More Census Data and Other News

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Clive D. Field

It is a matter of two quantitative steps forward and one back this week. On the upside, more religion data have been released from the 2011 census and new survey research has been commissioned for the 2013 Westminster Faith Debates. On the downside, the standard published source of national-level Roman Catholic statistics in England and Wales has been discontinued.

More census data

The Office for National Statistics released further micro-level data from the 2011 religion census of England and Wales on 30 January 2013. The following religion reference tables are now available in Excel format by clicking the links to ‘key statistics’ and ‘quick statistics’ at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-and-quick-statistics-for-parishes-and-parliamentary-constituencies-in-england-and-wales/index.html

TABLE KS209EW – 9 category classification of religion for:

  • regions, counties, London boroughs, districts, and unitary authorities in England and Wales
  • unitary authorities in Wales

TABLE QS210EW – 58 category classification of religion for:

  • regions, counties, London boroughs, districts, and unitary authorities in England and Wales
  • regions, counties, London boroughs, districts, unitary authorities, and wards in England and Wales
  • regions, districts, Middle Layer Super Output Areas, and Lower Layer Super Output Areas in England and Wales
  • unitary authorities in Wales
  • unitary authorities and electoral districts in Wales
  • Middle Layer Super Output Areas, Lower Layer Super Output Areas, and Output Areas in London
  • Ditto in Eastern England
  • Ditto in the East Midlands
  • Ditto in the North East
  • Ditto in the North West
  • Ditto in the South East
  • Ditto in the South West
  • Ditto in the West Midlands
  • Ditto in Wales
  • Ditto in Yorkshire and the Humber

Meanwhile, church statistician Peter Brierley has continued his analysis of the 2011 religion census data in the current issue (No. 25, February 2013) of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy. There is an article on ‘Census Sense’ on pp. 1-2 of the main bulletin, and further detail on pp. 1-2 of an accompanying paper on ‘Religion, Age, and Gender from the 2011 Census’. Brierley is also offering (for £2) a 2,800-word report on Making Sense of the Census. For more information, contact Brierley Consultancy, 1 Thorpe Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent, TN10 4PW, email peter@brierleyres.com

In ‘Census Sense’ Brierley hypothesizes that the decrease of 3.8 million in the number of professing Christians in England between 2001 and 2011 is accounted for by an addition of 1 million new Christians less 4.3 million Christians who died during the decade less 0.5 million other losses to Christianity between 2001 and 2011.

In ‘Religion, Age, and Gender’ Brierley directly addresses the question of whether Christianity in Britain will die out. He concludes: ‘We are not yet in the final generation of Christians, and the next generation will not be the last either, but the Christian scene is likely to alter very considerably over the next 20 years or so’. He further suggests that ‘the Church of England’s actuaries forecasting that Anglican church attendance could drop 58% by 2030 is about right for most of the other denominations also’.

Westminster Faith Debates

The 2013 series of Westminster Faith Debates, which aims to ‘bring the best research and thinking on religion into public debate’, is about to commence. Organized by Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University and Rt Hon Charles Clarke under the auspices of the Religion and Society Programme, the theme of the series is ‘Religion and personal life’. The debates take place in central London, as follows:

  • Wednesday, 13 February: ‘Stem cell research, abortion, and the “soul of the embryo”?’
  • Wednesday, 27 February: ‘Too much sex these days – the sexualisation of society?’
  • Thursday, 14 March: ‘Is it right for religions to treat men and women differently?’
  • Wednesday, 27 March: ‘What’s a traditional family and do we need it?’
  • Thursday, 18 April: ‘Do Christians really oppose gay marriage?’
  • Thursday, 2 May: Should we legislate to permit assisted dying?’

For full details of speakers and how to register to attend, go to:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/faith_debates

To inform this year’s series of debates, the organizers have commissioned YouGov to conduct original online research into the issues which will be covered. Fieldwork took place on 25-30 January 2013 with 4,437 adult Britons, a much larger sample than in most opinion polls. In addition to three or four topical questions for each debate, there are a dozen or so background questions to measure the religion of respondents, thus permitting multiple cross-tabulations.

Results of this YouGov survey will be incrementally released in connection with each of the debates and will also be selectively covered on BRIN at the same time. To contextualize the findings, BRIN has researched comparative poll data for Britain since 2005. Also watch out for the series of articles linked to the debates which will be published in The Tablet on 9 and 23 February, 9 and 23 March, and 13 and 27 April.

Roman Catholic statistics

The 2013 edition of the annual (commercially published) Catholic Directory of England and Wales is the first for exactly a century not to include a section on Catholic statistics. In the absence of any central statistical unit in the English and Welsh Church, the Catholic Directory has long performed a useful public service in collating the figures gathered annually by each of the 22 dioceses. The volume and range of this information had already been thinned out by the Catholic Directory over recent years, but now it has come to a grinding halt.

The editor of the publication explains the decision to discontinue the statistical section thus: ‘For some time I have been troubled by the lack of consistency from one year to the next. Rather than publish potentially misleading information, it would be better to apply to the individual dioceses for up-to-date details as and when required’.

Even though the data were known to be of variable quality, and have been extensively critiqued by commentators such as Tony Spencer, the Catholic Directory has been an accessible national-level source, especially for those outside the Church. The editor’s advice to make enquiries of multiple dioceses is hardly helpful or practicable, especially for the all important pastoral and population statistics.

One can but hope that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales will now act to plug the hole. We understand that the Conference’s Department of Evangelisation and Catechesis is in the process of scoping a project to obtain a more accurate picture of the make-up of the Catholic community in England and Wales. This is to be warmly welcomed and, if implemented, would address the internal data requirements of the Church as well as the public interest, thereby avoiding potentially ill-founded estimates.

 

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Anglican Comments on the Census and Other News

Posted on January 12, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The results of the 2011 religion census for England and Wales continue to reverberate around faith communities. The lead item in today’s BRIN post concerns coverage of the census in the country’s conservative evangelical newspaper for the Church of England.

Church of England Newspaper and the census

In the current issue (13 January 2013) of the Church of England Newspaper (CEN) no fewer than three of its columnists devote space to the religion results of the 2011 census of England and Wales, which were published on 11 December 2012.

The most extensive treatment (‘Making Sense of the Census’, p. 15) is by Peter Brierley, the veteran church statistician. He is unsurprised by the 11% fall in the number of professing Christians between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, which he sees as foreshadowed in the estimated 6% drop in church membership between 2000 and 2010 and the 14% decline in church attendance during the same period. He advances three possible explanations for decreasing Christian ‘adherence’: a) the surge in immigration (with Brierley reckoning the majority of the new immigrants to be non-Christians, although this claim is unevidenced); b) the death of elderly Christians since 2001 (said by Brierley to account for 8% of the 11% decline, which seems a rather high proportion in comparison with the calculation by David Voas on BRIN on 13 December last); and c) the relative lack of new people becoming Christians, the transmission of the faith being said to be at ‘an all-time low’.

The other two columnists take to task Arun Arora, the Church of England’s Director of Communications, who, from his press statement issued on 11 December onwards, has tried to cast the census results in the best possible light for the Church of England. In a CEN short entitled ‘Militant Communicator’ (p. E2), the compiler of ‘The Whispering Gallery’ explicitly criticizes Arora for his selective use of statistics (especially of baptisms) in his recent letter to The Times (31 December 2012), written in response to the call (28 December 2012) by that newspaper’s Phil Collins for the disestablishment of the Church. Arora should realize, the CEN continues, ‘inertia is the best defence of the establishment, not statistics that unravel when they are examined carefully’.     

In his CEN column on ‘The Future for Evangelicalism’ (p. 16), Paul Richardson also fixes his sights on Arora, without actually naming him: ‘it will not do to dismiss the census as just showing the disappearance of “cultural Christians” … People who in the past wrote “C of E” on forms now write “no religion”. Long term this is going to make it difficult to sustain the Church of England’s position as an established church’. Richardson further contends that the Roman Catholic Church is in similar denial in its statement about the census, Richardson pointing out that ‘the census shows … large numbers of people entering Britain over the past 10 years from Poland and other Catholic areas but that this influx is not reflected in figures for mass attendance. These figures have risen only slightly, suggesting there has been a large exodus from the pews of indigenous Anglo-Irish Catholics’.

Twittering Christmas

The Church of England released figures on 8 January 2013 for its Christmas campaign on Twitter, #ChristmasStartsWithChrist (or #CSWC), aimed at the UK’s estimated 10 million ‘Twitterati’. In all, 8,878 Christmas-related tweets were sent by Anglicans (from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York downwards) using these two hashtags, with peak traffic occurring on Christmas Day around 11 am and a smaller peak on Christmas Eve around 11 pm. Over a 24-hour period from 11 pm on 24 December to 11 pm on 25 December there were an average of 370 tweets an hour. See the Church’s press release at:

http://churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2013/01/church-rejoicing-over-christmas-twitter-campaign.aspx

Same-sex marriage

As the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government continues to press ahead with its legislative plans for same-sex marriage, there are continuing indications that many Conservative Parliamentarians have serious misgivings about them. The latest evidence (published on 9 January 2013) comes from a ComRes poll (on behalf of the Coalition for Marriage) of 106 members of the House of Lords during the autumn of 2012, with 69% of Conservative peers wishing to see the proposals postponed until after the next general election and 100% opposing any use of the Parliament Act to steamroller opposition in the Lords.

Moreover, although Government believes it can ensure that churches and other places of worship will not have to perform same-sex marriages against their will, 51% of Conservative peers and 40% of all peers believe that there is no effective way of guaranteeing such an outcome. The proportion thinking this is four times as great for peers born before 1940 as after 1950, and more than 10% higher for peers who have sat in the Upper Chamber since before 1997 as those who became members after that date. Full results available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Same-Sex_Marriage_Peers_Final_Data_Tables_21_Dec_2012.pdf

 

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Surveyitis and Other News

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Today’s digest of religious statistical news highlights a thought-provoking blog about ‘surveyitis’ by the Director of the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society programme, as well as headline findings from two actual surveys, among evangelicals and adult learners.

A bad case of surveyitis

In our last post, on 4 December, we briefly anticipated the publication of Professor Linda Woodhead’s blog inspired by the recent Theos report, Post-Religious Britain? The Faith of the Faithless. This blog was published on The Guardian’s Comment is Free website on 5 December under the heading ‘Surveying Religious Belief Needs Social Science Not Hard Science’. In it Professor Woodhead provides some salutary advice on the difficulties of measuring public opinion in relation to religion, which she characterizes as an ever-changing and often also a vague and contested area. She particularly counsels against ‘surveyitis’, ‘a disease that afflicts people who stay indoors too long poring over data’, and whose ‘symptoms include credulity about the accuracy of survey responses and morbid attachment to outdated questions’, the latter ‘working with zombie categories’. She detects ‘a new outbreak of surveyitis’ occasioned by an upsurge of interest in ‘nones’, people who do not identify with or practice religion. She emphasizes ‘doubt, subtlety, uncertainty and cognitive modesty’, in contrast to the idea of ‘a fantasy rational man with clear and distinct ideas’ who ‘lurks behind many survey designs’. The blog can be read at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/dec/05/nones-on-the-run-religion

Evangelicals living the Christian life

Three-quarters (76%) of lay evangelicals have been Christians for more than twenty years, with an average of twenty-two years, ‘reflecting, perhaps, a lack of priority in evangelism’. Indeed, evangelism is only seen as the fourth most important (of six) key dimensions of church life. Stability is also suggested by the fact that two-fifths have never attended any other than their existing place of worship. Notwithstanding, the overwhelming majority of lay evangelicals consider that their faith has grown during the past year, the principal reasons for such growth being the fellowship and teaching (in services) of their church and house groups. The Bible is also deemed a significant influence, not just for faith development but in shaping attitudes to family and world; this is especially true of the over-40s. Prayer is widespread, 71% of these laity praying every day and a further 22% several times a week. However, they rather struggle with the concept of Christlikeness, which is typically expressed in terms of kindness, while 54% have a concern that ‘becoming more Christlike will increasingly alienate Christians from the culture around them’.

Source: Surveys undertaken by Brierley Consultancy in 2012 among 1,999 English evangelicals from three groups: a) churchgoers in seven congregations (three Anglican, one Baptist, three Independent); b) laity answering advertisements in Christian newspapers and magazines (and thus self-selecting); c) ministers from a range of denominations. The research was commissioned by the Langham Partnership (UK and Ireland), whose purpose is ‘to help churches grow in maturity or simple Christlikeness’, and which is running the ‘9-a-day: Becoming Like Jesus’ campaign in January-July 2013 ‘to encourage Christians in that transformative process’. A summary of the study (which BRIN found rather confusingly presented) appears in the 16-page pamphlet Living the Christian Life: Becoming Like Jesus (Tonbridge: ADBC Publishers, 2012). This can be obtained (for £2, inclusive of postage) from Brierley Consultancy, The Old Post Office, 1 Thorpe Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent, TN10 4PW, email peter@brierleyres.com. Also available for purchase from the same source are detailed reports of the research among laity in the seven participating congregations (Vol. 1) and the ministers (Vol. 2), priced £7.50 each. Cheques should be made payable to Peter Brierley.

Religion and belief in adult learning

Just over one-half (53%) of adult learners at further education colleges in England consider themselves to have a religion, a further 10% say that they have some form of non-religious belief (agnosticism, atheism, humanism, and spiritualism being most often mentioned), while 37% have neither. Students with religion are disproportionately to be found among the over-25s, women and ethnic minorities. Of those reporting a religion, 57% are Christian and 27% Muslim, and 53% claim actively to practise their religion. Within the learning environment 56% are fully or partially open about their religion or belief, typically through the expression of their opinions or the wearing (by 22%) of some form of religious dress or symbol. Although religion and/or belief are not widely seen as barriers to learning opportunities, 11% of adult learners with religious beliefs report that they have experienced bullying or harassment due to their religion and 4% due to their beliefs. This compares with 11% of those with non-religious beliefs who have been victims of bullying or harassment on account of their beliefs and 5% of those without any religion or belief. Fewer than one-third of victims have notified somebody in the learning environment about their experience of bullying or harassment. One-quarter of all adult learners state that they have had positive learning outcomes as a result of their religion or belief, rising to 35% of those with a religion.

Source: Survey of a self-selecting sample of 1,139 adult learners aged 19 and over (with 49% aged 19-29) attending further education colleges in England who completed an online questionnaire between 16 February and 11 May 2012. Women (63%) were overrepresented by 6% relative to the adult learning sector as a whole. The study was undertaken by Babcock Research on behalf of the Skills Funding Agency, with take-up of the survey being promoted by further education providers. It is reported in Donna James, Clare Lambley and Kay Turner, Religion and Belief in Adult Learning: Learner Views (Coventry: Skills Funding Agency, 2012), which is freely available at:

http://readingroom.skillsfundingagency.bis.gov.uk/sfa/Religion_and_Belief_report.pdf

 

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London Church Census and Other News

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The following three news items have reached BRIN’s in-tray during the past few days:

London church census

A census of attendance of Greater London’s churches took place on 14 October 2012 (chosen as an ‘average’ Sunday). Commissioned by the London City Mission, it was organized by Dr Peter Brierley (of Brierley Consultancy), who, as Executive Director of Christian Research and in previous capacities, was responsible for the four English church censuses undertaken between 1979 and 2005. Following circulation of initial publicity in June, he contacted the leaders of London’s estimated 4,900 churches (well up on the 4,100 which existed in 2005) in September, inviting them to complete a two-page questionnaire about their place of worship and to return it by prepaid post or email. They were encouraged to distribute self-completion slips to each member of their congregation on census day to gather the data requested about the age, gender, ethnicity, frequency of churchgoing, length of churchgoing, and distance travelled to church. In addition to attendance statistics, a wide range of other information was sought in the questionnaire, such as about church buildings, plants, mid-week services, and employees. Reminders have recently been sent to non-respondents, including those who (through Royal Mail’s oversight) failed to receive their original mailing, so it is too early to say anything about the overall response rate. A report on the census is expected to appear in April 2013. Meanwhile, thanks are due to Dr Brierley for briefing BRIN about the census. The questionnaire and accompanying instructions for completion can still be viewed online at:

http://brierleyconsultancy.com/londoncensus

State school admissions

Almost three-quarters (73%) of adults agree (two-thirds of them strongly) that state-funded schools, including state-funded faith schools, should not be allowed to select or discriminate against prospective pupils on religious grounds in their admissions policy. Responses vary little by demographic sub-groups, apart from in Scotland where the relatively high figure of 80% perhaps reflects ongoing sensitivities about the presence and practice of Roman Catholic schools in the Scottish state sector. The proportion in disagreement with the proposition is 18%, with 9% undecided. The findings are especially topical in the light of today’s dismissal by the High Court of a judicial review of Richmond-upon-Thames council’s decision to approve two new state-funded Catholic schools with selection based on religion, wholly in one case and substantially in the other. The unsuccessful legal challenge had been mounted by the British Humanist Association and Richmond Inclusive Schools Campaign.

Source: Online survey by ComRes of 2,008 Britons aged 18 and over on 2-4 November 2012, undertaken on behalf of the Accord Coalition. The Coalition campaigns against religious discrimination and indoctrination in schools, and it particularly seeks closure of the loophole in equality legislation which enables faith schools to operate an admissions policy which discriminates against children for religious reasons. Full results of the poll were published on 12 November 2012 and are available at:

http://accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Accord-Coalition_Faith-Schools_November2012.pdf

UK giving

‘Religious causes’ (including churches, mosques, and synagogues) attracted the largest charitable donations by individuals in Britain in 2011/12, with a median amount given of £20 per month, up by £5 from 2010/11 and twice the median for all charitable purposes. Religious organizations received 17% of all money donated to charities in 2011/12 (a 3% increase since 2004/05), greater even than medical research (15%), hospitals (15%), children or young people (11%), and overseas (10%). Although the proportion of donors giving to religious causes was less (14%), and eclipsed by medical research (33%), hospitals (30%), children (23%) and even animals (16%), it had risen since 2009/10 (12%) and 2010/11 (13%), resuming its level of 2007/08 and 2008/09.

Source: Face-to-face interviews with 3,319 Britons aged 16 and over via the Office for National Statistics omnibus in June and October 2011 and February 2012. Despite references to the UK, Northern Ireland was not surveyed. Summarized in Joy Dobbs, Véronique Jochum, Karl Wilding, Malcolm Smith, and Richard Harrison, UK Giving, 2012: An Overview of Charitable Giving in the UK, 2011/12, published on 13 November 2012 by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Charities Aid Foundation, and available at: 

https://www.cafonline.org/PDF/UKGiving2012Full.pdf

 

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Anglican Themes – and Funeral Hymns

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The cluster of news stories which have come to hand within the last four days mainly concern the Church of England, but a couple are also of wider interest:

Church of England Growth?

The Church of England launched a new website on 2 October 2012 as a showcase for its 18-month Church Growth Support Programme, which is exploring the factors relating to the spiritual and, particularly, numerical growth of the Church. A team from the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex, led by Professor David Voas (co-director of BRIN), has been appointed to undertake the data analysis and church-profiling strands of the research. In addition to being able to track the progress of these and the other two strands, the website incorporates several other valuable features, albeit still under development, including: key Anglican statistics; guide to church growth literature; case studies of growing churches; and an interactive discussion board on church growth issues. The site can be accessed at:

http://www.churchgrowthresearch.org.uk/

Or Church of England Decline?

A hitherto little-reported aspect of the Church of England’s General Synod in July 2012 was part of a speech by Andreas Whittam Smith, First Church Estates’ Commissioner, touching on the adverse demography of the Church of England. On the assumption that the ageing of Anglican congregations continues, he forecast that the number of worshippers could fall to as little as 125,000 in 2057, unless corrective action could be taken. The story has been picked up by Peter Brierley, in articles in FutureFirst, No. 23, October 2012, p. 5 and in The Church of England Newspaper, 14 October 2012, p. E1. Projecting Anglican attendance figures forward on the basis of what is known of the age profiles of Sunday worshippers from the various English church censuses, Brierley’s charts also point to what some might term a ‘doomsday scenario’, with attenders under 30 years of age likely to decline by 80% between 2000 and 2030, compared with just one-quarter for the over-65s. On present trends, Brierley’s best estimates are that 300,000 will attend Anglican Sunday services by 2030 and 500,000 in an average week (Sunday and weekday combined). Under such circumstances, he suggests, some cathedrals might need to be ‘decommissioned’ and 9,000 of the current 16,000 churches could close.

Church of England Cathedrals

Brierley’s gloomy long-term prognostications for English cathedrals are somewhat at variance with the upbeat tone of Spiritual Capital: the Present and Future of English Cathedrals, which was prepared and published (on 12 October 2012) by Theos and the Grubb Institute, and commissioned by the Foundation for Church Leadership and the Association of English Cathedrals. The report is empirically underpinned by an online survey carried out by ComRes on 10-12 August 2012 among 1,749 English adults aged 18 and over, supplemented by local case studies of Canterbury, Durham, Lichfield, Leicester, Manchester, and Wells Cathedrals (comprising 1,933 quantitative and 257 qualitative interviews).

The national poll revealed that 27% of resident adults (i.e. excluding overseas visitors) claimed to have visited a Church of England cathedral at least once during the previous 12 months. This equates to 11,300,000 people, 20% more than the Church of England’s own estimate for visitors to its cathedrals in 2010, with the trend clearly downward since 2000 (this discrepancy is not commented on in the report). The profile of these self-identifying visitors is shown to be fairly broad in terms of standard demographics and religious background. Specifically, they include significant numbers of non-churchgoers, non-Christians, and those of no religion, thereby confirming that ‘cathedrals have a particular capacity to connect spiritually with those who are on or beyond the Christian “periphery”’ – hence the ‘spiritual capital’ of the title.

Of course, a contrary interpretation is that visitors often relate to the heritage and cultural functions of cathedrals as much as, if not more so, to their role as places of worship, and some of the ComRes poll evidence points in this direction. For example, only 13% disagreed with the statement that cathedrals are more of historical than spiritual importance, and 15% that they would go to one for its history and architecture rather than for any religious or spiritual experience. Likewise, just 17% would go to a cathedral to learn more about Christianity, and 22% for spiritual support. These reservations notwithstanding, Spiritual Capital can be recommended as an excellent source of data, not simply about visitor numbers, but about visitor motivations, experiences, and attitudes, together with wider reflections on the role of cathedrals in the Church and society. The report is at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Reports/Spiritual%20Capital%2064pp%20-%20FINAL.pdf

and the full national polling data at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Polling/Cathedrals%20Final%20Data%20PDF.pdf

Heritage Tourism

Despite the optimism of the Theos and Grubb Institute report, English cathedrals may actually have had a poor summer in terms of tourism, sharing in the general malaise of all leading visitor attractions caused by the prolonged wet weather and the disruptive effects of the Olympic Games. Figures released by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) on 8 October 2012 indicated that the heritage and cathedrals group of attractions in London (among them, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey) reported a fall of visitor numbers of 20% comparing May-August 2012 with May-August 2011, while the decline in the rest of England was 6%. Retail spend at these attractions also decreased, by 20% in London and 9% elsewhere in the country. ALVA’s press release is at:

http://www.alva.org.uk/images/assets/84741_851645_121009.pdf

Additional information will doubtless become available when Visit England publishes, next year, Visitor Attractions Trends in England, 2012. The 2011 survey, released in July 2012, included returns from 102 places of worship, recording aggregate details of admissions, revenue, marketing, services, and employment. This 2011 report is at:

http://www.visitengland.org/insight-statistics/major-tourism-surveys/attractions/index.aspx

English Religious Beliefs

The Theos and Grubb Institute research into English cathedrals, discussed above, also collected a range of religious data about the respondents in the ComRes national survey, seemingly in an attempt to link cathedrals with what the report describes as ‘emergent spiritualities’. These data naturally have independent value. The number of adults claiming to ‘belong’ to a religion was 64%, 39% being Anglicans (two-thirds of them over 45), 16% other Christians, and 9% non-Christians; this left 34% professing no religion (rising to 46% of the 18-24s). Claimed attendance at religious services once a month or more was 15%, almost certainly an exaggeration. Firm belief in God (‘I know God exists and I have no doubts about it’) stood at just 19%, with 42% classified as atheists or agnostics; the remaining 39% fell into three categories in the ‘middle ground’ (including those believing in a higher power but not God). Belief in God as a universal life force was 40%, compared with belief in a human soul (60%), life after death (41%), angels (35%), the Resurrection of Jesus (31%), and reincarnation (26%). The number holding all six beliefs was just 12%, peaking at 20% in London. These figures have reduced somewhat over time. For instance, in Gallup’s Television and Religion survey in England in December 1963-January 1964 atheists and agnostics numbered 14% and 50% then believed in life after death. Even the number believing in a soul has dropped from the high of around 70% which was reached in several polls in the 2000s. BRIN has some time series on religious beliefs at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/#ChangingBelief

Funeral Music

Hymns are gradually being squeezed out of the musicological repertoire at funerals, according to research published by Co-Operative Funeralcare on 15 October 2012, and based on a study of 30,000 funerals conducted by the company (the UK’s largest funeral director) during the past year. In 2005 hymns accounted for 41% of all funeral music requests, but the proportion in 2012 has been reduced to 30%, less than half that of pop music requests. The imbalance might have been even worse, were it not for the fact that one-quarter of funeral homes have had to refuse to play a piece of music on the grounds of taste, usually because clergy conducting the ceremony felt the choice inappropriate. The most popular hymns, in order of frequency of requests, are currently Abide with Me, The Lord is My Shepherd, and All Things Bright and Beautiful. Co-Operative’s press release is at:

http://funeralcarenews.co-operative.coop/branch-news/funeral-survey-charts-the-demise-of-popular-hymns.html

 

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Seasonal Good Intentions

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Clive D. Field

One-quarter of Britons expect to attend a church service over the Christmas period this year, according to a YouGov poll on Christmas commissioned by The Sun newspaper and published in today’s issue under the heading of ‘We’re Dreaming of a Tight Christmas’.

A representative sample of 1,723 adults aged 18 and over was interviewed online on 27-28 November 2011. The full data tables, with breaks by demographics, have been made available at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/90fr0t7zbi/Sun%20Results%20111202%20Christmas.pdf

While 65% do not think they will go to a church service over Christmas, 24% do, broken down into 6% who said they might worship on Christmas Day itself (a Sunday this year), 11% on Christmas Eve, and 7% on another Day around Christmas.

The proportion of putative attenders was identical to a YouGov poll a fortnight before last Christmas. It has varied somewhat since the question was first asked in British public opinion polls in 1964, sometimes reaching two-fifths (albeit not recently).

However, these intentions will often prove aspirational, not translated into reality. Unfortunately, it is hard to know what actually happens since the Church of England is the only major body to collect Christmas attendance data, and then just since 2000.

In an article in the Church of England Newspaper for 11 November 2011, Peter Brierley estimated that the Church of England accounts for 40% of Christmas attendance, rather than its more usual share of 28%. On this basis, he forecast that 11% of the entire population of the UK could be at church this Christmas.

The highest rate of anticipated Christmas churchgoing was found by YouGov among Londoners (35%) and the lowest among manual grades (18%, against 28% for ABC1s), but otherwise there was little variation by sub-group (from 20% to 26%).

Other highlights from this YouGov poll include:

  • 36% anticipated spending less on Christmas presents than last year, 49% about the same, and 10% somewhat more
  • 4% will be spending Christmas Day on their own, 51% with their spouse or partner, 44% with their children, 36% with their parents, and 21% with their siblings
  • 44% will definitely or probably watch the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day
  • 58% will log on to the Internet on Christmas Day (mostly to check email or Facebook)
  • 29% do not find Christmas stressful at all, but 30% get anxious about its cost, 20% about gift-shopping, and 7% about spending time with extended family
  • 25% expected to have a hangover some time over the Christmas period

Meanwhile, a separate TNS survey, carried out online between 29 November and 1 December 2011, has revealed that 21% of a sample of 1,064 adult Britons aged 16-64 plan to go to a carol service this month.

The proportion was higher for women (25%) than men (18%), ABC1s (26%) than C2DEs (14%), parents with children resident in the household (28%) than those without (18%), and for those who were not working (25%) than in employment (19%).

It also increased with age, from 14% among the 16-24s to 27% among the over-55s. Regionally, Scots (16%) and Londoners (13%) were least likely to attend a carol service, with Wales and Western England (29%) and the North-West (25%) scoring highest.

Data tables for the TNS poll are available at:

http://www.tns-ri.co.uk/_assets/files/December_Activity_Tables.pdf

Finally, for now (there will doubtless be other religion-related Christmas polls over the next few weeks), we may note a Christmas survey published by Theos, the think-tank, on 1 December, and based upon online interviews by ComRes with 2.032 adults aged 18 and over on 7-9 October 2011.

Respondents were asked to react to six statements about the meaning of Christmas. One of these was that ‘Christmas is about celebrating that God loves humanity’. 41% agreed with the proposition, 24% disagreed, and 35% were neutral.

Agreement increased with age, from 30% of the 18-24s to 52% of the over-65s. It was greater among women (45%) than men (37%), and public sector workers (42%) than in the private sector (36%). Unsurprisingly, it was much higher among Christians (58%) than those without any religion (12%).

The level of agreement with this statement was much less than the 83% who thought Christmas was about spending time with family and friends, and the 62% who believed it was about being generous to people less fortunate than ourselves.

40% contended that Christmas is a good excuse for taking time off but does not really have any meaning today. Just 19% saw the festival as an opportunity to challenge political oppression around the world and 34% poverty and economic injustice.

The data tables for the ComRes study, undertaken in conjunction with the launch of a new Theos report on The Politics of Christmas by Stephen Holmes (ISBN 978-0-9562182-7-8, £5), can be found at:

http://campaigndirector.moodia.com/Client/Theos/Files/ChristmasPoll.pdf

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Mission Work and Mission Workers

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Clive D. Field

A quantitative profile of mission work and mission workers in 2010 has recently been published by ADBC Publishers, the imprint of Brierley Consultancy, which undertook the underlying research on behalf of ReachAcross (formerly the Red Sea Mission Team), the mission agency devoted to ‘helping Muslims follow Jesus’.

The data derive from a questionnaire sent to 3,000 UK churches, of which more than one-fifth responded. This was not intended to be a statistically representative sample but was skewed towards larger churches (which were more likely to be able to maintain mission workers) and the ‘Affinity’ churches which already supported ReachAcross.

Responding places of worship defined contemporary mission work in terms of three roughly equal categories: spiritual (church planting 17%, discipleship 19%), community development or relief work (33%), and specialist ministries (youth work 17%, medical work 14%).

Not all churches supported mission workers, but, of those which did, the average number of workers was three, ranging from two for churches with Sunday congregations of less than 200 to seven for those with over 350.

The average number of mission agencies supported by the churches was six. 24% supported fewer than three, 32% between three and five, 30% from six to ten, and 14% eleven or more.

88% of the mission workers were partially funded by their supporting church and 6% were fully funded. 6% overall were not financed by their church, rising to one-quarter among long-term workers in their 70s. 83% of churches had a mission budget which averaged 13% of the church’s total income.

17% of the mission workers supported by responding churches were located in the UK, 16% in other parts of Europe, 29% in Africa, 17% in Asia, 9% in Latin America, and 14% in other places.

22% of the mission workers served in an independent capacity on their chosen mission field. The remainder were connected with a mission agency, half of them with a major agency and half with a small and less well-known one.  

20% of the mission workers served in a short-term (less than two years) capacity. They were mostly in their upper teens or twenties, often working overseas during a gap year. The average age of a long-term worker was 46, with the oldest workers tending to be supported by the smallest churches.

Final pastoral authority over mission workers was felt to be exercised by the supporting church in 21% of cases, jointly by the church and the mission agency in 42%, and the mission agency alone in 32%.

Copies of the 16-page pamphlet Mission Workers in the 21st Century by Peter Brierley can be obtained from ReachAcross, PO Box 304, Sevenoaks, TN13 9EL, price £2.60 (inclusive of postage and packing). Cheques should be made payable to ReachAcross.

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UK Church Statistics, 2005-15

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The indefatigable Dr Peter Brierley has done it again! For almost 40 years he has towered over the UK religious statistical scene, authoring a series of influential books and reports aimed at specialist and generalist audiences.

Now we must salute him for pulling another quantitative rabbit out of the hat, in the shape of his UK Church Statistics, 2005-2015 (Tonbridge: ADBC Publishers, 2011, 136pp., ISBN 978-0-9566577-2-5).

At first glance, this densely-printed and sectionalized A4 volume might easily be mistaken as the continuation of the UK Christian Handbook: Religious Trends, seven printed editions of which were produced by Brierley during his time as Director of Christian Research, the last volume in 2008.

In fact, the successor management at Christian Research has its own continuation in the form of Religious Trends Online. This has been making fairly slow progress since its launch six months ago. It is only accessible to paid-up members of Christian Research. See BRIN’s coverage at: http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=815

UK Church Statistics, 2005-2015 is underpinned by a fresh compilation of the number of churches, ministers and members in the UK, conducted by Brierley in mid-2010 by means of a form sent to each denomination, large and small.

Missing data were either estimated from previous figures or repeated from the last edition of Religious Trends, as explained in the notes to each set of tables. In this way, statistics are given for each denomination for each year between 2005 and 2010, with a forecast for 2015, and disaggregated by the four home nations.

Overall, there were 340 Christian denominations in the UK in 2010 (as against 275 four years earlier), with 50,700 churches or congregations (2% more than in 2005), served by 36,600 ministers (4% up on 2005), and with 5,515,000 members.

Membership, as applied by Brierley, is a composite measure, with church attenders substituted for denominations which have no concept of membership (such as Roman Catholics and most New Churches and Pentecostal churches).

Church membership in 2010 was equivalent to 11% of the population, the proportion having declined fairly consistently since 1900 (when Brierley reckons it as 33%). There has been a UK-wide fall of 6% since 2005.

Membership has been static in England between 2005 and 2010, increases in the New Churches, Orthodox churches and Pentecostal churches offsetting decreases in the traditional mainline denominations (with Methodists shrinking fastest).

By contrast, membership in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland fell by 15% during the quinquennium, largely due to decreases in the Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic Church in Northern Ireland.  

UK religious statistics besides churches, ministers and members are also covered more selectively, where available from denominational or other sources. They relate to matters such as church attendance, rites of passage, religious affiliation, religious bookshops and book sales, and examination results in religious studies.

There is a somewhat eclectic section on international religious statistics and a part-section on UK demographic and other social statistics. There are five essays (all by Brierley) on mid-week ministry, Christian conference centres, generations of older people, the Sunday school movement, and the efficacy of youth workers.

A full (1,000-entry) index completes the book. This is an essential tool, given the lack of continuous pagination and the somewhat odd location and juxtaposition of certain items.

Copies of UK Church Statistics, 2005-2015 may be obtained from Brierley Consultancy, The Old Post Office, 1 Thorpe Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent, TN10 4PW for £25. Cheques should be made payable to Peter Brierley. Enquiries can also be sent by email to peter@brierleyres.com.

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Membership of Groups

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Clive D. Field

6% of adult Britons claim to belong to a ‘church group or bible study’, according to a YouGov poll released today, and conducted online among a sample of 2,451 adult Britons on 16 and 17 June 2011 on behalf of The Sunday Times. The full results are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-pol-st-results-17-190611.pdf

Respondents were asked whether they were members of twenty groups or organizations, including the three main political parties. 51% said they belonged to none of them. Trade unions and gyms topped the list (at 12% each), followed by the National Trust (10%), with church groups in fourth position, just ahead of football clubs (5%).

Membership of church groups never reached double figures among any demographic sub-group. The highest (9%) was in Scotland, with public sector employees and current Liberal Democrat voters on 8%, and the 18-24s, over-60s and non-manual workers on 7% each. The smallest numbers were found among the 25-39s (3%), manual workers (4%) and private sector workers (4%).

The meaning of membership was not defined in the question, and ‘church group or bible study’ implies a Christian basis. Also, this type of enquiry tends to encourage exaggeration, with people replying aspirationally. For example, 10% of adults claiming membership of the National Trust points to the organization having 4.7 million members, whereas the reality (in the last National Trust annual report) is exactly a million less.

At the same time, claimed membership of church groups in this poll is lower than Peter Brierley’s estimates of church membership for 2010, 11% of the population aged 15 and over in the UK (9% in England and Wales and 18% in Scotland). However, his statistics incorporate mass attendance for Roman Catholics who have no concept of membership.

Brierley’s data have yet to be published in full. They will appear in his forthcoming book Church Statistics, which we will cover on BRIN when it is published. Meanwhile, there are previews of his figures in his articles in FutureFirst, No. 15, June 2011, pp. 1, 4 and Church of England Newspaper, 10 June 2011, p. 17.

The YouGov poll is naturally relevant within the context of the long-standing counter-assertion to the secularization thesis, that the undisputed decline in church membership and attendance simply mirrors a more general retreat from association and a privatization of society as a whole.

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Concerns for Christians

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The indefatigable Peter Brierley of Brierley Consultancy has just brought out, under his ADBC Publishers imprint, a 24-page synthesis of statistics relating to 21 issues which are likely to be of concern to Christians.

Entitled 21 Concerns for 21st Century Christians, it can be ordered (priced £2, inclusive of postage) from Dr Peter Brierley, The Old Post Office, 1 Thorpe Avenue, Tonbridge, Kent, TN10 4PW. Cheques should be made payable to Peter Brierley.

Each of the concerns is the subject of a single-page article. The sources of data are not given for each article but can often be inferred from the aggregate note about major sources which appears at the beginning of the pamphlet.

The statistics cited go back about twenty years and some are projected until 2020. Several articles deal with church attendance (numbers 1-4, 8, 12, 15), while updated versions of two Brierley ‘old favourites’ – estimates of the religious structure of the British population, meshing religious affiliation with religious practice (number 5) and of church leavers and joiners (number 13) – are naturally good debating points.

Other topics covered comprise the religious implications of immigration (number 6), the growth in other religions (numbers 7, 20), the decline in Christian publishing (number 14), evangelical donors (number 16), and the attributes of church leaders (number 21).

The pamphlet was included with the mailing of the current issue (No. 14, April 2011) of FutureFirst, the bimonthly magazine for subscribers of Brierley Consultancy. The newsletter likewise contains several features worth looking at.

The lead article is on ‘Church Growth and Spiritual Life’ by John Hayward and Leanne Howells of the University of Glamorgan. They use mathematics to model church growth, with special reference to the ‘reproduction potential’ of church ‘enthusiasts’.

They then apply their methods to Church of England data, showing how it has moved from ‘a reproduction potential below the threshold of extinction in 2000’ to a position where it is now ‘close to the revival threshold’. The decline in Anglican churchgoing, it is argued, ‘has slowed in such a way that suggests that its attendance will start increasing slowly again.’

Also in this issue of FutureFirst are preliminary findings from the ‘Christianity and the University Experience in Contemporary England’ project, a three-year study being conducted by the universities of Durham, Derby and Chester.

One fascinating finding is that, while 27% of students claim to be religious, 46% describe themselves as spiritual. Moreover, although roughly half the religious also thought they were spiritual, only a quarter of the spiritual regarded themselves as religious as well.

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