Monarchical Religion

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Church of England, the product of the sixteenth-century Reformation, remains the state church in England, notwithstanding successive attempts to disestablish it during the past two centuries.

These campaigns were initially led by militant Dissenters promulgating the gospel of ‘voluntaryism’, but latterly have involved secularists (doubting the official church’s compatibility with modern multi-faith, no-faith and multi-cultural society) and some Anglicans (objecting to establishment on theological and practical grounds).

Establishment is inextricably linked with the monarchy in several key respects, not least in that the reigning monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and the Act of Settlement 1701 bars Roman Catholics, or persons married to a Catholic, acceding to the throne.

Both these facets of establishment were included in a recent poll undertaken by YouGov for Prospect magazine on the future of the monarchy, in the run-up to Queen Elizabeth II’s 85th birthday next month. The survey was conducted online on 1 and 2 February 2011 among a representative sample of 2,409 Britons aged 18 and over.

An article by Peter Kellner about the poll appears on p. 33 of the latest issue (No. 181, April 2011) of Prospect, as part of a wider feature (pp. 28-37) on ‘What’s the Point of the Monarchy?’ The data tabulations are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-pol-prospect-monarchy-240311.pdf

Asked whether the monarch should continue as the head of the Church of England, 56% replied in the affirmative, with 30% wanting the arrangement to cease and 13% uncertain what to think (rising to 24% among the 18-24s).

Advocates of the status quo were particularly numerous among Conservative voters (70%), reminding us of the traditional description of the Church of England as the ‘Tory Party at prayer’.

Supporters of abolition of the Supreme Governorship were found by YouGov to be strongest in Scotland (52%), even though the Church of England is obviously not established there. The next highest proportion (43%) was for Liberal Democrat voters, whose official party policy is to implement disestablishment.

The discovery that a slim majority wants to retain the monarch’s headship of the Church is in line with other recent polls on the subject, and represents an increase on the position for a good part of the 1990s when the adultery and divorce of Prince Charles led many to wonder whether he was a suitable Supreme Governor in waiting and even to query the principle of royal headship of the Church.

Yet this support for monarchical leadership of the Church did not translate into endorsement of the Act of Settlement. Indeed, 71% of YouGov’s respondents favoured repeal of the prohibition on the monarch marrying a Roman Catholic. 16% wanted the ban to stay, while 13% expressed no opinion.

Liberal Democrats (84%) and Scots (77%) led the reform lobby, with Conservatives (22%) being most resistant to changing the law.

It should be noted that the question did not enquire explicitly about whether the monarch should be allowed to be a Roman Catholic him/herself, only whether he/she should be free to marry a Roman Catholic. However, other polls during the past decade appear to demonstrate a growing public desire for ending that prohibition, also.

BRIN readers wishing to learn more about British public opinion on establishment during the past half-century may be interested in a forthcoming article in Implicit Religion by Clive Field: ‘“A Quaint and Dangerous Anachronism”? Who Supports the (Dis)Establishment of the Church of England?’ This is provisionally scheduled for publication this September in Vol. 14, No. 3 of the journal.

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Media Portrayal of Groups

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The ways in which the media portray groups has been in the news again recently, following the suspension by All3Media of Brian True-May, the producer of Midsomer Murders on ITV, for remarks he made in a Radio Times interview.

True-May referred to the programme series, which has an all-white cast, as ‘the last bastion of Englishness’ and argued that part of its appeal was the absence of ethnic minorities from the story-lines. He added that he wanted to keep it that way.

True-May’s suspension created a backlash about political correctness in some sections of the media. He was subsequently reinstated following an apology but is apparently stepping down from the programme at the end of its current run.

The Sun took the opportunity presented by the row to commission YouGov to undertake an online poll of 2,666 Britons aged 18 and over to ask, more generally, whether different groups were normally fairly or unfairly portrayed in the media. Fieldwork took place on 15 and 16 March, and the data tables are available at:

http://today.yougov.co.uk/sites/today.yougov.co.uk/files/yg-archives-pol-sun-mediarep-160311.pdf

Christians and Muslims were two of the groups on the list of seventeen, although (strangely) ethnic minorities were not a separate category.

39% of adults said that Christians were portrayed fairly, 12% unfairly positively, 27% unfairly negatively, with 22% unsure. Those thinking them depicted unfairly negatively were disproportionately found among Conservative voters (37%) and the over-60s (35%). The 18-24s had the highest proportion considering them to be portrayed unfairly positively (18%).

30% of respondents believed that Muslims were portrayed fairly in the media, 15% unfairly positively, 34% unfairly negatively, with 20% uncertain. Liberal Democrats (50%), Scots (49%) and the 18-24s (45%) were most likely to say that Muslims received unfairly negative coverage.

YouGov calculated a net score for each group, by subtracting the unfairly negative figure from the unfairly positive. On this basis, Christians and Muslims were not far apart, -15 and -19 respectively.

Interestingly, only three of the seventeen groups scraped in with positive scores: businessmen (+6), bankers (+2), and Conservative supporters (0).

Minus scores which were better than for both Christians and Muslims were recorded by Labour supporters (-3), middle class people (-3), people from the USA (-5), women (-5), gays/lesbians/bisexuals (-5), disabled people (-13), and transsexuals (-14).

Immigrants (-17) fared worse than Christians but better than Muslims. Gypsies and travellers scored the same as Muslims. Three groups were lower than Christians and Muslims: the elderly (-21), working class people (-23), and the young (-36).

An alternative ranking of the groups according to the number thinking they were fairly portrayed in the media had a high of 53% for women and a low of 26% for transsexuals. Christians came ninth equal and Muslims fourteenth on this ordering.

If these results are taken as some kind of proxy measure of religious discrimination, then clearly there is some, albeit age prejudice on the part of the media is seen to be an even more serious problem.

There have been a fair number of content-based analyses of religion in the media over recent years. Some have been generic, such as Kim Knott’s longitudinal study of newspaper and television representations. Others have focused particularly on Muslims in the media, including the work of Elizabeth Poole and John Richardson.

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The Value Orientation of Contemporary Pagans

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Mika Lassander

Many new religious movements have emerged since the mid-twentieth century and Paganism is an important strand. This emergence coincided with the emergence and growth of post-materialist attitudes. As a sociologist of religion based at the University of Tampere with particular interests in Paganism, I am following this weekend’s Census with great interest, particularly the campaign of the Pagan Federation for those following one of the Pagan pathways to use the ‘write in’ section to write ‘Pagan’ or ‘Pagan-Heathen’, ‘Pagan-Wicca’ et cetera, rather than leaving their religion not stated. In the 2001 Census, 42,000 of the population in Great Britain used the write-in section in this way, although many considered that this was a substantial undercount.

Statistics on Pagans are relatively limited and conventional surveys do not capture them in sufficient numbers for further analysis. Even where sample sizes are large, Pagans are not coded separately and so we do not know which of the ‘Other Religion’ group are Pagan.

For my PhD project, I therefore used a non-probability sampling method to learn more about the values of Pagans compared to the mainstream UK population. I gathered data from 451 Pagans from the UK, Ireland, and Finland, and 130 Open University students with a similar age and gender profile to serve as a proxy for the mainstream UK population. The fieldwork was conducted over eight months from September 2007 to April 2008. I used a 21-item questionnaire measuring values, and a 32-item individualism–collectivism questionnaire.

For the Pagan sample, respondents were asked to indicate their spiritual path from a list of options: Wicca or Witchcraft, Druidic, Heathen, Shamanic, Eco-Pagan, Pagan, Reconstructionist, or Goddess Spirituality. They were also given the option of further elaboration.

My main findings were that Pagans have significantly higher emphasis than the mainstream group on post-materialist values, scoring high on Universalism and Self-direction and low on Security and Conformity. Within the Pagan group, I found that the majority share a world-view, with nearly three-quarters (72%) seeing themselves as independent and interconnected, with high tolerance of difference and for whom competition and in-group duty are not salient. A second sub-group (12%) is less independent and more interconnected; a third (7%) more in-group focussed and less competitive and tolerant; and a fourth group (10%) is relatively competitive, more individualist and with a lower tolerance of difference. The table and chart below provide more detail on how the sub-groups compare.

Location of Pagan Sub-Group Values Compared To Mainstream Sub-Groups

I did not find a significant difference between the sub-groups in terms of gender or birth cohort distribution, although the interconnected Pagans were older and the competitive Pagan sub-group had a more equal gender division. Neither were there any significant differences between the Pagan sub-groups in country or Pagan path distribution.

My overall conclusions were that the value priorities of the majority of Pagans can be considered to be postmaterialist, emphasising universalistic values and self-direction. I also found that while there was a wide variety of self-identifications given by those who took part in the Pagan survey, there was relative similarity across the sample in its value orientation. It appears that the high tolerance of difference can be partly attributed to this plurality of spiritual paths. A detailed paper covering the research and with more extensive discussion is available here.

I am continuing my research into contemporary Paganism among other subjects and my next plans are to further explore the linkages between different religious and secular worldviews and people’s values. For more information, see my Academia.edu profile or contact me at mika @ lassander. net

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Religious Affiliation by Birth Decade

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Siobhan McAndrew

Religious Affiliation in England by Five-Year Birth Period

Religious Affiliation in Scotland by Birth Decade

Affiliation in Wales by Birth Decade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My former colleague Rod Ling did some excellent work creating a single data file integrating the religion questions from all of the British Social Attitudes surveys from 1983 to 2008. Looking at the pooled sample, I wanted to see how religious affiliation varies by birth decade in England, Scotland and Wales, and how the affiliation of younger birth cohorts compares with that of older birth cohorts.

My concern was that there would not be a big enough sample size for the oldest cohort (born 1900-1910) and the youngest (born in the 1980s) to break them down reliably by broad religious affiliation (Anglican, Roman Catholic, Non-denominational Christian, Free Churches, Other Christian, Other Religion and No Religion). For that reason I have looked at percentage affiliated by birth decade for Scotland and Wales (where sample sizes are smaller) and percentage affiliated by five-year birth period for England.

The patterns are interesting – we can see that an increasing proportion of the younger birth cohorts are ‘none’, other religion or non-denominational Christian. In some cases non-denominational Christian describes those who are members of independent churches; in other cases those who identify as ‘Christian’ as a cultural or ethnic marker without affiliating to any particular group or institution.

Among those born between 1900 and 1909 in the combined English samples, 55% identify as Anglican and 16% as ‘no religion’. By comparison, among those born between 1980 and 1989 in the combined English samples collected over the course of the BSA surveys, 9% identify as Anglican and 58% identify as ‘no religion’. For the combined Scottish samples from the 1983-2008 surveys, among those born between 1900 and 1909, 56% identify as Church of Scotland and 16% as ‘no religion’. Among those born between 1980 and 1989, 12% identify as Church of Scotland and 63% as ‘no religion’. Overall, it appears that the increase in ‘nones’ among younger birth cohorts is largely at the expense of the established churches.

While the charts are beguiling, be aware that the x-axis points are period categories rather than indicating a continuum: properly, the changes in proportions should be shown in steps (as illustrated below), rather than a trend existing between 1970-1979 and 1980-1989. But overall I think it’s fair enough to illustrate composition change between cohorts in this way (because the differences in the bars are not easy to read); please comment below if you think not!

Religious Affiliation in Scotland - Bar Area Chart

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Places of Worship in England and Wales, 1999-2009

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Siobhan McAndrew

PoW-area-chart

Registered Places of Worship by Faith Community, England and Wales, 1999-2009 (1999=100)

We have spent a little time compiling data on registered places of worship in England and Wales from 1999-2009 and are making a note here on the data, and the caveats you need to bear in mind before interpreting them.

The official data have been incorporated into three spreadsheets by Mark Littler, a young researcher at the University of Manchester with interests in religion and extremism, experimental methods and quantitative approaches more broadly. We have posted the spreadsheets here, including regional breakdowns.

The headline data suggest that ‘mainline’ established denominations are showing a reduction over time in numbers of places of worship, while other world religions, ‘other Christians’, and ‘other’ faith communities are exhibiting a gradual increase.

Note that the data do not cover the Church of England or Church in Wales, which are not required to register.

Taken at face value, these trends fit with a story of secularisation leading to a net reduction in longer-established Christian churches, together with increased ethnic and religious diversity leading to a growth in the number of places of worship for Christian communities outside the traditional categories (‘other Christian’) as well as other world religions and new religious movements, notably Muslim, Sikh and ‘other’.

The line graph above illustrates, using an index where 1999 is the base year (1999=100 for each faith community). By 2009, the figure for Catholics is 98.5, Methodists 94.2, Congregationalists 98.6, URC 93.3, Calvinistic Methodists 97.4, Brethren 99.6, Salvation Army 94.7, Unitarians 97.8, Society of Friends (Quakers) 99.7, Jehovah’s Witnesses 101.2, Other Christians 107.1, Jews 104.5, Muslims 146.5, Sikhs 118.9 and Others 131.7.

The lines for each group are not easy to see so the chart legend additionally ranks the denominations by net growth/loss in numbers in 2009 compared with 1999. The regional data are also of interest: in London, church numbers for ‘Other Christians’ increased by 16% over the 1999-2009 period, while numbers of mosques increased by 42% and ‘other’ places of worship by 91%.

However, these data can’t be used on their own as an indicator of community growth and decline, for a number of reasons. First, not all places of worship are registered, and not all redundant properties are de-registered. In some cases, a denomination may have a ‘clear out’ both in terms of adjusting their property portfolio and with regard to the Register. Secondly, the numbers do not adjust for capacity, so that where (for example) a church is sold or demolished to build a larger church, no net gain is shown in the numbers. A faith group which consolidates its properties – for example, following suburbanisation of its adherents – will show up as declining using numbers of places of worship as the sole indicator of vitality.

Thirdly, communal worship is not central to some belief systems, or worship may not primarily take place in public places of worship. Pagans, for example, do not have any public places of worship in the traditional sense, practising privately whether in- or outdoors, while moots are organised in cafes and pubs.

History of Registration
The registration of places of worship has an interesting history, covered in detail by Clive Field elsewhere on this site (see page 3 of this report, or click here).

In 1689, nonconformists were required to register their meeting houses with the authorities in England and Wales – an obligation which never extended to Scotland. The process also conferred legal (and later, taxation) advantages, so organisations preferred to register even when the obligation to do so lessened after the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855.

Before the mid-nineteenth century licences were issued by county and borough quarter sessions, or episcopal and archidiaconal registries, but the Protestant Dissenters Act 1852 transferred the responsibility to the Registrar General – and the General Register Office still holds this responsibility.

Lists and tables of these registrations have been published occasionally as House of Commons Parliamentary Papers before the First World War (for instance, 1882,Vol. 50); or later (intermittently) in The Official List, Part III and Marriage and Divorce Statistics, in a series currently published by National Statistics as FM2 Table 3.42. Buildings registered for the solemnisation of marriages are identified separately as FM2 Table 3.43. Data for selected years from 1972 have been assembled in the various editions of P. Weller (ed.), Religions in the UK.

Why and How Places Register
Places of worship which have been registered officially are generally exempted from local business rates. Schedule 5 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 provides that the places of worship are exempted if they are Church of England or Church in Wales, or ‘any other recognised religion… and the premises must be used and available for public religious worship’. Church halls and administrative offices also qualify if required for the place of worship to operate. While being officially-registered does not prove that a building is a place of worship, registration is an additional piece of evidence that the property is actively used as a place of worship. It seems likely that non-registered places of worship usually manage to win exemption also, although I haven’t been able to find information about this.

Religious organisations are asked to fill in Form 76, provide a plan or sketch of the building identifying the spaces used for worship, and a timetable of when the building will be used. These are sent to the Superintendant General. The form provides that the faith group name is given in the space after the following: ‘XXXX will accordingly be forthwith used as a place of meeting for religious worship by a congregation or assembly of persons calling themselves XXXX’. Hence it is very simple and non-prescriptive with regard to identifying names.

A Freedom of Information Request made in March 2010 led to a complete list of the extant Register being published online, illustrating the issues at hand. For example, there is one place of worship listed as “Quaker”, 41 as “Quakers”, 314 as “Friends”, and 9 as “Society of Friends”. Most mosques are described as attended by “Muslims” but in some cases “Sunni Muslims” or “Shia” are specified. There are a number of mis-spellings; it is not clear when places of worship were added to the database; and addresses are not entered consistently (many specify the part of the building which is used as a place of worship – e.g. “two rooms on second floor” rather than the postal address).

I am gradually cleaning the file published online to categorise denominations and hope eventually to provide a comprehensible list by local authority.

The form does advise that ‘the description “Christians not otherwise designated” may be used. If the worshippers decline to describe themselves by any distinctive appellation, the words “calling themselves” may be erased and the words “who object to be designated by any distinctive religious appellation” inserted’. Accordingly, of the 29372 listed in March 2010, 1517 identify as Christians not otherwise designated and 53 churches “who object…”. Offering a list of standardised terms would help categorise the raw data and draw further information on the nature of the congregation.

Under- and Over-Registration
What is clear is that not all places of worship register – and equally, places of worship which are sold to residential property developers are not required to be de-registered. A casual check of the March 2010 threw up examples of churches which were for sale, and a number of organisations which may well have ceased to exist. Mehmood Naqshbandi at the excellent Muslims in Britain site and online directory has been running a project for several years to identify every active mosque (masjid) in England and Wales, and has reached a count of 1595 mosques – some way above the officially-registered total of 870.

He suggests that perhaps as many as 20% of the entries for mosques in the official Register are for mosques which no longer exist, while the running total does not capture about half of the actual Muslim places of worship. In some cases, this may be because they are prayer rooms within universities or similar, or exist as facilities within larger community and cultural centres, and therefore there is no financial benefit in registering.

He notes,
‘There is negligible benefit in registering, it being ‘permissive’ since 1852. The process dates to a time when religious dissenters were excluded from many aspects of civil life. Furthermore, the Register is massively out of date, largely from neglecting to de-register congregations’ places of worship that have moved or disbanded. The state-established churches of Britain, e.g. Church of England churches, are exempt from registration, so would add considerably to the 40,000 listed…’.

He is currently working through his own files and the Register to categorise mosques in Britain in as much detail as possible: by administrative boundary, religious tradition, size, location and so forth. The project also aims to uncover where under- or over-registration is most prevalent. The most recent summary of his data is available here.

We will write more in due course on Naqshbandi’s fascinating data later, but provide the link to interested readers now.

Note that the 2008 and 2009 data have been made available to us ahead of National Statistics’ publication schedule (current data online for the FM2 series are only available up to 2007) following a Freedom of Information request. Thanks to National Statistics for providing data early, and to David Buckley and Selwyn Hughes at the General Register Office for enabling the data release.

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Israel-Palestine Conflict

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Public perceptions of the religious dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict are illuminated in a six-nation ICM poll released on 13 March and undertaken on behalf of the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies (established in 2006), the Middle East Monitor (MEMO, founded in 2009) and the European Muslim Research Centre (EMRC), launched in 2010 at the University of Exeter.

Fieldwork was conducted online on 19-25 January 2011 among a representative sample of 7,045 adults aged 18 and over in Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Spain. There were 2,031 British respondents.

The survey posed ten questions relating to the Israel-Palestine situation, several of them sub-divided, and only those touching overtly on religion are highlighted here. Broader findings can be found in the three major published research outputs from the poll:

the 41 pages of national data tables at:

http://www.icmresearch.co.uk/pdfs/2011_march_memo_israelpalestine_poll.pdf

the 44-page ICM report and analysis at:

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/downloads/other_reports/public-perceptions-of-the-palestine-israel-conflict-FINAL-REPORT-icm.pdf

the 50-page MEMO report and analysis at:

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/downloads/reports/european-public-perceptions-of-the-israel-palestine-conflict-memo.pdf

Additionally, through the kindness of ICM, BRIN has been given access to the unpublished data tables for Great Britain, giving breaks by gender, age, working status, housing tenure, education level, ethnicity and region.

Asked which three or four things came into mind on hearing the words ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’, 47% of the weighted sample of Europeans cited religious conflict, ranging from 34% in The Netherlands to 51% in France. The British figure was 46%.

Answering the same question, 24% of Europeans mentioned Islamic organizations, with a low of 20% in Britain (but 27% among the over-55s) and a high of 30% in The Netherlands. 17% of Europeans referred to Muslims/Arabs, including 15% of Britons (rising to 21% in the North-West, Yorkshire and the Humber and the East Midlands).

65% of Europeans agreed that Israel is a country where there is oppression and domination by one religious group over another. The proportion was highest in Spain (72%) and stood at 57% in Britain, but reached 63% among men and ethnic minorities and 66% for those with a university degree or equivalent. Only 9% of Britons and 13% of Europeans said that all religious groups were treated the same in Israel, the remainder giving other replies.

17% of Europeans and 23% of Britons (the largest proportion of all six countries, and increasing to 30% for the over-55s) agreed that European citizens who are Jewish should be allowed to serve in the Israeli army. 34% and 20% respectively disagreed, with 22% and 29% uncertain.

12% of Europeans and 6% of Britons agreed that being critical of Israel makes a person anti-Semitic. 50% and 52% respectively disagreed, with 17% and 25% undecided. Agreement was highest in Germany (19%). In Britain disagreement reached 59% with men, the over-55s and Londoners and 61% among the university-educated.

36% of Europeans and 28% of Britons agreed that the Israel-Palestine conflict fuels anti-Semitism in Europe. 21% and 20% respectively disagreed, with 18% and 28% don’t knows. Agreement was highest in France (46%). In Britain peak agreement was registered by those owning their homes outright and graduates (32% each), the over-55s (33%), residents of the North-West (34%) and the Welsh (35%).

39% of Europeans and 32% of Britons agreed that the Israel-Palestine conflict fuels Islamophobia in Europe. 20% and 19% respectively disagreed, with 16% and 26% uncertain. Agreement was highest in Italy (45%). In Britain agreement peaked among the 18-24s, graduates and Londoners (36% each), ethnic minorities (38%), residents of the South-West (39%) and students (41%).

48% of Europeans and 40% of Britons agreed that Israel exploits the history of the sufferings of the Jewish people to generate public support. Just 13% and 11% respectively disagreed, with 17% and 27% don’t knows. Agreement was especially high in Germany (53%) and Spain (54%). In Britain 51% of the over-55s and 48% of men were critical of Israel for being exploitative in this regard.

Three brief comments on the overall British data (including questions not considered here) may be ventured.

First, a relatively high proportion of Britons (one-quarter or more) express no clear views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. To a limited extent, this may indicate a position of benign neutrality, but more typically it is likely to reflect a lack of familiarity with the issues. The politics of the Middle East are not necessarily followed closely by everybody.

Second, there is significant criticism of Israel, both for the way it functions as a state and for the actions it has taken on the Palestinian question. This contrasts markedly with the 1950s and 1960s when Israel was widely accorded ‘underdog’ status in Britain. Now it is often seen as oppressor. The trend data can be studied in Clive Field, ‘John Bull’s Judeophobia: Images of the Jews in British Public Opinion Polls since the late 1930s’, Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung, Vol. 15, 2006, pp. 259-300.

Third, much of this antipathy to Israel is probably rooted, not simply in increasing sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians, but in concerns that Israel’s role in the Middle East is exacerbating religious tensions in Britain and Europe. This is true both of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, given that preoccupation with Israel-Palestine has been a major factor in giving British Muslims a public profile and voice. International relations are, therefore, frequently being viewed through a British domestic lens.

The overall tenor of the findings, and of the textual reports which analyse and interpret them, seems likely to create some controversy. Doubtless, there will be negative reactions from Israeli and some Jewish quarters in due course. Whether this survey sparks quite so much outrage as the 2003 European Commission poll, which identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, is more doubtful.

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Census Question Under Fire

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Clive D. Field

There are just six days to go before UK residents have to complete the household and individual questionnaire for the decennial population census.

But humanists are still simultaneously maintaining their attack on the voluntary question on religion while paradoxically encouraging people to answer it, ideally (from the humanist perspective) by registering as of no religion.

In a press release on 20 March the British Humanist Association (BHA) described the census question as ‘highly misleading’ and ‘fatally flawed for its intended purpose of planning public services’. The BHA’s evidence for this claim comes from new opinion polls conducted online by YouGov in England and Wales and in Scotland.

The English and Welsh survey, commissioned by the BHA, was undertaken on 9-11 March 2011 among a representative sample of 1,896 adults aged 18 and over. The Scottish poll was sponsored by the Humanist Society of Scotland and conducted on 10-14 January 2011 among 2,007 adults.

In England and Wales, when asked the census question ‘What is your religion?’, 61% ticked a religious box and 39% declared themselves to be of no religion. However, when asked ‘Are you religious?’, just 29% said ‘yes’ and 65% ‘no’, ‘meaning over half of those whom the census would count as having a religion said they were not religious’.

Responses varied somewhat according to demographics, most notably by age. Whereas 56% of 18-24s had no religion, the proportion fell steadily throughout the age cohorts, to stand at 25% among the over-55s. Similarly, while 70-73% of the three under-45 cohorts stated that they were not religious, this was the case with 68% of those aged 45-54 and 56% of the over-55s.

Marital status also appeared to make a difference, although this pattern doubtless conceals an age-related effect. The number professing no religion was highest among the never married (53%) and those living as married (52%). It was substantially lower among those who were currently married or in a civil partnership (31%) or had formerly been, 27% among the separated or divorced and 25% with the widowed.

The 53% of the English and Welsh sample who professed to be Christian were additionally asked: ‘Do you believe that Jesus Christ was a real person who died and came back to life and was the son of God?’ Fewer than half (48%) said that they did so believe, with 27% disbelieving and 25% unsure, BHA’s unspoken point presumably being that many so-called Christians have rather a shallow or unconventional faith.

It is also a generally inactive faith, in terms of attendance at a place of worship for religious reasons. Only 15% of the entire sample claimed to have been within the past month, with a further 16% going within the past year, 43% more than a year ago and 20% never. The never category was largest among the 18-24s (28%), with 32% for full-time students.

In Scotland, one-half of the sample was asked the Scottish census question: ‘What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’ In reply, 56% of Scots professed some affiliation (with write-in responses available) and 42% none.

The other Scottish half-sample was initially asked: ‘Are you religious?’ 35% said that they were and 56% that they were not, with 8% uncertain. Those who answered that they were religious or who did not know were then asked: ‘Which religion do you belong to?’ At this point, 22% said that they did not belong to any organized religion.

The BHA press release and links to the data tables for both England and Wales and Scotland will be found at:

http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/771

These statistics serve to illustrate what is already generally well-known, that surveys on religious (and – indeed – all other) topics are inevitably informed or perhaps even shaped by question-wording.

The Office for National Statistics, which is overseeing the census, is fully aware of the sensitivities and ambiguities of investigating religion. It has gone to some considerable lengths to research and trial the merits of alternative wordings during its census preparations.

For fuller information about these deliberations and experimentation, see the October 2009 ONS report on Final Recommended Questions for the 2011 Census in England and Wales: Religion, which is available on the ONS website.

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Home Shrines

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The existence of religious shrines in British domestic households is largely uncharted territory, certainly in any statistical sense, so it is good to be able to draw BRIN readers’ attention to some initial data on the topic from the current issue of Journal of Beliefs & Values (Vol. 31, No. 3, December 2010, pp. 353-7).

The research report, written by Phra Nicholas Thanissaro of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit, is entitled ‘Home Shrines in Britain and Associated Spiritual Values’. Such shrines can be anything from a raised cabinet or shelf housing religious artefacts to an entire room.

A question about the presence of a home shrine was included in a much wider survey of the religious attitudes and practices of a multi-faith sample of 369 pupils aged 13-15 attending three London schools.

237 were boys and 132 girls. 150 were whites and 209 of other ethnicities. 149 were Christians, 98 of other religions and 120 of no religion. Fieldwork was undertaken, by self-completion questionnaire, in January-February 2010.

11% of the whole sample reported having a home shrine. Indians were the ethnic group with most shrines (50%), followed by any other Asians (ie not Bangladeshi, Indian or Pakistani) on 46%, Chinese on 28% and Bangladeshis on 14%. Then came black Africans (9%), black Caribbeans and mixed race (8% each), with whites on 2%. No Asian Pakistani had a shrine at home.

By religion, Buddhists and Hindus topped the list, with 50% of their households having a shrine. For Jews the figure was 33%, for Sikhs 20%, for Christians 9%, and for Muslims 6%. 4% of those professing no religion had a shrine at home.

Answers to 91 five-point Likert scale attitude questions on religious education and values were correlated with the existence of a shrine at home. For 82 of these having a home shrine made no significant difference.

However, having a shrine was found to correlate significantly with eight of the remaining ‘spiritual’ attitudes, such as agreement with filial piety, the Eightfold Path, subjectivity of happiness, meditation, Sikh festivals, reincarnation and opening Gurdwaras to all.

Thanissaro concludes by recommending that teachers and social services should become more aware of the importance of shrines to many religious communities and recognise their potential as a spiritual asset and manifestation of religion outside places of worship.

Clearly, more research is needed in this area, on the basis of not merely a much larger sample, but one which includes adults (since decisions about whether to have a home shrine are presumably driven by parents rather than their children).

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Receptions into Roman Catholicism

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Adult receptions into the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales will be significantly up on 2010, to judge by attendances at last weekend’s Rite of Election and tabulated in a press release from the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference posted at:

http://catholic-ew.org.uk/Catholic-Church/Media-Centre/press_releases/Press-Releases-2011/Receptions-into-the-Church

The Rite of Election is an important part of the process called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). Usually presided over by the diocesan bishop, it inaugurates the final period of preparation before formal reception into the Catholic Church.

The Rite of Election is attended both by those who are preparing for baptism into the Catholic Church and those who have already been baptised in another Christian denomination and now want to be received into the Catholic Church.

3,931 individuals participated in the Rite of Election at Catholic cathedrals in 2011, representing an increase of 14% on the 2010 total of 3,450. Numbers varied significantly by diocese, with a notable concentration in and around London. Westminster recorded most attendances (829), followed by Southwark (517) and Brentwood (362).

These statistics apparently exclude attendances at the Rite of Election held in parish churches. In some dioceses the distance between parish churches and cathedrals precludes everybody preparing to become a Catholic from being present at the gathering in the cathedral. This means that liturgies will also have taken place in some parish churches.

In addition, and for the first time, 795 individuals attended the Rite of Election in cathedrals who plan to join the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, set up by Pope Benedict XVI to accommodate disaffected Anglicans.

The Diocese of Brentwood heads this Ordinariate list (with 240), followed by Southwark (167) and Birmingham (100). Eleven of the 22 dioceses, predominantly in northern England and Wales, had no people joining the Ordinariate who were present at the Rite of Election.

Total receptions into the Ordinariate are estimated by the Bishops’ Conference at 900, including 61 former Anglican clergy (besides the five who have already been ordained as Catholic priests). They will be received into the Catholic Church during Holy Week, whereas those not preparing to join the Ordinariate will be received at Easter.

Some of the Catholic media’s reporting of these forthcoming receptions has been a little over-hyped, not least the headline in The Universe for 20 March which proclaims: ‘Thousands of Anglicans set to join with the faith at Easter’.

These receptions are, of course, a tiny fraction of the Catholic population of England and Wales (see Siobhan McAndrew’s post at http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=609 for Catholic statistics in general).

Also, there are counterbalancing losses from Roman Catholicism, both lapsation to the ‘outside world’ and conversion to other denominations (including a trickle of Catholic laity and even priests to the Church of England).

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Catholics in Scottish Prisons

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Roman Catholics continue to be overrepresented in Scotland’s prison population, but the situation appears to be improving slowly. Catholics accounted for 28% of Scottish prisoners in 2001, 24% in 2006 and 23% in 2008-09, whereas they constituted 16% of all Scots at the 2001 census.

This is one key finding of newly-published desk-based research commissioned by the Public Petitions Committee of the Scottish Parliament and undertaken by Dr Susan Wiltshire, who lectures in crime and criminal justice at the University of Glasgow.

Her study follows long-standing concerns raised in the Scottish Parliament and Scottish media about the apparently excessive number of Catholic prisoners, and speculation about the possible reasons for this.

But the specific origins of the secondary analysis of existing research and statistics are to be found in Tom Minogue’s Open Petition PE1073 on the topic, which was lodged on 14 September 2007, and in follow-on investigations by the Scottish Parliament.  

Deep-rooted prejudice and discrimination against Catholics in Scotland and suspected sectarianism in the criminal justice system (especially at sentencing) have often been thought to lie at the root of the problem.

However, Wiltshire is inclined to downplay this causation and to locate the primary explanation in the strong relationships between socio-economic disadvantage and imprisonment and between Catholics and disadvantage, which can be documented from the 2001 census and other sources.

Age is also a factor. 40% of Scottish Catholics were under 30 at the census, significantly more than was the case with affiliates of other Christian denominations in Scotland.

Since almost half of prisoners are under 30, it can be seen that Catholics are disproportionately drawn from the age cohort most likely to be in prison.

Likewise, residence is part of the equation, not least in Glasgow, which records both above-average rates of imprisonment and of Catholics among the city’s residents.

‘In sum, the Catholic population is most embedded in the West of Scotland in areas of deprivation, where a large proportion of prisoners are likely to reside. It is also where most Section 74 (religious aggravator) offences have occurred.’

‘The question therefore should shift from asking why Catholics are disproportionately represented in Scottish jails to why so many Catholics continue to live in areas of deprivation in Scotland, particularly the West, and why they score worse on a range of social indicators. It seems clear that Catholics are disproportionately represented in Scottish jails because of the compelling relationship between deprivation and imprisonment.’

Wiltshire’s report can be read at:

http://www.parliament.scot/S3_PublicPetitionsCommittee/Submissions_07/Researchaspublished-24-12-10.pdf

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