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Muslim Voices and Other News

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Muslim voices

There is no shortage of national opinion polls asking what Britons think about Islam and Muslims, but there have been relatively few surveys conducted among British Muslims in recent years. Only in the aftermath of the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks in 2001 and 2005 respectively were attempts made to capture Muslim voices in a systematic fashion. This omission partly reflects the difficulties in recruiting a nationally representative sample from what is still a religious minority, albeit a large one, and the associated higher costs of interviewing them. Given this background, we must welcome the poll conducted by ComRes on behalf of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, for which 1,000 Muslims in England were interviewed by telephone between 26 January and 20 February 2015. Full details of sample recruitment methods have yet to be published, but data tables of results (with breaks by gender, age, and region) were released on 25 February 2015 and can be found at:

http://comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/BBC-Today-Programme_British-Muslims-Poll_FINAL-Tables_Feb2015.pdf

From the perspective of community cohesion, we may note that 95% of Muslims profess loyalty to Britain, 93% agree that they should always obey British laws, 94% would inform the police about a Muslim planning an act of violence, 85% have no time for those fighting against the West, and 85% dispute that they would rather socialize with Muslims than non-Muslims. However, 20% deny that Western liberal society can be compatible with Islam, 35% think most Britons do not trust Muslims, and 46% report that Britain is becoming less tolerant of Muslims and that prejudice against Islam makes it difficult being a Muslim in Britain. About one in seven (14%) claim not to feel safe in Britain (particularly Muslim women) and to prefer to live in a Muslim country, if they could.

With regard to the Islamist outrage against Charlie Hebdo in Paris at the start of the year, 32% understand and 27% sympathize with the motives of the perpetrators, and, more generally, 11% assert that organizations publishing images of the Prophet Mohammed deserve to be attacked, 24% rejecting the suggestion that such acts of violence can never be justified. As many as 78% say that they are personally offended by publication of images of the Prophet. Scaled up for a British Muslim population which must now be approaching three million, several of these percentages have been thought by some commentators on the poll to translate into a worrying level of alienation from British society and ‘British values’. For nearly all questions, there was remarkably little variation in replies between the various demographic sub-groups.

Islamic State

More than three times as many adults, 66% versus 20%, deem Islamic State to be a greater threat to Britain’s security than Russia, notwithstanding the escalating crisis between the West and Russia over developments in Ukraine. This is according to a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times, for which 1,959 Britons were interviewed online on 26-27 February 2015. Islamic State is a particular concern to UKIP voters (75%), the over-60s (73%), and Conservatives (71%). Moreover, in future decisions regarding military expenditure, 52% wish to see resources prioritized to combat Islamist terrorism, with only 18% opting for investment to counter the danger from states like Russia. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/42tha4tjwo/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-270215.pdf

Non-stun slaughter of animals

The practice of slaughtering animals without pre-stunning, which is particularly important in the Jewish and Muslim traditions, was in the news again last week, thanks to a new YouGov poll released by the RSPCA, for which 2,177 adults were interviewed online on 18-19 February 2015. The RSPCA has kindly made the full results available to BRIN (they are not online), but some headline findings were also included in the organization’s press release of 23 February 2015, which is at:

http://media.rspca.org.uk/media/pressreleases/details/-/articleName/PressAlmost80PerCentOfUKWantsAnEndToNonStunSlaughter23Feb15

Current animal welfare legislation generally requires pre-stunning of animals killed for human consumption but allows an exemption for Jews and Muslims on religious grounds, which the RSPCA wishes to see ended. Overwhelmingly (77%), Britons agree with the RSPCA that ‘all non-stun slaughter should be banned, with no exceptions’, with only 8% opposed and 16% undecided. However, the vox populi is seemingly being driven by a mistaken association of non-stunning with halal meat and thus with Muslims alone. Two-thirds of respondents rightly identify the exemption with Muslims, but the same proportion wrongly suggests that the majority of halal meat is not pre-stunned, whereas the reality is that the large majority is pre-stunned, as research by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has confirmed. On the other hand, awareness that the exemption applies to Jews also is much lower (39%), and just 40% realize that, as the FSA revealed, no kosher meat produced for Jews using the shechita method is pre-stunned. About one-third could not hazard a guess about the amount of either halal or kosher meat which is not pre-stunned. Nearly one in seven (15%) incorrectly believes the statutory exemption from pre-stunning applies to Hindus and a few even to Christians.

Jewish health

The Institute for Jewish Policy Research published the latest in its series of census-derived profiles of British Jewry on 23 February 2015: David Graham, Health and Disability in Britain’s Jewish Population: Details from the 2011 Census. Its 27 pages are divided into three parts: general health; disability and limiting health conditions; and other census data on health (relating to unpaid care provision, Jewish residents of medical and care facilities, and medical conditions in Scotland). Subjectively defined, and controlling for the older average age of the Jewish population, Jews were found to be among the healthiest of all religious and ethnic groups and to exhibit a very low prevalence of long-term disability. Unfortunately, in respect of general health, different question-wording was used in 2011 than in 2001, so reliable over-time comparisons cannot be made. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/Health_and_disability_in_Britains_Jewish_Population.pdf

Sectarianism in Scotland

The 2014 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey is only the second since the annual series was launched by ScotCen in 1999 to include a specific module on religion. Whereas on the previous occasion, in 2001, the questions covered general religious beliefs and attitudes and paranormal experiences, in 2014 the focus was on sectarianism, at the behest of the Scottish Government, which funded the module. Fieldwork took place between May and August 2014 among a sample of 1,501 adults aged 18 and over in Scotland. A 98-page report on the sectarianism module was published by Scottish Government Social Research on 20 February 2015: Stephen Hinchliffe, Anna Marcinkiewicz, John Curtice, and Rachel Ormston, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 2014: Public Attitudes to Sectarianism in Scotland. It is available to download from:

http://www.scotcen.org.uk/media/830110/ssa2014_full-report-public-attitudes-to-sectarianism-in-scotland.pdf

The report presents a somewhat mixed picture of the extent of Protestant-Catholic sectarianism in Scotland, with some distance evident between perceptions and reality. Although the vast majority (88%) believed that sectarianism is a problem in Scotland, and 66% that it would always exist there, just 19% viewed it as an issue throughout Scotland as a whole, 69% regarding it as a localized phenomenon (notably in Glasgow and the West of the country) and 55% thinking football was its principal cause. No more than 3% felt that Protestant-Catholic relationships in Scotland had worsened over the past decade, 47% detecting an improvement and 40% no change. Only one person in seven (14%), disproportionately Catholic, claimed to have experienced some form of religious discrimination or exclusion during their lives. Overwhelmingly, people’s social networks straddled the denominational divide and the use of sectarian language was condemned. Opinion remained divided about the continuing existence of denominational (Catholic) schools in the state system, 43% opposing and 25% supporting them (rising to 62% among Catholics).

Of the answers to a handful of questions about respondents’ religious background, perhaps the most interesting (and puzzling) was the 10% drop in the number claiming to profess no religion, from 54% in 2013 to 44% in 2014, despite identical question-wording. The authors explain this (p. 7) ‘as most likely to be an artefact of questionnaire content and ordering effects rather than a reflection of any true upsurge in religious adherence in Scotland … It is evidently possible that when, as in 2001 and 2014, a question about religious belonging is preceded by other questions about religion some people are stimulated into reporting a largely latent religious affiliation that they would not otherwise have acknowledged.’ The proportion disclaiming a religious identity was lower still, at 33%, comparable with the 37% who said they belonged to no religion in the 2011 Scottish population census (which covered children as well as adults). The self-reported incidence of regular churchgoing (monthly or more) was 22%, and 51% of those who identified with a religion described themselves as not very or not at all religious.

Adolescents and religion (1)

An interesting case study of the saliency of religious affiliation is reported in Leslie Francis and Mandy Robbins, ‘The Religious and Social Significance of Self-Assigned Religious Affiliation in England and Wales: Comparing Christian, Muslim, and Religiously-Unaffiliated Adolescent Males’, Research in Education, No. 92, November 2014, pp. 32-48. Respondents comprised 547 male students aged 16-18 attending selected secondary schools in England and Wales at an unspecified date and who self-identified with one of the three religious groups under examination. They completed a questionnaire which explored, through statements measured by a five-point Likert scale, eight themes relating to religious beliefs (Bible, Koran, Jesus, Prophet Mohammed, Jesus and justice, Mohammed and justice, experiencing God, and theology of religions); and six themes relating to religion and public concerns (personal life, public life, the state, social rights, rights of women and children, and sex and morality). Results are presented in the form of 14 tables with commentary. The data highlighted some areas of commonality and others of strong divergence between the three groups. The findings are drawn together in eight main conclusions which cumulatively ‘demonstrate that self-assigned religious affiliation serves as a powerful and important predictor of matters of religious and social concern’. For access options to the article, go to:

http://manchester.metapress.com/content/664n1302104l8787/?p=81083da44fea422ca01929800882a5c1&pi=2

Adolescents and religion (2)

Religion is correlated with character-building according to findings presented in a report published by the University of Birmingham’s Jubilee Centre for Character & Virtues on 27 February 2015: James Arthur, Kristján Kristjánsson, David Walker, Wouter Sanderse, and Chantel Jones, Character Education in UK Schools: Research Report. The research, conducted between February 2013 and June 2014, involved 10,200 students and 250 teachers from 68 UK schools, and the techniques comprised surveys, moral dilemma tests, and semi-structured interviews. On the moral dilemma tests, students who professed to be religious scored more highly than those who claimed to be atheist or otherwise to have no religion. Within the religious group, those who practised their religion scored more highly than those who did not. Students attending faith schools also achieved better scores than those going to non-faith schools. Although all these differences were statistically significant, in their conclusion the authors are cautious about interpreting the apparent link between religion and character-building (p. 24). This contrasts with their more emphatic rejection of the widespread conviction that participation in sport builds character. The 38-page report, which is not an easy read, can be found at:

http://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/userfiles/jubileecentre/pdf/Research%20Reports/Character_Education_in_UK_Schools.pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religion in public debate, Religious beliefs, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged adolescents, Anna Marcinkiewicz, BBC, census of population, Chantel Jones, character building, Christians, ComRes, David Graham, David Walker, halal, Health, Institute of Jewish Policy Research, Islamic State, Islamism, James Arthur, Jews, John Curtice, Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, kosher, Kristján Kristjánsson, Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins, Muslims, pre-stunning, Protestants, Rachel Ormston, Religious Affiliation, religious nones, Research in Education, Roman Catholics, RSPCA, Russia, Scotland, Scottish Government Social Research, Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, sectarianism, slaughter of animals, Stephen Hinchliffe, Sunday Times, University of Birmingham, Wouter Sanderse, YouGov | Leave a comment

Church Buildings and Other News

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Church buildings

Churchgoing may be a distinctly minority activity in contemporary Britain, but as many as 45% of the population claim to have visited a church or chapel during the past year for either religious or non-religious purposes, rising to 60% of over-65s and Christians, and even including 27% of those who profess no religion. This is according to a ComRes poll for the National Churches Trust which was published on 29 January 2015, and for which 2,061 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed online between 12 and 14 December 2014. Data tables have been posted at:

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

The heritage and community value of church buildings was also widely appreciated by respondents to the survey. In particular:

79% agreed that churches and chapels are an important part of the UK’s heritage and history (including 51% of religious nones)
75% agreed that it is important for churches and chapels to have good access and modern facilities to make it easier for people to use them (66% of nones)
74% agreed that church buildings play an important role for society as a venue for community activities (64% of nones)
59% disagreed that repairing and restoring historic church buildings only benefits churchgoers (55% of nones)
55% agreed they would be concerned if their local church or chapel building was no longer there (34% of nones)
39% disagreed that their local church or chapel does not play a large role in supporting people in the community (28% of nones)

Fresh Expressions

Church growth advocates, especially in the Church of England and the Methodist Church, are often keen to talk up the potential of Fresh Expressions (FEs) of church as a counterpoise to the more familiar narrative of church decline. However, a somewhat more sobering account of FEs, from theoretical and empirical standpoints, is offered by John Walker, Testing Fresh Expressions: Identity and Transformation (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, xv + 254p., ISBN 9781472411846, hardback). The book is divided into two substantive halves, the first being a contextual review of the existing British evidence and literature about the fall in churchgoing and secularization. The second half outlines the author’s mixed methods research in the Diocese of Canterbury from 2009, examining five parish churches and five FEs by means of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and attendance data.

Walker concludes by rejecting, on both sociological and theological grounds, any suggestion that FEs alone constitute the future of the Church. In particular, ‘fresh expressions … do not and cannot compete with the depth and breadth of life and experience of parish churches, they are no better at attracting the non-churched than parish churches, and both fresh expressions and parish churches grow through exactly the same process.’ The author presents some interesting ideas and evidence, but his research is ultimately small-scale, and it is debatable whether it benefits from being reported at such excessive length.

Religious authority: Pope vs Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is more admired in Britain than Pope Francis, according to a YouGov poll released on 30 January 2015. In January publics in some 23 countries were asked online two questions about their most admired figures from a global list of 25 men and 25 women, the answers then being combined into a single score. In Britain, the list of male personalities was headed by Stephen Hawking (on a score of 14.8), with the Dalai Lama in sixth position (6.3) and Pope Francis in ninth (5.0). Both the Pope and Dalai Lama scored more highly in Britain than the global mean (4.1 and 4.0, respectively). However, the rating of the Pope was much lower in Britain than in Brazil (17.5) and the United States (9.1), albeit it exceeded that in France and Scandinavia, where the Dalai Lama was much more likely to be admired (his French score being 14.6, with 10.5 in Sweden and 10.3 in Denmark). In the United States, Pope Francis was placed second among the most admired men, followed by Billy Graham in third spot (7.2), and the Dalai Lama in seventh (4.8). A blog about the survey is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/30/most-admired-2015/

Religious authority: declining status of the Bible

Those who have been unable to access my article on the decline in Bible-centricism in Britain in the October 2014 issue of Journal of Contemporary Religion, because it is hidden behind a paywall, may wish to read a summary of it in the second half of a presentation which I recently gave to Bible Society staff. The first half deals with the context of the statistical measurement of religion. The presentation can be read by clicking on the following link:

Bible – Bible Society presentation

Christians and pornography

The film version of Fifty Shades of Grey hits the cinema screens next week, and in parallel Premier’s Christianity magazine has decided to publish an article in its February 2015 issue exploring the theme of Christians and pornography. To illustrate the piece, its author, Martin Saunders, ran an online survey of UK practising Christians in December 2014, to which he received over 500 anonymous replies. His sample was clearly self-selecting, and Saunders makes no claim to its statistical representativeness. Certainly, some of the results seem a little improbable (or, if true, would be seen by some as rather disturbing). For example, 55% of Christian men reported that they view internet pornography at least once a month with a further 20% accessing it less often (compared with, respectively, 15% and 20% for Christian women), 42% of Christian men acknowledging an addiction to pornography. Even 30% of church leaders admitted to viewing internet pornography at least monthly. The article can be read online at:

http://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2015/February-2015/Grey-Matter-50-Shades-pornography-and-the-shaping-of-our-brains

Muslims and the general election

The Muslim News is currently running an apparently open poll on its website to identify the top issues which may determine how UK Muslims vote in the general election on 7 May 2015, with the intention of using the findings to influence political parties to listen to the views of the Muslim community. This follows the newspaper’s recent research which suggested that the Muslim vote could shape the electoral result in as many as 40 parliamentary constituencies in England, 39 of them held by Labour or priority Labour targets. Of the 40, 25 were classed as marginal seats and 15 as safe seats, but all deemed to be capable of influence by Muslim voters, based upon a correlation of the proportion of the population which was Muslim at the 2011 census with the size of the majority for the successful candidate at the 2010 general election. It is unclear how far the analysis takes account of the disproportionately younger profile of Muslims, which is likely to mean that their share of voters will be rather less than that of the population as a whole. In all, there are said to be 80 constituencies where Muslims exceed 10% of the residents. For more information about the research, including the sensitivity tests which were applied, see:

http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/newspaper/home-news/muslim-voters-may-determine-next-government/

Mosques

By far the best source of information about mosques in the UK is the database maintained by Mehmood Naqshbandi as part of the (unofficial) Muslims in Britain website. According to the latest report generated from the database, on 19 October 2014 and extending to 64 pages, there are 1,743 active mosques (including prayer rooms) in the UK, of which 1,625 are in England (an estimated 37% being registered as charities). They belong to a variety of Islamic traditions, but with Deobandi (43%) and Bareilvi (24%) being the most dominant. There are 59 mosques which accommodate more than 2,000 people, the largest being a Bareilvi mosque in Bradford, with space for 8,000. The data are also analysed by parliamentary constituencies and local authorities. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.muslimsinbritain.org/resources/masjid_report.pdf

An earlier (April 2013) snapshot of the database was recently summarized on pp. 6-7 of Innes Bowen, Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Brent: Inside British Islam (London: Hurst & Company, 2014, x + 230p., ISBN 9781849043014, paperback). At that time, there were 1,664 mosques in the UK with an estimated capacity of 837,000. Bowen’s book is a useful introduction to the diversity of British Islam and its constituent ideologies and cultures.

Slaughter of animals

UK animal welfare legislation permits slaughter without pre-stunning to be carried out in accordance with religious rites. The practice is particularly important in the Jewish and Muslim communities but is increasingly controversial with veterinarians and sections of the public, and seemingly now contrary to UKIP policy. The prevalence of slaughter without pre-stunning was revealed on 29 January 2015 when the Food Standards Agency (FSA) published the results of its September 2013 survey of animal welfare in Great Britain, during the course of which assessments were made at 301 slaughterhouses. It found that 1% of cattle, sheep and goats, and poultry were slaughtered by the Shechita (Jewish) method, none of which were pre-stunned. The incidence of slaughter by the Halal (Muslim) method was 3% for cattle (25% not being pre-stunned), 41% for sheep and goats (37% not pre-stunned), and 21% for poultry (16% not pre-stunned). Overall, 2% of cattle, 3% of poultry, and 15% of sheep and goats were not stunned prior to slaughter, the last figure having risen from 10% in a 2011 survey. For all three classes of animals the proportion slaughtered by the Halal method without pre-stunning increased significantly between 2011 and 2013, supposedly because of stronger campaigning by some Muslims who believe that stunning kills animals. The FSA report is at:

http://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2013-animal-welfare-survey.pdf

Anti-Semitic incidents

The Community Security Trust (CST), which has been monitoring anti-Semitic incidents in the UK since 1984, reported on 5 February 2015 that there was a record number in 2014, 1,168, which was more than double the total in 2013 (535) and 25% above the previous highest figure of 931 in 2009. The single biggest contributing factor to this record number was the conflict in Israel and Gaza between 8 July and 26 August 2014, during which time no fewer than 501 incidents occurred. However, even controlling for the distorting effect of this ‘trigger event’, the CST still calculated that there was an underlying increase of 29% in anti-Semitic incidents in 2014 over 2013. More than three-quarters of all incidents in 2014 took place in Greater London and Greater Manchester, where the two largest Jewish communities in the UK are concentrated, with incidents in Greater London 137% above the 2013 level. Overall, abusive behaviour accounted for 76% of incidents, those involving extreme violence or assault being far less common (7%). For a full analysis and commentary, see the 41-page Antisemitic Incidents Report, 2014, which can be found at:

http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/Incidents%20Report%202014.pdf

New Religious Movements

New religious movements (NRMs) seem to get relatively less exposure in mainstream academic research and literature than they once did, so we should welcome the recent book by James Lewis, Sects & Stats: Overturning the Conventional Wisdom about Cult Members (Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2014, ix + 209p., ISBN 9781781791080, paperback). The volume provides a contemporary quantitative overview of NRMs from a global perspective, principally derived from questionnaire surveys (some undertaken by the author) of the membership of selective NRMs and analysis of national census data from Anglophone countries (but excluding the United States, which has no religion census, although some sample surveys are available). The book contains relatively little UK data, the principal exception (pp. 184-6) being toplines of the write-in responses to the 2001 and 2011 censuses.

Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, 2013

The complete dataset for the June-October 2013 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey was made available for secondary analysis by the UK Data Service as SN 7519 on 20 January 2015. Fieldwork was conducted by ScotCen Social Research by means of face-to-face interview and self-completion questionnaire administered to 1,497 adult Scots. Although no religion module was included, the standard background questions about religious affiliation (current and by upbringing) and attendance at religious services (by those professing a religion) were asked. These can obviously be used as variables for analysing the replies to the other questions, which, on this occasion, disproportionately related to constitutional change, alcohol, mental health, and policing.

Magna Carta

In 2015 we are celebrating the 800th anniversary of the sealing of Magna Carta, one of the most iconic of all historical documents, the four surviving copies of which have been briefly reunited at The British Library and the House of Lords this week. Yet, beyond knowing that it is significant, many Britons remain unaware of or hazy about its actual content, which was determined by a specific set of circumstances operating in 1215. Although it could be said to have influenced the development of some human rights, in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights sense, Magna Carta cannot be regarded as the progenitor of them all. An example is ‘freedom of religion’, which is only covered in Magna Carta to the more limited extent that chapter 1 established the freedom of the English Church (then Roman Catholic, of course) from state (royal) interference. Nevertheless, 16% of 1,630 Britons interviewed online on 1-2 February 2015 for Index on Censorship thought that Magna Carta had mentioned freedom of religion, including 25% of Liberal Democrats and 22% of over-60s. This was a somewhat lower proportion than the 25% of the public who had given a similar reply to Ipsos MORI in October 2012. The YouGov data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/xysuhertyl/IndexOnCensorshipResults_150202_Magna_Carta_W.pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Survey news | Tagged anti-Semitic incidents, Bible, Christianity magazine, church attendance, church buildings, Church of England, Clive Field, Community Security Trust, ComRes, Dalai Lama, Diocese of Canterbury, Food Standards Agency, freedom of religion, Fresh Expressions, general election, halal, Index on Censorship, Innes Bowen, James Lewis, Jews, John Walker, Magna Carta, Martin Saunders, Mehmood Naqshbandi, mosques, Muslim News, Muslims, National Churches Trust, New Religious Movements, politics, Pope Francis, pornography, Religious Affiliation, ScotCen Social Research, Scotland, Scottish Social Attiutudes Survey, shechita, slaughter of animals, YouGov | Leave a comment

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

Catholic Family and Other News

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Catholic family

The Roman Catholic Church’s fortnight-long Extraordinary Synod on the Family ends in Rome today. It has attracted surprisingly little attention in the general (non-Catholic) British media, although its outcomes are now being reported as a victory for conservative forces in the Church, particularly on gay issues. So far as is known, the Synod has not been informed by any scientific test to determine how far British Catholics, professing or practising, are in tune with the Church’s official teaching on family matters. The Church’s own consultation questionnaire, in the autumn of 2013, was something of a public relations disaster, being poorly designed and imperfectly administered; in any case, the findings of this survey in England and Wales and in Scotland have been kept secret. No non-Catholic agency has stepped in to take the pulse of Catholic opinion in the run-up to the Synod, so the latest data which we have of a representative nature are those collected by YouGov for Westminster Faith Debates in June 2013, which revealed a big gap between the hierarchy and people in the pews. The tables from this poll are still available online at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/k0rbt8onjb/YG-Archive-050613-FaithMatters-UniversityofLancaster.pdf

That said, we probably should mention (just about) a global enquiry which has been run by the Catholic weekly The Tablet between 3 and 14 October 2014, via an 18-item open access online questionnaire. This was answered by an entirely self-selecting (and therefore probably quite unrepresentative) sample of more than 4,300 individuals, 57% of them from the United States (where the poll was highlighted on conservative blogs). According to The Tablet, one-quarter of respondents lived in the United Kingdom or Ireland, but their answers are not in the public domain, albeit there is a published tabulation of the views of 84 divorced and remarried British or Irish Catholics, which can be found at:

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/texts-speeches-homilies/4/470/what-you-are-hoping-for-from-the-synod-for-the-family-our-survey-results-in-full-

Islamism (1)

Polling interest in the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria appears to be waning. This is the first weekend in more than two months that The Sunday Times has not included a module of questions about IS in its weekly poll conducted on its behalf by YouGov. Although IS remained the second most noted news story of last week, it attracted just 11% of the vote, compared with 50% for the Ebola outbreak, according to a Populus survey on 15 and 16 October 2014 among an online sample of 2,039 adults. The only other recent poll to note was undertaken online by ComRes for the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday, also on 15 and 16 October 2014, with 2,000 respondents. Asked whether the US and UK governments were right to refuse to pay ransoms to terrorist groups such as IS, 60% agreed, 13% disagreed, and 27% did not know what to think. Data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/IoS_SM_Political_Poll_Additional_Questions_19th_October_2014.pdf

Islamism (2)

The Times of 2 October 2014 (p. 13) contained a report on recent research by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), at King’s College London. It was based on a study of 471 male and 54 female jihadists who had travelled to Syria and Iraq, overwhelmingly to join Islamic State (IS) or the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front. Biographical details were gleaned from interviews and social media. Comparative data on 378 German jihadists were obtained from that country’s intelligence service. Key findings from the newspaper coverage of the British research are quoted below, but no further information is currently available on the ICSR website.

‘The UK jihadists tend to be better educated, more affluent and have more social mobility compared to their counterparts in Europe. The typical British fighter was aged 18-24 and had received a sixth-form education, though some had degrees. Before going to the Middle East a majority had an involvement in activist groups focused on global Muslim issues, such as the Palestinian conflict, and many were involved in street-preaching groups. British jihadists tend to have South Asian backgrounds, reflecting the dominant ethnicities within British Islam, while men of North African extraction are the most numerous among mainland European fighters. Some British jihadists had criminal convictions, mostly for drugs or petty crime.’

Religious and ethnic hatred

Asked to select the greatest threat to the world from a list of five current dangers, 39% of Britons put religious and ethnic hatred in first place, with a further 22% placing it second, and still larger numbers of those on the political right. This is according to the results of a question asked in the most recent Pew Global Attitudes survey and released on 16 October 2014. Fieldwork was conducted in 44 countries between March and June 2014, including in Britain where 1,000 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed by telephone from 17 March to 9 April. The report and topline results from the question on world dangers can be read at:

http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2014/10/Pew-Research-Center-Dangers-Report-FINAL-October-16-2014.pdf

The proportion of Britons citing religious and ethnic hatred as the world’s biggest danger in Spring 2014 was actually higher than in all other countries studied apart from Lebanon (58%) and the Palestinian Territories (40%), and it was considerably larger than the European average of 15% and the United States figure of 24%. However, it was somewhat diminished from the levels in Britain in Summer 2002 (43%) and Spring 2007 (45%), which were presumably influenced by the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in, respectively, New York in 2001 (9/11) and London in 2005 (7/7). The growing gap between the rich and the poor was perceived as the greatest global risk for 25% in Britain in 2014, pollution and other environmental problems for 16%, the spread of nuclear weapons for 14%, and AIDS and other infectious diseases for 4%.

Hate crimes: England and Wales

Hate Crimes, England and Wales, 2013/14, by Byron Creese and Deborah Lader, was published as Home Office Statistical Bulletin 02/14 on 16 October 2014. The police recorded 44,480 hate crimes in the year, of which 2,273 (5%) were categorized as religiously motivated, somewhat more than disability hate crimes (1,985) and transgender hate crimes (555) but less than sexual orientation hate crimes (4,622) and race hate crimes (37,484). All five strands demonstrated an increase between 2012/13 and 2013/14, which was partly a function of better reporting and partly of a genuine rise, especially, in the case of race and religion hate crimes (the latter up by 45%, from 1,573), growth following the murder of Lee Rigby in May 2013. Public order offences and criminal damage or arson were the commonest forms of religion hate crimes. The bulletin is at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/364198/hosb0214.pdf

Religion and equality: Scotland

The Scottish Government published on 14 October 2014 an Analysis of Equality Results from the 2011 Census of Scotland. Chapter 3 (pp. 66-98) is devoted to religion and contains 31 charts, 2 figures, and 2 tables, together with brief commentaries thereon. Breaks are given for religion by age, gender, marital status, cohabitation, ethnicity, national identity, country of birth, age of arrival in UK, length of residence in UK, urban/rural classification, English/Scottish language skills, language used at home, dependent children, and health. The report is available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0046/00460679.pdf

Atheism

Matt Sheard applies prosopographical techniques to autobiographical and oral history sources to produce a partially quantitative profile of non-elite British atheists between 1890 and 1980. He demonstrates that the process of atheization was principally a phenomenon of childhood and adolescence and often associated with weak religious backgrounds. Sheard’s ‘Ninety-Eight Atheists: Atheism among the Non-Elite in Twentieth Century Britain’ was published on 13 October 2014 in the open access journal Secularism and Nonreligion as Vol. 3, Article 6, and is available online at:

http://www.secularismandnonreligion.org/article/view/snr.ar/

Church decline

Ruth Gledhill has covered on Christian Today the recent analysis by Ben Clements on BRIN of religious affiliation data from the first wave of the British Election Study (BES) 2015 panel. She concentrates particularly on the ‘massive decline’ in affiliation over the fifty-year history of BES. She also interviews BRIN co-director David Voas about the prospects for the Churches. He sees immigration as the principal engine of any church growth which is occurring and the failure to recruit the children of churchgoers as the main reason for church declension. Nevertheless, he does not predict the virtual extinction of the Church of England, thinking that the seemingly relentless decline will bottom out at some point. Gledhill’s article is at:

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/exclusive.new.figures.reveal.massive.decline.in.religious.affiliation/41799.htm

London knowledge

YouGov polled 1,966 Britons online on 16-17 October 2014 about their attitudes to the restitution of the Elgin Marbles to Greece, prefacing the survey with a series of true or false statements to test the public’s knowledge of London. Whereas 78% correctly identified Sir Christopher Wren as the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral, fewer (53%) denied that Westminster Abbey is the main Roman Catholic Church in London, 19% thinking that it is. In fact, the Abbey, although of Catholic origin before the Reformation, is now a Royal Peculiar in the Church of England, and Westminster Cathedral is the principal Catholic place of worship in the capital. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/8y47s60k62/InternalResults_141017_London_Elgin_Marbles_Website.pdf

Posted in News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged atheism, Ben Clements, British Election Study, Byron Creese, census of population, Christian Today, ComRes, David Voas, Deborah Lader, equality, Extraordinary Synod on the Family, hate crimes, Home Office, Independent on Sunday, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, Islamic State, Islamism, jihadists, London, Matt Sheard, Pew Global Attitudes Project, Populus, ransoms, Religious Affiliation, religious and ethnic hatred, Roman Catholic Church, Ruth Gledhill, Scotland, Secularism and Nonreligion, St Paul's Cathedral, Sunday Mirror, The Tablet, The Times, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Faith Debates, YouGov | 1 Comment

Scottish Independence and Other News

Posted on September 21, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Scottish independence

The referendum on Scottish independence is now behind us (it was held on 18 September 2014), and we know that a majority of residents of Scotland has voted to remain in the United Kingdom. The referendum campaign was accompanied by a spate of opinion polls in Scotland, mostly conducted online, which explored attitudes and voting intentions from a variety of perspectives. However, none of these appear to have asked about the faith of respondents, so we had no clear idea how religion may have influenced views on Scottish independence. The closest we came to that dimension was a series of articles and interviews in the print media by the historian Sir Tom Devine speculating on the shifting attitudes of Scottish Catholics on the prospects of independence for Scotland, and drawing on some less than current data from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey.

It is therefore gratifying to note that Lord Ashcroft has surveyed the actual voting in the referendum of 2,047 Scottish residents. They were contacted by telephone or online on 18 and 19 September, after they had filled in their ballot paper, the voting of this sample almost exact mirroring the national results. The survey tabulations were published on 19 September at:

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Scotland-Post-Referendum-poll-Full-tables-1409191.pdf

As the following table, calculated from Ashcroft’s data, makes clear, there does appear to have been a simplistic correlation between religious affiliation and referendum voting patterns. Essentially, the majority of Catholics, non-Christians, and those professing no religion all favoured independence. It was only the votes of Protestants which saved the United Kingdom. The vast majority of these affiliate to the Church of Scotland and may have been influenced by the fact that the Queen has a strong relationship with it, albeit she is not its Supreme Governor (as she is in respect of the Church of England). The reality is likely to be far more complex than this, as a multivariate analysis of the dataset would doubtless reveal (if it ever becomes available), but these figures suggest that religion cannot be discounted from having some bearing on how people voted.

% across	No vote	Yes vote
Total	54.6	45.4
Christians: Catholic	43.0	57.0
Christians: Non-Catholic	69.1	30.9
Non-Christians	36.4	63.6
No religion	44.3	55.7

Church and State

Talking of establishment, ComRes replicated for ITV News on 12-14 September 2014 a question about the official link between the Church of England and the State which it had first posed some three months earlier. Respondents, of whom there were 2,052 in the second online poll, were asked whether the maintenance of such a link was good or bad for Britain. The plurality was undecided on the issue, but, as the table below indicates, more now believe that establishment is bad than consider it good. It seems especially unpopular in Scotland (45%) and North-East England (40%). The full data can be found on pp. 42-3 of the tables at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/ITV_News_Index_15th_September_2014.pdf

% down	27-29 June	12-14 Sept	Change
Good	33	28	-5
Bad	29	32	+3
Don’t know	38	40	+2

Islamic State

The referendum on Scottish independence dominated the news last week, being the most noticed story for 61% of Britons, according to an online poll of 2,260 adults by Populus on 17-18 September 2014. The various manifestations of the Islamic State (IS) crisis in Iraq and Syria, including the murder of British hostage David Haines, were thus pushed down the agenda somewhat, but remained the top story for 13%. However, there have been two new IS-related online surveys by YouGov, as follows:

15-16 September 2014

YouGov replicated a sub-set of questions last asked in its poll of 4-5 September 2014. They were put to a sample of 1,977 respondents. Notwithstanding the intervening murder by IS of David Haines, and the threat to kill another British captive, public attitudes to the IS crisis had only slightly hardened, notably in respect of support for RAF air strikes against IS targets, up from 52% to 54% in the case of Iraq and from 48% to 52% in Syria (where Haines was almost certainly killed). There was overwhelming (70%) opposition to the payment of ransoms to secure the release of British hostages, albeit 63% endorsement for a British military rescue operation to free them. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/x2r1cq8rs3/YG-Archive-140917-IS.pdf

18-19 September 2014

The second poll, for The Sunday Times, interviewed 2,126 adults. Relative to the survey of three days before, there had been slight dips in the level of support for RAF air strikes against IS in Iraq (down 1%, to 53%) and Syria (down 1%, to 51%), and the commitment of British and American ground troops against IS in Iraq (down 2%, to 24%, with disapproval on 55%). Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/wpbxyfjd7p/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140919.pdf

Journal of Contemporary Religion

The latest issue (Vol. 29, No. 3, October 2014) of Journal of Contemporary Religion, published online on 9 September 2014, includes two articles and one book review by members of the BRIN team which may be of interest to readers of this website. The issue can be accessed at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cjcr20/29/3#.VBcogTZwbX4

Ben Clements, ‘Assessing the Determinants of the Contemporary Social Attitudes of Roman Catholics in Britain: Abortion and Homosexuality’ (pp. 491-501) is based on secondary analysis of a YouGov survey of 1,636 professing British Catholic adults on the eve of the papal visit to Scotland and England in September 2010. On the two social issues investigated significant numbers of Catholics held liberal views which diverged from the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the most traditionalist (and socially conservative) among the faithful being found to be men, older people, and frequent Mass-goers.

Clive Field, ‘Is the Bible Becoming a Closed Book? British Opinion Poll Evidence’ (pp. 503-28) utilizes 123 national sample surveys of the adult general population and 35 national and local sample surveys of adult religious populations to study changes in the standing of the Bible in Britain since the Second World War. The analysis proceeds both at topline level and by breaks for gender, age, social class, religious denomination, and churchgoing. Twelve broad conclusions are drawn, with declining allegiance to the Bible visible on various fronts, even among regular churchgoers. In an everyday sense, one interpretation of the data could be that Christianity is becoming decoupled from the holy book on which it is founded. This process is attributed to the waning influence of three principal agencies of religious socialization (Church/Sunday school, state school, parents) which formerly underpinned the Bible’s role in faith and society.

The book review (pp. 555-6) is by David Voas and is of The World’s Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography, by Todd Johnson and Brian Grim (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).

Charity Brand Index

The Methodist Recorder (12 September 2014, p. 2) reports that Methodist Homes (MHA) has been named the most trusted charity in the UK in 2014 according to the sixth Charity Brand Index published by Third Sector Research on the basis of an online survey of 4,000 adults by Harris Interactive. MHA’s trustworthiness rating stood at 85%, the highest of the 150 charities evaluated in the Index. This is just one facet by which these charities are ranked by the public, other measures including recognition, willingness to donate, effectiveness of media coverage and advertising, attitudes towards the charity’s cause, and understanding of the charity’s work. Unfortunately, the Index is a fully commercial product, the report and dataset costing £1,750, so BRIN is unable to provide further details of results for religion-related charities more generally. However, the top ten charities overall this year are not obviously religious in character; they are listed in the online edition of Third Sector at:

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/cancer-research-uk-named-best-charity-brand-2014/communications/article/1309460

Christmas campaign

The Christmas Starts with Christ 2014 campaign, co-ordinated by ChurchAds.Net on behalf of a consortium of Churches and Christian agencies, was announced on 10 September 2014, with a range of downloadable resources, including posters, radio commercials, and web banners. The campaign officially kicks off on 30 November (Advent Sunday), with churches being invited to hold a Christmas Starts Sunday in December. The organizers hope that 10,000 places of worship will get involved this year.

During the summer (13 June 2014) Christmas Starts with Christ also released statistics of its 2013 campaign, in which an estimated 4,500 churches participated and advertising became genuinely multi-platform. The campaign’s three ‘chat show’ radio advertisements – featuring Mary, Herod, and the innkeeper – were heard by five million listeners. There were 3.55 million opportunities to see a #ChristmasStarts tweet on Twitter. Three ‘thunderclaps’ reached 1.31 million people via social media. The campaign website attracted 139,000 pageviews, 25% more than in 2012 and double the level in 2011. A post-campaign survey by ComRes in January 2014 revealed that 67% of Britons felt the Christmas message had been conveyed effectively by the campaign and 49% acknowledged the advertising had made them think more about the true meaning of Christmas. The ‘2013 – Our Year in Numbers’ summary is at:

http://christmasstartswithchrist.com/docs/2013/CSWC_2013_review.pdf

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged abortion, Ben Clements, Bible, Charity Brand Index, Christmas Starts with Christ, Church and State, Church of England, Clive Field, ComRes, David Voas, establishment, Harris Interactive, homosexuality, Iraq, Islamic State, ITV News, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Lord Ashcroft Polls, Populus, Roman Catholics, Scotland, Scottish independence referendum, Sunday Times, Syria, Third Sector Research, YouGov | Leave a comment

Round-Up of Islamic State and Other Surveys

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Islamic State

There has been a further round of polling in recent days related to the advances of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, as summarized below, by chronological order of fieldwork. Unless otherwise stated, surveys were conducted online and among representative samples of Britons aged 18 and over.

August 2014

OnePoll reported on 29 August 2014, on the basis of 1,000 interviews, that the most popular option for resolving the IS crisis was ‘encourage peaceful negotiation’ (29%), with ‘military action – we should launch air strikes’ a close second on 27%. The proportion in facour of air strikes was higher among professing Christians (32%) than atheists (24%), although the number in both sub-groups recommending military action in the form of deploying ground troops against IS was similar (13% and 12% respectively). The survey covered knowledge of, and attitudes to, a range of current international conflicts, revealing a significant lack of understanding (including the 13% of respondents who identified the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm el-Sheikh as a terrorist organization). As so often with OnePoll studies, there is only a blog post available online, published at:

http://www.onepoll.com/13-of-brits-think-sharm-el-sheikh-the-popular-egyptian-holiday-destination-is-a-terrorist-group/

20-22 August 2014

ComRes, commissioned by the Sunday Mirror and Independent on Sunday, reported 55% of 2,058 Britons in agreement with the suggestion that, if IS continued unchecked in Iraq, it would pose a direct threat to security on British streets; just 14% disagreed with 31% undecided. However, there was no consensus that the emergence of IS demonstrated that Britain had withdrawn from Iraq prematurely: 26% agreed, 39% disagreed, and 36% could not say. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/SM_IoS_Political_Poll_24th_August_2014_12371.pdf

22-25 August 2014

ComRes, for ITV News, asked 2,062 Britons how the British government should respond to IS, taking into account the level of military action necessary to achieve a particular outcome. One-third (35%) thought that we should seek to defeat IS in its entirety, a big jump on the 20% recorded in the pollster’s previous survey of 15-17 August, with 23% wishing to see us concentrate on preventing IS from making further gains (29% in the earlier study). Just over one-fifth (22%) argued that Britain should not become involved, 8% down on the week before. These answers were not wholly consistent with those to another question, which asked whether the government should concentrate its efforts on preventing radicalization of Muslims in the UK, rather than engaging in Iraq and Syria, a strategy with which 58% agreed. Overwhelmingly (71%), respondents considered that people using social media to promote IS should have their accounts suspended, with only 10% dissenting, with 75% concurring that social media websites should hand over to the government the personal details of anybody using their account to organize IS activity. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/ITV_News_Index_26th_August_2014.pdf

28-29 August 2014

YouGov’s latest weekly poll for the Sunday Times largely replicated questions about IS and Iraq asked on 21-22 August 2014, and sometimes in earlier surveys. Opinion was found to have remained constant over the week, with 77% approving of the RAF dropping humanitarian supplies to people fleeing IS, 43% of air strikes by the RAF against IS (more specifically, 37% against IS targets in Syria), 37% of supplying arms to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting IS, and 29% of sending British troops to help train such forces. Strong support remained for stripping Britons fighting alongside IS of their citizenship, in cases where they held dual nationality or had been naturalized (78%), and of changing the law to allow citizenship to be withdrawn from birth Britons (67%). Overwhelmingly (86%), Britons who had fought for Islamist groups abroad were deemed to pose a threat to the country on their return, while 79% held that their Islamist involvements had increased the risk of major terrorist attacks taking place in Britain. Four-fifths wished to see the prosecution of British citizens travelling to Iraq or Syria, the presumption for many respondents being that they must have gone to fight for IS, unless they could prove otherwise. Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/frletj5cgx/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140829.pdf

29-31 August 2014

Telephone interviews with 1,001 adults by ComRes for The Independent revealed continuing minority support for direct British military involvement in the fight against IS in Iraq and Syria, 35% endorsing RAF air strikes (with 50% disagreement) and 20% the commitment of British ground forces (with 69% opposed). A majority (61% versus 29%) thought that Britons suspected of joining IS should have their passports taken away and be stripped of their citizenship, albeit fewer (39%) considered that Britons travelling to Iraq and Syria should be presumed to be terrorists until they could be proved innocent. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/The_Independent_Political_Poll_2nd_September_2014.pdf

3 September 2014

The deteriorating situation in Iraq and Syria, including an apparent beheading by IS of a second American citizen and a threat of a similar fate to a British hostage, is slowly increasing public support for RAF air strikes against IS. Based on a fairly small sample of 703 adults, by YouGov for The Sun, the figure now stands at 47%, ten points up on 10-11 August (when the question was first asked by YouGov), with 31% disapproval and 22% undecided. Support for Britain supplying arms to Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting IS has also increased, from 28% on 11-12 August to 39% on 3 September, with 37% opposed and 24% uncertain. However, there was no greater enthusiasm than in previous polls for Britain and the USA deploying ground troops in Iraq to combat IS (with 20% in favour and 58% against, the same split as on 14-15 August). Data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ozg4t2h6kv/SunResults_140903_Islamic_State_ISIS_W.pdf

A tracker of YouGov’s recent polling on Iraq and IS is at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ogulv37v9d/YG-Archives-Pol-Trackers-Iraq-IS-Conflict-030914.pdf

Scottish religion

Further evidence that religion is on the wane in Scotland is provided by two new data sources from the Scottish Government.

The proportion of adult Scots who profess no religion stood at 46% in 2013, up by six points since 2009, according to the report and tables from the 2013 Scottish Household Survey, published on 13 August 2014, for which 9,920 individuals were interviewed. There was a corresponding fall over the same period in allegiance to the Church of Scotland, from 34% to 28%, while the number of Roman Catholics remained unchanged, at 15%. Respondents were also asked about their experience of discrimination and harassment. Discrimination was reported by 7% of all Scots but by 10% of Catholics and Christians other than Church of Scotland, and by 21% of non-Christians. For harassment the national average was 6% but 14% among non-Christians. Further information is contained in tables 2.2, 4.18, and 4.19 and in figure 2.1 at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2014/08/7973/downloads

The majority of marriages in Scotland in 2013 were solemnized in civil ceremonies, as they have been in every year since 2005. The proportion now stands at three times the level it did in 1946-50. The principal reason why ‘religious’ weddings remain reasonably common, at 49% in 2013, is that the total is inflated by those conducted by humanist and other ‘non-religious’ celebrants, a practice which is legal in Scotland, but not yet in England and Wales. Indeed, representatives of the Humanist Society of Scotland alone officiated at 3,185 marriages in Scotland in 2013, not far short of the 4,616 celebrated by Church of Scotland ministers. If humanist and other belief weddings are excluded, then the proportion which might be considered ‘religious’, on a more conventional definition of organized religion, is reduced to 37%, the equivalent figure in 1946-50 being 83%. The fall in religious marriages has been absolute as well as relative. Whereas in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War there were an average of 35,700 per annum, there were just 10,300 in 2013, on a like-for-like basis. Weddings conducted in the Kirk have more than halved in the decade 2003-13. Details are provided in Vital Events Reference Tables 7.5, 7.6, and 7.7, published by the General Register Office for Scotland on 14 August 2014 at:

http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/statistics/theme/vital-events/general/ref-tables/2013/section-7-marriages-and-civil-partnerships.html

Trust in religious institutions

Surveys have consistently demonstrated that the under-25s are the least religious of all age groups, regardless of the measure of religiosity which is used. New research from Survation for Sky News, based on 1,004 online interviews with Britons aged 16-24 on 21-26 August 2014, has now revealed that they also tend to mistrust religious institutions, relative to other national institutions. The question asked was: ‘which of the following institutions do you trust to address your concerns/needs?’ Topline results are summarized in the table below. Distrust in religious institutions was especially high among prospective UKIP voters and residents of Wales, Scotland, and Southern England outside London (the capital itself recording 43% trust). For more detail, see tables 42-49 at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Sky-Youth-Poll-Tables.pdf

%	Trust	Not trust
National Health Service	78	22
Police	66	34
Social services	53	47
Local authorities	52	48
Judiciary	42	58
Government/Parliament	31	69
Religious institutions	31	69
Mainstream media	18	82

Posted in Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Survey news | Tagged British citizenship, ComRes, discrimination, Independent on Sunday, Iraq, Islamic State, Islamism, ITV News, marriages, Muslims, OnePoll, Religious Affiliation, religious institutions, Scotland, Scottish Government, Scottish Household Survey, Sky News, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Times, Survation, Syria, terrorism, The Independent, trust, YouGov | Leave a comment

Baroness Warsi’s Resignation and Other News

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Baroness Warsi’s resignation

Last Tuesday (5 August 2014), Baroness Sayeeda Warsi resigned from Britain’s coalition government in protest at its response to the crisis in Gaza arising from the latest round of conflict between Israel and Hamas. She had been the first female Muslim member of a UK Cabinet and, in addition to being Senior Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, held the portfolio of Minister for Faith and Communities at the Department for Communities and Local Government.

In what appears to be the first test of public reaction on the subject, a plurality (44%) of 1,943 adult Britons questioned online by YouGov for The Sunday Times on 7-8 August 2014 felt that she had been right to resign, with a big difference between Conservatives (27%) on the one hand and Labour voters (58%) and Liberal Democrats (50%) on the other. One-quarter considered she had been wrong to resign (including 46% of Conservatives), with 31% undecided.

Somewhat fewer than endorsed Warsi’s resignation, 33%, wanted to see the British government doing more to condemn Israeli actions in Gaza, with Labourites (48%), Liberal Democrats (42%), and Scots (40%) especially of this view. Just 7% wished to see the government doing more to support Israel. In particular, Israel’s bombing of Gaza is widely and increasingly regarded as unjustified, as the following table shows:

Gaza bombing (%)	Justified	Unjustified	Don’t know
20-21 July 2014	15	51	34
24-25 July 2014	18	52	31
28-29 July 2014	17	52	31
31 July-1 August 2014	17	54	29
3-4 August 2014	15	55	30
7-8 August 2014	17	60	24

Public sympathy with the Palestinians has also increased since the current flare-up in Gaza began early last month, now running at twice the level expressed for the Israelis. However, a steady two-fifths of the British public still feels sympathy for neither side. Trend data are as follows:

Sympathize with (%)	Israelis	Palestinians	Neither	Don’t know
13-14 July 2014	14	20	40	26
20-21 July 2014	14	23	40	23
24-25 July 2014	14	27	41	19
28-29 July 2014	14	27	41	18
31 July-1 August 2014	14	28	40	17
3-4 August 2014	12	30	39	20
7-8 August 2014	16	30	41	13

Full tables for the most recent YouGov poll are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/s41ippsqgi/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-140808.pdf

Sunday trading

Resistance to the Sunday opening of shops in England and Wales still persists twenty years after the Sunday Trading Act 1994 brought in greater liberalization of shop hours. This is revealed in a poll by ICM Research for Retail Week in which 1,838 English and Welsh adults were interviewed online on 25-27 July 2014. Asked directly, 26% of respondents thought that shops should not be open at all on Sundays, with 53% disagreeing. However, fewer (17%) expressed the view that shops should be closed on Sundays when the question was put in a more indirect way, regarding future priorities for Sunday trading. And fewer still (13%) claimed never to shop on a Sunday, against 41% who were frequent Sunday shoppers (every week or most weeks) and 42% more occasional ones. Among those who ever shopped on a Sunday, supermarkets (71%), garden centres (33%), and home or DIY stores (31%) were the most frequently visited venues. Support for a change in the law to enable large shops to open on Sundays for more than the present six hours was voiced by 48% (rising to 55% among under-45s), 31% being opposed, with 17% rejecting the call for longer opening hours on religious grounds. An account of the survey was published in Retail Week on 1 August 2014, which is available online for subscribers only. Topline results can be accessed without restriction in the form of a slide pack at:

http://www.icmresearch.com/data/media/pdf/Sunday%20Trading%20Poll%20July_August%202014_29.07.14.pdf

Religion and the European Union

Few in Europe or the UK view religion as a major component of the European Union (EU), according to the initial results of Standard Eurobarometer wave 81.4, conducted by TNS Opinion and Social among adults aged 15 and over in all 28 member states, including face-to-face interviews with 1,373 in the UK between 31 May and 14 June 2014. Asked which of twelve issues most created a feeling of community among EU citizens, only 9% in the UK and in the EU overall selected religion, culture scoring most highly (29% and 27% respectively), with sport in second place in the UK (25%). Religion was positioned bottom of the table in the EU and equal second bottom in the UK, somewhat ahead of solidarity with poorer regions (5%). Similarly, when it came to which of twelve values best represented the EU, religion came bottom of the list in the EU and second bottom in the UK, with 3% each (only self-fulfilment being regarded as less significant in the UK). Peace was considered by far the most important value in the EU (37%) but was pipped to the top spot by human rights in the UK (41%). A maximum of three answers was permitted to each question. Topline data only are available at present at:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb81/eb81_anx_en.pdf

Scottish Gods

Steve Bruce’s latest book, Scottish Gods: Religion in Modern Scotland, 1900-2012 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014, xi + 244p., £70, ISBN 978 0 7486 8289 8), is an elegantly-written and stimulating social history of, and sociological commentary on, religion in twentieth- and early twenty-first century Scotland, charting both progressive secularization and religious diversification. It does not aspire to provide a fully comprehensive account of the Scottish religious scene, being essentially a series of case studies along ‘confessional’ or thematic lines. These are successively devoted to: the islands of Lewis, Orkney, and Shetland; the Roman Catholic Church; Protestant sectarianism; the Church of Scotland; the Free Church and the Free Presbyterian Church; the New Churches; the Buddhists of Samye Ling; the Findhorn Community; Muslims; and sex and Scottish politics.

Although statistics are quoted throughout, this is not a heavily quantitative work (and doubtless all the more readable and less dull for that). The single most cited quantitative source is the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey for 2001, which included a module on religion and belief, which (sadly) has not been replicated since. The volume also draws quite heavily on the results of the religion question in the 2001 census of population; the (relative to England and Wales) belated and still incomplete publication of Scottish religion data from the 2011 census meant that Bruce could not accommodate them in the main text, but he does discuss them in a two-page addendum. There is also a statistical appendix containing eight tables, as well as seven further tables distributed across individual chapters, the original plan for a much longer appendix of statistics being dropped in view of the existence of BRIN (whose achievement is fulsomely acknowledged). The preface holds out the promise of companion volumes on English Gods and Welsh Gods.

Future of Jewish community research

The future of the Community Research Unit of the Board of Deputies of British Jews is under review, according to the latest issue of the Jewish Chronicle (8 August 2014, p. 14). This follows the departure for a new job of its senior researcher, Daniel Vulkan, after almost nine years in the role. The Board has apparently held talks with the Institute of Jewish Policy Research on continuation of the Unit’s work. The Unit has traditionally collected and analysed key data relating to British Jewry, including preparation of an annual survey of Jewish births, marriages, divorces, and burials, as well as publishing regular reports on synagogue membership and Jewish day schools, and conducting research on behalf of other Jewish communal organizations.

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, People news, Religion and Politics, Survey news | Tagged Board of Deputies of British Jews, Daniel Vulkan, Eurobarometer, European Union, feeling of community, Gaza, ICM Research, Israelis, Jews, Palestinians, Retail Week, Sayeeda Warsi, Scotland, Steve Bruce, Sunday Times, Sunday trading, TNS, values, 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

Mid-Summer Miscellany

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Clive D. Field

Burka

The burka (and thus Islam) has been in the news again during the past week, partly because the European Court of Human Rights has upheld France’s ban on wearing the full face-veil in public (a similar ban also operates in Belgium), and partly because an imam has written to The Times to point out that ‘there is no Koranic mandate for female facial masks’ and to suggest that wearing the burka in public should be made illegal in the UK.

The latest publicity has prompted Opinium Research to test the popular mood in the UK, and the company put several questions to an online sample of 2,004 adults between 4 and 7 July 2014. Topline results are tabulated below, revealing two-thirds of people in favour of banning the burka, similar to other polls in recent years, albeit one-quarter expressed some concern on the grounds of implications for human rights and individual freedoms.

%	Agree	Disagree
Burqa, or full veil, should be banned in public places	68	14
Burqa a predominantly cultural rather than religious requirement	66	8
Banning burqa would give women who wear it less freedom	24	39
Banning burqa would be serious breach of rights of women	26	46
What people wear in public legitimate topic of public debate	62	11
What people wear, even in public, entirely private matter	26	48

Breaks by sex, age, and region, which show over-55s to be most illiberal in their views on all the questions, are also available at:

http://news.opinium.co.uk/sites/news.opinium.co.uk/files/op4663_opinium_pr_veils_tables.pdf

Jihadists

The British Muslim community has also been in the headlines because of official confirmation that several hundred of its members have been engaged in jihad in Syria and Iraq, with a proportion of them potentially continuing their struggle on their return to Britain. The news has inevitably led to public concern, as recorded in a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times, for which 1,936 adults were interviewed online on 26-27 June 2014. Two-thirds of respondents felt that there was a serious danger of such jihadists undertaking terrorist attacks in this country, and this view was particularly held by Conservatives (78%), UKIP supporters (87%), and the over-60s (77%); just 17% believed the risk has been exaggerated. Social media have proved an effective vehicle for jihadist propaganda, and 61% were convinced that these media could be doing much more to prevent this happening, with 12% disagreeing and 27% unsure. Similarly, 63% of Britons considered that there was much more which Muslim community leaders could be doing to help the authorities identify young people who might become jihadists, a position again disproportionately taken up by Conservatives (76%), UKIP voters (85%), and the over-60s (74%); only 12% assessed that such leaders were doing all they reasonably could to assist, the remaining 25% expressing no opinion. In answer to a hypothetical question about having a Muslim child (including a convert), 63% said that they would inform the police if he had gone on jihad in Syria, while 8% would not, and 29% were uncertain what they would do. Full data tables are at:

http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/s703u4qd5l/YG-Archive-Pol-Sunday-Times-results-270614.pdf

Sunday trading

The overwhelming majority of Britons (77%) appear content with the provisions of the Sunday Trading Act 1994, which limits the opening of large shops in England and Wales to a maximum of six hours on a Sunday. This is according to a ComRes poll for the Association of Convenience Stores, released on 1 July 2014, and for which 1,004 adults were interviewed by telephone between 28 and 30 March 2014. The survey was presumably triggered by recent agitation on the part of some of the retail giants to get these restrictions lifted. Support for the status quo was highest in Scotland (86%), to which the law does not apply, but otherwise did not vary much by demographics (including by religious affiliation). Opposition to the six-hour rule was voiced by 20%, peaking at 30% in South-East England, albeit it sprang from a variety of motives. Among this minority, 56% wished to see no Sunday opening of large shops at all, while 23% wanted their hours to be reduced; on the other hand, 5% opted for a small increase in permitted opening hours and 17% for complete deregulation of Sunday trading, enabling large shops to open for as long as they desired. Data tables can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/ACS_Public_Sunday_Trading_Tables_31_March_2014.pdf

Church and clergy

In a seminal article in Social Forces in 1994 Mark Chaves sought to redefine secularization as declining religious authority. His reformulation has hitherto been little examined in a British context, but Clive Field has now used it as a framework for considering changing views of Church and clergy: ‘Another Window on British Secularization: Public Attitudes to Church and Clergy since the 1960s’, Contemporary British History, Vol. 28, No. 2, June 2014, pp. 190-218. This is, in effect, a meta-analysis of opinion poll evidence from the last half-century, derived from 125 non-recurrent surveys and 15 time series (incorporating 114 data points). Much comparative information about other institutions and professions is also provided, notably in the twelve tables. The standing of Church and clergy in Britain is shown to have diminished, especially in the 1990s and 2000s, mirroring the net decline in institutional Christianity revealed in performance indicators of church membership, attendance, rites of passage, and affiliation. This loss of status, it is argued, reflects, not merely the passive effects of a secularizing climate, but active disenchantment with policies and practices pursued by Church and clergy, especially in respect of the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church. Access options for the article are explained at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13619462.2014.923765#.U7cR4DZwbX4

Roman Catholic pastoral statistics

The Catholic Directory of England and Wales has been a standard source of statistical information about the Roman Catholic Church for more than a century. The statistical section was dropped by the editor from the 2013 edition, on the grounds of doubts about the quality of the data, bur reinstated in the 2014 edition (in respect of returns for 2012). Unfortunately, the new data are also flawed, according to the first of three blogs by Tony Spencer of the Pastoral Research Centre (PRC), subjecting the Catholic Directory figures to forensic examination. This first blog, published on 7 June 2014, reviewed the Catholic Directory’s table of Roman Catholic population, highlighting several problems. In brief, two dioceses failed to send in data (so there is no national total); other diocesan returns were incomplete, sometimes as a consequence of the belated or non-cooperation of parish priests; and most dioceses failed to implement adequate data collection and quality control procedures. As a result, Spencer argues, the Catholic population estimates are ‘meaningless and useless’ and ‘utterly misleading’. The claim is demonstrated by reference to the PRC’s own estimates for several dioceses. The Catholic Directory’s figures thereby exemplify the ‘highly dysfunctional statistics regime’ and ‘chaotic arrangements’ operated by the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales since 2000-01. Regrettably, according to Spencer, the Catholic hierarchy has thus far ignored all proposals by the PRC to put a more systematic and credible statistics gathering process in hand. The blog can be read at:

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

Religious hatred in Scotland

Criminalized religious hatred is declining in Scotland, according to Janine McKenna and Kathryn Skivington, Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland, 2013-14, which was published by Scottish Government Social Research on 13 June 2014. In 2013-14 there were 635 criminal charges relating to religious prejudice in Scotland laid under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 or Sections 1 and 6 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. This represented a decrease of 17% on the 2012-13 total and of 29% since 2011-12. The majority of those charged were men (90%) and a plurality (47%) aged 16-30, while in 59% of cases the accused was described by the police as being under the influence of alcohol. The faiths targeted were Roman Catholicism (63%), Protestantism (29%), Islam (8%), and Judaism (2%). Almost half (48%) of victims were police officers. Many cases are still ongoing, but, of those which have already been concluded, 85% resulted in a conviction, with a monetary penalty (39%), community penalty (30%), or a custodial sentence (24%) being the principal resolutions. The report is at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0045/00452559.pdf

Posted in Historical studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Association of Convenience Stores, Burka, Catholic Directory, church, clergy, Clive Field, ComRes, Contemporary British History, crime, Islamophobia, Janine McKenna, jihad, Kathryn Skivington, Muslims, Opinium Research, Pastoral Research Centre, religious authority, religious dress, religious hatred, Roman Catholic Church, Scotland, Scottish Government Social Research, sectarianism, secularization, Sunday Times, Sunday trading, Tony Spencer, YouGov | 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

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