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Counting Religion in Britain, June 2017

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 21, June 2017 features 23 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 21 June 2017

OPINION POLLS

Religion and the general election

The actual political alignment of the principal religious groups at the general election held on 8 June 2017 was recorded by Lord Ashcroft in a poll of 14,384 electors who had voted by post or in person. Fieldwork was conducted in Britain (excluding Northern Ireland) on 6-9 June through a combination of telephone and online interviews. As the table below indicates, Christians were disproportionately likely to support the Conservatives, largely a function of the older age profile of Christians, while non-Christians and religious nones were inclined to favour Labour. The pro-Labour stance of non-Christians, which was far greater than in 2015, tracked the traditional pro-Labour allegiance of black and minority ethnic communities, albeit it was ten points less than the 2017 BME figure (as a consequence of the strongly pro-Conservative leanings of Jews). The pro-Labour stance of nones reflected their relative youth and Labour’s success in 2017 in reaching out to young people generally. The distribution of all votes is naturally affected by the collapse in UKIP support since 2015. A substantial minority of all the faith groups indicated that they had made up their minds about how to vote within a week of polling day: 33% of Christians, 38% of non-Christians, and 34% of nones. Data tables are available at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/GE-post-vote-poll-Full-tables.pdf

% down	All voters	Christians	Non-Christians	Religious Nones
2017 general election
Conservative	41.3	51.5	27.7	29.4
Labour	39.1	31.2	56.8	47.6
Liberal Democrat	9.2	8.5	8.6	10.2
UKIP	2.9	3.1	1.2	2.9
Another party	7.4	5.7	5.6	9.9
2015 general election(recalled vote)
Conservative	37.0	44.9	30.2	26.8
Labour	30.6	26.3	42.6	35.0
Liberal Democrat	9.8	8.4	10.0	11.6
UKIP	12.3	13.8	7.6	11.0
Another party	10.4	6.7	9.7	15.6

Meanwhile, two pre-election polls by Opinium Research had investigated the voting intentions and attitudes to political issues of members of the UK’s black and ethnic minorities. Online fieldwork was conducted between 2 and 7 May and between 30 May and 1 June with, respectively, 511 and 607 respondents. The answers to all questions were disaggregated by religious affiliation, with the sub-samples of Christians (29% averaged across the two surveys), Muslims (28%), and religious nones (28%) being sufficiently large to be statistically robust. Full data tables can be accessed via the links in the blog post at:

http://opinium.co.uk/political-polling-ethnic-minorities-30th-may-2017/

Personal religious beliefs of politicians

One casualty of the 2017 general election was Tim Farron. Although re-elected to Parliament, he stood down as leader of the Liberal Democrats immediately afterwards, citing the difficulty of reconciling his Christian beliefs with serving as a political leader, his views on whether or not homosexuality is a sin having become a focus of the initial stages of the election campaign. Asked more generically, in an online poll by YouGov on 15 June 2017, about politicians who found their party’s ideology at odds with their personal religious views, 46% of the 5,526 Britons questioned felt that politicians should stay true to their religious convictions compared with 20% wanting them to privilege the party ideology (the remaining 34% were undecided). Conservatives (59%) and over-65s (62%) particularly wanted politicians to put their religion first, whereas 18-24s (26%) and Liberal Democrats (27%) placed above-average emphasis on fidelity to party ideology. Results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/38a3a410-51ad-11e7-81f3-2ab0a50a8b9c

Forces for good

Lord Ashcroft’s poll covered a range of other political issues, the results for which were disaggregated by the three principal religious groups. The following table shows the proportion of each ranking, on a scale running from 0 to 10, certain trends as a force for ill (0-4), a mixed blessing (5), or a force for good (6-10). The higher the mean score, the more positive the group was towards the trend concerned. Reflecting their relatively elderly profile, Christians emerged as the community with the least progressive views, their conservatism exemplified in their disproportionate enthusiasm for capitalism. The internet was seen as the most positive development by all groups, albeit nones were also especially attracted to the green movement.

Mean scores	All voters	Christians	Non-Christians	Religious Nones
Multiculturalism	5.42	4.92	6.51	5.93
Social liberalism	5.66	5.16	6.29	6.27
Feminism	6.37	6.01	6.39	6.87
Green movement	6.40	5.90	6.87	7.00
Globalization	5.46	5.41	5.82	5.47
Internet	7.03	6.92	7.22	7.17
Capitalism	5.35	5.61	5.21	5.02
Immigration	4.97	4.51	5.88	5.45

Religious affiliation

The most recent data on religious affiliation derive from an aggregate of five online Populus polls during May 2017 and the online component of Lord Ashcroft’s post-vote general election survey (noted above). The question was: ‘to which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member?’ Results are tabulated below.

	%
Christian	52.3
Muslim	2.1
Hindu	0.6
Jew	0.7
Sikh	0.2
Buddhist	0.6
Other non-Christian	1.6
No religion	40.2
Prefer not to say	1.7
N =	23,477

Humanism

Marking its relaunch as Humanists UK, the British Humanist Association (BHA) has recently released the second tranche of findings from a survey it commissioned last year, for which 4,085 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed online by YouGov on 28-29 July 2016. They revealed that 44% professed to belong to no religion, one-half being cradle nones and one-third raised as Anglicans. One-third of the whole sample met the BHA’s definition of being a humanist, as reflected in their selection of the humanist answer to three statement options (these answers were: ‘science and evidence provide the best way to understand the universe’; ‘what is right and wrong depends on the effects on people and the consequences for society and the world’; and ‘our empathy and compassion give an understanding of what is right and wrong’). The proportion meeting the definition varied significantly by age, from 46% of under-25s falling to 23% of over-55s. Of those fulfilling the criteria, 72% self-identified as humanists, 8% did not, with 19% uncertain. Interestingly, one-third of the sub-sample holding humanist beliefs actually claimed to belong to some religion, leading the BHA to conclude that 22% of the population are real humanists in (a) being non-religious and (b) subscribing to humanist beliefs. Full data tables can be accessed via the link in the press release at:

https://humanism.org.uk/2017/06/15/new-poll-shows-one-in-five-are-humanists-and-a-third-hold-humanist-beliefs/

God

One-half of adults either believe in God (17%) or some form of god or spirit (33%), according to an app-based survey by YouGov published on 15 June 2017. The plurality (45%) believes there is no kind of god or spirit, only the material world, while 5% venture other replies. Topline results are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/15/who-should-be-included-brexit-talks-god-vs-materia/

The same proportion of the population as believe in God or a spirit, 50% of 5,526 Britons interviewed online by YouGov on 15 June 2017, still consider it appropriate that the national anthem includes references to God, just 22% saying it is wrong (with 28% uncertain). The greatest level of support for the divine appearance in the national anthem is recorded among UKIP voters (67%), Conservatives (68%), and over-65s (69%), while Labour voters (33%), Scots (36%), and Scottish Nationalists (46%) are most inclined to think it wrong for God to be invoked in the national anthem. Results, disaggregated by standard demographics, are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/38a3a410-51ad-11e7-81f3-2ab0a50a8b9c

Faith-based schools

Government plans to abolish the present cap preventing new faith-based schools from recruiting more than half their pupils on religious grounds find little favour with the electorate, according to a Populus poll on behalf of the Accord Coalition, for which 2,033 Britons were interviewed online on 5-7 May 2017. Forced to choose, four-fifths of respondents supported the status quo, including majorities of adherents of the two denominations (Church of England and Roman Catholic Church) which have the most faith schools. Just 20% in both Britain and England agreed that new state-funded faith schools should be allowed to select up to 100% of their pupils on the basis of faith, albeit this option appealed to 33% of Catholics and even higher proportions of the rather small numbers of Muslims and Jews in the sample. Full data tables are available at:

http://accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Religious-Schools-Survey.pdf

Inter-faith relations

A majority (53%) of young people aged 18-24 sense that religious intolerance in Britain has increased during the past five years, according to an online poll of 1,002 of them undertaken by ICM Unlimited on behalf of Hope Not Hate and the National Union of Teachers between 30 May and 1 June 2017. Just 18% thought religious intolerance was decreasing, with 13% detecting no change and 16% undecided. Asked about relations between particular faith communities, 30% assessed that Christians and Muslims do not get along with each other, compared with 33% saying the same about people of no faith and Muslims, and 19% about people with no faith and people with faith. Data tables are available at:

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/2017_hopenothate_18-24s_poll.pdf

Attitudes to Islam

In an eight-nation study for Handelsblatt, undertaken online by YouGov between 21 May and 6 June 2017, a plurality (47%) of the 1,974 Britons interviewed detected a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of their society. This was much the same proportion as in the United States (45%) and France (48%), albeit it fell short of the majorities recorded in Germany (53%), Sweden (56%), Denmark (59%), Norway (59%), and Finland (60%). Just under one-quarter (23%) of Britons perceived Islam as generally compatible with British values, while 15% agreed with neither option and 16% did not know what to think. Topline results are available on p. 23 of the data tables at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/1eqs14w9mx/HandelsblattResults_Topline_May2017_tracked_W.pdf

Simultaneously, in YouGov’s app-based survey published on 21 June 2017, a majority of Britons acknowledged that British society was very (5%) or somewhat (54%) Islamophobic. A minority considered that it was not really (31%) or not at all (8%) Islamophobic. Topline results only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/21/islamophobia-uk-brexit-talks-divorce-bill-and-futu/

Islamist terrorism

In the wake of the deadly Islamist attacks in Manchester on 22 May and London on 3 June 2017, 52% of Britons thought most British Muslim leaders could be doing a lot more to stop British Muslims being radicalized and to combat terrorism. The proportion was especially high among over-65s and Conservatives (66% each) and UKIP voters (76%). Just under one-third (29%) of the 2,130 adults interviewed online by YouGov for The Times on 5-7 June 2017 believed the Muslim leadership was doing all it reasonably could while 19% were unable to express an opinion. In a supplementary question, 7% of respondents claimed to have had difficult or embarrassing conversations with Muslim friends or colleagues in recent years on the subject of extremism or terrorism, and this was especially likely to have been the case in London (12%). Full data tables are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/d8zsb99eyd/TimesResults_FINAL%20CALL_GB_June2017_W.pdf

In a separate app-based poll by YouGov published on 6 June 2017, 75% of adults agreed that, in the light of recent terror attacks, Britain should be less tolerant of the rights of radical Islamists to express themselves. The topline result only is available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/06/terrorism-and-general-election/

In the early hours of 19 June 2017, a van deliberately ploughed into worshippers who had just attended Ramadan prayers outside the Finsbury Park mosque in London, killing one person and injuring nine others. Eyewitness reports suggested that the van’s driver had vowed to kill Muslims. The authorities at the mosque criticized the media for initially failing to report the incident as terror-related. Quizzed online later the same day, 59% of 4,305 respondents to a YouGov app-based poll agreed that the attack outside the mosque could properly be described as an act of terrorism, with 23% dissenting and 18% uncertain. Results, with breaks by demographics, are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/75c6bfe0-54db-11e7-862a-1eb0da735179

Jewish opinions

In the May 2017 issue of Counting Religion in Britain, we reported on the initial results from a telephone poll of 515 self-identifying British Jews undertaken by Survation for the Jewish Chronicle on 21-26 May 2017. In its edition of 9 June 2017 (pp. 1-2), the newspaper headlined the findings from two additional questions. The first concerned the extent to which respondents were optimistic or pessimistic about the future of Jews in the UK; a plurality (47%) felt very or quite optimistic while 23% were pessimistic and 26% neutral on the subject. In the second question, the sample was asked whether they sensed that Israel was heading in the right or wrong direction under the leadership of its Prime Minister, Benjamin (‘Bibi’) Netanyahu; another plurality (41%) perceived the direction to be right against 33% saying it was wrong and 26% undecided. No data tables are in the public domain, as yet, but the newspaper’s coverage can be read at:

https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-jewish-chronicle/20170609/281500751225361

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Methodist statistics for mission

Methodist membership in Britain has declined by 3.5% year-on-year during the decade to 31 October 2016, now standing at 188,398, according to the Methodist Church’s latest triennial Statistics for Mission report. Net losses over the triennium were split between recruitment losses (55%) and retention losses (45%). Average weekly (Sunday and weekday) attendances at services are 202,100, only 14% of whom are by young people, with an estimated 500,000 individuals present at non-service activities. The 22-page report is available at:

http://www.methodist.org.uk/media/2625881/conf-2017-42-Statistics-for-Mission.pdf

Christians against Poverty

Christians against Poverty (CAP)’s Client Report for 2016 draws upon the charity’s client databases and 1,217 responses to its annual debt help survey, undertaken by post and online between September and November 2016. Low income is the most frequently-cited cause of debt, followed by relationship breakdown and mental ill-health. The mean annual household income of CAP’s new clients in 2016 was £14,700, a real-terms decrease on the 2015 figure, compared with the national average of £26,300. The overwhelming majority (89%) of clients had income below the national average and 63% were living below the poverty line. By the time they had sought CAP’s help, they had amassed outstanding debt balances equivalent to 97% of their annual income. The report can be downloaded from:

https://capuk.org/fileserver/downloads/policy_and_government/client_report.pdf

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Armed forces diversity statistics

The proportion of UK service personnel professing no religion is continuing to grow steadily and, as at 1 April 2017, the proportion stood at just under one-quarter for both the regular forces and the reserves. In the case of regular forces, the figure was highest for the Royal Navy (30%) and lowest for the Army (21%). Further information is available in the Ministry of Defence’s latest biannual diversity statistics report at:

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

Religiously aggravated offending in Scotland

The number of charges relating to religious prejudice brought in Scotland in 2016-17 under the two relevant statutes was 719, representing an increase of 12% on the 642 in 2015-16. Roman Catholicism was the religion most often the subject of reported abuse, with 384 charges in 2016-17, 28% more than the year before, albeit not as high as in previous years. Charges related to Protestantism amounted to 165, to Islam 113, and to Judaism 23. Glasgow had the biggest concentration of charges (30%). The majority (91%) of all charges involved male accused. Full details are contained in the 24-page report by Rebecca Foster and Katherine Myant, Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland, 2016-17, which can be downloaded from:

https://beta.gov.scot/publications/religiously-aggravated-offending-scotland-2016-2017/

ACADEMIC STUDIES

British Social Attitudes Survey

NatCen Social Research has published the report on British Social Attitudes Survey, 34, which took place between July and November 2016. Interviews were achieved with 2,942 adults aged 18 and over, with some questions put to the full sample and others to part (one-third or two-thirds) samples. The standard questions on religious affiliation and attendance at religious services were included, the former revealing that 53% of respondents professed to belong to no religion, with 15% being Anglicans, 9% Roman Catholics, 17% other Christians, and 6% non-Christians. Other questions on religion do not appear to have been asked. Media coverage of the report has focused disproportionately on the chapter by Kirby Swales and Eleanor Attar Taylor (pp. 85-126) dealing with moral issues, notably on the continued growth in social liberalism with regard to pre-marital sex, same-sex relationships, abortion, and pornography (attitudes to euthanasia remain largely unchanged). This greater liberalism has been increasingly embraced by Christians, notably in terms of same-sex relationships, although across all the topics examined people with a religion were still less likely to hold liberal views than those with no religion (to a significant extent, this probably tracks the social conservatism of older people, who are disproportionately religious). These differences would doubtless be accentuated if only practising religious were considered; however, as the dataset from the survey has not yet been made available, this level of analysis cannot be undertaken at present. The remaining chapters concern tax and benefit manipulation, the role of government, civil liberties, Brexit, and immigration but have no religious content. The published report can be found at:

http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/media/39196/bsa34_full-report_fin.pdf

European Social Survey

Since its inauguration in 2002, the European Social Survey (ESS) has proved a useful source of data on a limited range of religious topics across the twenty or so countries (including the United Kingdom) covered in each wave. Some of its potential in this regard is illustrated in three of the sixteen chapters in Values and Identities in Europe: Evidence from the European Social Survey, edited by Michael Breen (London: Routledge, 2017, xxv + 314 pp., ISBN: 978-1-138-22666-1, hardback, £110). One, by Ryan Cragun (pp. 17-35), is a case study of secularization in Ireland while the other two chapters focus on analyses at aggregate level of Round 6 of ESS (2012): Anna Kulkova, ‘Religiosity and Political Participation across Europe’ (pp. 36-57) and Caillin Reynolds, ‘Religion and Values in the ESS: Individual and Societal Effects’ (pp. 58-73). Few UK-specific statistics are cited. The book’s webpage is at:

https://www.routledge.com/Values-and-Identities-in-Europe-Evidence-from-the-European-Social-Survey/Breen/p/book/9781138226661

Anglican church growth

In ‘Intentionality, Numerical Growth, and the Rural Church’ (Rural Theology, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2017, pp. 2-11), David Voas revisits a survey he conducted in 2013 as part of the Church of England’s Church Growth Research Programme. This found no strong connection between numerical growth and worship style or theological tradition, the crucial factor being that congregations engage in reflection and make intentional choices about their future direction. The quantitative and qualitative evidence for that conclusion is summarized in this article and implications explored for rural churches, which are often conservative in character. To the extent that congregations are inward-looking, follow inherited practice, and resist change, Voas contends, it may be difficult for them to avoid stagnation or decline. Thus, the revitalization of tradition is a challenge for rural clergy and parishioners. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14704994.2017.1298265

Jewish vote

In two recent posts on his blog, University of Leicester academic Daniel Allington applies regression analysis to the results of the 2017 general election for the twenty British constituencies with the highest Jewish population at the 2011 census. He concludes that:

Many Jewish voters very probably turned away from the Labour Party between 2015 and 2017 (in the light of perceived anti-Semitism within the Party)
There is no indication that these lost voters switched to the Conservative Party in 2017
These voters seem rather more likely to have voted for the Liberal Democrats

The posts can be found at:

http://www.danielallington.net/2017/06/electoral-cost-left-wing-antisemitism/

http://www.danielallington.net/2017/06/jewish-voters-labour-conservative-liberal-democrat/

Roman Catholicism in the 1970s and 1980s

In a letter to The Tablet (10 June 2017, p. 17), sociologist of religion Mike Hornsby-Smith expressed concern about the long-term future of the archive of his quantitative and qualitative research into English Roman Catholicism in the 1970s and 1980s. This had led to countless published outputs, including two substantial books: Roman Catholics in England: Studies in Social Structure since the Second World War (1987) and Roman Catholic Beliefs in England: Customary Catholicism and Transformations of Religious Authority (1991). The archive had been deposited in the library of Heythrop College, part of the University of London. However, arising from financial challenges and following the failure of partnership discussions with, successively, St Mary’s University Twickenham and the University of Roehampton, the Jesuits in Britain have decided to close the College at the end of the 2017/18 academic year and have already sold the College buildings to a property developer. None of the College’s academic departments is relocating to another higher education institution and no firm plans are yet in place to secure the future of the College’s extensive and important library and archive, other than, in the short term, to pack it up and move it offsite somewhere. Hornsby-Smith has also deposited his own personal diaries, of a Catholic layman from the 1950s to the present, at the library.

Living by Numbers

The vital contribution which ideas of number, magnitude, and frequency make in shaping our everyday lives is rehearsed in Steven Connor, Living by Numbers: In Defence of Quantity (London: Reaktion Books, 2016, 296 pp., ISBN: 9781780236469, £15, hardback). The book’s webpage is at:

http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780236469&nat=false&stem=true&sf1=keyword&st1=Living%2Bby%2Bnumbers&m=2&dc=13

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 8165: Active People Survey, 2015-2016

The Active People Survey, inaugurated in 2005-06, is commissioned by Sport England to gauge participation in sport and active recreation. Wave 10, conducted by TNS BMRB between 1 October 2015 and 30 September 2016, achieved 164,458 telephone interviews with adults aged 14 and over throughout England. The demographic questions asked of a random 50% of respondents included two on religion: ‘what is you religion, even if you are not currently practising?’ and ‘do you consider that you are actively practising your religion?’ A catalogue description of the dataset is at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8165&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 8188: Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 2015

The 2015 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey was undertaken by ScotCen Social Research, on behalf of the Scottish Government and other public sector funders, between July 2015 and January 2016. Face-to-face interviews and self-completion questionnaires were achieved with 1,288 adults aged 18 and over in Scotland. The survey instrument included a special module on discrimination and positive action, which had last been run in 2010, and which explored, among other things, opinions of religious groups in respect of long-term relationships, employment, and religious dress. Particular attention was paid to attitudes towards Muslims. Additionally, there were the standard background variables on religious affiliation and religion of upbringing and, for those with a religion, frequency of attendance at religious services or meetings other than for the rites of passage. A catalogue description of the dataset is at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8188&type=Data%20catalogue

A report on the discrimination module – Scottish Social Attitudes, 2015: Attitudes to Discrimination and Positive Action – was published by the Scottish Government in September 2016. This is separately available at:

http://www.ssa.natcen.ac.uk/media/38903/attitudes-to-discrimination-and-positive-action-2015.pdf

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

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Accord Coalition, Active People Survey, armed forces, Benjamin Netanyahu, black and minority ethnic voters, British Humanist Association, British Muslim leaders, British Social Attitudes Survey, British values, Christians against Poverty, church growth, Church of England, Daniel Allington, David Voas, debt, discrimination, Eleanor Attar Taylor, European Social Survey, Faith schools, Finsbury Park mosque, forces for good, fundamental clash, general election, God, Handelsblatt, Heythrop College, Hope Not Hate, humanism, Humanists UK, ICM Unlimited, inter-faith relations, Islam, Islamist terrorism, Islamophobia, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Katherine Myant, Kirby Swales, Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashcroft, Methodist Church, Michael Breen, Mike Hornsby-Smith, Ministry of Defence, morality, NatCen Social Research, national anthem, National Union of Teachers, Opinium Research, party ideology, political leaders, politics, Populus, poverty, Reaktion Books, Rebecca Foster, Religious Affiliation, religious intolerance, religious prejudice, religiously aggravated offending, Roman Catholic Church, Routledge, Rural Theology, Scotland, Scottish Government, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, social liberalism, Steven Connor, Survation, terrorism, The Times, Tim Farron, voting, YouGov | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, January 2017

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 16, January 2017 features 22 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 16 January 2017

OPINION POLLS

Faith Research Centre

The major polling news of the month was the official launch by ComRes, in London on 24 January 2017, of its Faith Research Centre, directed by Katie Harrison and claimed to be ‘the UK’s first dedicated commercial capability with specific expertise in researching religion and belief’. The Centre’s vision is ‘to help improve the quality of knowledge . . . by providing robust and impartial evidence of current religious identity, belief, practice, and behaviour’. It aims to do so by offering thought leadership programmes and research and consultancy services on faith issues, domestically and across Europe. Two major projects have already been announced: a series of National Faith Surveys, on a five-year rotational basis, in the UK and four other European countries; and Faith in the Workplace, a set of tools and services to help employers. The Centre’s webpage is at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/faith/

As a trailer for the launch of the Centre, ComRes conducted an online survey into the religious attitudes of 2,048 adult Britons on 4-5 January 2017, the data tables for which can be found at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/polls/general-public-research-religion-of-britain-january-2017/

Respondents were initially asked to assess whether Britain was still a Christian country, a concept which has been to the fore in debates about ‘British values’ during recent years. A slight majority (55%) replied in the affirmative, a big reduction on the 80% found in 1968 and 71% in 1989 but broadly in line with other post-Millennium polling. The proportion judging Britain a Christian country varied widely with age, ranging from 31% of 18-24s to 74% of over-65s. It was also high among professing Christians (72%). Just over one-quarter (28%) considered Britain to be a country without any specific religious identity, and this was especially true of 18-24s (41%), religious nones (37%), and non-Christians (36%). The remaining 17% of the whole sample gave another answer or did not know what to think.

Interviewees were then presented with six pairs of statements and asked to select the one from each pair which best represented their own position. Four of the statements concerned understanding of religion(s), with pluralities saying that a good understanding of religion(s) was important for politicians and policy makers in the UK (47%); for tackling global terrorism (44%); and for understanding the world itself (47%). A further question asked about self-understanding of religion(s) in the UK, rated as good by 43% and not so by 41%. However, similar numbers were scathing in their own assessment of religion(s), which 45% regarded as generally a cause of wars and violence and 44% as doing more harm than good. Somewhat remarkably, nones were no more critical than the rest of society, the assenting figure being 45% for each statement.

Angels

One-third (32%) of Britons claim to believe in angels, and the same number feel they have a guardian angel watching over them, according to a poll commissioned by the Bible Society and conducted online by ICM Unlimited with 2,037 respondents on 17-18 August 2016. This was a similar proportion to 2010 (31% then believing in angels and 29% in guardian angels). In the 2016 survey, women (39%) were more likely to believe in angels than men (26%) and also to have seen or heard an angel (11% and 8%, respectively). Belief in angels otherwise peaked among over-75s and residents of the South-East (both 39%) and the lowest (DE) social group (41%). Data tables are unpublished but a few results were reported in a Bible Society press release of 13 December 2016 at:

https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/latest/news/a-third-of-all-brits-believe-in-guardian-angels/

Islamist terrorism

Islamist terrorism is the major external preoccupation of Britons for 2017, 62% of them telling YouGov in an app-based poll on 2 January that the threat posed by it was most on their mind as an expectation for the year. This was closely followed by the negative effects of the presidency of Donald Trump (59%). Economic disruption as a consequence of Brexit was in third place, at 48%. Just 21% were confident that 2017 would see significant progress in defeating Islamic State. Topline results only can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/01/02/positive-and-negative-expectations-2017-new-year-r/

Banning the burka

International debate about the wearing in public of certain forms of ‘Islamic’ female dress has been raging for a decade or more now and legal bans have already been imposed in certain countries, albeit not (yet) in Britain. Here the appearance of burkinis on holiday beaches was a matter of contention last summer but attention has now reverted back to the wearing of burkas and niqabs. According to an online YouGov poll of 1,609 Britons on 15-16 December 2016, 50% of the adult population would like to see a law passed against the use of full body and face coverings, backing for such a measure being especially strong among over-65s (72%), UKIP supporters (74%), and those who voted for the UK to leave the European Union (EU) in the 2016 referendum (70%). The national figure in favour of a ban is lower than in Germany (69%, seven points more than five months ago) but higher than in the United States (25%), a majority (60%) in the latter country agreeing that people should be allowed to wear what they want, a position taken by just 38% of Britons (but by half of 18-24s, Labour and Liberal Democrat voters and 57% of ‘remainers’ in the EU referendum). The full data table is accessible via the link in the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/01/17/brits-and-germans-want-see-burqa-banned-whilst-ame/

‘Muslim’ travel ban

President Donald Trump’s executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim majority nations from entering the United States for 90 days has caused a storm of protest, both in his own country and around the world, including in the UK. Sky Data seems to have been the first organization to test British public opinion on the matter, on behalf of Sky News, among a sample of 1,091 Sky customers contacted via SMS on 30 January 2017. This was obviously a niche – and potentially unrepresentative – audience, even though results were weighted to the profile of the population as a whole. Asked whether they would support a similar ‘Muslim’ travel ban in the UK, 34% of respondents said that they would, rising to 40% of over-55s and 44% of residents in the Midlands and Wales. A plurality, 49%, was opposed to a Trump-style policy being adopted in the UK, with hostility greatest among the under-35s (71%) and Londoners (76%), while 18% expressed no clear view. There was also a plurality, again of 49%, in favour of cancelling the proposed state visit to the UK by President Trump later in the year, with 38% wanting it to go ahead and 12% undecided. The data tables can be found at:

http://interactive.news.sky.com/SMSXLIII_TRAVELBAN_300117_FP.pdf

Corruption of religious leaders

UK findings from Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer, 2015/16 have recently been released, based upon telephone interviews by Efficience3 with 1,004 adults between 15 December 2015 and 28 January 2016. One of the questions concerned the perceived corruption of national leaders and institutions, including religious leaders. Among UK respondents, 6% assessed all religious leaders corrupt, 8% most of them, 52% some of them, and 27% none of them, with 8% unable to say. The proportion (14%) claiming that most or all religious leaders were corrupt was lower than in many other European and central Asian countries, the regional average being 17% and the range from 2% in Estonia to 39% in Moldova. Within the UK, five groups were seen as being more corrupt than religious leaders, most or all of local government representatives (19%), business executives (21%), government officials (25%), members of the Prime Minister’s office (27%), and MPs (28%). However, religious leaders were seen as more corrupt than judges and magistrates (9%), police (11%), and tax officials (12%). Topline data are available by clicking on the download link at the bottom of the press release at:

https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/governments_are_doing_a_poor_job_at_fighting_corruption_across_europe

Predictions

Britons are a sceptical lot when it comes to believing the predictions of so-called ‘experts’, according to a YouGov poll of 1,943 adults on 7 January 2017. Weather forecasters (29%) and astronomers (27%) are deemed the most credible, some way ahead of economists (19%). Astrologers have one of the poorest ratings, their predictions trusted by no more than 6% of the population overall, albeit they hold special appeal to 18-24-year-olds (12%) and UKIP voters (10%). Pollsters scored just 1%. Results disaggregated by standard demographics are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/6019c410-d4d6-11e6-b6a9-c26f3e0c0822

Psychic powers

Prompted by recent CIA revelations about scientific tests which apparently ‘proved’ that the Israeli psychic Uri Geller really did have special powers, YouGov asked the 4,645 respondents to an app-based poll on 20 January 2017 whether they believed that some people possess psychic powers. Just over one-quarter (27%) did so, women (36%), Scottish Nationalists (36%), and UKIP voters (40%) being especially convinced. A slim majority (51%) disavowed the existence of psychic powers, men (62%) and 18-24s (66%) being most sceptical. The remaining 22% were undecided. Data have been posted at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/105875e0-def7-11e6-9747-82ef68f86b7f/question/c12b5630-def7-11e6-ba0f-2678bf7c8139/social

Triskaidekaphobia

The occurrence of Friday the 13th in the month occasioned at least a couple of polls about triskaidekaphobia and superstition more generally, neither sufficiently reported to enable their credentials to be established, although there was some print and online media coverage (from which this brief account has been compiled). One survey was conducted by the property website Zoopla among 2,839 homeowners, ascertaining that 43% acknowledged being superstitious and 46% having a lucky number (seven being the most popular); 30% also said they would be less likely to buy a property with thirteen in the address and 23% that they would be unwilling to exchange, complete, or even move into a home on Friday the 13th. The other study was undertaken by the hotel chain Travelodge, 74% of its 2,500 respondents reporting they had suffered bad luck on a previous Friday the 13th and 68% they would be making some kind of gesture on the day in order to bring them good luck; 50% expressed belief in the power of lucky numbers and 40% owned up to being superstitious. An associated survey of Travelodge’s 532 UK hotel managers revealed that room 13 was the one customers wished to avoid most, with room 101 and room 666 the second and third least requested; room 7 is the room most in demand.

Holocaust and genocide

More than a quarter (27%) of survivors of the Holocaust and later genocides who live in the UK have experienced discrimination or abuse in this country linked to their religion or ethnicity, according to a survey released by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), marking Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January 2017). This is despite the fact that 72% of survivors said they felt very or fairly welcome when they arrived in the UK. The majority (52%) waited more than twenty years after their arrival before they began to talk about their experiences. Relatives of these survivors are even more likely (38%) to report being victims of faith- or race-based hatred in the UK. The poll was conducted online by YouGov among 208 survivors of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides and 173 of their family members. HMDT’s press release can be found at:

http://hmd.org.uk/news/holocaust-and-genocide-survivors-experience-abuse-uk

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Faith-based charities

New Philanthropy Capital published the final report from its programme of research into faith-based charities on 29 November 2016: Rachel Wharton and Lucy de Las Casas, What a Difference a Faith Makes: Insights on Faith-Based Charities. It draws together the key findings from interim publications and blogs, including an analysis of the statistical importance of faith-based organizations to the charity sector in England and Wales, previously featured by British Religion in Numbers. One-fourth of charities registered with the Charity Commission were found to be faith-based of which two-thirds are Christian. An in-depth survey of 134 faith-based charities was also undertaken. The 33-page report further discusses the main themes which have emerged from the research and makes sundry recommendations. It is available at:

http://www.thinknpc.org/publications/what-a-difference-faith-makes/

Evangelical opinions

The Evangelical Alliance (EA) has recently released headline findings from two surveys conducted among its online research panel of evangelical Christians. It should be noted that these were self-selecting (opportunity) samples and may not be representative of the evangelical constituency, still less of churchgoers as a whole.

The first survey was completed by 811 evangelicals between 28 November and 5 December 2016 and was press-released by the EA on 16 December. It concerned attitudes to Christmas, the key messages being that the overwhelming majority of evangelicals, 89% and 99% respectively, intended (a) to volunteer or give money to charitable causes at Christmas and (b) to sing carols or attend a Christmas service. Further information is available at:

http://www.eauk.org/current-affairs/media/press-releases/jesus-and-giving-at-the-heart-of-christmas.cfm

The second survey was answered by 1,562 evangelicals and published on 23 December 2016 in the January/February 2017 edition of Idea magazine; dates of fieldwork were not given. The subject matter was belief and unbelief with particular reference to: sharing the gospel with people of other faiths; religious freedom in the UK; secularism; and religious illiteracy in the public square. On the last-named topic, 94% of evangelicals criticized the media and 88% politicians for their lack of understanding of religion. The article is available at:

http://www.eauk.org/idea/belief-and-unbelief.cfm

Faith journeys

What Helps Disciples Grow? is the final report by Simon Foster on a 2014-15 research project for the Saint Peter’s Saltley Trust, a Christian educational charity covering the West Midlands. It is based upon responses to a paper questionnaire completed during services by 1,191 churchgoers in the region drawn from 30 places of worship of different denominations. To what extent this constituted a representative sample is unclear. Respondents were asked how they viewed their own calling, growth, and spirituality and what had helped or hindered their Christian journey over the years. Analysis of the data in partnership with Leslie Francis and David Lankshear suggested that there were four distinct paths of discipleship: group activity, individual experience, public engagement, and church worship. The report, tables (with breaks by gender and age), and questionnaire can be downloaded from:

What Helps Christian Disciples Grow?

Christians against Poverty

Debt-counselling charity Christians against Poverty (CAP) has highlighted the lasting impact of its work, based on the experiences of 214 of its clients surveyed at least twelve months after becoming debt free with CAP’s help, in The Freedom Report: The Importance of Debt Advice in Building Financial Capability and Resilience to Stay Free of Problem Debt. The vast majority of clients (93%) remained free of unmanageable debt, 85% felt in control of their finances, 74% no longer used credit, 62% had passed on to others skills learned through CAP, and 46% even had savings. The 34-page report is available at:

https://capuk.org/downloads/policy_and_government/the_freedom_report.pdf

Surveying Sikhs

Jagbir Jhutti-Johal considers methodological issues raised in surveying the Sikh community, with reference to the UK Sikh Survey (2016), in her Religion and the Public Sphere blog at:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionpublicsphere/2017/01/research-on-the-sikh-community-in-the-uk-is-essential-to-better-inform-policy-but-surveys-must-be-improved/

Aliyah statistics

In its latest report, written by Daniel Staetsky, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research asked Are Jews Leaving Europe? It focused on migration to Israel from six countries – Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the UK – which collectively account for 70% of Europe’s Jewish population. Since the Millennium, migration to Israel from the UK, Germany, and Sweden was found to be at a ‘business as usual’ volume whereas in the other three nations, notably in France and Italy, there has been a steep rise in very recent years, to reach historically unprecedented levels. Staetsky deployed statistical modelling in an attempt to identify potential factors which might be driving this pattern, with particular reference to France and the UK, albeit an explicit link to the extent of anti-Semitism could not be proved. Data sources are fully explained in an appendix (pp. 23-6). The report is available at:

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

ACADEMIC STUDIES

British Social Attitudes Surveys

In his latest research note for British Religion in Numbers, Ben Clements presents trend data from British Social Attitudes Surveys to 2015 in respect of current religious affiliation, religion of upbringing, and attendance at religious services. See:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/2017/religion-and-the-british-social-attitudes-2015-survey/

Materiality and religion

Material culture has emerged in recent years as a significant theme in the study of religion, and a specialist journal (Material Religion) has been published since 2005. The three phases of materiality – production, classification, and circulation/use – are further illustrated in Materiality and the Study of Religion: The Stuff of the Sacred, edited by Tim Hutchings and Joanne McKenzie (London: Routledge, 2017, x + 245pp,, ISBN 978-1-4724-7783-5, £95.00, hardback). Its thirteen chapters, with introduction and afterword, offer fresh empirical research and theoretical insights, disproportionately drawn from Britain. Reflecting the nature of the subject, these contributions are of a mainly qualitative bent, the exception being Elisabeth Arweck, ‘Religion Materialised in the Everyday: Young People’s Attitudes towards Material Expressions of Religion’ (pp. 185-202). This draws upon data from the 2011-12 ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ project, demonstrating a considerable awareness by young people of the cultural factors at work shaping the everyday deployment, circulation, and reception of religious symbols, clothing, and dietary observances. The book’s webpage is at:

https://www.routledge.com/Materiality-and-the-Study-of-Religion-The-Stuff-of-the-Sacred/Hutchings-McKenzie/p/book/9781472477835

Psychology and religion

Vol. 29, No. 2, 2016 of Journal of Empirical Theology is a theme issue on psychology and religion, guest-edited by Emyr Williams and Mandy Robbins. Two of the six articles are of particular British religious statistical interest, although their findings are not entirely conclusive. The more substantial, in terms of its evidence base, is Andrew Village, ‘Biblical Conservatism and Psychological Type’ (pp. 137-59), a correlation explored through responses given by 3,243 self-selecting readers of the Church Times in 2013, 1,269 of them clergy and 1,974 laity. Meanwhile, in ‘The Relationship between Paranormal Belief and the HEXACO Domains of Personality’ (pp. 212-38), Emyr Williams and Ben Roberts illustrate the effects of introducing honesty/humility as an additional (sixth) measure of personality when appraising belief in the paranormal among a preponderantly female sample of 137 undergraduate students in Wales. Access options to these articles are outlined at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/15709256/29/2

Church of England liturgies

The words used in Anglican worship have become more accessible over time but there is still scope for making them more so, argues Geoff Bayliss (Rector of Cowley, Oxford), who has appraised the readability of Church of England liturgies by testing them statistically against three standard readability formulae, covering ministry of the word, ministry of the Eucharist, and occasional offices. His summative evaluation is that currently 43% of adults living in England would find 50% of the Church’s liturgical texts difficult to read. Only 34% of these texts fall into the National Literacy Strategy’s Entry Level or Level 1 groupings while 64% are categorized as Level 2, characterized by longer sentences, unfamiliar vocabulary, and a high occurrence of polysyllabic words. Nor is it the case that linguistic complexity is the function of older liturgies such as the Book of Common Prayer; modern versions also exhibit readability problems. Although Bayliss concedes that use of a small core of challenging words may be hard to avoid, he feels many others could be couched in forms which would enhance their readability. The full results of the research are presented in his doctoral thesis, ‘Assessing the Accessibility of the Liturgical Texts of the Church of England: Using Readability Formulae’ (University of Wales DMin, 2016, 314pp.), which can be downloaded from:

http://www.plainenglishliturgy.org.uk/

An introduction to his findings can be found in his article ‘Speaking More in the Language of the People’ in the Church Times, 23/30 December 2016, p. 16, which is available at:

https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2016/23-december/comment/opinion/speaking-more-of-the-language-of-the-people

EURISLAM Project

Rather belatedly, we should note the publication of a special theme issue of Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (Vol. 42, No. 2, 2016, pp. 177-340) devoted to the EURISLAM Project, funded between 2009 and 2012 by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme. EURISLAM was undertaken by a consortium of six European universities, coordinated by the University of Amsterdam, and with the University of Bristol as the British member. The research took place in Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, and The Netherlands, utilizing a combination of media content analysis, telephone interviews, and interviews with representatives of Muslim organizations. In each of the six countries, telephone interviews were conducted with onomastically recruited samples of Muslims of Moroccan, Turkish, former Yugoslavian, and Pakistani descent (798 of them in Britain) and also with a cross-section of the national majority population (387 persons in Britain). The questionnaire explored cultural interactions between Muslim immigrants and receiving societies. The theme issue, The Socio-Cultural Integration of Muslims in Western Europe: Comparative Perspectives, contains nine articles, and is available on a subscriber or pay-per view basis at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjms20/42/2?nav=tocList

There is also much more information about EURISLAM, including further bibliographic references, many results, and a link to the dataset, on the project website at:

http://www.eurislam.eu/

Yearbook of International Religious Demography

The latest global attempt to number religious adherents is Yearbook of International Religious Demography, 2016, edited by Brian Grim, Todd Johnson, Vegard Skrbekk, and Gina Zurlo (Leiden: Brill, 2016, xxiv + 231pp., ISBN 978-9-0043-2173-1, €85, paperback). It draws upon a wide range of sources (described in part 3, pp. 167-78), many of them archived in Brill’s World Religion Database, albeit the 2011 census is the principal source of UK data. Country-by-country totals for each major faith group are tabulated in an appendix (pp. 197-225), with extensive statistical analyses in part 1 (pp. 1-93). From this we learn that, in absolute terms, the UK has the third largest population of Sikhs in the world, the fourth of Jains, the fifth of Zoroastrians, the sixth of Jews and agnostics, and the ninth of non-religionists. Part 2 of the volume comprises seven case studies and methodological essays, none specifically relating to the UK. The book’s webpage is at:

http://www.brill.com/products/reference-work/yearbook-international-religious-demography-2016

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

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, Measuring religion, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, religious festivals, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Aliyah, Andrew Village, Angels, astrologists, Ben Clements, Ben Roberts, Bible Society, biblical conservatism, Brian Grim, Brill, British Social Attitudes Surveys, Burka, charitable giving, Christian country, Christians against Poverty, Christmas, Church of England, Church Times, ComRes, cultural interactions, Daniel Staetsky, debt, discipleship growth, Donald Trump, Efficience3, Elisabeth Arweck, emigration, Emyr Williams, EURISLAM Project, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, Faith Research Centre, faith-based charities, full body and face coverings, genocide, Geoff Bayliss, Gina Zurlo, Global Corruption Barometer, good, guardian angel, harm, holocaust, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, ICM Unlimited, Immigration, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, integration, Islam, Islamist terrorism, Israel, Jagbir Jhutti-Johal, Jews, Joanne McKenzie, Journal of Empirical Theology, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Katie Harrison, legislation, liturgies, Lucy de Las Casas, materiality, Muslim majority countries, Muslims, New Philanthropy Capital, number 13, paranormal, predictions, psychic powers, psychological type, Rachel Wharton, readability, Religion and the Public Sphere, religion of upbringing, Religious Affiliation, religious attendance, Religious diversity, religious dress, religious festivals, religious freedom, religious illiteracy, religious leaders, Saint Peter’s Saltley Trust, secularism, Sikhs, Simon Foster, Sky Data, Sky News, superstition, survivors, Tim Hutchings, Todd Johnson, Transparency International, Travelodge, triskaidekaphobia, UK Sikh Survey, understanding of religions, United States of America, Vegard Skrbekk, volunteering, wars and violence, Yearbook of International Religious Demography, YouGov, young people, Zoopla | Leave a comment

Counting Religion in Britain, November 2016

Posted on November 30, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 14, November 2016 features 29 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: no-14-november-2016

OPINION POLLS

Freedom of speech

The case involving Ashers Bakery in Belfast, found guilty of discrimination for declining on religious grounds to bake a cake promoting same-sex marriage, rumbles on and now seems destined for the UK Supreme Court. The ongoing row has prompted the Coalition for Marriage to commission ComRes to rerun a poll which it originally undertook for the Christian Institute in March 2015. On this second occasion 2,000 Britons were interviewed online on 4-6 November 2016 and asked whether business people should be taken to court for refusing to supply goods or services in eight sets of circumstances. On the scenario identical to the Ashers case, 65% of respondents said that the refusal of a Christian bakery to produce a cake supporting same-sex marriage should not be grounds for taking to court, only 16% disagreeing (and no more than 23% of religious nones). Even lower endorsement of court action was registered for the other seven scenarios which included the refusal of: a Muslim printer to print cartoons of the Prophet; an atheist web designer to create a website promoting creationism; a Muslim film company to make a pornographic film; a Christian bakery to make a cake celebrating Satanism; and a Roman Catholic printing company to print advertisements calling for the legalization of abortion. Full data tables are available at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Coalition-for-Marriage_-Freedom-of-Speech-Polling_-November-2016.pdf

Faith schools

Government has proposed allowing new and existing faith schools to select up to 100% of their places according to religious criteria, thereby ending the 50% cap which has operated for the last nine years. However, a Populus poll commissioned by the Accord Coalition and British Humanist Association, for which 2,054 adults were interviewed online on 14-16 October 2016, has found that 72% of Britons agree that state-funded schools should not be allowed, in their admissions policies, to select or discriminate against prospective pupils on religious grounds. Just 15% of the public disagree with the ComRes statement, with 13% undecided. This strong majority against the application of religious criteria in school admissions varies little across demographic sub-groups, including among religious groups. Full data tables are at:

http://accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/OmFaith-Schools_Q2.pdf

Theresa May’s faith

More than one-quarter (27%) of British adults say they have been alarmed by Prime Minister Theresa May’s recent admission that her faith in God gives her confidence she is doing the right thing, according to one of YouGov’s app-based polls on 30 November 2016. One in five (18%) were reassured by her comment while 49% claimed it had no effect on how they felt about May’s actions. Asked, in a supplementary question, whether they lived their own life according to some kind of defined philosophy or system of beliefs, 29% replied in the affirmative but a clear majority (64%) stated they took life as it comes in terms of making a series of practical choices. Topline results only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/11/30/government-regulation-company-management-theresa-m/

Protestant ethic and future of religion

Reminded that economic data show the world’s most prosperous nations are mostly Protestant, 25% of respondents to one of YouGov’s app-based surveys on 3 November 2016 thought there was a direct tie between the economic prosperity of these countries and their Protestantism. However, the majority, 58%, detected no obvious links between the two factors, while 18% were unsure or gave other answers. Asked additionally which faith would be dominant in the world 500 years from now, 24% suggested Islam against 14% for Christianity. But 33% felt that no single faith would be dominant and 17% anticipated that religion would have all but disappeared. Topline results are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/11/03/religions-protestantism-and-economic-prosperity-fo/

US presidential election

Donald Trump may have won the US presidential election, but he commands limited appeal among British voters, according to an online YouGov poll on 3-4 October 2016. Of the 1,690 adults interviewed, only 11% overall preferred the Republican Trump to his Democrat rival, Hillary Clinton (65%), the remaining 23% being undecided. Among the principal religious groups (cell sizes for the others were too small to be viable), Clinton’s share rose to 70% with religious nones, Anglicans and Catholics being marginally more likely than average to favour Trump, albeit he attracted the support of just 13% and 16%, respectively. The question was asked as part of a more general survey of attitudes to globalization (including immigration and multiculturalism), and the full British data tables, with breaks by religion, can be found via the Great Britain link at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/11/17/international-survey/

Anti-Semitism in relation to Israel

Next year (2017) marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, whereby the British government committed to using its best endeavours to establish in Palestine a national home for Jewish people, but without detriment to the rights of existing non-Jewish communities in the area. Interviewed online by Populus on 14-16 October 2016, on behalf of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), a plurality (43%) of 2,054 Britons still agrees that, in principle, this was the right position for the government to have taken at that time, but 18% disagree and 39% are neutral or undecided. Much water has flowed under the bridge during the intervening century, not least the establishment of the state of Israel, whose actions in the Middle East have divided British public opinion, especially since the 1980s. A majority (57%) is clear that criticism of Israel does not in itself constitute anti-Semitism, 11% saying the contrary, although a plurality (48%) admits that hating Israel and questioning its right to exist is anti-Semitic, 20% dissenting. Islamic State (ISIS) is equally viewed as a threat to the security of Israel (by 81% of Britons) and to that of the UK (93%). Full data tables are at:

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

A summary of the findings of the poll, including comparisons with last year’s survey, can be found in BICOM’s press release at:

http://www.bicom.org.uk/analysis/new-bicom-poll-finds-even-stronger-opposition-boycotts-israel/

Islam and British values

YouGov@Cambridge, the partnership between pollster YouGov and the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, has added two further data points to its tracker on the compatibility between Islam and British values. Since the start of 2015, cross-sections of Britons have been asked whether they believe Islam is generally compatible with the values of British society or they perceive there is a fundamental clash between the two. Topline results are tabulated below, from which it will be seen that half the population judges there is a fundamental clash between Islam and British values, with a peak of 59% in June and October 2015, with no more than one-fifth to one-quarter deeming the two compatible. In the latest survey (on 9-10 October 2016 among 1,694 adults), demographic sub-groups most inclined to perceive a clash were UKIP supporters (81%), people who voted for the UK to leave the European Union in this year’s referendum (72%), and over-65s (64%). Both topline and disaggregated data can be accessed by following the ‘Tracker: Islam and British Values’ and ‘Latest Documents’ links at:

https://yougov.co.uk/cambridge/

% across	Compatible	Clash	Neither	Don’t know
2015
January	23	52	12	13
February	23	52	12	13
March	22	55	10	13
May	19	58	9	14
June	20	59	9	12
July	20	56	10	13
August	20	53	12	15
September	20	58	9	13
October	19	59	10	12
December	25	50	13	13
2016
January	25	51	11	13
February	20	56	12	12
March	22	51	10	17
July	25	49	14	13
October	23	52	12	13

Halloween (1)

US-style Halloween celebrations are on the verge of displacing the UK’s traditional Bonfire (Guy Fawkes) Night activities as the principal autumnal festival, according to BMG Research’s online poll of 1,546 UK adults on 19-24 October 2016. The proportion of respondents indicating that they would be celebrating Halloween (31 October) or Bonfire Night (5 November) in some way was tied at 49% each, with both commemorations especially appealing to under-25s (82% of whom said they were planning to observe Halloween and 75% Bonfire Night). Both days have religious origins (Halloween as All Hallows’ Eve, in remembrance of the souls of the dead, and Bonfire Night marking a failed plot by Roman Catholic conspirators in 1605 to blow up the Houses of Parliament) but have now become thoroughly secularized. Full data tables are at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CONFIDENTIAL-BMG-POLL-OCTOBER-data-tables-311016-1.pdf

Halloween (2)

Intentions (definite or probable) to celebrate Halloween were returned at a much lower 21% in another online poll conducted at the same time, by YouGov among 1,631 Britons on 23-24 October 2016, albeit this was still the highest figure of the seven European countries surveyed. The apparent discrepancy with the BMG Research study is perhaps explained by the fact that the latter offered a list of particular Halloween activities (including watching horror films) from which to choose, whereas YouGov used a more binary-style question about celebrating Halloween. YouGov’s topline figures for all seven nations are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/9n40aplkni/Eurotrack_October_USElection_Website.pdf

Halloween (3)

The results of a second, app-based (and potentially not fully representative) poll were posted by YouGov on 1 November 2016. Interviewees were not asked whether they planned to celebrate Halloween themselves but whether they approved of seven specific Halloween activities. Just 17% approved of none of them, with approval being highest for making pumpkin lanterns (72%), apple bobbing (66%), and Christian observance of All Hallows’ Eve (51%). Responding to a separate question, 53% said that the tradition of souling (the Christian origin of trick-or-treating) should be preserved, 26% disagreeing, and 20% uncertain or giving other answers. Topline figures only are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/11/01/should-nigel-farage-be-made-lord-halloween/

Cryogenics

Cryogenics have been in the news recently, with the revelation that the body of a 14-year-old girl who had died of cancer has been cryogenically frozen in the hope that she can be ‘woken up’ and cured at some point in the future. In a YouGov poll of 4,389 Britons on 18 November 2016, 22% of adults thought there might be some chance, however small, the girl could indeed be brought back to life, UKIP voters and the under-40s being particularly confident. Nevertheless, a majority (57%) judged this impossible, rising to 65% of Conservatives and over-60s, with a further 21% undecided. Three-quarters of the public indicated they did not wish to be cryogenically frozen after death themselves, just 7% expressing the wish to be so, the biggest proportion (13%) being among those aged 25-39. Full results will be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/da79f270-ad76-11e6-8bd0-005056901c24/question/16a319c0-ad77-11e6-8bd0-005056901c24/social

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Passing on faith

Secularization, especially in a Christian context, is often attributed to diminished religious socialization of children. Traditionally, there were three principal agencies for achieving this: Church, school, and home. Church provision (notably through Sunday schools) has largely collapsed. The school is no longer a major player since the curriculum emphasis has shifted dramatically from Christian instruction to multi-faith religious and moral education. The importance of the home has also diminished because many parents have become secularized and more child-centred approaches have persuaded them of the importance of children being left to make up their own minds in matters of religious belief.

Some confirmation of weakened parental commitment to the transmission of faith to their children is now provided in a survey by ComRes for Theos, for which 1,013 British parents with children aged 18 and under were interviewed online on 24-29 August 2016. Only 38% of the sample claimed to be definite believers in God and 17% to attend a religious service once a month or more, with 40% professing no religion at all. Asked whether it is an important part of being a parent actively to pass on beliefs in God or a higher power to children, just 30% agreed while 60% judged it was for children to come to their own opinion independently of their parents. Three-fifths were indifferent whether their children held the same beliefs about God as they did and no more than two-fifths had even had a conversation with their children on the subject. One-third suggested that technology and social media would have more of an impact on their children’s beliefs than their own input. Not unexpectedly, believers in God, regular attenders at religious services, and non-Christians exhibited higher than average levels of commitment to passing on their faith.

The survey is summarized in the foreword (by Nick Spencer) to a new Theos report by Olwyn Mark exploring generic issues of Passing on Faith at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Reports/Passing%20on%20faith%20combined%20(1).pdf

Full data tables are available from ComRes at:

http://www.comresglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Theos_Passing-on-Faith_Data-Tables.pdf

University students

The Student Christian Movement (SCM) has voiced concerns about the spiritual support available for higher education students, following receipt of a 26-page report which it commissioned from David Lankshear of St Mary’s Centre on Students in Higher Education and Christian Churches. This was based on statistical analysis of the responses received from 118 churches (disproportionately United Reformed) to an online survey about their contact with higher education students which was run by SCM during the first half of 2016. The majority of churches (54%) had no higher education students in their congregations and 81% had nobody whose role it was to work with students. Many local church leaders felt that going to university had a negative (29%) or mixed (52%) impact on faith, a message picked up in a major news story about the survey in the Methodist Recorder (11 November 2016, pp. 1-2). The report, which its author views as little more than a pilot study, can be viewed at:

http://www.movement.org.uk/sites/default/files/A%20report%20for%20the%20Student%20Christian%20Movement.pdf

Church of England statistics for mission

The Church of England’s Statistics for Mission, 2015 is an impressive 51-page digest of and commentary on data derived from the latest set of parochial returns, with a full description of methodology and a copy of the schedule. The report exhibits continuing decline of the Church across a broad range of performance indicators, subsuming attendance, membership, and rites of passage, the rate of decrease since 2005 varying between 9% (average adult weekly attendance) and 39% (funerals conducted at crematoria and cemeteries). Membership and attendance levels have fallen over a long period, and from a relatively low baseline, but the diminishing take-up of rites of passage has been a more recent phenomenon, with funerals only significantly impacted since the 1980s. Of course, the net picture masks areas of growth in individual dioceses and parishes, giving hope to some within the Church. Commenting on the statistics, William Nye, the Church’s Secretary General, bullishly said: ‘The Church of England is setting out on a journey of Renewal and Reform, aiming to reverse our numerical decline in attendance so that we become a growing church in every region and for every generation.’ On present evidence, there are few grounds for thinking this will ever be achieved. Statistics for Mission, 2015 is available at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/3331683/2015statisticsformission.pdf

Conservative evangelical Anglican churches

Despite the gloomy outlook for the Church of England as a whole, average weekly attendance at more than 300 churches linked to the conservative evangelical Reform movement is said to have been growing at the rate of 3% to 4% during the past five years. Congregations at these churches are also typically larger and younger than the norm: their average attendance is 99 compared to 40 in the Church of England generally, with 18% of worshippers over 70 years of age against 30% in the wider Church. The story is reported by Christian Today at:

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/conservative.anglican.churches.buck.trend.of.decline/101241.htm

Fresh Expressions

The Church of England would doubtless find it difficult to acknowledge publicly that churchmanship might impact levels of attendance, but it continues to salute Fresh Expressions of Church (fxC) as an engine of growth. Four new reports on fxC have recently been published by the Church Army’s Research Unit, two of them of a quantitative nature. The more substantial (234 pages) of the pair is by George Lings, The Day of Small Things: An Analysis of Fresh Expressions of Church in 21 Dioceses of the Church of England. This is based on interviews with the leaders (equally likely to be male or female) of 1,109 fxCs started between 1992 and 2014, three-quarters of them in the past ten years. These fxCs are attended by 50,600 worshippers, equivalent to 10% of the average weekly attendance of the dioceses concerned (albeit the average congregation – 50 – is smaller than for a typical parish church). Their religious origins are examined in a second (81-page) report by Claire Dalpra and John Vivian, Who’s There? The Church Backgrounds of Attenders in Anglican Fresh Expressions of Church. This examined a hand-picked sample of 66 fxCs and a control group of 24 parish churches, utilizing a sixfold classification of previous churchgoing by the 1,997 attenders at fxCs and 953 at parish churches. The research revealed that 38% of the former were not existing churchgoers when they began attending fxC (albeit this is a lower proportion than estimated by fxC leaders), and that fxCs had a more even age and gender distribution than parish churches. The reports can be downloaded from:

http://www.churcharmy.org/Groups/244966/Church_Army/Church_Army/Our_work/Research/Fresh_expressions_of/Fresh_expressions_of.aspx

Major Parish Churches

Sustaining Major Parish Churches: Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities has been prepared by Purcell on behalf of a partnership comprising Historic England (which funded the research), the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Church of England’s Church Buildings Council, the Greater Churches Network, and Doncaster Minster. It collates and analyses a range of statistical and other data relating to the condition, resourcing, and use of the Church of England’s self-designated ‘Major Parish Churches’, based upon a dataset of 300 such churches, an online survey of a sub-set of them, and a series of case studies. The three-part report can be downloaded from:

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/sustaining-major-parish-churches/

Jewish schools

A new study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, on behalf of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, charts dramatic growth since the 1950s, by respectively 400% and 500%, in the number of Jewish schools and Jewish pupils in the UK. This expansion occurred despite a decline in the Jewish population for much of the period, rather being driven by increased uptake of Jewish schooling among Jews. Whereas only one in five Jewish children attended Jewish schools in the 1970s, today the proportion is 63% (and 100% in strictly Orthodox Jewish families), with 30,900 Jewish children enrolled at 139 Jewish schools in the 2014/15 academic year. The majority (57%) of the pupils attends the 97 strictly Orthodox schools (55 primary, 42 secondary), the remainder the 42 mainstream Jewish schools (33 primary, 9 secondary). These, and many other, fascinating facts and figures are in the 45-page report by Daniel Staetsky and Jonathan Boyd on The Rise and Rise of Jewish Schools in the United Kingdom: Numbers, Trends, and Policy Issues, which can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/The_rise_and_rise_of_Jewish_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom.pdf

Judaism in the workplace

According to sundry reports in the Jewish and secular press, a survey of 190 Jews conducted in October 2016 as part of the Chief Rabbi’s ShabbatUK initiative found that 41% of respondents considered their faith had been an issue in the workplace during the course of their career. Moreover, 32% felt uncomfortable about asking their employer to leave work early on Fridays in order to observe the Jewish Sabbath, 27% were reluctant to discuss their faith openly in the workplace (although 72% had done so), and 17% avoided wearing a Jewish religious symbol or item of clothing when at work.

UK Sikh Survey

The UK Sikh Survey, 2016 (authored by Dabinderjit Singh, Randeep Singh, and Jas Singh) has been developed by the Sikh Network, which is responsible for co-ordinating dialogue with the Government with regard to the goals set out in the Sikh Manifesto, 2015-2020. Described as ‘the largest and most comprehensive ever survey of UK Sikhs’, its 4,559 respondents were recruited between May and August 2016 through a combination of self-selection and targeting of hard-to-reach groups. Although the sample is said to exhibit a good regional, gender, and age mix, the methodology adopted may mean it is not fully representative of the Sikh community in terms of either demographics or activism. Notwithstanding, the findings in this overview report (more detailed analyses are promised) provide a fascinating insight into the experiences and attitudes of UK Sikhs, to set alongside the annual British Sikh Report (which commenced in 2013 and is already inviting responses to its own 2017 questionnaire). In particular, The UK Sikh Survey, 2016 demonstrated strong support for the Government to do more to help achieve Sikh political agendas. Almost unanimously, Sikhs would welcome a separate Sikh ethnic tick box in the 2021 census; a statutory code of practice for the 5Ks (Sikh articles of faith) and the Sikh turban, in order to prevent discrimination against Sikhs in the workplace and in public; and an independent public enquiry into the UK Government’s actions in relation to the ‘Sikh Genocide’ in India in 1984. The UK Sikh Survey, 2016 is available at:

http://www.thesikhnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/UK-Sikh-Survey-2016-Findings-FINAL.pdf

OFFICIAL AND QUASI-OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Religious affiliation in Scotland

Two new sources of religious affiliation statistics for Scotland have become available, from the Scottish Government’s Scottish Surveys Core Questions (SSCQ), 2015 (a unified dataset formed from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, the Scottish Health Survey, and the Scottish Household Survey) and from Glasgow City Council’s Glasgow Household Survey, 2016. Topline results are shown below, together with the Glasgow figures from SSCQ.

An Excel worksheet disaggregating the SSCQ national data by various spatial units and demographic characteristics can be found in Table 4.3 via the link at:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/About/Surveys/SSCQ/SSCQ2015

For Glasgow in 2016, only headline results are currently available, on p. 73 of the Ipsos MORI report on the Glasgow Household Survey at:

https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=35362&p=0

% down	Scotland 2015	Glasgow 2015	Glasgow 2016
No religion	46.6	42.6	40
Church of Scotland	27.5	17.1	18
Roman Catholic	14.5	22.5	24
Other Christian	7.3	6.7	4
Muslim	1.7	6.4	6
Other non-Christian	1.6	2.9	5
N =	20,183	1,734	1,023

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Ageing and religion

Ahead of its annual ‘Future of Ageing’ conference, the International Longevity Centre (ILC)–UK unveiled some new analysis from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) dataset for 2004-14. In its press release, ILC–UK advised ‘outreach programmes by religious groups looking to grow their congregations might best be focused on over 60s who have recently started hitting the gym or campaigning with their local political party (of any affiliation)’. This followed the discovery from ELSA that over-60s who join a gym are 4% more likely also to join a religious group, and that those who join a political party are 8% more likely also to join a religious group. It was also found that belonging to a religious group had a small but positive impact on the sense of worth and happiness of older people. Panel members were more likely to join a religious group as they grew older, albeit, in a nod to secularization, fewer belonged to a religious group compared with previous cohorts of the same age (for example, since 2002 6% fewer in their early 60s and 7% less in their late 60s). The press release, which includes an embedded slide show, is available at:

http://www.ilcuk.org.uk/index.php/news/news_posts/press_release_new_analysis_shows_those_60_who_join_a_gym_more_likely_to_joi

A Level students

The upward trend in students taking the Advanced Level examination in Religious Studies (RS) is now well established, but relatively little is known about their profile since the reform of A Levels in 2000. Two articles in the current issue (Vol. 37, No. 3, 2016) of Journal of Beliefs and Values shed light on the matter. They both derive from questionnaires completed by students towards the beginning and end of the first year of their study of A Level RS at the same schools.

Leslie Francis, Jeff Astley, and Stephen Parker answer the research questions ‘Who Studies Religion at Advanced Level: Why and to What Effect?’ (pp. 334-46). They use the questionnaires completed by 462 students towards the end of the first year and investigate their demography, motivation, experience, and attitudes. ‘Key findings demonstrated that 78% of students opted for the subject because they enjoyed their earlier experiences of religious studies in school, that 80% of students have become more tolerant of religious diversity, and that only 7% of students feel that studying religion at A level has undermined their personal religious faith while three times that number feel that it has affirmed their religious faith.’

The following article derives from both sets of questionnaires, the first completed by 652 students. Written by Andrew Village and Leslie Francis, it concerns ‘The Development of the Francis Moral Values Scales: A Study among 16- to 18-Year-Old Students Taking Religious Studies at A Level in the UK’ (pp. 347-56). Initially, considerable variation was found in the proportion of students regarding specific moral issues and behaviours as wrong. However, factor analysis applied to their responses to the Likert items permitted the isolation of constructs to form three short scales (for anti-social behaviour, sex and relationships, and substance use) which are recommended as a parsimonious way of assessing general moral values among adolescents.

Access options to these articles are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjbv20/37/3?nav=tocList

Religious discrimination and higher education

The limited evidence base for religious discrimination experienced by UK university students is summarized on pp. 23-6, 46-8, and 84-7 of Changing the Culture: Report of the Universities UK Taskforce Examining Violence against Women, Harassment and Hate Crime Affecting University Students (London: Universities UK, 2016). Despite several approaches by Universities UK, the Federation of Student Islamic Societies did not contribute to the work of the taskforce, although Tell MAMA did participate on behalf of Muslims. The report is available at:

http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2016/changing-the-culture.pdf

Multiplying churches

Back in 1974-75, David Wasdell of the Urban Church Project modelled Church of England statistics of parochial population and participation to argue for multiplying lay-led congregational units as a way of stimulating church growth, in preference to increasing clergy numbers or combining parishes. His advice was ignored by, and unpalatable to, the ecclesiastical authorities, and his work for the Church was terminated. Now George Lings has applied Wasdell’s methods to the Church’s 2011 statistics and similarly (albeit wordily) replicated ‘A Case for Multiplying the Type and Number of Churches’, Rural Theology, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2016, pp. 112-33. In the process, he provides a rationale for Fresh Expressions of Church (fxC), which are typically small and often lay-led. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14704994.2016.1234858

Christmas

Given the time of year, and the relative dearth of academic literature on the subject, it seems appropriate to mention a new book by Christopher Deacy, Christmas as Religion: Rethinking Santa, the Secular, and the Sacred (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, xiii + 223pp., ISBN 978-0-19-875456-5, £30.00, hardback). Its significance lies not so much in its quantitative strength (indeed, one struggles to find a single statistic in the entire volume) as its avowed refutation of the secularization thesis by a characterization of Christmas as ‘one of the most unexpected and fecund manifestations of religion in the world today’ (p. 201); ‘it is its very secularity that makes Christmas such a compelling, and transcendent, religious holiday’ (p. vii). The work’s methodological approach is heavily influenced by implicit religion, viewing the secular as a repository of the religious, and the evidential basis disproportionately derives from film and radio (the author’s particular field of expertise). No real attempt is made to address the issue of how, beyond interpretation and assertion, such claims can be measured empirically, including through content analysis, corpus linguistics, or sample surveys. As for the secularization thesis, Deacy ‘mostly ignores a hugely complex debate’, as David Martin has pointed out in his review in Church Times, 25 November 2016, p. xvii. The webpage for Christmas as Religion is at:

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/christmas-as-religion-9780198754565?q=Deacy&lang=en&cc=gb

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 6614: Understanding Society (Wave 6)

The dataset for Wave 6 of Understanding Society (United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study) has just been released. Fieldwork was undertaken by TNS BMRB (in Great Britain) and Millward Brown (in Northern Ireland), and face-to-face interviews were achieved with 42,021 adults aged 16 and over between 8 January 2014 and 11 May 2016, representing a response rate of 65% of panel members. Funded by the ESRC and a consortium of government departments, Understanding Society is a highly complex dataset built from several strands, including the rump of the former British Household Panel Survey and a new Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Boost. The religious content of Wave 6 seems to have been limited to questions on religious affiliation, using a belonging form of wording (seemingly asked only of new entrants to the panel), and on membership of and participation in religious groups or organizations. A full catalogue description, with links to supporting documentation, can be found at:

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

SN 8070: Taking Part, 2015-16

Taking Part: The National Survey of Culture, Leisure, and Sport is undertaken by TNS BMRB on behalf of the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport and three of its non-departmental public bodies. For the year 11 cross-section (there is also a longitudinal component), face-to-face interviews were conducted with 10,171 adults aged 16 and over in England between April 2015 and March 2016. The demographic questions included two on religion (‘what is your religion?’ and ‘Are you currently practising your religion?’) which can be used as variables to analyse answers to the topics covered in the main questionnaire. Besides participation in cultural, leisure, and sporting activities, these extended to subjective wellbeing, socialization, volunteering, charitable giving, and community cohesion. A full catalogue description, with links to supporting documentation, can be found at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=8070&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 8081: Community Life Survey, 2015-16

This is the fourth annual wave of the Community Life Survey, initiated by the Cabinet Office in 2012-13 to carry forward some of the questions in the discontinued Citizenship Survey. Fieldwork for this wave took place between 1 July 2015 and 30 April 2016, face-to-face interviews being completed by TNS BMRB with 3,027 adults aged 16 and over in England (being a response rate of 61%). 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=8081&type=Data%20catalogue

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2016

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Counting Religion in Britain, April 2016

Posted on May 14, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 7, April 2016 features 23 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 7 April 2016

OPINION POLLS

Muslim voices

Opinion polls conducted among British Muslims have a habit of sparking controversy. No sooner had the storm died down surrounding a telephone survey by Survation for The Sun, specifically regarding the latter’s presentation of the results, than another blew up around a poll by ICM Unlimited for Channel 4, for which 1,081 Muslims aged 18 and over were interviewed face-to-face (in the home) between 25 April and 31 May 2015. Respondents were drawn from Lower Super Output Areas where at least 20% of the population in the 2011 census was Muslim, using random location, quota-based sampling.

Some Muslim commentators (such as Miqdaad Versi in The Guardian and Maha Akeel in The Independent) subsequently criticized this sampling methodology as ‘skewed’ toward Muslims of a lower socio-economic status, but Martin Boon, ICM Director, robustly defended his company’s approach, arguing that this was ‘the most rigorous survey of Muslims that has been produced for many years’. ICM has further published a detailed account of its methodology at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/Survey%20of%20Muslims_Sampling%20approach.pdf

As an additional cross-check, a significant sub-set of the 53 questions posed to Muslims was put to what ICM described as a ‘control group’ of 1,008 adult Britons interviewed by telephone on 5-7 June 2015. The 615 pages of data tables comprised breaks by demographics and attitudinal types both for the Muslim sample and the control group, together with a topline comparison of the two samples in respect of the questions which were common to both. The breaks for the control group included religious affiliation. These data tables will be found at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/Mulims-full-suite-data-plus-topline.pdf

The poll was commissioned by Channel 4 in connection with its documentary What British Muslims Really Think, which was screened on 13 April 2016 and presented by Trevor Phillips, former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. However, results were fed into the media a few days earlier, notably through two lengthy and hard-hitting articles by Phillips in Sunday Times Magazine (10 April) and Daily Mail (11 April). In them, Phillips suggested that Muslims had become ‘a nation within a nation, with its own geography, its own values, and its own very separate future’, requiring ‘a far more muscular approach to integration’, replacing the failed policy of multiculturalism, if they were to be successfully incorporated into the mainstream.

The overwhelming majority of British Muslims judged Britain to be a good place to live (88%) and had a sense of belonging to the country (86%). This is notwithstanding a perceived growing problem of Islamophobia, with 40% assessing there was more religious prejudice against Muslims than five years ago and 17% reporting a personal experience of harassment because of their religion in their local area over the past two years. The overall positivity toward Britain is almost certainly linked to the feeling of 94% of Muslims that they are able to practice their faith here.

At the same time, there is a wish of Muslims to retain a certain distance from the wider society; while 49% would like to integrate fully with non-Muslims in all aspects of life, 46% wanted some degree of separation in favour of an Islamic life. Moreover, as the table below demonstrates, there is a significant amount of rejection by Muslims of values which have become normative among most non-Muslims. Equality and diversity with regard to gender and sexual orientation are heavily compromised by social conservatism, there is a disproportionate adherence to anti-Semitic views, and subscription to freedom of speech is qualified when Islam is felt to be under attack or criticism.

% agreeing	Muslims	Control group
Gender equality
Girls and boys should be taught separately	33	10
Muslim girls should have the right to wear niqab in school	64	37
Acceptable for a British Muslim to keep more than one wife	31	9
Wives should always obey their husbands	39	5
Homosexuality
Acceptable for homosexual to be a schoolteacher	28	75
Homosexuality should be legal in Britain	18	73
Gay marriage should be legal in Britain	16	66
Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is a problem in Britain	26	46
Jewish people have too much power in Britain	35	9
Jewish people have too much power over the government	31	7
Jewish people have too much power over the media	39	10
Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country	42	24
Jews have too much power in the business world	44	18
Jews have too much power in international financial markets	40	16
Jews still talk too much about the Holocaust	34	18
Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind	34	11
Jews have too much control over global affairs	38	10
Jews think they are better than other people	30	11
Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars	26	6
People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave	27	11
Freedom of speech
Sympathize with groups who organize violence to protect their religion	24	7
Sympathize with people who use violence against those who mock the Prophet	18	NA
Any publication should have the right to publish pictures of the Prophet	4	67
Any publication should have the right to publish pictures making fun of the Prophet	1	47

Islamist threat to London

In the wake of the Islamist attacks on Paris and Brussels, the majority (61%) of 1,017 Londoners interviewed online by YouGov for the Evening Standard between 15 and 19 April 2016 remained anxious that Islamic State/ISIS may attempt a terrorist attack on the capital this year, concern running especially high with Conservative and UKIP voters. Overall anxiety had dropped by five points since the question was last put on 4-6 January, the fall occurring entirely among the ranks of the fairly worried, the very worried being unchanged at 25%. Asked which of the two leading candidates in the upcoming London mayoral election, Zac Goldsmith (Conservative) or Sadiq Khan (Labour and a Muslim), would be most likely to tackle Islamic extremism, 41% of the sample could offer no opinion, while 16% opted for Khan and 13% for Goldsmith, with 30% saying neither or both equally. Data tables can be accessed via a post about the general results of the survey (which revealed Khan well ahead of Goldsmith in terms of voting preferences) at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/04/21/sadiq-khan-leads-20-london-mayoral-race/

Anti-Semitism and the Labour Party

It was not just Muslim anti-Semitism which came under the spotlight during April 2016. At the end of the month, a long-simmering row about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party finally erupted, resulting in the Party suspending two of its prominent figures, one an MP and the other Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London who had risen to the MP’s defence. Livingstone has a track record of getting into anti-Semitic hot water, and 27% of 4,406 members of the British public interviewed online by YouGov on 29 April 2016 thought that he was very or fairly anti-Semitic, including 46% of Conservative voters and 39% of over-60s. Still more, 45% of the whole sample, considered the Labour Party had been right to suspend Livingstone, and this included 43% of Labour voters as well as 62% of Conservatives. Just over one-fifth (22%) of all Britons judged anti-Semitism to be a very or fairly big problem in the Labour Party, while 45% said it was only a small problem or none at all, with 33% undecided. Labour voters were less inclined (11%) to view it as a problem. A majority (60%) was clear that criticism of the Israeli government was not in itself anti-Semitic, merely 9% deeming it so. However, hating Israel and questioning its right to exist was regarded as anti-Semitic by 53%, against 21% who disagreed and 26% who could not make up their minds. The data are available in full via the link at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/04/30/drawing-line-anti-semitism/

British Social Attitudes Survey

Londoners are more religious than the rest of Britain, in terms of both belonging and behaving, according to fresh analysis by NatCen Social Research of data from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey. In 2014, the latest year available (the dataset and documentation for which is already held by the UK Data Archive as SN 7809), there was a 20 point difference in the proportion of respondents professing no religion between Londoners (32%) and the remainder of the country (52%), whereas in 1983, when BSA commenced, the gap had only been 5%. Of those with a religion, or brought up in a religion, twice as many Londoners (38%) claimed to attend religious services at least monthly in 2014 as people in the rest of Britain (19%). Immigration to the capital, by persons from both Christian and non-Christian backgrounds, largely explains these differences. In 2014, no fewer than 31% of Londoners subscribed to non-Christian faiths (a 9% increase on 2010), against just 4% elsewhere in the nation. In fact, there were almost as many non-Christians as Christians (37%) in London. A press release, with link to data tables, is available at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/news-media/press-releases/2016/march/londoners-are-more-religious-than-rest-of-britain/

Scottish Social Attitudes Survey

A majority (52%) of residents in Scotland says they belong to no religion, according to initial analysis by ScotCen Social Research of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) for 2015. This compares with 40% in the first SSAS in 1999. Although the proportion of Roman Catholics and other Christians in Scotland has held relatively steady over the years, there has been a big decline (from 35% in 1999 to 20% in 2015) in professed affiliation to the Church of Scotland. The non-Christian presence in Scotland is limited (2%). Among those with a religion, or brought up in a religion, attendance at religious services monthly or more has also fallen by 10% between 1999 (31%) and 2015 (21%), while 66% in 2015 admitted to never or practically never worshipping (49% in 1999). The latest SSAS interviewed a representative random probability sample of 1,288 adults in Scotland between July 2015 and January 2016. A press release, with link to data tables, is available at:

http://www.scotcen.org.uk/news-media/press-releases/2016/april/two-thirds-of-religious-scots-don’t-attend-services/

Church visits

An online poll by Populus for the Charities Aid Foundation on 19-21 February 2016 quizzed 2,054 UK adults about their engagement with charities, defined in the broadest sense, the principal finding being that almost every household has used at least one charitable service at some point. Churches or religious institutions of charitable status were one of the types of ‘charitable service’ asked about. The proportion of respondents claiming to have ever visited a church themselves (presumably, not necessarily for an act of worship) was 46% (half of them within the past year), which was two points less than those who had never done so. The number of ‘attenders’ was highest among Londoners (55%), public sector workers (56%), the top AB social group (57%), BMEs (57%), and members of households with a combined annual income of more than £55,000 (60%). Those least inclined to have set foot in a church came from the bottom social strata, characterized as being from the DE group (59%), members of households with a combined income of under £14,000 (59%), retired people living only on a state pension (61%), and council tenants (63%). Data tables can be found at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/OmValue-of-Charity-Shortv2.pdf

Referendum on European Union membership

One of the fascinating aspects of the campaign around Brexit, whether the UK should vote to leave the European Union (EU) in the forthcoming referendum on 23 June 2016, is the number of international leaders who have voiced their opinions that the UK should remain in the EU. These have included the Pope who has let it be known, through a senior Vatican diplomat, that he believes the UK would be better ‘in’ than ‘out’ and that it would also make for a stronger Europe. With President Barack Obama the latest world leader to wade into the debate, ITV News commissioned ComRes to conduct an online poll among 2,015 Britons on 20-21 April 2016. Respondents were asked how important to them were the views on the UK’s EU membership of eight leaders or institutions. As the table below indicates, the Pope’s opinion on this matter counted least of all with the electorate. Only 13% overall regarded what he thinks as important and no more than 20% among any demographic sub-group. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ITV-News_Obama-Poll_tabs.pdf

	Important	Unimportant
US President Barack Obama	30	60
HM The Queen	49	42
German Chancellor Angela Merkel	34	55
The Pope	13	77
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon	26	60
International Monetary Fund	48	37
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney	61	29
French President Francois Hollande	28	60

Religion and alcohol

Religion continues to exercise a marginal influence on alcohol consumption in the UK, according to recent research by Ipsos MORI on behalf of Drinkaware, for which 2,303 adults aged 18-75 were interviewed online between 16 November and 4 December 2015. Among the 10% of respondents who claimed that they never drank, 39% gave as a reason for abstinence that drinking alcohol was against their religious or spiritual beliefs, the remaining 61% saying that this was not an important factor for them. Of the 90% of drinkers, 9% reported that a change in their religious circumstances had occasioned a sustained decrease in their consumption of alcohol at some point and 1% an increase. However, for both groups the dominant influences on non-drinking behaviour were secular, such as health, finance, and being in personal control. A report about the research, Drinkaware Monitor, 2015, is available at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Publications/Drinkaware-Monitor-2015-%20Report.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Faith-based charities

More than one-quarter (27%) of the 187,500 registered charities in Great Britain are faith-based, in the sense of embodying some form of religious belief – or cultural values arising from a religious belief – in their vision or mission, founding history, or project content. This is according to research by New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), which has devised an improved methodology for identifying faith-based charities, employing a combination of existing classifications and automated text analysis of keywords. About two-thirds (65%) of these charities are categorized as Christian or deriving from a Christian tradition, 23% as generally faith-based, and 12% are associated with non-Christian faiths (mostly Islam or Judaism). Almost one-fifth have been formed since 2006. More information about NPC’s ongoing research into the effect of faith on the charitable sector, including a seven-page description of the methodology used to build the underlying dataset of charities, can be found at:

http://www.thinknpc.org/publications/understanding-faith-based-charities/

Faith in public service

A new report from the Oasis Foundation, the research and policy unit of the Oasis group of charities and social enterprises, calls for a rebranding and relaunch of the failed ‘Big Society’ initiative and especially upon the Christian Church in the UK to re-imagine its role and re-orientate itself more radically towards social action and the delivery of public services: Ian Sansbury, Ben Cowdrey, and Lea Kauffmann-de Vries, Faith in Public Service: The Role of the Church in Public Service Delivery. In building their case, the authors draw upon two online surveys conducted on 5-6 April 2016, one by YouGov among 1,710 members of the general public and the other by Oasis of 124 church leaders. The public was clearly ambivalent about the Church assuming a greater role in the delivery of public services. Some people recognized that the Church might be more likely to care than other providers, to add the personal touch, to be better connected to other community groups, and to be more motivated to do a good job. Others, however, worried that the Church might be insufficiently inclusive in its approach, attempting to make converts in the process or to shut out non-Christians or other minority groups. These concerns were held particularly by the 18-24 age group. For church leaders, capacity constraints were a major potential challenge, with only 28% confident that their church could run substantial public services such as education or healthcare. The report can be downloaded from:

http://oasis.foundation/sites/foundation.dd/files/Oasis%20Foundation%20Report%20FINAL%20RS.PDF

Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ncm2584h0d/Oasis_Results160406_W.pdf

Christians and Brexit

One-half of practising Christians (including church leaders) believe that the UK should remain in the European Union (EU), according to an online survey conducted by Christian Research among members of its self-selecting Resonate panel during the first week of March 2016. Free movement of trade was cited as the main reason for their pro-EU stance, while many also considered the debate thus far had been too dominated by anti-immigration rhetoric. Just one-fifth intended to vote for Brexit in the forthcoming referendum on 23 June, mostly because they felt the EU to be too bureaucratic and wasteful or its laws threatened our sovereignty. The remaining 30% were undecided. Promoting peace was seen as the most important part of the EU’s mission by 61% of the sample, but its track-record for advancing religious freedom and tolerance was deemed ineffective by 56%. A press release about the survey (with a tiny amount of additional content available to logged-in Christian Research subscribers) can be found at:

http://www.christian-research.org/news-blog/brexit-and-mothering-sunday-survey/

Evangelical consumers

The March/April 2016 issue of Idea, the magazine of the Evangelical Alliance, contained some headline results from a 2015 survey of evangelical attitudes to ethics and consumerism, completed by 1,461 self-selecting members of the Alliance’s research panel. Four in five respondents (81%) concurred that greed for material possessions is one of the greatest sins of our time and 76% that consumerism is eroding family and community life. The advertising industry was widely blamed for this state of affairs, 67% wanting it more tightly regulated and 44% considering it was generally unethical. Although 92% of evangelicals accepted that the Bible teaches us to be content with what we have, 84% also thought there was nothing wrong in enjoying the material things God has provided for us. On Sunday trading, 59% said that Christians should avoid doing their shopping on Sundays, and just 5% backed longer opening hours for larger stores on Sundays. The magazine is available at:

http://www.eauk.org/idea/upload/idea_magazine_mar_april2016_webversion.pdf

Catholic prisoners

Self-professed Roman Catholics constitute a disproportionate number (18%) of the prison population of England and Wales. Insights into their religious background and engagement with the faith in prison are contained in a new 57-page report commissioned from Lemos & Crane by the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales: Gerard Lemos, Belief & Belonging: The Spiritual and Pastoral Role of Catholic Chaplains for Catholic Prisoners. All Catholic inmates at 17 prisons and young offender institutions in England were invited to complete an anonymous questionnaire, and 332 replied, of whom 86% were male. This was evidently a small minority of those approached, and the sample is not claimed by Lemos as statistically representative. It is possible that prisoners who were least well-disposed to the faith, or suspicious about the involvement of Catholic chaplains in the distribution of the survey, may have been less inclined to take part.

Respondents often had fairly close links with the Catholic Church in their pre-prison life, 82% stating they had attended Mass, 78% they had been baptised, 72% they had made their Communion, and 62% they had been confirmed. Within prison, 88% said they engaged in private prayer and 87% that they had a religious object (typically a rosary or picture) in their cell. Three-quarters wrote that they tried regularly to attend Mass in the prison chapel, albeit 24% had encountered practical or logistical problems in doing so. Favourable opinions were expressed of the Catholic chaplains, whom 94% trusted and 86% considered had helped them learn more about the faith or to practice it, with 58% having come to the chaplain with a specific problem or at a difficult time. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.catholicnews.org.uk/belief-belonging-survey-040416

FutureFirst

The lead article in the April 2016 issue (No. 44) of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy, was by Mark Griffiths on the subject of parental transmission of faith to children, based on his August 2015 online survey of members of the New Wine database, to which 1,500 parents responded. The remainder of the content was written by Peter Brierley, including articles on church growth, larger churches, churchgoing in London, Church of England mission statistics, and religion and wellbeing. A special four-page insert, also by Brierley, examined trends in UK church membership and attendance since 2000, with forecasts through to 2030. The current year of FutureFirst is only available on subscription, but a complete backfile from 2009 to 2015 is freely available at:

http://www.brierleyconsultancy.com/future-first/

Invisible Church

Steve Aisthorpe illuminates the persistence of Christianity beyond the confines of formal church membership and attendance in his The Invisible Church: Learning from the Experiences of Churchless Christians (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 2016, x + 214pp, ISBN 978-0-86153-916-1, £14.99, paperback). The book is based on his original research in Scotland, initially qualitative (in 2013) and then quantitative among two random samples interviewed by telephone, 2,698 members of the general public in the Highlands and Islands in 2014 (of whom 430 non-attending Christians went on to complete a detailed survey) and 815 non-churchgoing Christians in 2015 across five regions. It is written in an accessible style, with cartoons, plenty of Bible references, individual stories, and remarkably few statistics (certainly there are no tables nor figures). The work seems primarily aimed at an ecclesiastical rather than academic readership, both church leaders and church attenders, with questions and activities for further reflection included. Much time is spent by Aisthorpe exposing what he regards as the myths, stereotypes, and prejudices surrounding non-churchgoers. The pervasive message of the volume is that, for many post-congregational and non-congregational Christians, faith continues to play a central role in their lives, even to the extent of a willingness to engage in a different formulation of ‘church’, to display a hunger for informal fellowship, to recognize the importance of ‘mission’, and to become conscious or unwitting pioneers of alternative Christian communities. In this way, ‘what the evidence points to is a reshaping, rebalancing or reconfiguration of the Church.’ Those who subscribe to the thesis that religion is changing rather than declining will derive hope from this book, but it will utterly fail to convince scholars who, arguing from a wider and more balanced portfolio of data, continue to feel that, overall, Britain remains on a secularization trajectory. Further details of the book can be found on the publisher’s website at:

https://standrewpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780861539161/the-invisible-church

Other outputs from Aisthorpe’s research are available at:

https://www.resourcingmission.org.uk/resources/mission-research#

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Marriages in England and Wales

There were 9% fewer marriages in England and Wales in 2013 than in 2012, according to a newly-released Statistical Bulletin from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This was the first decrease in marriages since 2009 and is explained by ONS thus: ‘The fall could indicate the continuation of the long-term decline in marriages since 1972 or could be due to couples choosing to postpone their marriage to avoid the number 13 which is perceived as unlucky by many cultures.’ Moreover, the reduction in weddings conducted with religious rites was more than double the level of those performed in civil ceremonies, 14% compared with 6%. The proportion of religious marriages in 2013 was, at 28%, the lowest figure ever recorded and 20 points below 1994, the last full year before the legalization of marriages in approved premises, where over three-fifths of weddings now take place (the final tenth occurring in registry offices). The overwhelming majority (73%) of religious marriages were celebrated by the Church of England or Church in Wales, with Roman Catholics accounting for 11%, other Christian denominations for 12%, and non-Christian faiths for 4%. Unlike Scotland, humanist marriage ceremonies are still not legal in England and Wales. The ONS Statistical Bulletin, with embedded links to a range of detailed data, is at:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/marriagecohabitationandcivilpartnerships/bulletins/marriagesinenglandandwales/2013

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Secularization and crises

The proposition that social crises cause religious revivals has been evaluated by Steve Bruce and David Voas with reference to the effect of three twentieth-century crises (the First and Second World Wars and the inter-war Great Depression) on several statistical measures of British and UK church adherence. They conclude there is little or no evidence that these crises produced any religious resurgence. Rather, they found the trajectory of decline in institutional Christianity during the course of the century to be remarkably smooth, thereby supporting (they contend) the notion that secularization has been a long-run process with amorphous and deep causes. ‘Do Social Crises Cause Religious Revivals? What British Church Adherence Rates Show’ is published in Journal of Religion in Europe, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2016, pp. 26-43. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/18748929-00901001

Cathedral friends

Judith Muskett has reported further findings from her 2011 survey of 1,131 members of the friends’ associations of six English cathedrals in her ‘Associational Social Capital and Psychological Type: An Empirical Enquiry among Cathedral Friends in England’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 1-15. She demonstrated that higher levels of religious social capital were exhibited by extraverts compared with introverts, posing a potential challenge for the cathedrals among whose friends introverts outnumbered extraverts by almost two to one. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2015.1103550

Theology of religions index

Jeff Astley and Leslie Francis have devised a new multi-choice research instrument to measure ‘theology of religions’, which is concerned with the interpretation and evaluation of the divergent truth-claims and views of salvation asserted or implied by different religious traditions. The methodology is explained in their ‘Introducing the Astley-Francis Theology of Religions Index: Construct Validity among 13- to 15-Year-Old Students’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 29-39. The construct validity of the measure was supported in research among a sample of 10,754 adolescents from London and the four UK home nations surveyed for the Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity Project in 2011-12. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2016.1141527

Intercessory prayer

Using a special analytic framework for intercessory prayer which she devised, Tania ap Siôn has examined 577 prayer requests posted on the Church of England’s Pray One for Me website over a six-month period in 2012 and compared the results with recent studies of posts to physical intercessory prayer boards in three Anglican cathedrals (Bangor, Lichfield, and Southwark). She highlights important differences between the functioning of requests made in the online and offline environments. Access options to the article (‘The Church of England’s Pray One for Me Intercessory Prayer Site: A Virtual Cathedral?’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2016, pp. 78-92) are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2016.1141531

People and places

Danny Dorling and Bethan Thomas have compiled the third in a series of census-based atlases of the UK, deriving from the 2011 census but also incorporating some more recent data: People and Places: A 21st-Century Atlas of the UK (Bristol: Policy Press, 2016, 284pp., ISBN 978-1-44731-137-9, £22.99, paperback). Through maps, tables, and figures with associated commentary, a succession of topics are explored, including a chapter on religion and ethnicity (pp. 47-80). The book’s webpage is at:

http://policypress.co.uk/people-and-places

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 7927: Wellcome Trust Monitor, 3, 2015

The Wellcome Trust Monitor is a triennial survey of public attitudes to and knowledge of science and biomedical research (including alternative and complementary medicine) in the UK. It was initiated in 2009. Fieldwork for the third wave was conducted by Ipsos MORI between 2 June and 1 November 2015 among a sample of 1,524 adults aged 18 and over, interviewed face-to-face. Four religious topics were included as background characteristics, which can be used as variables to analyse responses to the more purely scientific and biomedical questions. They covered: religious affiliation (using a ‘belonging’ form of wording); attendance at religious services; frequency of prayer; and beliefs about the origin of life on earth. The catalogue entry for the dataset is at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7927&type=Data%20catalogue

A variety of research outputs from the survey can be accessed on the Wellcome Trust’s website. They include a report (with a section on the origin of life on earth at pp. 74-5, 53% of the sample being unqualified evolutionists, allowing no role for God) and full data tables for all questions, with breaks by demographics. They can be found at:

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Publications/Reports/Public-engagement/WTX058859.htm

SN 7933: Youth Research Council Survey of Young People’s Religion and Lifestyles, 1957

The Young Christian Workers’ path-breaking survey of the lifestyles and religiosity of adults aged 15-24 living in urban England in 1957 has hitherto been known mainly from preliminary accounts and analyses published in New Life, Vol. 14, 1958, pp. 1-59 and The Tablet, 12 and 19 April 1958. However, the paper questionnaires completed during the course of the face-to-face interviews have mostly been preserved by the Pastoral Research Centre Trust (PRCT), successor to the Newman Demographic Survey, which was one of the partners involved in the original study. Now, with the cooperation of PRCT’s Tony Spencer and funding from the Nuffield Foundation and Marston Family Trust, Siobhan McAndrew has been able to arrange for the scanning of the majority (5,834) of the questionnaires and their transformation into a dataset. This should support significant secondary analysis in the years ahead which, in turn, will inform the growing scholarly debate about changes in the British religious landscape during the long 1950s. The catalogue entry for the dataset, incorporating a link to a very full and brand new user guide compiled by McAndrew, can be found at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7933&type=Data%20catalogue

McAndrew has also blogged about the dataset on the British Religion in Numbers website at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/2016/the-1957-youth-research-council-survey-of-young-peoples-religion-and-lifestyles/

http://www.brin.ac.uk/2016/religion-in-the-1957-youth-research-council-survey/

Please note: Counting Religion in Britain is © Clive D. Field, 2016

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Counting Religion in Britain, November 2015

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Clive D. Field

Counting Religion in Britain, No. 2, November 2015 features no fewer than 41 new sources. It can be read in full below. Alternatively, you can download the PDF version: No 2 November 2015

OPINION POLLS – GENERAL

Religious affiliation

ORB International’s latest surveys for The Independent included the pollster’s standard question on membership of religious groups (response options being limited to each of the major world faiths plus categories for other religions and none). Fieldwork was conducted online on 23-25 October and 18-19 November 2015 among samples of, respectively, 2,015 and 2,067 adults aged 18 and over in Britain. The data tables, with breaks by standard demographics, are at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/october-2015poll.pdf

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/omnovemberpoll.pdf

Freedom of speech

The latest release of data from the Spring 2015 wave of the Pew Global Attitudes Project covered the attitudes towards free expression among publics in 40 countries. Fieldwork was co-ordinated by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, with 999 adults aged 18 and over interviewed by telephone in Britain between 8 and 28 April 2015. Respondents were asked about the importance which they attached to being able to practice their religion freely and whether people should be able to make public statements which are offensive to religion or beliefs. They were also invited to assess how important religion was in their own lives, a question asked several times before in Britain by Pew, albeit not since 2011. A majority (54%) replied that it was not too important or not at all important to them, albeit this was lower than the 61% of four years before. The Pew report is available at:

http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2015/11/Pew-Research-Center-Democracy-Report-FINAL-November-18-2015.pdf

Lord’s Prayer and cinemas

News that Digital Cinema Media had refused to run in cinemas a Church of England pre-Christmas advertisement based on the Lord’s Prayer, on the grounds that it might cause offence to people of non-Christian faiths or none, prompted YouGov to mount a snap poll on the subject among its panellists. When the context was explained to them, 55% of respondents thought the advertisement should have been screened, notwithstanding that 67% rarely or never pray themselves (with just 9% claiming to pray every day). Results were reported on 24 November 2015 at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/24/lords-prayer-and-praying/

Funerals

Funerals remain a relatively under-researched area, notwithstanding that this is the one rite of passage for which faith bodies continue to be majority providers, at least nominally. Although it lacks any specifically religious component, a new online poll from YouGov, undertaken on 9-10 November 2015, gave interesting insights into how far the sample of 1,639 adults had thought about their funeral and the disposal of their body. Data are available via the link in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/12/two-thirds-british-people-have-imagined-their-own-/

Life after death

YouGov has replicated six questions originally posed by the British Institute of Public Opinion (later known as Social Surveys, Gallup Poll) in 1939. YouGov’s fieldwork was conducted among an online panel on 1-2 November 2015, with 1,716 respondents aged 18 and over. Gallup, by contrast, employed face-to-face interviewing with quota samples of Britons aged 21 and over. One of the repeated questions concerned belief in life after death. Whereas in 1939 just under one-half of adults believed and just over one-third disbelieved, in 2015 the proportions were reversed. A link to the 2015 data table can be found in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/03/britain-1939-less-accepting-refugees-less-fond-cit/

Remembrance Day

To coincide with this year’s event, Survation released the results of two polls on attitudes to Remembrance Day which were commissioned by British Future. Online panel fieldwork was conducted as far back as 8-15 May 2015 among samples of 3,977 adults in Great Britain and 1,056 in Scotland. Two questions were asked, one about wearing a poppy, and the other about whether the commemoration caused frictions between people of different faiths and ethnicities. Data, which include breaks by religious affiliation, are available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BF-Poppy-Release-GB.pdf

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BF-Poppy-Release-Scot.pdf

Religion at Christmas

The importance attached to the religious aspect of Christmas was investigated by ComRes in an online poll for Premier Christian Media on 23-24 September 2015 (but only recently released), for which 2,016 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed. They were asked to signal their agreement/disagreement with six statements regarding the religious meaning of Christmas. Data tables, including breaks by religious affiliation as well as standard demographics, are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PremierChurchads_Christmas-Starts-with-Christ.pdf

Religious texts

Respondents to an online poll from YouGov about the changing status of books were asked which single book they would want to save from being destroyed forever. They were given four options to choose from, one of which was a religious or sacred text, selected by 14% of the sample, well behind a reference work and a novel in first and second places, respectively. The survey was commissioned by Ideate Research for the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and it was completed by 2,186 adults aged 18 and over on 4-6 November 2015. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/y2zm3xks3z/Results-for-Ideate-AHRC-Wave2-061115.pdf

Scots and organized religion

Ipsos MORI’s latest Scottish Public Opinion Monitor, which surveyed 1,029 adults aged 16 and over in Scotland by telephone between 9 and 16 November 2015, included a short battery of Likert-style statements about social changes. One was ‘organised religion is not for me’, with which 68% agreed and only 28% disagreed, thus confirming other recent research which suggests that Scotland is rapidly secularizing. The data table is available at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3658/Scots-expect-health-social-care-and-police-services-to-get-worse-in-the-next-ten-years.aspx

British attitudes toward Israel

The attitudes to Israel of 2,007 adults aged 18 and over in Great Britain have been investigated by Populus on behalf of BICOM (Britain Israel Communications & Research Centre). Fieldwork was conducted online on 16-18 October 2015. Questions included public reactions to the existence of a majority Jewish state in Palestine, both today and going back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration. Opinions were also sought regarding other current players in the Middle East, among them Islamic State and the danger which it poses to the UK’s security. Data tables are at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/British-Attitudes-Towards-Israel-October-2015.pdf

World War III

Pope Francis has warned that World War III has begun in a ‘piecemeal’ fashion. On 18 November 2015, after the Islamist attacks in Paris, YouGov gave its online panellists an opportunity to say whether they agreed with the Pontiff that we are now in World War III and also whether, regardless of their agreement/disagreement, they thought he had been right to say what he did. Although 53% of the 4,757 UK adults who replied believed he had been right to voice his opinion, only 38% agreed with him. Results, weighted to be representative of the population as a whole, are available at:

https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/results#/survey/c7983230-8ddc-11e5-adf5-005056900127

Muslim attitudes

In the wake of the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, Survation polled 1,003 Muslims aged 18 and over in Britain by telephone on 18-20 November. Questions covered: relative importance of British and Muslim identity; perceived degree of integration of Muslims into British society; responsibility of Muslims and UK Islamic leaders to condemn terrorist acts carried out in the name of Islam; and attitudes to Islamic State (IS) and the bombing of IS in Syria. Results were reported in The Sun, the newspaper which commissioned the survey, on 23 November, while the full data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Islamic-Identity-Community-Relations-Survey.pdf

The poll proved controversial and triggered an unusually large number of complaints to the. Independent Press Standards Organisation. The concern arose particularly from the presentation and interpretation of the findings by The Sun, not least its front-page headline ‘1 in 5 Brit Muslims’ Sympathy for Jihadis’. Even the pollsters distanced themselves from the newspaper’s reporting. However, some criticism was also directed against Survation’s methodology (which it had used before). In brief, respondents were sampled based on a modelled probability of self-identifying as Muslim and using a range of demographic indicators. Prior to interview they were asked to confirm that they were Muslim, including non-practising. Apparently, YouGov, The Sun’s normal pollster, declined to pitch for the contract. For a flavour of the negative coverage, see:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/23/sun-poll-respondents-found-using-list-of-muslim-surnames

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/24/sun-poll-british-muslims-jihadi-sympathy-survation

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/the-sun-front-page-on-british-muslims-sympathy-for-jihadis-attracts-record-complaints-a6745756.html

For Survation’s published defence of itself, see:

http://survation.com/statement-on-survations-poll-of-muslims-for-the-sun/

OPINION POLLS – ISLAMIC STATE

There has been a strong polling focus this month on attitudes to, and potential British actions against, Islamic State (IS). This follows the renewal of the political debate about extending British participation in coalition air strikes against IS from Iraq to Syria and also arises from the aftermath of the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, which resulted in the death of 130 people. The polls are arranged below in chronological order by date of fieldwork.

BMG Research

On behalf of the Evening Standard, BMG Research surveyed an online sample of 1,528 UK adults on 11-17 November 2015 about their views on extending British air strikes against Islamic State from Iraq to Syria. Interviews were carried out both immediately before and after the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November, and the full data tables give the results separately for these two phases. The survey featured in the Evening Standard for 18 November 2015. Data tables are at:

http://www.bmgresearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BMG_Research_Evening_Standard_Opinion_Poll_171115.pdf

Opinium

Opinium Research quizzed an online sample of 2,003 UK adults on 13-17 November 2015 about how cases such as that of Mohammed Emwazi, the British ‘Jihadi John’ who executed Western hostages, and who was recently killed in a British and American drone strike, should be handled. Specifically, they were asked whether an attempt should have been made to capture him and put him on trial or whether, given the difficulty of doing so, killing him by drone was appropriate. Data tables are promised but have yet to materialize online. In the meantime, a blog about the poll is at:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/survey-results/ideally-trial-if-not-drone-strike

YouGov (1)

On behalf of The Times, YouGov took the pulse of public opinion toward Islamic State (IS) in the wake of the Islamist attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015, interviewing a sample of 1,688 adults online on 16-17 November. Respondents were asked whether they approved or disapproved of: RAF participation in air strikes against IS in Syria; Britain and the United States sending ground troops back into Iraq to help fight IS; Britain and the United States sending ground troops into Syria against IS; and the British and American drone strike which killed Mohammed Emwazi, otherwise known as Jihadi John. Views were also sought about the adequacy of the powers of the British authorities to combat the IS threat in Britain, and the level of concern felt about an IS attack in Britain. The poll results were covered in The Times on 18 November and in a blog post on YouGov’s website the same day, the latter also including a link to full data tables – see:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/18/brits-less-accepting-syrian-refugees-wake-paris-at/

Much the same suite of questions was also asked by YouGov, on behalf of The Times, of 1,443 members of the Labour Party on 19-23 November 2015, with a view to seeing whether they agreed with the seemingly less hawkish position taken against IS by their leader (Jeremy Corbyn) than adopted by Prime Minister David Cameron. Data tables can be accessed via the link in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/24/analysis-corbynistas-stay-loyal-few-others-share-h/

Survation (1)

As part of a broader survey commissioned by Leave.EU, Survation polled an online sample of 1,546 UK adults aged 18 and over on 16-17 November 2015 about their attitudes toward military action (including air strikes in Syria) against Islamic State in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris. Data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Final-Leave.EU-Tables-161115CBLCH-1c5d4h6.pdf

ComRes (1)

Also in the immediate aftermath of the Islamist attacks in Paris, ComRes conducted a poll for the Daily Mail among an online sample of 1,061 adults aged 18 and over on 17 November 2015. The subject matter was attitudes to terrorism, including toward Islamic State (IS). The IS-related questions concerned: support for air strikes, and the commitment of ground troops, against IS; the likelihood of such military action increasing the risk of a terrorist attack in Britain; the prospects for defeating IS with or without military action; and approval/disapproval of the killing of Mohammed Emwazi (Jihadi John). Findings were published in the Daily Mail for 19 November 2015, with full data tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Daily-Mail_Terrorism-Survey_November-2015.pdf

ORB International

ORB International undertook a survey among an online sample of 2,067 adult Britons on 18-19 November 2015 on their attitudes to the extension of British air strikes, and the commitment of British ground troops, against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Data tables are at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/omnovemberpoll.pdf

ICM Unlimited

In an online survey by ICM Unlimited among 2,013 adult Britons on 18-20 November 2015, views were sought about: (1) British involvement in air strikes against Islamic State (IS) in Syria, with or without the consent of Parliament; and (2) whether British military intervention against IS would make the Middle East safer or more dangerous. Data tables are at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/OlOm-ISIS-Survey.pdf

ComRes (2)

On behalf of The Independent and Sunday Mirror, ComRes polled an online sample of 2,067 adults aged 18 and over on 18-20 November 2015 about: (1) British involvement in air strikes and a ground war against Islamic State (IS); and (2) the killing of British citizens in Syria who had joined IS. Findings were reported in the Independent on Sunday for 22 November 2015, and data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/SM-IoS_Political-Poll_November-2015-4123.pdf

YouGov (2)

Almost four-fifths of Londoners are very or fairly worried about an Islamic State terrorist attack on the capital, according to a YouGov poll for the Evening Standard among an online sample of 1,008 London adults on 18-21 November 2015. Results were published in the Evening Standard for 27 November, with the data table available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/m64386ibnw/Internal_Results_151123_ISIS_and_Refugees_Website.pdf

YouGov (3)

The November 2015 wave of Eurotrack, undertaken online by YouGov in seven Western European nations (Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden) on 19-24 November, included several questions about terrorism and Islamic State (IS). Respondents, including the 1,699 in Britain, were asked whether Western countries were doing enough to combat IS in Iraq and Syria; whether their national police and security services had sufficient powers to combat any IS threat at home; and about their fears of an IS terrorist attack in their own country. Topline results only are available at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/hdfr2e6nua/Copy%20of%20November_Eurotrack.pdf

YouGov (4)

YouGov conducted an online poll of 1,659 Britons on 23-24 November 2015 in connection with a YouGov@Cambridge symposium on Syria and the European Union. Questions covered three broad areas: attitudes toward British military action (in the air and on the ground) against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria; the handling of Syria and IS issues by British and world political leaders, including David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn; and possible resolutions of those issues, among them co-operation with the government of President Bashar al-Assad and negotiation with IS. Data tables are available via the link at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/27/regret-over-opposition-2013-syria-vote-beginning-s/

YouGov (5)

An online poll by YouGov on 25-26 November 2015 asked 1,623 Britons whether they thought a decision on military intervention against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria should be taken collectively by the European Union or be a matter for individual member states. Only one-third favoured a decision being made at the European level. The data table is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/11/27/eu-standing-army/

Survation (2)

On behalf of the Daily Mirror, Survation polled an online sample of 1,026 UK adults on 26-27 November 2015 about their attitudes to British involvement in air strikes, and to the commitment of British ground troops (now or in the future), against Islamic State in Syria, including about the potential for air strikes to heighten the risk of a terror attack in the UK. Results featured in the Daily Mirror on 28 November 2015, while data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Syrian-Intervention-Poll.pdf

FAITH ORGANIZATION STUDIES

Christians and the refugee crisis

The attitudes of UK practising Christians to the international refugee crisis were explored in an online poll conducted by Christian Research in November 2015 and commissioned by Embrace the Middle East, a Christian charity originating in 1854. Respondents comprised 1,055 members of Christian Research’s Resonate panel. Full results have not been released, but there is a brief press release at:

http://www.embraceme.org/news/embrace-survey-finds-vast-majority-uk-christians-ready-and-willing-help-refugees

Church of England finances

The Church of England has published a financial overview for 2004-13, conveniently bringing together information on income and expenditure from over 12,000 parishes, 44 dioceses, 41 cathedrals, and three National Church Institutions (Church Commissioners, Archbishops’ Council, and Church of England Pensions Board). The report is available at:

https://churchofengland.org/media/2401072/financial_overview_1__copy.pdf

Catholic schools

The Catholic Education Service for England and Wales has published the digest of its 2015 census of Catholic schools and colleges, which, for the second year running, achieved a return of 100%. In separate reports for England and Wales, there are details of: the number, type, and size distribution of schools and colleges; the number of pupils disaggregated by school type, Catholicity, ethnicity, and deprivation; and the number, qualifications, Catholicity, and ethnicity of teaching and support staff. Appendices provide additional breaks by diocese. The reports can be accessed via the links at:

http://www.catholiceducation.org.uk/ces-census

Israelis in Britain

The latest report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) is David Graham’s Britain’s Israeli Diaspora: A Demographic Portrait. It is largely based upon the results of the 2011 UK census, including many tables specially commissioned by JPR from the Office for National Statistics. These revealed 23,221 Israelis (defined by birth or citizenship) living in the UK in 2011, the highest ever recorded number, 73% of whom were Jewish either by religion or ethnicity, equivalent to 6% of the Jewish population of the UK. In fact, during the first decade of this Millennium there were more Israeli migrants to Britain than British emigrants to Israel. The 20-page report is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.2015.Britains_Israeli_diaspora.pdf

Islamophobia

The Islamic Human Rights Commission has published a substantial (272-page) report by Saied Reza Ameli and Arzu Merali entitled Environment of Hate: The New Normal for Muslims in the UK. In chapter 5 (pp. 123-84) it seeks to document Muslim experiences of Islamophobia based upon a sample (implicitly self-selecting) of 1,782 Muslims in 2014, 1,148 of whom completed a hard-copy questionnaire and 634 an online survey. To judge from the demographics which are quoted, respondents were disproportionately young, of Pakistani heritage, educated to degree level, from middle income groups, and practising Muslims. One in eight informants were not actually resident in the UK, and 1% were not even Muslim. Comparisons are drawn with a similar survey in 2009-10, to which there were only 336 respondents, with many indicators apparently revealing perceived worsening Islamophobia over the period. The tone of much of the text gives it the air of a political tract and, combined with a doubtful survey methodology, weakens the case for considering the work as an objective and balanced piece of empirical research (notwithstanding several academic endorsements quoted on the back cover). The report costs £5 to download in PDF format and £10 in paperback, but an eight-page executive summary is freely available at

http://www.ihrc.org.uk/attachments/article/11559/Executive%20Summary-UK-ll-02.pdf

OFFICIAL STATISTICS

Religion of prisoners

The Ministry of Justice’s National Offender Management Service has published its Offender Equalities Annual Report, 2014/15, with associated data tables. This includes details of the religious affiliation of the prison population of England and Wales as at 31 March 2015. Of 85,664 prisoners, 49% professed to be Christian, 31% to have no religion, and 14% to be Muslim. The proportion of Christians was actually 0.5% higher than in 2009 and of religious nones four points fewer; this somewhat counterintuitive trend may reflect a shift in the age profile of the prison population, away from the under-25 cohort. The report is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/noms-annual-offender-equalities-report-2014-to-2015

Religion of armed forces

The Ministry of Defence’s biannual diversity statistics for UK armed forces personnel as at 1 October 2015 presented a rather different religious profile to that of prisoners: 77% of the 152,150 regular forces were Christian, 21% of no religion, and a mere 0.3% Muslim. The distribution was very similar among the volunteer reserve. The report and data tables are at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-armed-forces-biannual-diversity-statistics-2015

Youth social action

Meaningful social action by young people in the UK is rather more prevalent among those professing some religion (45%) than those without (39%). Among those classified as committed to social action, the proportion with some faith is 52%. Overall, 49% of young people expressed a religious affiliation and 46% did not. The findings emerged from face-to-face interviews conducted, by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Cabinet Office, with 2,021 10- to 20-year-olds between 2 and 19 September 2015. The definition of social action used in the survey was ‘practical action in the service of others to create positive change’. A presentation about the study, which is designed to support a Government campaign to advance youth social action, is at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Publications/sri-youth-social-action-in-uk-2015.pdf

ACADEMIC STUDIES

Personal saliency of religion

Clive Field provides an additional lens on the scale and chronology of secularization in modern Britain by reviewing opinion polls on the personal saliency of religion conducted between the 1960s and the present day. Six self-rating measures were derived from both non-recurrent and serial surveys: religiosity (binary questions), religiosity (non-binary questions), spirituality versus religiosity, importance of religion, importance of God, and difference made by religion. The conclusion is that saliency of religion indicators present one of the bleaker pictures of the extent of secularization, worse than affiliation or belief in God data, with self-assessed non-religiosity in Britain higher than in most other Western European countries. The article, ‘Secularising Selfhood: What Can Polling Data on the Personal Saliency of Religion Tell Us about the Scale and Chronology of Secularisation in Modern Britain?’, is published in Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 36, No. 3, 2015, pp. 308-30. Access options are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2015.1095520

Clergy well-being

Revisiting an 11-year-old dataset of 722 rural clergy, Christine Brewster found only partial linkages between churchmanship and psychological well-being (as measured via the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire). Although theological liberals did experience higher well-being than theological conservatives, controlling for sex, age, and personality, there was no significant difference between evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics nor between charismatics and non-charismatics. Possible explanations for these results are briefly offered. Her article, ‘Churchmanship and Personal Happiness: A Study among Rural Anglican Clergy’, is published in Rural Theology, Vol. 13, No. 2, November 2015, pp. 124-34, and access options are outlined at:

http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1470499415Z.00000000050

Clergy theological constructs

In ‘Go and Observe the Sower: Seeing Empirical Theology at Work’, Journal of Empirical Theology, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2015, pp. 155-83, Leslie Francis and Andrew Village sought to operationalize two theological constructs, one concerning the nature of being human (rooted in a theology of individual differences) and the other concerning the nature of the Church (rooted in ecclesiology). These constructs were tested among a sample of 1,418 clergy living in England who self-selected to reply (online or by post) to a questionnaire included in the Church Times in 2013. The data revealed that, after controlling for sex and age, both constructs explained significant variance in three measures dividing clerical opinion: traditional moral belief, traditional religious belief, and traditional worship. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/10.1163/15709256-12341325

Clergy leadership skills

Personality has substantial effects on the self-rated leadership strengths of Anglican clergy, although the psychological types which have positive associations are often not those most commonly found among these clergy. In particular, there is arguably a shortage of ordained ministers characterized by extraversion and thinking (rather than introversion and feeling). So conclude Laura Watt and David Voas on the basis of an online survey of 1,480 clergy, 95% in stipendiary ministry, in April-July 2013 in connection with the Church of England’s church growth research programme. ‘Psychological Types and Self-Assessed Leadership Skills of Clergy in the Church of England’ is published in Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Vol. 18, No. 7, 2015, pp. 544-55. Access options are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2014.961250

Attitudes of British Jews toward Israel

The Attitudes of British Jews towards Israel, and to that country’s current policies and conduct in the Middle East, are considered in a new research report published by City University and written by Stephen Miller, Margaret Harris, and Colin Shindler. The study was funded by Yachad, a British, pro-Israel, pro-peace campaigning group, although the authors are at pains to stress their independence of the funding body. Fieldwork was undertaken by Ipsos MORI between March and July 2015 among 1,131 adult British Jews aged 18 and over. The sample was recruited using a combination of: random sampling of individuals on the electoral register with distinctive Jewish surnames; exhaustive sampling of Jewish members of an online panel maintained by Ipsos MORI; and a structured (discriminative) approach to online snowball sampling. An interesting feature of the research is a scale of hawkishness-dovishness in opinions of Israel, based on responses to 41 attitude statements. The report is available at:

http://yachad.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/British-Jewish-Attitudes-Towards-Israel-Yachad-Ipsos-Mori-Nov-2015.pdf

NEW DATASETS AT UK DATA SERVICE

SN 6614: Understanding Society, wave 5

The dataset for wave 5 of Understanding Society (United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study) has been released. Face-to-face interviews were completed by NatCen Social Research with 41,041 adults aged 16 and over in the UK between 8 January 2013 and 5 June 2015. Topics covered included the importance of religion to a sense of personal identity; pride in religion; religious affiliation (by upbringing and current); and religion as a source of harassment and discrimination. The dataset description is available at:

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

SN 7836: Community Life Survey, 2014-15

The Cabinet Office’s Community Life Survey touches on the role of religion in relation to community life, including volunteering and charitable giving. Background questions are also asked about religious affiliation and self-assigned practice of religion. The 2014-15 survey was conducted by TNS BMRB between 1 July 2014 and 30 April 2015, among a face-to-face sample of 2,022 adults aged 16 and over in England, with 2,323 respondents completing an online or postal questionnaire. The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7836&type=Data%20catalogue

SN 7839: Integrated Household Survey, January-December 2014

The Integrated Household Survey is the largest pool of UK social data after the decennial census of population. In 2014 323,935 individuals aged 16 and over were interviewed, face-to-face or by telephone. A question on religious affiliation is included, using the census categories. The dataset description is available at:

https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7839&type=Data%20catalogue

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Religion and Public Affairs

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Britons on Christianity in the public square

Five times as many people (73% versus 15%) think that Britain has become less of a Christian country over the past five years than dissent from the proposition, according to a ComRes poll for Christian Concern conducted among an online sample of 2,057 Britons aged 18 and over on 31 March and 1 April 2015, and published on 5 April. Notwithstanding, a plurality (47%) still considers that Britain’s Christian heritage continues to bring benefits to the country today compared with 32% who say the opposite, and a majority (55%) welcomes the fact that Easter is marked primarily as a Christian festival against 33% who view it as little more than two Bank Holidays together. There is also majority support for the rights of Christians in the workplace, with 52% believing they should be able to refuse to act against their conscience without being penalized by their employer, 66% wanting legal protection for the wearing of Christian symbols such as the cross in the workplace, and 72% deeming it wrong that health care workers should be threatened with the sack for offering to pray with patients. Unsurprisingly, Christians are much more well-disposed than religious ‘nones’ to an ongoing public profile for Christianity, albeit a minority is not, while many of the ‘nones’ also defend Christian freedoms. In terms of age, the over-65s display the most conservative views about the place of Christianity, with 18-24s adopting a more liberal position. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Christian_Concern___Easter_Poll___April_2015.pdf

Britons on assisted dying

The British public is overwhelmingly in favour of legalizing assisted dying within defined parameters, and there is very little difference between the views of Christians overall and the national average. This is according to the results of one of the largest ever surveys on the subject, undertaken online by Populus on behalf of campaign group Dignity in Dying on 11-19 March 2015, and released in full on 7 April. The major findings are summarized below, with detailed data tables available at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Dignity-in-Dying-Poll-March-2015-WEBSITE-DATATABLES.pdf

% across	All	Christians	Non-Christians	Nones
Attitude to assisted dying becoming law
Support	82	80	68	88
Oppose	12	14	26	6
Attitude to own MP backing such a law
More positive to them	53	49	47	61
More negative to them	10	11	23	5
MPs voting on legalizing assisted dying
Should take account of constituents’ views	67	69	60	68
Should vote according to own opinion	21	22	24	20
House of Commons should allocate time after general election for full debate on assisted dying
Agree	79	80	64	81
Disagree	11	12	23	8
Would assist terminally ill loved one to die even if it meant breaking the law
Would assist	44	43	37	49
Would not assist	29	32	39	23

Unfortunately, the attitudes of followers of individual Christian denominations were not recorded, but it seems likely that, as in other studies where they have been, Roman Catholics would have been most opposed to legalizing assisted dying. In this Populus poll non-Christians were more than twice as opposed on several of the key questions asked, albeit the majority even of them endorsed assisted dying. The most supportive religious group of all were the ‘nones’, but not by a big margin. Lord Falconer of Thoroton has signalled his intention to bring back his bill to legalize assisted dying as soon as the new Parliament assembles after the general election; the bill ran out of time in the old Parliament.

Britons on Scientology

The Church of Scientology, founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, has been in the media spotlight again recently, principally as a result of its negative portrayal in Alex Gibney’s controversial new documentary Going Clear. This has prompted YouGov to test the British public’s awareness of and attitudes to the movement in an online poll of 1,906 adults on 3-4 April 2015. Knowledge is minimal, with 75% professing to know nothing or very little, 23% something, and just 2% a lot. This did not prevent 61% dismissing Scientology’s claims to being a real religion, only 8% thinking it is, rising to 14% among 18-24s and those with some knowledge of it; the remaining 31% were unable to express an opinion. Moreover, 45% found the beliefs of Scientology less credible than those of Christianity, peaking at 62% with those who knew something about it. The achievement of spiritual enlightenment is one of Scientology’s core beliefs, which a plurality of 38% considered to be probably attainable, with 30% disagreeing and 32% uncertain, although it is debatable how much this question was actually understood. The majority (54%) did not regard themselves as spiritual while 41% said they were (12% very and 29% slightly), compared with 60% and 35% respectively when YouGov last probed the matter in September 2011. However, too much should not be read into the differences as spirituality is a rather elusive concept, difficult to operationalize, with surveys on the topic yielding fluctuating results. A blog about this latest YouGov study, with a link to the data tables, was published on 8 April at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/08/scientology-not-real-religion-public/

Professing Anglicans and the general election

The Church of England has often been seen as a natural ally of the Conservative Party, and an analysis of YouGov’s aggregate polling of 35,000 electors in March 2015, commissioned by the Church Times, certainly confirms that professing Anglicans are disproportionately likely to favour the Conservatives. Whereas, as the table below shows, the Conservatives and Labour were tied nationally, on 34% each, the Conservatives had a commanding 21% lead among Anglicans. Catholics, by contrast, were more disposed to Labour (42%) than Conservatives (31%). For the Church Times report, see:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/10-april/news/uk/tories-can-count-on-the-c-of-e-voters-tell-polls

% down	All electors	Anglican electors
Conservative	34	48
Labour	34	27
Liberal Democrat	7	6
UKIP	14	16
Other parties	11	3

Practising Christians and the general election

Four-fifths of 1,960 practising (churchgoing) Christians aged 16 and over think Britain is heading in the wrong moral direction, while two-thirds believe that it is harder to be a Christian in Britain today than it was in 2010. This is according to a ComRes survey undertaken online in the UK between 13 and 17 March 2015 and published on 9 April by Premier Christian Radio, which sponsored the study, in a press release at:

http://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/Election-Deficit-not-a-top-concern-for-Christians

Asked which of the leaders of the four main parties they most associated with six statements about the role of faith in politics, a majority of practising Christians ranging from 55% to 78% replied ‘none of them’, with David Cameron being the only one to shine a little (see table, below). However, even Cameron had blotted his copy-book in the eyes of respondents, with 71% denying that his time as Prime Minister had been good for Christians in Britain (and 52% saying that it had actually been bad), and 78% claiming that he had been wrong to laud the legalization of same-sex marriage as one of his proudest achievements.

Leaders of four main parties associated with … (%)	None of them	David Cameron
Places importance on own faith in political decision-making	78	12
Exhibits Christian values in political beliefs	68	20
Exhibits Christian values in personal life	66	23
Likely to build on Britain’s Christian cultural/political heritage	59	23
Encourages involvement of faith groups in politics	58	24
Committed to protecting religious freedom	55	18

The three most important of 13 named policy areas for determining the personal vote of practising Christians were: managing the NHS (42%), ensuring the benefits of economic growth are felt by all (41%), and making the welfare system fairer (33%). These are not necessarily the highest priorities of the electorate as a whole (for instance, immigration and the European Union came well down this sample’s list of concerns) nor of the main political parties. Even reducing the government budget deficit preoccupied no more than 20% of practising Christians, and promoting UK economic growth just 16%. The latter was the major policy area where practising Christians regarded the Conservatives as having a big advantage over Labour (50% versus 13%), followed by reducing crime and anti-social behaviour. Otherwise, the rating of the parties was either closer or Labour was seen as the more credible option, notably when it came to ensuring economic equality, improving housing affordability, making the welfare system fairer, managing the NHS, and caring for the elderly.

Regrettably, although full data tables for the survey are available, including breaks by age, gender, region, and denomination, they are not up to the usual ComRes standard of presentation and clarity. They can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Premier-_-Election-Priority-Polling.pdf

Jews and the general election

Among electors intending to vote in the forthcoming general election, and after discounting undecideds and refusals, Jews are more than twice as likely to favour the Conservatives and far less likely to support UKIP as the population as a whole. This is according to the latest Survation telephone poll of 566 self-identifying British Jews for the Jewish Chronicle on 2-7 April 2015, compared with the same company’s national poll for the Daily Mirror on 8-9 April. A summary of voting intentions appears below, with full data tables for the Jewish survey available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/General-Election-Poll-Tables.pdf

% down	Jewish electors	All electors
Conservative	69	30
Labour	22	36
Liberal Democrat	2	8
UKIP	2	15
Other parties	5	11

The pro-Conservative stance of British Jews doubtless reflects their relatively affluent status, but it also appears to be determined by perspectives on Israel and the Middle East. Almost three-quarters (73%) of Jews claimed that the views of British political parties towards Israel would be very or quite important in influencing their own vote. Three-fifths (61%) contended that the Conservatives had the best policies for Israel and the Middle East, and 65% felt that, of the party leaders, David Cameron had the best approach to these issues. A similar proportion (64%) considered that Cameron as Prime Minister would have the best attitude to the Jewish community in the UK, against only 13% for Labour’s Ed Miliband. Indeed, in its coverage of the poll (10 April 2015, pp. 1, 4, 28), the Jewish Chronicle was particularly struck by Miliband’s ‘shocking’ standing, asking how a supposedly Jewish politician could make ‘such a terrible fist of attracting Jewish voters?’

Muslims and current issues

Most British Muslims (71%) see no incompatibility between the values of British society and those of Islam, according to a telephone poll of 1,001 Muslims, conducted by Survation for Sky News from 10 to 16 March 2015, and published on 10 April. Just 16% disagreed. A majority also felt that Muslims were already doing enough to integrate into British society (64%) and that they had personally encountered no more suspicion from non-Muslims than a few years previously (62%). However, there was some ambiguity when it came to matters of terrorism. Two-fifths overall (and 46% of women) did not believe it was the responsibility of Muslims to condemn terrorist acts carried out in the name of Islam, while 28% of all Muslims (including 33% of women and 32% of under-35s) said that they had a lot or some sympathy with young Muslims who had left the UK to join fighters in Syria. A plurality (39%) agreed that the actions of the police and MI5 were contributing to the radicalization of young Muslims. Data tables, with breaks by gender, age, and region, are available at:

http://interactive.news.sky.com/2015/PDFs/Sky-Muslim-Poll.pdf

Survation also undertook an online survey of 1,000 non-Muslims, which has yet to be reported in full. A few results were mentioned in a Sky News press release, two being polar opposites of the Muslim voice, with 58% of non-Muslims considering that Muslims were not doing enough to integrate into British society and 52% that the values of British society and Islam were incompatible. The press release is at:

http://news.sky.com/story/1462023/poll-majority-have-no-sympathy-with-extremists

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Anglicans, assisted dying, Christian Concern, Christian country, Christianity, Christians, Church of England, Church Times, ComRes, Conservative Party, David Cameron, Dignity in Dying, Easter, Ed Miliband, general election, Islam, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Labour Party, Muslims, non-Muslims, party leaders, politics, Populus, Premier Christian Radio, religious freedom, Scientology, Sky News, spiritual enlightenment, Survation, terrorism, voting, workplace, YouGov | 1 Comment

Grace Davie on Religion and Other News

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Grace Davie on Religion in Britain

Twenty-one years ago, in 1994, Grace Davie published her seminal Religion in Britain since 1945, a sociological account which became a standard textbook for students of the sociology of religion and contemporary British history. It perhaps became best known for its sub-title of ‘believing without belonging’, encapsulating the persistence of the sacred alongside an ongoing decline in traditional forms of religious behaviour. A second edition of the book has just appeared: Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox (Wiley Blackwell, xv + 264pp., ISBN 9781405135962, £21.99, paperback). It has been so extensively revised and restructured as, in effect, to constitute an entirely new work. Its masterly survey of a wide and dynamic field, and the clarity and concision of the writing, are certain to ensure it a wide readership.

Although the narrative still nominally starts in 1945, in practice the focus is on more recent decades, and coverage of the secondary historical literature is relatively sparse. Contemporary socio-religious scholarship and primary sources (including websites) are more heavily drawn upon, and this is especially true of research outputs from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (2007-13). Even so, given space constraints, the range of topics dealt with is necessarily selective, and some themes which had separate chapters in the first edition (such as age and gender or religious professionals) feature less prominently in the second. At the same time, more attention is devoted to religious issues in the public square. ‘Believing without belonging’ retains its pride of place, albeit in refined and developed form, together with the concept of vicarious religion (religious behaviour by proxy), which only emerged after the first edition of Religion in Britain was published.

The second edition is informed throughout by statistics, but they are presented with a light touch. There are only eight figures and two tables, several of the former not being terribly clear when reproduced in black and white. This compares with one figure and eight tables in the first edition. The statistics derive from today’s standard sources, such as the census of population, sample surveys, and church data collected by Peter Brierley. In addition, good use has been made by Davie of the BRIN website, which ‘provides a huge amount of information about religion in Britain, and includes some helpful professional commentaries’.

Religious freedom

In a further testimony to the declining significance of faith in contemporary Britain, religious freedom is regarded as an important ‘British value’ by just 13% of adults, being most prized by the over-65s (20%), Scots (17%), and Conservative voters (17%). Overall, freedom of speech (46%), respect for the rule of law (33%), a sense of humour (29%), politeness (27%), and tolerance of others (26%) are judged the most significant attributes. Data derive from a ComRes survey for Grassroots Conservatives, for which 2,017 Britons were interviewed online on 11-12 February 2015. Data tables were published on 10 March 2015 at:

http://comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/February2015_Poll_Tables.pdf

Apocalypse

Just under one-quarter (23%) of Britons think it very or somewhat likely that an apocalyptic disaster will strike the world during their lifetime, according to a YouGov poll conducted among an online sample of 1,745 on 8-9 March 2015. This is a smaller proportion than in the United States where 31% consider such a disaster to be very or somewhat likely. Although the publics in both countries identify nuclear war as the most probable single cause of the apocalypse, as many as 16% of Americans attribute it to Judgement Day, compared with just 3% of Britons (albeit 7% of Londoners and 6% of young people aged 18-24). YouGov’s blog on the survey, posted on 10 March and including links to both national results, can be read at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/03/10/apocalypse/

Mums in ministry

On 5-9 March 2015, in the run-up to Mothering Sunday, Christian Research undertook an online survey (presumably via its Resonate panel) of 176 mothers in Britain who were engaged in full-time Christian ministry, 13% of them still with children of primary school age. The vast majority (82%) felt really or pretty satisfied in their ministerial role, although 22% had had cause fundamentally to question their calling. Three-quarters (73%) said that having children of their own had made them a better minister, the positive impact being most keenly felt in relation to pastoral work (72%) and community outreach (51%). However, 48% of mums in ministry reported that finding sufficient time to spend with their children was a major or significant challenge. Even more struggled to find time to pursue a hobby (60%), generally relax (58%), or be with their closest friends (57%). The full report will only be made available to Christian Research’s subscribers, but a press release about the study can be found at:

http://www.christian-research.org/mums/

Chaplaincy

The latest research report from Theos, this time prepared in partnership with the Cardiff Centre for Chaplaincy Studies, was published on 11 March 2015: Ben Ryan, A Very Modern Ministry: Chaplaincy in the UK. It provides an interesting overview of contemporary chaplaincy, from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, perceiving it as an area of religious growth and innovation which is complementary to the notion of the ‘gathered congregation’ and has now broadened out somewhat from its Christian roots. Terminological issues, about what constitutes a chaplain, are aired but not completely resolved. For example, are street pastors – who are now thought to number 11,000 trained volunteers – to be considered as chaplains or not? The quantitative evidence is reviewed in part 1 of the report, with chaplains being found in areas as diverse as higher education (1,000), prisons (1,000 with 7,000 volunteers), police (650), armed forces (500), hospitals (350 full-time and 3,000 part-time), and sport (300). A survey in Luton in October-November 2014 identified 169 chaplains working in eight primary and eight secondary fields, equivalent to one for every 1,200 residents, albeit only 20 of these personnel were salaried. The Luton chaplains were overwhelmingly Christian, even though Christianity was professed by a minority of the town’s population (47%), with 25% Muslim. The report can be read at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Modern%20Ministry%20combined.pdf

Church social action

Jubilee+ published the results of the third biennial National Church and Social Action Survey on 7 March 2015: Geoff Knott, Investing More for the Common Good. ‘Several thousand’ places of worship of all denominations and all sizes across the UK were contacted, with replies being received from just 229 – a very small and potentially unrepresentative response. Scaled up nationally, factoring in church size, the report suggests that between 1.1 and 1.4 million volunteers participated in church-based social action in the UK in 2014, the number of volunteer hours having risen by 59% since the first survey in 2010. Direct church spending on social action grew by 37% over the same four years, to reach £393 million, but the total full economic cost to churches of their social initiatives is estimated at £3.5 billion per annum. The top three activities were food distribution (80%); parents and toddlers groups (70%); and school assemblies or religious education work (66%). The majority of churches (58%) planned to increase their social initiatives over the coming year. Volunteering by Christians in the community that is not initiated by a church is excluded from all these calculations. The report is at:

http://www.jubilee-plus.org/Articles/431253/Jubilee_Plus/Research/RESULTS_OF_THE.aspx

British Jews and Israel’s elections

Despite an otherwise generally close identification with Israel, large numbers of Britain’s Jews do not immerse themselves in the complex world of Israeli politics, even on the eve of elections to the Knesset (to be held on 17 March 2015). This is according to the latest in a series of polls conducted by Survation for the Jewish Chronicle, for which 1,000 self-identifying Jewish adults in Britain were interviewed by telephone between 4 and 9 March. Exactly 50% of respondents admitted not to follow Israeli politics much or at all, 46% did not know whom they would vote for in the elections (assuming they had a vote), and 41% could not say whether they preferred as next Israeli prime minister the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu (the incumbent prime minister) or the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog. Among those expressing an opinion, support for Netanyahu was more than double that for Herzog, whereas in Israel itself the latest polling shows the Zionist Union to be narrowly ahead of Likud. However, since only 31% of British Jews stated that they would vote for Netanyahu, the Jewish Chronicle’s claim (on the front page of its edition of 13 March 2015) that there was ‘huge backing’ for him among UK Jews seems inflated. Data tables were published on 11 March at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Israeli-Elections-Poll-Tables.pdf

Religion in the workplace and service delivery

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published a major (226-page) report on religion and belief in the workplace and in service delivery in Britain on 12 March 2015: Martin Mitchell and Kelsey Beninger with Alice Donald and Erica Howard, Religion or Belief in the Workplace and Service Delivery: Findings from a Call for Evidence. Prepared by NatCen Social Research on behalf of the EHRC, it comprises an analysis of replies from 2,483 individuals and organizations to an online survey between 14 August and 31 October 2014. Respondents did not constitute a random sample but had been ‘invited to take part in order to ensure the widest possible range of views and experiences was gathered’. This is described as ‘a purposive and snowball approach to recruitment’. Although the report includes 25 tables and sundry other statistics, NatCen is at repeated pains to point out that ‘the study did not aim to measure the extent of perceived religious discrimination and unfair treatment because of religion or belief’. It is explained that the research was of an entirely qualitative nature and that any figures were tabulated for monitoring purposes only and cannot be generalized to the wider population. Predictably, some of the media coverage has failed to heed these important caveats. To judge by its press release, the principal conclusion drawn by the EHRC from the report concerns widespread public confusion and misunderstanding over the laws protecting freedom of religion or belief. The report can be found at:

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/RoB%20Call%20for%20Evidence%20Report.pdf

Posted in Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, People news, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged apocalyptic disaster, believing without belonging, Ben Ryan, Benjamin Netanyahu, chaplaincy, Christian Research, church social action, ComRes, elections, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Geoff Knott, Grace Davie, Grassroots Conservatives, Isaac Herzog, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, jubilee, Judgement Day, Kelsey Beninger, Luton, Martin Mitchell, ministry, mothers, NatCen Social Research, Religious discrimination, religious freedom, service delivery, Social Capital, Survation, Theos, United States, Wiley Blackwell, workplace, YouGov | Leave a comment

Demography of Churchgoing and Other News

Posted on February 22, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Demography of churchgoing

Fresh insights into the demographic composition of British churchgoers, with particular reference to the number and position of single people, are provided in a series of three reports which have been published since the beginning of the year, and are available to download via the links at:

http://www.singularinsight.com/

The reports, prepared under the direction of David Pullinger, are:

The Eyes of the Perceiver: The Numbers and Issues of Single People in Churches. Published on 17 January 2015, this is based on online fieldwork by Christian Research among a self-selecting (and disproportionately male and Protestant) panel of 1,401 adult churchgoers and church leaders in July 2014, funded by Network Christians, and analysed by Single Christians. It revealed that church leaders have a better grasp than churchgoers of the entire spectrum of situations in which people find themselves single, embracing the never married, the previously married, the separated, and others experiencing singleness on a day-to-day basis. There was more consensus about the major issues facing single people, with loneliness at the top.

Men Practising Christian Worship. Published on 28 January 2015, this is based on online fieldwork by YouGov among 7,212 Britons aged 16 and over on 23-26 September 2014, funded by Christian Vision for Men and Single Christians, and analysed by Single Christians. Respondents were asked whether they considered themselves to be practising Christians, how often they attended places of worship, and the age at which they had first got married. With our usual caveat about aspirational answers, the research revealed that 31% claimed to be practising Christians, with 19% saying they worshipped at least once a year and 10% at least once a month. Self-identifying churchgoers were disproportionately female, elderly, married, and middle class, unpartnered men (regardless of social grade) being especially underrepresented in congregations.

The Numbers of Single Adults Practising Christian Worship. Published on 5 February 2015, this is based on the same YouGov survey as the preceding report and includes several of the same slides. As one might expect, the marital status of church attenders is the principal focus. Partnered people were found to be more likely than the unpartnered to say they were practising Christians and to report they went to a place of worship. The unpartnered comprised 40% of the population but 32% of regular (more than once a month) churchgoers. Whereas 12% of married persons claimed to be regular attenders, the same was true of only 7% of the never married. No strong evidence was found that regularly practising Christians married at a younger age than the non-practising. An accompanying press release highlighted the plight of a surplus of middle class unpartnered women in churches who would have to face life without the prospect of being able to marry somebody who shared their Christian beliefs.

In terms of systematically analysed sample surveys, the YouGov research is perhaps the largest-scale study of the demographics of church attendance since Tearfund’s Churchgoing in the UK (2007). However, because of the well-proven tendency of respondents to over-claim their religious practice, sample surveys are probably a less reliable source of data in this area than censuses of church attendance, the last England-wide one being taken in 2005.

The depth of analysis of the YouGov data by marital status is particularly interesting, but the picture which is revealed is doubtless not a recent phenomenon. In the case of Methodism, for instance, my own historical research has suggested that it was ‘a relative haven for the married and once-married’. For further details, see Clive Field, ‘Demography and the Decline of British Methodism: I. Nuptiality’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Vol. 58, No. 4, February 2012, pp. 175-89.

Religious sensibilities

Many Britons disagree with the protection of religious sensibilities, according to the results of a couple of questions included in a module about liberalism which YouGov put, on behalf of Prospect magazine, to an online sample of 1,630 Britons on 1-2 February 2015. Data tables were released on 19 February and are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/l2udrfxki8/Peter_Prospect_Liberalism_results_150202_Website.pdf

One question, obviously framed in the light of last month’s Islamist attack on the staff of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, in retaliation for that newspaper’s publication of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, asked whether the law which limits racist speech should be extended to protect religions from deliberately offensive speeches, articles, and cartoons. The majority (53%) of the British public thought not, including 62% of men and 65% of UKIP voters. Around one-third (32%) wished to see religions protected in this way, while 15% were undecided.

The other question was a throw-back to the legal case, which ended up in the Supreme Court, involving a Christian couple who owned a B&B who had refused (on religious grounds) the use of a double room by a homosexual couple. YouGov panellists were asked in general terms whether people with strong religious views who provided B&B accommodation should have the right to turn away same-sex couples. Exactly 50% believed they should not have such a right, among them just under two-thirds of Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters and of those aged 25-39. About two-fifths (39%) backed the B&B owners’ position, including 51% of Conservative and 61% of UKIP voters and 58% of over-60s. The remaining 11% expressed no opinion.

Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism has never been out of the news since the Islamist outrages in Paris at the beginning of the year, and YouGov has taken the pulse of public opinion on the subject again in two recent online polls. In the first, of 1,548 adults on 16-17 February 2015, respondents were asked whether they agreed with the recent plea by the Israeli Prime Minister for European Jews to move to Israel, given the apparently rising tide of European anti-Semitism. Only 11% felt these Jews would be safer in Israel, 26% suggesting they would be safer in Europe, 42% equally safe in either place, and 21% expressing no view. Specifically in relation to the UK situation, 34% wanted the Government to initiate a major campaign to reassure British Jews they are safe and welcome in the country, while 41% considered there to be no need for this, the remaining 25% favouring neither option. The survey also probed attitudes to the recent emergence of Islamic State (IS) in Libya and to potential British involvement in air strikes against IS there, 59% being in favour. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/plste3fsim/Internal_Results_150217_ISIS_ArabSpring_Intervention_Website.pdf

The second survey was undertaken for the Sunday Times among a sample of 1,568 Britons on 19-20 February 2015. Just 4% admitted to holding some personal views which were anti-Semitic, the range within demographic sub-groups being from 2% to 9%, while 89% denied doing so and 7% were unsure. However, 20% considered that anti-Semitism was very or fairly widespread in British society (64% regarding it as uncommon), and 19% that anti-Semitism had worsened in Britain during the past 20 years (as against 21% who detected an improvement in the situation and 40% no change). One person in 14 (7%) reported that they had often witnessed anti-Semitic behaviour on the part of others. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/l6vpm82uzr/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-200215-FULL.pdf

Faith and politics

With the general election less than three months away, and with the recent briefings by Churches Together in Britain and Ireland and the Church of England designed to inform the electorate about the issues at stake, any data about the political thinking and intentions of Christians is naturally of great interest. So, many BRIN readers will probably want to read the research reported by the Evangelical Alliance on 19 February 2015 in its Faith in Politics? This is the twelfth in a series of studies of 21st Century Evangelicals. An accompanying press release, incorporating a link to the report, can be found at:

http://www.eauk.org/current-affairs/politics/poverty-and-inequality-is-the-single-most-important-issue-for-evangelical-voters-new-survey-shows.cfm

A couple of caveats should be borne in mind. First, the research was undertaken as far back as August-September 2014, so it is unlikely to be a completely accurate guide to current attitudes. Second, the representative nature of the sample is even more in doubt than usual. The core sample derived from 1,356 members of the Evangelical Alliance’s self-selecting research panel, but their number was boosted by 1,006 participants recruited via social media, the latter disproportionately interested in and engaged in politics. This gave a total of 2,362 respondents, 12% of whom did not define themselves as evangelicals. The report itself is based on the 2,020 individuals who did regard themselves as evangelical. The findings, therefore, should be regarded as having more of an illustrative than statistical value. The report itself contains an appropriate note of caution about the limitations of the data.

Among the statistics featured in the report are:

86% of evangelicals are very or fairly interested in politics (compared with 42% of the population)
76% say their political views and voting are influenced by their reading of the Bible (yet 57% have no idea what the Bible teaches about politics)
92% think more Christians need to get involved in politics
59% believe none of the main political parties supports Christian values
Just 32% deem it important for politicians to be Christian – integrity and conviction are seen as far more significant attributes
94% are certain or likely to vote in the general election
39% will not be voting for the same party as in the 2010 general election
24% were still undecided, at the time of interview, how they will vote (23% supporting Labour, 21% Conservative, 8% LibDem, and 9% UKIP)
71% regard policies ensuring religious liberty and freedom of expression as a very important determinant of their own vote
39% will prioritize voting for a party best helping others in need
32% consider poverty/inequality to be the single most important issue facing the UK (4% in the population at large)
6% consider race/immigration to be the single most important issue (21% in the population)

Religious group membership

One-fifth (21%) of UK adults report being members of religious groups or church organizations, according to Veronique Siegler, Measuring National Well-Being: An Analysis of Social Capital in the UK, which was published by the Office for National Statistics on 29 January 2015. This is the same proportion as are members of trade unions and professional organizations but less than the 33% in membership of sports clubs. Overall, 52% of adults are in membership of some form of organization. Data derive from the 2011/12 wave of Understanding Society, the UK longitudinal household panel. Siegler’s report is at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_393380.pdf

Travelling man

John Wesley (1703-91) is widely regarded as the principal founder of Methodism and an itinerant preacher on a grand scale. But just how far did he travel? In a recent issue of the Methodist Recorder (13 February 2015, p. 8) John Taylor has endeavoured to answer the question, based on an analysis he did some time ago of Wesley’s published journals from 1735 onwards. From this date until his death he calculates that Wesley travelled just over 250,000 miles, typically on horseback, broken down as follows:

	Miles	%
England	181,277.5	72.4
Wales	9,327.5	3.7
Scotland	9,533.5	3.8
Ireland	28,301.0	11.3
Islands in British seas	310.0	0.1
On board ship	15,526.0	6.2
America	3,522.5	1.4
Germany	1,622.0	0.7
Holland	890.5	0.4
TOTAL	250,310.5	100.0

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged Anti-Semitism, B+B owners, Christian Research, Christian Vision for Men, church attendance, David Pullinger, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, freedom of expression, Islamic State, Israel, Jews, John Taylor, John Wesley, Libya, Methodism, Methodist Recorder, Network Christians, Office for National Statistics, politics, Prospect, religious group membership, same-sex couples, Single Christians, single people, Social Capital, Sunday Times, Veronique Siegler, YouGov | Leave a comment

Atheism and Other News

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Atheism

Two-fifths (42%) of Britons now declare that they have no religion, and the plurality (45%) of these regard themselves as atheists, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by and published in The Times on 12 February 2015, for which 1,552 adults were interviewed online on 8-9 February. The proportion of self-reported atheists in the entire population is thus 19%, rising to 31% of 18-24s, although the number of Britons who definitely do not believe in any sort of God or greater spiritual power is higher still (33% overall, 46% among 18-24s), including 9% of professed Christians. People no longer seem fazed by atheism. Not only do 88% of atheists feel comfortable about talking about their lack of religious identity, while 24% of Christians who believe in God are uncomfortable discussing their convictions, but very few adults react negatively to public figures who have openly acknowledged their atheism. Thus, only 6% of all Britons and 16% of Christians who believe in God feel more negatively about Labour leader Ed Miliband and LibDem leader Nick Clegg simply because they are atheists, and no more than 13% say the same about actor and presenter Stephen Fry following his recent outburst against ‘a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain’. The Times story (with quotes by BRIN’s David Voas) is only available online to subscribers, but YouGov has a blog on the survey, with a link to the full data tables, at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/02/12/third-british-adults-dont-believe-higher-power/

Future of religion

The team blog of the Theos think tank is carrying a series of guest posts on the future of religion in Britain, timed to coincide with, and to mark, the forthcoming appearance of the second edition of Grace Davie’s seminal 1994 book on Religion in Britain (on which we will report in due course). Davie is one of the Theos bloggers, with other contributions (thus far) from David Goodhew, Nick Spencer, David Voas, and Adam Dinham.

In the first post, published on 9 February 2015 and focusing on Christianity, Goodhew suggested that ‘the future … will be a persistent paradox of secularisation from above and resacralisation from below’. His conclusion stemmed from a somewhat caricatured critique of the alleged ‘dodginess’ of many national data on religion (including the Church of England’s) and examples of more localized church growth, from London and elsewhere. As I have said before on the BRIN website, Goodhew’s thesis is undermined by its lack of long-term historical perspective. His blog is at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2015/01/20/secularisation-from-above-resacralisation-from-below

The fourth blog, by Voas, was published on 12 February 2015 but previewed in The Times of 9 February. Voas predicts that the prospects for faith among white Britons are bleak and that ‘the future of religion in Britain is black and brown’, largely revolving around black-majority Churches and Islam. In terms of mainstream Christianity, he thinks that ‘the secularization of religious behaviour has reached the point of no return’; ‘the default position now is that we do not gather together to sing and pray and listen to an indifferent speaker deliver a thought for the week’, most ordained ministers having ‘the leadership ability of bank managers’. Orthodox belief has also declined, especially in God, which ‘has taken a battering’. The post is at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2015/02/02/what-is-the-future-for-religion-in-britain

Christians and politics

Churches Together in Britain and Ireland has recently launched a 2015 general election website to keep Christians briefed about issues and practicalities during the campaign, and to promote debate around its ‘Vision 2020 of the Good Society’. It has also collaborated with Church Action on Poverty (CAP) to commission ComRes to conduct an online survey of 2,135 practising UK Christians between 20 and 26 January 2015. The headline results were published by CAP on 13 February 2015 under the banner ‘Christians Tired of Short-Termism in Politics’. The press release, which includes a link to a summary report prepared by ComRes, can be found at:

http://www.church-poverty.org.uk/news/pressroom/pressreleases/archive/20150213

The poll revealed that 91% of practising Christians claimed they would be more likely to vote for a Parliamentary candidate who communicated a positive long-term vision for society, and yet 88% felt that UK politicians were more interested in short-term political concerns and that the leaders of the main political parties failed to articulate such a long-term vision. Almost without exception (97%), practising Christians agreed that Churches had a key role to play in encouraging debate about what makes a good society, with 80% considering that hitherto they had been ineffective in challenging politicians to communicate their vision for society, and 68% that Churches did not talk enough in public about matters like food poverty, homelessness, and tax avoidance.

Church of England: social action

The social action of the Church of England is examined in Bethany Eckley and Tom Sefton, Church in Action: A National Survey of Church-Based Social Action, which was published on 9 February 2015. The research, which was conducted by the Church Urban Fund (CUF) and the Church’s Mission and Public Affairs Team, was based upon an online survey of Anglican incumbents in September 2014, 1,812 of 5.097 responding (36%), with a slight skew towards larger churches and churches in London, and – possibly – an underrepresentation of those less involved in social action. Some of the questions replicated those in a previous survey by CUF in December 2011. The latest report can be read at:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/PDFs/Research/Church-in-Action-2015_0.pdf

Overwhelmingly (95%), Anglican clergy agreed that ‘engaging with the poor and marginalised in the local area is a vital activity for a healthy church’, although fewer (53%) reported that ‘we are tackling poverty as a fundamental part of the mission for our church’. The social issues which presented a major or significant problem in their communities were deemed to be: isolation/loneliness (65%), family breakdown (50%), debt (47%), lack of self-esteem/hope (46%), low income (46%), unhealthy lifestyles (45%), and mental health problems (44%). Just 7% of churches admitted not to be addressing any local issues, with 27% tackling up to four, 31% between five and eight, and 35% (disproportionately in London) nine or more. The most prevalent forms of church-based social action were schools work (76%), food banks (66%, double the 2011 figure), parent and toddler groups (60%), and lunch/drop-in clubs (53%). Activities in support of credit unions were to be found in only a minority of parishes. The main barriers to increased social action by churches were identified as resource constraints, both human (leaders and volunteers) and financial.

Church of England: rural Anglicanism

A profile of the Church of England in the countryside was published by the Archbishops’ Council on 30 January 2015: Released for Mission: Growing the Rural Church (GS Misc 1092). It is based on a mixture of qualitative (47 interviews with clergy and lay people) and quantitative research, the statistics deriving from an analysis of the 2011 parochial returns, a summary of which is tabulated below. It will be seen that, in terms of churches and parishes, two-thirds of the Church of England is to be found in the countryside, but only about two-fifths of its clergy (who are disproportionately female) and attenders (except at Christmas). The pattern of church growth and decline in rural and urban parishes is similar. The report is available at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2148423/gs%20misc%201092%20-%20rural%20multi%20parish%20benefices.pdf

%	Rural	Urban
Organization
Churches	65	35
Parishes	66	34
Benefices	48	52
Deaneries	67	33
Ministry
All clergy	42	58
All incumbents	43	57
Male incumbents	40	60
Female incumbents	50	50
All assistant curates	31	69
Male assistant curates	30	70
Female assistant curates	33	67
All self-supporting clergy	47	53
Male self-supporting clergy	45	55
Female self-supporting clergy	49	51
Membership and attendance
Electoral roll	46	54
Minimum attendance	37	63
Maximum attendance	43	57
Average attendance	40	60
Sum of attendance	39	61
Christmas attendance	49	51
Church growth over 10 years
Growing	18	18
Declining	25	29
Inconclusive	57	53

British Muslims in Numbers

On 11 February 2015 the Muslim Council of Britain launched an 80-page report (including 33 tables and 4 figures) on British Muslims in Numbers: A Demographic, Socio-Economic, and Health Profile of Muslims in Britain Drawing on the 2011 Census. Prepared by the Council’s Research and Documentation Committee, with Sundas Ali as lead analyst, it examines the Muslim-related data from the 2011 census for England and Wales (Scotland, which had only 77,000 Muslims, is not really covered, despite the work’s title) under four broad headings: demographics, civic life, inequalities, labour market and education. The census findings are supplemented by other empirical evidence and accompanied by a series of ‘observations’ directed at a variety of audiences and a list of priorities for future research. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.mcb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MCBCensusReport_2015.pdf

Probably the most striking demographic is the relative youth of the Muslim community, with a median age of 25 compared with 40 in the overall population, and 33% of Muslims under 16. Taken alongside factors such as immigration, this young profile seems likely to ensure the community’s ongoing rapid growth, both absolute and relative (the absolute increase from 2001 to 2011 was 75%). In terms of national identity, as many as 73% of Muslims in 2011 stated their only identity as British (or other UK national), even though 53% were born overseas. On some indicators, the incidence of deprivation among Muslims remained high, with, for example, 46% living in the 10% most deprived local authority districts, up from 33% in 2001. However, there were also signs of greater levels of educational attainment and social mobility among Muslims.

Islamic State

New polling from YouGov for The Sunday Times, in which 1,668 Britons were interviewed online on 5-6 February 2015, has revealed that just 32% support Britain and the USA sending ground troops back to Iraq to help fight the so-called Islamic State (IS), the plurality (45%) being opposed, much the same as in October 2014 (when the question was last asked). This is despite the fact that only 20% are convinced that the current combination of Western air strikes and Iraqi and Kurdish forces will be sufficient to defeat IS, 49% alternatively indicating a need for ground troops ‘from elsewhere’. At 63%, approval of the existing RAF involvement in air strikes against IS has gone up by four points since last October, with 56% supporting an escalation of this involvement in terms of more planes and an increased number of strikes. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/k24ox3l7ay/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-060215.pdf

YouGov has also updated its Iraq, Syria, and IS tracker report to take account of the new findings. This can be viewed at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/51xpyhtlev/YG-Archives-Pol-Iraq-Syria-and-ISIS-060215.pdf

Conspiracy theories

YouGov online polling for YouGov@Cambridge on 3-4 February 2015 explored public attitudes to nine ‘conspiracy theories’, among a sample of 1,749 adults. One of them was a suggestion that some courts in the UK legal system are choosing to adopt Sharia law, which 18% thought was definitely or probably true, including 31% of UKIP voters and 26% of over-60s; a further 31% said it might or might not be true, while 51% were certain that it was false. Another potential conspiracy posited that humans had made contact with aliens but that the news had been deliberately hidden from the people, which 14% agreed was definitely or probably true against 61% who were clear it was not and 25% who were unsure. Nevertheless, belief in both these ‘conspiracies’ paled into relative insignificance compared with the 55% convinced that the Government is hiding the real number of immigrants in the country and the 52% that European Union officials are gradually seeking to take over all the UK’s law-making powers. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/bhw7u94epz/GB%20Conspiracy%20Theories%20Pilot.pdf

Anti-Semitism

The All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism published the Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism on 9 February 2015 and, alongside it, a sub-report summarizing the results of a Populus poll which it had commissioned, for which 1,001 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed between 22 and 25 January 2015. Asked to rate the seriousness of anti-Semitism in contemporary Britain on a scale of 1-10 (where 1 was low and 10 high), the mean score was 4.66, much as it was ten years ago (4.52), although 37% thought that the problem had worsened over the decade (against 16% who detected an improvement). Moreover, only 55% said that they would be able to explain what anti-Semitism was to somebody else, ranging from 37% of 18-24s to 71% of over-65s, while awareness of recent incidents which were widely regarded as anti-Semitic was relatively limited, the murder of four Jews in a kosher supermarket in Paris excepted, which was known to 91%, albeit one-fifth did not classify the attack as anti-Semitic.

Some anti-Semitic stereotypes continued to find favour, such as the 11% who agreed that Jews have too much power in UK media and politics and the identical proportion that they have too much influence over the direction of UK foreign policy; 15% believed that Jews talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust. The identification of British Jews with Israel was problematical for rather more, 32% thinking that British Jews always defend Israel, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of its actions, and 30% that their loyalties are either divided between Britain and Israel or vested in Israel alone. This is despite the fact that 89% acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. The number of Jews in Britain was vastly over-estimated by respondents, the average guess being 2.7 million, nine times the real figure in the 2011 census, whereas the Muslim population was over-estimated by just one-third. The poll summary can be found at:

http://www.antisemitism.org.uk/wp-content/themes/PCAA/images/Polling-Anti-Semitism-Summary%202015.docx.pdf

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged air strikes, Aliens, All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, Anti-Semitism, atheism, Bethany Eckley, census of population, Church Action on Poverty, church attendance, church growth, Church of England, Church Urban Fund, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, clergy, ComRes, conspiracy theories, David Goodhew, David Voas, Ed Miliband, ground troops, Iraq, Islamic State, Israel, Jews, Muslim Council of Britain, Muslims, Nick Clegg, politics, Populus, practising Christians, religious census, rural Church, Sharia law, social action, Stephen Fry, Sundas Ali, Sunday Times, The Times, Theos, Tom Sefton, vision for society, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Clive D. Field

The recent Islamist outrages in France continued to dominate the news last week, being the most noted story for 74% of the 2,070 Britons interviewed online by Populus on 14-15 January 2015. However, the domestic research agenda has now broadened out to include the implications for the Jewish community.

Anti-Semitism (1)

The Campaign against Antisemitism (CAA), a grass-roots movement which started in August 2014, published its Annual Antisemitism Barometer, 2015 Full Report on 14 January 2015, summarizing the results of two surveys which it had commissioned in Britain, one among the public and the other among Jews. These new data led the CAA to conclude: ‘Whilst antisemitism in Britain is not yet at the levels seen in most of Europe, the results of our survey should be a wakeup call. Britain is at a tipping point: unless antisemitism is met with zero tolerance, it will continue to grow and British Jews may increasingly question their place in their own country.’ The report, the preparation of which was funded by the Anglo-Jewish Association and private donors, can be viewed at:

http://antisemitism.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Annual-Antisemitism-Barometer-Report.pdf

The survey of the general public was undertaken by YouGov among 3,411 adults interviewed online in two separate polls, on 21-22 December 2014 and 5-6 January 2015 (i.e. just before the recent Islamist outrages in France, including an attack on a kosher supermarket during which four Jews were killed). Respondents were presented with a list of seven stereotypical statements deemed by the CAA to be anti-Semitic in nature, and it was found that 45% of Britons believed at least one of them to be definitely or probably true, including 51% of men and 39% of women, the regional range being from 30% in Scotland to 48% in northern England. One-quarter (26%) believed at least two statements were true, 17% at least three, and 11% at least four.

If the last statistic is taken as some kind of approximation of hard-core prejudice against Jews in Britain, then the proportion is similar to that discovered by Clive Field in his ‘meta-analysis’ of polls on anti-Semitism published in Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300.Also, more recently, according to The ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, released by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in May 2014, Britain has one of the lowest rates of anti-Semitism in the world – see BRIN’s coverage at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2014/adl-index-of-anti-semitism/

Results for each of YouGov’s seven statements are tabulated below, showing highs and lows by demographic sub-groups.

% saying definitely or probably true	All	High	Low
Jews chase money more than other British people	25	39 (UKIP)	18 (LibDem; 18-24)
Jews’ loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people	20	28 (UKIP)	15 (women; Scotland; no religion)
Jews think they are better than other people	17	27 (UKIP)	11 (women)
Jews have too much influence in the media	17	29 (non-Christian)	11 (women)
Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy	13	23 (non-Christian)	10 (women; Scotland)
In business Jews are not as honest as most people	11	17 (UKIP)	7 (Scotland; no religion)
I would be unhappy if a family member married a Jew	10	22 (non-Christian)	7 (LibDem)

The full data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/jqf80l3ea6/CampaignAgainstAntisemitismResults_MergedFile_W.pdf

For its second survey, the CAA claims to have polled ‘a representative sample of the British Jewish community’, with the assistance of various Jewish agencies. In practice, informants appear to have constituted a self-selecting sample, who responded to an online questionnaire between 23 December 2014 and 11 January 2015, and which they accessed via a weblink distributed via social media and email lists. So, although electronic identifiers enabled duplicate or non-UK responses to be filtered out, and although the British data were weighted to reflect the regional distribution of Jews in the census (it is unclear why other census demographics of Jews were not deployed), the results should still be treated with some caution and may not be representative. As we have noted previously, it is genuinely very difficult to achieve proper cross-sections of minority religious populations.

In particular, those with a special angst about anti-Semitism and/or who felt particularly protective of Israel may have been more predisposed to reply to the CAA enquiry than other Jews. We may note that social scientist Keith Kahn-Harris is quoted in The Jewish Chronicle as having already dismissed the CAA survey as ‘methodologically invalid. There can be no confidence in its representativeness’. The equally respected Institute for Jewish Policy Research has issued a press release in which it criticizes the CAA study for being ‘littered with flaws’ and ‘rather irresponsible’. The release can be read online at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/newsevents/article.1012

With this significant caveat in mind, we should note, for the record, that, of the 2,230 British Jews who replied to the CAA:

84% agreed that boycotts of businesses selling Israeli products constituted intimidation (11% disagreeing)
82% agreed that media bias against Israel fuelled persecution of Jews in Britain (11% disagreeing)
77% reported that they had witnessed anti-Semitism disguised as a political comment about Israel (13% disagreeing)
69% agreed that the Jewish community had to protect itself because the State does not protect it enough (18% disagreeing)
63% argued that the authorities let too much anti-Semitism go unpunished (19% disagreeing)
58% were concerned that Jews may not have a long-term future in Europe (28% disagreeing)
56% had witnessed or experienced more anti-Semitism in the past two years than previously (26% disagreeing)
56% concurred that the recent rise in anti-Semitism in Britain had echoes of the 1930s (27% disagreeing)
45% were concerned that Jews may not have a long-term future in Britain (37% disagreeing)
45% agreed that their family was threatened by Islamic extremism in Britain (37% disagreeing)
37% avoided showing any visible signs of Judaism when they went out (42% disagreeing)
27% often avoided mentioning their Judaism when they were with new people (57% disagreeing)
25% claimed to have considered leaving Britain in the past two years due to anti-Semitism (63% disagreeing)

Anti-Semitism (2)

To be fair to the CAA, it had settled upon its own survey of Jews only after approaching ‘major polling organisations’ who ‘advised that they did not have enough Jewish panellists on their databases to conduct an effective or valid survey of the Jewish community’. The CAA will doubtless have been as surprised as everyone else to have read the announcement by The Jewish Chronicle, on the same day as CAA’s Annual Antisemitism Barometer was published, that the newspaper had been working with Survation over several months to develop ‘an extensive targeted database of thousands of Jews across the UK who can be randomly contacted for polling’, each poll to have a sample of around 1,000 Jews.

Survation has published the following description of its methodology: ‘SAMPLING METHOD: Respondents were sampled based on a modelled probability of residents identifying themselves as Jewish. This was done using a range of demographic indicators selected by Survation in consultation with Jewish community leaders and academics. Respondents were asked to confirm whether they were Jewish before completing the survey, this includes both secular and non-practicing Jews. Only those who identified themselves as Jewish were asked to complete the survey.’

‘DATA WEIGHTING: Data were weighted to the profile of all Jewish adults aged 18+ in the UK … by age and sex … Targets for the weighted data were derived from Office of National Statistics 2011 Census data.’

The Jewish Chronicle had originally planned to publicize this panel of adult UK Jews towards the end of January 2015 but rushed it forward in the light of recent events in France, and commissioned its first poll, with 555 respondents contacted by telephone on 12-14 January 2015. Topline results for the four questions (excluding don’t knows) are shown below, but data tables (with breaks by gender, age, and region) have also been posted at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jewish-Topical-Issues-Poll-Final.pdf

Thinking about personal safety, how safe or unsafe do you feel as a Jewish person in Britain? – very safe 17%, quite safe 58%, quite unsafe 19%, very unsafe 3%
Do you feel life in general is getting better or worse for Jewish people in Britain, or is it about the same? – better 9%, about the same 45%, slightly worse 34%, much worse 9%
Have last week’s events in Paris made you more concerned about your safety in Britain or have they made no difference? – much more concerned 32%, slightly more concerned 41%, made no difference 27%
Have last week’s events in Paris made you consider leaving Britain? – yes 11% (16% among under-35s), no 88%

An article in The Jewish Chronicle about the survey is at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/128162/jc-poll-reveals-88-cent-british-jews-have-not-considered-leaving-uk

Anti-Semitism (3)

Further evidence that hard-core prejudice against Jews in Britain may not exceed 10% of the population came in a second YouGov poll for The Sunday Times on 15-16 January 2015, among 1,647 adults. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/wt26kxdn72/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-160115.pdf

The survey revealed that, although 13% considered that, as regards other people, there was more prejudice against Jews than ten years ago (compared with 61% saying the level of prejudice was unchanged or lessened), the overwhelming majority of the public had a favourable personal view of Jews, with only a small minority (disproportionately located among UKIP voters) unfavourable. In particular:

10% disputed that British Jews are well integrated into British society, against 71% thinking they are and 18% uncertain
8% denied that British Jews make a positive contribution to British society, with 73% believing that they do and 20% expressing no view
7% admitted to having a negative opinion of Jewish people in Britain, 77% being positive, and 17% undecided

Islamophobia (1)

The fall-out from the recent Islamist outrages in France has also negatively impacted Muslims in Britain, and matters are not helped by the fact that the population at large harbours an exaggerated notion as to how many Muslims there actually are in the country. According to the 2011 census, the proportion is just under 5%, yet only 9% of 1,782 adults interviewed by YouGov online on 12-13 January 2015 knew this, with the mean guess being 17%, more than three times the reality. Moreover, 26% of this national cross-section (and 54% of UKIP voters) also felt that ordinary Muslims needed to apologize when people claiming to be acting on behalf of Islam committed terrorist acts, with 63% considering that ordinary Muslims had nothing to apologize for, and 11% undecided. Data tables were published on 14 January 2015 at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/t92z3pag83/BuzzfeedResults_150113_Muslims_W.pdf

Islamophobia (2)

YouGov’s poll for The Sunday Times on 15-16 January 2015, published on 18 January, also probed Islamophobic attitudes, as well as reactions to the latest edition of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, whose front page showed another cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. The majority (53% overall, 68% of UKIP voters) agreed that this had been the right thing for the newspaper to do, and a plurality of the whole sample (43%) and majority of men, Liberal Democrats, and UKIP supporters still took this line even though it would make further terrorist attacks more likely. On British Muslims, there were some sharp divisions of opinion:

58% (and 84% of UKIP voters) contended that most British Muslim leaders could be doing a lot more to combat radicalization and terrorism, against 27% accepting they were doing all they reasonably could
46% thought that all, most, or a majority of British Muslims shared British values and the identical proportion that only a minority, hardly any, or no British Muslims did so, peaking at 73% of UKIP voters
42% believed that British Muslims were well integrated into British society but 50% said that they were not, including 79% of UKIP voters and 59% of over-60s
41% assessed that British Muslims were usually friendly to non-Muslim Britons but 20% judged them usually unfriendly, with a high of 39% among UKIP supporters
33% agreed with the suggestion of UKIP leader Nigel Farage that ghettoes had sprung up in Britain where Sharia law prevailed and from which the police and other legal authorities had withdrawn, a view shared by 75% of Farage’s own backers, with 41% denying the statement (63% of 18-24s)

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Anti-Semitism, British society, Campaign against Antisemitism, Charlie Hebdo, holocaust, integration, Islamist terrorism, Islamophobia, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Muslims, Nigel Farage, prejudice, Sunday Times, Survation, YouGov | 1 Comment

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