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Easter Religion and Other News

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Easter religion

In what, for many, will be a welcome break from the general election coverage, YouGov has undertaken a replication for the Sunday Times of several questions about Easter and religion first asked two years ago. The latest sample comprised 1,906 adult Britons interviewed online on 3-4 April 2015. Detailed results, including breaks by standard demographics and by self-assessed religiosity, can be found on YouGov’s archive pages for 5 April 2015 at:

https://yougov.co.uk/publicopinion/archive/

A topline comparison of the 2013 and 2015 results is tabulated below; breaks for the youngest and oldest cohorts are also shown. Obviously, because of sampling error, too much should not be made of the differences between the two surveys, but it is noticeable that, for all the indicators, the movement is in the direction of the least religious position. Easter is overwhelmingly regarded as a secular occasion, and more than three-fifths of Britons no longer describe themselves as religious, deem religion of importance in their lives, nor regard themselves as a practising member of a faith.

%	2013 all	2015 all	2015 18-24	2015 60+
Religiosity
Religious	NA	36	NA	NA
Not religious	NA	62	NA	NA
Importance of religion to own life
Important	31	29	23	39
Not important	66	68	72	59
Practising member of a religion
Yes	NA	35	31	39
No	NA	62	68	59
Belief in God
Believe in God	38	35	24	44
Believe in spiritual higher power	21	20	19	21
Believe in neither	30	34	47	27
Belief in Jesus Christ
Son of God	39	30	16	38
Real historical figure but not Son of God	30	37	49	37
Probably did not exist	13	14	18	9
Most important part of Easter
Spending time with friends/family	47	42	38	45
Having time off work	19	21	21	5
Religious importance	15	13	8	21
Planned churchgoing over Easter
Yes	15	14	16	18
No	79	83	79	80
Belief in Resurrection
Christ came back to life after crucifixion	31	29	18	36
Christ not come back to life after crucifixion	47	50	63	40

Religious liberty in business

In last week’s news blog we reported on a ComRes survey for the Christian Institute in which a sample of Northern Irish adults was asked for their views about the right of business people to freedom of speech and religious liberty when providing goods or services to customers. The poll results had been released to coincide with civil court action in Belfast against a Christian bakery which had declined to ice a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage. Court proceedings have concluded, but no judgment has been made. A comparable survey has also been undertaken by ComRes in Britain for the Christian Institute, among 2,020 adults interviewed online on 18-19 March 2015, and the data tables (including breaks by demographics and religious affiliation) published on 30 March at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Christian-Institute-_Freedom-of-Speech.pdf

Respondents were asked whether it was appropriate for court action to be taken against business people in a variety of scenarios, several of which had a religious component, as follows:

%	Go to court	Not go to court
Muslim printer refusing to print cartoons of Prophet Mohammed	10	71
Atheist web designer refusing to design a website promoting creationism	8	72
Muslim film company refusing to produce a pornographic film	7	76
Christian bakery refusing to make a cake celebrating Satanism	9	71
Roman Catholic printing company declining to produce adverts for abortion	12	68
Christian bakery refusing to make a cake promoting same-sex marriage	13	68

It will be seen that the findings are reasonably consistent for all six scenarios, with around seven in ten thinking the actions of the business people did not constitute grounds for court proceedings and only one in ten believing that they did. Even among persons professing no religion never more than 18% (in the case of the Christian bakery and the cake promoting same-sex marriage) favoured court action being taken. Of course, it would have been possible to have asked the questions in reverse, with the rights of the spurned customers paramount, in which case – consistent with general public support for diversity legislation – the results for several of the scenarios would probably have been rather different.

Future of world religions

The UK will cease to have a Christian majority by 2050, according to a report published by the Pew Research Center on 2 April 2015: The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050. It forecasts that, by the middle of this century, Christians will account for only 45% of the UK population, compared with 64% in 2010. Over the same four decades, the proportion of religiously unaffiliated is expected to rise from 28% to 39% (which seems rather modest, given the rate of increase among adults between the 2001 and 2011 censuses was running at 1% per annum), of Muslims from 5% to 11%, and of all other religions from 3% to 4%. Baseline numbers are derived from the census, which uses a particular question-wording to determine religious affiliation; other formulations produce higher figures for religious ‘nones’. Pew has used a range of sources to compute trends in fertility, life expectancy, age structure, migration, and religious switching (regarded as the five principal drivers of population growth) in the years to come. For a detailed explanation of the methodology, as well as the complete results by countries (including the Channel Islands), regions, and religious groups, consult the report at:

http://www.pewforum.org/files/2015/03/PF_15.04.02_ProjectionsFullReport.pdf

News from Brierley Consultancy

The April 2015 membership mailing by Brierley Consultancy included a couple of items which some BRIN readers may find of interest. One is No. 38 of the bimonthly magazine FutureFirst, which contained the usual mix of longer and shorter news contributions, among them a lead article by Philip Hughes on ‘Does Faith Give You Better Health?’ The answer to the question, based on British data from the 2011 International Social Survey Programme, was generally that ‘attendance at religious services has little impact on health’, in that it was not one of the top five demographic determinants of health. However, at the level of causation, it was found that smoking and alcohol consumption were the biggest negative influences on self-reported health status, and that those who attended church monthly or more often were much more likely never to have smoked or never to have drunk alcohol than non-attenders at church, the differences being statistically significant. The article is best read in the full version, available on request from Brierley Consultancy. The second item is a 16-page report by Peter Brierley entitled Growing Churches: The Encouragements and Challenges Highlighted by the 2014 Grace Baptist Church Census. The census covered all UK Grace Baptist churches, which have a combined membership of 7,900, and revealed that there was an overall growth in worshippers of 7% between 2010 and 2014, with just 14% of congregations experiencing decline and 48% of Grace Baptists attending two services on Sunday (three times the number of all English churchgoers in 2005). For more information about these items, contact:

peter@brierleyres.com

Nonconformist historical statistics

The latest and, regrettably, final volume in Michael Watts’ history of Protestant Nonconformity in England and Wales was published on 19 March 2015: The Dissenters, Volume III: The Crisis and Conscience of Nonconformity, by Michael Watts with the assistance of Chris Wrigley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, xviii + 493p., ISBN 978-0-19-822969-8, £85.00, hardback). It covers the years 1860-1906, the previous volumes, published in 1978 and 1995, respectively dealing with the period between the Reformation and French Revolution and 1791-1859, the latter including an important statistical analysis of the results of the 1851 religious census and the pre-1837 non-parochial registers. Since the author died in 2011, his mooted fourth volume on the twentieth century will never appear.

The third volume makes good use of statistical evidence throughout and includes no fewer than 101 tables in the appendix. These are devoted to four main topics:

Members, adherents, and Sunday scholars by denomination (tables 1-6)
Church and chapel attendance by denomination in London, 1851, 1886-87, and 1902-03 (tables 7-27)
Church and chapel attendance by denomination in 50 towns and groups of villages, 1851 and 1881 (tables 28-78)
Occupations of male Dissenters by denomination recorded in baptismal and marriage registers for 22 cities and counties, 1850-59 to 1970-79 (tables 80-101)

There is also accompanying textual analysis of the data on membership and attendance on pp. 85-91 and on occupations on pp. 101-9. This demonstrates that, by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, both Nonconformist membership and attendance were beginning to decline relative to population and that the social basis of congregations was narrowing. The provision of occupational data for the twentieth century is an unexpected bonus and considerably extends current knowledge of the subject as hitherto summarized by Clive Field, ‘Zion’s People: Who Were the English Nonconformists?’ – a trilogy of articles published in the Local Historian in May, August, and November 2010.

Anglo-Jewry database, 1851

On 23 March 2015 the UK Data Service released, as Study Number 7668, the Anglo-Jewry Database, a prosopographical resource containing details of the vital events, residences, and occupations of 29,275 Jewish inhabitants of the British Isles in 1851, representing the overwhelming majority (90%) of the Jewish community at that time. The dataset was compiled by a team of 270 contributors worldwide from the population census and a wide variety of other sources, published and unpublished. More information, including links to documentation, is available at:

http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7668

It is also possible to search the database on the JewishGen website at:

http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/1851/introduction.htm

and to order a print-on-demand index at:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/petra-laidlaw/an-index-to-the-jewish-community-of-the-british-isles-in-1851/paperback/product-21815428.html

Finally, it can be mentioned that Petra Laidlaw, principal investigator for the project, has two analytical articles on ‘Jews in the British Isles in 1851’ in Jewish Journal of Sociology, Vol. 53, No. 1, 2011, pp. 29-56 and Vol. 55, No. 1, 2013, pp. 114-57.

European Jewish Research Archive

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research has recently soft-launched the European Jewish Research Archive, which it has set up with financial support from the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe. The archive is a free-to-use online repository of research on European Jewish communities that has been published in the form of books, reports, articles, or other media since 1990 and, wherever possible, includes the full text for downloading. It can be searched by author, title, topic, publication year, genre, original language, and geographic coverage. A search under UK currently results in 191 hits. To consult the archive, go to:

http://archive.jpr.org.uk/home

Islam and British values

A majority of Britons (55%) think there is a fundamental clash between Islam and the values of British society, according to a YouGov survey for YouGov@Cambridge released on 26 March 2015 and featured in the online edition of the Daily Telegraph four days later. The sample comprised 1,641 adults interviewed online on 22-23 March. The proportion discerning a fundamental clash was highest among UKIP voters (89%), Conservatives (68%), and over-60s (67%). Only 22% deemed Islam to be compatible with British values, including 39% of both 18-24s and Liberal Democrats, while 10% disagreed with both propositions and 13% did not express an opinion. Data tables are at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/03/30/majority-voters-doubt-islam-compatible-british-val/

Posted in Attitudes towards Religion, church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, Survey news | Tagged Anglo-Jewry Database, Brierley Consultancy, British values, business people, Chris Wrigley, Christian Institute, Christians, church attendance, church growth, ComRes, court action, customers, Easter, European Jewish Research Archive, freedom of speech, God, Grace Baptist Churches, Health, importance of religion, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, International Social Survey Programme, Islam, Jesus Christ, Jewish Journal of Sociology, Jews, Michael Watts, Muslims, Nonconformity, occupations, Peter Brierley, Petra Laidlaw, Pew Research Center, Philip Hughes, Religious Affiliation, religious festivals, Religious Liberty, Resurrection, self-assessed religiosity, Sunday Times, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

Je suis Charlie and Other News

Posted on January 11, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Last week’s news was dominated by a series of Islamist outrages in France, in which seventeen innocent people died, three police officers, four shoppers at a kosher supermarket, and ten journalists working for the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which in 2011 and 2012 had controversially published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The attack on Charlie Hebdo prompted an international campaign in defence of freedom of speech under the banner ‘Je suis Charlie’.

Unsurprisingly, these Paris shootings were the most noticed news story of last week, according to an online poll of 2,047 Britons aged 18 and over by Populus on 7-8 January 2015. The then still unfolding events in France topped the list with 42%, far ahead of the AirAsia plane crash (9%) and the crisis in NHS hospitals (6%), which were in second and third places respectively. In another online poll, by YouGov on 8-9 January 2015 (explored in the next two items, below), only 4% of the 1,684 respondents were unaware of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, with 72% closely following the story. The implications of this new spike in radical Islamism will doubtless be the subject of further surveys in the days and weeks ahead.

Perceptions of Islam

The toll which Islamist terrorism takes on public perceptions of Islam was exemplified in an internally commissioned module of the YouGov poll taken in the immediate aftermath of the murders at Charlie Hebdo’s offices, on 8 and 9 January 2015. Three-fifths (61%) of the sample said that they entertained a wholly or mainly negative view of Islam, the range by demographic sub-groups being from 48% (Liberal Democrat voters) to 77% (in the case of UKIP supporters). The national figure was double the proportion holding a wholly or mainly negative view of Christianity (31%). Merely 2% regarded Islam completely positively (presumably mostly if not entirely Muslims), with 23% voicing criticisms alongside a generally positive view, and 15% unable to make their minds up. Moreover, the majority (57%) said they would feel comfortable expressing criticisms of Islam to people they knew, against 25% who would feel uncomfortable, worried, or scared about doing so (two and a half times the number saying the same about criticizing Christianity). A plurality (34%) of the whole sample and a majority (51%) of UKIP voters thought the media were more willing to criticize Christianity than Islam, with 15% saying the opposite. Data tables can be accessed via a link on a blog about the survey, posted on 9 January at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/09/britains-cautious-attitude-criticising-islam/

Freedom of speech

A second module in the same YouGov poll, undertaken for the Sunday Times, demonstrated majority support for the media’s right to publish content which could upset some religious believers, with a minority expressing reservations. On the original publication of the cartoons of the Prophet in Charlie Hebdo, 69% deemed it acceptable and 14% unacceptable, while 63% defended other newspapers which had chosen to reprint the cartoons. More generally, 71% agreed that the media have an obligation to show controversial items which are newsworthy even if they might offend the religious views of some people, with 11% prioritizing the avoidance of causing offence and 18% undecided. Three-fifths or more also endorsed publication in newspapers or magazines of certain specific controversial religious content, as summarized below. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/10nth9jzk9/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-090115.pdf

% across	Allow	Disallow
Articles or drawings criticizing and questioning the beliefs and practices of any religion	70	18
Drawings, pictures, or cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed	68	17
Articles or drawings mocking and ridiculing the beliefs and practices of any religion	61	25
Articles or drawings deliberately mocking and ridiculing religious figures like Jesus or the Prophet Mohammed	60	24

Trust in religious professionals (1)

The reputation of clergy/priests for telling the truth has improved slightly during the past couple of years, according to the results of the latest Ipsos MORI veracity index, which was published on 5 January 2015 (and for which 1,116 Britons aged 15 and over were interviewed by telephone between 5 and 19 December 2014). Clergy/priests now rank fifth among eighteen groups of professionals in terms of the public’s trust in them to tell the truth, securing a confidence vote of 71% against 24% who mistrust their veracity (albeit rising to 30% with the under-35s). However, this only restores the standing of clergy/priests to 2009 levels, and they are still 14 points below the trust figure for 1983, the first year of the index. Doctors remain the group most trusted to tell the truth (by 90% of the public) and politicians generally the least (by 16%). Full computer tables for the 2014 survey will be found at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/veracity%202014%20tables.pdf

Trend data back to 1983 are at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/15/Trust-in-Professions.aspx?view=wide

Trust in religious professionals (2)

Clergy may still be trusted to tell the truth, but religious leaders are not trusted across the board, according to the newly-released British results of the WIN/Gallup International End of Year 2014 poll, the fieldwork for which was undertaken by ORB International between 19 and 28 November 2014 among an online sample of 1,000 adults aged 18 and over (the survey was also carried out in 64 other countries). Indeed, 53% of Britons claimed not to trust religious leaders, who ranked just seventh out of ten occupations in terms of the degree of trust which they commanded, 23%, only slightly ahead of the traditional trinity of professional ‘villains’ – bankers, journalists, and politicians. The full scores are as follows:

% across	Trust	Distrust	Don’t know
Healthcare workers	82	10	9
Teachers	75	13	12
Military	67	19	14
Judges	61	20	18
Police	59	28	13
Business people	27	50	24
Religious leaders	23	53	24
Bankers	13	75	13
Journalists	10	80	11
Politicians	7	84	10

The poll also included a couple of other questions measuring the saliency of religion in respondents’ lives. In the first, asked which of five identities was most important to them, only 7% chose religion, against 35% nationality and 25% locality. In answer to the second question, and irrespective of attendance at religious services, 30% described themselves as a religious person, peaking at 45% of over-65s, with 53% declaring they were not religious and an additional 13% they were convinced atheists. These figures demonstrate a marked secularizing shift since the question was first asked by Gallup in Britain, in March 1981, when 58% identified as a religious person, 36% as not religious, and 4% as a convinced atheist. The British WIN/Gallup International 2014 data tables are at:

http://www.wingia.com/web/files/richeditor/filemanager/UK_Tables_V3_a.pdf

Opinium on religion

Self-assessed religiosity was also one of the questions posed in a survey released by Opinium Research on 5 January 2015, for which 2,003 UK adults were interviewed online between 19 and 23 December 2014. Results were broadly comparable with those obtained by WIN/Gallup International, with 26% agreeing they were religious (10% strongly and 17% somewhat) and 52% disagreeing (17% somewhat and 35% strongly); the remaining 22% said they were neither religious nor irreligious. In light of these findings, it was unsurprising that 70% of the sample believed that it was not important to be a Christian in order for a country to be defined as a democracy, residents of Scotland particularly taking this position (82%). Data tables, which complement those for a sample of first-time voters (already reported by BRIN), are at:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/sites/ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/files/op4966_first_time_voters_-_omnibus_-_tables_0.pdf

School choice

The low score for religion in defining personal identity, reported by WIN/Gallup International, was matched by an identical vote of 7% for religious ethos as the most important factor in parental choice of a school or college for their children aged 5-18, even though respondents were allowed to select up to five options. This emerged on 9 January 2015 when ComRes released the results of a poll commissioned by NASUWT (the teachers’ union), for which 1,019 UK parents were interviewed online on 19-21 September 2014. The most influential factors determining parental choice were: a school’s location (67%), supportive staff (54%), curriculum (41%), inspection reports (39%), reputation for dealing with bullying or behaviour (38%), and buildings and facilities (36%). The relatively low value attached to religious ethos, which was the least important factor along with a smart school uniform, chimes in with some of Linda Woodhead’s YouGov research in 2013. She found that, while faith schools might be popular with parents, it is predominantly for non-religious reasons. The ComRes data tables are at:

http://comres.co.uk/polls/NASUWT_Parents_views_of_schools_or_colleges_Tables_pt1.pdf

Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo’s stunning Old Testament frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, completed in 1512, has been judged the greatest work of art ever made in an online poll of 1,642 Britons by YouGov on 21-22 December 2014, netting 25% of the vote (rising to 32% among UKIP supporters). This put him well ahead of Leonardo da Vinci, who occupied second and third places with, respectively, Mona Lisa (7%) and The Last Supper (5%). YouGov conducted its survey in two stages, first asking one set of panellists, with no prompting, ‘in your opinion, what is the greatest work of art ever made?’; and then posing the identical question to a second set, inviting them to choose from the top 15 responses volunteered by the first set. The story, incorporating a link to the full data table, is featured in a blog dated 4 January 2015 on YouGov’s website at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/04/sistine-chapel-ceiling-greatest-work-art-ever-made/

Christian conferences

The majority of speakers at 22 of the largest Christian conferences and festivals in the UK continue to be men, although the proportion of women on the platform increased from 24% in 2013 to 34% in 2014. The most ‘male-heavy’ events were the Keswick Convention and the Big Church Day Out, both of which had only 14% female speakers in 2014 (with Keswick having none in 2013). The analysis was made by Natalie Collins for Project 3:28’s UK National Christian Conferences Male/Female Speaker Statistics Report, 2014, which was published on 6 January 2015 and can be downloaded from:

http://media.wix.com/ugd/7c3a0c_faf74569d68a4609bfd143369233fca1.pdf

Missed opportunity (1)

The current issue of The Tablet (10 January 2015, p. 34) reports that there will be no 2015 print edition of the Catholic Directory of England and Wales. The title has been published on behalf of what is now the Bishops’ Conference ever since 1838 and, inter alia, has been the principal public domain source for Catholic statistics in England and Wales, albeit their quality has left much to be desired, as frequent critiques by Tony Spencer of the Pastoral Research Centre clearly demonstrate. Although the Bishops’ Conference will be launching a new online directory on 19 January, it will apparently not include any pastoral statistics, which will be the responsibility of the 22 individual dioceses. Hopefully, this decision will be rethought, and some new published collation of national Catholic data will emerge in due course.

Missed opportunity (2)

Modern overviews of religion in Wales are comparatively rare, so expectations were inevitably raised with the recent appearance of The Religious History of Wales: Religious Life and Practice in Wales from the Seventeenth Century to the Present Day, edited by Richard Allen and David Ceri Jones with Trystan Hughes (Cardiff: Welsh Academic Press, 2014, vii + 281p., paperback, ISBN 978 1 86057 079 7). With a focus on ‘the religious multiplicity of Wales’, the volume comprises 21 chapters, 19 of them on particular faith traditions (there are also cross-cutting accounts of evangelicalism and ecumenism), written by 18 different authors (a mixture of academics and faith leaders). As with most such collaborative enterprises, the contributions vary somewhat in terms of length, approach, originality of research, and quality. But a clear weakness of pretty well the whole venture is the failure to engage with religious statistics in any meaningful and holistic way, and the lack of currency in those few data which are cited; thus, there are references to the results of the 2001 but not 2011 census of religion. This exemplifies other internal evidence which suggests that the book has been several years in the making and its publication delayed. BRIN readers will certainly regret the absence of a chapter or an appendix which pulls together the key historical and contemporary Welsh religious statistics.

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Catholic Directory of England and Wales, Charlie Hebdo, Christian conferences, Christianity, clergy, ComRes, David Ceri Jones, democracy, France, Ipsos-MORI, Islam, Islamism, Islamophobia, media, Michelangelo, NASUWT, Natalie Collins, Opinium Research, ORB International, parents, Populus, Project 3:28, Prophet Mohammed, religious ethos, religious leaders, Richard Allen, schools, self-assessed religiosity, Sistine Chapel, Sunday Times, trust, Wales, WIN/Gallup International, women speakers, works of art, YouGov | Leave a comment

Personal Values and Other News

Posted on June 1, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Personal values

Religion is not regarded as a particularly important value either in the UK or in the European Union (EU) generally, according to newly-released data from Special Eurobarometer 415, which was undertaken in March 2014 as wave 81.2 of Eurobarometer among representative samples of adults aged 15 and over in each of the 28 member states of the EU. UK fieldwork was conducted by TNS UK on 15-24 March 2014 with 1,296 respondents.

Interviewees were presented with a list of twelve values and asked to select a maximum of three which were most important to them personally. Only 7% in the UK picked religion (the same figures as a year previously), which relegated it to eleventh position, just ahead of solidarity (a concept which very few related to in the UK compared with other European countries – otherwise, religion might have come bottom of the list). As in the EU as a whole, the top three UK values were respect for human life, human rights, and peace. The highest priority to religion was accorded in Cyprus (21%), Malta (17%), Greece (15%), and Romania (12%). Summary data are tabulated below, with the full topline statistics available on pp. T60-61 of the report at:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_415_data_en.pdf

%	UK	EU
Respect for human life	44	40
Human rights	35	43
Peace	35	41
Equality	33	20
Rule of law	27	18
Individual freedom	24	23
Democracy	22	26
Respect for other cultures	18	9
Tolerance	16	14
Self-fulfilment	8	9
Religion	7	5
Solidarity	5	15

Church membership

There were 5,436,500 church members in the UK in 2013, 4.5% fewer in absolute terms than in 2008 (with an even bigger fall relative to the rising population), according to Dr Peter Brierley writing in the June 2014 issue of FutureFirst, the bimonthly bulletin of Brierley Consultancy. The 2013 figures derive from a form sent to each of the UK’s almost 300 denominations augmented by estimates in the case of non-response or missing data. The overall rate of decline appears to have lessened from the preceding period, and this is attributed to two principal factors: the establishment of new black and other immigrant churches, and Fresh Expressions of church.

However, the absolute decrease in members between 2008 and 2013 was unevenly distributed across the four home nations, reaching 8.4% in Wales, 11.7% in Northern Ireland, and 17.3% in Scotland (the contraction being especially concentrated in, respectively, the Union of Welsh Independents, Roman Catholic Church, and Church of Scotland). England actually registered a small increase (0.4%) over the five years, thanks to growth among the New Churches, Orthodox Churches, and Pentecostal Churches. A full analysis of the data will appear in the forthcoming second edition of Brierley’s UK Church Statistics.

Same-sex marriage

Prime Minister David Cameron may have recently extolled the virtues of Britain as a Christian country, but, in a poll chiefly about same-sex marriage, 34% of its citizens think he has actually undermined Christianity in the nation, the figure rising to 41% of over-65s and 60% of UKIP voters. Dissentients to the proposition number 42%, including 62% of Conservatives, with 25% don’t knows.

Likewise, a plurality of 45% disagrees that Cameron has improved religious freedom in the UK, with 63% for UKIP supporters. Only 19% consider that he has enhanced religious liberty (among them 37% of Conservatives and 30% of Liberal Democrats), a substantial 35% being undecided.

Notwithstanding the multiple locks (to protect religious sensibilities) built into the English and Welsh legislation for same-sex marriage, 44% feel it inevitable that the Church of England will be forced to conduct such unions (the Welsh being especially pessimistic, on 58%), 30% disagreeing and 26% uncertain.

The findings come from a survey commissioned by the Christian Institute from ComRes, and for which 2,056 adult Britons were interviewed online between 9 and 11 May 2014. Full data tables were published on 19 May at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/CI_SSM_Poll_May_2014.pdf

YouGov miscellany

YouGov’s final European election polling for The Times on 20-21 May 2014, employing an especially large sample of 6,124 adults, included several questions on miscellaneous topics, a couple of which are relevant to BRIN.

The first asked respondents to reflect on various changes in Britain in recent times and to say whether, on balance, each had been good or bad for the country. On the list was allowing supermarkets and other big shops to open on Sundays. This legislative change was approved by 63%, with 17% neutral and 16% opposed. Support was greater among the under-40s than over-40s, the figure for women over 40 falling to 55%.

The second question of interest to BRIN posed the statement: ‘Even in its more moderate forms, Islam is a serious danger to western civilisation’. A plurality of 47% agreed, rising to 75% of UKIP voters. Endorsement was much greater among the over-40s than under-40s (22% more in the case of men and 23% for women). Disagreement to the proposition ran at 28%, peaking at 46% of Liberal Democrats and 58% of Greens, with 18% undecided. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/n966r6px4w/Full_EU_Poll_Final_CUKIP.pdf

Armed forces

FOI releases published by the Ministry of Defence on 28 and 29 May 2014 provide details of the religious affiliation of regular members of the UK armed forces as at 1 October 2013, thereby updating the statistics for 1 April 2013 which were noted in our post of 3 October 2013.

The newly-released data may be summarized (aggregating all non-Christian religions) thus:

	Army	Navy	RAF	Total	%
Church of England	47,950	15,820	18,380	82,150	49.3
Roman Catholic	11,600	3,790	3,800	19,190	11.5
Other Christian	21,070	5,680	5,310	32,060	19.3
Non-Christian	2,470	290	310	3,070	1.8
No religion	13,770	7,860	6,800	28,430	17.1
Undeclared	170	80	1,320	1,570	0.9
Total	97,030	33,520	35,920	166,470	99.9

The breakdown of the 3,070 non-Christians was as follows: 870 Hindus, 650 Muslims, 550 Buddhists, 160 Sikhs, 120 Pagans, 120 Rastafarians, 70 Jews, 40 Spiritualists, 30 Kiratis, 20 Wiccas, 10 Baha’is, and 430 other religions. The two FOI releases are at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315082/PUBLIC_1391420325.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315106/PUBLIC_1391430963.pdf

Women bishops

The Church of England’s internal strife over female bishops may be coming to an end, according to the final tabulation (published on 23 May 2014) of voting in diocesan synods on the current draft legislation to permit women to be appointed to the episcopate. In aggregate, the bishops were 94.9% in favour, clergy representatives 87.7%, and lay representatives 88.6%. Apart from Europe (which could not arrange a vote in time), every diocese voted in favour, including London and Chichester (which had rejected the then proposal for women bishops in 2011), albeit 31.4% of the members of the Chichester synod still remain opposed (among them the Bishop of Chichester). The legislation will now go to the Church’s General Synod in July for final approval. The full diocesan record of voting is at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1995951/pr%2064.14%20diocese%20vote%20table.jpg

Anglican school chaplaincy

The extent and nature of chaplaincy in Anglican secondary schools was revealed in a report published on 25 May 2014 by the Church of England Archbishops’ Council Education Division and the National Society. The underlying research was conducted by Michael Camp in the spring and summer terms of 2013, on the basis of an online survey of 198 schools, of which 72 replied, with 27 follow-up visits or structured telephone interviews. The Public Face of God: Chaplaincy in Anglican Secondary Schools and Academies in England and Wales is available at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1989177/nschaplaincyreport.pdf

Four-fifths (58) of the responding secondary schools were found to have a designated chaplain (or chaplaincy team). A majority of individual chaplains (34) were ordained, 22 were lay, and one was a religious. A plurality (26) were full-time appointments, 23 part-time employees, and eight were volunteers. Employed chaplains were more likely to be on support staff rather than teaching staff contracts.

Events

A reminder that the Church of England’s annual Faith in Research Conference is taking place this coming Wednesday (4 June 2014) at the Novotel, 70 Broad Street, Birmingham, with the Bishop of Manchester in the chair. The programme of keynote and breakout sessions can be found at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1957190/session%20and%20speakers.pdf

Meanwhile, BRIN readers who live within reach of North-East England may be interested to attend a forthcoming public lecture by Dr Peter Brierley on ‘Church Statistics: the Latest Picture’. This will be given at 5 pm on Monday, 23 June 2014 at Etchells House, Cranmer Hall, 16 South Bailey, Durham. The lecture has been arranged by the Centre for Church Growth Research at St Johns College, Durham University, where Peter is a Visiting Fellow. Anybody intending to attend the lecture is kindly requested to email in advance to: d.j.goodhew@durham.ac.uk.

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged armed forces, Centre for Church Growth Research, Christian Institute, Christianity, church membership, Church of England, ComRes, David Cameron, Eurobarometer, European Commission, European Union, Faith in Research conference, Islam, Michael Camp, Ministry of Defence, National Society, Peter Brierley, Religious Affiliation, same-sex marriage, school chaplaincy, Sunday shopping, Sunday trading, The Times, TNS UK, values, Western civilization, women bishops, YouGov | Leave a comment

Halloween and Other News

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today (1 November) is All Saints’ Day or All Hallows’ Day. Tomorrow (2 November) is All Souls’ Day. Yesterday (31 October) was All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween. At one time, these were all important Christian festivals, but now Halloween has been transformed into something of a secular retail experience. The value of sales of Halloween-related products in the UK exceeds £300 million annually, making it the third most lucrative seasonal celebration after Christmas and Easter. But does the ringing of the supermarket tills overstate just how popular the commercially-driven (and Americanized) Halloween has become? Our first item (of five) highlights new research in this area.

Halloween

In fact, only one-fifth of Britons say they are very or quite interested in Halloween, with a similar proportion planning to celebrate it this year. This is according to two new YouGov polls released on 31 October 2013, and conducted among online samples of adults aged 18 and over. The first survey was undertaken on 28-29 October among 1,956 Britons, the second on 29-30 October among 1,862. The first was part of the regular Eurotrack omnibus, but, sadly, results for countries other than Britain have yet to be reported. The British findings from both studies can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/kiot587bn5/YG-Archive-GB-Eurotrack-results-291013-Halloween.pdf

and

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/pwd56t48sa/YG-Archive-Halloween-results-301013.pdf

In the first poll only 4% claimed to be very interested in Halloween, 16% were quite interested, 28% not very interested, and 50% not interested at all. Asked whether particular Halloween activities were a good or bad idea, majorities were against playing Halloween pranks (78%), children playing trick-or-treat (54%), and adults dressing up for Halloween (52%). There was more tolerance of making pumpkin lanterns and children dressing up for Halloween, which were judged good ideas by 68% and 66% respectively. Opinion was divided about the desirability of watching a horror movie on Halloween, but a plurality (43%) was opposed.

In the second poll, 22% expected to celebrate Halloween this year (9% definitely and 13% probably), far fewer than in the United States (59%). In terms of demographics, the figure varied most by age, standing at 40% of the 18-24s and 31% of the 25-39s, then falling to reach 8% of the over-60s (a massive 91% of whom renounced Halloween celebrations). Those anticipating wearing make-up, a costume or fancy dress for Halloween numbered 10% of adults (but 33% of 18-24s). There was less of an age disparity when it came to trick-or-treating by children, 70% of adults preferring them not to come knocking on their own door, the figure never dropping below 63% for any sub-group.

Council prayers

The latest issue of The Mail on Sunday (27 October 2013, p. 53) reports that, according to responses to a Freedom of Information request by the newspaper, just 59 (or 22%) of 271 (presumably English) local councils which replied now commence their meetings with a Bible reading or formal prayers. Of the remaining 212, 19 indicated that they had stopped holding formal prayers following last year’s ruling by the High Court that councils had no legal power to hold such prayers, albeit they could do so on an optional basis. The Government insists that formal prayers can continue under the Localism Act. The Mail on Sunday story is online at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2477486/Prayers-axed-town-halls-Just-22-cent-councils-Bible-reading-start-meetings.html

The last test of public opinion on this matter appears to have been by YouGov in April 2012, the poll finding that three-fifths of Britons wanted councils to be able to decide for themselves whether or not to have prayers at the start of their meetings. One-quarter thought that councils should not be allowed to commence their meetings with prayer, while 8% wished for all councils to say prayers when they began meetings.

Telling the truth

Scientists, artists, and clergy are considered the most trustworthy professions in the UK, and politicians and journalists the least, these last two groups distrusted by 62% and 30% respectively. This is according to a survey conducted by Westminster Abbey and released on 22 October 2013 in connection with the launch of the Westminster Abbey Institute (directed by Claire Foster-Gilbert). According to the Abbey’s press office, in an email to BRIN, the survey was mounted online during September and October and was open to UK residents aged 18 and over, of whom 425 completed it.

Clearly, therefore, this is a self-selecting and statistically unrepresentative sample, possibly completed by those disproportionately interested in the Abbey. This may account for the fact that fewer than 6% said that they did not trust the clergy to tell the truth, with 54% anticipating a sense of betrayal if lied to by a member of the clergy. More representative polling data, summarized in an as yet unpublished paper by the present author, have shown a loss in public standing (and thus in authority) of both Church and clergy in Britain since the 1960s. For example, in a long series by Ipsos MORI, the proportion of adults trusting clergy to tell the truth has declined from 85% in 1983 to 66% in 2013, whereas the perceived veracity of doctors, judges, scientists, and teachers has held up well.

More on veils

Yet another poll on attitudes to the veiling of Muslim women has been undertaken, this time by ComRes on behalf of Channel 4 among a sample of 1,077 Britons aged 18 and over, who were interviewed online on 23 October 2013. Results (with breaks by gender, age, region, social grade, ethnicity, and religion) were released the following day and can be viewed at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Channel_4_Niqab_Study_October_2013.pdf

The survey’s findings were fairly predictable, confirming the strength of opposition to the full face veil or niqab, especially when worn in certain public contexts, which has already been revealed by other recent studies, but the different question-wording employed by ComRes does bring an element of originality. Topline findings, in descending order of degree of negativity about face veils, are as follows:

81% support a ban on wearing full face veils in certain public places such as schools, courts or hospitals (12% being opposed)
81% support a ban on teachers in state schools, including free schools, wearing a full face veil in school (12% being opposed)
80% disagree that the full face veil is the ultimate expression of feminism (6% agreeing)
76% feel unsure of how to relate to a woman wearing a full face veil (and 19% not)
74% do not feel the same with a woman wearing a full face veil as with someone not wearing it (while 16% do)
71% disagree that the full face veil is empowering to the women who wear it (10% agreeing)
71% do not feel comfortable with a woman wearing a full face veil (and 19% do)
66% disagree that people in Britain are generally accepting of women who wear a full face veil in public (24% agreeing)
64% feel uneasy with a woman wearing a full face veil (and 31% not)
63% support a ban on teachers in state schools, including free schools, wearing any kind of veil or head covering in school (27% being opposed)
58% support a ban on wearing any kind of veil or head covering in certain public places, such as schools, courts or hospitals (31% being opposed)
56% disagree that women should be allowed to wear full face veils in public (33% agreeing)
56% agree that the full face veil is demeaning to the women who wear it (25% disagreeing)
55% support a ban on wearing full face veils in public (34% being opposed)
48% disagree that the full face veil is a rejection of an increasingly sexualized society (23% agreeing)
44% disagree that people in Britain are generally accepting of women who wear a veil or head covering in public (46% agreeing)
41% feel nervous about a woman wearing the full face veil (and 52% not)
35% support a ban on wearing any kind of veil or head covering in public (53% being opposed)
30% feel threatened by a woman wearing the full face veil (and 60% not)

Media attitudes to Islam

A nuanced and reflective analysis of media attitudes to Islam and Muslims is to be found in Paul Baker, Costas Gabrielatos, and Tony McEnery, Discourse Analysis and Media Attitudes: The Representation of Islam in the British Press, which was published by Cambridge University Press earlier this year (ISBN 978-1-107-00882-3, £65, hardback). Including 38 figures, 52 tables, and 11 concordances, the book is grounded in a systematic analysis of over 200,000 newspaper articles, extending to 143 million words, touching on Islam and Muslims appearing in the British press between 1998 and 2009. The articles were sourced from the Nexis UK archive which contains both broadsheets and tabloids, and right- and left-leaning newspapers. The research methodology combined corpus linguistics and discourse analysis.

Overall, the representation of Islam and Muslims was found to be negative, with some strong tropes emerging, such as ‘one of Islam as dangerous, frightening, uncompromising and extreme’. However, it was not monolithically so, and there was also more subtle and balanced reportage: ‘on the whole, we did not find a great deal of explicit evidence of extremely negative and generalising stereotypes about Islam’. Important shifts in media portrayals were detected over time, from a focus on Islam as faith to Muslims as people, and from international stories to UK ones. An added bonus in the work, in chapter 9, is a comparable analysis of representations of Islam and Muslims in a) English books from 1475 to 1720 and b) nineteenth-century British newspapers.

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged Channel 4, clergy, ComRes, corpus linguistics, Costas Gabrielatos, council prayers, discourse analysis, full face veils, Halloween, Islam, Islamophobia, Mail on Sunday, media, Muslims, newspapers, niqab, Paul Baker, professionals, religious dress, religious festivals, telling the truth, Tony McEnery, veils, veracity, Westminster Abbey Institute, women, YouGov | Leave a comment

Devil in the Detail

Posted on September 28, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Eight religious statistical news stories feature in our latest miscellany, starting with a survey on belief in the Devil and ending with a public consultation on the future of the decennial population census in Britain, to which some BRIN readers may wish to respond. Our next post will concentrate on the results of the religion question in the last (2011) census of Scotland.

Devil

Belief in the existence of the Devil is three times as great in the United States (57%) as it is in Britain (18%), according to YouGov data published on 27 September 2013, 1,919 Britons having been interviewed online on 24-25 September and 1,000 Americans on 12-13 September. The current British figure is 16 points lower than when Gallup first posed a similar question in February 1957. Disbelievers now number 65% (compared with 42% a half-century earlier), with 17% undecided. Belief in the Devil does not vary hugely by most demographic variables, but it does by religion, being 7% for the non-religious, 25% for Christians, and 41% for non-Christians.

The national results are identical for belief that some people can be possessed by the Devil or another evil spirit: 18% yes (against 51% in the United States), 65% no, and 17% don’t know. This belief again peaks among non-Christians (37%) and is lowest for the non-religious (10%). Of these British believers in possession, 6% think that it occurs frequently, 12% occasionally, 33% rarely, and 6% never (the rest being uncertain). Among these believers in possession, 35% believe in the power of exorcism, with no major demographic fluctuations (even by religion), 18% do not, and 47% cannot make up their minds. YouGov’s blog post about the study, with links to full data tables, is at:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/09/27/18-brits-believe-possession-devil-and-half-america/

Religious discrimination and the young

Interviewed online by ComRes for BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat programme, 72% of 1,001 adults aged 18-24 considered that young people today are more tolerant than their parents of different ethnic groups, religions, and sexual orientations. They also identified religious discrimination as the second most widespread form of discrimination in Britain (39%), after racism (58%) and just ahead of homophobia (36%). No more than 5% denied that Islamophobia exists in the UK, and 60% accepted that Muslims have a negative image among the British public (compared with 11% to 17% for the five other world faith communities).

At the same time, significant numbers of these young adults themselves exhibited negativity towards either Islam or Muslims. The Islamic faith was described as traditional by 88%, set in its ways by 81%, disrespectful of women by 67%, unequal by 63%, separate by 61%, intolerant by 52%, and violent by 37%. The Muslim community was often not thought to share the same values as other people (44%), nor to be doing enough to combat extremism (39%). More than one-third (37%) had no regular interactions with Muslims in any context, 27% distrusted them (against 12% to 16% for members of the other faiths), and 28% thought the country would be better off with fewer Muslims (13% to 17% for the other faiths).

Fieldwork took place between 7 and 17 June 2013, but the extensive data tables (481 pages) were only released on 25 September. They may be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/BBC_Radio_1_Newsbeat_Discrimination_Poll_September_2013.pdf

Christians and wills

The Church Times for 20 September 2013 (p. 6) carried a brief report about a new study by Christian Research among its online panel (Resonate). Respondents numbered 1,917 churchgoers aged 45 and above and church leaders. Of those who had made a will, 45% said that they had left money to a charity, a much higher proportion than the norm. According to Remember a Charity, only 7% of all wills in the UK contain a charitable bequest. BRIN has so far failed to discover any more details about this survey. It is certainly not publicized on the current Christian Research website, which is sparse and, it is claimed, ‘soon’ to be replaced.

Anglican mindsets

To the same issue of the Church Times (20 September 2013, p. 16), Professor Linda Woodhead contributed an important article ‘A Gap is Growing within the Church’. This continues the analysis of two YouGov polls she commissioned for this year’s Westminster Faith Debates, on ethics and personal life (25-30 January, n = 4,437) and ethics and public life (5-13 June, n = 4,018). Her main thesis, underpinned by the survey data, is that, in both contexts, majority Anglican opinion is a ‘mirror image’ of the official teaching and policy of the Church of England. On personal morality most Anglicans espouse liberalism (in the sense that individuals should be allowed to decide for themselves how to lead their lives) and fairness, whereas the Church inclines to authoritarian-paternalism, and the maintenance of difference, altogether occupying the ‘conservative’ ground. In matters of public life, however, the roles are reversed, majority Anglican views veering towards the free market and ‘Little England’ ends of the spectrum, while the Church is more social welfarist-paternalist and cosmopolitan in outlook. ‘In short’, Woodhead writes, ‘Anglicans have a good deal in common with the Government. They are in line with The Guardian on personal issues, but the Telegraph or even the Mail on wider social and economic matters.’ She also notes a values gap between Church and society, which widens as the age range is descended, perceived discrimination against women and gay people being significant factors in the disaffection of the young from the Church of England.

Religion and depression

The claim is often made, especially on the basis of research undertaken in the United States, that religion promotes psychological well-being, but the contrary appears to be the case in a multinational study reported in Psychological Medicine, Vol. 43, No. 10, October 2013, pp. 2109-20: ‘Spiritual and Religious Beliefs as Risk Factors for the Onset of Major Depression: An International Cohort Study’. Written by a team of ten academics (with Michael King of University College London as corresponding author), the data derive from 8,318 adults aged 18-75 attending general practices in seven countries (including 1,331 in the UK, 66% of whom were women) and followed up at six- and twelve-month intervals in 2003-04. The overall conclusion is that ‘holding a religious or spiritual life view, in contrast to a secular outlook, predisposed people to the onset of major depression and that such beliefs and practice did not act as a buffer to adverse life events’. This was particularly so in the UK, where the 27% of the sample claiming a spiritual understanding of life (without practising a religion) were almost three times as likely to experience an episode of depression than the secular group (32% of respondents). The odds ratios (adjusted and unadjusted) for the onset of major depression were also higher than the seculars for the 41% in the religious group, albeit the difference was not as marked as for the spiritual group. The explanation advanced is that ‘people predisposed to depression increase their search for existential meaning in religion and spirituality’. For access options to the article, go to:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8988733&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0033291712003066

Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s blockbuster thriller novel (2003) and film (2006), which has been frequently denounced as an attack on the Roman Catholic Church, was the most-read of nineteen works of modern fiction in a survey conducted by Opinium Research in which 2,001 UK adults were interviewed online between 19 and 22 July 2013. More than one-third (36%) of all adults claimed to have read it, including 42% of the over-55s. Data tables were released on 25 September 2013 and are at:

http://news.opinium.co.uk/sites/news.opinium.co.uk/files/op3710_opinium_pr_adult_literacy_tables.pdf

Scotland’s Jews

The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities has published the final report on Being Jewish in Scotland, written by Fiona Frank, Ephraim Borowski, and Leah Granat. It derives from a mixed methods research project, which commenced in November 2011 with funding from the Community Safety Unit of the Scottish Government. It ultimately involved more than 300 Scottish Jews (about 5% of the total, albeit possibly not representative) who either attended 30 focus groups or (n = 155) participated in one-to-one interviews or completed a survey form. The report is essentially a qualitative document but drawing upon pre-existing statistical evidence. Although the experience of living in Scotland was largely found to be positive, some anti-Semitism was revealed, leading to a sense of insecurity. Four-fifths of respondents were also concerned about ‘increasingly acrimonious attacks on Israel’. Being Jewish in Scotland can be read at:

http://www.scojec.org/news/2013/13viii_bjis_report/report.pdf

Beyond 2011

The Office for National Statistics issued a public consultation document on 23 September 2013 on The Census and Future Provision of Population Statistics in England and Wales. Two principal options for taking the census forward have been identified: a) a census once a decade, as in 2011, but primarily completed online; and b) a census repurposing existing government data with new compulsory annual surveys completed by a sample of households (cumulatively covering about half the population over a decade). Further details about these options, a SWOT analysis of them, the consultation questions, and how to respond (by 13 December 2013), together with links to two supplementary reports (one of which, Summary of the Uses of Census Information, contains sundry references to religion), can be found at:

http://ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/get-involved/consultations/consultations/beyond-2011-consultation/index.html

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Anglicans, BBC, Beyond 2011, census of population, Christian Research, Church of England, Church Times, ComRes, Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, depression, Devil, Ephraim Borowski, exorcism, Fiona Frank, Islam, Islamophobia, Jews, Leah Granat, Linda Woodhead, Michael King, Muslims, Office for National Statistics, Opinium Research, Psychological Medicine, Religious discrimination, Roman Catholic Church, Scotland, Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, wills, YouGov | Leave a comment

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/

Posted in church attendance, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged al-Qaeda, Angus Reid Public Opinion, blood donation, Chatham House, Christian Research, churchgoers, English Defence League, fleshandblood, Islam, Islamism, Islamophobia, Kore, Lord Ashcroft, Matthew Goodwin, Muslims, NHS Blood and Transplant, organ donation, politics, Populus, Religious Affiliation, terrorism, voting, 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

Attitudes to Muslims

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Clive D. Field

The year 2012 ended with the revelation that the Muslim community in England and Wales had grown by 75% between the 2001 and 2011 censuses of population. This basic demographic fact, combined with the increasingly prominent role and voice which Muslims have gained in national life and in the public square, seems bound to stimulate survey research measuring attitudes to them. And, indeed, the year 2013 starts with the publication of two sets of research findings on this very topic.

Offending Islam

Violent demonstrations against the United States (US) took place in a number of Muslim countries last September, following the distribution on YouTube of the short anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims, which had been made in the US. In a poll conducted in the immediate aftermath of the furore, but only just released, 24% of Britons agreed that the makers of the film ought to have been prosecuted by the US authorities for committing a hate crime, with 40% opposed to such action, and 36% uncertain. Support for prosecution was strongest among the over-60s (31%), Londoners (30%), Liberal Democrat voters (29%), and Scots (28%).

Opinion was also split about the subsequent publication, in direct response to the anti-American protests, by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad naked in front of a film director. One-third (33%) of Britons supported the magazine’s decision, as a defence of free expression, 35% criticized the publishers for causing unnecessary offence to Muslims, and 32% expressed no views. Charlie Hebdo’s greatest supporters were found among men (44%), Conservative voters (42%), and the 18-24s (41%); its greatest detractors among the over-60s (49%).

The potential tensions between free speech and religious sensibilities were explored in five more generic questions. Majorities of adults endorsed four of these statements about what should be legally allowed in Britain: saying a religion threatens world peace (60%), saying a particular religion is nonsense (59%), saying the founder of a particular religion never existed (56%), and producing visual images of the Prophet Muhammad (53%). The only statement to be approved by a plurality but not a majority of respondents was saying or printing insults about the founder of a particular religion; while 41% agreed that this should be allowed, 33% objected (14% to 18% more than to the other statements). The proportion of ‘don’t knows’ ranged from 22% to 31%, dependent upon the question.

Across all five statements, men, non-manual workers, Scots, and Conservative voters were consistently more likely to agree that the various activities should be lawful. The over-60s and Londoners were most prone to querying their legality. Since the explicit and implicit context of the entire survey was about causing offence to Muslims, the relatively pro-Islam stance of the over-60s is interesting since, on many other measures of attitudes to Islam and Muslims, this age cohort often holds the most negative views. Clearly, their position is tempered by a general sympathy for people of faith and by a sense that respect and tolerance should set appropriate limits on freedom of speech and expression; doubtless, there are also fears that mocking of Christianity might follow in the footsteps of lampooning Islam. The views of Londoners are readily explained by the fact that (as confirmed by the 2011 census) the capital is now the most diverse part of the country in terms of nationality, ethnicity, and religion, with a notable concentration of Muslims.

Source: Online survey by YouGov among 1,710 Britons aged 18 and over on 30 September and 1 October 2012. Full results released on 7 January 2013 and available at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/6xjwsgccth/YouGov-Results-121001-Muslim-protests.pdf

Integration of Muslims

Attitudes towards the integration of Muslims in British society are fairly evenly balanced, with 38% of adult Britons agreeing that Muslims want to ‘fit in’, 39% disagreeing, and 21% neutral. However, these results are not uniform across three sets of sociological, religious, and political-ideological independent variables, which have been newly investigated through two multinomial logistic regression models.

For sociological variables, no significant effects were discovered for ethnic group or age, and only a relatively weak influence for gender (women being more prone than men to take a neutral position). Yet education was significant: those with a degree-level qualification were more likely to offer a neutral response or to agree that Muslims want to fit in than disagree, compared to those with no qualifications.

Religious affiliation (denomination) had little impact overall, and frequency of attendance at religious services was not significant in terms of the fuller of the two models. But religious salience (measured by the importance attached to religion in daily life) did make a difference. Higher levels of religious salience increased the likelihood of respondents agreeing that Muslims wanted to fit in, thereby providing some support for the ‘solidarity of the religious’ thesis proposed by Joel Fetzer and Christopher Soper.

Several (but not all) of the political-ideological factors were found to have statistically significant effects. In particular, a socially authoritarian disposition was associated with negative perceptions of Muslim integration, as was anti-immigrant bias. Similarly, those with traditionalist or exclusivist views of the role of Christianity were less likely to think Muslims wanted to fit in. On the other hand, individuals who took a pro-religion line on the wearing of religious dress or the banning of religiously offensive material were more likely to give neutral responses or to agree about Muslim integration.

Source: Ben Clements, ‘Explaining Public Attitudes towards the Integration of Muslims in British Society: The “Solidarity of the Religious”?’ Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 28, No. 1, January 2013, pp. 49-65. The article is based on secondary analysis of one specific question (‘Do all Muslims living in Britain really want to fit in?’) posed to sub-samples A and B (n = 2,250) of the British Social Attitudes Survey of June-November 2008. Abstract and access options for the full text of the article can be found at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537903.2013.750836

Posted in Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Ben Clements, British Social Attitudes Surveys, cartoon, Charlie Hebdo, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, hate crime, Innocence of Muslims, integration, Islam, Islamophobia, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Muslims, offence, Prophet Muhammad, solidarity of the religious, United States, YouGov, Youtube | 3 Comments

Religious Census 2011 – England and Wales

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Clive D. Field

There have been some marked changes in the religious composition of England and Wales during the past decade, according to the first results from the 2011 census of population which were released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 11 December 2012.

A statistical bulletin containing the principal findings, with analysis and commentary, is available at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_290510.pdf

A spreadsheet of statistics for each local or unitary authority, expressed as numbers, percentages and rankings for nine main religious categories, can be found in Table KS209EW at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-286262

At the same URL is Table QS210EW which contains the same information for local authorities broken down by a 58-category classification, utilizing the write-in responses given by those claiming to be of ‘any other religion’.

A podcast featuring audio and graphical animations is on the ONS YouTube channel at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXdZJoXuxC8

The census was taken on 27 March 2011. The question asked on religion was the same as in 2001: ‘What is your religion?’ This formulation, which some interpret as implying that a respondent would/should have a faith, is known to give higher positive answers than the more open sort of question asked in the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys, which is: ‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion? If yes, which?’ The 2011 BSA reported 46.1% as having no religion on this basis.

The census reply options (in this order on the self-completion schedule) were: no religion, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and any other religion (write in). However, it should be noted that ‘no religion’ replaced ‘none’ (which had been used in 2001), ‘for clarity’ and consistency with other questions, as ONS explains. Where appropriate, ONS reassigned the ‘other religion’ given to one of the main religious categories (including ‘no religion’).

The religion question was entirely voluntary, and 7.2% chose not to answer it, slightly down on the 7.7% in 2001. It cannot be assumed that the religion of these people will exactly match the distribution of those who did reply, so it is not recommended that the data are rebaselined to exclude non-respondents.

Reasons for refusing to answer were not sought, although, clearly, some will have been motivated by an aversion to ‘the state’ enquiring into such a private matter as religion, while others will have proceeded on the principle of never volunteering information which is not mandatory.

Another methodological consideration to be borne in mind is that the census question on religion will often have been answered by the head of household on behalf of all members of the household and thus may reflect his/her interpretation rather than their actual views, especially if the head of household held strong religious convictions one way or another.

Finally, we should note that there was some apparent ‘trivialization’ in the responses. The social media campaign to have ‘heavy metal’ inserted as a religion did not have much impact, since only 6,000 eventually declared themselves as such on the census form. However, the ‘Jedi knight’ (from the Star Wars films) campaign, which had been so influential in 2001, continued to have an effect, with 177,000 adherents, albeit very many fewer than a decade previously (when there were 390,000).

Moving to the picture which emerges from the census, there has been a big increase (over two-thirds), from 14.8% to 25.1% (the latter equating to 14,100,000 individuals), in those professing no religion. It is hard to say whether the alteration in the wording of the reply option contributed to this or not, or the reassignment to ‘no religion’ of 32,000 agnostics, 29,000 atheists, and 15,000 humanists.

At ‘regional’ level, the proportion with no religion peaked in Wales (32.1%), once renowned for its Nonconformity, and at local authority level in Norwich (42.5%), closely followed by Brighton and Hove (42.4%). Regionally, the North-West had the fewest with no religion (19.8%). Local authorities with unusually low numbers of the non-religious superficially correlated with the strong presence of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Sikhs, albeit this requires further investigation.

There has been a correspondingly big reduction, almost one-fifth, in the number of people claiming to be Christian, from 71.7% in 2001 to 59.3% in 2011, although Christianity still remains by far the biggest religious group. The fall has occurred across all local authorities, with the largest drop (16.8%) in Kingston-upon-Hull. The North-East (67.5%) and North-West of England (67.3%) had the highest proportion of Christians, reaching 80.9% in Knowsley (perhaps due to the Roman Catholic heritage). London had the least (48.4%), linked to the fact that only a minority of Londoners now describe themselves as white British.

The census did not seek to differentiate between the various denominations which make up Christianity, and this is also true of other Government sources. However, it is clear from other sample surveys that the main reason for Christianity losing ground is the collapse in nominal allegiance to the Church of England.

A crude comparison of the BSA data for 2001 and 2011 shows that the Church of England’s ‘market share’ of the adult population fell by 28.1% during the decade. According to a very large (64,000) sample of adult Britons interviewed by YouGov in April-May 2011, i.e. about the same time as the census, one-third affiliate to the Church of England (and its Anglican equivalents in Wales and Scotland); in 1947-49 it had been 51% in a series of Gallup polls.

The next largest faith after Christianity in the census was Islam. Muslims now account for 4.8% of English and Welsh residents, up from 3.0% in 2001. The increase, to 2,706,000, is broadly in line with expectation. It probably substantially reflects the youthful profile of the Muslim community, with a greater concentration in the child-bearing cohorts (although age by religion breakdowns have yet to be published by ONS, so this assumption cannot be empirically validated). Migration may also have played a part.

London had the highest proportion of Muslims (12.4%), and the fastest rate of growth since 2001, Tower Hamlets being the local authority with the largest concentration (34.5%, 7.4% more than Christians), and Newham the next (32.0%). More generally, the capital was the most diverse region, with 22.4% identifying with a faith other than Christianity.

All other religions, apart from Christianity and Islam, comprised 3.6% of the population, against 2.8% in 2001. They include Hindus (1.5%), Sikhs (0.8%), Jews (0.5%), Buddhists (0.4%), and others (0.4%). Sikhs were disproportionately resident in the West Midlands, but Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews were most prevalent in London. Among the 0.4% of others, Pagans (57,000) and Spiritualists (39,000) were most numerous.

A second post by me, summarizing public comment on the English and Welsh religious census data, will appear over the next few days. BRIN’s co-director, Professor David Voas, hopes to post his own analysis on BRIN in due course.

Religion results for the 2011 census in Scotland (which was organized by the National Records of Scotland) have not been published yet, but are expected to be released shortly (and will be covered by BRIN as soon as possible). Those for Northern Ireland (where the census is run by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency) are summarized at:

http://www.nisra.gov.uk/Census/key_stats_bulletin_2011.pdf

Posted in Official data | Tagged British Social Attitudes Surveys, census of population, Christianity, England and Wales, Islam, no religion, nones, Office for National Statistics, Religious Affiliation | 3 Comments

Rating Rowan Williams and Other New Sources

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Clive D. Field

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

Rating Rowan Williams

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

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

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

Religious Education

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

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

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

Islamophobia

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

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

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

Cultural Boycott of Israel

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

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

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

Feelings towards Religious Groups

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

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

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

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

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