Religion and Voting and Other News

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Four stories are covered in today’s BRIN post, including new data on religion and prospective voting behaviour.

Religion and voting

Two new large-scale polls (from YouGov and Populus) shed light on the relationship between religion and voting intentions since UKIP’s emergence as the fourth force in British politics (so clearly demonstrated in the recent Eastleigh by-election). The studies show that prospective voters for the two parties towards the right of the political spectrum (Conservative and UKIP) are more likely to espouse a religion than those towards the left (Labour and Liberal Democrat). Summary results are set out in the table below, percentages reading downwards. 

  All Con Lab LibDem UKIP
YouGov

 

 

 

 

 
No religion

46

40

46

NA

39
Any religion

50

56

50

NA

59
No answer

4

4

4

NA

2
Populus

 

 

 

 

 
No religion

36

28

36

36

31
Any religion

62

71

62

62

68
No answer

2

2

2

2

1

It should be noted that the polls used different measures of religious affiliation, which explains why people of faith were less numerous in one than the other. The YouGov question wording is fairly neutral, making no assumptions about religious affiliation, whereas the Populus one might be considered to be somewhat leading, implying some expectation that respondents will belong to one of the religious groups.

The religious category was sub-divided in the Populus survey, enabling an assessment of the current voting intentions of adherents of the major faiths. The single most striking finding is that the majority (58%) of Muslims now incline to follow Labour, contrasting with the 2010 general election in which around one-third (36%) of Muslims recalled that they had actually voted for Labour, at a time when the party (then in government) was unpopular with Muslims because (especially) of its perceived anti-Islamic foreign policy. Also notable is that 54% of Jews support either the Conservatives or UKIP. Details are below (percentages reading across in this instance):

  Con Lab LibDem UKIP Other/none
Populus

 

 

 

 

 
No religion

18

29

7

7

39
Christian

27

28

6

10

29
Non-Christian

16

36

9

6

33
Muslim

8

58

8

1

25
Hindu

20

39

11

1

29
Jew

42

16

4

12

26
Buddhist

9

27

16

6

42

Source: Online surveys of adult Britons aged 18 and over conducted by a) YouGov throughout February 2013 (n = 28,944), the religious affiliation question being ‘do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?’; and b) Populus for Lord Ashcroft on 22-31 January 2013 (n = 20,022), the religious affiliation question being ‘which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’

The YouGov data were published on 5 March 2013 and are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/mse55iouje/UKIP-profile-Feb-2103.pdf

The Populus/Ashcroft data were published on 8 March 2013 and can be found in table 100 at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/LibDem_Poll.pdf

Attitudes to Muslims

British Muslims continue to have a major public image problem, according to two recent polls commissioned by Matthew Goodwin of the University of Nottingham in connection with his Chatham House briefing paper on the English Defence League (EDL). This was published on 6 March 2013 as: The Roots of Extremism: The English Defence League and the Counter-Jihad Challenge.

In the second of Goodwin’s surveys, the proportion of all adult Britons responding to various statements about Muslims was as follows: 

  • 50% anticipated there will be a ‘clash of civilizations’ between British Muslims and native white Britons (26% disagreeing)
  • 44% agreed that free speech in Britain is threatened by the influence of Muslims in the media (32% disagreeing)
  • 43% agreed that differences in culture and values make future conflict between British-born Muslims and white Britons inevitable (28% disagreeing)
  • 31% disagreed that British-born Muslims generally share the culture and values of the majority society (36% agreeing)
  • 30% agreed that British Muslims pose a serious threat to democracy (41% disagreeing)
  • 23% disagreed that Muslims make an important contribution to British society (41% agreeing)
  • 12% disagreed that the vast majority of Muslims are good British citizens (62% agreeing)
  • 12% agreed that British Muslims are part of an international plot to abolish Parliament (54% disagreeing)

Source: Online survey by YouGov of 1,691 Britons aged 18 and over on 20-21 November 2012. Detailed table (with breaks by gender, age, social grade, region, and vote) available at:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin_dataconflict.pdf

The first poll, likewise by YouGov and conducted online on 21-22 October 2012 among a sample of 1,666 Britons, focused on knowledge of and attitudes to the EDL. But it also posed several additional questions about Islam and Muslims, four of which are worth highlighting: 

  • 63% wanted the number of Muslims coming to Britain to be reduced
  • 57% considered Islam to present a serious danger to Western civilization
  • 52% believed higher Muslim birth rates threaten British national identity
  • 48% argued that Muslims are incompatible with the British way of life

The detailed tables from this poll are available as follows:

a) breaks by general demographics:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/nvm151779n/YG-Archive-221012-EDL-National-sample.pdf

b) breaks by general demographics and degree of support for the EDL:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin_dataissues.pdf

Goodwin’s Chatham House paper is at:

http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Europe/0313bp_goodwin.pdf

Islamist terrorism

Britons are somewhat less apprehensive about the threat of terrorism than they were in 2010, on the fifth anniversary of the London bombings. Even so, 44% currently think that a terrorist attack within the UK is very or moderately likely to happen in the next year, while 70% anticipate an incident as deadly as the 2005 London bombings occurring during their lifetimes. The source of the threat is most widely perceived to be al-Qaeda and ‘other Islamic-based terrorist groups’, with 68% currently concerned about them compared with 3% for residual terrorist groups in Northern Ireland. Anxiety about Islamist terrorism builds steadily with age, from 50% of the 18-34s to 81% of the over-55s, but otherwise varies little by key demographics.   

Source: Online survey by Angus Reid Public Opinion among 2,013 Britons aged 18 and over on 26-28 February 2013. Report and full data tables published on 4 March 2013 and available at:

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/48686/fears-of-an-imminent-terrorist-attack-subside-in-britain/

Flesh and blood

Regular churchgoers in the UK are more likely to have given blood than the general public, according to new research. Whereas 9% of the former say they have given blood during the last year, no more than 4% of all adults have given blood in the past two years. Moreover, 33% of regular churchgoers claim to have registered as a blood donor (apparently with no statistically significant differences by denomination, gender, or age); while 48% report they have joined the NHS organ donor register, which is 17% more than in the population as a whole. Blood and organ donation is already considered as part of their personal Christian giving by 28% (rising to 35% of clergy and church leaders), with a further 42% being open to the idea. However, as experienced by these worshippers, three-quarters of churches do not mention or encourage either blood or organ donation.

Source: Survey of a representative sample of 3,171 UK Christians of all denominations attending church at least two to three times a month and agreeing that their faith is either the most important thing in their life or more important than most other things. They were drawn from the Christian Research Resonate panel of both church leaders and laity and interviewed online between 10 December 2012 and 9 January 2013. The study was undertaken on behalf of Kore in connection with the launch of the fleshandblood campaign, a partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant to mobilize the Church to increase the number of blood and organ donors in the UK. A summary report, Fleshandblood 2013 Research Results, was published on 5 March 2013 and is available at:

http://fleshandblood.org/resource/2013-research-results/

 

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August YouGov Polls on Political Issues

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Herewith a round-up of recent YouGov polls touching on the interaction of religion and politics.

‘Doing God’

The majority of Britons are keen to keep religion apart from politics, according to a study published on 13 September 2012. 81% affirmed that religious practice is a private matter, which should be separated from British politico-economic life; 76% agreed that religious leaders should not influence how people vote in elections; 71% disagreed that religious leaders should have influence over the decisions of Government; 66% disagreed that politicians who did not share respondents’ own religious beliefs should not run for public office; and 65% disagreed that Britain would be a better place if more religious leaders held public office. Fewer than one in ten took the opposite stance on all these measures, with the remainder neutral or undecided, albeit as many as 16% wanted Christianity to play a greater role in British politics. Asked how much influence religion already has in British politics, 53% opted for the mid-positions (3-6) on a scale of 0-10, with 10% uncertain. Doubtless, the results were informed by the fact that 53% of the sample (including 69% of 18-24s) did not regard themselves as belonging to any particular religion.

Source: YouGov survey for YouGov@Cambridge in which 2,027 adult Britons were interviewed online between 10 and 19 August 2012. Data tables available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/md6rf2qvws/Reputation%20UK%20Report_21-Aug-2012_F.pdf

The survey was also conducted in the United States, France, Germany, the Middle East and North Africa, Pakistan and China. The multinational topline data are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/yf07oalgnu/Reputation%20x-country%20Report_24-Aug-2012_F.pdf

Islamophobia

Political parties of the far right are likely to take comfort from a poll released on 17 September 2012 which suggested that Islamophobia is a potential vote-winner. As many as 37% of electors indicated that they were more likely to vote for a party that promised to reduce the number of Muslims and the presence of Islam in British society, compared with 23% who said that they would be less likely to vote for a party pursuing such an agenda and 31% that it would make no difference. Those more likely to vote for a party under these circumstances were especially numerous among Conservatives (50%), the over-60s (49%), manual workers (45%), and Northerners (42%). Those less likely to vote for such a party were concentrated among Liberal Democrats (52%), the 18-24s (42%), Scots (33%), the 25-39s (32%), Londoners (31%), and non-manual workers (30%).

Source: YouGov survey for the Extremis Project (Matthew Goodwin) in which 1,725 adult Britons were interviewed online between 19 and 20 August 2012. Data tables available at:

http://extremisproject.org/2012/09/extremis-projectyougov-data-and-results/

Sunday Trading after the Olympic and Paralympic Games (1)

44% of Britons favour the permanent abolition of the legislative restrictions on the Sunday trading hours of large shops, which were temporarily suspended for the eight weeks around the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This would allow such shops to open for as long as they choose. 37% wanted to see the normal restrictions (a maximum of six hours between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.) reactivated, while 11% argued for an even tighter regime, with a total ban on large stores opening on Sundays. Advocates of permanent abolition were particularly to be found in Scotland (66%), to which the law does not apply, in any case. The over-60s (17%) most desired a return to the ‘traditional Sunday’, pre-dating the Sunday Trading Act 1994, a time when large stores ordinarily could not open at all.

Source: YouGov survey for The Sunday Times in which 1,731 adult Britons were interviewed online between 23 and 24 August 2012. Data tables available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/sdx6k0u8c5/YG-Archives-Pol-ST-results-24-260812.pdf

Sunday Trading after the Olympic and Paralympic Games (2)

A similar number (45%) to the previous poll supported the permanent extension of Sunday trading hours after the summer Games, with 83% of them backing wholly unrestricted hours. 24% considered that such a move would boost the ailing UK economy, and 22% anticipated that they would shop more on Sunday if hours are liberalized. At the same time, although 82% were aware of the temporary relaxation in opening hours during the Games, only 24% of these overall (rising to 39% of 18-34s) had actually taken advantage of the change. 39% believed that the Government will eventually legislate to relax Sunday trading laws. 16% opposed shops being allowed to open at all on Sundays.

Source: YouGov survey for business law firm DWF in which 2,045 adult Britons were interviewed online between 24 and 27 August 2012. Summary findings only available in DWF press release of 7 September 2012 at:

http://www.dwf.co.uk/insight/dwf-press/shoppers-back-longer-sunday-hours

 

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Summer Shorts

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Herewith a round-up of some recently-published religious statistics which may be of interest to BRIN readers:

Religious Affiliation

Asked whether they consider themselves to be a member of any religious group, 56% of adults reply Christian, 6% some other religion, and 36% none. The number professing no religion decreases steadily with age, from 52% among the 18-24s to 23% for the over-65s (73% of the latter claiming to be Christian). The biggest concentration of adherents of non-Christian faiths is to be found in London (12%) and with the 18-24s (10%).

Source: Populus poll for Insight PA, conducted online on 4-5 July 2012 among 2,117 Britons aged 18 and over. Data reported in table 41 at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/uploads/OmPrivate_Public.pdf

Older Giving

Slightly more than half (52%) of the UK’s over-65s were online in June 2012, 6% more than in March 2009, albeit still 30% below the average for all adults. This advent of the ‘silver surfer’ is proving financially advantageous to religious causes, even as the traditional church collection plate shows signs of drying up. In May 2012 the over-65s were more likely than average to prioritize charities related to cancer, old age and religion when it comes to their online giving, and less likely to support organizations dedicated to animals, foreign aid, and homelessness. Online contributions by the over-60s to religious causes rose by 171% between 2007 and 2011, compared with 128% for all adults, although online donations to culture and the arts grew even faster (459% among the over-60s, 210% for the population as a whole).

Source: Infographic, compiled by JustGiving from multiple sources, and posted on its blog on 6 August 2012 at:

http://blog.justgiving.com/community/older-giving/

Superstitions

41% of adults describe themselves as superstitious (including 48% of the 18-24s and 45% of women), with 39% saying they are not superstitious at all. The most prevalent superstitious practices are: not walking underneath ladders (38%), touching wood (33%), not opening an umbrella indoors (27%), and crossing fingers (26%). 32% consider themselves as lucky, 27% have a lucky number, but just 6% have lucky underwear. Four leaf clovers (26%) and black cats (20%) are the most widely-regarded omens of good luck, and breaking a mirror (35%) and number 13 (20%) of bad luck. 8% fear 2013 may not be a good year for them because it contains the number 13 in the date.

Source: OnePoll online survey of 1,000 UK adults aged 18 and over in July 2012. OnePoll has kindly given BRIN sight of the full findings, but the only substantive public domain report to date appears to be the post from 20 July 2012 on OnePoll’s blog at:

http://news.onepoll.com/avoiding-walking-ladders-popular-superstition/

Same-Sex Marriage

The Coalition Government’s commitment to widen the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples is proving none too popular with churchgoing Christians, 58% of whom say they are less likely to vote Conservative as a result and 43% less likely to vote Liberal Democrat. Moreover, as a consequence of Government policy on the issue, 75% state their perceptions of Tory leader David Cameron have worsened and 65% report the same about LibDem leader Nick Clegg. 63% believe Cameron has been intolerant of the opposition to the plan and 54% that Clegg has failed to listen to public concerns about it. Three-fifths agree that ‘whether or not I would have voted for the Conservative or Liberal Democrat Parties, I will not do so under their current leaderships if they introduce this measure’. 79% are not persuaded by Government reassurances that places of worship would not be forced to conduct same-sex marriages, while 86% fear that, even if Government does provide an exemption along these lines, it could be overturned by the UK courts or European Court of Human Rights.

Source: Cpanel survey by ComRes for the Coalition for Marriage (C4M) in which 569 churchgoing Christians in the UK aged 18 and over were interviewed online between 26 June and 11 July 2012. Full data tables, including a wide range of breaks by demographics and religion, were posted on 22 August 2012 at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/C4M_full_data_tables_July_12.pdf

Newspaper coverage of the findings can be tracked via the C4M website under the entries for 18 and 19 August 2012 at:

http://c4m.org.uk/news/

Religious Studies GCSE Results, 2012

There were 239,123 candidates for the full course General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in Religious Studies (RS) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland during the summer of 2012, an increase of 7.7% over the 2011 figure (8.0% for male students and 7.5% for female). RS entries accounted for 4.6% of the total for all subjects (4.3% for males and 4.9% for females), up by 0.3% on the previous year. Entrants achieving grades of A*, A, B or C at RS were 73.7% (67.1% for males, 79.4% for females), 4.3% more than the average for all subjects. As well as the full course, there is a short course in RS, with 235,916 entries in 2012 (8.5% less than in summer 2011, 9.2% down for males and 7.7% for females). Candidates in RS comprised 63.5% of the total for all short courses, with 53.8% achieving grades of A*-C (46.0% for males and 61.5% for females).

Source: Results tables (which include disaggregations by country) published by the Joint Council for Qualifications, representing the seven largest providers of qualifications in the UK, on 23 August 2012 at:

http://www.jcq.org.uk/attachments/published/1727/GCSE%20Results%202012.pdf

 

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Anti-Conservative Vote

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Religion is the single most powerful predictor (among eight factors) of an individual’s likelihood to say that they would never vote Conservative, with 44% of those with no faith rejecting the possibility of supporting the Tories, compared with 35% of Muslims, 32% of Christians, 26% of Sikhs, and 19% of Hindus. Just 15% overall stated that they would never vote Labour, including 7% of Muslims, 6% of Hindus, and 5% of Sikhs.

These findings emerged from a new report – Degrees of Separation: Ethnic Minority Voters and the Conservative Party – released by Lord Ashcroft (businessman, author and philanthropist, and ex-Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party) on his blog on 28 April 2012, and featured in the Sunday Telegraph the following day. The 50-page report and 159 pages of data tables are available at: 

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2012/04/ethnic-minority-voters-and-the-conservative-party-2/

10,268 adults living in the census-defined Middle Layer Super Output Areas with the highest concentration of black and minority ethnic (BME) persons were interviewed by telephone on Ashcroft’s behalf between 24 October and 4 December 2011. These areas, which are largely urban and working class in profile, account for 70% of the BME population of England and Wales.

The sample included 4,590 self-identifying Christians, 513 Hindus, 1,747 Muslims, 308 Sikhs, 761 other religions, and 2,124 of no religion. Christians and those of no religion were overwhelmingly white (77% and 84%), with 94% of Sikhs and 90% of Hindus Asians. 67% of Muslims were Asian, 12% white, and 11% black.

In the May 2010 general election 24% of Christians recalled that they had voted Conservative, against 18% of Hindus, 15% of Sikhs, 13% of no religion, and 12% of Muslims. The Labour vote had been highest among Muslims (41%) and lowest for Christians (28%), with Hindus and Muslims on 35% and 37% respectively. Non-voters were above the average of 29% for Muslims (31%) and those of no religion (33%).

In the event of a general election being held ‘tomorrow’, only 6% of Muslims said they would vote Conservative, 7% of Sikhs, 13% of no religion, 14% of Hindus, and 20% of Christians and other religions. 51% of Muslims, 48% of Sikhs, 37% of Hindus, 33% of Christians and those of no religion, and 31% of other religions inclined to support Labour. 

Asked whether they identified with one political party as consistently representing people like themselves, only 5% of Muslims and 9% of Hindus and Sikhs replied the Conservative Party (against 15% of Christians and 8% of no religion). The affinity of 47% of Muslims, 46% of Sikhs, 38% of Hindus, 30% of Christians, and 23% of those with no religion was with the Labour Party.  

Of all religions, Muslims were especially prone to say that the Conservative Party (41%) and David Cameron (38%) do not really care about people from different ethnic or religious backgrounds. However, these figures were somewhat exceeded by those professing no religion (44% and 39%). 8% of Muslims saw the Conservatives and Cameron as actively hostile to individuals from different ethnic or religious backgrounds.

Correlated component regression analysis was used to isolate specific views most often associated with an unwillingness to vote Conservative among BME religious groups. For Muslims the strongest drivers were found to be a perception that the Conservative Party does not stand for fairness, is actively hostile to people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, and that its policies have shown this to be the case.

Non-Christians and those without faith were somewhat more likely than Christians to believe that the economy and employment were the most important issues facing the country. Muslims (57%) were far more likely to prioritize education than Christians (38%), and, together with those of no religion, much less likely than Christians, Hindus and Sikhs to see control of immigration as a key topic (one-quarter for the two former versus two-fifths for the three latter groups).

It must be reiterated that the main purpose of Ashcroft’s survey was to probe BME attitudes to the Conservative Party. Its underlying sample was not nationally representative, especially in terms of social class and locality. Also, for BMEs the Ethnic Minority British Election Study (EMBES) is an important alternative dataset. Some preliminary analysis of this by religion was posted on BRIN’s website last year by Ben Clements and Maria Sobolewska at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/the-ethnic-minority-british-election-study-embes-part-ii/

and

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2011/religion-and-politics-among-ethnic-minorities-in-britain/

 

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Legalization of Gay Marriage

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Conservative Party risks losing Christian votes if it goes ahead with legalizing gay marriage, as advocated by David Cameron at the Party’s recent conference in Manchester, a ComRes survey published on 4 November 2011 has revealed.

The poll was undertaken on behalf of Premier Christian Media Trust among the ComRes CPanel of UK churchgoing Christians aged 18 and over. 544 were interviewed online between 25 and 31 October 2011. Results are available (albeit with inadequate labelling of data tables for Question 2) at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_Gay_Marriage_data_tables_Nov11.pdf

Asked how they viewed the Conservative proposal to legalize same-sex marriages, only 11% of Christians supported it, while 83% were opposed (three-quarters of them strongly).

Hostility was particularly concentrated among the over-65s (90%), compared with 26% support in the 18-34 cohort. Denominationally, Independents, Pentecostals and Roman Catholics were most critical.

Overwhelmingly, these churchgoers foresaw negative consequences in the event of the law being changed in respect of gay marriage:

  • 85% were concerned that the value of marriage would be further undermined
  • 78% that it would be harder to argue against ‘other novel types of relationship’ such as polygamy
  • 88% that schools would be required to teach the equal validity of same-sex and heterosexual relationships
  • 93% that clergy would have to conduct gay marriages against their consciences

Absolutely nobody claimed that Cameron’s commitment to legalizing same-sex marriages would make them more likely to vote Conservative. 37% said that it would make no difference to their political behaviour.

But 57% were clear that they would be less disposed to back the Tories in future, this being especially true of Pentecostals (69%) and Roman Catholics (75%).

This CPanel study does not appear to have covered a related and similarly topical issue, the Government’s plan to permit civil partnerships in England and Wales to be celebrated in religious buildings. General public opinion on this matter was summarized in our previous BRIN post at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=889

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21st Century Evangelicals – The Sequel

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The UK’s evangelical Christians are far more likely to be active in their communities than the average person, according to a new report from the Evangelical Alliance – Does Belief Touch Society? – published on 5 September. Hard copies can be purchased at £3 from the Alliance (at 186 Kennington Park Road, London, SE11 4BT) or the report can be downloaded for free from:

http://www.eauk.org/snapshot/upload/Does-Belief-touch-society.pdf

The publication is numbered as Series A, Issue 1 in a collection of reports on 21st Century Evangelicals, following on from the document of the same name released at the start of the year, and based upon 17,300 responses by Christians aged 16 and over in 2010 to a questionnaire devised by Christian Research on behalf of the Alliance. The sample divided between attenders at seven Christian festivals in the UK and congregants at 35 churches randomly selected from the Alliance’s membership. See the BRIN post of 12 January 2011 for further details:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=826

Does Belief Touch Society? derives from a panel of 3,300 of the original 17,300 evangelicals who signed up to take part in further enquiries, of whom 1,151 participated in this first survey, which was conducted online around Easter 2011. Given the self-selecting nature of the micro-sample, and the methodology deployed for the 2010 study, there is a risk that the respondents to Does Belief Touch Society? may not be fully representative of the approximately two million evangelical Christians in the UK estimated by Tearfund in 2007. The Alliance concedes in the report (p. 3) that it has been unable to weight its findings and that younger people and ethnic minorities may be under-represented in the panel.

On the doctrine of the cross, 99% of evangelicals agreed or strongly agreed that the message of the cross had made a huge difference in their lives, 91% strongly agreed that Christ’s blood is the final and only effective sacrifice for human sin, 89% strongly agreed that Jesus Christ defeated the powers of evil through His death, and 84% strongly agreed that God Himself was suffering in Christ for humankind in the crucifixion. However, only 51% agreed that at the cross God poured out His holy anger upon His son, with 27% dissenting and 22% unsure.

On the Resurrection, 91% agreed or strongly agreed that Jesus rose from the tomb with a physical body, 91% agreed or strongly agreed that at the end all who have died will be raised to face judgment, 85% strongly agreed that after death Christian believers will enjoy everlasting life, 82% strongly agreed that belief in the Resurrection shaped the way they lived now, and 78% were very confident that they would enjoy everlasting life on their own death.

On Easter observance, 95% had worshipped on Easter Sunday but far fewer (65% overall and just 52% of under-35s) on Good Friday. 45% had attended a special church event in the week before Easter, and 41% took part in a public act of witness or evangelistic outreach over Easter. Under one-third had given up or taken up something during Lent, with women and younger people significantly more likely to do so.

In terms of civic participation, evangelicals were far more likely than the average citizen to be trustees of a charity, school governors, members of a political party, local councillors, and magistrates, but trade union membership was about the national norm.

On politics, 91% intended to or had voted in the 5 May 2011 elections and referendum (compared with a UK-wide turnout of 42%), with 38% in favour of and 39% opposed to the Alternative Vote. Evangelicals were equally divided about the military interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, but 80% were emphatic in opposing the legal status of marriage being extended to same-sex partnerships.

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21st Century Evangelicals

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Clive D. Field

According to a large-scale survey of churchgoing published by Tearfund in 2007, there are approximately two million evangelical Christians in the UK. Hitherto, we have had only limited insights into their profile and attitudes.

We now know a great deal more about them, thanks to a study undertaken by Christian Research for the Evangelical Alliance in 2010, and published on 11 January under the title 21st Century Evangelicals: A Snapshot of the Beliefs and Habits of Evangelical Christians in the UK.

17,298 Christians aged 16 and over completed the Christian Research questionnaire. These mostly divided between two samples: 14,511 attenders at seven Christian festivals in the UK and known to be popular with evangelicals, and 1,159 attenders at 35 churches randomly selected from the 3,222 in membership of the Evangelical Alliance.

Interestingly, 6% of both samples could not say for certain that they were Christians, while fully one-quarter of the professing Christians failed to designate themselves as evangelicals.

A third sample was also drawn, of black majority churches and conferences. Only a few agreed to participate. Although 1,239 questionnaires were completed by attenders at these churches, Christian Research clearly has reservations about the typicality of this sample, and limited use has been made of the findings from it.

Two reports on the research have been issued at present, although more are promised. The first (described as the ‘initial report’) is a ‘popular’ 24-page summary. This is fully-illustrated, selective in its use of statistics, and has an emphasis on headlines and brief commentaries. Such data as are quoted in it mainly relate to the festival sample. It can be found at:

http://eauk.org/snapshot/upload/21st-Century-Evangelicals-PDF.pdf

The second 47-page report (the so-called ‘data report’) is likely to be of special interest to BRIN users. This contains detailed information about the research methodology and the all-important weighting procedures, which require careful review (see the discussion and weighting factors on pp. 6-7).

The second document mainly comprises tables of results (pp. 8-45), routinely disaggregated for the festival and church samples and, more occasionally, for non-evangelical festival-goers. There are some minor inconsistencies between some of the tables when replies to certain questions are duplicated. This report can be accessed at:

http://www.eauk.org/snapshot/upload/21st-Century-Evangelicals-Data-Report.pdf

There were fewer differences in the profiles, beliefs and behaviours of the festival and church samples than might have been expected. However, for simplicity, and because they instinctively feel more ‘representative’ of grass-roots evangelicals, all the figures quoted below derive from the church sample only.

DEMOGRAPHICS: 60% of evangelical churchgoers are women and 38% men. 36% are under 45 years of age, 39% 45-64, and 21% 65 and over (an age profile far less skewed than for churchgoers in general). 24% are single, 1% cohabiting, 61% married, 6% separated or divorced, and 7% widowed.

BELIEFS: 98% agree that their faith is the most important thing in life and 96% that it is the key factor in their decision-making. 96% believe that Jesus is the only way to God. 96% consider the Bible to be the inspired word of God and 82% say that, in its original manuscript, it is without error. 92% believe in miraculous gifts of the Spirit. 59% believe in a physical hell, but 27% are unsure and 14% disbelieve. 39% think evolution and Christianity are incompatible, 43% that they are not.

PRACTICES: 95% claim to attend church once a week or more. 76% attend a small group meeting at least once a fortnight. 55% read the Bible daily and a further 36% during the course of a week. 78% pray daily and a further 20% during the course of a week.

EVANGELISM VERSUS SOCIAL ACTION: 91% deem it the Christian’s duty to be actively engaged in evangelism, and 58% talk about their faith with a non-Christian once a month or more. 82% regard evangelism and social action as equally important and 80% as complementary, but 39% think many churches place too much emphasis on social action. 88% consider it a Christian’s duty to volunteer in the service of the local community. 78% volunteer at least once a month. 98% voted in the 2010 general election.

MORALITY: 82% agree that sexual intercourse outside marriage is always wrong. 62% say that assisted suicide is always wrong (and 15% not). 49% agree and 33% disagree that abortion can never be justified. 36% feel it is wrong to have homosexual feelings, with 22% unsure and 42% not seeing it as problematical. However, 80% condemn homosexual actions. 84% oppose the blessing of civil partnerships in churches.

GIVING: 97% have given money to their church in the past year, 77% to Christian charities, 48% to other charities, 47% to individual missionaries, and 22% to individual homeless people. 62% claim to have given at least one-tenth of their household income during the past month to their church and charities. 73% agree that it is a Christian’s duty to give 10% of their income to their church, but only 40% tithed to their church during the past month.

ECUMENICAL AND INTER-FAITH WORK: 95% consider it important for Christians to be united in truth and 93% in mission. 88% say that their church works with other places of worship. 63% want Christians to collaborate with people of other faiths on community projects.

Also worth a glance is the Evangelical Alliance’s press release about both strands of the research, issued on 10 January. This focused on the themes of distinctiveness and diversity in the evangelical constituency, and highlighted the vital role of evangelicals in volunteering in the community. See:

http://eauk.org/media/uk-evangelical-christians-distinct-yet-diverse.cfm

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The Catholic Vote

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Clive D. Field

‘Labour would be returned for an historic fourth consecutive term with a very large majority if it were just Catholics voting at the general election on Thursday, as Labour holds a huge lead of 19 points over the Tories among Catholics.’

So writes Sir Robert Worcester, founder of MORI, in his article ‘Does your Cross Count?’ in The Tablet, the Roman Catholic weekly, for 1 May (only available online to subscribers).

His findings are based on an aggregation of Ipsos MORI’s four monthly political polls in January-April 2010. Data relate to 2,673 British adults aged 18 and over (including 322 self-identifying Roman Catholics) who said they were certain to vote.

The Labour share of the vote in these polls stood at 43% for Catholics, compared with 30% for the electorate as a whole. Conservative figures were 24% and 36% respectively, and for the Liberal Democrats 24% and 23%.

Catholic voting behaviour is also revealed as different from other (non-Catholic) professing Christians. The latter are 20% more likely to support the Conservatives than Roman Catholics and 18% less likely to vote Labour. The Liberal Democrats have a 4% lead among Catholics relative to other Christians.

As Worcester comments: ‘it is clear that a “Christian bloc vote” is non-existent – Catholics do not hold the same voting intention as other Christians’.

The Catholic bias towards Labour is of long standing, largely related to the Roman Catholic Church’s historical success in retaining the allegiance (at least nominally) of those elements of the working classes who were cradle Catholics. 

Some of the evidence for this can be found on the Ipsos MORI website where there are comparative data on voting by religion in the run-up to the general elections of 1992, 1997, 2001 and 2005. See:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemID=2370&view=wide

These tables show that, at 43%, the Catholic Labour vote in 2010 has fallen from 53% in 2005 (the same proportion as at the 1997 general election) and 60% in 2001. In 2005 Roman Catholic support for Labour was 30% higher than among non-Catholic Christians, whereas in 2010 the gap is reduced to 18%.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have gained to a limited extent from the Catholic swing against Labour since 2005; indeed, the Catholic swing to the Tories is marginally above that in the overall electorate. However, the main change since 2005 is an increase in the number of Catholics intending to vote for other parties (2% in 2005 and 9% today).

Of course, the fieldwork for the 2010 polls has been spread over rather a long period. In particular, it may not fully reflect the electoral impact, especially for the Liberal Democrats, of the televised debates between the leaders of the main political parties.

It is also the case that the Catholic sub-sample in these surveys is relatively small. Likewise, no account is taken of the significant lapsation from Catholicism. Many of these professing Catholics will be quite nominal in their adherence to the faith. Ideally, such surveys should control for frequency of mass attendance.

Worcester’s article further reports the outcome of recent Ipsos MORI polling for Reuters in Labour-held marginal constituencies. Here the Conservatives trail Labour by a massive 28% among Catholics, whereas they have a lead of 6% among non-Catholic Christians.

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Voting Intentions and Attitudes to Religious Minorities

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Clive D. Field

With just over a week to go before the general election, we are literally awash with opinion polls at present. Unfortunately, few of those conducted during the present campaign have featured faith-specific issues, while the relatively small sample sizes mean that we get few clues about the attitudes of people who support political parties other than the ‘big three’.

It thus seems appropriate to recall one very large scale survey which YouGov ran for Channel 4 in the lead-in to last year’s European parliamentary elections, when the ‘minor parties’ were expected to make a strong showing in Britain.

No fewer than 32,268 electors were interviewed online between 29 May and 4 June 2009, including 2,749 persons intending to vote for the Green Party, 4,306 for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and 985 for the British National Party (BNP).

The findings, which have long been in the public domain at

http://www.yougov.co.uk/extranets/ygarchives/content/pdf/Megapoll_EuroElections.pdf

have attracted scant attention. For us, they are especially useful in highlighting opinions about religious minorities, specifically Jews and Muslims, by voting intentions.

10% of all voters considered that Jews suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. Green supporters were the most sympathetic (15%), with Labourites and Liberal Democrats on 12%, Conservatives and UKIP voters on 9% and the BNP on 6%.

6% overall thought the Jews benefited from unfair advantage in Britain. Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters all stood at 5%, UKIP at 6% and the BNP at 12%.

Asked whether there was a major international conspiracy led by Jews and Communists to undermine traditional Christian values in Britain and other western countries, 17% said this was completely or partially true.

The proportion rose to 21% for UKIP and 33% for BNP voters, the other parties ranging from 9% (Greens) to 19% (Conservatives). Those who said the statement was completely untrue numbered 62% in the aggregate but only 48% in the case of BNP followers.  

Just 1% of the sample registered as holocaust deniers (and no more than 2% even for BNP voters). However, 8% of UKIP and 18% of BNP supporters thought the scale of the holocaust had been exaggerated.

Turning to Muslims, 21% of all voters held that they suffered unfair discrimination in Britain. The highest percentages were for the Greens (40%) and Liberal Democrats (33%), with Labour on 29% and the Conservatives on 15%. UKIP (8%) and BNP voters (3%) were least sympathetic to Muslims.

39% felt that Muslims in Britain enjoyed unfair advantages, and this figure rose to 61% in the case of UKIP and 70% for BNP voters. They were followed by the Conservatives on 44%, Labour on 27%, the Liberal Democrats on 26% and the Greens on 22%.

Still larger numbers agreed that, even in its ‘milder forms’, Islam constituted a serious danger to western civilization. 44% overall held this view, with 64% among UKIP and 79% BNP voters. Conservatives stood at 49%, Labour at 37%, Liberal Democrats at 32% and the Greens at 27%. Those in disagreement were 32%, with only the Greens achieving a majority (55%); among UKIP supporters the figure was 17% and for the BNP’s 7%.

Three conclusions emerge from these results. First, there is significantly more prejudice against Muslims than Jews. Second, the actual level of prejudice varies considerably according to the measure used and the wording of the question. Third, Green and Liberal Democrat voters are most tolerant (but by no means totally unprejudiced), and UKIP and (in particular) BNP supporters apparently most prejudiced against Jews and Muslims.

It should be noted that all the above data relate to the views of those intending to vote for one of the six political parties in May-June 2009. These views may not necessarily be current. Nor should they be confused with the official positions of each of the parties as set out in their general election manifestos or by their leadership.

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Religion and Politics – A New Opinion Poll

Posted on February 21, 2010 by Clive D. Field

Since its launch in November 2006 the public theology think tank, Theos, has performed valuable service in a number of ways, not least (in the cause of religious statistics) by commissioning a series of opinion polls to gauge public attitudes on a range of religious and moral issues.

With a general election in the offing, Theos has sponsored ComRes to survey the views of 1,085 British adults of voting age on the subject of religion and politics. Fieldwork was conducted by telephone on 17 and 18 February 2010. These voters and potential voters sub-divided into 674 professed Christians, 71 Muslims, 47 of other faiths and 291 of no religion.

Recall of voting at the 2005 general election showed that Muslims and those of no religion were then somewhat more inclined to support Labour than the Conservatives. Among those likely to vote this year this still remains the case for Muslims, 57 per cent of whom opt for Labour and 18 per cent for the Conservatives.

For all other groups there is a net advantage for the Conservatives over Labour, +10 per cent among Christians, +34 per cent for non-Christians other than Muslims and +8 per cent for those of no religion.

When asked which of the political parties had been most or least friendly towards particular religions during recent years, one-half of respondents were unable to express a view. Of those recording an opinion, the Conservative and Labour parties are seen as equally well-disposed to the Christian faith.

However, Labour is felt to be most empathetic to Islam (by 36 per cent of the sample, against 10 per cent who judged Conservatives as most pro-Muslim). Labour was also regarded as being more predisposed towards faith in general.

Majorities of the population disagree that religious freedoms have been restricted in Britain during the past decade (59 per cent against 32 per cent agreeing), and that the law should prevent people from expressing their religious views in the workplace (63 per cent against 31 per cent).

Most (64 per cent, with 30 per cent disagreeing) consider that the Pope and other religious leaders have a responsibility to speak out on political issues they are concerned about, a topic prompted by Benedict XVI’s recent intervention over the equality bill before the Westminster Parliament.

There is a commentary on the poll by Nick Spencer, Director of Studies at Theos, which aims to trigger an online debate on the question ‘Is Labour the Natural Home for British Muslims?’ This can be accessed at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/Is_Labour_the_natural_home_for_British_Muslims.aspx?ArticleID=3850&PageID=11&RefPageID=5

There is also a ComRes press release on the survey, with a link to the full data tables, at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/page190146516.aspx

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