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Religion and attitudes towards euthanasia in Britain: Evidence from opinion polls and social surveys

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Ben Clements

The issue of euthanasia or assisted dying formed the basis of one of the 2013 Westminster Faith Debates on religion and personal morality. An accompanying survey of adults in Britain – conducted by YouGov in January 2013 – found that public support for euthanasia was very strong: 70% being in favour, 16% opposed and 14% undecided (a more detailed discussion of these findings – including the reasons underlying the opposing positions taken – is available here). What about public attitudes over time on this issue? In particular, what have been the views of religious groups – both in terms of belonging but also based on other aspects, such as religious practices and beliefs? This post reviews the historical data on religious groups’ views towards euthanasia, using evidence from both national opinion polls and social surveys. Three main sources are used, which between them allow analysis of different question wordings and response options on this issue:

NOP polls conducted between the 1970s and 1990s.
European Values Study (EVS) surveys for the period 1981-2008.
British Social Attitudes (BSA) surveys undertaken between 1983 and 2012.

The data presented here will hopefully be of use to those interested in religious groups’ attitudes towards euthanasia in particular or towards social-morality issues in general. Before commenting on the data, it is worth making a couple of general observations. First, euthanasia is generally understood to mean the voluntary ending of an individual’s life, usually to relieve incurable and painful suffering. Second, the ending of life in these circumstances could be achieved by: (a) the individual, if physically capable of doing so; (b) with the assistance of a doctor or other medical professional; or (c) with the assistance of a friend or relative. The questions on which the NOP and BSA time series data are based clearly refer to scenario (b), but the EVS question is less well-defined.

NOP OPINION POLLS

Firstly, a series of polls conducted by NOP for the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (which became Dignity in Dying in 2006) from the 1970s into the 1990s provide valuable data on religious groups’ attitudes towards euthanasia. Respondents were asked whether they (strongly / moderately) agreed or (strongly / moderately) disagreed with the following statements (note the slight variation in wording for some surveys):

1976: People say the law should allow adults to receive medical help to an immediate peaceful death if suffering from incurable physical illness that is intolerable to them, provided they have previously requested such help in writing.
1978: If a patient is suffering from a distressing and incurable physical illness, a doctor should be allowed to supply that patient with the means to end his own life if the patient wishes to.
1985: Some people say that the law should allow adults to receive medical help to an immediate peaceful death, if they suffer from an incurable physical illness that is intolerable to them, provided they have previously requested such help in writing.
1989: Some people say that the law should allow adults to receive medical help to an immediate peaceful death if they suffer from an incurable physical illness that is intolerable to them, provided they have previously requested such help in writing?
1993: Some people say that the law should allow adults to receive medical help to a peaceful death if they suffer from an incurable physical illness that is intolerable to them, provided they have previously requested such help in writing.

Data are presented in Table 1, which reports the proportions disagreeing in each of the five polls undertaken between 1976 and 1993. The final column shows the percentage point change over time. Table 1 shows the results for a variety of Christian denominations, as well as those who reported that they were ‘atheist’ or ‘agnostic’ (or did not know). Affiliation categories for which there were generally few or very few individuals in the surveys are not shown. A few interesting findings present themselves. First, levels of disagreement are generally higher for Catholics in the earlier surveys compared to other Christians denominations (particularly Anglicans and Methodists). Second, opposition is usually lowest amongst Atheists and Agnostics, as well as Anglicans and those who responded ‘don’t know’, again more evident in the earlier surveys. Agnostics show very little opposition in the earlier surveys, lower than that registered by Atheists. Third, on no occasion is disagreement a majority view amongst any of the groups – peaking at 43% for Catholics in 1978. Fourth, all religious groups show declining levels of disagreement over time, although the percentage point changes vary in magnitude (see final column). For example, disagreement amongst Catholics declined by 17.0 points compared to 5.0 and 6.0 points, respectively, for Anglicans and Methodists.

Table 1 Per cent disagreeing with euthanasia by affiliation (NOP polls)

	1976 (%)	1978 (%)	1985 (%)	1989 (%)	1993 (%)	Change
Anglican	13.0	19.0	17.0	14.0	8.0	-5.0
Methodist	18.0	18.0^a	16.0	16.0	12.0	-6.0
Church of Scotland	15.0	20.0	23.0	18.0	7.0	-8.0
Other Protestant	25.0	–	31.0	35.0	19.0	-6.0
Roman Catholic	33.0	43.0	39.0	25.0	16.0	-17.0
Other non-Protestant	39.0	–	37.0	23.0	25.0	-14.0
Atheist	16.0	14.0	10.0	5.0	1.0	-15.0
Agnostic	6.0	17.0	12.0	6.0	4.0	-2.0
Don’t know	18.0	8.0	12.0	10.0	5.0	-13.0

Source: NOP opinion polls (data kindly supplied by Dr Clive Field).

^aThis category is not functionally equivalent with the other years, as in 1978 it included other non-conformist traditions (including Baptists, Congregationalists and United Reformed) as well as Methodists.

The NOP data therefore show that opposition to euthanasia – as expressed in response to the question used here – was very much a minority view across various religious traditions, as well amongst as those who said they were an ‘atheist’ or an ‘agnostic’. Moreover, the levels of opposition clearly fell over time. Several opinion polls have been undertaken by YouGov for Dignity in Dying in recent years, including one in April 2013.

EVS SURVEYS

What about other attitudinal data on this issue, this time taken from recurrent social surveys? And what do such data tell us about views on euthanasia based on measurement of religious practice and beliefs? The EVS surveys, with four waves spanning the period 1981-2008, have gauged views on euthanasia by asking a question about whether euthanasia is justified. It is worded as follows:

Please tell me for each of the following statements whether you think it can always be justified, never be justified, or something in between … Euthanasia (terminating the life of the incurably sick).

Respondents are asked to place themselves on a scale ranging from 1 to 10. On this scale 1 represents a position where euthanasia is never justified and 10 represents a position where it is always justified. Given this type of measuring instrument, we can present the mean scores on this scale for various aspects of personal religion: affiliation, attendance at services, membership, broad-based identity and belief in God. Table 2 reports the mean scores for each of the four surveys (1981, 1990, 1999 and 2008) as well as showing the change over time in these scores in the final column. To reiterate, higher scores represent greater acceptance of euthanasia.

Looking at affiliation, those who do not report a religious belonging are most likely to have seen euthanasia as justifiable, followed by Anglicans. Catholics have generally been less likely to see it as justifiable, as have other Christians (the data for non-Christian faiths are not reported here as they have constituted small numbers of respondents in the EVS surveys). We also see variation in average scores on the basis of other measures of religion: those less likely to accept the justifiability of euthanasia include frequent-attenders (defined here and subsequently as once a month or more), members of churches or religious organisations, those who self-identify as a religious person, and those who profess a belief in God. Again, the general picture is that the climate of opinion becomes more accepting of euthanasia, and this occurs across the various measures of personal religion. Even so, the change over time is much less pronounced for frequent-attenders and those who profess membership of a church or religious organisation. The increases are larger for the three categories of religious belonging compared to those with no affiliation, given the latter’s greater acceptance from the outset.

Table 2 Mean scale scores for whether euthanasia is justifiable or not by various indicators of religion (EVS surveys)

	1981	1990	1999	2008	Change
*Affiliation*
Anglican^a	4.61	4.55	5.27	5.79	+1.18
Catholic	3.36	3.74	4.98	4.90	+1.54
Other Christian	3.76	4.18	4.45	5.35	+1.59
No religion	5.51	5.18	5.11	6.14	+0.63
*Attendance*
Frequent	3.56	3.90	3.54	3.91	+0.35
Infrequent	4.27	4.68	5.25	5.80	+1.53
Never	4.94	5.18	5.40	6.16	+1.22
*Membership of a church or religious group*
Member	3.49	3.82	4.30	3.69	+0.20
Not a member	4.69	4.90	5.02	5.92	+1.23
*Identity*
Is a religious person	4.00	4.22	4.64	4.94	+0.94
Is not a religious person / is a convinced atheist	5.00	5.32	5.19	6.18	+1.18
*Belief in God*
Believes	4.08	4.45	4.72	4.95	+0.87
Does not or other response	5.51	5.41	5.40	6.59	+1.08

Source: EVS surveys. Weighted data.

^aNote that this category for the 1981 survey covers Protestant traditions apart from Non-conformists. For all subsequent surveys, Non-conformists and other Christian traditions fall within the ‘other Christian’ category.

BSA SURVEYS

In addition to the over-time data from the EVS, the BSA surveys have asked a consistently-worded question on euthanasia on several occasions since 1983. It reads as follows:

About a person with a painful incurable disease. Do you think that doctors should be allowed, by law to end the patient’s life, if the patient requests it?

Respondents were able to give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response (or reply ‘don’t know’). Data are presented for both affiliation and frequency of attendance (with the percentage point changes again reported in the final column). Table 3 reports the proportions who responded ‘no’ in each survey from 1983 to 2012. Looking at the results for affiliation, we can see that, as is evident above, Catholics have been more likely to oppose euthanasia compared to Anglicans and those with no religion. They have also registered higher levels of opposition than other Christians, until the more recent surveys. As with the NOP and EVS data, moreover, all groups show declining opposition over time – most marked for Catholics (a fall of 12.8 percentage points). Based on frequency of attendance at religious services (for which data are currently available until 2005), there are clear and sustained differences over time. Specifically, frequent-attenders show higher levels of opposition (around two-fifths in most surveys saying ‘no’), with infrequent attenders showing lower levels of opposition and being closer in their views to non-attenders, of whom only small minorities respond ‘no’.

Table 3 Per cent saying ‘no’ to euthanasia by affiliation and attendance (BSA surveys, 1983-2012)

	1983	1984	1989	1994	2005	2012^a	Change
*Affiliation*
Anglican	19.3	23.7	16.3	16.2	15.2	13.9	-5.4
Catholic	41.8	41.6	48.2	35.9	27.9	29.0	-12.8
Other Christian	30.4	34.3	29.9	21.0	26.8	23.2	-7.2
No religion	14.0	13.8	10.6	8.5	10.5	9.1	-4.9
*Attendance*
Frequent	39.7	43.1	45.2	33.9	41.2	–	+1.5
Infrequent	20.5	22.2	17.3	13.4	18.0	–	-2.5
Never	14.1	17.8	11.6	10.6	12.5	–	-1.6

Source: BSA surveys. Weighted data.

^a Data on attitudes by attendance for the 2012 survey are not yet available.

The BSA series also asked an additional question on euthanasia, only fielded on surveys in the 1980s. It was worded as follows:

About a person who is not incurably sick but simply tired of living. Do you think that doctors be allowed by law to end that person’s life if he or she requests it?

Note the important different in question wording, referring to a person being ‘not incurably sick but simply tired of living’. Does this change affect levels of opposition? Data for religious affiliation are shown in Table 4. Levels of opposition are much higher in response to this question wording; in fact, there is overwhelming opposition to euthanasia in such circumstances. Those with no religious affiliation are a little less likely to be against, but around four-fifths are opposed in each survey. For Anglicans, Catholics and other Christians, proportions approaching nine-tenths of each groups –and sometimes higher – register opposition to euthanasia on such grounds. Albeit covering a much shorter duration, the data show little change in views over time (from 1983 to 1989). When classified by attendance, those who never attend services show slightly lower levels of opposition compared to infrequent or frequent attenders, although negative sentiment is broadly similar in the 1989 survey.

Table 4 Per cent saying ‘no’ to euthanasia by affiliation and attendance (BSA surveys, 1983-1989)

	1983	1984	1989	Change
*Affiliation*
Anglican	86.7	90.3	86.9	+0.2
Catholic	90.6	96.0	87.4	-3.2
Other Christian	92.4	91.2	90.2	-2.2
No religion	82.0	81.6	82.0	–
*Attendance*
Frequent	92.7	94.1	87.3	-5.4
Infrequent	87.0	92.5	86.0	-1.0
Never	81.4	83.9	85.1	+3.7

Source: BSA surveys. Weighted data.

Finally the 2008 BSA survey offers a snapshot of religious groups’ views. It featured two specialist modules on religion (for the International Social Survey Programme and Faith Matters), administering this question on the ISSP module.

Suppose a person has a painful incurable disease. Do you think that doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient’s life, if the patient requests it?

While the question wording is somewhat similar to the first BSA question discussed above, a different set of response options were used: ‘definitely should be allowed’, ‘probably should be allowed’, ‘probably should not be allowed’ and ‘definitely should not be allowed’ (as well as ‘don’t know). Table 5 reports the distribution of opinion for a various indicators of religion, (affiliation, frequency of attendance, frequency of prayer – defined as every week or more, whether considers themselves a religious person, takes part in church activities aside from regular worship, and belief in God). The options have been collapsed into broader ‘should be allowed’ and ‘should not be allowed’ categories. There is majority support for allowing euthanasia across all categories, although there is still considerable variation in the proportions who think it should be allowed. Opposition is highest amongst members of non-Christian religions, frequent-attenders, those who pray regularly, those who seem themselves as religious, those who frequently take part in church activities (defined as once a month or more), and those who express a belief in God. The proportions responding ‘don’t know’ are generally on the low side (highest at 6.1% for other Christians and 5.6% for frequent attenders).

Table 5 Whether euthanasia should or should not be allowed by various indicators of religion (BSA 2008 survey)

	Definitely or probably should be allowed (%)	Probably or definitely should not be allowed (%)	Don’t know (%)
*Affiliation*
Anglican	85.3	12.8	1.9
Catholic	74.6	23.9	1.5
Other Christian	70.4	23.5	6.1
Other religion	63.0	31.2	5.8
No religion	89.8	8.6	1.6
*Attendance*
Frequent	59.4	34.9	5.6
Infrequent	86.1	12.6	1.3
Never	86.9	10.7	2.4
*Prayer*
Frequently	68.0	28.6	3.4
Infrequently	84.9	12.6	2.5
Never	90.7	8.4	0.9
*Religious person*
Religious	73.8	23.2	3.1
Neither	88.3	9.2	2.5
Not religious	90.6	8.4	1.0
*Takes part in church activities (aside from regular worship)*
Frequently	56.7	39.7	3.6
Infrequently	82.2	14.9	2.9
Never	88.6	9.9	1.5
*Belief*
Believe in God	74.1	22.3	3.6
Do not	91.4	7.9	0.7
Can’t choose	89.2	8.9	1.9

Source: BSA 2008 survey (ISSP module). Weighted data.

Summary

Overall, we can see that opposition towards euthanasia has decreased in recent decades, and this has occurred based on different questions sourced from opinion polls and recurrent social surveys. Even amongst those who show greater personal engagement with religion – whether through personal or communal practice or belief – opposition to euthanasia is a minority viewpoint. In terms of belonging, Catholics have tended to show higher levels of opposition, particularly in earlier surveys, with Anglicans less opposed and those with no religion least opposed. Because support for euthanasia for individuals with incurable conditions or diseases has traditionally been a majority viewpoint for religious groups since the 1970s, with opposition being expressed by a minority, we do not see such strong liberalising trends as have been evident in religious opinion towards other social-moral issues – such as homosexuality and gay rights – in recent decades.

Further reading

The BSA data analysed here by no means exhaust the questions asked on the topic of euthanasia in this series. More detailed sets of questions were administered in the 1995 and 2005 BSA surveys, and were analysed in the following publications:

Clery, E., McLean, S. and Phillips, M. (2007), ‘Quickening death: The euthanasia debate’, in A. Park et al (eds), British Social Attitudes: 23^rd Report. Perspectives on a Changing Society, London: Sage, pp. 35-54.

Donnison, D. and Bryson, C. (1996), ‘Matters of Life and Death: Attitudes to Euthanasia’, in Jowell, R., Curtice, J., Park A., Brook, L. and Thomson, K. (eds.), British Social Attitudes: the 13th Report. Aldershot: Dartmouth, pp.

For analysis of U.S. public opinion on this topic, see:

Green, J. A. and Jarvis, M. G. (2008), ‘The right to die’, in N. Persily, J. Citrin and P. Egan (eds), Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy. New York: OUP, pp. 267-285.

A recent cross-national study of public attitudes is:

Cohen, J., Marcoux, I., Bilsen, J., Deboosere, P., van der Wal, G. and Deliens, L. (2006), ‘European public acceptance of euthanasia: Socio-demographic and cultural factors associated with the acceptance of euthanasia in 33 European countries’, Social Science & Medicine, 63(3): 743-756.

Posted in Religion in public debate, Research note, Survey news | Tagged British Social Attitudes Survey, end of life, European Values Study, euthanasia, opinion polls, public, Social Surveys, Survey Data | 1 Comment

St Andrew’s Day and Other News

Posted on November 30, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today is St Andrew’s Day, as you might have noticed from the latest and attractive ‘Google doodle’. However, their patron saint’s day is not going to be much celebrated by Scots, according to the first of nine reports in today’s BRIN post. Religious decline is a theme running through several of the other stories.

St Andrew’s Day

St Andrew is the favourite Scottish saint (from a list of nine) of 35% of 1,225 Scots interviewed online by YouGov on 12-14 November 2013, easily beating St Mungo (9%) and St Columba (8%). Notwithstanding, no more than 20% had plans to celebrate St Andrew’s Day in any way this year, even though it falls on a Saturday, while 64% definitely had none. The highest proportions intent on celebration were to be found among the 18-24s (32%) and full-time students (37%), the lowest among 25-34s (13%) and Glaswegians (12%). The low figure for Glasgow seems to be related to the fact that St Mungo is the favourite saint for 17% of the city’s residents, perhaps because he features in Glasgow’s coat of arms. The data tables, published on 28 November, are available at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/o9p509n5op/YG-Archive-St-Andrew’s-131112.pdf

Is Christianity dying in Britain?

BRIN’s co-director, Professor David Voas of the University of Essex, published an interesting post on The Conversation blog (run on behalf of a consortium of 13 British universities) on 27 November 2013. Entitled ‘Hard Evidence: Is Christianity Dying in Britain?’ the article was prompted by the recent prognostication of George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, that the Church of England is ‘one generation away from extinction’. Voas contends that ‘the reality is less dramatic, but the story is not altogether wrong’. Using British Social Attitudes Survey data from 1983 to the present, Voas demonstrates that young adults are far less likely than their parents or grandparents to profess a religion, and that the Church of England has been particularly badly impacted by this trend. The same phenomenon can be seen with regard to churchgoing and ‘orthodox’ religious beliefs. Although more ‘unorthodox’ supernatural beliefs have been sustained, Voas does not think they amount to much: ‘these “beliefs” are casual in the extreme: cultivated by popular culture and its delight in magic and Gothic romanticism, held in the most tentative and experimental way, with no connection to any meaningful spirituality’. In short, ‘Lord Carey is at least half right’. The post can be read at:

https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-is-christianity-dying-in-britain-20734

Is the Church of England dying?

Another blogger to have been inspired by Carey’s remarks is John Hayward, of the University of South Wales, who has been applying mathematical models to church growth for the best part of twenty years now. He runs a fascinating (if not always easy to follow) Church Growth Modelling website, which includes a blog. In his latest post, on 20 November 2013, he writes (positively) about ‘George Carey and Church Decline’. Hayward’s preceding post, on 9 October 2013, concerned ‘The Decline of the Church of England’, informed by an analysis of Anglican attendance data for 2001-11 (which were published earlier in the year). In this article Hayward deployed the ‘general limited enthusiasm model’ (based on the theory that church growth is driven by a sub-group of church members – enthusiasts – who are instrumental in bringing about conversions) to reach the following conclusion: ‘although the church is slowly declining, the most likely scenario is that it will avoid extinction and start growing again around 2035. The enthusiasts in the church, those responsible for the growth, should start increasing around 2020. Although church attendance will stabilise, it will be well below current levels. The church has some work to do in conversion and retention if it is to see the revival-type growth needed to regain its impact on society.’ For more information, go to:

http://www.churchmodel.org.uk/LongDecline3.html#summary

Episcopal psychology

Bishops in the Church of England differ from their male clergy on three of the four aspects of psychological type, being more likely to prefer extraversion over introversion, sensing over intuition, and judging over perceiving. Although there are no differences between bishops as a whole and clergy in respect of the fourth aspect, preference for thinking over feeling, thinking was found to be privileged more among diocesan than suffragan bishops. These conclusions derive from data gathered from 168 Anglican bishops (75 of whom are currently in office, and 93 not), and reported in Leslie Francis, Michael Whinney, and Mandy Robbins, ‘Who is Called to be a Bishop? A Study in Psychological Type Profiling of Bishops in the Church of England’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2013, pp. 135-51.The findings are mostly in line with hypotheses developed from present expectations regarding the office of bishop, but the authors suggest that, in making future episcopal appointments, the Church might be served better by an alternative psychological type profile than manifested in the past and present. Access options to this article are explained at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13617672.2013.801647#.UpZUhTZFDX4

Urban and rural religion

Professing Christians are more likely to live in rural than urban areas of England and Wales, according to 2011 Census Analysis: Comparing Rural and Urban Areas of England and Wales, published by the Office for National Statistics on 22 November 2013. Whereas Christians accounted for 59.3% of the total population at the 2011 census, the proportion was 66.9% in rural locations against 57.6% in cities and towns. The rural-urban Christian differential of 9.3%, which was somewhat greater than in 2001 (8.2%), is probably largely age-related, the median age being eight years higher in rural than urban areas, but another contributing factor is that rural dwellers are more likely to have been born in the UK. By contrast, non-Christians are concentrated in urban areas, where they represent 9.9% of residents, compared with just 1.5% in rural districts; this distribution tracks the concentration there of ethnic minorities and persons born outside the UK. The disparity is especially large for Muslims, who constitute only 0.4% of people in the countryside but 5.8% in cities and towns. The number professing no religion is marginally higher in urban than rural areas (25.4% versus 24.1%) but urbanization alone can hardly be said to explain the loss of faith. Overall, 81.5% of English and Welsh reside in urban and 18.5% in rural areas. The report is at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_337939.pdf

Godless Norwich

When the 2011 census results for religion in England were published last December, Norwich stood out as being the local/unitary authority with the largest number of those professing no religion (42% against a national average of 27%), earning the city the sobriquet ‘godless’. As one might expect, the reality is a little more complex than that, and Peter Brierley has now prepared an interesting 4,000 word briefing on the religious scene in Norwich (and Norfolk more generally), which he has circulated to subscribers with the December 2013 (No. 30) issue of FutureFirst, the magazine of Brierley Consultancy. In addition to explaining the high incidence of ‘nones’ in terms of the disproportionate presence of young people (notably students) and Asians (especially Chinese) in the city, he shows that Norwich does not come at the bottom of the league table with respect to self-identifying Christians and church attenders. Indeed, estimated churchgoing in 2012 was higher in Norwich than in Norfolk, and just 0.1% short of the English mean, even if it had reduced by one-half since 1989. To obtain a copy of the paper, contact Dr Brierley at peter@brierleyres.com

London, the exceptional case?

Further to our preliminary notice, in our post of 14 June 2013, we can now report the publication of far more detailed results from, and commentary on, the Greater London church census held on 14 October 2012, undertaken by Brierley Consultancy on behalf of the London City Mission: Peter Brierley, Capital Growth: What the 2012 London Church Census Reveals (174pp., including 95 tables and figures, ADBC Publishers, ISBN 978-0-9566577-6-3, £9.99, from peter@brierleyres.com). Still more data (especially regarding individual boroughs) will become available in April 2014, in the London church census section of UK Church Statistics, 2010-2020.

In essence, London, once a byword for irreligion, is currently bucking the national trend of declining church attendance, thanks largely to immigration, changing patterns of churchmanship (52% of London churchgoers are now evangelicals), and church planting (with 17% more churches in the capital in 2012 than 2005). The headline all-age attendance figures (grossed up from data for 54% of places of worship, derived from a combination of census forms and extrapolations from previous information) are tabulated below, with comparisons from four previous church censuses:

	1979	1989	1998	2005	2012	1979-2012 % change
Anglican	140,500	98,500	101,100	90,300	84,800	-39.6
Roman Catholic	333,700	293.000	237,200	195,400	198,300	-40.6
Methodist/Baptist/URC	101,200	83,400	86,100	76,100	68,200	-32.6
Pentecostal	57,500	82,700	93,700	152,700	229,000	+298.3
Other	63,100	92,000	99,800	108,500	141,200	+123.8
Total	696,000	649,600	617,900	623,000	721,500	+3.7
Total as % population	10.1	9.6	8.6	8.3	8.8

Thus, in absolute terms, total churchgoing was 16% more in 2012 than in 2005, and even 4% more than in 1979. Relative to population, London churchgoing is now restored to the level of the late 1990s. However, the increase was concentrated among newer manifestations of Christianity, particularly Pentecostal and New Churches, with Anglican, Catholic, and traditional Free Churches all struggling.

Brierley comments on the overall growth between 2005 and 2012 (p. 53): ‘That is a considerable increase, almost offsetting the national decline in churchgoing outside London in the same period. So, because of London’s increase, national church attendance in England remained virtually static (instead of declining) between 2010 and 2012! This remarkable impact is because London’s church attendance in 2012 is about a quarter (24%) of that of the whole country.’ However, he cautions that: ‘the increase seen between 2005 and 2012 in London is not expected to continue. The number of people attending church in Greater London is likely to fall slightly in the immediate future, dropping to perhaps 704,000 by 2020.’ The principal reason for this forecast lies in the large number of small churches whose attendance is collectively declining.

Paul Flowers

Reverend Paul Flowers, ex-chairman of the Co-op Bank, who has suffered a fall from grace through perceived failings in both his professional and private life, has the dubious honour of being the first Methodist minister ever to feature in a British opinion poll. Several questions about him were included in YouGov’s weekly omnibus for the Sunday Times on 21-22 November 2013 for which 1,867 adult Britons were interviewed online. Asked to apportion blame for his appointment as chairman, 45% laid the responsibility at the door of the Co-op board, while 19% pointed the finger at the former Financial Services Authority for inadequate regulation and 16% at politicians in the co-operative movement for supporting Flowers. Two-thirds (67%) backed Chancellor George Osborne’s decision to set up an independent enquiry into how Flowers was appointed chairman (17% dissenting), and 72% wanted Flowers prosecuted for his alleged use of hard drugs (and 13% not). The full data appear on p. 6 of the tables at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/q0ir85hkfv/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-221113.pdf

Religious education

The National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE) published its fifth survey on the impact of the English Baccalaureate on religious education (RE) in secondary schools on 29 November 2013. Data were gathered in May-June 2013 by means of an online questionnaire completed by a self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) sample of 580 schools. The survey revealed that at Key Stage 4 26% of all state schools are failing to meet their legal or contractual obligations to teach RE to all under-16s (rising to one-third of community schools and academies without a religious character), with 12% failing at Key Stage 3. The number of RE subject specialist staff was set to decline in 2013-14 in one-fifth of schools, with one in five RE lessons currently being delivered by non-specialists in 31% of schools. The timetable for RE had been reduced in a minority of schools, especially at Key Stage 4, and in 2013-14 29% of schools will be attempting to deliver the full GCSE course in Religious Studies in less than the recommended number of learning hours. The survey is available at:

http://www.retoday.org.uk/media/display/NATRE_EBacc_Survey_2013_final.pdf

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Bishops, Brierley Consultancy, British Social Attitudes Survey, census of population, church attendance, church growth, Church of England, Co-op Bank, David Voas, English Baccalaureate, George Carey, Greater London, John Hayward, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Leslie Francis, London City Mission, Mandy Robbins, mathematical modelling, Michael Whinney, National Association of Teachers of Religious Education, NATRE, Norwich, Office for National Statistics, patron saints, Paul Flowers, Peter Brierley, pyschological type profiling, Religious Affiliation, religious education, rural religion, schools, Scotland, St Andrew's Day, Sunday Times, The Conversation, urban religion, YouGov | 1 Comment

Muslim Distinctiveness and Other News

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Clive D. Field

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

Muslim distinctiveness

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

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

Civic core

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

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

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

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

Confessions

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

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

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

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

Fracking

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

CRACKS APPEAR IN FRACKING ARGUMENT

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

University students’ religion

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

Scottish religious affiliation

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

Churchgoing in the Presbytery of Dunfermline

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

Baby names

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

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

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

British Social Attitudes Survey, 2012

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The results of the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey for 2012 were released by NatCen on 10 September 2013 via a dedicated website – http://www.bsa-30.natcen.ac.uk – which includes, among other outputs, a copy of the questionnaire (with marginals) and British Social Attitudes, 30, a free book (downloadable in PDF, ePub or .mobi formats) comprising seven thematic chapters of analysis and commentary. The volume is edited by Alison Park, Caroline Bryson, Elizabeth Clery, John Curtice, and Miranda Phillips.

As usual, this annual survey was undertaken by NatCen on behalf of the Economic and Social Research Council and a consortium of Government departments and charitable funders. Face-to-face interviews were conducted between June and November 2012 with 3,248 adults aged 18 and over in Britain, of whom 2,866 also filled out a supplementary self-completion questionnaire.

Three specifically religious questions were posed face-to-face, with the following results:

Although just 20% had not had a religious upbringing, as many as 48% overall professed to belong to no religion at the time of interview in 2012, a proportion which increased steadily with each generation cohort (standing at 60% for those born in the 1980s against 25% for those born in the 1920s). Church of England was still the single biggest denominational/faith category in 2012 but, at 20%, it was 16% fewer than the number brought up as Anglicans, and much reduced from the 40% recorded when the question was first put in 1983.
Among those with a current religion and/or brought up in one, weekly attendance at religious services (excluding rites of passage) now runs at 12%, with a further 8% claiming to worship at least monthly and another 14% at least once a year. By contrast, 58% worship never or practically never.
Asked whether they had ever discussed with anyone their wishes in six areas should they not have long to live, 51% said in 2012 they had discussed nothing, while 11% had discussed their spiritual and religious needs (12% in 2009). Women (15%) are more likely than men (9%) to have discussed their spiritual and religious needs, and similarly older than younger age groups, and higher than lower social grades.

Additionally, responses to all questions in the survey can be quickly analysed by religion, through the BSA Information System website at http://www.britsocat.com (prior registration is required). This facility is especially relevant for the 2012 BSA which includes numerous questions concerning morality and social values, replicated from earlier BSA studies. A sampler of what can be discovered via such analysis is included in the chapter in the book on personal relationships (focusing especially on changing attitudes to marriage, homosexuality, and abortion over three decades) by Park and Rebecca Rhead, from which the following statistics for 2012 have been extracted:

All religious groups apart from non-Christians have become more accepting of premarital sex over the past three decades, the number of Anglicans and Catholics describing it as always or mostly wrong now being reduced to one in ten (much the same as in the population as a whole), compared with almost one in three in 1983. Most tolerant of all are people of no religion, only 2% of whom in 2012 considered premarital sex to be wrong (11% in 1983). Frequency of attending religious services also has an impact; whereas 71% of non-attenders said in 2012 that premarital sex is not at all wrong, this was true of only 23% of weekly attenders at worship.
Despite a similar process of liberalization of attitudes over time, people of faith are still appreciably more disapproving of homosexuality than society at large. Indeed, the gap between the religious and non-religious on this issue is now far wider than in the past. Overall, 28% of Britons in 2012 deemed sexual relations between two adults of the same sex to be always or mostly wrong, but the proportion fell to 16% among the irreligious and climbed to 61% of non-Christians (with 35% for Catholics and 40% for Anglicans).
Religion continues to be closely associated with attitudes to abortion. Catholics are the least accepting, with only 39% supporting a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy if she wishes to, against 56% of Anglicans. Those professing no religion are most supportive of all (73%, compared with 62% of all Britons). However, acceptance of abortion has increased among all faith communities since 1983; in the case of Anglicans, for example, just 34% endorsed abortion in these circumstances thirty years ago.

Liberalization of opinions on matters of personal relationships since BSA commenced in 1983 is substantially accounted for by generational differences, ‘intolerance’ progressively dying out as more illiberal older age cohorts are replaced by more liberal younger ones. The fact that the same pattern has occurred with religious affiliation might suggest that social liberalism is causally linked with increased secularization. Nevertheless, since even Christians have displayed greater social liberalism over three decades, the relationship is inevitably rather more complex than that.

This complexity is more fully explored in another chapter in the book, on social class by Anthony Heath, Mike Savage and Nicki Senior, which deploys multivariate analysis to study interactions, in 1984 and 2012, between thirteen measures of ‘social cleavage’ (including religion and attendance at a place of worship) on the one hand and five indicators of attitudes to welfare and four of social liberalism on the other. On social liberalism the authors conclude (p. 184):

‘By 2012 … measures of social class have … declined in importance, and there are much closer associations between liberal attitudes and the other social cleavages, notably religion, attendance at a place of worship, age and ethnicity. In 2012, as in 1984, religion and attendance at a place of worship have the strongest associations of all … This is especially the case with attitudes towards premarital sex (and related issues like ease of divorce). The relationship between liberal attitudes and religiosity has, if anything, got stronger over time, especially with respect to the acceptability of same-sex relationships. But educational level also remains a powerful predictor of liberal attitudes.’

The dataset for the 2012 BSA will eventually be available through the UK Data Service (although it is not yet).

Posted in Historical studies, Survey news | Tagged abortion, Alison Park, Anthony Heath, British Social Attitudes Survey, Caroline Bryson, church attendance, dying, Elizabeth Clery, homosexuality, John Curtice, Mike Savage, Miranda Phillips, NatCen, Nicki Senior, personal relationships, premarital sex, Rebecca Rhead, religion of upbringing, Religious Affiliation, spiritual needs | 3 Comments

Money for Good and Other News

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Clive D. Field

BRIN certainly cannot trump the unprecedented inauguration of new leaders of the global Catholic and Anglican communions within the same week. But, on a business-as-usual level, here are six more religious statistical stories for your edification.

Money for good UK

So-called ‘faith-based donors’ make a significant contribution to the UK’s charitable giving and volunteering scene, according to a report – Money for Good UK: Understanding Donor Motivation and Behaviour (by Sally Bagwell, Lucy de Las Casas, Matt van Poortvliet, and Rob Abercrombie) – released on 14 March 2013 by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC). It is based on online research conducted by Ipsos MORI in October 2012 among 3,005 UK adults aged 18 and over, sub-divided into six groups: donors and non-donors for each of three income bands.

Donors were segmented into seven categories, one of them being ‘faith-based donors’. They were motivated by faith and community interests, being particularly likely to state a religious affiliation and to give money at their place of worship. They were disproportionately over-65 and from ethnic minorities. They especially supported religious causes and overseas aid agencies. They were also above-average volunteers, especially giving time to religious organizations and children.

‘Faith-based donors’ comprised 11% of all ‘mainstream donors’ (those having a household income up to £150,000) but they accounted for 32% of all charitable donations during the past year, with an average donation of £906, six times the amount given by ‘ad hoc givers’. Likewise, only 4% of ‘high-income donors’ (with a household income in excess of £150,000) were ‘faith-based donors’, yet they contributed 12% of all donations for this sub-sample, the average donation of £3,687 being six and a half times greater than for the ‘ad hoc givers’. Across both ‘mainstream’ and ‘high-income donors’, ‘faith-based donors’ also showed the greatest potential increase for giving, in cash terms.

For ‘mainstream donors’ as a whole, 34% had no religion, 58% were Christians, and 7% non-Christians. Religious organizations (including places of worship) came ninth equal on the list of causes financially supported by ‘mainstream donors’ during the previous year, 23% having made a donation to them. The list was headed by medical research (to which 49% of ‘mainstream donors’ had given), hospitals and hospices (45%), children or young people (40%), and animal welfare (40%). However, religious organizations topped the table of causes to which ‘mainstream donors’ had given time during the past year, 12% having done so. For ‘high-income donors’ 23% had given money and 8% time to religious organizations during the previous twelve months.

A range of documentation relating to the survey, including a link to the NPC website, can be accessed from:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3142/Money-For-Good-UK.aspx

Same-sex marriage

By a curious coincidence, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill completed its committee stage in the House of Commons on 12 March 2013 just a day before Oxford University Press published the advance access version of a new article which will eventually appear in the online and print versions of the journal Parliamentary Affairs: Ben Clements (University of Leicester), ‘Partisan Attachments and Attitudes towards Same-Sex Marriage in Britain’. A pay-per-view option is already available at:

http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/recent

At the core of the article is a review of British public opinion towards same-sex marriage at two points in time: June-November 2008 (NatCen/British Social Attitudes Survey) and March 2012 (a YouGov survey). Results are reviewed by sex, age, ethnicity, education, political partisanship (the author’s predominant concern), newspaper readership, and religious affiliation, initially through bivariate and then by multivariate analysis.

The overall increase in support for same-sex marriage between these two surveys was found to be 10%, reaching 13% for those professing no faith, among whom the majority (56%) in 2012 endorsed same-sex marriage. Below-average increases (3% and 4% respectively) were recorded for Anglicans and Catholics, with only 24% of the former and 39% of the latter favouring same-sex marriage in 2012. The leaders of both these Churches have been at the forefront of opposing the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill. For non-Christians support for same-sex marriage actually declined by 6% between 2008 and 2012, to stand at 34%, but the numbers sampled were small.

The subsequent multivariate analysis revealed that, in terms of religious affiliation, ‘regardless of faith or denomination, all adherents are less supportive of same-sex marriage than those with no religion. A similar pattern is evident for attitudes towards civil partnerships, with the exception that there is no significant difference for Catholics. The clear religious basis of opposition to gay marriage parallels the US public literature on this issue, which shows strong effects for affiliation, as well as confirming findings from earlier research into religious identification and moral attitudes in Britain, whereby those with no religious affiliation tended to be more liberal on moral issues.’

Church of England ordinands

The number of Church of England ordinands in training for the ministry in 2012/13 is 3% up on 2011/12, according to figures released by the Church of England on 11 March 2013. Of the total of 1,232, 581 (47%) are attending one of the dozen theological colleges and 651 are being trained on one of the sixteen available courses. The number at college is 6% up on the previous year compared with just 1% on the courses.

Two in five ordinands (39%) are women, but the proportion is only 29% for ordinands at college against 48% on courses. The number of under-30s who commenced training in 2012 was 113, the highest since 1993, and 22% of all accepted as ordinands. The figure for 2011 was only 77. The Ministry Division of the Archbishops’ Council is continuing to be proactive in recruiting both young ordinands and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. Its press release can be found at:

http://churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/03/twenty-year-high-for-young-priests.aspx

Centre for Church Growth Research

A Centre for Church Growth Research has recently started at Cranmer Hall, part of St Johns College, Durham. Its primary focus will be the UK, but it will also explore international dimensions of church growth. Cranmer Hall’s current research for the Church of England’s church growth programme will come under the auspices of the Centre. Among future projects will be a study of new churches in the north of England.

The Centre, which will be run on a day-to-day basis by Dr David Goodhew, has an advisory board whose members include Professor David Martin (London School of Economics), Dr Alana Harris (Lincoln College, Oxford), Dr Peter Brierley (Brierley Consulting), and Professor David Bebbington (University of Stirling). The first major event of the Centre is a conference ‘Towards a Theology of Church Growth’ to be held on 12-13 September 2013. More information can be found on the Centre’s website at:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/churchgrowth.research

Religious education in English schools

A fairly downbeat assessment of the state of religious education (RE) in schools is contained in a report published on 18 March 2013 by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education, chaired by Stephen Lloyd, MP. Much of the blame for the situation is lain at the door of the Government: ‘A raft of recent policies have had the effect of downgrading RE in status on the school curriculum, and the subject is now under threat as never before … ’

The Group’s findings are based on a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence. Oral evidence was taken from 12 organizational leaders and written evidence submitted by 65 corporate bodies and individuals. The quantitative content derives from a reworking of existing statistics (Department for Education workforce census, Ofsted reports, and so forth) and a questionnaire survey among RE leaders/heads of department in English primary and secondary schools, of whom 300 and 130 respectively responded.

In 56% of the primary schools surveyed pupils are being taught RE by someone other than their class teacher, and in 24% some or all classes are taught RE by teaching assistants. Although all but two schools have a named RE leader, four-fifths report a regular turnover in the incumbents, few remaining in post for more than three years. The majority of leaders either have no qualification in RE (37%) or no qualification beyond GCSE/O Level (29%), and 9% have received no RE-specific CPD during the past three years.

RE: The Truth Unmasked – The Supply of and Support for Religious Education Teachers is available to download from:

http://www.retoday.org.uk/media/display/APPG_RE_-_The_Truth_Unmasked.pdf

Meditation

Workplace pressures have induced 16% of Britons to resort to meditation at some point, according to a Populus poll for Mind released on 19 March, and based on online interviews with 2,117 full- or part-time adult workers between 6 and 10 March 2013. The proportion using meditation as a coping mechanism peaked among Londoners (27%), people aged 25-34 (21%), and the highest (AB) social group (20%). Workers meditating on a weekly basis numbered 11% and daily 4%. Full details contained in table 15 at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/130320%20Mind%20Workplace%20Survey%20GB%20Sample(1).pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged All Party Parliamentary Group on Religious Education, Ben Clements, British Social Attitudes Survey, Centre for Church Growth Research, charitable giving, church growth, Church of England, Cranmer Hall, David Goodhew, homosexuality, Ipsos-MORI, Lucy de Las Casas, Matt van Poortvliet, meditation, Mind, ministry, Money for Good UK, NatCen, New Philanthropy Capital, ordinands, Parliamentary Affairs, Populus, religious education, Rob Abercrombie, Sally Bagwell, same-sex marriage, Stephen Lloyd, volunteering, YouGov | Leave a comment

Rating Rowan Williams and Other New Sources

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Clive D. Field

There follows a round-up of British religious statistics published between 26 and 28 September 2012, arranged in order of their date of release. Additionally, it should be noted that, although the Office for National Statistics issued a statistical bulletin on 28 September relating to the Integrated Household Survey for April 2011-March 2012, this year’s bulletin, unlike the previous two editions, did not report the data on religious profession, being confined to the questions covering sexual identity and health/smoking.

Rating Rowan Williams

Rowan Williams, the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury, has slipped on a few banana skins (both within and outside the Church of England) during his tenure of office, but English public opinion remains fairly well disposed towards him. In a recent poll a slight majority (53%) rated him as a good leader of the Established Church, rising to 59% of the over-65s and residents of Eastern England; 15% disagreed, with 32% undecided. Despite his reputation for ‘wooliness’, slightly more (55%) considered Williams had been clear in telling people what he believes and why, against 16% dissenting and 29% unsure. But he was deemed to have been somewhat less successful in helping the Church of England remain relevant in modern Britain, even though a plurality (46%) credited him with this achievement; 27% took the contrary line, the top (AB) social group being far more critical (32%) than the lowest (DE, 21%), with 27% as don’t knows.

Source: ComRes survey for BBC Local Radio in which 2,594 English adults were interviewed by telephone between 24 August and 9 September 2012. Published on 26 September. Data tables available at:

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

Religious Education

It is often argued that the role of religious education (RE) in the curriculum is threatened by the introduction of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), notwithstanding the subject’s legal protection under the Education Act 1944. In fact, 33% of schools recently claimed that those legal requirements to study RE are not being met at Key Stage 4 (the two years incorporating GCSEs and other public examinations). One-quarter (24%) reported a reduction in the number of specialist staff employed to teach RE for 2012/13, and 54% that they would have no entries for the GCSE short course in RE in 2014 (with 18% having no entries for the full course). These figures all represent a decline on previous surveys, and the EBacc was invariably cited as the cause. One-fifth of schools stated that they attempt to deliver the full GCSE course in RE over less than the recommended teaching time of 120-140 learning hours.

Source: Survey (fourth in a series) by the National Association of Teachers of Religious Education (NATRE), undertaken online during the six weeks following 19 June 2012 among a self-selecting sample of 625 secondary schools in England. Published on 27 September. Full analysis available at:

http://www.retoday.org.uk/media/display/NATRE_EBacc_Survey_2012_Final.pdf

Islamophobia

Only 41% of Britons questioned deemed it possible for the West and the Muslim world to coexist in peace, against 43% who perceived fundamental conflict between the two, one or other side having to prevail in the end. In the United States, by contrast, a plurality (47%) felt coexistence to be feasible, 8% more than picked the conflict option. In Britain Liberal Democrat voters were most inclined to take the optimistic position (58%) and Conservatives most pessimistic (49%). Very few (17%, 3% less than in the United States) wanted the Government to give financial aid to Muslim countries in the so-called Arab Spring to enable them to make the transition to democracy, with 69% opposed. Opinion was probably clouded by recent violence in Muslim nations directed against the United States in protest against the Innocence of Muslims video on YouTube. Fully one-third of Britons (and two-fifths of Conservatives) assessed that one-half or more of people in the Muslim world supported this violence.

Source: YouGov survey of 1,739 adult Britons, interviewed online on 23-24 September 2012. Fieldwork was also undertaken in the United States. Published on 27 September, with exclusive coverage in The Guardian for that day. Data table available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/2ga029dolx/West%20and%20Muslim%20world%20120926.pdf

Cultural Boycott of Israel

British public opinion towards Israel has tended to become more negative over the years. The Jewish state is no longer simply regarded as the ‘underdog’ in the Middle East, but is often cast in the role of ‘aggressor’. There are growing calls for boycotts of Israel, and there have recently been several high-profile disruptions of Israeli cultural performances in this country. As many as 17% of Britons contend that Israeli actors, dancers or musicians should not be welcome to perform in Britain, against 53% who say the opposite and 30% undecided. Moreover, 27% of adults think that British actors, dancers or musicians should not perform in Israel, compared with 37% who believe they should and 36% uncertain.

Source: YouGov survey for the Jewish Chronicle in which 1,739 adult Britons were interviewed online on 23-24 September 2012 (i.e. the same survey as the preceding entry). Published on 28 September, the headline in the Jewish Chronicle proclaiming ‘Massive majority opposes boycott’. Data table available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/0kh4fq1eb8/Jewish%20Chronicle%20Results%20120924.pdf

Feelings towards Religious Groups

‘There are common factors underlying less positive feelings towards religious groups. These include being male, holding no or lower-level qualifications, supporting a minor political party or having no partisan attachment, and lower levels of political engagement. Age, religious affiliation, personal importance of religion, and ideological beliefs show a more complex set of relationships with feelings towards religious groups.’ On a 0-100 scale, the feeling thermometer scores of attitudes to seven religious groups ranged from 46.8 towards Muslims to 62.6 towards Protestants, with the average across all groups being 56.2.

Source: Secondary (bivariate and multivariate) analysis of data from samples C and D (n = 2,236) of the British Social Attitudes Survey, 2008 by Ben Clements, ‘The Sources of Public Feelings towards Religious Groups in Britain: the Role of Social Factors, Religious Characteristics, and Political Attitudes’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 27, No. 3, October 2012, pp. 419-31. Published on 28 September. Article pay-per-view option at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2012.722036

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Arab Spring, Archbishop of Canterbury, BBC Local Radio, Ben Clements, British Social Attitudes Survey, Church of England, ComRes, cultural boycott, democracy, English Baccalaureate, GCSEs, Innocence of Muslims, Islam, Islamophobia, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Muslim world, National Association of Teachers of Religious Education, religious education, religious groups, Rowan Williams, schools, The Guardian, United States, violence, West, YouGov | 1 Comment

British Social Attitudes, 2011

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The twenty-ninth report from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey was published by NatCen Social Research on 17 September 2012, less than a year after the completion of the fieldwork (June-November 2011) on which it is based.

As usual, the 2011 BSA was undertaken through a combination of face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires with adult Britons aged 18 and over. The full sample comprised 3,311 individuals, albeit some questions were put only to sub-samples.

Edited by Alison Park, Elizabeth Clery, John Curtice, Miranda Phillips and David Utting, the book-length report on British Social Attitudes, 29 is available for free download from:

http://www.bsa-29.natcen.ac.uk/media/13421/bsa29_full_report.pdf

The annotated questionnaire for the survey can be found at:

http://www.bsa-29.natcen.ac.uk/media/11241/annotated_questionnaire_2011.pdf

Although the dataset is not yet available through the Economic and Social Data Service, the 2011 data have already been loaded into the British Social Attitudes Information System, through whose website weighted results for each question can be viewed, disaggregated by demographics. Go to:

http://www.britsocat.com/Home

There was no special module on religion in the 2011 survey, but several questions of potential interest to BRIN users were included.

Asked whether they regarded themselves as belonging to any particular religion, 44% of adults replied in the negative. This was a lower proportion than in 2010 (50%) but much higher than when the question had first been put in 1983 (31%). It also represented a big increase on the 17% of 2011 interviewees who had not been brought up in any religion, suggesting that very many relinquish faith on transition to adulthood.

The number professing no religion varied substantially by age, peaking among the 18-24s (65%) and falling steadily to 18% among the over-75s. The age differential also largely explains the high of 57% for the never married and the low of 25% for the widowed. Gender was likewise significant, with 51% of men against 39% of women having no faith.

Regionally, Wales (historically a heartland of Nonconformity) reported the greatest incidence of irreligion (58%) and Greater London (formerly renowned for its poor religious allegiance but now boosted by religiously-minded immigrants) one of the lowest (42%). The Midlands, another centre of immigration, recorded 41%.

Very regular (once a week or more) attendance at religious services (other than for rites of passage) was claimed by 14%, almost certainly an exaggeration, while 58% said that they never attended public worship, just a modest rise on 53% in 1991. The picture is complicated by the fact that this question was apparently answered by very many, albeit not all, of those professing no religion.

In fact, 13% of the irreligious stated that they sometimes attended religious services. Anglicans had the highest total non-attendance (56%), with Roman Catholics on 28%, other Christians on 39%, and non-Christians on 29%. Men (65%) were more likely never to attend than women (54%). Variation by age cohort was between 54% and 65%, by marital status between 56% and 64%, and by region between 54% and 65%.

Other questions explored attitudes to Muslims. In the main (face-to-face) questionnaire, randomly-chosen sub-samples were asked for their views on three groups of migrants to Britain (labour migrants, student migrants, and family reunion migrants) originating from various geographical contexts, one of them being ‘Muslim countries like Pakistan’.

An analysis of the results is given in the chapter on immigration (pp. 26-44) by Robert Ford, Gareth Morrell and Anthony Heath, which appears in British Social Attitudes, 29, especially on pp. 35-40. In respect of Muslims, public opinion was found to be more nuanced than has usually been assumed yet there remained some underlying prejudice.

Regarding labour migration, while 61% said that Muslim professionals filling jobs was good for Britain, only 17% said the same about unskilled Muslim labourers and even fewer (10%) about the same group searching for work. This professional/unskilled split was generic, but net support for Muslim migrants still tended to be less than from East Europe. Indeed, on several measures of the economic and cultural impact of migration there was a clear net preference for East Europeans over Muslims.

A similar trend was evident for student migration. Although the public was much more well-disposed to student migrants in general with good grades than bad grades, regardless of region of origin, net support for students with good grades from Muslim countries was smaller than from the other three geographical clusters, and net opposition to student migrants with bad grades was slightly higher for those from Muslim countries than West Europe or East Asia.

The pattern was repeated for family reunion migration, with which the public is unhappy overall. At 57%, net opposition to migrants from Muslim countries bringing their family to live in Britain for three years was very much greater than for family reunion migration from West Europe. The disparity remained when the period of settlement was extended to ten years, albeit family reunion migration from Africa was then perceived somewhat more negatively than from Muslim countries.

Version C of the self-completion questionnaire, put to one-third of the sample, explored another dimension of anti-Muslim prejudice, asking respondents how comfortable they would be if a close relative married or otherwise entered into a relationship with a person who grew up in a Muslim country. Answers were recorded on a scale running from 0 to 10.

23% of respondents were very uncomfortable (0 or 1) about this prospect and 22% very comfortable (9 0r 10). Least discomfort was felt by the 18-24s (10%) and Scots (14%). Most discomfort was manifested by the over-65s (including 38% for the 65-74s), with age also probably contributing to highs for those with no educational qualifications (44%) and the widowed (38%).

The 2011 BSA findings on religious affiliation were highlighted in the notes for editors section of a BBC press release on 12 September concerning the Corporation’s RE:THINK 2012 Religion and Ethics Festival, hosted in Salford recently.

In connection with the Festival, the BBC commissioned its own research from TNS BMRB among 585 16- to 24-year-olds, interviewed face-to-face between 15 and 21 August 2012.

Asked to rank the most important moral issue for them, having religious faith or beliefs featured in equal penultimate place in a list of eight options, scoring just 4% compared with 59% of the young who selected looking after family. Moreover, religion was considered the least important moral issue by 32% of respondents.

The BBC press release can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2012/rethink-poll.html

Posted in church attendance, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Alison Park, BBC, British Social Attitudes Survey, church attendance, David Utting, Elizabeth Clery, Immigration, Islamophobia, John Curtice, marriage, migration, Miranda Phillips, moral issues, Muslims, NatCen Social Research, Pakistan, RE:THINK 2012, Religious Affiliation, religious services, students, TNS-BMRB | 4 Comments

Christian Attitudes to Poverty

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Attending church appears to do little to change people’s underlying attitudes to poverty and inequality, with no great differences between the views of churchgoers and non-churchgoers, and – in particular – sharp divergences between those of clergy and their congregations.

These are among the key findings of a new research report from the Church Urban Fund (CUF) in association with Church Action on Poverty, previewed in the Church of England Newspaper and Church Times of 16 December last but only just released in full. Entitled Bias to the Poor? Christian Attitudes to Poverty in this Country, it can be downloaded from:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/PDFs/Bias_to_the_poor.pdf

CUF’s data derive from a survey of 170 Church of England clergy, carried out at deanery chapter meetings in 2011, and for regular (at least monthly) churchgoers of all denominations and non-churchgoers or professing non-religious from secondary analysis of NatCen’s British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey (seemingly for 2009). Among the headline statistics are:

73% of clergy said poverty is mainly due to social injustice, compared with only 22% of regular churchgoers and 20% of non-religious
38% of churchgoers and non-religious have a fatalistic or passive attitude to poverty, regarding it as ‘an inevitable part of modern life’, against 16% of clergy
23% of churchgoers and 27% of non-religious attribute poverty to laziness or lack of willpower (1% of clergy)
83% of clergy assessed that large income differences contribute to social problems like crime, versus 56% of churchgoers and 65% of non-religious
77% of clergy described large income differences as unfair, compared with 50% of churchgoers and 51% of non-religious
73% of clergy believed that large income differences are morally wrong, twice the figure (36%) for both churchgoers and non-religious
79% of churchgoers and 75% of non-religious saw large income differences as inevitable, against 34% of clergy
64% of churchgoers and 60% of non-religious thought large income differences incentivized people to work hard (just 19% of clergy taking the same position)
76% of clergy acknowledged that there is ‘quite a lot’ of child poverty in Britain, against just 37% of churchgoers and 38% of non-religious (in fact, official statistics prove that nearly one in three children are living in poverty)

Comparing results with BSA surveys for 20 years ago, sympathy for the poor among churchgoers is revealed to have declined. Attitudes to benefits have especially hardened, 57% of churchgoers in 2009 arguing they are too high and discourage work (versus 30% in 1987).

CUF concludes: ‘Our findings show that clergy understand poverty and inequality very differently to their congregations, and that church attendance has little impact on people’s underlying attitudes to these issues (in stark contrast to other moral issues, like euthanasia, censorship, and marriage, where there are very marked differences between churchgoers and non-churchgoers).’

‘The majority of churchgoers do not recognise the extent of poverty in this country and only a small minority attributes poverty to social injustice. If, as we believe, tackling poverty is at the heart of the gospel message, then there is a clear need for churches to do more to raise awareness and understanding of these issues among their congregations.’

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged British Social Attitudes Survey, Church Action on Poverty, church attendance, Church of England, Church Urban Fund, clergy, inequality, NatCen, poverty | 2 Comments

British Social Attitudes Survey, 2010

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Clive D. Field

‘Britain is becoming less religious, with the numbers who affiliate with a religion or attend religious services experiencing a long-term decline. And this trend seems set to continue; not only as older, more religious generations are replaced by younger, less religious ones, but also as the younger generations increasingly opt not to bring up their children in a religion – a factor shown to strongly link with religious affiliation and attendance later in life.’
Continue reading →

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, Survey news | Tagged British Social Attitudes Survey, church attendance, Lucy Lee, NatCen, National Centre for Social Research, Religious Affiliation, school choice, Sonia Exley | 2 Comments

Attitudes towards Different Religious Groups in Britain: Survey Data Sources

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Ben Clements

As well as evidence from opinion polls, data collected in social surveys allow us to explore and explain attitudes towards different religious groups in Britain. This post highlights some of the survey resources – available for general usage – which allow researchers to examine public views towards religious groups in Britain.

The three surveys used are:
– the European Values Study;
– the Pew Global Attitudes Project surveys; and
– the British Social Attitudes surveys.

The surveys use different types of questions in order to gauge attitudes towards religious groups, and I give some summaries here. For each survey, the data are weighted so that the results are demographically representative.

1. European Values Study (EVS)
The EVS includes a British sample as part of its multi-national focus. It has undertaken surveys in 1981, 1990, 1998 and 2008. In each survey it has asked this question:

‘On this list are various groups of people. Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbours?’

It has asked about a range of social groups, not just those belonging to different religious faiths. Also, the religious categories asked about have varied across surveys. Muslims and Jews have been asked about in every survey from 1990 onwards, while other groups have been included in just a single survey. Table 1 gives the proportions (%) in each survey who mention that they would not like to have a particular religious group as neighbours.

Table 1 shows that, for the two groups asked about in nearly every survey – Muslims and Jews – the proportions who would not want them as neighbours have fallen over time. For Muslims, it has declined from 16.8 per cent to 12.2 per cent; for Jews from 7.2 per cent to 3.1 per cent. In 1981 a broader category – ‘minority religious groups’ – was used, and around a fifth expressed disapproval (21.6 per cent).

The other religious groups asked about have varied. In the latest survey (2008), just 1.6 per cent would not like to have Christians as neighbours, compared to 12 per cent for Hindus (asked about in 1990) and 12.6 per cent for Sikhs (asked about in 1998). Comparisons could be made with public attitudes in a range of other countries included in the EVS.

Further information and datasets are available at http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/

2. Pew Global Attitudes Project (GAP)

The Pew GAP has since 2004 asked about attitudes towards Jews, Muslims and Christians in its cross-national surveys (with the exception of the 2007 survey). For each of these groups, respondents are asked:

‘On a different topic, please tell me if you have a very favourable, somewhat favourable, somewhat unfavourable or very unfavourable opinion of …[a particular religious group]’.

Responses to this question for the most recent survey – undertaken in 2009 – are shown below in Table 2 (for the British sample). Attitudes are most favourable towards Christians (82.2 per cent respond ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’) compared to Jews (75.4 per cent) and Muslims (64.5 per cent). Respondents are more likely to offer a ‘don’t response’ for Jews and Muslims. Again, interesting comparisons can be undertaken with other countries included in the GAP surveys.

Further information and datasets: http://pewglobal.org/category/data-sets/

3. British Social Attitudes (BSA)

The BSA 2008 survey asked about feelings towards various religiously-defined groups. It used a series of ‘thermometer’ scales – ranging from 0 through to 100 – in order to measure whether people feel warm (or cold) towards particular groups. Higher scores (i.e. above 50) represent warmer feelings.

In their recent study (American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, 2010), Putnam and Campbell argue that feeling thermometers represent an ‘effective way of gauging the gut-level feeling people have towards different groups’ (p. 503). Their analysis of attitudes in the United States using ‘thermometer’ scores found that the most unpopular religious groups were Muslims and Buddhists, along with Mormons (p. 507). The most positive assessments were of Jews, mainline Protestants and Catholics (p. 506).

In the BSA 2008 survey respondents were asked to rate their feelings towards seven groups:
– Protestant people (including Church of England, Church of Scotland, Anglican, Methodist, and others);
– Catholic people;
– Jewish people;
– Muslim people;
– Buddhist people;
– People who are deeply religious; and
– People who are not religious.

The average score for each group is shown in Figure 1 (in ascending order), revealing significant variation in feelings. Muslim people and people who are deeply religious received the lowest mean scores. Catholic people and Protestant people received the highest average scores, followed by people who are not religious. Jewish people and Buddhist people were very close to or the same as the average mean score across groups (56.1).

Further information and datasets: http://www.esds.ac.uk/government/bsa/

Further reading
– Putnam, R. D. and D. E. Campbell (2010). American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us. New York: Simon & Schuster.
– Voas, D. and R. Ling (2010), ‘Religion in Britain and the United States’, A. Park et al (eds), British Social Attitudes 26th Report. London: Sage.

Dr Ben Clements
Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester

bc101@leicester.ac.uk

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged American Grace, Ben Clements, British Social Attitudes Survey, David Campbell, David Voas, European Values Study, Feeling Thermometer, Pew Global Attitudes Project, Robert Putnam, Rod Ling | Leave a comment

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