ therapy), is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-lgbt-survey-summary-report

Prisoners

A further breakdown by religion and sex of the prison population of England and Wales has been published by the Ministry of Justice. The proportion of prisoners professing no religion is currently 30.7% overall, compared with 30.8% twelve months previously, and with no significant gender difference. Full details are available in table 1.5 of the return of the prison population for 30 June 2018 at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/offender-management-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2018

Ethnic Sikhs

According to a report in The Times for 23 July 2018 (p. 17), the campaign to have Sikhs recognized as an ethnic as well as a religious group in the 2021 census of England and Wales has moved a step closer to success, following an overwhelmingly positive response to the idea in a postal survey of gurdwaras organized by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs. This expression of support is felt likely to satisfy the requirement of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for evidence of the ‘public acceptability’ of the proposal, the last major hurdle to be cleared before ONS is able to make a formal recommendation to effect the change.

However, the newspaper’s report prompted several letters to the editor of The Times from Sikhs objecting to the recognition of Sikhs as an ethnic group (24 July 2018, p. 24, 25 July 2018, p. 24). One of the letters, from Lord Singh of Wimbledon, observed that most Sikhs in the UK today are British-born and native English-speakers and thus would not meet the criteria for ethnic Sikhs. Another alleged that British gurdwaras are largely controlled by Sikh separatists, who initiated the campaign in the first place. In reply (27 July 2018, p. 24), Jagtar Singh, Secretary General of the Sikh Council UK, reiterated that there was widespread endorsement of the idea among Sikhs, adding that 83,000 of them had written in their ethnicity as Sikh under the ‘other’ category at the 2011 census.

ONS is also considering offering Jews the opportunity to record themselves as an ethnic group in the 2021 census.

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Secularization and economic change

Economic growth can be ruled out as a cause of secularization, a new study suggests. Rather, rises in secularization and, more particularly, tolerance for individual rights have been identified as predictors of economic growth (as measured by GDP) in the twentieth century by Damian Ruck, Alexander Bentley, and Daniel Lawson in ‘Religious Change Preceded Economic Change in the 20th Century’, Science Advances, Vol. 4, No. 7, 18 July 2018, eaar8680. Data derive from a birth cohort analysis of the post-1990 waves of the World Values Surveys and European Values Surveys for 109 nations, including Great Britain. The article, and associated resources, can be freely downloaded at:

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/7/eaar8680

Ruck has also blogged about the research on The Conversation at:

https://theconversation.com/religious-decline-was-the-key-to-economic-development-in-the-20th-century-100279

British Social Attitudes Survey, 2017

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) has published British Social Attitudes, 35, 2018 Edition, based on face-to-face interviews with a probability sample of 3,988 adults aged 18 and over between July and November 2017. The report itself, comprising a series of chapters of expert analysis of public opinion on various social and political issues, contains nothing of explicitly religious interest but clarifies that the survey included religion as one of its standard background variables. It can be read at:

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-35/key-findings.aspx

The questionnaire is available at:

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39277/bsa-35-questionnaire.pdf

PEOPLE NEWS

Fiona Tweedie

Revd Dr Fiona Tweedie, part-time Mission Statistics Coordinator for the Church of Scotland since 2014, has now assumed an additional part-time role as Research Associate at the Church Army Research Unit in Sheffield. Her undergraduate degree was in computer science and statistics, and, prior to becoming the Church of Scotland’s first Ordained Local Minister in 2011, she was a lecturer in statistics at the University of Glasgow (1996-2001) and University of Edinburgh (2001-05).

David John Bartholomew

The October 2017 edition of Counting Religion in Britain noted the death of Professor Bartholomew earlier that month. Celia Swan and Martin Knott have now contributed a fuller-length obituary in Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, Vol. 181, No. 3, June 2018, pp. 907-9. Access options are outlined at:

https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rssa.12368

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2018

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious Census, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Alexanda Kotey, Alexander Bentley, anti-Semitic incidents, Anti-Semitism, British Social Attitudes Surveys, capital punishment, Christianity, Christians, Church in Wales, Church of England, Church of Scotland, Community Security Trust, ComRes, Damian Ruck, Daniel Lawson, David Bartholomew, economic change, ethnicity, European Values Surveys, Fiona Tweedie, freedom of religion, godparents, Hodder Faith, Home for Good, human rights, Ipsos Global Advisor, Ipsos-MORI, ISIS, Islamic State, Islamism, Jeremy Corbyn, Jewish Leadership Council, Jewish News, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Labour Party, LGBT people, Methodist Church, Methodist Statistics for Mission, Ministry of Justice, NatCen, Nick Spencer, Office for National Statistics, politics, Populus, pride, prisoners, Religious Affiliation, religious census, religious minorities, religious prejudice, religious violence, Robin Gill, Science Advances, secularization, Shafee el-Sheikh, Sikhism, Sunday Times, The Conversation, The Times, Theos, United States, World Values Surveys, YouGov | 1 Comment

Counting Religion in Britain, April 2018

Posted on May 2, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 31, April 2018 features 20 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 31 April 2018

OPINION POLLS

Religious divisions

The gulf between people of different religions is second only to that between immigrants and natives as a cause of tension in society, according to the 1,000 adults aged 16-64 interviewed online by Ipsos MORI for the BBC in late January and early February 2018. Almost half (47%) regarded inter-religious differences as a source of societal friction in Britain, 20 points more than the 27-nation mean and only exceeded in Belgium and India. Moreover, 11% of Britons agreed that mixing with people from other religions created conflict, with a further 30% suggesting that it sometimes led to misunderstandings, the combined figure not far short of the 46% thinking it produced mutual understanding and respect. A hard core of 7% in Britain did not trust persons from a different religion to their own. Topline results for all nations are at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/bbc-global-survey-world-divided

Most admired men

In its latest annual multinational poll of the most admired men and women, conducted online in early 2018, the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis emerged as, respectively, the fourth and eleventh most admired men among the sample of adult Britons, with scores of 4.1% and 2.8%. The list was headed by David Attenborough (16.6%), Barack Obama (12.3%), and the late Stephen Hawking (9.2%). Globally, across the 35 nations surveyed, the Dalai Lama was ranked the seventh most admired man (3.9%) and Pope Francis sixteenth (2.2%). More details are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/04/11/worlds-most-admired-2018/

Religion in Scotland

On behalf of the Sunday Times (Scotland), Panelbase has conducted one of the most detailed national cross-sectional surveys of religion in contemporary Scotland for many years. Online interviews were completed with 1,037 adults resident in Scotland between 23 and 28 March 2018. Questions covered three areas: personal religion; perceptions of change in the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis; and attitudes to the respect shown to major religions in Scotland and personal experience of religious prejudice. The proportion belonging to no religion was 46%, with Church of Scotland adherents numbering 30% and Roman Catholics 11%. Apart from rites of passage, two-thirds last attended a religious service over a year ago (31%) or have never or practically never done so (35%). Just one-quarter believed that Jesus Christ was a real person who died and came back to life and was the Son of God, a plurality of 47% disbelieving and 24% undecided. With regard to Pope Francis, the majority (52%) did not know whether he has moved the Roman Catholic Church in new directions or maintained its traditional positions, the remainder being evenly split between the two options. However, only minorities felt the Church during his pontificate had: become more accepting (32%) and more open (28%); more hospitable to homosexuality (22%), artificial contraception (21%), abortion (12%), and married priests (19%); and got tougher with abusers (23%). One-third of Scots considered that Islam is shown too much respect, with one-quarter thinking that Christianity receives too little. Nine in ten had not experienced religious prejudice or abuse in the past five years. Two articles derived from the survey were published in the Sunday Times (Scotland) on 1 April 2018 (pp. 1-2 and 5) and full data tables are available at:

https://www.drg.global/wp-content/uploads/W7181w15fulltablesforpublication090418.pdf

Christian giving

The Christian Opinion Panel: Giving Survey is a 40-page report from Colchester-based TMH Media, derived from an online poll which it commissioned in October 2017 and answered by 546 British Christians aged 15 and over who were viewers of Christian television channels. Exact details of survey agency and sampling methodology are uncertain and the sample seems potentially demographically skewed. Certainly, compared to the known profile of all churchgoers, respondents were disproportionately young (only 5% were over 65!), educated to degree level, from black and minority ethnic backgrounds (there were almost as many Africans as white British), and resident in London and the South-East. The 43 questions covered three main areas: charity giving, church giving, and legacy giving. Although 99% considered it important to give to charity, slightly fewer (87%) claimed to be doing so in practice, religious causes and those dedicated to helping young people and the homeless being most popular. Of those giving to charity, 48% also volunteered for charity. Of the 13% who did not give to charity, 72% were giving to their church (implying that 4% of the whole sample gave neither to charity nor to church). Only 29% had plans to leave a legacy gift in their will. The report can be downloaded for free but requires prior registration with TMH Media at:

https://www.christianopinionpanel.com/

Patron saints’ days

According to a YouGov poll conducted for St George’s Day in 2018, there is limited appetite among UK adults for each of the four UK patron saints’ days to become bank holidays across the whole of the UK. The preference is for each day to be observed as a public holiday only in the appropriate home nation (as is already the case in Scotland and Northern Ireland). For instance, 49% of English residents think St George’s Day should be a bank holiday just in England compared with 24% who want it marked across the entire UK and 18% who do not want it to become a bank holiday for anyone. Full results and details of fieldwork and sample size have not been released, but there is a blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/04/23/brits-support-patron-saints-days-bank-holidays-ind/

Religious discrimination

The newly-released Special Eurobarometer 471 on Fairness, Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility enquired into the personal experiences of discrimination or harassment of EU citizens during the preceding 12 months. Relatively few reported such experiences on the grounds of religion or beliefs, 3% in the UK and 2% across the EU as a whole. The overwhelming majority of respondents, 77% in the UK and 83% in the EU, could recall no incidents of discrimination or harassment of any sort during the past year. Data were gathered as part of Eurobarometer Wave 88.4, the UK fieldwork for which was conducted face-to-face by Kantar TNS between 2 and 9 December 2017 among a sample of 1,338 adults aged 15 and over. Topline results have been published in the report at:

http://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/General/index

Islamophobia

Negative attitudes towards Islam and Muslims continue to be widespread, according to fresh polling for Hope not Hate, for which over 5,000 adults were interviewed online by YouGov in late January 2018. More than one-third (37%) of informants thought Islam poses a threat to the British way of life (including majorities of over-65s and Conservative leave voters in the 2016 referendum on membership of the European Union), against 33% who viewed Islam as generally compatible with the British way of life (the remainder could not choose between the two options). Almost one-fifth (18%) claimed to have become more suspicious of British Muslims since the Islamist terrorist attacks in Britain during 2017, with a further 24% being already suspicious before. With regard to the integration of Muslims in Britain into British society, the pattern of responses was:

Almost all British Muslims want to integrate – 10%
Most Muslims want to integrate but there are some who do not – 49%
Most Muslims do not want to integrate but there are some who do – 23%
Almost all Muslims do not want to integrate – 7%
Don’t know – 10%

There was significant support, including by pluralities of over-65s and Conservative leave voters, for banning the burka as a means of improving community relations. At the same time, there was majority recognition that Muslims face discrimination in Britain: 58% saying this existed in the media and 71% in the wider society. Full data tables have yet to be posted online, but headline findings are reported in Rosie Carter and Nick Lowles, Britain Divided? Rivers of Blood 50 Years On, published by Hope not Hate and available for free download at:

https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Britain-Divided-50-years-on.pdf

Negativity towards Muslims also emerged in a major opinion poll on immigration which British Future commissioned from Survation, 2,014 UK adults being interviewed online on 16-19 February 2018. When asked how much ethnic or religious prejudice they perceived there was against adherents of the major faith groups, respondents had little doubt that Muslims were the clear religious ‘outsiders’, the distribution of answers being as follows:

Extent of prejudice against (% across)	A lot	A little	Hardly any	None at all
Muslims	56.1	32.4	7.2	4.3
Jews	14.3	45.1	32.2	8.4
Sikhs	13.8	44.1	32.8	9.3
Hindus	12.5	47.1	32.1	8.2
Christians	10.1	26.9	39.0	24.0

Some of this prejudice was displayed by the interviewees themselves, in their replies to another question, enquiring how comfortable or uncomfortable they would feel about various positions being occupied by a Muslim. Those saying they were uncomfortable about Muslims occupying particular roles were: as boyfriend/girlfriend of one of your children (35%), husband/wife of one of your children (35%), Prime Minister (34%), your local MP (24%), your child’s school teacher (22%), your next-door neighbour (21%), best friend of one of your children (18%), your boss/line manager (18%), police officer (16%), your colleagues (14%), doctor/nurse treating you in hospital (13%), and local business owner (12%). Data tables are available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Final-British-Future-UK-Sample-Tables-revised.pdf

On behalf of British Future, Survation ran the identical survey with two specialist samples. One was of 519 adults aged 18 and over in the West Midlands, interviewed online on 23-27 February 2018, with data tables available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Final-British-Future-WM-Sample-Tables-revised.pdf

The other sample was of 1,023 black and minority ethnic adults aged 18 and over in the UK, interviewed online on 22-25 February 2018, with data tables available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Final-British-Future-BME-Sample-Tables-revised.pdf

Labour and anti-Semitism

The political and media row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, which reignited in March, rumbled on into April 2018 and prompted four new polls among the general public.

The first poll to be published was a debut survey from Deltapoll, for which 1.010 adult Britons were interviewed online on 5-6 April 2018, on behalf of The Observer. It found that 51% of the electorate believed that Labour has a problem with anti-Semitism to some degree (comprising 21% thinking the party is riddled with people holding anti-Semitic views and 30% detecting pockets of anti-Semitism), peaking at 69% of over-65s and 70% of Conservative voters. Another 14% overall (and no more than 28% even of Labour supporters) felt that Labour has little or no difficulty with anti-Semitism, while 35% (including just over three-fifths of non-voters) were undecided. One-third of interviewees associated Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn with anti-Semitism, reaching 50% among over-65s and 59% of Conservatives. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.deltapoll.co.uk/polls/is-anti-semitism-widespread-within-the-labour-party

The second poll, by YouGov on 4-5 April 2018 among an online sample of 1,662 adult Britons, focused on Corbyn’s handling of the claims of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, a story of which 85% professed to be aware, albeit fewer than one-third of that number were following it closely. A plurality of 46% considered that Corbyn had dealt with the issue badly, and this was especially true of Conservatives (74%) and over-65s (65%). Just 15% deemed he had responded well, and no more than 31% among Labour voters, with 38% expressing no views on the subject (including the majority of under-25s). One in ten voters agreed that their opinion of Corbyn had been damaged by his response (this being especially true of Liberal Democrats), on top of the 40% who were already negative towards him. Full data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/frm65qm1g8/InternalResults_180405_Anti-Semitism_w.pdf

The third poll was carried out by BMG Research on behalf of The Independent, among an online sample of 1,562 Britons on 10-13 April 2018. Asked whether each of the four main political parties had a problem with racism and/or religious prejudice, 61% believed this was true of the Labour Party to some degree, second only to UKIP (67%). A majority (52%) of respondents judged that Corbyn had dealt with claims of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party badly – quite badly (25%) or very badly (27%) – compared with 21% who thought he had handled them well and 27% undecided. At the same time, 32% agreed to some extent with the proposition that the issue had been exaggerated to damage Corbyn and the Labour leadership. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/bmg-independent-52-state-corbyn-dealt-claims-anti-semitism-labour-party-badly/

The fourth poll was undertaken by ComRes for the Sunday Express, among an online sample of 2,038 Britons on 11-12 April 2018, 46% of whom disagreed that Corbyn was tackling anti-Semitism in the Labour Party effectively, peaking at 65% of over-65s and 78% of Conservatives. One-fifth considered that he was on top of the situation, while 34% were undecided. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Sunday-Express-April-2018-Poll-Full-Results-20042018.pdf

70th anniversary of Israel

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Israel, the Jewish News commissioned ComRes to conduct an online survey of 2,039 Britons on 17-18 January 2018 to gauge attitudes towards the Jewish state. On the whole, from the five questions asked, the public did not emerge as especially engaged or well-informed. Only minorities agreed that Israel and Britain are natural allies and partners (29%) or that Britain should continue its support for Israel as a valuable ally in the Middle East (35%). However, there were a large number of ‘don’t knows’, which ComRes had to exclude in order to yield more ‘positive-looking’ results. Full data tables, including breaks by religious affiliation, are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Jewish-News_January-2018-poll_Israel.pdf

Inter-religious marriages

The overwhelming majority (92%) of 1,681 UK adults aged 16-75, interviewed online by Ipsos MORI for King’s College London on 23-27 February 2018, raised no objections to people of different religions marrying each other. Just 2% thought the practice should be banned, with a further 3% disapproving but not in favour of a ban, and 4% undecided. Somewhat fewer, 82%, said they would still have no concerns even if it was a family member or close friend who was marrying somebody of a different religion, against 3% anticipating they would be very concerned and 12% slightly concerned. Rather fewer still, 77%, were comfortable with the prospect of a member of the Royal Family marrying a person of a different faith. Topline results and breaks by demographics are both available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/most-britons-would-have-no-concerns-about-royal-same-sex-marriage

The topic was also explored in the Survation/British Future immigration polls mentioned above. In the UK cross-section, 70% of adults said they would be comfortable, and 30% uncomfortable, about the prospect of their child or grandchild entering into a serious relationship or marriage with a person practising a different faith. For black and minority ethnic adults, the figures were, respectively, 68% and 32%. Among a sample of 1,030 Londoners, interviewed online by YouGov on 13-19 March 2018, 68% deemed it acceptable for a member of the Royal Family to marry someone of a different religion, while 18% were opposed and 14% undecided. Full data tables for the YouGov survey are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/95ulsywu1d/InternalResults_Monarchy_London_180319_final_w.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

#LiveLent 2018

The Church of England has announced the results of its multifaceted six-week Lent 2018 campaign. The headline statistics include: a reach of 3.54 million across the Church’s social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) for the #LiveLent reflections; short explanatory videos on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Day watched 164,000 times; and Good Friday and Easter video prayers seen 300,000 times. For full details, read the press release at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/comment-and-features/how-did-livelent-2018-help-people-take-journey-easter

Marriage intentions

The national marriage rate may be declining, and the proportion choosing to marry in a religious ceremony may also be falling, but the Church of England has derived encouragement from the findings of a survey of millennials it commissioned from 9Dot-Research. The sample comprised 1,012 unmarried young adults aged 18-35 interviewed (presumably online) on 14-15 November 2017, having excluded the 7% of the original 1,085 who said they had no intention of ever being married. Almost three-quarters (72%) of the remaining respondents expected to get married at some stage, one-sixth of whom were already engaged. More expressed a preference for a wedding in church or chapel (47%) than in a registry office or town hall (34%), albeit this choice was often driven by a wish for a traditional venue. Of those contemplating marriage, 17% stated that faith or religion had influenced their thinking. Detailed computer tables from the survey have not been published, but the Church of England’s press release is available at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/news/generation-y-still-hope-walk-down-aisle

Pastoral Research Centre Trust

The Pastoral Research Centre Trust (PRCT), an independent centre for applied socio-religious research with particular reference to the Roman Catholic community in England and Wales, was formally dissolved as a company on 24 April 2018. This was at the request of the company’s directors and reflected commencement of the transfer of the PRCT’s library and archive to Durham University and the need to reduce administrative overheads. The PRCT’s work will be continued by a new Pastoral Research Centre Association, whose secretary will be Tony Spencer (as he was for the PRCT). There is a potted history of the PRCT at:

https://www.prct.org.uk/a-potted-history-of-the-nds

Jewish identity

In the latest report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, David Graham utilizes a 2012 survey of European (including UK) Jewry commissioned by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights to investigate European Jewish Identity: Mosaic or Monolith? An Empirical Assessment of Eight European Countries. It analyses Jewish identity comparatively (between Europe, Israel, and the United States) and within Europe (in terms of beliefs; practice and ritual observance; schooling; and ethnicity, parentage, and intermarriage). UK Jews emerged as the most likely of the eight national Jewish communities to be Jewish by birth, least likely to be intermarried, most likely to be religiously observant, and least likely to feel threatened by anti-Semitism. The 49-page report can be downloaded at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.2018.European_Jewish_identity.Mosaic_or_Monolith.pdf

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Liverpool sectarianism

Liverpool Sectarianism: The Rise and Demise, by Keith Daniel Roberts (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2017, 334 pp., ISBN 978-1-78138-317-9, £19.99, paperback) draws upon a certain amount of quantitative evidence. This is mainly concentrated in the four appendices (pp. 310-23) which cover: the incidence of faith schools; Orange lodge numbers in Liverpool and Bootle province; newspaper attendance estimates for the Twelfth of July Orange parades since the early nineteenth century (discussed in more detail on pp. 80-5); and the results of a questionnaire survey of 215 members of the Orange Order. The book’s webpage is at:

https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/products/86423

Empirical rural theology

The current issue of Rural Theology (Vol. 16, No. 1, 2018) includes two exemplars of research into empirical theology in rural contexts: Owen Edwards and Tania ap Siôn, ‘Learning in Rural Cathedrals: A Case Study of Religious Education outside the Classroom’ (pp. 17-33), based on the responses of 310 cathedral visitors aged 7-11 from 14 primary schools across north Wales; and Christopher Rutledge, ‘Churchmanship and Personality among Rural Anglican Clergy’ (pp. 34-42), based on data provided by 136 clergy from a mainly rural diocese of the Church of England. Access options are outlined at:

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yrur20/16/1?nav=tocList

Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity

Mark Cartledge’s Narratives and Numbers: Empirical Studies of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2017, x + 221 pp., ISBN 978-90-04-34552-2, €49, paperback) gathers together 10 essays published by the author over an 18-year period. They comprise a mixture of quantitative and qualitative case studies of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity in the UK and the USA. The book’s webpage is at:

https://brill.com/view/title/34510?format=PBK

NEW DATASETS

UK Data Service SN 8331: Annual Population Survey, 2017

The Annual Population Survey is compiled by the Office for National Statistics in partnership with the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. It incorporates a sub-set of key variables from the several Labour Force Surveys and is designed to be sufficiently robust and large-scale to produce reliable estimates at local authority level. The January-December 2017 dataset is based on 290,060 face-to-face and telephone interviews with adults and young persons living away from the parental home. A question on religious affiliation is included: ‘what is your religion?’ in Britain and ‘what is your religious denomination?’ in Northern Ireland. A catalogue description of the dataset is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8331&type=Data%20catalogue

UK Data Service SN 8333: Scottish Household Survey, 2016

The Scottish Household Survey, initiated in 1999, is undertaken on behalf of the Scottish Government by a polling consortium led by Ipsos MORI. Information is collected about the composition, characteristics, attitudes, and behaviour of private households and individuals in Scotland; and about the physical condition of their homes. For the 2016 survey (January 2016-March 2017) data were gathered, by means of face-to-face interview, on 10,470 households and 9,640 adults. The specifically religious content of the questionnaire covered: religion belonged to; experience of discrimination or harassment on religious grounds; and incidence of volunteering for religious and other groups. A catalogue description for the dataset is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8333&type=Data%20catalogue

UK Data Service SN 8334: Health Survey for England, 2016

The Health Survey for England, 2016 is the twenty-sixth in a series of annual studies designed to monitor trends in the nation’s health. It is commissioned by NHS Digital and conducted by NatCen Social Research and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. It is undertaken through a combination of face-to-face interview, self-completion questionnaire, and clinical and other measurements. A number of core health-related topics are explored each year with additional topics investigated on a more occasional basis (including, in 2016, physical activity, weight management, kidney and liver disease, and problem gambling). A question ‘what is your religion or belief?’ was one of the background variables included in the self-completion booklets given to the 10,067 adults and children interviewed in 2016, with reply options of no religion, Roman Catholic, other Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and any other religion. This permits analysis of the religious correlates of particular health conditions and attitudes. For a full description of the dataset and background documentation, see the catalogue entry at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8334&type=Data%20catalogue

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2018

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, Historical studies, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged #LiveLent 2018, Annual Population Survey, Anti-Semitism, bank holidays, BBC, black and minority ethnic adults, BMG Research, Brill, British Future, British way of life, Burka, Cathedrals, charismatic Christianity, charities, Christian Opinion Panel, Christians, Christopher Rutledge, church attendance, Church of England, churchmanship, clergy, ComRes, Dalai Lama, David Graham, Deltapoll, Eurobarometer, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, giving, Health Survey for England, Hindus, Hope Not Hate, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, integration, inter-religious marriage, Ipsos-MORI, Islam, Islamophobia, Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, Jesus Christ, Jewish identity, Jewish News, Jews, Kantar TNS, Keith Daniel Roberts, King's College London, Labour Party, legacies, Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, London, Mark Cartledge, marriage, millennials, most admired man, Muslims, NatCen Social Research, Nick Lowles, Orange Order, Owen Edwards, Pastoral Research Centre Trust, patron saints’ days, Pentecostalism, personality, Pope Francis, Religious Affiliation, religious differences, Religious discrimination, religious education, religious festivals, religious prejudice, respect, Roman Catholic Church, Rosie Carter, royal family, Rural Theology, Scotland, Scottish Household Survey, sectarianism, Sikhs, Sunday Express, Sunday Times, Survation, Tania ap Sion, The Independent, The Observer, TMH Media, volunteering, West Midlands, YouGov | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, March 2018

Posted on April 1, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 30, March 2018 features 18 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 30 March 2018

OPINION POLLS

Mothering Sunday

Mothering Sunday, aka Mother’s Day, has a mix of ecclesiastical and secular origins. In the UK, it was observed on 11 March 2018, preceded by a couple of opinion polls.

On behalf of the Church of England, ComRes asked an online sample of 2,015 Britons on 2-4 March what is or was the most important thing their mother had ever done for them, and who they would name as the ideal mother, past or present (three-fifths said nobody, but some nominated Mother Teresa or the Virgin Mary). Data tables are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/church-of-england-mothering-sunday-poll/

YouGov asked 1,598 members of its British online panel on 5-6 March whether Mother’s Day and other festivals were ‘proper’ special occasions or merely celebrated because of pressure from commercial entities such as greetings card companies. Only 40% regarded Mother’s Day as a ‘proper’ occasion compared with 80% who thought Christmas ‘proper’ and 57% Easter. Birthdays (90%) and wedding anniversaries (77%) also scored highly as ‘proper’ special occasions. Four in five respondents felt that the observance of Valentine’s Day and Halloween had been manufactured by commercial interests. Data tables are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2018/03/07/most-brits-dont-think-mothers-day-proper-special-o/

Church schools

The majority (56%) of 3,526 Britons interviewed by YouGov in an app-based poll on 9 March 2018 deemed it unacceptable for parents to attend church specifically to get their child into an affiliated school. Opposition was strongest among those aged 50-65 (64%) and over-65 (70%). The practice was judged acceptable by 22% with another 22% undecided. Data tables are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/87b2d367-238b-11e8-8a6e-8926cf68558a

Charity Awareness Monitor

The Church is the seventeenth most trusted (of 24) public bodies and institutions in Britain, according to the February 2018 wave of nfpSynergy’s Charity Awareness Monitor, for which 1,000 adults aged 16 and over were interviewed online. About one-third of Britons now trust the Church a great deal (8%) or quite a lot (26%) compared with 58% who trust it not much (27%) or very little (31%). As they were in 2017, religious charities are also the least trusted of 15 charity sectors, 32% trusting them a great deal (8%) or up to a point (24%) against 40% who trust them not very much (22%) or not at all (18%), with 27% unsure. Topline results only are available at:

https://nfpsynergy.net/press-release/trust-charities-and-overseas-development-sector

An earlier nfpSynergy report into religious charities, seemingly not in the public domain, was also briefly noted on pp. 2-3 of the Church Times for 30 March 2018 at:

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2018/29-march/news/uk/religious-charities-least-trusted-in-the-sector

Labour Party and anti-Semitism

The row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has reignited. The response of The Times was to commission YouGov to undertake an online survey of 1,156 Labour Party members on 27-29 March 2018. This seemed to reveal that very many Party members did not share the concerns being widely expressed within the Jewish community, by politicians generally, and in the media. For, although 66% of members acknowledged that anti-Semitism was a genuine problem in the Labour Party, 77% believed that its extent was being deliberately exaggerated in order to damage Labour and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, or to stifle criticism of Israel. As many as 78% also said that anti-Semitism was either not a problem in the Labour Party or no bigger a problem than in other political parties, while 55% believed the Party had done well in reacting to claims of anti-Semitism and 61% said the same about Corbyn’s performance. Two-thirds labelled Israel (the Jewish state) a force for bad in the world and one-third favoured the reinstatement as a member of the Party of Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, who has been suspended since 2016 for his comments about anti-Semitism. Data tables are available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/a1lnfhilsh/TimesResults_180329_LabourMembers_W.pdf

Influence of Islam

In answer to a somewhat ambiguously-worded question, 46% of 1,646 adult Britons interviewed online by YouGov on behalf of Handelsblatt on 27-28 February 2018 said that, relative to a few years ago, Islam now has more influence on the British government, the proportion being slightly lower than in France and Germany. Just 7% thought Islam has less influence, with 24% sensing there is no difference and 22% undecided. Topline data for all eight nations in the survey are on p. 21 of the tables at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/zck4tfs6qs/HandelsblattResults_Feb18_Topline_client_w.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Religion Media Centre

After a long period of gestation, the Religion Media Centre (RMC) was officially launched on 27 March 2018, with Ruth Peacock as inaugural director. It is an independent and impartial body seeking to help journalists and other media professionals cover religion. Its website already includes several factsheets which summarize the statistical and other background to various religious topics. They include one on secularization in Britain by BRIN co-director Clive Field, who is also a member of the RMC’s advisory board. The RMC website is at:

http://religionmediacentre.org.uk/

Premier Media Group audience

An online survey of 8,159 Britons conducted by ComRes between 19 January and 1 February 2018 has enabled Premier Media Group to estimate that the number of regular listeners to its three Christian radio stations (Premier Christian Radio, Premier Praise, and Premier Gospel) now exceeds the Church of England’s weekly congregations. In all, 6.6% of the adult population claims to listen to one or more of the stations, with 4.1% tuning in to all three. Premier Christian Radio has the biggest regular audience of the three (2.4% listening weekly or more), followed by Premier Praise (1.9%), and Premier Gospel (1.5%). Data tables (whose labelling might perhaps have been a little clearer) are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/premier-media-group-listeners-poll-2018/

Christian nominalism

In his monthly column in Church of England Newspaper, 9 March 2018, p. 7, church statistician Peter Brierley revisited the incidence of Christian nominalism in Britain. For each of the five decennial years from 1980 to 2020 (estimated), he sub-divided the population into eight religious categories. Based on past trends, his forecast for 2020 is that 50% of people will believe in a Christian God and 50% will not (with 9% of the latter belonging to other religions and 41% non-religious). Of the 50% who believe in a Christian God, 5% will be regular churchgoers (3% being church members and 2% not) and 45% will not (6% being nominal church members and 39% notional Christians). The article is not freely available online, although short-term access can be purchased by non-subscribers from the newspaper’s website. A repackaged and longer version of the article has subsequently been published in the latest edition (No. 56, April 2018, pp. 1-2) of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy; a copy can be requested by emailing peter@brierleyres.com

Church attendance

In 8 Measures of Church Attendance (Tonbridge: ADBC Publishers, 2018, 12pp., ISBN: 978-0-9957646-2-0, £2), church statistician Peter Brierley synthesizes the data he has collected about churchgoing in Britain since 1980. The eight short sections cover attendance over time and by geography, age, gender, ethnicity, environment, denomination, and churchmanship. The overall picture is presented as one of challenge, notwithstanding pockets of church growth. The pamphlet is available from ADBC Publishers, The Old Post Office, 1 Thorpe Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent, TN10 4PW (cheques payable to ‘Peter Brierley’).

Women in church

Three-fifths of women claim to have experienced sexism in the Church, and 53% feel there is institutional sexism there. This is according to a new report by the Sophia Network, entitled Minding the Gap: Women in the Church – Experiences, Barriers, and Hopes. The research was conducted online, via Survey Monkey, in May-June 2017, and the 1,211 respondents were entirely self-selecting and disproportionately (85%) in leadership positions, paid or voluntary, in the Church, one-fifth being ministers or pastors; three-quarters were aged 25-54. The report can be downloaded at:

http://mindingthegapuk.com/

Church tourism

The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, whose members include some cathedrals and other major churches, has published its visitor figures for 2017. In London, somewhat bucking the overall metropolitan trend, St Paul’s Cathedral reported an increase in visitor numbers of 3.4% over 2016 and Westminster Abbey one of 4.6%. Outside the capital, Canterbury Cathedral was down 3% but York Minster was up 13.4% and Glasgow Cathedral up 36%. The full figures are available at:

http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423

Church music

Billed as the first serious empirical investigation into church music for many years, The InHarmony Report: A Survey of Music for Worship in the Diocese of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich has been researched and written by Richard Hubbard, music development director for the diocese. It is based on a survey distributed in 2016 to all parishes in the diocese, to which 444 replied (a very high response rate of 94%). Of these, 28% had to use recorded music to accompany the congregation. The report is published by St Edmundsbury Cathedral and can be purchased in ePub or printed formats, at £5 and £10, respectively. Orders can be placed at:

http://www.stedscathedral.uk/inharmony/inharmony-report.html

Christians and debt

Debt counselling charity Christians against Poverty (CAP) has published the latest in a series of client reports, Bringing Restoration to Desolate Homes, principally based upon management information relating to 5,413 CAP client households in 2017 and 1,080 responses to a postal and online survey of clients’ experience of indebtedness between September and November 2017. The 42-page report is available at:

https://capuk.org/fileserver/downloads/policy_and_government/client-report.pdf

Jewish charities

A survey of the country’s 80 biggest Jewish and pro-Israel charities has revealed that 32% of their trustees are women, up from 29% in 2017 but still below the national average of 36%. Sixteen of the charities have all-male boards and another 14 have only one female trustee each. The research was conducted by Ben Crowne and published in the Jewish Chronicle for 9 March 2018 (pp. 4-5) at:

https://www.thejc.com/news/news-features/only-32-per-cent-of-jewish-charity-trustees-are-women-figures-reveal-1.460277?

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Young adults and religion

The Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St Mary’s University Twickenham has published, in association with the Institut Catholique de Paris, Stephen Bullivant’s Europe’s Young Adults and Religion: Findings from the European Social Survey (2014-16), to inform the 2018 Synod of Bishops. The first of three short chapters provides an overview of the religiosity of adults aged 16-29 in 22 countries, the second investigates Catholics, and the third offers a comparative study of the UK and France. In the UK, 70% of young adults professed no religion (one-fifth of whom had a religious upbringing), with 21% self-identifying as Christians (half of them Catholic) and 6% as Muslims; 59% never attended religious services; and 63% never prayed outside religious services. The report can be downloaded from:

https://www.stmarys.ac.uk/research/centres/benedict-xvi/docs/2018-mar-europe-young-people-report-eng.pdf

Bullivant also had an article about this research in the Catholic Herald for 23 March 2018 at:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/march-23rd-2018/the-scary-truth-about-young-europeans-and-the-church/

Domestic abuse in churches

Kristin Aune and Rebecca Barnes, In Churches too: Church Responses to Domestic Abuse – A Case Study of Cumbria reports on a research project carried out by Coventry University and the University of Leicester in association with Restored and Churches Together in Cumbria and with financial support from four funding bodies. The empirical data derive from a paper and online survey into the experiences, impacts, and attitudes towards domestic abuse of an essentially self-selecting (and not wholly representative) sample of 438 regular churchgoers in Cumbria, three-quarters of them female. Almost half (48%) of all respondents (rising to 57% of women) claimed to have experienced domestic abuse in a current or previous relationship, emotional abuse being the commonest form, while 38% thought that domestic abuse affected people in their own church. The 72-page report is available at:

https://restored.contentfiles.net/media/resources/files/churches_web.pdf

Review of survey research on Muslims

The Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute has prepared A Review of Survey Research on Muslims in Britain on behalf of the Aziz Foundation, Barrow Cadbury Trust, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, and Unbound Philanthropy. The report is certainly useful as a consolidation of some existing knowledge in the field but it is far from comprehensive, being restricted to secondary analysis of just 14 existing datasets of academic sample surveys or ad hoc opinion polls conducted between 2004 and 2016 (mostly at the end of that period). Although both British Muslim and national cross-sectional samples are considered, the emphasis is very much on reprising what is known about Muslim experiences, civic engagement, and opinions. Only in the final chapter are public attitudes towards Muslims addressed and then rather sketchily. The report is available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/review-survey-research-muslims-britain-0

NEW DATASET

UK Data Service SN 7348: European Quality of Life Survey Integrated Data File, 2003-2016

This third edition of the European Quality of Life dataset incorporates results from the fourth survey, undertaken in 33 countries in 2016-17 on behalf of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions. Face-to-face interviews were conducted by Kantar Public with adults aged 18 and over, including 1,300 in the UK. Questions were asked about frequency of attendance at religious services (other than for rites of passage) and perceived tensions between different religious groups. A catalogue description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7348&type=Data%20catalogue

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2018

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged ADBC Publishers, Anti-Semitism, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Aziz Foundation, Barrow Cadbury Trust, Ben Crowne, Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society, Brierley Consultancy, British government, Catholic Herald, Charity Awareness Monitor, Christian nominalism, Christians against Poverty, Christmas, church, church attendance, church music, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, church schools, Churches Together in Cumbria, Clive Field, ComRes, Cumbria, debt, Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, domestic abuse, Easter, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, European Quality of Life Survey, European Social Survey, FutureFirst, God, Handelsblatt, Ipsos-MORI, Islam, Israel, Jeremy Corbyn, Jewish charities, Jewish Chronicle, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Ken Livingstone, Kristin Aune, Labour Party, Mothering Sunday, Mother’s Day, Muslims, nfpSynergy, Peter Brierley, prayer, Premier Media Group, radio, Rebecca Barnes, Religion Media Centre, Religious Affiliation, religious broadcasting, religious charities, religious festivals, religious prejudice, religious tensions, Restored, Richard Hubbard, secularization, sexism, Sophia Network, special occasions, Stephen Bullivant, The Times, tourism, trust, Unbound Philanthropy, women, YouGov, young adults | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, December 2017

Posted on January 1, 2018 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 27, December 2017 features 24 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 27 December 2017

OPINION POLLS

Perils of perception

The latest Ipsos global Perils of Perception survey again sought to quantify the public’s perception of facts and compare it with the reality (as established by a variety of verified sources). The study was conducted in 38 countries between 28 September and 19 October 2017 by means of interviews (mostly online) with 29,133 adults aged 16/18-64, including approximately 1,000 in Britain. This year, respondents in each country were asked how many of their compatriots they thought said they believed in heaven, hell, or God. The British sample consistently overestimated what the answers might have been. In other words, interviewees assessed other Britons as being more religious than they actually claimed to be. This was particularly the case in respect of hell, in which nearly twice as many people were thought to believe as did so (38% versus 21%). The divergence was least for belief in God where the average guess was 43% against a reality of 39%, while for belief in heaven it was 45% versus 32%. Topline results only are available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/perils-perception-2017

Importance of religion

The relative insignificance of religion to UK citizens, and most other Europeans for that matter, was actually revealed in another contemporaneous survey, Wave 88.3 of the European Commission’s Eurobarometer, face-to-face fieldwork for which was conducted with 1,334 adults aged 15 and over in the UK by TNS UK on 5-14 November 2017. Asked to select from a list of twelve values the three which were most important to them personally, just 5% in the UK chose religion, one point less than the European Union mean. Peace was the most highly-prized (by 41%) value in the UK, closely followed by respect for human life and human rights on 40% each. Topline results only are available at:

http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm

Knowledge of the life of Jesus Christ

To mark the UK launch of its mini-series Robert Powell on the Real Jesus of Nazareth, the History Channel commissioned OnePoll to conduct an online survey of 2,000 UK adults about their knowledge of the life of Jesus Christ. Although more than seven in ten reckoned they had a good grasp of the Christmas story, quite a few were ignorant of some of the specifics, including one-fifth who did not think Jesus was born on Christmas Day. If anything, there were even more gaps in respondents’ knowledge of His later life, one-fifth unaware that He had twelve disciples, three-fifths that Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper, and one-quarter that Good Friday witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus. Just three in ten admitted that their knowledge of the life of Jesus derived from reading the Bible.

As with so many OnePoll studies, the full data tables from this survey are unlikely to enter the public domain, while media reporting of the headline results has been relatively unsystematic. The History Channel has a brief news release at:

http://www.history.co.uk/shows/robert-powell-the-real-jesus-of-nazareth/articles/survey-suggests-brits-dont-know-jesus

A little more detail can be found in The Independent’s reporting at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/christmas-jesus-christ-birthday-25-december-brits-ignorant-nativity-christianity-bethlehem-a8094496.html

Christmas carols

Almost three-quarters of Britons claim to like Christmas carols, according to an app-based poll by YouGov published on 20 December 2017. A plurality (45%) said they enjoyed both singing and listening to carols, while a further 22% liked to listen to them and 6% to sing them. Approximately one-fifth (22%) neither enjoyed listening to nor singing carols and 5% were unsure of their preference. Topline data only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/12/20/jobs-prisoners-how-many-sprouts-make-portion-chris/

Meanwhile, Classic FM’s annual listeners’ poll of ‘The Nation’s Favourite Carol’ for 2017 revealed it to be O Holy Night, with Silent Night and In the Bleak Mid-Winter (Gustav Holst version) in second and third places, respectively. The top 30 listing is at:

http://win.classicfm.com/nations-favourite-carol/

Christmas cards

A Mail on Sunday survey of more than 580 Christmas cards from two leading greetings card producers, Hallmark and Card Factory, found only seven with a Nativity theme. And of the branches of Waitrose, Tesco, Marks and Spencer, and Waterstones which were visited by the newspaper’s investigators, none was selling cards depicting the Nativity. The story is told in:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5209287/Only-one-80-Christmas-cards-shows-Nativity.html

Religion and politics

Most Britons consider that religion and politics belong to separate spheres, according to an online poll of almost 1,700 adults conducted by YouGov for The Times in December 2017, and reported in the Christmas Day online only edition of the newspaper. Asked whether politicians should feel free to use their religious beliefs to inform their political decisions, just 14% agreed, while 65% wanted politicians to keep their religious views out of their politics, with 21% undecided. Respondents were similarly unenthusiastic about the presence of clerics in the House of Lords, 62% saying that none should have an automatic right to a seat in the chamber; a mere 8% supported the continuation of the current arrangement of seats for 26 Church of England bishops alone, a further 12% thinking other faith leaders should sit alongside them, and 18% being unsure. The Times also took the opportunity to add a couple of more general religious questions, about belief in God (36% being disbelievers and 29% believers, with a further 23% believing in some sort of spiritual greater power) and intentions to attend a Christmas service (20% saying they had plans to do so). No data tables are available as yet but the newspaper’s report can be found at:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/public-want-religion-kept-out-of-politics-t3rk055cx

Entrance fees for places of worship

News that the Pantheon, a church which is one of Rome’s most celebrated tourist attractions, is to start charging visitors for admission prompted YouGov to ask, in an app-based poll published on 14 December 2017, whether it is acceptable to levy an entrance fee to places of worship. One-quarter of respondents deemed it inappropriate to charge at all, but the majority (57%) considered it acceptable to make tourists pay (albeit not worshippers) and a further 16% to charge everybody. Topline data only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/12/14/charging-entrance-fee-places-worship-smoking-ban/

Pope Francis

‘Global Leaders’ was the theme of the Gallup International Association’s 41st Annual Global End of Year Survey, Pope Francis being one of 12 leaders whom respondents were asked to rate. Fieldwork was conducted in 55 countries, including in the UK, where 1,004 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed online by ORB International on 4-11 December 2017. Across the world in the aggregate, 56% viewed Pope Francis favourably and 18% unfavourably, giving a net score of +38%, which was larger than obtained by any of the other world leaders covered by the survey, all of whom were prime ministers or heads of state. In the UK, this net score for the Pope was somewhat lower, at +32%, the product of a 57% favourable and 25% unfavourable opinion. Although the UK was positioned 26th= for favourability towards the Pope, it came as high as 8th= for unfavourable attitudes, which were mainly worse in nations with large Muslim populations. Topline results only are available at:

http://www.gallup-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2017_Global-Leaders.pdf

Muslim experiences

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights has recently released several reports on the Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS II), which was conducted by Ipsos MORI in 2015-16. One of the reports concerns the experience of discrimination by Muslim minorities in 15 European Union countries, including the UK, where 710 self-identifying Muslim adults who were immigrants or descendants of immigrants from South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa were interviewed face-to-face between 24 September 2015 and 24 April 2016. Relative to their co-religionists in the other nations, UK Muslims had a slightly above average attachment to their country of residence and a below average perception of widespread discrimination existing against them. They had certainly experienced somewhat lower levels of discrimination during the previous five years, especially on the grounds of ethnic or immigrant background. The published report on Muslims can be found at:

http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2017/eumidis-ii-muslims-selected-findings

An interactive search tool for the whole dataset is at:

http://fra.europa.eu/en/publications-and-resources/data-and-maps/survey-data-explorer-second-eu-minorities-discrimination-survey?mdq1=dataset

Islamic State (1)

The public has mixed views about what precisely should be done with the estimated 850 Britons who have fought as jihadists with Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, but the majority is clear in not wanting to see them back home. This is according to an online survey of 2,007 UK adults by Opinium Research on 27-30 November 2017, following on from comments by a Foreign Office minister (Rory Stewart) that, in most instances, the best course of action would be to kill them. A plurality of respondents (42%) wished to see the Government strip the British jihadists of their citizenship and prevent them returning to the UK, while 35% wanted them treated as enemy combatants and thus as legitimate targets for attack. However, when Stewart’s comments were quoted, 62% agreed with them, 18% dissenting. In other questions, 84% accepted that the British jihadists were, indeed, legitimate targets and 77% that they could never be reintegrated into UK society. When it was suggested that the UK could be considered to be as bad as ISIS if the Government pursued a strategy of killing British jihadists rather than imprisoning them, only 29% agreed with the proposition, 46% disagreed, and 24% were neutral or unsure. Full data tables, disaggregated by an extensive range of variables, can be found at:

http://opinium.co.uk/government-british-jihadists/

Islamic State (2)

Perhaps in reflection of the defeats suffered by ISIS on the battlegrounds of Iraq and Syria, United States President Donald Trump (33%) is now perceived by Scots as the greatest threat to international security, one point ahead of Islamic terrorism, with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in third place (18%). This is according to a poll by Survation for the Sunday Post, conducted among an online sample of 1,006 adults aged 16 and over in Scotland on 1-5 December 2017. By far the highest proportions selecting Islamic terrorism as the greatest threat were found among Conservative voters (43%) and those who had voted for the UK to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum (42%). Further information is contained in table 55 of the survey report at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Final-Sunday-Post-Tables-301117APTB-1.pdf

Paranormal

Belief in aspects of the paranormal was tested by YouGov in three app-based polls conducted during December 2017, for which topline data only are available.

Asked whether it is possible to see or hear or feel a ghost, a plurality (44%) of Britons replied in the affirmative, with 41% disagreeing and 15% unsure. See:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/12/18/ghosts-confidence-political-judgement-royal-weddin/

When it came to unidentified flying objects (UFOs), one-half of adults said they would approve of the UK government having a programme to investigate UFO sightings, comparable with the one run by the US Pentagon between 2007 and 2012. Opposition to the idea stood at 39% with 11% undecided. See:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/12/19/tracking-ufos-attempting-world-record-volunteering/

Even more, 71%, were confident that there are non-human life forms existing somewhere in outer space, with 11% emphatic there are not and 17% uncertain. See:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/12/13/responsibility-online-extremist-content-banning-mo/

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

UK Church Statistics

By far the most important new religious statistical source this month is UK Church Statistics 3, 2018 Edition, edited by Peter Brierley (Tonbridge: ADBC Publishers, 2017, ISBN: 978-0-9957646-1-3, £28, paperback). It comprises 18 sections, the first 12 of which relate to the number of members, churches, and ministers in the UK for 257 denominations (collated into ten groups) for every year between 2012 and 2017, with a forecast through to 2022. These figures derive from a request sent to each denomination in mid-2016 supplemented by websites and estimates by Brierley. Notwithstanding membership growth in two-thirds of denominations, the overall trend remains one of decline (of 7% for the whole UK between 2012 and 2017 and 17% for Scotland alone), with 9.4% of the population a church member in 2017. Of the remaining sections in the book, special interest attaches to 22 pages of detailed tables and maps from the Scottish church census of 2016; and 10 pages of reworked tables of English church census data back to 1980. There are also five reprinted essays by Brierley on specific aspects of the UK religious scene and a miscellany of other religious and social statistics. All in all, despite an occasional reservation, the volume is an impressive achievement. For a fuller content description and ordering information, go to:

http://www.brierleyconsultancy.com/growth-decline-1

Christian charities

The top ten Christian charities in the UK have a combined annual income of almost £521 million, according to an analysis by Charity Financials. The list, which is headed by the Salvation Army Trust on £209 million, is somewhat curious. The figures do not seem to add up, and, since there appear to be many obvious omissions, it remains unclear what criteria were used to identify the big-hitting Christian charities. The analysis is available at:

http://www.charityfinancials.com/charity-financials-insider/income-of-uks-top-10-christian-charities-exceeds-05-billion-1742.html

Unionized clergy

The Times (4 December 2017, p. 11) reported that almost 1,500 individuals have now joined the faith workers branch of the trade union Unite. This is an increase of nearly 200, or 16%, on the year before. The majority (54%) of the branch’s members are from the Church of England (who have their own workplace grouping within the branch, Church of England Clergy Advocates), with a further 10% Methodists (who likewise have a workplace grouping, the Association of Methodist Faith Workers), but rabbis and imams have also started to join. Even so, a comparatively small proportion of faith workers in the UK are unionized, at least via Unite. This is despite the fact that many have the legal status of office holders, rather than employees, and thus may be more likely to require independent advice and representation. According to Peter Brierley, the number of Christian ministers in the UK is actually increasing somewhat, and now exceeds 40,000.

Church growth, Anglo-Catholic style

Part A of Tim Thorlby’s A Time to Sow: Anglican Catholic Church Growth in London (London: Centre for Theology and Community, 2017, 96pp.) showcases seven examples of recent Anglican church growth in the Dioceses of London and Southwark, all in Anglo-Catholic parishes serving deprived areas. Part B contains summative reflections on church growth arising from the research. The report is available at:

http://www.theology-centre.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/CTC-Research-Report-9-A-Time-To-Sow-2017online.pdf

Disestablishment

The National Secular Society’s latest report, Separating Church and State: The Case for Disestablishment, includes, at pp. 10-11, an historical overview of public opinion towards the disestablishment of the Church of England. It can be downloaded from:

https://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/separating-church-and-state.pdf

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Secularization

A special theme issue of Journal of Religious History (Vol. 41, No. 4, December 2017) is devoted to ‘New Perspectives on Secularisation in Britain (and beyond)’, guest-edited by David Nash and William Gibson. It comprises an introduction by Gibson (pp. 431-8) followed by five research articles, by Callum Brown on atheism (pp. 439-56), Stefan Fisher-Høyrem on the Victorian public sphere (pp. 457-75 – a distinctly odd piece), Dominic Erdozain on the origins of European doubt (pp. 476-504), David Nash on secularization narratives (pp. 505-31), and John Wolffe on London since the 1960s (pp. 532-49). The authors mostly engage with secularization at a theoretical and intellectual level, with Charles Taylor’s work often foregrounded, but Wolffe’s article has significant empirical interest, demonstrating (he suggests) a quantitative and qualitative religious resurgence in the capital, originating in the 1960s and 1970s and gathering momentum around 2000. Although this was mainly rooted in the growth of Pentecostalism, Islam, Hinduism, and Sikhism, and most traditional Christian denominations continued to experience net decline, even here there were instances of expansion and effective new activity. For options to access this issue, go to:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jorh.2017.41.issue-4/issuetoc

Religious diversity

A special theme issue of Journal of Beliefs and Values (Vol. 38, No. 3, 2017) on relations between Abrahamic religions includes two articles reporting additional findings from the Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project of 2011-12, conducted among 11,809 13- to 15-year-olds attending state-maintained schools in the UK. Tania ap Siôn, ‘Seeing how We See Each Other: Learning from Quantitative Research among Young People in the UK’ (pp. 305-17) concludes that: ‘students who are themselves religiously motivated hold more positive attitudes towards religious diversity; there is no evidence that schools with a religious character produce students who are less-accepting of people from other religious faiths; religious education does work in the sense of leading to attitudes that promote community cohesion, lessen religious conflict and promote the common good.’ Leslie Francis and Ursula McKenna, ‘Assessing Attitude toward Religious Diversity among Muslim Adolescents in the UK: The Effect of Religious and Theological Factors’ (pp. 328-40) uses regression analysis to demonstrate that theological factors (measured on the Astley-Francis Theology of Religions Index) account for much more variance than religious factors in explaining individual differences in Muslim students’ attitudes towards religious diversity. For options to access these articles, go to:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjbv20/38/3?nav=tocList

Bertelsmann Foundation Religion Monitor, 2017

The Bertelsmann Foundation has completed the third in a series of international Religion Monitors, this one focusing on Muslims. Fieldwork was conducted towards the end of 2016 with representative samples of the general population and of Muslims in each of five European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Great Britain (where approximately 1,000 adults and 500 Muslims were interviewed). Initial findings have been published in a 15-page report written by Yasemin El-Menouar, Muslims in Europe: Integrated but Not Accepted? Results and Country Profiles (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation, 2017). Muslims in Britain were differentiated from the rest of society by their relative youth (their average age being 38 years versus 49 years for the national cross-section) and their significantly greater religiosity (98% self-rating as highly or moderately religious compared with 57% of Britons generally). Other indicators of social distance between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain were that: no more than 68% of Muslims had regular contact with non-Muslims in their leisure time; just 20% of Muslims felt an exclusive connection with Britain (with a further 68% having a dual allegiance to Britain and their country of origin); 42% of Muslims claimed to have experienced discrimination in the previous year; and 21% of non-Muslims objected to Muslims as neighbours (against merely 4% opposed to Jews as neighbours, 3% to atheists, and 1% to Christians). The report is available at:

https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/GrauePublikationen/Study_LW_Religion-Monitor-2017_Muslims-in-Europe_Results-and-Country-Profiles.pdf

British Religion in Numbers

A further update of the British Religion in Numbers (BRIN) source database has just taken place. New entries have been created for 103 British religious statistical sources, 73 of them from 2017, and 16 existing entries have been augmented, mostly by additional bibliographical references. The total of sources described in the database now stands at 2,739, disproportionately sample surveys. Sources can be browsed at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/source-list/

An advanced search facility is available at:

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

Educating late Hanoverian Anglican clerg

In The Education of the Anglican Clergy, 1780-1839 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2017, x + 272pp., ISBN: 978-1-78327-175-7, £70, hardback), Sara Slinn offers a prosopographical study of the educational backgrounds of men ordained to the Anglican ministry in the late Hanoverian period, which was largely before the establishment of theological colleges. She demonstrates that the clergy of this era were socially, culturally, and educationally a more diverse group than has been previously recognised, with significant numbers of non-graduates. Extensive reliance is placed on quantitative data, mined from the Clergy of the Church of England Database, ordination application papers in diocesan archives, and ordination lists in contemporary periodicals and newspapers. The book’s webpage is at:

https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-education-of-the-anglican-clergy-1780-1839-hb.html

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVIC

SN 6614: Understanding Society, Waves 1-7, 2009-2016 and Harmonised British Household Panel Survey, Waves 1-18, 1991-2009

This is not a new dataset per se but a major step forward in integrating access to pre-existing resources. For the first time in the study’s history, data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) have been harmonized with those from Understanding Society to create 25 years of longitudinal data for the UK. BHPS started in 1991 and followed the same representative sample of individuals over an 18-year period. In 2009, BHPS participants were invited to consider joining the new, bigger, and more wide-ranging survey called Understanding Society. This merged longitudinal dataset naturally has many advantages over traditional cross-sectional surveys in tracking over-time changes in attitudes and beliefs among a very large sample. During the lifetimes of BHPS and Understanding Society, various religion-related questions have been asked, including about religious affiliation, attendance at religious services, and the difference made by religious beliefs to everyday life. BRIN readers can explore further via the catalogue record and documentation at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=6614&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 8294: Community Life Survey, 2016-17

This is the fifth annual wave of the Community Life Survey (CLS), initiated by the Cabinet Office in 2012-13 to carry forward some of the questions in the discontinued Citizenship Survey; responsibility for the CLS currently rests with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport. Fieldwork for this wave was undertaken by Kamtar Public (formerly TNS BMRB) between 10 August 2016 and 31 March 2017, online interviews or postal questionnaires being completed by 10,256 adults aged 16 and over in England (being a response rate of 21%). Besides demographics, the interview schedule explored identity and social networks, community, civic engagement, volunteering, social action, and subjective wellbeing. More specifically, respondents were asked about their religion and whether they practised it, the proportion of their friends drawn from the same religious group, their participation in and volunteering for religious groups, and their charitable giving to religious causes. A full catalogue description of the dataset, with links to supporting documentation, can be found at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8294&type=Data%20catalogue

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2017

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Aliens, Bertelsmann Foundation, Centre for Theology and Community, charities, Charity Financials, Christmas cards, Christmas carols, church attendance, church growth, church membership, Church of England, Classic FM, clergy, Community Life Survey, discrimination, disestablishment, education, entrance fees, Eurobarometer, European Commission, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Gallup International Association, ghosts, God, heaven, hell, History Channel, House of Lords, importance of religion, Ipsos, Ipsos-MORI, ISIS, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Jesus Christ, jihadists, John Wolffe, Journal of Beliefs and Values, Journal of Religious History, Leslie Francis, London, Mail on Sunday, Muslims, National Secular Society, OnePoll, Opinium Research, ORB International, paranormal, Perils of Perception, Peter Brierley, places of worship, politics, Pope Francis, Religious diversity, religious festivals, Sara Slinn, secularization, Sunday Post, Survation, Tania ap Sion, The Times, Tim Thorlby, TNS UK, trade unions, UFOs, Understanding Society, unidentified flying objects, Unite, Ursula McKenna, values, Yasemin El-Menouar, YouGov, young people | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, November 2017

Posted on December 1, 2017 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 26, November 2017 features 23 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 26 November 2017

OPINION POLLS

Good life

What makes for a good life in the eyes of the public? GfK set out to find the answer to this question in a global poll conducted during summer 2017, for which 23,000 adults from 17 countries were interviewed online, including 2,175 in the UK. Respondents were given a list of 15 factors which might make for ‘the good life’ (specified as the life they would like to have) and asked to choose those which were most significant for them. The UK’s selection was headed by good health (82%), financial security (75%), and leisure time (68%), with spiritual enrichment in eleventh place, on 26%, compared with the multinational mean of 39% (the national peak being in Brazil at 47%). The importance attached to spiritual enrichment did not differ between the sexes in the UK, but it was surprisingly low for the over-60s (21%) and high among under-20s (30%). GfK’s press release, including a link from which to download a free copy of the full report on the survey, is at:

http://www.gfk.com/en-gb/insights/press-release/health-financial-security-and-free-time-are-top-factors-for-the-good-life-say-uk-consumers/

Royal family

The recent announcement that Prince Harry is to marry American actress Meghan Markle in 2018 prompted The Times to commission YouGov to repeat some of its standard questions about attitudes to the royal family, in an online poll of 1,575 Britons on 27-28 November 2017. The topics covered included reactions to a member of the royal family marrying a person from various backgrounds. Just over two-thirds (68%) deemed it acceptable for a member of the royal family to wed somebody of a different religion, which was three points less than in November 2016, with 16% opposed (among them 22% of Conservatives) and a further 16% unsure. This was a similar proportion as in favour of a member of the royal family marrying someone of a different ethnicity (69%). A blog about the survey, containing a link to the full data tables, is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/11/29/5-charts-british-reaction-prince-harrys-engagement/

Protection of churches

Notwithstanding low and declining church attendance, cathedrals and churches rank second only to castles in a list of ten categories of UK historic buildings which the public considers should be protected for future generations. Asked to identify the first, second, and third most important category, 69% in aggregate opted for castles, 60% for cathedrals and churches, and 49% for royal palaces. Support for cathedrals and churches varied by age, rising from 49% among under-35s to 74% for over-65s. Findings derive from a ComRes survey commissioned by the National Churches Trust, for which 2,062 adults were interviewed online on 21-22 June 2017. The data tables are at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/National-Churches-Trust-Historic-Buildings-Survey.pdf

Trust in clergy

The latest annual Ipsos MORI Veracity Index, compiled from face-to-face interviews with 998 adults on 20-26 October 2017, has revealed clergy and priests to be the tenth most trusted of the 24 professions included on the list. Two-thirds (65%) of the public trusted them to tell the truth (four points less than in 2016 and twenty points lower than in 1983, when the index began), against 30% who did not trust them and 4% who were unsure. The net veracity score of +35% for clergy and priests was way behind that of nurses (+89%), doctors (+84%), and teachers and professors (+76% each). The most negative scores were for government ministers (-59%) and politicians generally (-63%). At present, topline results only are available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/politicians-remain-least-trusted-profession-britain

Thought for the Day

Thought for the Day is a regular faith-based slot in BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme, broadcast continuously (under different titles) since 1939. Its appropriateness in a news and current affairs programme is periodically challenged, and it has recently come under attack from some of Today’s own presenters. This prompted YouGov to include a question in an app-based poll reported on 1 November 2017, the British public being divided between those who wanted Thought for the Day removed from the schedules (44%) and those wishing to retain it (47%), 9% being undecided. Topline results only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/11/01/are-modern-women-fragile-thought-day-facebook-list/

Religious education

YouGov ran an app-based poll on the back of news that schools in Staffordshire are to offer virtual tours of mosques after some parents refused to allow their children to visit them during school religious education trips. Three-fifths of respondents thought that parents should have the right to withdraw their children from school visits to certain places of worship while a third suggested they should not be allowed to do so. Topline results were posted on 16 November 2017 at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/11/16/information-war-between-west-and-russia-religious-/

Christmas

The vast majority of Britons (83%) still prefer to describe the period around 25 December as Christmas, according to an online poll of 3,372 adults taken by YouGov on 17 November 2017. The proportion was lowest among under-25s (76%), Scots (78%), and Scottish National Party supporters (72%). It peaked (at 95%) with UKIP voters. Another 5% of the whole sample opted for Xmas while 9% gave other answers. Results, with breaks by demographics, are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/42e1403b-cb80-11e7-bdbe-dfebc9b5b055

Gender fluidity

In recent guidance issued to its own schools, the Church of England has stated that children should be free to try out ‘the many cloaks of identity’ without being labelled or bullied. This statement was approved of by 71% of respondents to an app-based poll by YouGov reported on 14 November 2017, with 21% disapproving and 7% unsure. Topline results only are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/11/14/coes-statement-regarding-gender-traffic-lights-mot/

Sexual orientation and identity

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association (ILGA) has released the results from the ILGA-RIWI Global Attitudes Survey on Sexual, Gender, and Sex Minorities, 2017, conducted in partnership with Viacom, Logo, and SAGE. Data were gathered, by means of opt-in online interviews, from 116,000 adults aged 18 and over in 75 countries plus Hong Kong and Taiwan. By virtue of the patented Random Domain Intercept Technology employed by RIWI, which targets web users bypassing search engines (see pp. 13-14 of the global report for a description of methodology), these do not comprise nationally representative samples. There were 6,483 respondents from the UK, although not everybody answered all the questions (partly because of the use of a combination of fixed and rotating modules).

Two statements with Likert-style answers specifically addressed religion. The first related to sexual orientation: ‘it is possible to respect my religion and be accepting of people who are romantically or sexually attracted to people of the same sex’, with which 58% in the UK agreed and 15% disagreed, 27% being neutral. The second statement concerned gender identity: ‘it is possible to respect my religion and be accepting of people who dress, act, or identify as one sex although they were born as another’, with which 59% in the UK agreed and 12% disagreed, 29% being neutral. The global report and country-specific data (in Word and Excel formats) can be downloaded from:

http://ilga.org/what-we-do/ilga-riwi-global-attitudes-survey/

Schoolchildren and the hijab

Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills in England, has recently recommended its inspectors to question Muslim primary school girls if they are found to be wearing a hijab, in order to ascertain whether they have been forced to do so. In response to a YouGov app-based poll whose results were posted on 21 November 2017, a plurality (47%) of Britons thought the school inspectors should not be interviewing hijab-wearing Muslim primary school girls in this way. Two-fifths considered they should be interviewed while 14% were uncertain. The topline findings only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/11/21/hijabs-schools-counter-terrorism-classes-poetry/

Islamic State

When they met in Vietnam recently, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin resolved to defeat Islamic State in Syria. However, a plurality of Britons (43%) thinks they will fail in this goal, with 42% having confidence they will succeed and 15% unsure. The poll was conducted by Yougov’s app and reported on 13 November 2017 at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/11/13/trump-and-putin-vs-isis-next-conservative-leader-f/

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Voting of churchgoers

Christian Research has posted a summary of its online poll of 1,512 UK practising Christians (church leaders and churchgoers) conducted, during week-commencing 29 May 2017, in the immediate run-up to the 2017 general election. Respondents were drawn from the Resonate panel, which is self-selecting, and were disproportionately male, Anglican, Baptist, and Methodist. The overwhelming majority (96%) of practising Christians said they intended to vote in the election. Just 10% stated they always voted for the same political party. With only days to go, 24% had still not decided how to cast their vote. Of those who had already made up their minds, 37% opted for the Conservatives, 32% for Labour, and 22% for the Liberal Democrats (the last figure significantly above the national average, reflecting the legacy of Free Church electoral habits). Managing the National Health Service was the most important policy factor in determining voter preference, followed by Brexit and ensuring the benefits of economic growth were felt by all. The post is available at:

http://www.christian-research.org/reports/election-2012/

Church of England cathedral statistics

The 44–page Cathedral Statistics, 2016 reports on attendance at services (Sunday, midweek, and festival), rites of passage, visitors (9,030,000 plus 1,100,000 at Westminster Abbey), educational outreach, events, volunteers, choristers, and musicians. Ten years of trend data are included. The report is available on the recently revamped Church of England website at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/2016cathedralstatistics_0.pdf

In accordance with current fashion, the new Church website is mobile-friendly and shifts the emphasis in content away from words to images and sounds. To that end, a lot of documentation on the old website appears to have been dropped. Fortunately, the Research and Statistics pages have not been too adversely affected, but it would seem logical to complete the online back-file of Church Statistics and perhaps even to add digitized editions of the forerunner Statistical Supplement to the Church of England Yearbook. The Research and Statistics pages do serve an important archival function. They can be found at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/more/policy-and-thinking/research-and-statistics

Muslim marriages

A survey commissioned in connection with Channel 4’s The Truth about Muslim Marriage programme, broadcast on 21 November 2017, has revealed that 60% of Muslim women married in Britain (and 80% of those under 25) are not in legally recognized marriages. This is because they have not had a civil marriage ceremony alongside their traditional Islamic (Nikah) religious wedding. Many (28%) of these women who were just married religiously were unaware of the fact that, as a consequence, they did not have the same rights and protections afforded to couples marrying in the eyes of the law. Of the 66% who understood their marriage had no legal standing, half had no plans to enter into a civil wedding. The situation arises in part because only one in ten mosques in England and Wales is licensed for the solemnization of marriages and just 31% of Muslim women married in the UK had done so in a mosque.

The study also explored attitudes to polygamy, finding that 89% of the women did not wish to be in a polygamous relationship and that 37% of the 11% who were in such a relationship had not agreed to it.

The interviews, with 923 Muslim women married in Britain, were conducted, face-to-face or over the telephone, by female Muslim community researchers in 14 British cities in two waves between December 2016 and July 2017. Respondents were recruited by snowballing techniques and thus do not necessarily constitute a representative sample. Channel 4’s press release is at:

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/new-channel-4-survey-reveals-the-truth-about-muslim-marriage

Additional survey documentation, including the questionnaire for the second wave and a fuller description of methodology, is available on the website of True Vision Aire, the production company which made the programme, at:

http://truevisiontv.com/films/details/295/the-truth-about-muslim-marriage

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Armed forces diversity statistics

The Government has published the UK armed forces biannual diversity statistics as at 1 October 2017. In respect of religion, they reveal that 72% of the Regular Forces and 74% of the so-called Future Reserves 2020 self-identified as Christian on that date with, respectively, 25% and 24% professing no religion, together with relatively small numbers of non-Christians. The proportion of religious nones in the Regular Forces continues to be highest in the Royal Navy (31%) and lowest in the Army (22%). The report and tables are at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-2017

ACADEMIC STUDIES

European Social Survey

The first set of data from Round 8 of the European Social Survey has been released, including those for the UK, where 1,959 adults were interviewed face-to-face by NatCen Social Research between 1 September 2016 and 20 March 2017. This academically-led study, which has been conducted every two years since 2002, always includes a short module on religion, asking about religious affiliation, self-assessed religiosity (on a scale running from 0 = not at all religious to 10 = very religious), attendance at religious services other than rites of passage, and private prayer. The weighted results for Great Britain (excluding Northern Ireland) in 2002 and 2016 are shown in compressed form below, the biggest change being the 11-point increase in those self-identifying as non-religious. The figures have been calculated from the Centre for Comparative European Survey Data website at:

http://www.ccesd.ac.uk

%	2002	2016
Regard self as belonging to a particular religion
Yes	48.0	44.5
No	52.0	55.5
Self-assessed religiosity
Not religious (0-4)	48.0	58.8
Neutral (5)	17.8	11.4
Religious (6-10)	34.2	29.8
Attendance at religious services apart from rites of passage
Monthly or more	17.8	18.0
Less often	31.6	30.5
Never	50.7	51.5
Private prayer
Daily	18.5	17.0
Monthly	18.0	15.4
Less often	19.0	16.2
Never	44.4	51.3

Material security and religious practice

In a recent article in Journal of Religion in Europe (Vol. 10, No. 3, 2017, pp. 328-49), Ingrid Storm tests three hypotheses linking material security (as measured by household income) with attendance at religious services at least monthly. Using the British Household Panel Survey and UK Household Longitudinal Study datasets for 1991-2012, she found that increased income was weakly associated with declining religious attendance but that reductions in income did not significantly impact attendance. However, the data did suggest that religious attendance improved and maintained life satisfaction in the face of economic loss. Access options to the article, ‘Does Security Increase Secularity? Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey on the Relationship between Income and Religious Service Attendance’, are outlined at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18748929-01003004

Church schools and religious diversity

Further findings from the Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project in 2011-12 are presented by Leslie Francis, Andrew Village, Ursula McKenna, and Gemma Penny in ‘Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Religious Clothing and Symbols in School: Exploring the Impact of Church Schools in a Religiously Diverse Society’, in Religion and Civil Human Rights in Empirical Perspective, edited by Hans-Georg Ziebertz and Carl Sterkens (Cham: Springer, 2018), pp. 157-75. A sub-sample of 2,385 students aged 13-15 from schools in England, Wales, and London who identified as Christian or of no religion was used. The authors conclude that, after controlling for gender and individual differences in personality and religiosity, ‘schools with a religious character are a source neither for good nor for ill in terms of shaping student attitudes either toward freedom of religious clothing and symbols in school or toward religious diversity more generally assessed’. The chapter can be purchased from:

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-59285-5_7

Muslim identity

Data from the Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project also form the basis of Leslie Francis and Ursula McKenna, ‘The Religious and Social Correlates of Muslim Identity: An Empirical Enquiry into Religification among Male Adolescents in the UK’, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 43, No. 5, 2017, pp. 550-65. The authors compared the responses of 158 male students aged 13-15 who identified as Muslim with those of 1,932 male students with no religious affiliation, finding (not unexpectedly) that the former had a distinctive profile in terms of both religiosity (measured across eight themes) and social values (six themes concerning wellbeing and attitudes to cultural and religious diversity). The correlations are presented in 14 tables with commentary. Opportunities for further research into Muslim identity are identified in the form of improved sampling and an elaborated survey instrument. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03054985.2017.1352351

Muslim population

The number of Muslims in the UK is projected to grow from an estimated 4,130,000 in 2016 to between 6,560,000 and 13,480,000 in 2050, or from 6.3% to between 9.7% and 17.2% of the population. So suggests the Pew Research Center in its latest report, entitled Europe’s Growing Muslim Population. To arrive at these projections, Pew modelled three scenarios for net Muslim migration (the biggest single factor affecting the size of the Muslim community), depending upon whether it was zero, medium, or high. The UK is currently the top destination in Europe for regular (non-refugee) Muslim migrants. Natural increase was also factored into the calculations, reflecting the fact that Muslims are disproportionately young and still have a higher fertility rate than non-Muslims in the UK (one more child on average). The report is available at:

http://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/

Islamophobia

Although racial boundaries between whites, blacks, and Asians have blurred in recent years, Muslims are widely singled out for negative attention by both white people and non-Muslim ethnic minorities in Britain, including a large number who do not express hostility to other ethnic groups. This is according to Ingrid Storm, Maria Sobolewska, and Robert Ford, ‘Is Ethnic Prejudice Declining in Britain? Change in Social Distance Attitudes among Ethnic Majority and Minority Britons’, British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 69, No. 3, September 2017, pp. 410-34. Their evidence concerning attitudes to Muslims derives from a measure of interpersonal social distance, specifically acceptance of an in-law from Muslim versus other ethnic backgrounds, contained in the 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey (for whites) and the 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Survey. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-4446.12250/full

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 8280: Health Survey for England, 2015

The Health Survey for England, 2015 is the twenty-fifth in a series of annual studies designed to monitor trends in the nation’s health. It is commissioned by NHS Digital and conducted by NatCen Social Research and the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. It is undertaken through a combination of face-to-face interview, self-completion questionnaire, and clinical and other measurements. A number of core health-related topics are explored each year with additional topics investigated on a more occasional basis (including several in 2015). A question ‘what is your religion or belief?’ was one of the background variables included in the self-completion booklets given to the 13,748 adults and children interviewed in 2015, with reply options of no religion, Roman Catholic, other Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and any other religion. This permits analysis of the religious correlates of particular health conditions and attitudes. For a full description of the dataset and background documentation, see the catalogue entry at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8280&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 8290: Scottish Health Survey, 2016

The Scottish Health Survey, 2016 is the twelfth in a series initiated in 1995. It was conducted by ScotCen Social Research on behalf of the Scottish Government, 4,323 adults aged 16 and over living in private households throughout Scotland being interviewed face-to-face between January 2016 and January 2017. A belonging form of question about religious affiliation was asked of all respondents, which can be used as a variable for analysing answers to all other questions, whether health-related or not. A catalogue description of the dataset, with links to documentation, is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8290&type=Data%20catalogue

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Andrew Village, armed forces, attendance at religious services, BBC, British Household Panel Survey, British Journal of Sociology, British Social Attitudes Survey, cathedrals and churches, Channel 4, Christian Research, Christmas, Church of England, clergy, ComRes, ethnic minorities, Ethnic Minority British Election Survey, European Social Survey, Gemma Penny, gender fluidity, general election, GfK, good life, Health Survey for England, hijab, historic buildings, household income, Ingrid Storm, International Lesbian Gay Bisexual Trans and Intersex Association, interreligious marriage, Ipsos-MORI, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Journal of Religion in Europe, Leslie Francis, Maria Sobolewska, marriage, migration, mosques, Muslims, NatCen Social Research, National Churches Trust, NHS Digital, Nikah, Ofsted, Oxford Review of Education, Pew Research Center, politics, polygamy, prayer, prejudice, primary schools, Religious Affiliation, religious broadcasting, Religious diversity, religious dress, religious education, Religious Identity, RIWI, Robert Ford, royal family, schools, ScotCen Social Research, Scotland, Scottish Health Survey, self-assessed religiosity, sexual identity, sexual orientation, Social Distance, spiritual enrichment, Syria, The Times, Thought for the Day, Today, True Vision Aire, trust, Understanding Society, University College London, Ursula McKenna, veracity, voting, YouGov, Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, October 2017

Posted on November 2, 2017 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 25, October 2017 features 35 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 25 October 2017

OPINION POLLS

Global views on religion

Great Britain has again emerged as one of the least religious nations in the world, this time from the latest report of Ipsos Global @dvisor, for which 17,401 online interviews were conducted with adults aged 16-64 in 23 countries (1,010 of them in Britain) between 24 June and 8 July 2017. On this occasion, six Likert-style religious indicators were included in the survey, the ‘agree’ (strongly and somewhat) responses to which are tabulated below. In Britain, under one-quarter of people claimed their religion defined them as a person (the third lowest score in any of the countries), while 62% agreed that religion did more harm than good (the seventh highest score). The report, in the form of slides featuring topline results for each nation, together with detailed data tables showing breaks by demographics, can be found at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/global-study-shows-six-ten-britons-above-global-average-believe-religion-does-more-harm-good

% agreeing with each statement	Britain	Global
Religion does more harm in the world than good	62	49
My religion defines me as a person	23	38
I am completely comfortable being around people who have different religious beliefs than me	85	74
I lose respect for people when I find out that they are not religious	10	16
Religious people are better citizens	22	32
Religious practices are an important factor in the moral life of my country’s citizens	37	50

British and American values

On behalf of UnHerd, ComRes conducted online surveys about values among samples of the adult populations of Great Britain (n = 2,059 on 7-8 August 2017) and the United States (n = 1,011 on 7-9 August 2017). A couple of the questions had a religious dimension. One asked which of ten groups or things on a list was the most dangerous in the world today (multiple options evidently being possible). In Britain, religious leaders scored highly as a risk, ranking as the second most dangerous threat (31%), a considerable way behind terrorists (80%), of course, but just ahead of fake news (26%); in the US, by contrast, religious leaders were placed seventh, on 14%, with fake news in second position (38%), after terrorists (80%). The other question forced respondents to choose between two statements: ‘we need more Christianity in our nation’s life’ or ‘we need less Christianity in our nation’s life’. Surprisingly, perhaps, Britons elected for more Christianity (58%), peaking at 73% among over-55s, whereas a majority of Americans (53%) preferred less Christianity. This finding potentially reopens the debate about the extent to which Britain is or should be a ‘Christian country’ and the role of ‘Christian values’ within it. Data tables can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/unherd-values-survey/

Religious narratives

Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum, claimed recently that Britain is the first society to operate without shared religious beliefs and rituals at its heart, adding that ‘we are trying to live without an agreed narrative of our communal place in the cosmos and in time’. In an app-based YouGov poll reported on 23 October 2017, 30% said that we are indeed living without an agreed narrative but that this was a good thing, while 24% judged that we are living without an agreed narrative and it was a bad thing. One-third (32%) assessed that our society does have a narrative but were split between those who sensed it was working well (13%) and those who thought it was not (19%). The final 14% were unsure. This seems a difficult topic to explore in a snap poll, and it remains unclear how much significance to attach to the results. The topline statistics only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/10/23/sexual-bullying-women-pupils-wearing-clothing-poli/

Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments inform the role of Christianity in national and personal life, so it was interesting to see YouGov running an online poll of the extent to which these teachings are still perceived as ‘important principles to live by’, among a sample of 1,680 adult Britons on 10-11 October 2017. It transpires that six of the Ten Commandments (the most ‘social’ ones) are seen to have continuing relevance by the majority, not least ‘you shall not commit murder’ (93%), ‘you shall not steal’ (93%), and ‘you shall not bear false witness against other people’ (87%). However, the remaining four (precisely the ones with the most ‘religious’ character) are sitting in the doldrums, especially ‘remember to keep the Sabbath day holy’ (which 73% judge no longer significant), ‘you shall not take the Lord’s name in vain’ (an injunction rejected by 68%), and ‘you shall have no other God before me’ (also irrelevant for 68%). Breaks by religious affiliation reveal that the same pattern of broad acceptance of six of the Ten Commandments and rejection of the other four also holds good for religious nones, although, murder and theft apart, their majorities were a little smaller than average. Professing Christians were somewhat more likely than the norm to see all the Commandments as pertinent to modern life, but even they seemed to doubt the value of Sunday observance, which was important for 29% of Protestants and 44% of Catholics. A news report (incorporating a link to the data table) and reactions to it can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/10/25/most-brits-only-think-six-ten-commandments-are-sti/

Difficult decisions

Asked where they looked for help when making major or difficult decisions, friends and family (77%) and online search engines or websites (51%) were by far and away the most favoured of the maximum of two sources which a sample of Britons was able to choose. Relatively few people turned to the supernatural for assistance, just 6% citing prayer, 2% a religious source such as a minister or holy book, and 1% a spiritual but not religious source like a clairvoyant or horoscope. The survey was commissioned by journalist Ruth Gledhill and conducted online by ComRes among 2,076 adults on 4-5 October 2017. Data tables can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Ruth-Gledhill_Public-opinion_Data-Tables_October-17.pdf

Dates

It has been reported in the media that schools across England are abandoning the dating conventions of BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini) in favour of the BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era) formats. The trend arises from concerns that BC and AD might offend non-Christians. Asked, in an app-based poll by YouGov which was reported on 4 October 2017, whether they thought the move was a good idea or not, 69% of Britons deemed it a bad idea and only 19% a good one, with 12% undecided. The topline result only is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/10/04/christ-or-common-era-animal-racing-editing-social-/

Abortion

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Abortion Act 1967. In connection with research for a commemorative programme the BBC had commissioned from Raw TV, on 26-29 May 2017 ICM Unlimited carried out an online survey of attitudes to abortion among 2,002 Britons aged 18 and over. Ten questions about abortion were asked, the answers to each of which were analysed by a range of socio-demographic variables, including religious affiliation and differentiating self-identified practising and non-practising members of each faith. Space precludes a full discussion of the findings here, but it is worth noting that, when given a list of 13 possible scenarios which might justify a woman having an abortion, hardly anybody subscribed to the morally absolutist position that abortion is never acceptable under any circumstances: 6% of practising Catholics (notwithstanding the implacable opposition to abortion of the Roman Catholic Church), 3% of practising mainline Protestants, 12% of other practising Christians, 1% of practising non-Christians, 2% of non-practising religious, and 2% of religious nones. On the other hand, there are particular situations, such as abortion on the grounds of the gender of the foetus, in which a majority of members of all religious faiths and none is still agreed that abortion should not be permitted. Data tables are available at:

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/OlOm-Abortion-Documentary-v2.pdf

Gay rights

On behalf of Stonewall, YouGov has investigated discrimination and crime on the basis of sexual orientation which was experienced by 5,375 lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) adult Britons, who were interviewed online between 16 February and 11 April 2017. Replies to each question were disaggregated by religious affiliation. Reflecting their younger than average profile, 66% of LGBTs professed no religion, with 24% being Christians and 9% non-Christians. During the previous year, 28% of those who had attended faith services or otherwise visited places of worship said they had felt discriminated against because of being LGBT. Among the avowedly religious, there were also mixed reactions to the statement ‘my religious community is welcoming to LGB people’, 39% agreeing, 27% disagreeing, and 34% being undecided. Data tables are located at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/etsbnlnngh/YG-Archive-140217-StonewallResults.pdf

Hospices

Interviewed online by ComRes on behalf of Hospice UK on 7-8 August 2017, 80% of 2,120 British adults thought that hospices either currently provide (55%) or should provide (36%) spiritual care (for example, through chaplaincy). This was a higher proportion than anticipated that hospices did or should offer complementary therapy (77%) or rehabilitation (74%). The spiritual care total increased with age, from 73% of under-25s to 88% of over-65s. Data tables are at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Hospice-UK_Public-Perceptions_Data-Tables_October-17.pdf

Ethical champions and the £20 note

News that the Bank of England will be launching a replacement £20 note in 2020 prompted the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF) to commission YouGov to ask a sample of 2,128 UK adults on 24-25 September 2017 which of 15 individuals they would suggest should appear on the note as an ‘ethical champion’ (the intention being to remind the public to be ethical in how they spend their money). The current Archbishop of Canterbury (Justin Welby, a campaigner against poverty) was one of the names on the list and received 3% of the overall votes (and no more than 5% in any demographic sub-group), which put him in a respectable joint fifth position. The popular choice, by a mile, was the conservationist David Attenborough, with 40%. Data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/mls98m3t56/YG%20-%20UKSIf%20Results%20-%20250917.pdf

Meeting the Pope

Asked to imagine they had been invited to meet the Pope in the Vatican, 51% of 1,615 adult Britons interviewed online by YouGov on 4-5 October 2017 said they would accept the invitation, including a surprisingly high proportion (65%) of under-25s; 38% thought they would decline the invitation, while 11% were undecided. The hypothetical invitation was also extended to visit Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace (73% being disposed to accept), Prime Minister Theresa May at 10 Downing Street (54%), Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin (38%), and US President Donald Trump at the White House (36%). Full data are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/0zuc2tbscb/InternalResults_171005_InvitationQs.pdf

Superstition

Britons have a reputation for clinging to various superstitions but not, apparently, when money is at stake. So one might deduce from an app-based poll by YouGov released on 27 September 2017. Asked which of two identical flats they would prefer to buy, one on floor 13 and costing £250,000 and the other on floor 12 and costing £255,000, 75% of respondents opted for the cheaper one on floor 13 and just 25% for floor 12. The topline result only is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/09/27/crimes-committed-university-days-marriage-today-su/

Paranormal

With Halloween just around the corner, BMG Research polled the British public about their intentions to observe the festival in 2017 (56% had none, five points up on 2016) and their attitudes to trick or treating by children (which were divided), but also included a couple of prefatory questions about the paranormal. The sample comprised 1,347 adults aged 18 and over interviewed online on 17-20 October 2017. Asked whether they believed in ghosts, ghouls, spirits, or other types of paranormal activity, a plurality (46%) replied in the negative, 33% in the affirmative, while 21% had not made up their minds. Belief was higher among women than men, younger than older people, and manual than non-manual workers. The believers and the uncertain were then asked whether they had seen or felt the presence of paranormal activity in the past, 40% saying they had, 24% they might have had, and 36% they had not. A blog about the survey, with a link to full data tables, is at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/bmg-halloween-poll-third-brits-believe-ghosts-spirits-types-paranormal-activity/

Scottish religious affiliation

An online survey of 1,010 Scots by ComRes for campaign group Be Reasonable between 21 September and 2 October 2017 included a question about religious affiliation: ‘which of the following, if any, do you consider yourself to be?’ In reply, 51% declared they were Christian (rising to 70% of over-65s) and 7% non-Christian, with 39% professing no religion (peaking at 54% for those aged 25-34) and 2% preferring not to say. The results appear as table 5/1 in the full data report, but it should be noted that religion is not used therein as a variable to analyse the answers to the main questionnaire, which concerned children and families, with particular reference to the vexed issue of smacking. The data report is at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Be-Reasonable_-Survey-of-Scottish-Adults_-Data-Tables.pdf

Middle East

The British Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) commissioned Populus to conduct two online surveys of representative samples of Britons about their attitudes towards Israel and related Middle East topics. The first poll was on 6-8 October 2017 with 2,021 adults, the second on 9-10 October 2017 with 2,041 adults; the two questionnaires were slightly different. BICOM has been testing British public opinion in this area since 2010, and its press release on the 2017 enquiries highlighted some modest improvement in perceptions of Israel, in terms of the warmth expressed towards the country and lessening of the willingness to support boycotts of Israeli goods and produce. Even so, there were mixed views about the wisdom of the British government in committing in 1917 to the principle of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine (only 38% judged it to have been right). In 2017, there is significant negativity towards the Jewish state which eventually emerged, Israel receiving a below average mean score (on a feelings thermometer scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being very warm and favourable) of 3.82 and Israelis one of 4.13. The saving grace for the Israeli cause is that mean scores for some of Israel’s neighbours in the Middle East conflict are even lower, especially those for Hamas and Hezbollah, while Islamic State (IS) comes rock bottom, feelings towards it being very cold and unfavourable. Also on the brighter side, a plurality regards Israel as an important ally (49%) and post-Brexit trading partner (37%) of Britain. A majority (51%) does not believe that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic; however, 46% agree it is anti-Semitic to express hatred of Israel and question its right to exist. Both sets of data tables are accessible at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/polls/

Islamic State

YouGov has recently run three questions in three separate surveys touching on Islamic State (IS). In an app-based poll reported on 24 October 2017, respondents were asked whether they agreed with the assessment of a Foreign Office minister that the only way of dealing with Britons who had joined IS was, in almost every case, to kill them. A majority of respondents (53%) supported the minister’s views, 35% opposed them, and 12% were unsure. Topline results only have been posted online at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/10/24/should-britons-who-joined-be-killed-housing-limiti/

Another app-based poll, reported on 25 October 2017, enquired whether people should be given the name ‘Jihad’, as one family in the French city of Toulouse had done for their baby (and been challenged by the authorities). The term ‘jihad’ is usually now associated with violent Islamist extremism, although in the original Arabic it can simply mean self-denial or an individual battle against sin. Two-thirds (65%) of adults thought Jihad should not be allowed as a personal name, while 21% were relaxed about it being so, and 13% were undecided. Topline results only are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/10/25/phones-and-laptops-prison-inmates-allowing-jihad-n/

A third app-based poll, conducted on 25 October 2017 with 3,398 adults, asked whether it was appropriate to prosecute, on their return, Britons who had gone out to the Middle East to fight against IS. A plurality (48%) deemed it inappropriate, with 22% favouring prosecution and 30% uncertain. Results, with breaks by standard demographics, are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/243906e4-b962-11e7-8ec9-470a65cd0043

Anti-Semitic remarks

Labour politician and former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone continues to be haunted by his 2005 indiscretion in likening a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard, compounded by his subsequent unwillingness to apologize for the comment. The affair resurfaced in a recent online poll by YouGov among 1,526 Britons on 26-27 October 2017, conducted in the wake of revelations about Jared O’Mara’s controversial statements about several groups prior to his election as a Labour MP. YouGov reminded its respondents of sundry politically incorrect incidents involving senior politicians in the past, one of which was the Livingstone outburst (albeit he was not actually named in the question). In two half-samples, 95% and 94% described the analogy with a concentration camp guard as inappropriate, with 63% and 55%, respectively, thinking the matter serious enough to warrant the politician’s resignation. Full data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8zsm9kh12w/Results_171027_OMaraQs.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Churches Together in England

A mixture of qualitative and quantitative research underpinned an external review of Churches Together in England, undertaken by Theos between September 2016 and June 2017, including evidence derived from 63 interviews and 44 questionnaires. It is reported in Natan Mladin, Rachel Fidler, and Ben Ryan, That They All May Be One: Insights into Churches Together in England and Contemporary Ecumenism (London: Theos, 2017, 61pp., ISBN: 978-0-9956543-1-0), which is freely available at:

https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/Reportfiles/CTE-report.pdf

What is mission?

During the summer of 2017 the Church Mission Society (CMS) conducted a survey about attitudes to mission among a self-selecting sample of British Christians attending Christian events or by means of a questionnaire on its website. Some 2,000 responses have been received to date (the survey is still open, at the time of writing). An article about the initial results appeared in Church of England Newspaper, 20 October 2017, p. 9 with a shorter digest available on the CMS website at:

https://churchmissionsociety.org/mission-survey-results

Church of England mission statistics

The Church of England’s 51-page report on Statistics for Mission, 2016 has a rather familiar ring to it. The long-term and gradual decline in the Church’s constituency continues across a broad range of performance indicators, with few redeeming signs of even absolute (still less relative) growth. The figures for all-age Average Sunday Attendance and Usual Sunday Attendance (the most long-running churchgoing index) always attract a disproportionate amount of interest, both in the Church itself and among the media; in 2016, they fell to, respectively, 780,000 and 739,000 persons. The worshipping community, representing those who come to church once a month or more, numbered 1,139,000 (equivalent to a miniscule 2% of the population), one-fifth of whom were aged under 18. Christmas attendance reached 2,580,000, slightly up on 2015, an improvement which doubtless reflects the fact that Christmas Day fell on a Sunday in 2016 (a coincidence which always boosts congregations). The most striking feature of recent Anglican decline, however, is less to do with churchgoing than participation in the rites of passage, with Church of England infant baptisms in 2016 equating to just 10% of live births and funerals to 28% of deaths. The report, which includes a special one-off section on visitors to churches, is available at:

https://churchofengland.org/media/4038454/2016statisticsformission.pdf

Church of England parish finances

An 18-page report on Parish Finance Statistics, 2015 has also been published by Church of England Research and Statistics. This reveals that between 2006 and 2015 the income of parishes increased by 24% and expenditure by 23%. Except for 2009-11, income exceeded expenditure each year, with a surplus of £54.4 million in 2015. Planned giving remains the main source of income but it has declined in real terms during recent years. The report is available at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/4037778/2015_ropfreport.pdf

Church of England digital impact

On a more upbeat note, the Church of England has announced that it is steadily building capacity in cyberspace through its three-year digital transformation project (funded by the broader Renewal and Reform Programme). It claims that each month 1.2 million individuals are being reached on social media and 1.5 million via the Church’s various websites. The Church’s #JoyToTheWorld Christmas campaign in 2016 reached 1.5 million people and its #LiveLent campaign in 2017 2.5 million. These and other headline statistics can be found at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/4039027/digital-reach.pdf

West Midlands Anglicans

The Saint Peter’s Saltley Trust and Church Urban Fund have collaborated to fund a project and produce a 24-page report on Christians in Practice: Connecting Discipleship and Community Engagement (Saltley Faith & Learning Series, 3), with Simon Foster as lead author. It stems from research undertaken in the Church of England Dioceses of Birmingham and Lichfield, principally through questionnaires completed by 1,082 worshippers in a stratified random sample of 32 Anglican congregations, supplemented by 30 interviews in six churches. Allowing for constraints of time and health, a high level of personal involvement with the community was revealed, both short-term and long-term, formal and informal, past and present, and church-based or not. Respondents also mostly identified a broad connection between their community activities and their faith and felt the latter had been enriched by the former, albeit sharing faith with the community posed challenges to some. The report is at:

https://www.cuf.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=4a604f1a-c770-4a03-9fe8-8e82c47138a2

Welsh Nonconformity

The present state and missional approaches of evangelical Welsh Nonconformist churches (Baptist, Paedobaptist, Pentecostal, Conservative Evangelical, and New Church/Charismatic) are reviewed by David Ollerton in his A New Mission to Wales: Seeing Churches Prosper across Wales in the Twenty-First Century (Pwllheli: Cyhoeddiadau’r Gair, 2016, 278pp., ISBN: 9781859948187, paperback, £9.99). The data principally derive from a survey undertaken by Waleswide in 2012-15, particularly from questionnaires fully (283) or partially (103) completed in 2012 by 386 of the 588 Nonconformist ministers who were invited to take part. It is suggested that respondents probably came disproportionately from growing congregations. Factoring in that churches without ministerial oversight, as well as churches of other denominations, were not contacted, the questionnaires perhaps paint an over-optimistic picture of the condition of organized Christianity in Wales. They were supplemented by direct interviews (in 2013-14) and regional soundings (in 2015). The analysis in the text and the appendix of charts focuses on the differential effectiveness of six alternative approaches to mission, as revealed by the questionnaires and interviews and in the light of the religious, geographical, ethnic, linguistic/cultural, social, and political contexts of Wales. The research is more fully reported in Ollerton’s ‘Mission in a Welsh Context: Patterns of Nonconformist Mission in Wales and the Challenge of Contextualisation in the Twenty First Century’ (PhD thesis, University of Chester, 2015), which can be freely downloaded from:

http://chesterrep.openrepository.com/cdr/handle/10034/611381

Methodist decline

The Methodist Church Statistics for Mission Triennial Report, 2017, presented to the annual Methodist Conference (and featured in the June 2017 edition of Counting Religion in Britain), revealed a picture of ongoing net decline across a range of performance measures. The October meeting of the Methodist Council has now received: (a) the responses to the report made by District discussion groups at the Conference; and (b) a paper offering some corporate reflections on the responses. Districts were asked a series of questions arising from the statistics, including the perceived strengths and challenges of their own District, observations on the figures for another District, and suggestions for a way forward. The two papers can be found at:

http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/2795075/counc_MC17_DP1_Statistics_for_Mission_Oct_2017.pdf

http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/2795081/counc_MC17_DP2_Statistics_for_Mission_2017_Initial_reflections_on_collated_responses_Oct_2017.pdf

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Hate crimes

Police forces in England and Wales recorded 5,949 religious hate crimes in 2016/17, 35% more than in 2015/16 and about four times the number in 2011/12 and 2012/13. The increase in 2016/17 was particularly associated with the outcome of the June 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union and the March 2017 terror attack on Westminster Bridge. A report and data tables on the statistics of all forms of hate crime for 2016/17 can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2016-to-2017

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Secularization

In his latest book, Secular Beats Spiritual: The Westernization of the Easternization of the West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, xiii + 199pp., ISBN: 978-0-19-880568-7, hardback, £25), the prolific sociologist of religion Steve Bruce reasserts the secularization thesis through a critique of those who argue that religion has not really declined, it has simply changed in nature and form. His title is ‘a slightly tongue-in-cheek reference’ to Colin Campbell’s 2007 work The Easternization of the West. Bruce investigates, with special reference to Britain, the ‘popularity’ of the New Religious Movements and the New Age cultic milieu which have emerged since the late 1960s. He concludes that their appeal to indigenous populations has been numerically limited and nowhere near enough to fill the void left by the decline in conventional religions, notably Christianity. Moreover, the most enduring innovations have been the least ‘religious’ ones or survived only by becoming more ‘this-worldly’, while the influence of eastern religions and eastern religious themes has been significantly altered in a secular direction. Statistics are drawn upon, where available, and there is a 33-page chapter devoted to the issue of ‘counting the spiritual’, which estimates that less than 1% of people practice ‘novel expressions of religious or spiritual interest’. The book’s webpage is at:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/secular-beats-spiritual-9780198805687?cc=gb&lang=en&

Religion in public life

A new report by Grace Davie, Religion in Public Life: Levelling the Ground (London: Theos, 2017, 96pp., ISBN: 978-0-9956543-2-7), is based upon her Edward Cadbury Lectures delivered in the University of Birmingham in 2016. It examines the role of religion in public life from the perspective of three levels: local (comprising case studies of Exeter and the South-West, the author’s home, and London), national (focusing on the debates surrounding the Church of England’s report on Faith in the City and Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses), and global (deriving from Davie’s participation in the International Panel on Social Progress). A conclusion pulls together the cross-cutting themes which run through the report. Use of statistical evidence is relatively light, perhaps appropriately for an essay which is primarily conceived as a contribution to an ongoing conversation in the public square, and is at its strongest in the chapter on London. The report is available at:

https://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/cmsfiles/Reportfiles/RELIGION.PDF

Religious none

In the published version of her 2016 Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture, Linda Woodhead summarizes her YouGov-based research into the swift rise and demographic profile of religious nones in Britain and also makes what she describes as her ‘first serious attempt to explain this profound cultural transition’. She stresses that ‘no religion’ has an ambiguous status as at once like and unlike religion, religious nones largely rejecting the dogmatism of religion rather than religion tout court. She identifies the central commitment of ‘no religion’ as ‘each and every human being should be free to decide how best to live his or her own life even if it involves bad choices’. Democratization, cultural and religious diversity, and marketization and consumerization are among the social changes Woodhead believes help account for the growth of no religion. Access options to ‘The Rise of “No Religion”: Towards an Explanation’, Sociology of Religion, Vol. 78, No. 3, Autumn 2017, pp. 247-62 are outlined at:

https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article-abstract/78/3/247/4079669/The-Rise-of-No-Religion-Towards-an-Explanation?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Proximity effect of cathedrals

The presence of an Anglican or Catholic cathedral or cathedral-like parish or abbey church in an area seems to heighten the chance of individuals living in the vicinity self-identifying as Christian, after social demography is controlled for. So suggest Andrew Village and Judith Muskett in their analysis of religious affiliation data in the 2011 population census for 6,712 English wards situated within 30 km of 105 cathedrals or greater churches: ‘Flagships in a Sea of Unbelief? Christian Affiliation around Big Church Buildings in England’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 32, No. 3, October 2017, pp. 479-93. However, the proximity effect was small, in the order of 1%, and the findings are open to several different interpretations. It is also conceded that census data constitute a ‘rather blunt instrument’ for measuring proximity effect. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2017.1362891

Religious experience

The predisposition of certain psychological types to undergo and admit to religious experience is validated in a recent article by Leslie Francis and Andrew Village: ‘Psychological Type and Reported Religious Experience: An Empirical Enquiry among Anglican Clergy and Laity’, Mental Health, Religion, and Culture, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2017, pp. 367-83. Using data from a self-selecting sample of 4,421 practising Anglicans (disproportionately Anglo-Catholic or Broad Church) who responded to an online and postal questionnaire promoted in the Church Times in 2013, the authors revealed the perceiving process to be fundamental to individual differences in openness to religious experiences, which were more likely to be reported by intuitive types than sensing types. Their single-item measure of religious experience, rooted in a sociological tradition, thus accorded with previous research based on multi-item scales, and rooted in the psychological tradition. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2017.1328404

Scotland’s Muslims

In Scotland’s Muslims: Society, Politics, and Identity (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017, 304pp., ISBN: 9781474427234, hardback, £80), editor Peter Hopkins brings together a team of leading and emerging scholars from a range of disciplines who have undertaken research with Muslims in Scotland over the last decade. After his own introduction, there are twelve thematic chapters exploring, by means of quantitative and qualitative evidence, Muslim health, education, political participation, gender and migration, sexuality, young people, generational relations, heritage, multiculturalism, media, representation, and integration. The book’s webpage is at:

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-scotland-039-s-muslims.html

Youth and the Churches

In Young People and Church since 1900: Engagement and Exclusion (London: Routledge, 2018, ix + 196pp., ISBN: 978-1-4724-8978-4, hardback, £105), Naomi Thompson charts the transition from Sunday schools to Christian youth work in twentieth-century England, with particular reference to the history of the Birmingham Sunday School Union, and with a focus on three time periods: 1900-10, 1955-72, and the present day. This is a mixed methods work, which draws upon interviews, both oral history and contemporary. There is also a certain amount of statistical content, mainly extracted from the annual reports of the National Sunday School Union between 1898 and 1972, which is displayed in the form of graphs and tables. The webpage for the book (which is already available, notwithstanding the imprint year) is at:

https://www.routledge.com/Young-People-and-Church-Since-1900-Engagement-and-Exclusion/Thompson/p/book/9781472489784

First World War

The outbreak of the First World War seems to have led to a surge in the number of sermons preached from Old Testament texts, as ministers turned to the prophets and the history of Israel for inspiration and comfort in Britain’s own hour of danger and need. This is suggested by an analysis of the texts of contemporary sermons published in Christian World Pulpit over 60 years, tabulated on p. 71 of Stuart Bell’s Faith in Conflict: The Impact of the Great War on the Faith of the People of Britain (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2017, 240pp., ISBN: 978-1-911512-67-7, hardback, £25). Between July 1913 and June 1914, 36% of sermons took an Old Testament text, but the proportion rose to 47% in July-December 1914 before falling away throughout the war, standing at 29% in 1918 and 26% in January-June 1919. It climbed again, to 36%, during a challenging period in the Second World War, from July 1940 to June 1941. Otherwise, the book is relatively short on statistical content.

PEOPLE NEWS

David John Bartholomew (1931-2017)

Emeritus Professor David Bartholomew, the eminent statistician, died at his home on 16 October 2017, aged 86 years. Educated at Bedford Modern School and University College London, he held academic appointments at, successively, the University of Keele, Aberystwyth University, the University of Kent, and the London School of Economics. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1987 and was President of the Royal Statistical Society in 1993-95. An active Methodist (including as a local preacher for over 60 years), Professor Bartholomew was periodically engaged by the Methodist Church to prepare forecasts and analyses of ordained and lay ministry and membership. Among his extensive portfolio of publications were three books blending statistical theory with theology: God of Chance (SCM Press, 1984), Uncertain Belief: Is it Rational to be a Christian? (Clarendon Press, 1996), and God, Chance and Purpose (Cambridge University Press, 2008). A complete list of his writings is available at:

http://www.djbartholomew.com/

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Counting Religion in Britain, September 2017

Posted on October 1, 2017 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 24, September 2017 features 26 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 24 September 2017

OPINION POLLS

Harmfulness of religion

More than twice as many Britons (68%) feel the world has been damaged by religion as say it has benefited from it (30%), according to a Populus poll for the Legatum Institute think-tank, for which 2,004 adults were interviewed online on 4-6 August 2017. Respondents were shown a list of eight social, cultural, and economic trends and asked to rate their impact on a scale running from minus 100 (denoting severe damage) to plus 100 (great benefit), religion receiving the lowest mean score of all (even worse than immigration). The proportion with a negative view of religion peaked at 79% among UKIP voters. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/OmLeft_Wing_Populism.pdf

Saliency of religion

Asked to choose three of twenty facets of life which were of greatest importance to them ‘right now’, only 5% of a sample of 1,003 UK young adults aged 16-22 (Generation Z) selected religion, their top priorities being family (44%), education (32%), money (29%), and friends or boyfriend/girlfriend/partner (25% each). Religion was of most significance to Londoners (10%) and black and minority ethnic young persons (19%, six times the figure for white people). The survey was conducted online by Ipsos MORI for BBC’s Newsbeat programme between 24 August and 4 September 2017. For comparative purposes, a sample of adults aged 23-65 (Generation Y, Generation X, and Baby Boomers) was invited to speculate what they thought the immediate concerns of Generation Z were. Data tables are available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2017-09/bbc-newsbeat-survey-tables-2017_2.pdf

Airbrushing religious symbols

German supermarket chain Lidl has incurred some negative publicity recently with the discovery that, throughout Europe, it has airbrushed out the Christian cross at the top of the blue dome of the Anastasi Church on the island of Santorini, images of which feature on its Greek food range, in order to remain ‘religiously neutral’. Three-quarters of Britons interviewed by YouGov in an app-based poll released on 7 September 2017 disapproved of Lidl’s action, with only 13% endorsing it and 12% undecided. Topline results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/09/07/cutting-unskilled-eu-labour-airbrushing-religious-/

Funerals

The eleventh (2017) edition of SunLife’s Cost of Dying Report contains a range of information about funerals, mostly based upon two UK-wide surveys undertaken by Critical Research in May 2017 among (a) 1,524 adults who were responsible for planning a funeral and administering an estate during the past four years (online interviews) and (b) 100 funeral directors (by telephone). One-quarter of funerals now involve burials and three-quarters cremations, with an increasing number of the latter (10% according to the funeral directors) being direct cremations, generally involving no funeral service whatsoever (albeit a small minority have some sort of post-cremation service). Two-thirds of the funeral directors returned a decrease in religious funerals, one-half of funerals also featuring modern songs, music, or anthems. Just 11% of those who had organized a funeral for a loved-one described the tone of the service as ‘religious’ and no more than 36% even knew whether the deceased would have preferred a religious or non-religious service. The report is at:

https://www.sunlife.co.uk/blogs-and-features/how-much-does-a-funeral-cost-in-the-uk-today_/

Online radicalization

Attitudes to extremist content online and the regulation of the internet more generally have been thoroughly investigated in an online poll by ICM Unlimited among 2,051 adult Britons on 14-18 July 2017, on behalf of Policy Exchange. Results for all questions were disaggregated by religious affiliation, albeit only the sub-samples of professing Christians and religious nones were large enough to yield statistically robust breaks. On many issues, the latter tended to adopt more liberal positions than the former, although this was probably largely a function of their different age profiles. Additionally, a couple of questions were posed which specifically focused on religion. The first asked whether extremist or hate speech at places of worship influenced people to commit terrorist acts; 63% thought it did so a lot, 25% a little, and only 3% not at all. The second question enquired whether it was acceptable in certain situations to publish online content that encourages violence against religious groups; just 13% agreed overall (but including 31% of under-25s and 45% of the 50 Muslims interviewed) while 72% disagreed and 12% were neutral. Data tables can be found at:

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017_PX_online_radicalisation_survey.pdf

Workplace discrimination

The experience during the past five years of specific types of work-related discrimination or disadvantage by 1,003 black and minority ethnic (BME) workers in Britain was measured in an online poll by ICM Unlimited for the Trades Union Congress in January 2017. Breaks for several questions were given by religious affiliation, including for statistically viable sub-samples of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and religious nones. Race/ethnicity or gender were more likely than religion/belief to be cited as the perceived cause of cases of harassment, verbal abuse, physical violence, or unfair treatment. Prejudice against wearing visible markers of religious identity was reported as having increased since the vote in 2016 on the UK’s membership of the European Union, 23% of BME respondents having experienced or witnessed it post-Brexit. Data tables are available at:

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/TUC-Workplace-Discrimination-Short-Updated.pdf

Trust in professions

Three-fifths of 2,612 secondary school pupils aged 11-16 in England and Wales trust clergy and priests to tell the truth, and just 14% distrust them, according to the 2017 Ipsos MORI Young People Omnibus, undertaken by self-completion questionnaire between 6 February and 17 May. With a net trust figure of +46%, clergy and priests were ranked fifth of eighteen professional groups for trustworthiness, after doctors (+83%), the police (+71%), judges (+64%), and scientists (+53%). This was about the same net trust figure for clergy and priests as in the 2016 Ipsos MORI Veracity Index for British adults (+43%), albeit the latter expressed both higher levels of trust (69%) and distrust (26%) for clergy and priests to tell the truth, mainly because there were fewer don’t knows than in the school pupil sample. Data tables for the Young People Omnibus are available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/doctors-are-most-trusted-profession-among-school-children

Viewing the Arab world

The Arab News has published a series of articles on British attitudes to the Arab world, derived from a YouGov poll which it commissioned in partnership with the Council for Arab-British Understanding, for which 2,142 adults were interviewed online on 16-17 August 2017. The full report and data tables have yet to be released, but the articles reveal a few findings which will be of interest to BRIN readers. Although 72% of respondents acknowledged that anti-Muslim hatred is a growing problem in the UK, 55% supported racial profiling of Arabs/Muslims for security reasons (with 24% disapproving). The majority (53%) endorsed the UK’s continued military operations against Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, with 29% opposed and 19% neutral. On the Israel-Palestine question, 53% agreed that the UK should recognize Palestine as a state, and only 32% regarded the Balfour Declaration of 1917 (in favour of a Jewish national homeland in Palestine) as something to be proud of (albeit a plurality of 41% was undecided). At the same time, most (55%) did not feel the UK should take responsibility for sorting out the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab News coverage can be found at:

http://www.arabnews.com/tags/how-brits-view-arab-world

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Mapping Christians

ComRes has completed a so-called ‘mapping’ study for the Church of England’s Evangelism Task Force, interviewing 8,150 adult Britons online between 17 and 31 March 2017, and identifying that 50% professed to be Christians, 7% non-Christians, and 42% religious nones (peaking at 57% of 18-24s). Christians (n = 4,190, 56% of them Anglican) and former Christians (n = 84) were then asked a series of questions to measure their commitment to the faith. Among Christians, just 28% regarded themselves as ‘an active Christian who follows Jesus’, 63% not, with 9% unsure. More specifically, 40% of Christians claimed to pray at least monthly and 29% never; 19% to attend church at least monthly and 33% never; and 18% to read or listen to the Bible at least monthly and 55% never. Across the whole sample, 6% of adults were categorized by ComRes as ‘practising Christians’, defined as people who satisfied the triple test of reading the Bible and praying at least weekly and attending church at least monthly. Almost certainly, these claims to religious practice were overstated by respondents. Full data tables, extending to 155 pages, can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Church-of-England-Church-Mapping-Survey-Data-Tables.pdf

Food poverty

The Church Urban Fund has recently released the results of an online poll about food poverty, which it commissioned ComRes to undertake among a sample of 2,048 adult Britons on 4-5 January 2017. The survey covered the incidence of particular financial and food anxieties and deprivations during the previous twelve months, which were generally found to be higher among non-Christians than for Christians or religious nones. Data tables are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Church-Urban-Fund-Food-Poverty-Survey-Data-Tables.pdf

Church of England ministry statistics

The Church of England has released the latest annual reports on the number of its clergy and ordinands. The 25-page Ministry Statistics, 2016 shows a total of 19,550 active ordained ministers, 2% fewer than in 2015, 29% of whom are women and 40% stipendiary. The single-slide report on ordinands records 544 entering training in 2017, the highest figure for ten years; this represents an overall increase of 14% on 2015 but 19% more women and 39% more young ordinands. The documents can be accessed via links in the press release at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2017/09/number-of-women-in-ordained-ministry-at-record-high.aspx

Living Ministry

The Church of England’s Ministry Division has published the first results from its Living Ministry project: Liz Graveling and Olga Cara, Mapping the Wellbeing of Church of England Clergy and Ordinands: Panel Survey Wave 1 Report. The project is a longitudinal panel study involving a large-scale quantitative online survey every two years among four cohorts of clergy (those ordained deacon in 2006, 2011, and 2015 and those who commenced training in 2016) together with smaller-scale qualitative research. It will run from 2016 to 2026. There were 761 respondents to wave 1, equivalent to 38% of the cohort population. Overall, levels of wellbeing were found to be positive for each domain (financial and material; physical and mental; relationships; and ministerial). Gender was a less significant factor than age in explaining differences. The report is available at:

http://www.ministrydevelopment.org.uk/UserFiles/File/Research_Consult/Living_Ministry_Panel_Survey_Wave_1_Report.pdf

Coincidentally, King’s Business School at King’s College London has published a summative report on the Experiences of Ministry project, the forerunner of Living Ministry: Mike Clinton and Tim Ling, Effective Ministerial Presence and What It Looks Like in Practice: Insights from the Experiences of Ministry Project, 2011-17. This earlier project captured the views of 6,000 Church of England clergy through a series of national surveys, as well as conducting in-depth interviews and collecting week-long daily diaries. Like Living Ministry, it also addressed clergy wellbeing, revealing that it compared favourably with other occupational groups. A full-length book on the findings of Experiences of Ministry is promised for 2018. Meanwhile, the summative report is available at:

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/business/assets/PDF/Effective-Ministerial-Presence-Brochure-final.pdf

Church in Wales statistics

At its meeting in Lampeter on 14 September 2017, the Church in Wales Governing Body received the annual report on membership and finances for 2016. The overall picture was more negative than positive, with particular decline from 2015 in Easter communicants (down 6%), baptisms (down 8%), and confirmations (down 21%), as well as a fall (for the fifth year in succession) in planned direct giving (the principal source of parochial income). In terms of membership indicators, growth was confined to Christmas communicants (up 2%), average under-18 worship attendance (up 3%), and average over-18 weekday attendance (up 5%). Congregations at ‘additional services’ also rose (by 4%). There was a continuing surplus of income over expenditure, notwithstanding increased outlay in 2016 as new projects were started, which was said to reflect growing confidence at the grass roots. In the Governing Body’s debate on the report, Revd Richard Wood of Bangor observed his plea in 2016 for the Church to cut out its dead wood had been met with ‘a stony silence’, and he urged it to ‘stop giving time, effort, energy, and money to that which has failed’. The report is available at:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/cinw/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/42416-CIW-Memberships-and-Finances-2016.pdf

Faith schools

The Fair Admissions Campaign (FAC), which wants all state-funded schools in England and Wales to be open to all children regardless of religion or belief, has updated its digest of research about faith schools and religious selection of pupils. Sources date from 2001 to the present and are arranged in reverse chronological order. They comprise a mixture of official reports, academic studies, investigations by faith bodies, and opinion polls. The digest is preceded by an overview (pp. 2-9) from FAC, which concludes: ‘religious selection is not popular. High-performing schools are popular. And the socio-economic selection brought about by religious selection often leads religiously selective schools to be high-performing schools.’ The 100-page document can be accessed at:

http://fairadmissions.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/2017-08-29-FINAL-Religious-Selection-Research-Survey.pdf

Religious education

The National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE), the Religious Education Council of England and Wales (REC), and RE Today Services have published The State of the Nation: A Report on Religious Education Provision within Secondary Schools in England. It is based on three datasets: an online survey of 790 schools; the Department for Education’s School Workforce Census for 2010-15; and entries for GCSE Religious Studies for 2014-16. The headline-grabbing finding (from the School Workforce Census) is that 28% of schools give no dedicated curriculum time to religious education in Year 11, in contravention of their statutory duties, and affecting 800,000 pupils. Two shorter supplementary reports by NATRE were issued at the same time: GCSE Religious Studies, 2014-2016 and Levels of Provision of Religious Education in Schools where Different Legal Requirements Apply. All three documents can be accessed via the links in the press release at:

https://www.natre.org.uk/news/latest-news/800-000-secondary-pupils-lose-out-on-religious-literacy/

The REC has separately published the interim report of the Commission on Religious Education (CORE), entitled Religious Education for All, which offers a comparable overview of provision, drawing upon the written and oral evidence presented to it, including statistics. CORE was initiated by REC but is independent and has recommended that religious education should encompass the teaching of non-religious as well as religious worldviews. Its report can be found at:

http://www.commissiononre.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Commission-on-Religious-Education-Interim-Report-2017.pdf

Scottish religiosity

An online poll of 1,016 Scottish adults aged 16 and over, conducted by Survation on behalf of the Humanist Society Scotland (HSS) between 8 and 12 September 2017, has revealed that just 24% of Scots regard themselves as religious, 72% saying they are not, with 4% declining to answer. This represents a reduction in the number of avowedly religious people in Scotland since 2011, when a study by Progressive/YouGov returned it as 35% (against 56% not religious). Based on this evidence, HSS is questioning the ways in which the population census and other religious surveys are being carried out, arriving at higher figures of Scottish religious adherence. Data tables from the Survation poll can be found at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Final-HSS-Tables-1c0d1h6-080917MBJRFSTJNHCH-I.pdf

Scottish social capital

The contribution of faith communities in Scotland to its national life was celebrated in a debate of a motion tabled by Kate Forbes MSP in the Scottish Parliament on 12 September 2017, commending the achievements of the Serve Scotland coalition of community organizations. The debate was informed by an estimate that voluntary work by Scottish faith groups through social projects produces an economic impact of almost £100 million each year in terms of time and resources. For a transcript of the debate, see:

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/sp/?id=2017-09-12.11.0

For a press release from the Evangelical Alliance Scotland summarizing the background data, which derive from the Cinnamon Network, see:

https://www.eauk.org/current-affairs/media/press-releases/voluntary-work-from-scottish-faith-groups-produces-almost-100m-of-economic-impact-each-year.cfm

Anti-Semitism

What is claimed to be ‘the largest and most detailed survey of attitudes towards Jews and Israel ever conducted in Great Britain’ is reported in Daniel Staetsky, Antisemitism in Contemporary Great Britain: A Study of Attitudes towards Jews and Israel, published by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR). In partnership with the Community Security Trust, JPR commissioned Ipsos MORI to poll 5,466 Britons aged 16 and over by a combination of face-to-face and online interview between 28 October 2016 and 24 February 2017. The sample included boosts for Muslims, the far-left, and the far-right. Staetsky proposes an ‘elastic view’ of the extent of anti-Semitism in Britain, differentiating the counting of serious anti-Semites on the one hand (who number no more than 5% of the population) from the measurement of the diffusion of anti-Semitic ideas and attitudes (held to some extent by a further 25% of Britons) on the other, the latter not necessarily translating into open dislike of Jews. Hard-core negativity towards Israel was demonstrated by 12% of the population, with an additional 21% exhibiting softer negativity and a total of 56% holding at least one anti-Israel attitude (and 62% at least one anti-Israel and/or one anti-Semitic attitude). As a general rule, anti-Israel sentiments were not found to be anti-Semitic, but the stronger a person’s anti-Israel views, the more likely they were to hold anti-Semitic attitudes. Both anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attitudes were substantially higher among Muslims than in society at large. Somewhat counter-intuitively, despite current political discourses, this was not the case for left-wingers with regard to anti-Semitism (although it was for anti-Israelism). The 82-page report, incorporating a 16-page methodological section, is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.2017.Antisemitism_in_contemporary_Great_Britain.pdf

Jews and home help

Nine-tenths (91%) of 1,028 self-identifying British Jewish adults employ some kind of help around the home, according to a telephone poll by Survation in July 2017 on behalf of World Jewish Relief (WJR). The commonest form of domestic assistance was the cleaner, engaged by 65% of Jews, including 54% who have a cleaner in at least once a week and 20% several times a week. Other widespread types of help during the course of the year were window cleaners (59%), gardeners (51%), and handymen (41%). Least called on were chefs, au pairs, and carers. The majority (57%) of respondents said they would struggle without help in the home, lack of time being the principal reason given, especially by under-35s. Full data tables are not available, but WJR’s press release is at:

https://www.worldjewishrelief.org/news/512-91-of-jewish-community-employs-home-help-new-survey-reveals

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Sikh ethnicity and the 2021 census

The Times for 12 September 2017 (p. 19) ran a short news story about a Sikh campaign to secure recognition of ‘Sikh’ as an ethnic, as well as a religious, group at the 2021 census of the UK, noting that 113 MPs had signed a letter to the chief executive of the UK Statistics Authority requesting the change. At the 2011 census, more than 83,000 Sikhs refused to choose one of the listed options in the question on ethnicity, preferring to write in ‘Sikh’ in the space for ‘any other ethnic group’.

The story was followed up in several letters to the editor. On 13 September (p. 28), Malathy Sitaram, a retired schoolteacher from Swindon, wrote to express surprise that some UK Sikhs declined to be recognized as Indians, arguing that Hindu Punjabis and Sikh Punjabis speak the same language and frequently intermarry. In similar vein, on 14 September (p. 32), Randhir Singh Bains wrote from Gants Hill to deny that Sikhs were an ethnic group, as opposed to being Punjabis, and to suggest that the leaders of the campaign to designate Sikhs as such a group were Sikh separatists who wanted to carve a Sikh state out of India. But on 18 September (p. 28), Surinder Singh Bakhshi of Birmingham reminded the readers of The Times of Lord Templeton’s judgement in the House of Lords in the case of Mandla v. Dowell Lee in 1983, that Sikhs were an ethnic group and, indeed, almost a nation.

In the background, the Office for National Statistics ran a census test in Hounslow and Wolverhampton in 2017 on Sikhs as an ethnic group, the interim report on which suggested: ‘There is no indication from the findings that the religious affiliation and ethnic group questions are capturing different Sikh populations. All respondents who stated they were ethnically Sikh also stated their religious affiliation was Sikh.’ The report is available at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/censustransformationprogramme/progressanddevelopment/questiondevelopment/summaryreport2017ethnicgroupquestiontestsikhethnicgroupandreligiousaffiliationfindings

Religious slaughter

The number of animals killed without pre-stunning has risen sharply since 2013, when European Union and UK legislation allowing an exemption from humane slaughter on religious grounds (to meet the requirements of Jews and Muslims) came into force. This is according to an analysis by the British Veterinary Association (BVA) of the Food Standards Agency’s report on animal welfare for the quarter April-June 2017, which revealed that 18% of poultry and 24% of sheep and goats are now slaughtered without pre-stunning. The BVA’s press release, including a link to the Agency’s report, is at:

https://www.bva.co.uk/news-campaigns-and-policy/newsroom/news-releases/grave-concern-over-rise-in-animals-killed-without-stunning/

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Science and religion (1)

New data on public attitudes to evolution in the UK and Canada were released by the Science and Religion: Exploring the Spectrum project at the 2017 British Science Festival in Brighton. The UK fieldwork was conducted online by YouGov on behalf of Newman University among 2,129 adults aged 16 and over between 12 May and 6 June 2017.

The majority (71%) of all UK respondents, and even 62% of those identifying as religious or spiritual, accepted evolutionary (natural selection) or theistic (divinely guided) evolutionary accounts of the origin of species, including humans. Only 9% of the whole sample, and 16% of religious or spiritual, selected the creationist statement that ‘humans and other living things were created by God and have always existed in their current form’. Similarly, just 12% in the UK found it difficult to accept evolutionary science in relation to their personal beliefs, and no more than 19% of the religious or spiritual. Paradoxically, though, a bigger proportion (28%) in the UK agreed with the proposition that ‘animals evolve over time but evolutionary science cannot explain the origin of human beings’, suggesting a degree of confusion on the subject in some minds.

Various other facets of religion were illuminated by the study. Approximately half the UK interviewees were not religiously disposed: 52% professed to be neither religious nor spiritual (atheist, non-religious, agnostic, and freethinker being the commonest self-descriptions, in that order of priority); 50% expressed no real interest in religion or spirituality; and for 54% religion did not play an important part in shaping their identity and worldview. When it came to experts, theologians were perceived as reliable by 38% of the entire population and 49% of the religious or spiritual; they actually ranked bottom out of 15 professions in terms of reliability and were well beaten by evolutionary scientists (72%). A press release, with links to a (rather ‘busy’) summary report and full data tables, can be found at:

https://sciencereligionspectrum.org/in-the-news/press-release-results-of-major-new-survey-on-evolution/

Science and religion (2)

The interaction between science and religion was further illuminated in another multinational survey by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Scientific and Medical Network, and funded by the Salvia Foundation. Online interviews were conducted in November-December 2016 with samples of 1,000 science, engineering, medical, or technical research professionals in each of three countries – France, Germany, and the UK. In the UK, 45% of respondents were categorized as religious or spiritual, comprising 13% practising religious, 18% non-practising religious, and 14% self-describing as spiritual but not belonging to a religion; an equivalent number (46%) were atheist or agnostic. The proportion for whom religion or spirituality was important to the way they led their lives was smaller (35%) than the total of professing religious or spiritual, 14% saying very important and 21% fairly important. Religious observance was relatively low, attendance at religious services at least monthly being reported by 13% and prayer at least weekly by 17%. Asked about the relationship between science and religion, 44% of UK scientists thought the two fields were independent and could not be compared; 21% saw science and religion as complementary; and 25% viewed them as mutually exclusive, contradicting each other. The pattern of replies for the relationship between science and spirituality was not dissimilar, albeit the figure for mutually exclusive dropped to 16%. Partial data tables (with breaks within country by gender, age, marital status, and highest educational qualification) are available at:

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2017-09/science-spirituality-professions-tables-2017.pdf

British religion and the Second World War

Mass Observation, the independent social research organization established in 1937 to investigate the anthropology of everyday life in Britain, consciously set out to create an archive of life on the home front during the Second World War. Religion was not neglected, and its outputs in this area have been surveyed in a recent presentation by Clive Field: ‘British Religion and the Second World War: An Audit of Sources in the Mass Observation Archive’. Although best known for its qualitative and ethnographic research methods, Mass Observation did also deploy statistical techniques, especially to analyse replies from its self-selecting and demographically unrepresentative national panel of observers and from direct and indirect interviews with samples of the general population. The presentation is available at:

https://clivedfield.wordpress.com/presentations/

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 8244: Annual Population Survey Three-Year Pooled Dataset, January 2014-December 2016

The Annual Population Survey is compiled by the Office for National Statistics in partnership with the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. It incorporates a sub-set of key variables from the several Labour Force Surveys and is designed to be sufficiently robust and large-scale to produce reliable estimates at local authority level. The three-year merged dataset for 2014-16 is based on 543,298 face-to-face and telephone interviews with adults and young persons living away from the parental home. A question on religious affiliation is included: ‘what is your religion?’ in Britain and ‘what is your religious denomination?’ in Northern Ireland. A catalogue description of the dataset is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8244&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 8252: British Social Attitudes Survey, 2016

The British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey, 2016 was conducted between July and November of that year by NatCen Social Research on behalf of a consortium of Government departments and charitable funders. There were 2,942 respondents, who were interviewed face-to-face and by self-completion questionnaire. The standard background questions about religious affiliation (current and by upbringing) and attendance at religious services were included, which can be used as variables to analyse replies to all elements of the main questionnaire (covering politics, welfare, health, education, transport, official statistics, employment, trade unions, and retirement and pensions). An analysis by religion of the replies to the morality-related questions inserted by NatCen (especially attitudes to voluntary euthanasia, abortion, and capital punishment) is likely to prove rewarding. The only other specifically religious content will be found in the self-completion questionnaires for sub-samples A and C, which were asked about the influence of religious organizations and other bodies on government actions and their role in the provision of public services. A catalogue description of the dataset is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8252&type=Data%20catalogue

Just before the release of this dataset at UKDA, NatCen published a press release about the religious affiliation question, showing that a record number of Britons (53%) professed to belong to no religion in 2016, rising to 71% among 18-24-year-olds (contrasting with just 27% of over-75s). The decline in religious affiliation has been relentless since BSA began in 1983, the Church of England having been particularly badly affected, with the Anglican market share now reduced to 15%, half the number in 2000. The press release, with a link to trend data tables, can be found at:

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media-centre/latest-press-releases/bsa-34-record-number-of-brits-with-no-religion.aspx

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Counting Religion in Britain, December 2018

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