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British Academy Recognition and Other News

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Clive D. Field

BRIN secures British Academy recognition

The British Academy, the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences, announced on 23 July 2014 that BRIN is to be one of fine new Academy Research Projects in the social sciences. Following an open and peer-review-based competition, BRIN has been awarded funding for five years in the first instance, with the potential for further support thereafter. BRIN and the four other projects ‘have been recognised for the excellence of their scholarship, and the promise and exciting nature of their programmes’. The British Academy’s announcement can be found at:

http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/news.cfm/newsid/1123

Ipsos Global Trends Survey, 2014

Britain has often been placed toward the bottom of international league tables of religiosity, and this continues to be the case according to the newly-published inaugural Ipsos MORI Global Trends Survey, 2014. Fieldwork was undertaken online in 20 developed and developing countries in two waves (3-17 September and 1-15 October 2013) among a sample of adults aged 16/18-64 (thereby excluding the over-65s, who tend to be the most religious cohort, as well as the group least likely to use the internet). Britain was ranked sixteenth in terms of identification of its citizens with any religion or faith (57% against the unweighted global mean of 71%), and sixteenth equal for the personal importance of religion/faith (27%, with 64% of Britons saying it was not important to them). It was also fifth equal for agreement with the statement that ‘organised religion is not for me’ (72%, with just 21% dissenting and 7% uncertain). The most consistently religious of the nations investigated were Argentina, Brazil, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States. Topline results can be extracted from the survey website at:

http://www.ipsosglobaltrends.com

Prospects for religious revival

In an important new article, ‘Late Secularization and Religion as Alien’, published on 17 July 2014, Steve Bruce of the University of Aberdeen argues that it is ‘sociologically implausible’ that secularization could be reversed in the UK since there are too many obstacles to ‘religious revival’, whether of Christianity or other creeds. In particular, ‘the shared stock of religious knowledge is small, the public reputation of religion is poor, and religion is carried primarily by populations that are unusual in being drawn either from a narrow demographic or from immigrant peoples’. These ‘carriers of religion’ in the UK have been allegedly reduced to elderly women, residents of rural peripheries, Poles, West Africans, and Muslims, leading to the conclusion that ‘religion is now alien’. ‘Being religious is no longer a characteristic that is thinly but fairly evenly distributed throughout the population: it is concentrated in specific minority populations, which reinforces the sense that religion is what other people do.’ The article is published in Open Theology, Vol. 1, 2014, pp. 13-23 and available for free download at:

http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opth.2014.1.issue/issue-files/opth.2014.1.issue.xml

No religion hotspots

In a recent post on the Nonreligion & Secularity blog, dated 21 July 2014, Katherine Sissons of the University of Oxford explores the potential of DataShine, a data visualization tool developed at University College London, for the study of the distribution of no religion in the 2011 census: ‘“Godless Cities” and “Religious Enclaves”? The Distribution of Religion and Nonreligion in England and Wales’. She cautions against an over-simplistic interpretation of the data, noting that, although there are some apparent no religion urban ‘hotspots’ (such as Brighton and Norwich), religious and non-religious populations are generally not as spatially segregated as is often assumed, with, for example, above average levels of irreligion occurring in several more rural areas, such as large parts of Wales, East Anglia, and the South-West. The post can be read at:

http://blog.nsrn.net/2014/07/21/godless-cities-and-religious-enclaves-the-distribution-of-religion-and-nonreligion-in-england-and-wales/

Churches and social capital

‘The Church in England reaches approximately 10 million people each year through its community activities, even excluding “familiar” church activities – Sunday services, Christmas, Easter, Harvest, baptisms, weddings, and funerals.’ So concludes Paul Bickley in a new report prepared by Theos think tank for the Church Urban Fund: Good Neighbours: How Churches Help Communities Flourish. The report itself is largely based on an analysis of twelve case studies of the work of Church of England congregations in areas of high deprivation but is informed by an online survey from ComRes among 2,024 English adults aged 18 and over between 19 and 21 February 2014.

Respondents in the national study were first asked to select from a list of community activities and services (i.e. delivered by churches, charities, or voluntary organizations, rather than by private companies or the state) those which they or someone in their immediate family had accessed in the last twelve months. Almost half (48%) reported accessing such activities and services and 43% not. Among those who had taken up the provision, 51% recalled that it had come from a church or a church group (the tables fail to clarify how this figure was calculated). Setting aside weddings or funerals, the majority of this voluntary provision was church-based in only six areas: pastoral support for pub- and club-goers (68%), marriage/relationship advice (64%), food banks (56%), community events such as lunch clubs and cafés (56%), assistance of asylum seekers/migrants (55%), and counselling/befriending services (50%). In the other eleven areas secular agencies predominated.

Good Neighbours can be read at:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/PDFs/Research/Good%20Neighbours%20Report-CUF-Theos-2014.pdf

and the ComRes data tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Theos_and_Church_Urban_Fund___Churches_in_the_Community___Final_Data___25th_February_2014.pdf

United Reformed Church statistics

The General Assembly of the United Reformed Church met in Cardiff on 3-6 July 2014, and this provides an opportunity to record its latest Britain-wide statistics, which reveal a pattern of decline characteristic of most of the ‘historic’ Free Churches (the United Reformed Church itself evolved after 1972 as a union of several previous denominations). The following table has been abstracted from:

http://www.urc.org.uk/statistics.html

	2012	2013	% change
Churches	1,512	1,487	-1.7
Active ministers	615	576	-6.3
Retired ministers	900	915	+1.7
Active lay preachers	484	479	-1.0
Serving elders	11,229	10,247	-8.7
Non-serving elders	8,791	8,396	-4.5
Members	61,627	59,077	-4.1
Regular attenders	20,596	19,968	-3.0
Average congregation	61,725	59,828	-3.1
Children associated with Church	44,771	42,076	-6.0
Children worshipping at main service	15,504	15,473	-0.2

Faith and Belief Scotland

Faith and Belief Scotland: A Contemporary Mapping of Attitudes and Provisions in Scotland, by Anthony Allison, is a report on research undertaken in 2013-14 by the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh on behalf of the Equality Unit of the Scottish Government. The project was designed to investigate the compliance of Scottish councils with the Public Sector Equality Duty of The Equality Act 2010 in respect of religion and belief as a protected characteristic. Data-gathering comprised qualitative research in eight council areas and an online national survey completed by 1,407 adults aged 16 and over between December 2013 and March 2014.

Although respondents to the online survey were drawn from all 32 Scottish councils, the method of distribution of the questionnaire (‘through various religion and belief mailing lists and popular social media platforms’) means that the sample cannot be considered as statistically representative. In particular, relative to the results of the 2011 Scottish census, adherents of the Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic Church appear to be seriously under-represented and non-Christians and those professing no religion to be over-represented.

Nevertheless, the 37 questions in the online survey do yield some interesting findings, including the significant number of people who rejected the Equality Act’s definitions of religion (43%) and belief (38%), seemingly because they incorporate the lack, as well as the existence, of religion and belief. It is also noteworthy that only 7% of respondents regarded Scotland as a Christian country, with 33% viewing it as a post-Christian or secular nation, and 60% as a society of many religions and beliefs. In part reflection of this fact, there was a significant amount of discomfort with religious organizations providing schools (47%), adoption (39%), and foster care (38%), while 47% were opposed to state funding of religion or belief groups (with 34% in favour).

The report can be found at:

http://faithandbelief.div.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Faith-and-Belief-Scotland-FINAL-VERSION-OF-REPORT.pdf

An interactive map, permitting analysis of all 37 questions by gender, religion or belief group, and council is at:

http://faithandbelief.div.ed.ac.uk/fabs/

Anti-Semitism

A spike in anti-Semitic incidents in the UK has arisen this month as a direct consequence of the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in much the same way as occurred with the similar conflict in January-February 2009. The Community Security Trust is reporting that the number of incidents in this country is currently running at double the level which would be expected under ‘normal’ circumstances (approximately 100 since 1 July 2014 compared with 58 for the whole of July 2013). Recent YouGov polling (as tabulated below) also indicates that, since Israeli military action commenced on 8 July 2014, Britons have been somewhat and increasingly more sympathetic to the Palestinian than the Israeli cause, although the plurality remains neutral and a substantial minority is undecided.

Sympathize with (%)	13-14/7/14	20-21/7/14	24-25/7/14
Israelis	14	14	14
Palestinians	20	23	27
Neither	40	40	41
Don’t know	26	23	19

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Social Capital, Religious Census, Survey news, visualisation | Tagged alien, Anthony Allison, Anti-Semitism, British Academy, British Religion in Numbers, Church Urban Fund, community activities, ComRes, DataShine, Faith and Belief Scotland, Gaza, importance of religion, Ipsos Global Trends, Ipsos-MORI, Israel, Katherine Sissons, Nonreligion & Secularity, Open Theology, organized religion, Palestinians, Paul Bickley, Public Sector Equality Duty, Religious Affiliation, religious census, religious revival, Scotland, Scottish Government, secularization, Social Capital, Steve Bruce, Theos, United Reformed Church, visualization, YouGov | Leave a comment

Welfare Reform and Other News

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Welfare reform (1)

Recent attacks by church leaders from several denominations on the Coalition Government’s welfare and benefits reform programme seem to be giving the British public pause for thought, according to a YouGov poll for today’s edition of The Sunday Times, for which 2,141 adults were interviewed online on 20-21 February 2014. Asked whether they agreed with the church leaders’ criticisms, which branded the reforms as a ‘disgrace’ and leaving some people at risk of ‘destitution’, opinion was evenly divided, 42% agreeing and 42% disagreeing. Most negative about the Government’s policy were Labour voters (71%) and Scots (57%), while those more inclined to reject the views of the church leaders included Conservative supporters (77%) and residents of southern England outside London (50%). For the full results, see p. 9 of the data tables at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/7ievwsmlza/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140221.pdf

This is not the first intervention about the current Government’s welfare reform programme on the part of church leaders. For BRIN’s previous coverage of public reaction to such intervention, see:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2013/sunday-times-religion-poll-2/ [17 March 2013]

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/lords-spiritual/ [27 January 2012]

Welfare reform (2)

Meanwhile, opinion about the welfare system shows some signs of division along religious lines, according to a ComRes poll conducted online among a sample of 2,027 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 6-8 December 2013. Results were released on 19 February 2014 to coincide with the publication of the latest report from the think-tank Theos, The Future of Welfare, comprising 12 essays introduced and edited by Nick Spencer. The data tables for the survey can be found at:

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

Some of the key findings to emerge from the research include:

Non-Christians are most confident that the welfare state will survive in something like its present nature and scale in 30 years, 45% against 31% for Christians and 28% for people of no faith, the plurality view among the latter groups being that it will survive but in a diminished form.
Christians (75%) take a harder line than non-Christians (63%) or those without religion (60%) in believing that the receipt of welfare benefits should be dependent on prior financial contributions through the tax system, just 19% of Christians disagreeing.
Christians (63%) are also much more likely to disagree with the suggestion that everyone should receive benefits, irrespective of whether they have been paying taxes, this being 10% more than the religiously unaffiliated and 26% more than for non-Christians (51% of whom actually agree with the proposition).
A plurality among people of no faith (49%) do not think that the relatively wealthy should be entitled to some welfare benefits even if they have been paying taxes, whereas both Christians (58%) and non-Christians (53%) deem such entitlement to be perfectly appropriate (albeit 37% of each say not).
Paradoxically, all faith groups (ranging from 64% of those without religion to 70% of Christians) agree that welfare benefits should be a safety net for only the poorest in society.

Of course, such results do not establish any causal effect for religion in shaping views on welfare, and differences are likely to be attributable in the main to underlying demographics, especially of age and social class/wealth. For example, those of no religion will be found disproportionately among younger age cohorts who are, overall, perhaps more economically challenged than their parents’ generation. This may well explain why many of them feel unsympathetic to the relatively wealthy drawing down welfare benefits.

Seven deadly sins

Asked to nominate the worst of the seven ‘deadly sins’ in a recent YouGov poll, a plurality of Britons (43%) replied greed. This sin easily surpassed wrath (18%), sloth (11%), envy (7%), gluttony (5%), lust (3%), and pride (3%). However, when it came to confessing their own one or two worst vices, gluttony and sloth topped the list, at 25% each, followed by pride (19%), wrath (15%), envy (12%), greed (9%), and lust (8%). So, while greed is considered to be the worst sin, it is the one which people are much less likely to own up to themselves. Detailed figures are supposedly available through the link embedded in the YouGov blog post of 20 February 2014, but the link is broken (BRIN has reported it to YouGov), so only the blog is currently available at:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/02/20/greed-deadliest-sin/

Ethnicity and generational change

The first of the 2014 issues of Ethnic and Racial Studies (Vol. 37, No. 1) comprises nine articles on the theme of generational change (between first and second generations) among ethnic minorities in Britain. Several of these essays explore the religious dimension, drawing especially upon the British Election Study Ethnic Minority Survey (EMBES) in which a cross-section of 2,787 ethnic minority respondents was interviewed, face-to-face and by self-completion questionnaire, from 7 May to 31 August 2010. The contributions likely to be of most interest to BRIN readers are:

Lucinda Platt, ‘Is There Assimilation in Minority Groups’ National, Ethnic, and Religious Identity?’ (pp. 46-70). Platt’s principal finding is that there is generational decline on a range of measures of religiosity for all groups with the partial exception of Muslims. This confirms other evidence of a trend of generational assimilation towards majority and away from minority identity and, in a religious sense, could be said to constitute ‘secularization’. Notwithstanding, this is partially qualified by revelations that the second generation of Hindu immigrants prioritized their religious over their ethnic identity, and that perceptions of religious discrimination enhanced common cause among people of the same faith.
Raya Muttarak, ‘Generation, Ethnic, and Religious Diversity in Friendship Choice: Exploring Interethnic Close Ties in Britain’ (pp. 71-98). Muttarak uses pooled data from the 2007-08 and 2008-09 Citizenship Surveys, rather than EMBES. Interethnic friendship patterns are shown to vary significantly by ethnic group, religion, and generation. Ethnic groups sharing similar traits (such as region of origin, race, or religion) were more likely to nominate each other as close friends, although the effect weakened between the first and second generations. In particular, Indian Muslims had a substantially higher chance of having Pakistani close friends than fellow Indians of other religious persuasions. However, black Christians (Caribbean and African) had a higher likelihood of having white British close friends than did other blacks.
Siobhan McAndrew and David Voas, ‘Immigrant Generation, Religiosity, and Civic Engagement in Britain’ (pp. 99-119). Mainly using EMBES (other surveys are drawn upon), but analysing for an intermediate (1.5) as well as first and second generations, intergenerational secularization is found across ethnic minority groups, as measured by private religious practice (especially) and religious salience. At the same time, communal religious practice appeared robust to generational decline, apart from black Caribbeans. While immigrant religiosity failed to foster generalized social trust, it is revealed to promote greater civic integration and volunteering.
Sin Yi Cheung, ‘Ethno-Religious Minorities and Labour Market Integration: Generational Advancement or Decline?’ (pp. 140-60). EMBES is used to examine four labour market outcomes: economic activity, unemployment, access to salaried jobs, and self-employment. The second generation of immigrants showed little advancement in these outcomes relative to the first generation. Substantial ethno-religious ‘penalties’ persisted for all of the outcomes except self-employment, and there was a particularly strong ‘religious penalty’ among Muslim women.
Anthony Heath and Neli Demireva, ‘Has Multiculturalism Failed in Britain?’ (pp. 161-80). Analysis of EMBES, again incorporating a 1.5 generation, demonstrates that all ethno-religious groups have displayed major change across the generations in the direction of a British identity and a reduced social distance, which can co-exist with positive orientations toward their own ethnic culture (as reflected in in-group marriage and friendship). Only a small minority of respondents had taken a separatist position, rejecting a British identity and espousing ‘radical’ socio-political positions. No evidence was found that rates of intergenerational change had been slower among groups that had made successful claims for cultural recognition (such as Sikhs and Muslims). In contrast, lower levels of integration were associated with perceptions of individual or group discrimination.

For abstracts and access options for all these articles, go to:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rers20/37/1#.UwOlUjZFDX4

BMRB turns 80

The British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) is celebrating its eightieth birthday year, laying claim to ‘the longest continuous heritage of any social research company in Britain’. It was established in 1933 as the research arm of advertising agency J. Walter Thompson but quickly shifted emphasis away from commercially oriented research, winning its first contract with the Government in 1939. In 1987 it joined the WPP Group which bought out TNS in 2009, resulting in the creation of TNS BMRB as one of the three constituent companies in the Kantar Group, WPP’s insight, information, and consulting division. TNS Omnibus is a separate company which powers TNS BMRB’s Public Opinion Monitor. Compared to, say, the Gallup Poll (now effectively defunct in Britain), BMRB has not been a major player in religion-related survey research. However, you will find around 30 entries in the BRIN source database where BMRB was responsible for the fieldwork, including the 1963 Political Change in Britain study for David Butler and Donald Stokes, which was the forerunner of the British Election Studies.

Posted in Historical studies, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Anthony Heath, benefits, British Election Study Ethnic Minority Survey, British Market Research Bureau, church leaders, Citizenship Survey, ComRes, David Voas, EMBES, Ethnic and Racial Studies, ethnic minorities, friends, generational change, government, Immigration, integration, labour market, Lucinda Platt, Neli Demireva, Raya Muttarak, secularization, seven deadly sins, Sin Yi Cheung, Siobhan McAndrew, Sunday Times, Theos, TNS-BMRB, welfare reform, YouGov | Leave a comment

Religious Vote and Other News

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Is there a religious vote?

A religious vote continues to exist in Britain, particularly as regards disproportionate Anglican and Jewish preferences for the Conservative Party and Catholic and Muslim preferences for the Labour Party. However, the association between religion and politics is by no means straightforward nor consistently strong (and probably weaker than yesteryear). It is also shaped by other socio-economic factors (notably class), and it is not necessarily driven by the saliency of religious or moral issues. Theo-political alignments certainly seem to be less powerful in Britain than the well-researched religious vote in the United States, albeit the latter can sometimes be exaggerated. These are some of the impressions left from a reading of the latest Theos report, published on 24 January 2014, by Ben Clements (University of Leicester) and Nick Spencer (Theos) on Voting and Values in Britain: Does Religion Count? It can be downloaded from:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/publications/2014/01/24/voting-and-values-in-britain-does-religion-count

This 123-page book, which packs in no fewer than 66 figures and 22 tables, is underpinned by secondary analysis of the British Election Studies from 1964 (including the special surveys of ethnic minorities in 1997 and 2010) and the British Social Attitudes Surveys since 2000. Its first two chapters map religious affiliation and attendance to voting yesterday (at 14 general elections between 1959 and 2010) and today (2010 and beyond, albeit omitting the recent large-scale polls by Lord Ashcroft, doubtless because he does not differentiate between Christian denominations). The third to fifth chapters map the same factors to three scales of political values (left versus right; libertarian versus authoritarian; and welfarist versus individualist), while an appendix presents the results of multivariate analysis of vote choice at the 2010 general election (drawing on the special internet panel of voters).

The findings and arguments of this work are (commendably) too nuanced and granular to restate here. Nobody could accuse the authors of over-simplification or of unevidenced assertions, such is the care with which the analysis and interpretation have been undertaken. They even resist a speculation about the likely effects on political behaviour and values of the progressive collapse of Anglican nominalism and rise of people of no religion. Consideration of the latter would have been especially interesting as they document a shift from libertarianism to authoritarianism among the ‘nones’ during the past decade. The book contains no overarching conclusion, although chapters 1 and 2 have separate summaries and conclusions, and the executive summary extends to 11 pages, reflecting the wide range of statistics.

Given all this complexity, by way of an appetizer, we confine ourselves to reproducing below a reformulated table 1.1 (p. 35) which shows average party vote share (in percentages) by religious group for all general elections between 1959 and 2010, calculated from the British Election Studies:

	Conservative	Labour	Liberal/ Liberal Democrat
Anglicans	47.8	35.5	15.4
Catholics	31.1	54.3	12.8
Nonconformists	41.5	36.9	19.3
Church of Scotland/Presbyterian	37.9	37.3	13.3
No religion	32.6	43.2	19.9

A Theos press release about the report, also issued on 24 January, offers a more bite-size overview under the heading ‘Anglicans are still “Tory Party at Prayer” but Muslims are Labour’s to Lose’. In it Spencer is quoted as saying that the report demonstrates that ‘religious block votes do not exist in Britain as many claim they do in America.’ On the other hand, he adds, ‘there are clear and significant alignments between various religious and political camps, of which politicians should be aware. At a time when mass party membership, political ideology and party tribalism are at a low ebb, we should pay attention to the big political values that shape our voting behaviour.’ The press release is at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2014/01/24/anglicans-are-still-aotory-party-at-prayerao-but-muslims-are-labouraos-to-lose

Disestablishment of the Church of England

Clements and Spencer have also taken a fresh look at ‘Public Opinion in Britain towards the Disestablishment of the Church of England’ in the FirstView edition of their article for the Journal of Anglican Studies, published online on 17 January 2014, and available for non-subscribers to rent or purchase. The paper derives from responses to the question about the Church of England’s continuing establishment asked in the Alternative Vote Referendum Study in Spring 2011, the importance of which Clements has already flagged up in his BRIN post of 21 May 2012. The sample is a very large one (n = 22,124 for Britain and 18,556 for England), thereby permitting a very detailed analysis.

Overall, 56% in England agreed that the Church of England should keep its status as the official established Church, with 15% disagreeing, and 29% neutral or undecided. The figures for Britain were 54%, 16%, and 31% respectively. Respondents most supportive of disestablishment were found to be men, residents of Scotland, those with degree-level education, Liberal Democrat identifiers and others with left-wing and liberal policy preferences, and readers of The Guardian. No significant differences by age group were discovered, despite generational variations in religious belonging, beliefs, and practice evident in other surveys. A limitation of the data source is that no information was gathered about religious affiliation, so religion is the one variable which cannot be controlled for. The article can be accessed at:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9151959&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S1740355313000399

Attitudes to the burka

Last summer and autumn we reported on a series of new polls of public attitudes to the wearing of the burka and full face-veil (niqab) by Muslim women in Britain. The issue is also live in several other Western countries, and the ethical, political, and legal dimensions of the matter are explored in a collection of French-language essays published on 16 January 2014: Quand la burqa passe à l’ouest: enjeux éthiques, politiques et juridiques, edited by David Koussens and Olivier Roy (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, ISBN 978-2-7535-2844-4, 280pp., €20). The chapters are a mixture of generic discussion and individual case studies, of France (particularly), Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy, and Quebec. The former include a digest of multinational polling about the burka and attitudes to Muslims in general by Ben Clements: ‘La burqa dans l’opinion publique des sociétés occidentales’ (pp. 39-52). It comprises 11 tables, with commentary, drawn from: Pew Global Attitudes Surveys in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011; European Values Surveys in 1990, 1999, and 2008; and Harris Interactive polls in 2006 and 2010. The discussion mostly centres on Britain, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. A brief conclusion highlights some distinctive characteristics of French and American public opinion.

Counting blessings

The Church of England appears to be in research overdrive at the moment. Following the release on 16 January 2014 of key findings from its 18-month Church Growth Research Programme, two more studies were published last week. First, on 20 January, to coincide with ‘Blue Monday’ (often considered as the most depressing day of the entire year), the Church issued a press release encouraging people to ‘count your blessings’, informed by new YouGov online polling which the Church had commissioned among 2,084 Britons on 10-13 January. The survey revealed that only one in ten adults never ‘count their blessings’, in the sense of feeling grateful or lucky when reviewing their life situation, while a majority (51%) count them at least once a week, including 59% of women and the over-55s and 60% of the retired. Family and/or partner (53%) is deemed to be the single most important factor when counting blessings, followed by health (15%). No option was given to mention faith or religion as a blessing in its own right, nor to acknowledge that ‘blessings’ might have a supernatural origin, along the lines of Johnson Oatman’s famous hymn of 1897, which invited its hearers and singers to acknowledge ‘what the Lord hath done’. The Church’s press release, including a link to YouGov’s full data table, is at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2014/01/count-your-blessings-on-blue-monday,-says-cofe.aspx

Credit unions

Then, on 22 January 2014 the Church Urban Fund (CUF) published a preliminary research report on credit unions: Money Speaks Louder than Words: Credit Unions and the Role of the Church in Tackling Financial Exclusion. The Church has been advocating a greater role for credit unions to combat the social evils which are seen to stem from the rapid growth of the payday lending sector and is encouraging churchgoers to invest some of their savings in such unions. To test churchgoers’ experience of and attitudes to credit unions, the Church commissioned two pieces of research: a quantitative study of 385 churchgoers of all denominations aged 16-75 who worshipped at least once a year (among them 200 attending at least once a month), interviewed online by Ipsos MORI in December 2013; and six focus groups involving 54 regular Anglican churchgoers.

Among the Ipsos MORI panel past or present membership of credit unions by all churchgoers was found to be very low (5%), with only 22% feeling they knew a great deal or fair amount about such unions, and less than one-quarter willing to consider joining a credit union in future, even after they had been given a brief explanation of how the unions function. At the same time, 83% of churchgoers agreed that payday loans exploit those who cannot access other forms of credit, and around one-half that the Churches should engage with credit unions in some way. Overall conclusions drawn by CUF from the quantitative and qualitative research were that churchgoers: think there is a need to develop a more ethical financial system; are positive about credit unions in principle but have some concerns; and believe the Churches should help the credit union sector to grow. The report can be read at:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/money-speaks

Religious gypsies

On 21 January 2014 the Office for National Statistics published a report on What does the 2011 Census Tell Us about the Characteristics of Gypsy or Irish Travellers in England and Wales? The 2011 census represented the first time that the ethnic group question had included a dedicated tick box for the white ethnic sub-group of gypsy or Irish traveller (which is recognized under the Equality Act 2010), and, in the event, 58,000 people identified themselves as such in the census (albeit this figure is lower than previous estimates). The report itself makes only a couple of brief references to the religious affiliation of the gypsy or Irish traveller community, but fortunately the detail can be calculated from Table DC2201EW, showing ethnic group by religion, which has been available for some time.

Summary data (in percentages) are presented in the table below, from which it will be seen that the proportion of Christians among gypsies and Irish travellers was much the same as in the white population overall, but that 4.6% less professed no religion and 2.4% more declined to answer the question. The lower figure for ‘nones’ is especially interesting in that the median age of gypsies and Irish travellers in 2011 was 13 years less than in England and Wales (26 versus 39), and that ‘nones’ generally tend to be concentrated among younger cohorts. The predominance of Christians is unsurprising. Historically, there were quite close links between gypsies and Christian evangelism in Britain, explored in a 2003 book by David Lazell, with Gypsy Smith one of the most famous revivalists of the early twentieth century.

	Gypsy or Irish Traveller	All white people	All persons
Christian	64.1	63.9	59.3
Buddhist	0.7	0.2	0.4
Hindu	0.2	0.0	1.5
Jewish	0.4	0.5	0.5
Muslim	0.7	0.4	4.8
Sikh	0.2	0.0	0.8
Other religion	1.4	0.4	0.4
No religion	22.7	27.3	25.1
Not stated	9.6	7.2	7.2

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Alternative Vote Referendum Study, Ben Clements, British Election Studies, British Social Attitudes Surveys, Burka, census of population, Church of England, Church Urban Fund, counting blessings, credit unions, disestablishment. European Values Surveys, gypsies, Ipsos-MORI, Irish travellers, Islamophobia, Journal of Anglican Studies, Muslims, Nick Spencer, Olivier Roy, Pew Global Attitudes Surveys, political values, politics, Religious Affiliation, religious dress, Theos, voting, YouGov | Leave a comment

Things Unseen and Other News

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The latest report from Theos heads the list of seven religious statistical news stories today, comprising a further attempt by the think-tank to explore the spiritual hinterland which lays beyond institutional religion and to counter the picture of unrelenting secularization of British society.

Things unseen

‘For all that formalised religious belief and institutionalised religious belonging has declined over recent decades, the British have not become a nation of atheists or materialists. On the contrary, a spiritual current runs as, if not more, powerfully through the nation than it once did.’ So begins the latest report from the Theos think-tank, The Spirit of Things Unseen: Belief in Post-Religious Britain, published on 17 September 2013 alongside the data tables from the ComRes poll which underpins it (2,036 Britons aged 18 and over being interviewed online on 4 and 5 September 2013). The research, which was sponsored by CTVC as background for a new podcast venture, develops arguments originally advanced by Theos in its 2012 report The Faith of the Faithless (which covered England alone).

The Spirit of Things Unseen (28pp.) can be viewed at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Reports/Spirit%20of%20Things%20-%20Digital%20(update).pdf

and the data tables (34pp., including breaks by gender, age, social grade, employment sector, region, religious affiliation, and educational attainment) at:

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

Headline findings are:

77% agree that there are things in life that cannot be explained through science or other means
34% believe that people’s thoughts can be influenced by spiritual forces, 27% events in the human world can be so influenced, and 23% events in the natural world
59% believe in one or more of the following spiritual beings: God as a universal life force (30%), spirits (30%), angels (25%), the devil (14%), God as a personal being (13%), a higher spiritual being that cannot be called God (12%), demons (10%), or Jinns (3%) – 30% are sceptics
76% believe in one or more of the following: the soul (39%), life after death (32%), heaven (26%), reincarnation (16%), hell (13%), or the power of deceased ancestors (13%)
39% have undergone one or more of the following: tarot card reading (23%), star signs reading (17%), reflexology session (12%), Reiki session (8%), aura reading (6%), healing with crystals (5%), or Ayurveda session (1%)
11% have visited a spiritual or faith healer or a religious leader who specializes in praying for the sick
38% believe that prayer can heal people (but 50% do not)
17% consider prayer to be effectual in bringing about change, 51% in creating a sense of peace, while 17% feel that prayer does not work in any way
55% pray sometimes (21% at least weekly, 34% occasionally), and the rest not at all
17% perceive miracles as the result of divine intervention in nature and 42% as unusual events that cannot be explained by science, while 30% say they do not exist and are simply examples of coincidence or luck
16% have either personally experienced, or know somebody who has experienced, a miracle

Analysis by religion mostly shows that, while the religious often give the most spiritual responses, smaller but still significant numbers of the avowedly non-religious do so, also. This is particularly so in the case of ‘alternative’ practices, where there is no real difference between the religious and non-religious. On the other hand, there is a wide gap between the two groups when it comes to ‘traditional’ practices, such as prayer. Neither is it the elderly who consistently and disproportionately opt for spiritual answers. Women tend to be more spiritual in their replies than men.

The spiritual beings and beliefs questions do not seem wholly satisfactory, being too compressed. More generally, it could be argued that Theos might have been better served by replicating at least a few questions from earlier surveys, which would have had the advantage of facilitating comparisons over time. As it is, the hint (dropped several times in the report) that what is essentially a single survey snapshot might suggest that Britain is actually becoming more spiritual is evidentially unproven and thus unconvincing. As such, the debate about the current and future religious state of the nation seems set to run and run.

Storm in a bed and breakfast cup

The long-running legal case of husband and wife Peter and Hazelmary Bull versus Martin Hall and Steve Preddy moved to the Supreme Court on 9 and 10 October 2013, more than five years after the incident which gave rise to it. The Bulls are devout Christians and owners of a B&B in Cornwall, who had refused a double room to Hall and Preddy (a homosexual couple in a civil partnership), on grounds of religious conscience. A County Court in 2011 had originally found the Bulls in breach of the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 and awarded damages to Hall and Preddy. A subsequent appeal by the Bulls to the Court of Appeal was dismissed last year. No date has yet been fixed for a hand-down of judgment by the Supreme Court.

To coincide with the Supreme Court phase of the case, Lancaster University issued a press release on 9 October 2013 reporting the findings of two questions about the case which had been added to the second of the YouGov surveys commissioned by Professor Linda Woodhead for the 2013 Westminster Faith Debates, 4,018 Britons having been interviewed online on 5-13 June 2013. The ‘bad news’ in this poll for the Bulls is that a majority of adults (57%) do not believe that B&B owners should be allowed to discriminate against guests on the basis of the latters’ sexual orientation, and this includes a majority or plurality of all major religious groups (for example, 52% of Anglicans and 51% of Catholics). Even the most certain believers in God are anti-discrimination (49%), although 53% of weekly churchgoers are pro-discrimination. The better news for the Bulls is that a plurality (49% against 40%) think it wrong that they were ordered to pay damages. Lancaster’s press release, which has been covered by the Church Times (11 October 2013, p. 6) and The Tablet (12 October 2013, p. 28) is at:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/uploads/docs/2013_10/1381315862_Christian_B&B_poll_Press_Release.pdf

Contemporary British Jewry

‘British Jews place a premium on communal belonging, albeit without an excess of piety or religiosity. They hold conservative political loyalties balanced by some liberal social views.’ So conclude sociologists Professor Linda Woodhead and Professor Steven Cohen in their analysis of the 318 self-identifying British Jews interviewed for the two YouGov polls which Woodhead commissioned for this year’s Westminster Faith Debates, with online fieldwork on 25-30 January and 5-13 June 2013. Their article, ‘Who do we think we are? Here are the facts’, contains comparisons with other religious groups in Britain and with American Jews. It was published in the print edition (p. 2) of the Jewish Chronicle for 11 October 2013 and in the online edition at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/112220/new-surveys-shed-light-who-we-are

Clergy stress

Stress among the clergy has been the subject of serious sociological and psychological study for over a quarter of a century, one of the earliest empirical surveys being Ben Fletcher’s Clergy under Stress (1990). In preparation for its Building Resilience symposium (in London on 15 October and York on 17 October 2013), St Luke’s Healthcare for the Clergy commissioned Christian Research to poll 492 ordained UK clergy in August 2013, some results being published in a press release on 23 September 2013. It is assumed (but not explicitly stated) that respondents were members of Christian’s Research’s online panel, Resonate. Asked how they felt in themselves, 37% of clergy replied ‘positive and energized’, 50% said they had more good days than bad, but 12% admitted to struggling or barely coping. Although 58% had rarely or never considered giving up their role in the Church, 33% had done so occasionally, and 8% often or very frequently. Over half (53%) had never received training to understand or manage stress, with all but 23% willing to take up one or more resources to help in this regard. For further details, follow the ‘Building Resilience symposium press release’ link at:

http://www.stlukeshealthcare.org.uk/publications

Bishops’ office and working costs

On 7 October 2013 the Church Commissioners published a 13-page report on the office and working costs of the Church of England’s 113 diocesan and suffragan bishops for the year ending 31 December 2012. They amounted to £18.1 million, representing an increase of 6% over the 2011 figure. Staff were the biggest single expenditure (50%), albeit their costs grew by less than average (4%). Costs are itemized for each individual bishop, as they have been for the past 12 years, 28 of them (among them the two archbishops) actually returning a lower figure in 2012 than for 2011. On the other hand, expenditure by the Bishops of Leicester and Southwark was up in cash terms by over £50,000. Additional to these office and working costs, stipends and employer’s national insurance and pension contributions for bishops came to £5.5 million, with a further £4.7 million spent on maintaining the houses, office premises, and gardens of the archbishops and diocesan bishops (including Lambeth Palace). The grand total of central expenditure on Church of England bishops in 2012 was, therefore, £28.3 million, but this still excludes the housing costs of suffragan bishops, which are met by dioceses. The report is available at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1862748/bishops%20office%20and%20working%20costs%202012.pdf

Scottish Methodist lay preachers

Right from its origins in the eighteenth century, Methodism has been dependent upon the voluntary efforts of local (lay) preachers to conduct many of its worship services, and this remains the case today. Indeed, in Scotland the proportion of services at which they officiated rose from 31% in 1996 to 39% in 2010, partly in reflection of a 31% reduction in ordained ministers in Scotland over the same period. These Scottish local preachers (both ‘fully accredited’ and ‘on trial’) are increasingly women, 39% in 1996 and 47% in 2010. They are also a progressively elderly group, with mean ages of 55 in 1996 and 64 in 2011, and with a corresponding fall in the number in full-time paid employment. In line with society, formal education levels of local preachers continue to improve, those with first or higher degrees growing from 47% in 1996 to 58% in 2011. In addition to taking preaching appointments, local preachers hold other offices in Methodism (especially church council member), while their principal leisure pursuits are reading, sport, walking, music, and gardening. These details are taken from John Sawkins, ‘Methodist Local Preachers in Scotland: Characteristics and Deployment, 1996 and 2011’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Vol. 59, No. 3, October 2013, pp. 89-101.

Quaker membership statistics

Finally, an ‘overdue’ item. The 2013 Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain took place on 24-27 May, and one of the sequence of ‘documents in advance’ was a 12-page ‘tabular statement’ of membership for the year ending 31 December 2012. In total there were 478 local meetings with 13,906 members, of whom 37.4% were men, 62.3% women, and 0.3% children under 16. Member incomings during the year numbered 535, of which 66.5% were by application and 33.5% by certificate (i.e. transfer from Britain or another Yearly Meeting). Outgoings amounted to 726 (191 more than incomings), of which 33.1% were through termination of membership, 44.6% by death, and 22.3% by certificate. The Quaker death rate for the year was 23 per 1,000, well above the national average, and thus suggesting an ageing membership. Besides members, there were 8,681 attenders and 2,004 children recognized as connected with Quaker meetings but not in membership. On p. 11 will be found a record of Britain Yearly Meeting membership, disaggregated by sex, quinquennially from 1935 to 1970 and annually thereafter. Membership has not fallen so severely as for other historic Free Churches, only by 28.0% over these 77 years. The tabular statement is at:

http://www.quaker.org.uk/files/Tabular-statement-2013-web.pdf

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Bishops, Britain Yearly Meeting, Christian Research, Church Commissioners, Church of England, clergy, ComRes, CTVC, discrimination, finance, God, Hazelmary Bull, healing, homosexuality, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, John Sawkins, Linda Woodhead, local preachers, Martin Hall, membership, Methodist Church, miracles, office costs, Peter Bull, prayer, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society, Quakers, Religious Society of Friends, Scotland, spiritual forces, spirituality, St Luke’s Healthcare for the Clergy, Steve Preddy, Steven Cohen, stress, Supreme Court, Theos, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | Leave a comment

Pope Benedict Departs and Other News

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Benedict XVI leaves the papal office today following his resignation earlier in the month, and it is fitting that he should be the lead story in our latest BRIN post. This mostly derives from YouGov’s February 2013 Eurotrack survey, but space has been found for a couple of miscellaneous items, too.

Pope Benedict departs

YouGov has taken the opportunity of Benedict XVI’s departure to ask the publics of six Western European countries (Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden) how they rate his pontificate. Questions were included in the regular online Eurotrack undertaken between 21 and 27 February 2013, with 1,704 Britons aged 18 and over being interviewed (among them 117 professed Roman Catholics). Results have been disaggregated by religious affiliation within country (but not by other demographics) at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/auqvjc212x/Eurotrack-February-2013.pdf

A press release about the survey has also been issued and can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/onzs1ox195/Pope_press_release.pdf

Asked whether Benedict had been right or wrong to resign as pope, 68% of Britons said right, similar to Denmark (67%), but lower than in Finland (71%), Sweden (72%), France (75%), and Germany (82%). In Britain 77% of the religious contended that he had made the right decision, including 79% of Catholics, compared with 64% of the religiously unaffiliated (29% of whom did not know what to think). Only 8% of Britons said that Benedict had been wrong to resign.

When it came to assessing how well or badly Benedict had done during his eight years as pope, a plurality of Britons (41%) expressed no view, with 36% thinking he had done well, and 23% badly. The positive figure was better than Sweden (18%), Denmark (24%), and France (33%), but nowhere near as good as in Germany (52%, the country from which he hails). Benedict’s performance was rated as good by 72% of British Catholics, 50% of all those professing a religion, 28% of non-Christians, and 26% of people without faith.

On specific aspects of his pontificate, Benedict was often judged to have been too conservative and to have changed things too little. In Britain 43% said that this had been true of theological issues such as women priests; 47% of moral issues such as birth control, abortion, and homosexuality; and 33% of social issues such as wealth and poverty. Catholics were as inclined to reach this verdict as the rest of the population. Otherwise, a principal difference by religious affiliation was the large number of ‘don’t knows’ to be found among non-Christians and those without religion.

In terms of Benedict’s political clout, only 9% of Britons considered that leading politicians in Britain had paid a great deal or a fair amount of notice to the views of Benedict and the British Catholic hierarchy, less than in Germany (33%) or France (18%), but fractionally more than in the Scandinavian countries. The overwhelming majority of Britons (71%), and even 78% of British Catholics, accepted that politicians had paid little or no notice to the pope and his bishops. Moreover, three-fifths of all Britons and 72% of the irreligious thought that politicians had been right not to have taken such notice, albeit 57% of Catholics disagreed.

More generally, respondents were asked whether four groups of religious leaders play a positive or negative role in the life of each country. In Britain (as can be seen from the table, below) a majority in three cases and a plurality in the other selected neither of these options, replying instead that they did not know or that the leaders made a limited impact on national life or that their role was equally positive and negative.

	Positive	Negative	Other
Protestant bishops and archbishops	21	22	57
Roman Catholic bishops and archbishops	16	33	51
Leading Jewish rabbis	19	17	64
Leading Muslim clerics	10	44	46

Among those expressing a clear opinion, Roman Catholic and Muslim leaders were especially seen in a critical light. Not unexpectedly, people who espoused a religion tended to be disproportionately more positive about religious leaders and the irreligious disproportionately more negative; however, when it came to Muslim leaders, both religious and irreligious were similarly negative. Catholics were most positive about their own bishops and archbishops.

On the characteristics of the next pope, many Britons could not get hugely exercised. They became most animated (in the sense of 44% saying they would be delighted) at the prospect of a pope who wanted to permit Catholic couples to use contraception. The proportion expressing delight at other scenarios was: a pope who advocated much stronger action to redistribute money within countries from rich to poor (24%); a pope who advocated that rich countries should spend far more on overseas aid (17%); a pope from Africa (11%); and a pope from South America (9%).

Religion and the current politico-economic situation

The YouGov Eurotrack study also included questions about current political and economic issues in Europe, the answers to which will be of interest to BRIN readers because they have been broken down by religious affiliation. Here we report on some of those for Britain alone, albeit the same level of detail is also available for the other five countries included in the survey.

Although most Britons (60%) disapprove of the Coalition Government’s record to date, the proportion is notably higher among those without a religion (65%) than those who profess some faith (56%), apart from Roman Catholics (68%, whose politics tend to be left-of-centre – see the next item, on the religious right). There is a corresponding gap in approval ratings of the Government: 32% by the religious (rising to 35% of non-Catholic Christians) and 20% of the faithless, with a national mean of 24%.

These judgments on the Government do not appear to correlate with perceived changes to the financial situation of respondents’ households during the previous twelve months. Whereas the religious are relatively more positive about the Government than the irreligious, it is the former whose households have suffered most: 60% reported that their finances had worsened a lot or a little against 51% of the religiously unaffiliated, with the number observing an improvement standing at 9% and 12% respectively.

On Britain’s membership of the European Union, people without religion (41%) were more likely than those with (33%) to say that they would vote in favour of continuing membership, in the event of a referendum being held, the national average being 36%. Nationally, 42% stated that they would vote to leave the European Union, comprising 49% of the religious and 38% of the irreligious. Among the religious, Catholics were most in favour of leaving (55%) and non-Christians the least (34%, with 43% wishing to stay in membership).

Naturally, it cannot be assumed that this spread of opinions is solely the function of the religion/irreligion factor, which is the only variable to be included in the YouGov tables. We know from other surveys that both religion and politics are independently impacted by secular demographics, and they will doubtless explain some of the variance noted above.

Religious right

In a new report from the Theos think-tank, Andy Walton (with Andrea Hatcher and Nick Spencer) asks Is There a ‘Religious Right’ Emerging in Britain? The question is answered in the negative, in the sense of there not being an American-style religious right at present, and the judgment being that there is little chance of one developing in the immediate future. Part of the evidence base for this conclusion is a ‘brief foray’ (pp. 34-45) into relevant social surveys, particularly the British Social Attitudes Surveys and the British Election Studies, although some use is also made of BRIN.

The findings which the authors particularly highlight are: a) the number of committed Christians in Britain is a relatively small proportion of the electorate, particularly in terms of evangelicals and Catholics, who form the backbone of the US religious right; b) only 9% of Britons with a religious affiliation say religion is very important in making political decisions, with less fixation with some of the specific issues which dominate the US political scene; and c) practising believers, albeit socially conservative, disproportionately espouse economic views which are left-of-centre, especially among Catholics. Is There a ‘Religious Right’ Emerging in Britain? can be found at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Reports/IS%20THERE%20A%20RELIGIOUS%20RIGHT%20(NEW).pdf

Religion and education

The December 2012 issue (Vol. 33, No. 3) of Journal of Beliefs & Values is a special number, guest-edited by Elisabeth Arweck and Robert Jackson, devoted to religion and education. Specifically, it comprises a dozen articles reporting research projects which have been funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme. Although the majority of contributions are of a qualitative nature, several authors deploy quantitative methods to varying degrees. From this standpoint, BRIN readers will probably be most interested in the two articles on young people’s attitudes to religious diversity by Leslie Francis and members of his research group (pp. 279-92, 293-307), which apply techniques from the psychology of religion and empirical theology. The papers include details of the theoretical underpinning, design and scope, and preliminary results of a study of approximately 10,000 years 9 and 10 pupils (aged 13-15) in state-maintained secondary schools in London, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. They report, respectively, on interim datasets of 3,020 and 5,993 cases.

An interesting revelation from the first paper is that ‘a negative view of Muslims is more prevalent among secular young people than among young people who are practising members of Christian churches. In this sense, Christianity is seen to promote acceptance, not rejection, of adherents of Islam.’ The second article illustrates how empathic capacity (in terms of attitudes to other religious groups) is more strongly related to God images than to religious affiliation or religious attendance. Secular factors (such as gender, neuroticism, and psychoticism) also make a difference in predicting the empathy of individuals. For titles, abstracts, and access options for all the articles in this special issue, go to:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjbv20/33/3

Posted in Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Andrea Hatcher, Andy Walton, Coalition Government, conservatism, Denmark, education, Elisabeth Arweck, European Union, Eurotrack, Finland, France, Germany, household finances, Islam, Jewish leaders, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Leslie Francis, Muslim clerics, Nick Spencer, politicians, politics, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion and Society Programme, Religious Affiliation, Religious diversity, religious leaders, religious right, Robert Jackson, Roman Catholic Church, secondary schools, Sweden, Theos, YouGov, young people | Leave a comment

Religious Census 2011 – Initial Responses

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Herewith an initial trawl of statements by interested parties about the results from the religion question in the 2011 census of population of England and Wales. All the statements were published on 11 or 12 December 2012. No claim is made that this is a comprehensive list.

Church of England (Arun Arora)

‘These results confirm that we remain a faithful nation. England remains a country where the majority of the nation actively identifies the role that faith plays in their life. Clearly we welcome the fact that Christianity remains the most populous faith in England – with six in ten people identifying themselves as Christian. When all faiths are taken together, people of faith account for two-thirds of the nation … Obviously the fall in those choosing to identify themselves as Christians is a challenge. We need to look closely at the fuller figures published next year and to reflect on what these tell us. One of the reasons may well be fewer people identifying as “Cultural Christians” i.e. those who have no active involvement with churches and who may previously have identified as Christian for cultural or historical reasons. They indicate a changing pattern of religious life in which traditional or inherited identities are less taken for granted than they used to be. The work of the Church of England is not limited to those who declare Christian affiliation. As a Church we continue to serve people of all faiths and none …’

http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2012/12/census-2011.aspx

Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales

‘The overall decrease in the number of self-identifying Christians is consistent with recent social attitude and social value surveys. While this is a challenge, the fact that six out of 10 people in England and Wales self-identify as Christians is not discouraging. Christianity is no longer a religion of culture but a religion of decision and commitment. People are making a positive choice in self-identifying as Christians. While precise figures are difficult to determine, polling shows that the Catholic population has remained consistent at 9% of the total population for many years … Catholics play a full part in the country’s social and cultural mix, serving the common good.’

http://catholic-ew.org.uk/Home/News-Releases/2011-Census

Methodist Church of Great Britain (Martyn Atkins)

‘These figures are a challenge to the Churches and reflect how British society has changed. But we are not discouraged. We are excited to be Christians in part of an increasingly diverse, multi-faith society and we believe that British society is enriched by this mix. It has always been clear to Methodists that the Church exists not only for those who say they belong to it, but those who don’t. We rejoice when Churches are growing, but we also rejoice when we can share with others in transforming our world and our communities for good. The numbers of people that attend worship on Sundays and on special occasions like Christmas are important, but they only show a small part of the picture. Churches remain committed to making a difference to many more people’s lives through the wider activities of our communities, in church groups, fresh expressions, work in schools and places of community through volunteering, chaplaincies, being street pastors and good neighbours … The Census results mean we need to think and act smarter in seeking to be good witnesses to Jesus Christ today, and many Methodists will relish that opportunity.’

http://methodist.org.uk/news-and-events/news-releases/census-response-church-is-for-life-not-just-christmas-says-methodist-general-secretary

Evangelical Alliance (Steve Clifford)

‘The UK retains a strong Christian heritage, according to the release of figures from the 2011 census … There’s no real surprise in these figures, they reflect what we are seeing across the country. Being a Christian is increasingly understood as following Jesus and not just wearing a cultural or historic label. For a lot of people who do not identify as religious, it is probably more taking off a label that doesn’t fit than embracing a particular anti-religious agenda. As evangelical Christians we are presented with a fantastic opportunity. The gospel prospers in a context where faith is alive and freely chosen; we should take the results of the census as an opportunity to get to know the people the numbers represent.’

http://eauk.org/current-affairs/news/census-is-britain-still-a-christian-country.cfm

Fresh Expressions (Norman Ivison)

‘The newly published statistics show what many have been saying for some time. The church in England and Wales needs to find new ways of engaging those who no longer have, or never had any interest in the Christian faith. The reality is that inherited church life is still attractive to many people but not to everyone. New forms of church are developing throughout the UK, alongside parish and other traditional structures, which are increasingly helping those who have never been to church to discover the Christian faith for themselves. The Census statistics demonstrate that real alternatives need to be offered for those who find conventional church inaccessible for all sorts of reasons.’

http://cte.churchinsight.com/Articles/337010/Churches_Together_in/News_Events/News/Fresh_Expressions_re.aspx

Bible Society (Ben Whithall)

‘With Christmas coming up, now seems like a good time to think about labels. Research numbers we’ve been seeing recently – including the religion statistics from the latest census – suggest that when it comes to “religion”, the labels we have aren’t very helpful … It quickly becomes clear that religious identity and activity – and certainly what’s going on in people’s heads or hearts behind either – don’t fall into easy or binary categories in our society today. This idea of straightforward segregation between “religious” and “the rest/normality” in life looks increasingly ridiculous … as does the setting up of diametrically-opposed “Christian” and “non-Christian” sides. In practice, the lines seem very blurred for most people. So can we please rescue the Bible from falling into splendid isolation in a small glass case labelled “in case of spiritual emergency”’.

http://www.biblesociety.org.uk/news/stats-show-society-doesnt-split-into-religious-sides/

Ekklesia (Simon Barrow)

‘The new census data from England and Wales confirms what we have been saying for some time. Britain is increasingly becoming a mixed society in terms of culture, identity and belief. The key issue for people of all religions and none in plural settings is to learn to develop their own values and practices in a way that recognises difference and seeks to make a beneficial contribution to society through good example rather than compulsion.’

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/17589

Theos (Nick Spencer)

‘It’s important to recognise what the Census doesn’t measure – what people believe or what they practice – and what it does measure – how they identify themselves with regard to a religion … Just because someone calls themselves a Christian, it doesn’t mean they faithfully live by Christian creeds and practices. We all know that. But the same is true for the non-religious. A recent study by Theos/ComRes into the non-religious, Post-Religious Britain? The Faith of the Faithless, shows how wrong it is to imagine that someone who calls themselves non-religious, or even an atheist, has no spiritual beliefs … The non-religious category is as messy as the religious one, with non-religious people believing in things and behaving in ways that are not particularly non-religious. What this all means is that if it is increasingly hard to sustain the claim that Britain is still a Christian country, it is even harder to claim it is an atheistic or secular one. What we are becoming is ever more religiously plural: ever more people believe, behave and belong in different ways to their neighbours when it comes to religion and spirituality.’

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2012/12/12/2011-census-the-religion-question

Institute for Jewish Policy Research

‘2011 UK Census data released on 11 December 2012 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show a Jewish population of 263,376 in England and Wales. This represents a small increase of 1.3% since 2001, and suggests the UK Jewish population has remained largely static over the past ten years. However, more detailed analysis of the data reveal significant changes at the local and regional levels, with clear indications of population growth and decline in particular areas. These provide critical insights into developments in the British Jewish community.’ A four-page paper, ‘2011 Census Results (England and Wales): Initial Insights about the UK Jewish Population’, written by David Graham and Jonathan Boyd of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and Daniel Vulkan of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/2011%20Census%20Initial%20findings%20report%20Final%20Dec%202012.pdf

Muslim Council of Britain (Farooq Murad)

‘Welcoming the Census 2011 results, the Muslim Council of Britain commented that the growth in number points to the fact that Muslims play a significant part in the increasing diversity of Britain. The population of Muslims in England and Wales is now 2.71 million, of a total of 56.1 million – around 4.8% of the population. The Muslim presence across the length and breadth of the land, from inner London (almost half a million) to the Isles of Scilly (around half a dozen) is a matter of fact. Comparison with the 2001 Census indicates that the populations of all minority faith communities have increased – for example the Hindu and Buddhist communities rose by 48% and 70% respectively. This is a reflection not just of demographic profile – the BME communities’ lower age profile means they have young families – but also ONS’s greater success in disseminating the Census message within hard-to-reach communities … In a time of brutal and drastic public sector cuts, policy makers will now be in a position to target scarce public resources more effectively to the most needy districts and wards – this applies particularly to the provision of childcare facilities to help working mothers and youth services … The voluntary religion question was answered by 92.8% of the population, validating the MCB’s campaign when first lobbying for its inclusion that Britain is not shy about faith.’

http://mcb.org.uk/media/presstext.php?ann_id=510

British Humanist Association (Andrew Copson)

‘Census results just published show a plunge in the number of people ticking “Christian” in England and Wales from 72% in 2001 to 59% in 2011 and an increase in the number of people ticking to say they have no religion from 15% in 2001 to 25% in 2011. This represents a 67% relative rise in the number saying “no religion”. In addition, the British Humanist Association (BHA) has calculated that if the change in Christianity showed between 2001 and 2011 continues at a linear rate, then Christians would be recorded as in the minority by the Census question from September 2018 … This is a really significant cultural shift. In spite of a biased question that positively encourages religious responses, to see such an increase in the non-religious and such a decrease in those reporting themselves as Christian is astounding. Of course these figures still exaggerate the number of Christians overall – the number of believing, practicing Christians is much lower than this and the number of those leading their lives with no reference to religion much higher. Religious practice, identity, belonging and belief are all in decline in this country, and non-religious identities are on the rise. It is time that public policy caught up with this mass turning away from religious identities and stopped privileging religious bodies with ever increasing numbers of state-funded religious schools and other faith-based initiatives. They are decreasingly relevant to British life and identity and governments should catch up and accept that fact.’

http://humanism.org.uk/2012/12/11/census-results-show-huge-shift-in-cultural-identity-from-christianity-to-no-religion/

National Secular Society (Terry Sanderson)

‘Findings from the 2011 census for England and Wales have revealed the number of people who say they are Christian has dropped dramatically from 72% to 59%. The figures published today by the Office for National Statistics also show the number of people who say they have no religion has risen from 15% to 25% … Such an enormous reversal in the space of ten years is an indication of the huge upheaval there has been in religious attitudes in Britain. It should serve as a warning to the churches that their increasingly conservative attitudes are not playing well with the public at large. It also calls into question the continued establishment of the Church of England whose claims to speak for the whole nation are now very hard to take seriously … It will certainly give the churches a great deal of food for thought, and should tell the Government that although it might “do God” as Baroness Warsi claims, a huge proportion of the population do not. This should be reflected in policy-making.’

http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2012/12/census-shows-dramatic-fall-in-number-of-christians-in-uk

The Guardian (Jonathan Freedland)

‘God – or at least the church – is struggling in this country. Ten years ago 72% identified as Christians; now it’s just 59%. The panicmongers on the reactionary right will compare that to the rise in the number of British Muslims to 2.7m – from 3% of the total population in 2001 to 5% now – and warn that Christianity will one day be outstripped by Islam. But the biggest challenge to Christian influence in our national life is not Islam, but rather the 25% who declared themselves to be of “no religion” at all, up from 15% in 2001. Non-believers now form the second biggest denomination … It confirms our place as perhaps the most godless country, the least “churched”, in the industrialised world, setting us apart from the US, obviously, but also from much of continental Europe.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/11/census-2011-england-wales

Posted in Official data, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press | Tagged Bible Society, British Humanist Association, Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, census of population, Church of England, Ekklesia, Evangelical Alliance, Fresh Expressions, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Methodist Church of Great Britain, Muslim Council of Britain, National Secular Society, Religious Affiliation, The Guardian, Theos | 2 Comments

Faith of the Faithless

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Clive D. Field

‘Whatever the trends in affiliation to formalised religion in Britain, we are not a post-religious, still less a post-spiritual, society, and … even those “beyond the fringe” – who do not call themselves religious, attend religious services or believe in religious teachings – still have vestiges (and sometimes more than that) of religious and spiritual faith.’

‘It is quite wrong to assume that the … population falls into two categories: those who are committed religious believers and those who are wholly secularised. The reality is that there are many shades of gray between these two poles.’ Indeed, ‘overall, the proportion of people who are consistently non-religious … is very low at 9%.’

These are the conclusions of a new report by Nick Spencer and Holly Weldin, Post-Religious Britain? The Faith of the Faithless, which was published on 3 December 2012 by the Theos think tank and is available on its website at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Post%20Religious%20Britain%20pdf.pdf

The Theos claims are based upon secondary analysis of three existing datasets: the NatCen/British Social Attitudes Survey of 2,229 British adults in June-November 2008 (BSA); a ComRes/Theos survey of 2,060 UK adults in October-November 2008 on attitudes to Charles Darwin (Darwin); and a ComRes/Theos survey of 1,749 English adults in August 2012 on attitudes to English cathedrals (Cathedrals).

Using these data, Theos investigated three groups of ‘faithless’: the ‘nevers’, those who say that they never participate in a religious service as a worshipper, amounting to 47% of the population (Cathedrals); ‘atheists’, those who say they disbelieve in God, representing 24% (Cathedrals); and the ‘non-religious’, the 44% (BSA) who reply ‘no religion’ in answer to the question ‘do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’

The report reviews the socio-demographic attributes of the ‘nevers’ and ‘atheists’ (pp. 11-15) before turning to the evidence for residual Christianity or spirituality to be found among all three groups (pp. 16-31). Specifically (data based on Cathedrals study, unless otherwise stated):

Nevers: 31% identify themselves as Christians, while 44% believe in a human soul, 35% in God or a higher power, 28% in life after death, 22% in reincarnation, 21% in angels, 20% in God as a universal life force, and 13% in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead
Atheists: 11% identify themselves as Christians, 8% claim to worship at least once a year, with 23% believing in a human soul, 15% in life after death, 14% in reincarnation, 7% in angels, 5% in God as a universal life force, and 4% in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead
Non-religious: 16% consider themselves to be very or moderately spiritual (BSA), 18% pray at least once a year (Darwin), 17% read the Bible at least once a year (Darwin), 22% attend a religious service at least once a year (Darwin), 34% (BSA) or 28% (Darwin) believe in life after death, 24% in heaven (BSA), 20% in the supernatural powers of deceased ancestors (BSA), 15% in hell (BSA), 10% that God designed and created the universe and remains involved with it (Darwin), and 7% that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God (Darwin)

It seems inevitable that the report will excite some controversy, not least on the eve of the publication of the 2011 census of religious affiliation, which is likely to reveal an increase in those professing no religion since 2001. Some cynics (but naturally not BRIN) may even suggest that the timing of the release by Theos is designed to mitigate the ‘bad news’ which the census may well bring to people of faith.

The potential for such a row is notwithstanding the assurance of Spencer and Weldin that ‘there is no intended polemic within these findings’, their hope simply being that they will ‘prompt further research into non-religiosity in Britain’ (which is obviously a desirable goal). They warn that ‘using this data as ammunition in an on-going conflict’ between atheist and religious apologists would be ‘somewhat counterproductive’. But that is precisely what seems likely to happen.

Of all the statistics in this report, the claim that ‘those who are consistent in their rejection of all forms of religious and spiritual belief, affiliation and practice’ number a mere 9%, which appears on pp. 7 and 32, could prove most contentious, unless and until Theos can produce the detailed workings which show how they have arrived at this figure. Hopefully, they will provide such clarification at an early opportunity.

Other findings will come as no great surprise to many BRIN readers. Thus, while a decline in churchgoing is one legitimate indicator of ‘secularization’, few would regard it as the sole measure or mutually exclusive of faith. It is a practice upheld by the Church over two millennia, and backed up by legislation in England and Wales until (theoretically) as late as 1969. In opposition to it, it has long been a popular assertion, made well before the days of national sample surveys, that it is unnecessary to go to church to be a religious believer, ‘good Christian’, and so forth.

The fact that apparent ‘non-believers’ exhibit residual characteristics of religious belief and practice is also well-established. It was quantified in the first real sample survey devoted to religion, undertaken by Mass-Observation in the London Borough of Hammersmith in 1944-45, and published as Puzzled People in 1947. But it has also been demonstrated qualitatively in several important oral history projects at the start of the twentieth century.

There may be several explanations for the phenomenon, including the simple one that many people do not subscribe to a systematic, logical and consistent set of beliefs, in the way that theologians might like to expect us to behave. Rather, individuals assemble their own ‘theology’ from a spectrum of options spanning the orthodox to folklore and alternative.

Additionally, the ‘prestige factor’ associated with surveys on religion may still cause some to be wary of admitting that, in reality, they have rejected some conventional religious belief or practice. There is a particular tendency to exaggerate claims of churchgoing frequency, noted by Kathleen Bliss as early as 1948 in the Christian News-Letter, in which she quoted the experience of Mass-Observation and the BBC as pointing towards an inflator of two, i.e. halve the claim and you get somewhere near the ‘truth’.

It is likewise worth remembering that similar inconsistencies are to be found among many professing Christians, who appear to have abandoned much traditional Christian belief and practice and to be, effectively, secularized. The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science made much of these anomalies in publicizing its Ipsos MORI poll of April 2011, as featured by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/census-christians/

So, while Post-Religious Britain? is certainly to be welcomed, not least for providing further data from the Cathedrals study to set alongside those previously reported by Theos in Spiritual Capital, as well as for stimulating debate, perhaps it does not really tell us quite so much that is new.

Certainly, for understanding the socio-demographics of those who claim no religious affiliation, the forthcoming 2011 census data will be a far more authoritative source.

Finally, watch out for Professor Linda Woodhead’s blog provoked by Post-Religious Britain? This is forthcoming on The Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

Posted in Measuring religion, News from religious organisations, Survey news | Tagged atheists, British Social Attitudes Surveys, ComRes, Holly Weldin, nevers, Nick Spencer, non-religious, Theos | 1 Comment

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

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged Andreas Whittam Smith, Angels, Association of English Cathedrals, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Cathedrals, church attendance, church growth, Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, Co-operative Funeralcare, ComRes, David Voas, Foundation for Church Leadership, funerals, FutureFirst, God, Grubb Institute, heritage, hymns, Jesus Christ, life after death, music, Peter Brierley, reincarnation, Religious Affiliation, religious beliefs, Resurrection, soul, spiritual capital, Theos, tourism, universal life force, University of Essex, Visit England, visitors | Leave a comment

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

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged carol services, Christmas, church attendance, ComRes, God, Peter Brierley, religious festivals, Stephen Holmes, The Sun, Theos, TNS, YouGov | 3 Comments

Theos Civil Unrest Survey

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Britain may be poised for a period of protest and civil unrest, according to a new survey by ComRes for Theos, the public theology think-tank, released on 3 March. Fieldwork was conducted online on 23-25 February 2011, among 2,003 adults aged 18 and over.

However, although 36% of all adults and 46% of the 18-24s exhibit a definite appetite to take direct action of some form, whether legal or illegal, in an effort to influence rules, laws or policies, religious liberty is the cause least likely to get citizens out on the metaphorical streets.

Given a list of ten issues which they might take direct action about, just 13% of interviewees picked religious liberty. This compared with 52% for fuel prices, 47% for public service cuts, 41% for tax rises, 35% for bank bonuses, 33% for the threat of losing one’s job, 25% for tax-avoidance by businesses, 19% for global poverty, 19% for student fees, and 17% for climate change. Short-term material concerns thus appear to have won out over moral agendas.

The sub-samples most exercised about religious liberty were the top (AB) social group (20%) and the over-65s (18%). Those least interested were 18-24s (6%), skilled manual workers (7%) and residents of Wales and South-West England (8%).

People concerned about religious liberty were found to prefer traditional methods of protest (such as signing a petition, lobbying a politician or wearing a campaign badge) rather than newer mechanisms (such as social media).

Respondents were also asked about their belief in God. 23% said that they did not believe in God; 19% that they did not know whether there is a God but there was no means of finding out; 17% had doubts but on balance did believe in God; 15% were convinced that God really exists and had no doubts; 13% disbelieved in a personal God but did believe in a higher power; and 10% believed in God some of the time but not at other times.

Combining the last four categories, we arrive at a figure of 55% for those who believed in God or a life force, but not necessarily without doubts or all of the time. The highs were 61% for women, 64% for the over-65s and 63% for residents of the South-East; the lows were 48% among men and 49% with the 18-24s. Outright disbelievers were especially concentrated in the 18-24 age cohort (33%).

The God question replicated the one used in the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys. When this had first been put by BSA, in 1991, 74% believed, on this rather generous definition. The number was still 72% in 1998 but had fallen to 62% by 2008.

A final ComRes question about religious affiliation revealed that 33% of Britons espouse no religion, 58% profess to be Christian and 7% to subscribe to other belief systems. Irreligion is most prevalent among the young (52% with the 18-24s, 44% with the 25-34s) and least likely to be found among the over-65s (19%).

A summary of the ComRes/Theos research is available at:

http://campaigndirector.moodia.com/Client/Theos/Files/Civil_Unrest_Summary_of_research_findings_final.doc

and the full data tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/page165774311.aspx

Posted in News from religious organisations, Survey news | Tagged Belief in God, British Social Attitudes Surveys, civil unrest, ComRes, direct action, higher power, Religious Affiliation, Religious Liberty, Theos | Leave a comment

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