Mental Health and Other News

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Clive D. Field

Today’s round-up of religious statistical news leads on some freshly-published research into spirituality and mental health. We also report on another survey about same-sex marriage and the Church of England (for other recent polls, see our posts of 13 and 17 December 2012), and on a New Year’s honour for Professor Linda Woodhead.

Spirituality and mental health

‘People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder’, according to findings newly published by a research group based at University College London. Of a sample of English adults studied, 35% claimed a religious understanding of life, 19% were spiritual but not religious, and 46% were neither religious nor spiritual (albeit 53% of all adults gave a nominal religious affiliation). Religious people were found to be similar to those who were neither religious nor spiritual with regard to the prevalence of mental disorders (except that the former were less likely to have ever used drugs or be a hazardous drinker), thereby contradicting some North American research which suggests that holding a religious understanding of life provides protection against mental disorders.

However, self-identified spiritual people were more likely than those who were neither religious nor spiritual to have ever used or be dependent on drugs, and to have abnormal eating attitudes, generalized anxiety disorder, any phobia or any neurotic disorder. They were also more likely to be taking psychotropic medication. Possible explanations for these relationships are not adequately explored by the researchers, including the option that some individuals may be drawn to ‘spirituality’ as a ‘cure’ or a ‘palliative’ for their mental health symptoms.

Source: Face-to-face interviews with 7,403 English adults aged 16 and over undertaken by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) between October 2006 and December 2007, as part of the third National Psychiatric Morbidity Study. Results analysed in Michael King, Louise Marston, Sally McManus, Terry Brugha, Howard Meltzer and Paul Bebbington, ‘Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health: Results from a National Study of English Households’, British Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 202, No. 1, January 2013, pp. 68-73.

The findings appear to support evidence from an earlier English survey of 4,281 members of black and minority ethnic groups on the vulnerability of people who describe themselves as spiritual; this was reported in Michael King, Scott Weich, James Nazroo and Robert Blizard, ‘Religion, Mental Health and Ethnicity: EMPIRIC – A National Survey of England’, Journal of Mental Health, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2006, pp. 153-62. The dataset and documentation for the 2006-07 study are available at the Economic and Social Data Service as SN 6379 and reveal that the core question asked was: ‘By “religion” we mean the actual practice of a faith … Some people do not follow a religion but do have spiritual beliefs or experiences. Some people make sense of their lives without any religious or spiritual beliefs. Would you say that you have a religious or a spiritual understanding of your life?’ The reply codes were religious, spiritual, and neither.      

Same-sex marriage

By a margin of two to one, the British public opposes the Government’s plans to prohibit the Church of England from conducting same-sex marriages in its places of worship, thereby also cocking a snook at those Anglican and (particularly) Roman Catholic leaders who used their Christmastide messages to oppose the whole concept of same-sex marriage.

Asked whether Church of England vicars should be allowed, if they wanted to, to offer religious marriage ceremonies to gay couples, 62% of Britons replied in the affirmative and 31% in the negative, with 7% uncertain. Gender variations were slight, albeit women (64%) were somewhat more in favour than men (60%). Age differences, however, were very pronounced. Among the under-45s almost three-quarters supported the right of clergy to solemnize same-sex marriages, but 50% of the over-65s were opposed, with just 38% in favour.  

Source: Telephone survey by ComRes for The Independent on 14-16 December 2012, in which 1,000 Britons aged 18 and over were interviewed. The detailed tabulations are not yet available on the ComRes website, but the main findings were reported in Andrew Grice’s article in the newspaper on 26 December 2012, which can be found at:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gay-marriage-public-say-church-is-wrong-8431263.html?origin=internalSearch

MBE for Linda Woodhead

Congratulations are in order to Linda Woodhead, Professor of the Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University, who was appointed MBE in the 2013 New Year’s Honours List, for services to higher education. In addition to her own impressive contribution to scholarship, and as a commentator and broadcaster on religion in the media, Linda directed the Religion and Society Programme between 2007 and 2012, funded to the tune of £12 million by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, and involving 240 academics from 29 different disciplines (including the BRIN team). Lancaster University issued a press release about Linda’s award on 4 January 2013, which can be viewed at:

http://news.lancs.ac.uk/Web/News/Pages/MBE-for-Linda-Woodhead.aspx

 

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Respect for Clergy and Other News

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Herewith some news stories about British religious statistics which have come to hand during the past fortnight; they are arranged in order of release date.

Evangelicals and Money

Evangelical Christians are not immune from the economic downturn, with 15% feeling their absolute income has dropped considerably and a further 24% slightly during the last three years. Taking inflation into account, one-fifth contends their income has fallen a lot behind the cost of living and one-half a little below. One-fifth also has a household income of under £20,000 (against 54% with between £20,000 and £50,000, and 25% with more than £50,000). 7% have no savings at all and 18% have less than £1,000 in savings. 43% try to find a bargain whenever possible, and 28% use charity shops frequently because they are cheaper. In the past, 56% have turned to family and friends to borrow money, 25% have received financial help from their church or another Christian, and 11% have been refused credit or a loan after a credit check. 42% currently have some form of debt, although only 3% are concerned about it. 12% sometimes find themselves asking God for more money. At the same time, 63% of evangelicals believe in tithing (and more so among the over-55s), with 14% being the estimated proportion of their income (after tax) which is given away to the church and to Christian and charitable causes.

Source: Online questionnaires completed, in May 2012, by 1,237 members of the Evangelical Alliance’s self-selecting research panel of UK evangelical Christians, a response rate of 43%. A 20-page report, Does Money Matter?, was published by the Alliance on 10 September 2012 in its 21st Century Evangelicals series. It is available at:

http://eauk.org/church/resources/snapshot/upload/does-money-matter-lower.pdf

Respect for Clergy

Ministers and priests enjoy a lower standing in Britain than in Canada or the United States. Whereas 76% of Americans and 66% of Canadians have a great deal or a fair amount of respect for the clergy, the same is true of only 54% of Brits (marginally down on two previous polls, 57% in August 2009 and 56% in July 2010). Of 25 professions evaluated, ministers and priests ranked joint sixteenth (with actors and artists) in Britain, well behind nurses (93%), doctors (90%), scientists (88%), and engineers and veterinarians (both on 86%). Still, at least the men and women of the cloth outperformed journalists (20%), bankers and politicians (each on 15%), and car salesmen (14%), whose reputations really are in tatters.

Source: Online interview with 2,010 adult Britons on Angus Reid Public Opinion’s Springboard UK panel on 30 and 31 August 2012. Press release, with topline findings only for all three countries, published on 2 October 2012 and available at:

http://www.angus-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/2012.10.02_Professions.pdf

Current Issues in the Church of England

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Anglican churchgoers rate the performance of Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury more highly than practising Christians as a whole. Three-fifths think that he has been a good leader of the Church of England (against 44% of all churchgoers); 48% of Anglicans say Williams has been clear in telling people what he believes and why (versus 37% of all churchgoers, with 41% disagreeing); and 49% against 38% respectively regard him as having helped the Church of England to remain relevant in modern Britain. Anglicans are also more likely than all churchgoers to support women bishops in the Church of England (74% compared with 57%, with 66% of Catholics opposed), 38% of Anglicans being poised to take a less favourable view of the Church if it fails to move in this direction.

Source: Online interview with 510 UK adult churchgoers via the ComRes Cpanel between 14 and 28 September 2012. Full data tables, published on 5 October, available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/ComRes_Women_Bishops_Oct2012.pdf

Identical questions were put by ComRes to a general population sample of 2,594 adults aged 18 and over in England between 24 August and 9 September 2012. The results have already been summarized by BRIN at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/september-snippets/ and

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/rating-rowan-williams-and-other-new-sources/

Pastoral Research Centre

The Pastoral Research Centre (PRC), an independent trust for applied socio-religious research, and focused primarily on the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, launched a website on 9 October 2012. Current content includes a potted history of both the PRC and its predecessor organization, the Newman Demographic Survey (which was established in 1953). There is also a brief description of the PRC’s Newman Collection (comprising archival and library material), much of which will eventually go to Durham University. Details of PRC publications (mostly with a statistical bent) will be added in due course. The site is at:

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

Joking Apart

Although churchgoing Christians in the UK are mostly supportive of freedom of expression at the level of principle, significant numbers apparently hold ambivalent or contradictory positions in practice. On the one hand, 74% agree that freedom of expression should not be curbed even if it offends those with deeply-held religious convictions; 76% praise tolerance in the face of aggressive anti-religious attacks; and 69% accept that ‘strong anti-Christian opinion provided opportunities to exchange ideas’. On the other, 61% believe that UK Christians are too tolerant of anti-Christian expression; 40% are unhappy with the portrayal of the Christian faith in the media or popular culture; and the reinstatement of the offence of common law blasphemy or blasphemous libel is opposed by just two-fifths. In the wake of the international controversy surrounding the Innocence of Muslims film, 84% are willing to defend believers of another faith from anti-religious sentiment even though they personally disagree with the basis of that faith; 34% think that the film should not have been allowed to enter the public domain.

Source: Online survey of 2,100 churchgoing Christians via Christian Research’s panel, Resonate. Fieldwork apparently took place in September 2012, following the furore over Innocence of Muslims. The foregoing topline data have been abstracted from reports in the Daily Telegraph, 10 October 2012 and on the Christian Today website. The full data have yet to be released by Christian Research.

Heritage at Risk

A higher proportion of England’s religious heritage assets appear to be at risk than is the case with any other type. Some 17.4% of places of worship appearing on the national listed buildings register and which have been surveyed to date (the work is incomplete) have been designated as at risk by English Heritage. This compares with 16.6% of scheduled monuments, 14.0% of registered battlefields, 8.7% of protected wreck sites, 6.6% of conservation areas, 6.1% of registered parks and gardens, and 3.0% of all grade I and grade II* listed buildings.

Source: Summary report of the Heritage at Risk, 2012 survey, published by English Heritage on 12 October 2012, and available at:

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/har-2012-national-summary/HAR-2012-national-summary.pdf/

 

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Church Growth and Social Action

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Clive D. Field

93% of Anglican clergy agree that ‘engaging with the poor and marginalised in the local area is a vital activity for a healthy church’, and yet only 44% admit that ‘tackling poverty is a fundamental part of the strategy of our church’, notwithstanding that 81% identified at least one significant or major poverty-related problem in their parish.

These are three of the many statistics to be found in Growing Church through Social Action: A National Survey of Church-Based Action to Tackle Poverty, published on 6 February 2012 and written by Benita Hewitt of Christian Research Consultancy (not to be confused with Christian Research, for which she used to work) on behalf of the Church Urban Fund (CUF).

The data derive from an online survey of 2,927 Church of England clergy in December 2011, of whom 865 (or 30%) responded. Their churches were broadly representative of all Anglican places of worship in England in terms of churchmanship, location and congregational size.

Although one-half of churches had increased their efforts to alleviate local poverty during the past five years, three-quarters accepted that they could be doing more. Seven-tenths anticipated doing more over the next five years, especially in the area of family breakdown/poor parenting and debt, but there were many perceived hindrances to such activity. Not least were a lack of volunteers (64%) and leaders (64%), pressures on church leaders (58%), and shortage of finance (55%).

A majority of clergy believed that tackling poverty locally contributes to a more outward-looking church (79%), a deeper understanding of God’s purpose (76%), and improved relations with other local organizations (71%), the wider community (71%) and within the church (57%). A significant minority linked tackling local poverty with increased giving (33%) and more worshippers (28%).

The church growth dimension was tested by Hewitt, who analysed changes in congregational size during the previous five years against the extent of a church’s efforts to address local poverty. She found that ‘the churches doing most to serve those affected by poverty are much more likely to be growing. Conversely, only a tenth of the most active churches have declined in numbers, compared with nearly a third of churches that are not doing anything to meet local needs.’

‘Overall the survey strongly suggests that churches that are most actively engaged in serving those impacted by poverty in their communities tend to be healthier and more attractive than others, and that the churches which are least healthy are those that are aware of significant local problems but are doing little or nothing in response.’

The full report is available at:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Quantitative_report_FINAL2.docx

and a four-page summary at:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/Growing-Church-through-social-action-quantitative-new.pdf

The research project also included a qualitative phase, involving in-depth interviews with eight Anglican clergy who had successfully transformed neglected and poorly-attended churches in deprived areas ‘through committed and entrepreneurial leadership, combined with a willingness to discover community needs’.

For a previous CUF survey of clergy attitudes to poverty, based on a much smaller sample, see our post at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2012/christian-attitudes-to-poverty/ 

 

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Faith in Research Conference

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Clive D. Field

The Research and Statistics Department of the Archbishops’ Council of the Church of England and the Oxford Centre for Ecclesiology and Practical Theology will be hosting the next annual Faith in Research Conference at The Mothers’ Union, 24 Tufton Street, London, SW1P 3RB on Wednesday, 9 May 2012, from 10.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost of the day will be £45 (including buffet lunch, coffee and tea) or £20 for unsalaried postgraduate students.

After opening remarks from John Packer (Bishop of Ripon and Leeds), who will be chairing the event, the proceedings will begin with a plenary session on the ‘Experiences of Ministry Research’ being conducted from the Department of Management, King’s College London, with Dr Mike Clinton as principal investigator. This is a five-year project, including three online surveys of Anglican clergy, the first of which was completed in May-July 2011, with 2,916 responses (with further surveys due in 2013 and 2015). There is a brief report on the 2011 data, focusing on engagement, workload, burnout and growth, at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1373865/microsoft%20word%20-%20ems%20respondent%20report%202011%2024%2011%2011.pdf

An overview of the project as a whole will be found at:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/management/research/experiencesofministry.aspx

Three more substantive sessions are planned for the day, each sub-divided into three parallel streams. These will comprise a mix of theoretical, qualitative and quantitative insights. One of the papers will be by David Walker (Bishop of Dudley), comparing and contrasting (statistically) occasional and regular churchgoers from the perspectives of religious beliefs, attitudes, orientation and practices. He has already produced some interesting research on attenders at harvest festival services in the Diocese of Worcester in 2007 – see http://www.brin.ac.uk/sources/2808

The full programme for the Faith in Research Conference is available at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1378773/FiR2012programme.doc

 

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Christian Attitudes to Poverty

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Clive D. Field

Attending church appears to do little to change people’s underlying attitudes to poverty and inequality, with no great differences between the views of churchgoers and non-churchgoers, and – in particular – sharp divergences between those of clergy and their congregations.

These are among the key findings of a new research report from the Church Urban Fund (CUF) in association with Church Action on Poverty, previewed in the Church of England Newspaper and Church Times of 16 December last but only just released in full. Entitled Bias to the Poor? Christian Attitudes to Poverty in this Country, it can be downloaded from:

http://www.cuf.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/PDFs/Bias_to_the_poor.pdf

CUF’s data derive from a survey of 170 Church of England clergy, carried out at deanery chapter meetings in 2011, and for regular (at least monthly) churchgoers of all denominations and non-churchgoers or professing non-religious from secondary analysis of NatCen’s British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey (seemingly for 2009). Among the headline statistics are:

  • 73% of clergy said poverty is mainly due to social injustice, compared with only 22% of regular churchgoers and 20% of non-religious
  • 38% of churchgoers and non-religious have a fatalistic or passive attitude to poverty, regarding it as ‘an inevitable part of modern life’, against 16% of clergy
  • 23% of churchgoers and 27% of non-religious attribute poverty to laziness or lack of willpower (1% of clergy)
  • 83% of clergy assessed that large income differences contribute to social problems like crime, versus 56% of churchgoers and 65% of non-religious
  • 77% of clergy described large income differences as unfair, compared with 50% of churchgoers and 51% of non-religious
  • 73% of clergy believed that large income differences are morally wrong, twice the figure (36%) for both churchgoers and non-religious
  • 79% of churchgoers and 75% of non-religious saw large income differences as inevitable, against 34% of clergy
  • 64% of churchgoers and 60% of non-religious thought large income differences incentivized people to work hard (just 19% of clergy taking the same position)
  • 76% of clergy acknowledged that there is ‘quite a lot’ of child poverty in Britain, against just 37% of churchgoers and 38% of non-religious (in fact, official statistics prove that nearly one in three children are living in poverty)

Comparing results with BSA surveys for 20 years ago, sympathy for the poor among churchgoers is revealed to have declined. Attitudes to benefits have especially hardened, 57% of churchgoers in 2009 arguing they are too high and discourage work (versus 30% in 1987). 

CUF concludes: ‘Our findings show that clergy understand poverty and inequality very differently to their congregations, and that church attendance has little impact on people’s underlying attitudes to these issues (in stark contrast to other moral issues, like euthanasia, censorship, and marriage, where there are very marked differences between churchgoers and non-churchgoers).’

‘The majority of churchgoers do not recognise the extent of poverty in this country and only a small minority attributes poverty to social injustice. If, as we believe, tackling poverty is at the heart of the gospel message, then there is a clear need for churches to do more to raise awareness and understanding of these issues among their congregations.’

 

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Clergy Experience of Appointments

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Interviews for clergy appointments often last for less than one hour, end up as one-way questioning, lack clarity, and assume a rather secular air, according to a survey recently released by 3D Coaching, which provides coaching and organizational development services to the charity sector, including churches. 

The research was undertaken during the summer of 2011 among clergy of all denominations who had been interviewed for the role of minister, mostly in a local church, during the last three years. There were 139 respondents, of whom 131 were from the Church of England. The sample recruitment method is unknown.

Key statistical findings include the following:  

  • 51% of interviews lasted under one hour, 37% between one and two hours, and 12% longer than two hours 
  • 54% of applicants described the interview as a two-way dialogue, but for 46% it felt more like one-way questioning 
  • 18% did not consider the line of questioning to be clear, while for 57% it was clear and for 25% very clear 
  • 62% recalled that the interview mostly concentrated on their competencies, against 7% who said that it mainly explored their ministerial calling, and 20% the ‘chemistry’ which would have made for a successful ‘marriage’ with the post 
  • In the light of hindsight, only 9% considered that the person and parish/church profile for the role had fully mirrored reality, most (55%) thinking it was at best a 75% reflection of the truth; on the other hand, 13% regarded it as a 25% match or less

Notwithstanding these deficiencies in the selection process, 79% of clergy applicants believed that the interviewers had met the real ‘them’ and 91% that the right person had been appointed eventually, even though only 71% of them were actually successful.

A 24-page report on the survey, containing extensive qualitative data as well as the numbers, is freely available at:

http://www.3dcoaching.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/How-to-Make-Great-Appointments-Survey-Results.pdf

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Women’s Representation in the Church in Wales

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Clive D. Field

The Governing Body of the Church in Wales met at the University of Wales, Trinity St David on 21 and 22 September 2011.

One of the items on its agenda was a report from Dr Gill Todd of the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon on the representation of women in the Church, charting the Church’s progress in implementing the recommendations of a working group she had chaired on the same subject in 2008, which had been endorsed by the Governing Body in that year. The 2011 report and appendices can be found at:

http://www.churchinwales.org.uk/structure/govbody/sep11/

The following table has been compiled from Appendices 2, 3 and 5 in the report to show how the percentage of women at various levels of governance of the Church in Wales has changed between 2008 and 2011:

   2008   2011 
 Governing Body

26.6

41.5
 Representative Body

4.0

8.0
 Bishops’ staff

16.1

22.2
 Diocesan Boards of Finance

18.9

13.7
 Churchwardens

56.0

51.8
 Parochial church council secretaries

74.5

79.3
 Parochial church council treasurers

47.7

48.2
 Senior clergy (area deans to bishops)  

3.8

13.1
 Stipendiary clergy

 

20.8
 Non-stipendiary clergy

 

52.3
     

It will be seen that, while the representation of women in the Church in Wales has generally improved over this triennium, there have been some reversals (in respect of members of Diocesan Boards of Finance and churchwardens), and that the proportion of women fluctuates widely dependent upon the office. There are no recent data on the gender profile of Church in Wales congregations, but in the 1995 Welsh Churches Survey they were 68% female, and the figure is unlikely to be less now.

The Governing Body also debated the annual report on membership and finance, for 2010. This has not yet been posted on the Church’s website, but a summary of the General Body’s discussion of the document – on page 7 of the Church Times for 30 September 2011 – indicates that the news on this front is not good.

Richard Jones, Diocesan Stewardship Adviser for Llandaff, is quoted by the newspaper as saying that membership and average attendance statistics are now at ‘critical levels’, undermining the ability to maintain diocesan and parish organizations, church buildings, ministry, and staffing structures. The report showed an ‘alarming rate of decline’, he added, with a 5% drop in Easter communicants and average attendances, and significant decreases in attendances by young people, baptisms and confirmations.    

As for finance, Lord Rowe-Beddoe, Chairman of the Representative Body, noted that the net income of the Representative Body had dropped from £19 million in 2008 to £15.2 million in 2009 to £14.6 million in 2010, underlining the serious impact of the credit crunch. He forecast that the Church faced the prospect of a ‘significant deficit of between £1 million and £2 million per annum, for a number of years to come’. 

Although the fall in income may have been exacerbated by the economic recession, the downward spiral in Church in Wales membership indicators is more longstanding, as demonstrated in our coverage of the 2004-09 data this time last year. See:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=639

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Church of England Resumes Normal Service

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Great news for statisticians! The Church of England has decided to resume publication of Church Statistics in something like its traditional form. This was discontinued in 2006 following the appearance of the edition for 2004/05, and in favour of what hitherto has not been a wholly satisfactory web-based substitute (although enhancements are in hand).

Church Statistics, 2009/10, prepared by the Research and Statistics Department of the Archbishops’ Council, was published on 29 September 2011 as a 67-page booklet (ISBN 978-0-9564659-2-4). This can either be ordered in print from Church House Bookshop (price £6.99) or downloaded for free at:

http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1333106/2009churchstatistics.pdf

It mostly derives from two sources of data: parochial attendance and membership statistics for 2009; and parochial finance statistics for 2009 and numbers of licensed ministers for 2010. The former have already been partly released in provisional form on 3 February and covered by BRIN the next day, so recapitulation of the headlines is unnecessary here. See our previous post at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/?p=868

The financial and ministerial statistics are now published for the first time. There was a net decline of 72 in the number of licensed clergy (including part-time and self-supporting ministry), and of 129 in full-time stipendiary clergy alone. There were 8,135 of the latter in 2010 (21% of them women), compared with 15,391 in 1961 and 23,670 in 1901, prompting a headline in today’s The Times of ‘Vicar shortage may leave Church “little more than a sect”’. Moreover, the mean age of all stipendiary diocesan clergy was 52, with 22% aged 60 and over. 97% of them in 2010 were white.

The financial data reveal that the 2008 ‘credit crunch’ had an adverse impact on parochial income in 2009, which dropped by 4%, from £925 million to £889 million. However, the decrease was mainly in restricted income and one-off donations, tax-efficient planned giving actually rising modestly and topping an average of £10 per subscriber a week for the first time (the figure was £0.32 when initially recorded in 1964). Nor were Anglican parishes as hard hit as many other charities. Total parochial expenditure in 2009 was £886 million, of which £699 million was recurring and £187 million for capital.

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Veracity of Clergy

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Clergy and priests are the sixth most trustworthy group in society, according to an Ipsos MORI poll for the British Medical Association and published on 27 June. Fieldwork was conducted on 10-16 June 2011 among 1,026 adults aged 15 and over throughout the United Kingdom.

Respondents were read a list of 21 groups and asked which of them they generally trusted to tell the truth. Doctors scored most highly (88%), followed by teachers (81%), professors (74%), judges (72%), scientists (71%), and then clergy/priests on 68%. Politicians as a whole (14%), government ministers (17%), and journalists (19%) occupied the bottom three positions.

Clergy/priests were slightly more trusted by men than women, the over-55s than the young, non-manual than manual workers, those in full-time employment than non-workers, readers of ‘quality’ than ‘popular’ newspapers, whites than non-whites, and among Scots than the three other home nations. Overall, 20% of the sample did not trust clergy/priests, while 12% expressed no views on the subject.

The veracity rating of clergy/priests has fallen over time, from 85% in 1983, when Ipsos MORI first started asking the question. In that year they topped the list of 13 groups which were covered, even beating doctors by 3%. Although they still exceed the average rating, of 52% in 2011, clergy/priests have clearly suffered a loss of prestige over time, whereas doctors and teachers in particular have consolidated their position of trustworthiness.

Detailed computer tabulations for this year’s survey will be found at:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/ipsos-mori-trust-in-professions-june-2011-tables.pdf

For trend data, go to:

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/Veracity2011.pdf

or

http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/#Trust

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Mental Health of Clergy

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Clive D. Field

Two-thirds of the Anglican stipendiary clergy replying to a survey by Morgan Lewis Consultants were keen to see guaranteed confidential support for the clergy for mental health problems and difficulties with emotional well-being and stress. This need came well ahead of their other health priorities such as sponsorship of a group clergy insurance scheme (15%) and an annual ‘MOT’ for clergy (10%).

The study was commissioned by St Luke’s Healthcare for the Clergy, the charity formed following the closure and sale in 2009 of St Luke’s Hospital for the Clergy (established by Canon Henry Cooper in 1892), which had run into financial difficulties. The research was designed to inform the charity’s future mission and strategy through a better understanding of the health needs of contemporary clergy.

The consultants sent 18,000 letters to active and retired Anglican clergy in November 2009 and received replies from 630 (a mere 3.5%). 510 came from stipendiary clergy and 110 from the retired. It seems probable that respondents were disproportionately former patients or otherwise aware of the hospital and thus may not constitute a statistically representative sample of all Anglican clergy.

Retired clergy had a different set of health desiderata to serving incumbents, principally financial help towards dental, optical or audiological treatment (30%), private insurance to be used in the event that the NHS could not deliver (25%), and assistance with the problems of old age such as Alzheimer’s disease (20%).

Church of England dioceses were also consulted and confirmed the challenges to the clergy of stress, anxiety and more serious mental health issues, which accounted for about one-third of all clerical sickness according to diocesan and national data. Mental health and stress-related conditions were identified by two-fifths of dioceses as the healthcare area in most demand by clergy.

A brief summary of the survey appeared on page 7 of the Church Times for 27 May 2011. Enquiries, either about the research or the charity’s future plans, should be addressed to the General Manager, St Luke’s Healthcare for the Clergy, Room 201, Church House, 27 Great Smith Street, London, SW1P 3AZ, telephone 020 7898 1700.

More generally, an extensive academic literature has emerged during the past quarter-century relating to the psychological health of the clergy. Some of the major investigations can be located through the BRIN source database by searching under key terms such as ‘stress’, ‘burnout’, ‘well-being’ and so forth.

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