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Anglican Clergy Poll and Other News

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Anglican clergy poll

As anticipated in our post of 12 October 2014, the complete results of the YouGov survey of Anglican clergy were published on 23 October. The poll was designed by Professor Linda Woodhead and commissioned on behalf of Lancaster University, Westminster Faith Debates, and other partners in connection with the current series of debates on the Future of the Church of England. Respondents comprised 1,509 clergy aged 70 and under from the Anglican Churches in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland who answered 30 questions online between 14 August and 8 September 2014. They had been selected on a random basis (every third name) from Crockford’s Clerical Directory, and questionnaires sent to the 5,000 of the resulting sample of 6,000 for whom email addresses were available. The response rate thus appears to be around 30%. Full tables (with breaks by gender, age, year of ordination, country, and ministerial role) are available at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/5f5s31fk47/Results-for-Anglican-Clergy-Survey-08092014.pdf

Additionally, a press release has been issued in which Woodhead makes the following points:

Anglican clergy are united by a strong faith in a personal God and commitment to the parish system, 83% in each case
They are marked out from lay Anglicans and the rest of the population by their left-wing, ‘old Labour’, views, including attachment to a generous welfare system
They tend towards morally conservative positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and – especially – assisted dying
Attitudes are often sharply split between the third of clergy who are evangelical and the rest, the former tending to dissent from the official Church line that Anglicans should learn to ‘disagree well’

An abbreviated version of the press release can be found at:

http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/news/articles/2014/cofe-clergy-concerned-with-protecting-the-welfare-budget/

Some of the questions were specific to the clergy, but others replicated those put to a sample of adult Britons by YouGov on behalf of Westminster Faith Debates in June 2013. This permits comparisons between the clergy, the general population, and the Anglican section thereof, as follows:

% down	Clergy	Britons	Anglicans
Since 1945 British society has become
better	38	27	25
worse	34	51	60
Britain has benefited from immigration in
some ways	96	60	52
no ways	2	32	41
Welfare budget should be
reduced	17	46	52
maintained	31	24	23
increased	44	15	13
Abortion time limit of 24 weeks should be
increased	5	6	5
kept	32	40	39
reduced	43	29	33
Same-sex marriage is
right	39	46	38
wrong	51	37	47
Legal prohibition on assisted suicide should be
kept	70	14	14
changed	22	76	77

Other surveys of Anglican clergy have been carried out in the past, but have mostly had a different focus, on religious beliefs, aspects of ministry, or psychological type. Comparisons with the current YouGov study are therefore difficult. However, we may note that clerical support for disestablishment appears to have diminished somewhat over the years. Whereas Gallup found it running at 30% of full-time clergy in December 1984 and 35% in August 1996, it had fallen to 14% 30 years later, 81% wishing to retain all or some of the trappings of establishment.

Heritage at risk

The latest debate in the Future of the Church of England series was devoted to heritage, and it was fitting that, on the very same day the debate took place (23 October 2014), English Heritage published the 2014 Heritage at Risk Register. This is the first since the register began in 1998 to include a fairly comprehensive inventory of places of worship judged to be at risk. In the past year the organization has visited all those considered to be in poor or very bad condition on the basis of local reports. As a result, it is now known that, of the 14,775 listed places of worship in England, 887 or 6.0% are at risk, accounting for 15.4% of all 5,753 sites on the at risk register. The greatest number (805) are Anglican. The regional breakdown of at risk places of worship is shown below. To search the register, and for more information about it, go to:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/news/heritage-at-risk-2014/

	Places of worship at risk	As % of all sites at risk
South-West	163	9.6
South-East	116	20.9
London	73	11.3
East	115	25.8
East Midlands	105	26.1
West Midlands	76	17.4
North-West	115	24.0
Yorkshire	98	12.6
North-East	26	9.1
ENGLAND	887	15.4

In a complementary move, ChurchCare, the Church of England’s national agency for supporting its places of worship, has been working, with the financial assistance of English Heritage, to develop the Church Heritage Record, a publicly accessible database of church buildings integrated with a Geographic Information System. This will have an educational and engagement mission alongside its primary role in church planning. When launched in Spring 2015, it will contain over 16,000 entries on church buildings in England, covering a wide variety of topics from architectural history and archaeology to worship and the surrounding natural environment.

Number problems

The current issue (Vol. 16, No. 2, 2014) of DISKUS: The Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions is a theme issue devoted to ‘The Problem with Numbers in the Study of Religions’. Guest edited and introduced by Bettina Schmidt, it contains seven substantive research articles offering case studies of Australia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, and the British Isles (the latter including a further essay by Martin Stringer on superdiversity with reference to religion in Handsworth, Bitmingham in the 2011 census, as well as a qualitative study by Simeon Wallis of English adolescents who identify with no religion). There is an insightful afterword by BRIN’s co-director, Professor David Voas (pp. 116-24), which both offers a commentary on the individual papers and, drawing on his own research, illuminates the ‘serious problems of validity and reliability in measuring religion’ while simultaneously advancing a compelling case for quantification. The issue is freely available online at:

http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/DISKUS/index.php/DISKUS/issue/view/8

From the British perspective, perhaps the single most important contribution is by Kevin Brice on ‘Counting the Converts: Investigating Change of Religion in Scotland and Estimating Change in Religion in England and Wales Using Data from Scotland’s Census, 2001’ (pp. 45-69). Factoring in ethnicity, this cross-references the questions on religion of upbringing and current religion asked in Scotland in 2001 (but not in 2011, when only current religion was investigated) in order to quantify life-cycle change in religion, albeit not differentiating between Christian denominations. The overall extent of religious change was 13.5% in Scotland in 2001 (ranging from 2.2% for Pakistanis to 21.1% for Black Caribbeans), with 85.7% of all changes involving a move to no religion, and with leaving Christianity for no religion a very dominant trend for almost all ethnic groups. Notwithstanding, there were also subsidiary trends, including a not insignificant movement from none to Christian. This is a valuable piece of historical analysis, with the detail embedded in 11 tables, but its subsequent application to produce estimates for religious change in England and Wales in 2011 inevitably raises some doubts, with Brice himself conceding that some of the estimates are ‘far from robust’. As Voas suggests in his afterword, perhaps greater recourse to the potential of sample surveys for measuring religious change would have been revealing.

Church growth

Further to the release of its substantive findings at the beginning of 2014, the Church Growth Research Programme of the Church of England has been conducting some follow-on work. Particular mention should be made of a new report from Fiona Tweedie entitled Stronger as One? Amalgamations and Church Attendance. She finds that in urban areas benefice structure does not have any statistically significant effect on the likelihood of growth or decline in attendance, and that in other areas the relationship between the two variables is complex, but with no evidence to suggest that the more churches are amalgamated, the greater the chances of numerical decrease. Moreover, attendance patterns in parishes with a team ministry do not differ substantially from those without. In letters to the Church of England Newspaper (17 October 2014) and Church Times (24 October 2014), her conclusions have been challenged by David Goodhew and Bob Jackson, who point to ‘problematic data’, ‘technical statistical issues’, and failure to distinguish between different sizes of church as the source of their misgivings. The 45-page Stronger as One? report can be read at:

http://www.churchgrowthresearch.org.uk/UserFiles/File/Reports/Stronger_as_One1.pdf

A further conference in connection with the Church Growth Research Programme has now been scheduled for 4 December 2014, at the Cutlers Hall, Sheffield, with BRIN’s David Voas as one of the keynote speakers. Entitled ‘From Evidence to Action’, conference details can be found at:

http://www.churchgrowthresearch.org.uk/news/23

Islamic State

The so-called Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria was the fifth most noticed news story of last week, mentioned by just 7% of 2,038 Britons interviewed online by Populus on 22 and 23 October 2014. It had been in second position the previous week and in the top spot (currently occupied by the Ebola outbreak) for several weeks before that. In third place last week was the (Islamist-related) shooting in Ottawa, noted by 9%.

In another newly-released Populus poll for We Believe in Israel and the Jewish Leadership Council, and principally concerned with British attitudes toward Israel, 77% entertained a very cold and unfavourable view of IS (the bottom of a 10-point scale), with a further 11% regarding them unfavourably (points 1-4). Nevertheless, 5% held IS in a favourable light (points 6-10), rising to 14% among the 18-24s. The word most often used to describe Israel was Jewish (40%), 63% endorsing Israel’s right to exist as a majority Jewish state, albeit more than two-thirds of these qualified their support with the proviso that Israel should agree to the existence of a separate Palestinian state. Fieldwork was conducted online between 10 and 12 October 2014, among a sample of 2,067. Data tables are at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/OmIsrael_BPC.pdf

The latest Ipsos MORI Political Monitor asked a half-sample of 501 adults, interviewed by telephone on 11-14 October 2014, what role the British military should play against IS. In reply, 59% backed their deployment abroad to fight IS, 17% giving as their reason the direct threat to British interests and 42% the threat to other people’s rights and freedom. Opposition to the intervention of Britain’s armed forces against IS stood at 34%. The question was somewhat ambiguous because intervention could have been interpreted to mean RAF bombing of IS, the engagement of British troops in Iraq to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting IS, or the commitment of British ground troops in direct combat with IS, the first two of which are already happening. Data tables are at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/Oct2014_PolMon_Tables_Web_foreignpolicy.pdf

In its most recent poll for The Sunday Times, undertaken on 23-24 October 2014 on the basis of 2,069 online interviews, YouGov found that 76% of the population supported the removal of British citizenship from those who possess dual nationality or are naturalized Britons and who have been fighting with IS, with only 10% opposed. Two-thirds (with 19% against) also wanted to see Parliament change the law so that British citizenship could be removed from people born in Britain and who have no other nationality but have been fighting with IS. Responding to the Islamist gun attack on the Canadian Parliament, 77% thought there was a risk of a similar attack occurring in this country. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/tg001pwhwn/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-241014.pdf

Media coverage

Thanks and congratulations are due to regular BRIN contributor Ben Clements for his two recent posts on religion data in the British Election Study 2015 panel. These seem to have excited some media interest, with coverage thus far in The Catholic Herald, 24 October 2014, p. 6 (also quoting BRIN co-director David Voas); The Tablet, 25 October 2014, p. 29; and The Times, 25 October 2014, main section, p. 92.

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Ben Clements, Bettina Schmidt, British Association for the Study of Religions, British Election Study, census of population, church attendance, church growth, Church Heritage Record, Church of England, ChurchCare, clergy, David Voas, DISKUS, English Heritage, Fiona Tweedie, Heritage at Risk Register, Ipsos-MORI, Iraq, Islamic State, Israel, Jewish Leadership Council, Kevin Brice, Linda Woodhead, places of worship, Populus, Religious Affiliation, Religious change, Scotland, Sunday Times, Syria, We Believe in Israel, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | Leave a comment

British Academy Recognition and Other News

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Clive D. Field

BRIN secures British Academy recognition

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

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

Ipsos Global Trends Survey, 2014

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

http://www.ipsosglobaltrends.com

Prospects for religious revival

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

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

No religion hotspots

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

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

Churches and social capital

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

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

Good Neighbours can be read at:

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

and the ComRes data tables at:

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

United Reformed Church statistics

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

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

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

Faith and Belief Scotland

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

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

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

The report can be found at:

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

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

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

Anti-Semitism

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

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

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

ADL Index of Anti-Semitism

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Britain has one of the lowest rates of anti-Semitism in the world, according to The ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, which was released by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on 13 May 2014.

Interviews were conducted, under the auspices of Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, with randomly selected samples of 53,100 adults aged 18 and over in 102 countries (comprising 86% of the world’s population) between July 2013 and February 2014. They included 510 in Britain, by telephone, from 9 August to 17 September 2013 by an unspecified agency.

The principal output from the research is an interactive website, permitting users to interrogate the data for individual countries, but there is also an executive summary which provides an overview of the results and methodology. Both can be accessed at:

http://global100.adl.org/

The index has been compiled from a list of eleven negative stereotypes about Jews, some included in previous (less extensive) ADL research and some new. Respondents who said that at least six of these statements were probably true were deemed to harbour anti-Semitic attitudes.

Across all 102 countries combined 26% of adults were classified as anti-Semitic on this measure, the largest proportion by far being in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA, on 74%), with the biggest score within MENA being the West Bank and Gaza (93%) and for a non-MENA nation Greece (69%). The aggregate score for English-speaking countries was 13%.

Britain scored 8%, placing it in 97th position, with only Vietnam, The Netherlands, Sweden, Philippines, and Laos recording lower figures. The British statistic was higher for men (10%) than women (6%) and, by age, peaked among those aged 35-49 (9%). It was twice as great among people without religion (12%) as Christians (6%), although the sub-sample of the former apparently represented under 140 individuals.

Of the eleven stereotypes, the most commonly accepted in Britain (as it was in the rest of the world) was that ‘Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country/the countries they live in’. This was held by 27% of Britons (34% among 18-34s), the smallest number since ADL surveys began here in 2002 (comparative data for replicated stereotypes appear below). The next most prevalent stereotypes in Britain were that ‘Jews have too much control over the United States government’ (19%, with 24% for men) and ‘Jews have too much control over the global media’ (14%, with 19% among 18-34s).

% saying each stereotype probably true	2002	2004	2005	2007	2009	2012	2013
Jews more loyal to Israel than this country	34	40	39	50	37	48	27
Jews have too much power in business world	21	20	14	22	15	20	11
Jews have too much power in international financial markets	NA	18	16	21	15	22	12
Jews still talk too much about Holocaust	23	31	28	28	20	24	10
Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind	10	18	NA	NA	NA	NA	8

Somewhat fewer than the 8% categorized by the ADL as anti-Semitic self-identified as holding unfavourable opinions of Jews – just 5%, the same as for Christians. Predictably (from other surveys), Muslims were the most negatively rated. However, in the case of all the non-Christian faiths, one-fifth of the British sample was undecided. This presumably reflected lack of direct acquaintance with the groups concerned (for instance, three-quarters said they rarely or never interacted with Jews) but may also have concealed some who were silently antipathetic. The full figures follow:

% rating of	Favourable	Unfavourable	Can’t rate
Christians	82	5	13
Jews	75	5	20
Muslims	69	11	21
Hindus	72	6	22
Buddhists	74	4	23

Rather more (16%) reported that ‘a lot of the people I know have negative feelings about Jews’, while two-fifths admitted to being very or fairly worried about violence directed at Jews or Jewish symbols/institutions in Britain. Such violence occurred somewhat often according to 6% of respondents, not that often for 27%, and never or almost never for 39%. Of the minority who could isolate the cause of the violence, far more Britons attributed it to anti-Israel sentiment as to anti-Jewish feelings, as had been the case in previous years (see trend data, below).

% agreeing violence against Jews	2002	2004	2005	2007	2009	2012	2013
Result of anti-Jewish feelings	15	14	24	27	30	32	14
Result of anti-Israel sentiment	46	51	33	34	26	34	33

In fact, as many as 26% of Britons entertained an unfavourable attitude to Israel, with 38% favourable (against 54% being favourable to Palestine). A similar proportion (27%) agreed that their views of Jews were influenced to an extent, and invariably for the worse, by the actions of the State of Israel. This was much the same as in the four previous surveys (2005. 2007, 2009, and 2012) when the figure ranged from 20% to 28%.

There was overwhelming (99%) familiarity with the Holocaust, and there were no absolute Holocaust-deniers in the sample, albeit 6% believed that the number of Jews who had died in it had been greatly exaggerated. Of the remainder, 83% accepted the historical record of the scale of Jewish deaths, while 10% expressed no views. Far fewer accused Jews of talking too much about the Holocaust than in previous surveys – 10% versus a mean of 26% for 2002-12.

Jews accounted for well under 1% of Britain’s population at the 2011 census, yet only 22% of this sample correctly estimated that proportion. Almost half (47%) reckoned Jews constituted more than 1%, including 26% who believed they might form more than 2% of the population.

So far as Britain and several other countries are concerned, the ADL study will doubtless be compared with Jewish experiences and perceptions of anti-Semitism as reported by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on 8 November 2013. The UK data for the FRA survey derived from an online and entirely self-selecting sample of 1,468 Jews. See BRIN’s post of 15 November 2013 for further analysis.

Posted in News from religious organisations, Survey news, visualisation | Tagged Anti-Defamation League, Anti-Semitism, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, holocaust, Islamophobia, Israel, Jews, prejudice, violence | 1 Comment

Supernatural, Superstition, and Other News

Posted on March 30, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Supernatural and superstition

UK adults are now more likely to believe in supernatural phenomena than in a God, according to a survey published on 27 March 2014. It was conducted by OnePoll among an online sample of 2,000 adults aged 18 and over and commissioned by UKTV’s Watch Channel to coincide with the British launch of the US drama series Believe. The story is about a young orphan girl in possession of mysterious powers who is placed under the protection of an escaped death row inmate.

Belief in the supernatural and superstition ran at 55% against 49% believers in a God. The most widespread supernatural beliefs were in ghosts (33%), a sixth sense (32%), UFOs (22%), past lives (19%), telepathy (18%), the ability to predict the future (18%), psychic healing (16%), astrology (10%), the Bermuda Triangle (9%), and demons (8%).

One-quarter of respondents said that their beliefs in the supernatural arose from witnessing something spooky themselves, while 19% had been convinced by somebody they trusted, and 16% influenced by television or film. Some were prepared to fork out money in pursuit of the supernatural, 4% admitting they spent more than £100 a year on it, but others did not need to. For 10% (and 14% in North-West England) claimed to possess at least one supernatural power themselves (mostly seeing into the future, regressing to past lives, or telepathy), which was more than attended religious services on a weekly basis (8%).

One-third (32%) of adults considered themselves superstitious, rising to 37% in the South-East. The most common superstitions about good or bad luck were associated with walking under a ladder (25%), breaking a mirror (21%), touching wood (18%), opening an umbrella indoors (18%), putting new shoes on the table (17%), finding a penny on the floor (17%), experiencing burning ears when somebody was talking about them (15%), spilling salt (15%), Friday the 13th (14%), and forbidding the groom to see the bride in her dress before the wedding (14%).

Online coverage of this poll is currently rather limited, and OnePoll does not tend to publish its data tables, but there is a press release about the survey on one of the UKTV websites at:

http://watch.uktv.co.uk/believe/article/do-you-believe/

There have also been some news stories in the print and online editions of the Daily Mail at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2590349/God-Were-likely-believe-supernatural-Number-people-think-sixth-sense-higher-regularly-attend-church.html

and of The Times, with the online article (heavily abridged for the print edition) being accessible to subscribers only at:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/faith/article4046215.ece

In the absence of any further information about question-wording and results, it is hard to compare these headline findings with those from previous polls. This is certainly not the first time since the Millennium that only a minority report belief in a God, but the exact proportion does tend to vary quite a bit, depending on how the question is framed and what response codes are on offer.

Scottish independence

Scots will be voting in the independence referendum in September. Religion has not featured strongly in the debate thus far, but The Universe for 23 March 2014 (p. 11) contained a report entitled ‘Scots Catholics “more likely to vote for independence”’. It reflected recent coverage in The Herald newspaper regarding the attitudes of Catholics in Scotland to Scottish independence. Professor Tom Devine is quoted as saying that Catholics are the biggest supporters of independence, having abandoned their previous apprehensions about it following ‘the death of structural sectarianism and labour market discrimination’. He cited data from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) in defence of his claim. Professor John Curtice agreed that Catholics had once been unlikely to vote for the Scottish Nationalist Party and (implicitly) for Scottish independence and that this was no longer the case. However, he argued that Scottish Catholics were still more likely to vote Labour than non-Catholics. The Scottish Labour Party is campaigning for the union with the United Kingdom.

SSAS certainly appears to be the main source of information about the subject, since it gathers data on religious affiliation, whereas most opinion polls and sample surveys touching on Scottish independence do not. The 2013 SSAS, which interviewed 1,497 adults, is the latest available, and the independence debate has obviously moved on since then, so we cannot be sure that the picture it reveals is still current. One of the many questions asked was ‘should Scotland be an independent country?’ This is identical to the wording to be used in the forthcoming referendum. The religious break of the combined responses of those who had and had not definitely made up their mind at the time of interview are as follows:

% across	Yes	No	DK/not vote
Church of Scotland	22	66	13
Roman Catholic	37	41	22
Other Christian	13	68	18
Non-Christian	37	54	10
No religion	34	50	17
All	30	54	17

So, at that stage, Scottish Catholics were more likely to support independence than any other religious group, apart from non-Christians, albeit the plurality of Catholics still favoured the union. These figures have been calculated from the extremely valuable What Scotland Thinks website, which brings together all the relevant opinion data and enables online analysis of SSAS results. Besides data, it also has a comment and analysis section, including an interesting blog by Michael Rosie from last August on ‘Religion and Scottish Independence’, explaining that, once age and gender are factored in, the modest differences in attitudes to independence between religious groups fade away. See:

http://blog.whatscotlandthinks.org/2013/08/tall-tales-religion-and-scottish-independence/

2021 census

As widely reported in national media on 28 March 2014, there will be a decennial population census in England and Wales in 2021 if recommendations by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are approved by Government. Following comprehensive evaluation of options, and a public consultation exercise, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority submitted proposals to the Cabinet Office on 27 March under which the census would continue, but on the basis of being completed online in the main. Such a change in methodology is expected substantially to reduce the estimated £1 billion cost of taking a conventional paper-based census in 2021, and builds upon the relative success of the 2011 census in which 16% of household reference persons in England and Wales took up the option of filing their returns online. Additionally, ONS is arguing for a change in the law to allow personal administrative data routinely collected by Government departments (examples might be from the tax, benefit, and NHS systems) to be made available to ONS so as to improve the currency and accuracy of its data sources. It is intended that greater use would also be made of sample surveys between censuses. All in all, quite an ambitious ONS shopping list.

The detailed recommendations from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority in respect of England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland are carrying out separate reviews of options for another census) can be read at:

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/who-ons-are/programmes-and-projects/beyond-2011/beyond-2011-report-on-autumn-2013-consultation–and-recommendations/national-statisticians-recommendation.pdf

It is naturally far too early to say what the content of any 2021 census (if it happens) would be, and, in particular, whether the voluntary question on religious affiliation asked in 2001 and 2011 will be retained.

2011 census

Meanwhile, new analysis of the results of the 2011 census continues to be published, and a couple of recent releases are worthy of note.

On 27 March 2014 the Office for National Statistics published various outputs on living arrangements and marital status for adults in England and Wales in 2011, demonstrating a marked increase since 2001 in the proportion cohabiting or living alone (including the never married). The highest levels of cohabitation seemed to be associated with local authorities with the greatest incidence of religious nones, and vice versa. The pattern was exemplified by Norwich, which topped the league tables for both indicators, with 16% of adults cohabiting and 43% of the population professing no religion. See table 4 in the report at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_356002.pdf

On 19 March 2014 the Registrar General for Scotland published Release 3B of the 2011 Scottish census, including table DC2207SC, containing details of country of birth by religion by sex for all geographies. The full data can be manipulated via the data explorer tool on the Scotland’s Census 2011 website, but a summary of country of birth for each religious group in Scotland appears below (the abroad category including the Republic of Ireland, an important consideration in the case of Catholics):

%	Scotland	Rest of UK	Abroad
All	83.3	9.7	7.0
Church of Scotland	94.1	4.4	1.5
Roman Catholic	82.1	5.7	12.2
Other Christian	48.6	36.0	15.4
Buddhist	33.2	13.3	53.5
Hindu	13.2	5.2	81.6
Jew	63.1	17.4	19.5
Muslim	37.3	7.4	55.4
Sikh	43.9	14.2	41.9
Other religion	63.3	23.0	13.6
No religion	83.4	11.4	5.2
Religion not stated	79.5	13.5	7.0

Church of England health check

In our posts of 31 January and 14 February 2014 we noted three of the four instalments in the health check of the Church of England which recently appeared in the Church Times, and written by a team of 35 contributors under the leadership of Professor Linda Woodhead. These articles have now been gathered together into a single volume, which will be published by Canterbury Press on 25 April 2014: How Healthy is the CofE? The Church Times Health Check (ISBN 9781848257016, £12.99 paperback). Copies can be pre-ordered on the Canterbury Press website but not yet on Amazon. Orders are also being taken by the Church Times bookshop with a reduced price for six copies or more.

Attitudes to Israel

British Jewry is always sensitive about perceptions of Israel by the British public. It may, therefore, be disappointed to see the outcome of what is arguably the largest-scale test of opinion ever conducted in this country. Ironically, it was published (on 22 March 2014) soon after Prime Minister David Cameron had visited Israel. In the latest Populus poll for Lord Ashcroft, conducted online among a huge sample of 20,058 Britons aged 18 and over between 7 and 20 January 2014, respondents were asked to say how positively or negatively they felt about 21 countries, using a scale running from 0 (very negative) to 10 (very positive). In a league table of mean scores, below, Israel languished in 18th position, just behind Russia (noting that fieldwork predated the Crimean crisis) but ahead of Iran and North Korea, traditionally the least favoured states.

Canada	7.23	China	4.77
Sweden	6.77	Poland	4.74
Switzerland	6.63	Greece	4.63
Norway	6.52	South Africa	4.60
Japan	5.98	India	4.55
Germany	5.74	Russia	4.07
USA	5.73	Israel	3.97
Italy	5.70	Saudi Arabia	3.46
Spain	5.69	Iran	2.69
France	5.08	North Korea	2.40
Brazil	4.90

Only 7% of Britons gave Israel the most positive scores of 8-10, whereas 53% were fairly neutral (4-7) and 40% very negative (0-3), the last figure peaking at 45% among the 45-54s and the lowest (DE) social group and at 46% for those with no formal educational qualifications. These findings are in line with other evidence, Israel’s reputation in Britain having taken a tumble during recent decades because of its policies and actions on the Palestinian question. The complete favourability of nations ratings can be found on pp. 250-501 (with Israel on pp. 286-97) of the data tables at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Europe-on-Trial-poll-Full-tables.pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Believe, census of population, Church of England, Church Times, cohabitation, country of birth, health check, Israel, Linda Woodhead, Lord Ashcroft, Office for National Statistics, OnePoll, Populus, Religious Affiliation, Roman Catholics, Scotland, Scottish independence, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, supernatural, superstition, UKTV, WATCH | Leave a comment

Roman Catholic and Other Statistics

Posted on January 11, 2014 by Clive D. Field

A belated Happy New Year to all readers of BRIN! It has been a slowish start to 2014 in terms of new religious statistical sources, but here is a selection of seven stories to replenish your stock of data.

Roman Catholic statistics

In our post of 1 February 2013 we reported that the editor of the Catholic Directory of England and Wales had decided to discontinue publication therein of the annual statistical supplement, which had appeared for a century, as a result of her lack of confidence in the quality of the data, especially regarding their consistency. The Tablet for 21/28 December 2013 reported that, ‘thanks to the efforts of a former banker’, the statistics would be reinstated in the 2014 edition of the Catholic Directory. This has yet to appear (it will be published later this month), but, in the meantime, Tony Spencer of the Pastoral Research Centre Trust (PRCT) has just released a preliminary table of pastoral and population statistics of the Catholic community in England and Wales for 2011 and 2012, based on a careful (but still not quite complete) editing and reconciliation of data for each of the 22 dioceses. Figures for all years between 2001 and 2012 will be available in due course. The 2011-12 picture is one of continuing decline on several performance measures, of 2.2% in the estimated Catholic population, 1.8% in Mass attendance in October (with only one-fifth of Catholics now at Mass), 3.7% in baptisms, and 18.5% in receptions of converts. There was a modest (0.5%) rise in marriages, but the figure includes mixed marriages and those celebrated in Anglican churches which were authorized by the Catholic parish priest. Deaths were 0.9% less in 2012 than 2011, with the Catholic death rate being 9.7 per 1,000. The PRCT table will be found at:

http://www.prct.org.uk/

The data were covered by two broadsheet newspapers in their editions of 4 January 2014, The Times suggesting that the pattern of long-term decline (associated with child abuse scandals) might be reversed by the ‘Francis effect’, The Daily Telegraph concentrating on the increase in late baptisms of children (after their first birthday), which it attributed to ‘a scramble for places at the most popular Roman Catholic schools’. The Roman Catholic weekly, The Tablet, also noted the possible ‘Francis effect’ from 2013 when it ran the story a week later (11 January 2014), headlining ‘Mass Attendance Down but London Bucks the Trend’.

BRIN was contacted by the Catholic Herald for an assessment of the statistics, and we are quoted in that newspaper’s report in its edition of 10 January 2014 (p. 3 – there is also an editorial on p. 13). In more detail, the points we made were:

There are long-standing concerns about the quality of many Roman Catholic statistics (especially estimated Catholic population), arising from the absence of a national infrastructure for data collection and quality control, such as exists, for example, in the Church of England.
In many senses the decline in the Roman Catholic Church mirrors what is happening in mainstream Christian denominations in this country. However, the underlying fall would almost certainly have been much greater but for the boost given to the Church by immigration from Eastern Europe in recent years.
In both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England alienation is linked to the growing gulf between official Church teaching and the views of active and nominal members. This has been demonstrated by Professor Linda Woodhead’s recent research. For her study of Catholics, see: http://faithdebates.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/WFD-Catholics-press-release.pdf
Optimists in the Roman Catholic Church suggest that decline may be reversed by the ‘Francis effect’. We are more sceptical about this since a similar argument was put forward for the ‘Benedict bounce’ following the 2010 papal visit. It did not materialize, as the Opinion Research Business polls commissioned by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in 2010 and 2011 demonstrated, and as confirmed by the Church’s statistics for 2009 and 2010 summarized at: http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/catholic-directory-2012/

Religion and politics

Lord Ashcroft’s latest political poll, published on 4 January 2014 and conducted online by Populus on 4-10 November 2013, included the standard background question about membership of religious groups, asked of a very large sample (n = 8,053). The proportion identifying as of no religion was, at 38%, identical to that reported in the two YouGov polls for the Westminster Faith Debates, which we covered in our last post of 30 December 2013. These ‘nones’ constituted a majority (51%) of the 18-24s in Ashcroft’s survey and a plurality (44%) of the 25-34s, with Christianity being the leading faith for other demographic sub-groups, averaging 53% and peaking at 71% of over-65s. In political terms, ‘nones’ were most likely to be found among people who had voted Liberal Democrat at the 2010 general election (44%) or the smaller number intending to vote Liberal Democrat now (41%). They were least likely to be encountered among Conservative supporters (27% in both 2010 and 2013), who were disproportionately Christian (66% in 2013). Of those who had voted Conservative in 2010 and intended to do so again, 68% were Christian, falling to 65% for voters who had defected from the Conservatives since 2010, 57% for adults who had switched to the Conservatives since 2010, and 52% for those who had not been Conservative in the past but indicated they might be in the future. UKIP supporters were 10% more likely to identify as Christian than the norm and Labour supporters 4% less. Non-Christians favoured Labour, and this was especially true of Muslims. Superficially (other factors are at work, of course), the historic connection between religion and voting is by no means extinguished. For more data, see table 69 at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Blueprint-4-Full-tables.pdf

Also, watch out for the forthcoming Theos report by Ben Clements and Nick Spencer on Voting and Values in Britain: Does Religion Count? BRIN will cover this as soon after publication as possible.

Religion and age

The lead story on the front page of The Times for 10 January 2014 (subscription access online) was a curiously headlined article by Dominic Kennedy, the newspaper’s investigations editor, on ‘Rise in Muslim Birthrate as Families “Feel British”: Census Figures Reveal “Startling” Shift in Demographic Trend’. Its key underlying fact, taken from the 2011 census, was that ‘almost a tenth of babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim … almost twice as high as in the general population’; in stark contrast, ‘fewer than one in 200 over-85s are Muslim’. Expert comments on the findings were sought and quoted from two of the country’s leading demographers, Professors David Coleman of the University of Oxford and David Voas of the University of Essex (and BRIN). Voas apparently said that he saw no prospect of Muslims becoming a majority in Britain, although he did foresee that Muslims who worshipped might outnumber practising Christians one day (which several other pundits have also been predicting for a decade or more). The story in The Times, which has been widely reported in other print and online media in Britain and worldwide, was not actually based on any new analysis of census data by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) but on a hitherto little noticed ad hoc ONS table (CT0116, created on 18 October 2013), giving a detailed breakdown of religion in England and Wales by sex by age in 2011. This was pointed out by Ami Sedghi in her post on The Guardian’s Datablog on 10 January 2014, which helpfully includes a link to the table, rather implying that The Times was raking over ‘old news’, and additionally observing that the census actually recorded more children aged 0-4 as having no religion as those who were Muslim. The blog can be read at:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/jan/10/rise-british-muslim-birthrate-the-times-census

Gift aid and the Church of England

Gift aid (introduced in 1990) has been an important factor in helping the Church of England to grow its real income consistently over the past two decades, according to a post on the Civil Society blog on 17 December 2013. The Church collects over £80 million of gift aid and tax refunds each year, and it accounts for 8% of all gift aid by value and 15% by volume. Although the number of adults in usual Sunday congregations of the Church of England declined by 27% between 1980 and 2010, tax-effective subscribers (using covenants and gift aid) rose by 38% over the same period, with tax-effective subscribers equivalent to 72% of usual Sunday congregations by 2010 (almost double the 38% of 1980). More information at:

http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/fundraising/blogs/content/16600/gift_aid_does_make_a_difference_to_giving_ask_the_church_of_england

Violence against the clergy

The Sunday Telegraph of 5 January and The Times of 6 January 2014 both included reports about ‘hundreds of violent attacks on the clergy’, the story subsequently being run by the Church Times on 10 January. The articles drew upon data obtained by right-of-centre think-tank Parliament Street through Freedom of Information requests submitted to police forces in England, of which 25 responded. The replies suggested that there had been more than 200 violent attacks on clergy over the past five years, a number thought to be just ‘the tip of the iceberg’ because of the inadequate and inconsistent recording of such offences. Parliament Street, which has not posted its data online, is calling upon Government to recognize attacks on clergy as constituting a religiously motivated hate crime, which would thereby attract severer penalties. The organization National Churchwatch has also been active since 2000 in documenting anti-Christian hate crime. However, so far as BRIN is aware, the best source of empirical evidence on the subject of the clergy remains the ESRC-funded research into violence against three groups of professionals (including clergy) undertaken by Royal Holloway, University of London in 1998-2001, details of which appear in the final project report at:

http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/L133251036/read

State-sanctioned surveillance

In an online Resonate poll conducted by Christian Research since the leaks emanating from former American security contractor Edward Snowden, the majority (77%) of 1,134 UK practising Christians sensed that mass intelligence-gathering by the state in the UK is increasing, but 82% agreed that it is justified in order to prevent acts of terrorism and 69% considered that the level of CCTV in operation in their area was about right. The results were disclosed by the Church Times in its issue of 3 January 2014 (p. 6). Characteristically, no further information is available on Christian Research’s website. However, the website does record that membership of the Resonate Christian omnibus panel has now reached 14,000 and that surveys will be run monthly from January 2014.

Jewish emigration to Israel

Jewish immigration to Israel in 2013 was modestly (1%) up on 2012, according to data collected by the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israel Ministry of Immigration and Absorption. However, the number of Jews leaving the UK for Israel (making aliyah) in 2013 was, at 510, 27% down on the previous year, albeit close to the average since the beginning of the Millennium (the range being from 300 in 2002 to 800 in 2009). This decline compared with a rise of 35% in Western Europe (and 63% in France); in the United States there was a reduction of 13%. Emigrants to Israel from the UK constituted 12% of the Western European total and 3% of the world figure. The fall in UK emigrants is attributed by some to the improving economic situation and lessened anti-Semitism in the UK, and by others to a weaker focus on aliyah following a radical restructuring of the Jewish Agency two years ago. This note derives from a press release issued by the Israeli embassy in London on 30 December 2013 and from coverage in the Jewish Chronicle for 3 January 2014. The full data do not yet appear on the Jewish Agency’s website.

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Aliyah, Ami Sedghi, Catholic Herald, census of population, Christian Research, Church of England, clergy, David Voas, emigration, finance, gift aid, hate crime, Israel, Jews, Lord Ashcroft, Office for National Statistics, Parliament Street, Pastoral Research Centre Trust, politics, Populus, Religious Affiliation, religious census. Roman Catholic Church, surveillance, The Times, Tony Spencer, violence, voting | 2 Comments

Secularization Restated and Other News

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Seven statistical news stories about religion in Britain feature in today’s post, including a summative article from Steve Bruce in reaffirmation of the secularization thesis.

Secularization restated

In Britain ‘there is no evidential warrant for describing individual beliefs and behaviour as post-secular or de-secularising’, concludes Professor Steve Bruce in a characteristically robust and entertaining restatement of the secularization paradigm: ‘Post-Secularity and Religion in Britain: An Empirical Assessment’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2013, pp. 369-84 (published on 2 October 2013). ‘Religion has become more contentious; it has not become more popular’ is his principal argument, supported by a high-level overview of statistics of religious membership, attendance, rites of passage, institutions, and beliefs. Nor, Bruce suggests, has the overall picture of (largely Christian) decline been offset by the undoubted growth of non-Christians (unfortunately, the paper was finalized before publication of the results of the 2011 census) and the emergence of alternative forms of spirituality. Nor, in a tantalizingly brief section, does Bruce find evidence of any compensating increased presence of religion in public life; indeed, he claims, there has been ongoing privatization. The article’s arguments and sources are essentially familiar (and perhaps still best read in full in their original incarnations), but relative newcomers to the secularization debate may benefit from it as an introductory discourse and compilation of data. Unfortunately, it is hidden behind a publisher’s pay-wall; for access options, go to:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2013.831642#.UlbieTZwbX4

Westminster Faith Debates

Professor Linda Woodhead released on 8 October 2013 the full data tables from the second YouGov poll she commissioned for the 2013 Westminster Faith Debates, in which 4,018 adult Britons were interviewed online between 5 and 13 June 2013. The data can be found at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/4vs1srt1h1/YG-Archive-University-of-Lancaster-Faith-Matters-Debate-full-results-180613-website.pdf

The tables are a substantial resource for secondary research. They extend to 65 pages and include breaks of all questions by the following variables: current voting intention, 2010 vote, gender, age, social grade, region, education, ethnicity, religious affiliation, religious meeting/service attendance, and self-assessed religiosity/spirituality.

The questions cover the following religious topics: self-assessed religiosity/spirituality, religious/spiritual influences, private and public religious practices, belief in God/higher power, and sources of guidance in life. Respondents were then asked about their attitudes to: abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, faith schools, discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, protests against perceived insults of faiths, immigration, the European Union, changes in British society, the welfare system, Islamist terrorism, the Church of England, Roman Catholic Church, and Margaret Thatcher versus Tony Blair as best Prime Minister.

The findings for faith schools – a discrete and substantial module in the survey – have previously been released and summarized by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2013/faith-schools-and-other-news/

It would be impossible here to record the results for the full range of other subjects covered in the poll, but the final question might be worth a note. Asked which Prime Minister did more good for Britain, 39% said Thatcher, 18% Blair, 6% both equally, 28% neither, with 9% undecided. Thatcher commanded above average support from Anglicans (47%), Presbyterians (49%), and Methodists (47%). Blair was disproportionately popular with Roman Catholics (27%) and churchgoers. Muslims (42%) were most likely to say neither.

BRIN was also struck by the couple of questions surrounding Jerry Springer: the Opera, the British musical staged in London in 2003-05 before touring the UK in 2006, and which attracted strong protests from Christians on the grounds of its irreverence and profanity. Notwithstanding, the production excited little interest from pollsters at the time, so it is good to have the furore covered here, albeit almost a decade late. Reminded of the context, 52% of YouGov’s respondents felt that peaceful protests against the musical were understandable and 42% that they were justified (36% not). Catholics (54%), the historic Free Churches, Muslims (66%), and weekly attenders at services (76%) were most likely to consider the protests justified.

UK Data Service

The UK Data Service (UKDS) has recently announced the release of two historic datasets which will be of interest to BRIN users:

SN 4394: a first release of English Church Attendance Survey, 1998, undertaken by Peter Brierley, and joining the dataset for the 1989 church census, which is already held by UKDS
SN 1988: what appears to be a new edition of Conventional Religion and Common Religion in Leeds, 1982, undertaken by the University of Leeds, and based on interviews with electors and university students

More information about both studies can be found in the UKDS catalogue at:

http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/

The UKDS JISCmail list provides regular free (mostly weekly) email alerts about the release of new datasets. To join the list, go to:

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=UKdataservice

Religious education

A mainly qualitative assessment of the state of religious education (RE) in English primary and secondary schools is contained in a new report, Religious Education: Realising the Potential, released by Ofsted on 6 October 2013. Data mostly derive from inspections carried out in 185 schools between September 2009 and July 2012, 659 RE lessons being observed. The sample did not include voluntary aided schools or academies with a religious designation, for which alternative inspection arrangements exist. It also excluded schools judged to require special measures or given notice to improve. The overall message in the report is ‘could do better’, with eight areas of concern identified about RE. A tabular summary of the inspection data under seven headings, shown separately for primary and secondary schools, appears on p. 38. In terms of overall RE effectiveness, 42% of primary and 48% of secondary schools were considered outstanding or good, 56% and 41% respectively satisfactory, and 2% and 11% inadequate. Subject training was deemed the worst single facet of provision, with 29% of primaries and 35% of secondaries judged inadequate in this regard. The report is available at:

http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/religious-education-realising-potential

Evangelicals at work

Published on 7 October 2013, Working Faithfully? is the latest report from the 21st Century Evangelicals project, developed by the Evangelical Alliance and the six other partner organizations in its research club. It derives from an online survey in May 2013 of 1,511 members of the Alliance’s self-selecting (and thus potentially unrepresentative) panel of UK evangelicals. Respondents were overwhelmingly (91%) in manual employment and had a strong sense of calling in their job (69%). They mostly (84%) felt valued for the work they did, although 39% experienced work-related stress, 37% endured a working week of more than 40 hours, and 35% of men and 27% of women regularly brought work home with them. Almost half (44%) perceived Christians to suffer discrimination in employment often or sometimes, and 53% thought that Christians getting into trouble at work is a significant problem. However, no more than 12% claimed they had personally been discriminated against in employment for any reason, and just 2% because of a faith-related issue. Somewhat more (14%) said they had encountered hostility, exclusion or mocking from work colleagues on account of their faith, while 9% reported difficulties with their management because they were known as a Christian or had spoken up for Christian values. The report is at:

http://www.eauk.org/church/resources/snapshot/upload/Working-faithfully-PDF.pdf

Nobel peace laureates

Religious figures feature prominently in a list of past recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize considered to have been most deserving, according to a YouGov poll published on 9 October 2013, 1,879 adult Britons having been interviewed online on 7 and 8 October. The data table is at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/zdg9yb4z0f/YG-Archive-Nobel-Peace-Prize-results-081013.pdf

The top six places in the list of most deserving recipients included:

1st (37%) – Mother Teresa of Calcutta, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, awarded the Prize in 1979 for her work in overcoming poverty and distress
2nd (33%) – Martin Luther King Jr, Baptist minister and American civil rights leader, awarded the Prize in 1964 for combating racial inequality through non-violence
5th (13%) – Desmond Tutu, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, awarded the Prize in 1984 for his leadership of the campaign against apartheid in South Africa
6th (12%) – 14th Dalai Lama, awarded the Prize in 1989 for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet

Noteworthy among variations by demographic sub-groups was the disproportionately strong support for Martin Luther King and the Dalai Lama among the 18-24s (43% and 24% respectively).

Emigration to Israel

On 30 September 2013 the Institute for Jewish Policy Research published Immigration from the United Kingdom to Israel, by Laura Staetsky, Marina Sheps, and Jonathan Boyd, and based upon both Israeli and UK statistical sources. The report showed that 32,600 UK-born Jews or people of Jewish ancestry emigrated to Israel (a process known as making aliyah) between 1948 (when the Jewish state was founded) and the end of 2011, constituting about 1% of all immigrants to Israel during that period. Peak UK immigration to Israel occurred between the 1960s and 1980s, since when the numbers have mostly tailed off, albeit with a spike in the late 2000s. UK-born immigrants to Israel are disproportionately young, with a median age in the late 20s. Their departure for Israel has therefore pushed up the mean age of the Jewish community remaining in the UK and reduced the number of Jewish women of reproductive age in the UK, adversely affecting the community’s potential for growth. Nor is there a compensatory flow in the other direction, the number of UK-born Jews living permanently in Israel in the 2000s being, at 19,000, greater than the 15,000 Israeli Jews permanently living in the UK. For the full data and analysis, go to:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/JPRAliyahReport6thProof.pdf

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Aliyah, church attendance, discrimination, emigration, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Israel, Jerry Springer the Opera, Jonathan Boyd, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Laura Staetsky, Leeds, Linda Woodhead, Margaret Thatcher, Marina Sheps, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nobel Peace Prize, Ofsted, religious education, secularization, Steve Bruce, Tony Blair, UK Data Service, Westminster Faith Debates, work, YouGov | Leave a comment

Vicar of Dibley and Other News

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Clive D. Field

You can tell that it is the mid-summer ‘silly season’, when hard news is more difficult to come by, if BRIN has to lead a post on the fictional sitcom The Vicar of Dibley! However, we also find space for eight other religious statistical stories, including three touching on Jewish themes.

Television comedies

The Vicar of Dibley, the BBC’s religious sitcom which aired originally from 1994 to 2007, and starred Dawn French as Revd Geraldine Granger, first-generation Anglican woman priest, is the most popular of 28 post-2000 British television comedies, according to YouGov research published on 6 August 2013 (with 1,684 adults interviewed online on 4-5 August). It was rated as best comedy programme by 27% of Britons, beating Mrs Brown’s Boys into second place (25%). The Vicar of Dibley is most popular with the over-60s (42%) but also does well (taking a third of the vote) with the politically right-leaning (Conservative and UKIP supporters) and residents of southern England (outside London) and of the Midlands, the latter perhaps reflecting the fact that the programme is set in a fictional Oxfordshire village. The Vicar of Dibley is least favoured (17-18%) among the under-40s and Londoners. By contrast, Rev, starring Tom Hollander as Revd Adam Smallbone, incumbent of an inner-city Anglican parish in East London, and whose third series will be broadcast by the BBC in 2014, ranks in 21st position, with just 3% of the vote (including 5% of Londoners and over-60s). The full table is at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/gukaq8hi4a/YG-Archive-British-TV-comedies-results-050813.pdf

Alternative Queen’s Speech, II

In our last post, on 17 July 2013, we covered a poll by Lord Ashcroft about the ‘Alternative Queen’s Speech’, a raft of 40 Bills proposed by backbench Conservative MPs. One of the measures was a Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill, which would make it illegal to wear face coverings in public, including the burka, thereby implicitly targeting Muslims. Public attitudes to this measure have also been sounded out by Opinium Research, who interviewed online on 25-28 June 2013 a sample of 1,650 British adults who said they were likely to vote in an imminent general election. Of these, 62% supported a law prohibiting the wearing of face coverings, peaking at 69% of Conservatives, 83% of UKIP voters, and 73% of over-55s. Opposition averaged 20% but rose to 34% among 18-34s. Full results have been posted at:

http://news.opinium.co.uk/sites/news.opinium.co.uk/files/Alternative%20Queen%27s%20Speech%20Tables.pdf

Predictions

The Second Coming of Jesus Christ is the event least expected to occur before 2070, according to a YouGov poll for The Times, conducted online on 22-23 July 2013 among 1,968 adults aged 18 and over. Shown a sub-set of 20 predictions randomly drawn from the full list of 39, only 4% anticipated that Christ would definitely or probably return to earth by 2070, with no major demographic variations. This was similar to the 3% anticipating the Second Coming before 2050 in another YouGov study in August 2010. Respondents in the current survey were also relatively sceptical about the likelihood of making contact with aliens by 2070 (15%) but more hopeful of finding evidence of life elsewhere in the universe (42%). The most predicted occurrence was that most Britons would have to work into their 70s before retiring (83%). The data table was released on 26 July 2013 and is at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/pm4u52h8c8/YG-Archive-The-Times-results-230713-2070-predictions.pdf

U-turns

The Times for 2 August 2013 highlighted the findings from a recent poll of UK adults commissioned by search engine Ask Jeeves to establish the extent to which people make major u-turns in their lives. Nearly half the population admitted to having changed their minds about important issues. On religion, 7% claimed to have switched their religious beliefs, while 11% of men and 8% of women had moved from being believers in God to describing themselves as atheists (slightly offset by the 2% who had moved in the opposite direction). BRIN has not been able to locate a fuller report of the survey on the internet and has contacted the PR department of Ask Jeeves for further details.

Wonga and the Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s embarrassment at the revelation that the Church of England has been indirectly investing in Wonga, the online payday lender which he has been publicly criticizing, was the fifth most-followed news story during the week in which it broke, according to research published by Opinium on 5 August 2013. Of the 2,002 UK adults aged 18 and over interviewed online between 30 July and 1 August 2013, 46% claimed to have followed the Archbishop/Wonga story, the top news items being the Spanish rail-crash (68%) and the naming of the royal baby (62%). See Opinium’s blog at:

http://news.opinium.co.uk/survey-results/talking-points-2

Beyond Sundays

Beyond Sundays: How the Church of England is Helping Communities in the Diocese of London, published on 19 July 2013, seeks to quantify Anglican social capital in the Diocese. The value of activities, staff, and volunteer time is estimated at £33 million annually, even without taking into account that churches also supply their own buildings and spaces to host 89% of community projects. The number of such projects is around 1,000, involving 10,000 volunteers, and benefiting 200,000 Londoners each year. In addition, churches raise £17 million annually to carry out these initiatives. Children and family and youth are the main people groups supported. The report, mostly a series of case studies, is at:

http://www.london.anglican.org/assets/downloads/resourcelibrary/beyond-sundays-report.pdf

Jewish demography

In an apparent reversal of a long-term trend, the Jewish population of England and Wales is now getting younger, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research’s third report on the 2011 religion census, published on 23 July 2013. The median age of Jews reduced from 43 in 2001 to 41 in 2011, albeit the latter is still above the national figure of 39 years and well above the Muslim statistic of 25 years (Christians had the highest median age – 45 – in 2011). The proportion of Jews aged 21 and above dropped by more than one percentage point between the two censuses, although Jews still record the highest proportion of people aged 85 and over. This rejuvenation process reflects growth in the Strictly Orthodox Jewish community (haredim) since the early 1990s, mainly as a result of its very high birth rate. The average age of haredi Jews is estimated at 27 and of non-haredi at 44, with haredim accounting for 22% of Jews under 5 years in 2001 and 29% in 2011. David Graham, 2011 Census Results (England and Wales): A Tale of Two Jewish Populations can be found at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/2011%20Census%20A%20Tale%20of%20Two%20Jewish%20Populations.pdf

Anti-Semitic incidents

There were 30% fewer UK anti-Semitic incidents reported to the Community Security Trust during the first six months of 2013 compared with the corresponding period in 2012 (219 and 311 respectively). This is the lowest number of incidents recorded during the first half of a year since 2003. The Trust attributes the decline to the lack of a ‘trigger event’ in 2013 equivalent to the terrorist attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012. There is a detailed analysis of the data in AntiSemitic Incidents Report, January-June 2013, which was published on 25 July 2013 and is available at:

http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/CST%20Incidents%20Report%20Jan%20-%20June%202013.pdf

David Ward and the Jews

David Ward, Lib Dem MP for Bradford East, had the parliamentary party whip withdrawn on 17 July 2013 for a series of comments which were deemed to be anti-Jewish and anti-Israel (a country he described as an ‘apartheid state’), and for which he was unprepared to apologize. The action taken by the party’s leadership prompted the Liberal Democrat Voice website to conduct a poll between 19 and 23 July of the 1,500 paid-up Lib Dem party members registered with its online forum, of whom just over 600 responded. Of these, a majority (53%) opposed the withdrawal of the whip, divided between 37% who supported Ward’s right to speak out and 16% who disagreed with his comments. Just 38% endorsed the removal of the whip, of whom 21% did so as a temporary measure and 17% until Ward apologized. In aggregate, 54% dissented from Ward’s views. The undecided amounted to 8%. Further details are at:

http://www.libdemvoice.org/david-ward-35511.html

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Aliens, Alternative Queen's Speech, anti-Semitic incidents, Anti-Semitism, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ask Jeeves, atheism, Burka, census of population, Church of England, community projects, Community Security Trust, Conservative MPs, David Graham, David Ward, Diocese of London, face coverings, God, haredim, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Islamophobia, Israel, Jesus Christ, Justin Welby, Liberal Democrat Voice, Liberal Democrats, Opinium Research, payday loans, predictions, Religious Affiliation, religious dress, Rev, Second Coming, Social Capital, television comedies, The Times, u-turns, Vicar of Dibley, Wonga, YouGov | Leave a comment

Politico-Religious News

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s post (the 600th on BRIN in just over three years) examines three newly-released surveys which explore the intersection between religion and political issues.

Same-sex marriage

The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill for England and Wales has now completed the Committee Stage in the House of Commons and is awaiting a date for Report and Third Reading Stage prior to the measure’s consideration by the House of Lords. Meanwhile, New Zealand last week became the thirteenth country to legislate for same-sex marriage, with a final vote to take place on the issue (and same-sex adoption) in France’s National Assembly next Tuesday.

Christian views on the matter in Britain were openly discussed last Thursday in the fifth of this year’s series of Westminster Faith Debates, and, as with the other debates, the discussion was informed by new survey data from a YouGov poll commissioned by Professor Linda Woodhead and conducted online between 25 and 30 January 2013 among a representative sample of 4,437 adult Britons. The data tables should be posted on YouGov’s public archive site during the next few days, at:

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

More immediately, there is some coverage of the results (especially as they affect Catholics) in The Tablet for 20 April 2013 (pp. 10 and 30) and also a press release at:

http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/events/programme_events/show/press_release_do_christians_really_oppose_gay_marriage

Among Britons as a whole, 52% thought that same-sex couples should be allowed to get married, 34% disagreed, and 14% did not know what to think. There were significant differences between people of faith and those without: whereas 69% of those professing no religion favoured same-sex marriage, and only 20% dissented, persons affiliating to a religion evenly split at 43% for and against.

In terms of faith traditions, the greatest opposition to same-sex marriage was to be found with Muslims (59%), followed by Baptists (50%). Hostility also correlated with strength of religious attachment. Thus, it reached above-average levels among those describing themselves as religious (53%), actively practising their faith (46%), definite believers in God or a higher power (48%), also those who said their lives were guided by religious leaders (67%), their religion (58%), religious teachings (56%), or God (54%).

A second question asked respondents whether they felt same-sex marriage to be right or wrong. Among all Britons, 46% said right and 34% wrong, but religious people were more likely to say wrong (44%) than right (37%), while the no religion group was strongly inclined to say right (63% compared with 20% wrong). Muslims (64%), Baptists (55%), and Sikhs (54%) were especially prone to regard same-sex marriage as wrong, as were the self-assessed religious (54%), and those deriving guidance from religious leaders (67%), their religion (59%), religious teachings (58%), or God (57%). Excluding don’t knows, Christians divided 56% wrong and 44% right.

Overall, 44% of Britons disapproved of the opposition to same-sex marriage of the mainstream Christian Churches, with 33% choosing to back the Churches, and 23% uncertain. Hostility to the Churches’ stance against same-sex marriage was notable among Labour and Liberal Democrat voters (54% and 56% respectively), the 18-24s (56%), Scots (52%), degree-holders (54%), those professing no religion (60%), definite disbelievers in God (60%), and those whose lives were guided by science (55%). Agreement with the Churches’ line was concentrated among Conservatives (46%), the over-60s (51%), Baptists (60%), Muslims (52%), the self-styled religious (54%), individuals practising their faith (51%), definite believers in God (50%), and among those guided by religious leaders (65%), their religion (58%), religious teachings (57%), or God (56%).

Notwithstanding a tendency for people of faith to be disproportionately less disposed to same-sex marriage, among Christians who contended that same-sex marriage is wrong only 26% explicitly cited religion or scripture as the basis for their opposition. More common explanations of their position were the assertion that marriage should be between a man and a woman (79%), the claim that same-sex marriage would undermine the traditional family of a mother and a father (63%), and the conviction that it is not the best context in which to bring up children (52%). Christians who regarded same-sex marriage as right viewed the matter in terms of equality (77%) and the non-exclusivity of faithful love to heterosexual couples (70%).

It should be remembered that the fieldwork for this YouGov poll took place immediately before the Second Reading debate on the Bill on 5 February, when the salience of same-sex marriage was very high in respect of public opinion and the media. It is possible that views have shifted somewhat since, because either a) the salience of the issue has dropped, b) the fall-out from the Cardinal O’Brien affair in Scotland has made Church lobbying against the Bill somewhat less credible in England and Wales, or c) some Christians accept the inevitability of the Bill becoming law, given the substantial Commons majority at Second Reading.

On the last point, it is certainly the case that the Churches have had to accommodate themselves to all manner of things over the years which instinctively they did not like the sound of. These include civil partnerships which, however lauded by most Church leaders now (as justification for same-sex marriage not being needed), were widely opposed by people of faith at the time of their introduction.

Politics, ethnicity, and religion

Lord Ashcroft has taken advantage of the forty-fifth anniversary of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech on immigration to commission Populus to undertake a survey of black and minority ethnic (BME) opinions on politics and multiculturalism. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,035 BME Britons aged 18 and over between 22 March and 15 April 2013, comprising 501 Muslims, 150 Hindus, 100 Sikhs, 265 affiliates of other faiths, and a mere 18 persons (2%) professing no religion. Results, with breaks by religion, were published on 19 April in the form of both summary and full tables, available at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lord-Ashcroft-Ethnic-Minority-Voters-poll-summary-April-2013.pdf

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ethnic-minority-survey-April-2013-full-tables.pdf

The economic situation was viewed as the most important issue facing the country by most BMEs, including 57% of Muslims, 57% of Hindus, and 60% of Sikhs. Muslims and Sikhs had more confidence in the Labour team (Ed Miliband and Ed Balls) than the Conservative team (David Cameron and George Osborne) to manage the economy, 54% versus 30% for Muslims, and 51% versus 41% for Sikhs. Hindus, by contrast, placed more trust in the Conservative than Labour team (51% compared with 43%). A majority of Muslims (51%) and a plurality of Hindus (45%) and Sikhs (46%) also thought that Labour had the best plans for dealing with Britain’s overall problems.

Majorities of the three religious groups agreed that ‘if you work hard, it is possible to be very successful in Britain, no matter what your background’ (68% of Muslims, 73% of Hindus, and 70% of Sikhs). They also felt that their children’s lives would be better than theirs (57%, 60%, and 62% respectively), and – overwhelmingly – that Britain had become a multicultural nation (88%, 91%, and 88%). The Labour Party and its leader were seen as most supportive of multiculturalism by all three faith communities, followed by the Liberal Democrats, and with the Conservatives last. Most Muslims (62%) and Hindus (55%) had never heard of Enoch Powell, but the proportion was less (38%) for Sikhs, albeit only 40% even of these knew who Powell was and what he had said. Somewhat ironically, 32% of Muslims, 37% of Hindus, and 49% of Sikhs thought immigration into Britain had been ‘a bad thing’.

Jews and the news

The BBC is by far the most important provider of terrestrial television news (88% in the past seven days) and online news (52% in the past seven days) for British Jews, but the vast majority (79%, rising to 93% of Conservative voters) consider BBC news coverage to be biased against Israel (36% heavily so and 43% somewhat). Only 14% regard the coverage as generally balanced. In terms of newspapers, The Times and Sunday Times are the most widely read titles (46% of Jews having read the print version and 23% the online version during the previous week), as was also the case in 1995.

These are among the headlines from a report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research which was published on 15 April 2013. Coincidentally, they are appearing at the same time as it was announced that James Harding, the Jewish former editor of The Times, has been appointed as the BBC’s new director of current affairs and news. David Graham’s Jews and the News: News Consumption Habits and Opinions of Jews in Britain is available at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/downloads/JPR%20Jewish%20news%20media%20report%20final.pdf

As is acknowledged in the introduction, the research now entering the public domain is actually relatively old, being undertaken between 7 January and 14 February 2010 among a self-selecting sample of 4,081 British Jews who completed an online questionnaire hosted by Ipsos MORI. Although the data have been weighted by synagogue membership, secular-religious outlook, and educational attainment, it is conceded that they may over-represent individuals interested in politics and international affairs. BRIN has already covered the first report from the survey (2010), dealing with the attitudes of British Jews toward Israel, at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2010/jewish-attitudes-toward-israel/

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged BBC, David Graham, economy, Enoch Powell, ethnic minorities, Hindus, homosexuality, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Ipsos-MORI, Israel, Jews, Linda Woodhead, Lord Ashcroft, multiculturalism, Muslims, news, politics. Populus, same-sex marriage, Sikhs, The Times, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | Leave a comment

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

Anti-Semitic Incidents, 2011

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Clive D. Field

For the first time ever since reporting began, there were more anti-Semitic incidents in Greater Manchester than in Greater London in 2011, even though the Jewish population of the capital is seven times the size of Manchester’s.

This is one of the findings which has been grabbing the media headlines from the Community Security Trust (CST)’s Antisemitic Incidents Report, 2011, published on 2 February 2012 and available at:

http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/Incidents%20Report%202011.pdf

CST, which has been recording anti-Semitic incidents in the UK since 1984, logged 586 of them in 2011, 9% fewer than in 2010 and 37% less than in 2009, when there was a spike in anti-Semitism as a result of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The fall is attributed by CST to the absence of similar ‘trigger events’ in 2011.

The figures exclude potential incidents reported to and investigated by CST but not ultimately classified by it as anti-Semitic (in terms of motivation, targeting or content), although some were anti-Israel. There were 437 of these in 2011, bringing the total of reported incidents to 1,023.

201 of the 586 anti-Semitic incidents (34%) took place in Greater London, a decrease of 9% from 2010, and 244 (42%) in Greater Manchester, 13% more than the year before. There were 141 incidents (24%) in the rest of the UK.

According to CST, the Manchester peak was ‘mainly the result of improved reporting of incidents by Manchester’s Jewish community to CST and to Greater Manchester Police, and a close working relationship between CST and GMP’.

Incidents were categorized by type as follows: extreme violence (one incident), assault (16%), damage and desecration to Jewish property (11%), threats (5%), abusive behaviour (67%), and mass-produced literature (1%).

Victims of incidents were: high-profile public figures (3%), random Jewish individuals in public (37%), people in private homes (12%), schools and schoolchildren (12%), synagogues and congregants (18%), students and academics (6%), Jewish organizations and communal events (11%), and Jewish cemeteries (1%).

Where information was available, 85% of perpetrators were found to be male and 5% mixed gender groups. 61% were white and 39% black, Asian or Arab. 63% were described as adults and 36% as minors (but the latter accounted for two-thirds of anti-Semitic assaults).

Posted in News from religious organisations | Tagged anti-Semitic incidents, Anti-Semitism, Community Security Trust, Greater London, Greater Manchester, Israel, Jews | Leave a comment

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