News |

Muslim Stories and Other News

Posted on October 11, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Yearbook of Muslims in Europe

One important international reference work which BRIN has hitherto failed to mention in our regular round-ups of British religious statistical news is Yearbook of Muslims in Europe (ISSN 1877-1432), published by Brill since 2009 with Jørgen Nielsen as editor-in-chief. The core component of each volume is a country-by-country survey of the situation of Muslims throughout Europe, defined in its broadest sense. The most recent edition (Vol. 6), published towards the end of 2014 and reviewing developments in 2013, covers 45 countries. There is a chapter on the UK by Dilwar Hussain (pp. 625-48) which briefly mentions the results of the 2011 official census of religious affiliation (p. 625) and of opinion polls among and about Muslims (pp. 646-7). The first three volumes also included research articles and book reviews, but these have now migrated to Brill’s Journal of Muslims in Europe. Unfortunately, doubtless reflecting its high cost, there are relatively few UK holding libraries for the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe. Anybody interested in finding locations should consult the online catalogue COPAC for details.

Regulating supplementary religious schools

Prime Minister David Cameron’s commitment, made in his recent speech to the Conservative Party conference, to regulate supplementary religious schools (such as Islamic madrassas) seems to have gone down well with most of the electorate, according to a Survation poll for the Huffington Post UK. The Government intends to consult on making these institutions in England register with the Department for Education and become subject to a light-touch inspection regime, closure being the promised fate of those found to be teaching intolerance. In the poll, conducted online on 7 October 2015 among 1,031 adult Britons, 62% endorsed Cameron’s plans, including 70% of over-55s and 77% of Conservative voters, while 13% were opposed and 24% undecided. Data tables were published on 8 October at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Cameron-Speech-Poll-Tables.pdf

Muslims in the labour market

British Muslims are proportionately less well represented in top managerial and professional jobs than any other religious group. They are also disproportionately likely to be unemployed and economically inactive, and to have the lowest female employment participation rate of all religious groups. So claim Louis Reynolds and Jonathan Birdwell in their Rising to the Top, a new research report from think-tank Demos, based upon a review of the academic literature and secondary analysis of data from the census, Labour Force Survey, Higher Education Statistics Agency, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, and other sources. Demographic, cultural, and other factors contributing to Muslim under-representation are explored, and a series of recommendations made to help redress it. Although the official launch of the report is not until 21 October 2015, the text is already available online at:

http://www.demos.co.uk/project/rising-to-the-top/

Travel to Islamic countries

A ‘summer of discontent’ has transformed the travel plans of Britons, according to a press release from travel deals company Travelzoo on 1 October 2015 and based on a survey among 2,000 UK adults by Censuswide in September 2015. The Islamist terrorist attack on British tourists in Tunisia, the migrant crisis, and the disruption at the Channel Tunnel/Eurostar are causing us to rethink where to holiday in future. Over half (54%) of respondents admitted that the events in Tunisia had put them off holidaying anywhere abroad, while 75% said that they would actively avoid all Islamic countries as destinations in future. Less than 1% would be prepared to visit Tunisia, even if the Government travel ban is lifted in the next few months. The press release is at:

http://press.travelzoo.com/summer-of-discontent-has-transformed-britains-travel-habits

Islamic State (1)

A trio of online polls of adult Britons by YouGov on behalf of YouGov@Cambridge, and published on 2 October 2015, has explored public attitudes to British involvement in military action against Islamic State (IS) in three Middle Eastern countries. Fieldwork was conducted on 4-5 August in the case of Iraq (n = 1,707), 5-6 August about Libya (n = 1,972), and 24-25 September about Syria (n = 1,646). A few topline results are tabulated below, with the full data tables available under ‘Latest Documents’ on the YouGov@Cambridge website at:

https://yougov.co.uk/cambridge/

Approval (%) of these British actions against IS	In Iraq	In Libya	In Syria
Air strikes by RAF planes	57	53	59
Air strikes by aerial drones	60	56	66
Missile strikes from Royal Navy ships	52	48	56
Sending heavy weapons to local forces	41	36	39
Sending small arms to local forces	42	37	42
Sending regular UK troops	29	28	30
Sending UK special forces to fight	50	45	51
Sending UK special forces to rescue hostages	67	58	67
Sending UK military advisers to local forces	62	55	57

It will be seen that there is marginally more public appetite to engage IS in Iraq and Syria than in Libya, and that past reservations about involvement in Syria have weakened. British air strikes against IS, whether by plane or drone, find majority support in all three theatres of conflict, but there is some reticence about supplying military hardware to local armies to help them fight IS. The deployment of British ground troops appeals to under one-third, but there are fewer concerns about committing special forces in an offensive or hostage-rescue context.

Islamic State (2)

Notwithstanding serious tensions between Russia and the West elsewhere in the world, 59% of Britons would approve of Anglo-American co-operation with Russian military forces in the fight against IS, support peaking among men (72%) and UKIP voters (75%). This is according to a YouGov poll published on 1 October 2015 for which 2,064 adults were interviewed online on 29-30 September, presumably mostly before news broke of the start of Russian air strikes against IS in Syria. Significantly fewer (38%) are willing for Britain and the USA to work with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria against IS, with disapproval running close on 32% and as many as 30% undecided. Endorsement of RAF participation in air strikes against IS in Syria has risen to 60%, three points more than at the beginning of July, with only 20% opposed. However, the potential deployment of ground troops against IS in Iraq continues to divide public opinion, with two-fifths in favour and the same proportion dissenting. YouGov’s own analysis of the survey, with a link to the data tables, is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/10/01/cooperation-russia-syria/

Sociology of prayer

Two of the eleven research chapters in A Sociology of Prayer, edited by Giuseppe Giordan and Linda Woodhead (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, xiv + 239pp., ISBN 9781409455851, paperback, £19.99) offer quantitative and qualitative content analyses of prayer requests in the British context. Tania ap Siôn, ‘Prayer Requests in an English Cathedral and a New Analytic Framework for Intercessory Prayer’ (pp. 169-89) reports on 1,658 prayer requests left at the shrine of St Chad in Lichfield Cathedral in 2010. Peter Collins, ‘An Analysis of Hospital Chapel Prayer Requests’ (pp. 191-211) considers 3,243 requests from chapels in two Middlesbrough acute hospitals over the period 1995-2006. More details about the volume, including ‘look inside’ previews, available at:

http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409455851

Congregational bonding social capital

A seven-item measure of congregational expressions of Robert Putnam’s theory of bonding social capital is proposed and empirically tested (on 23,884 adult churchgoers in the Church of England Diocese of Southwark) in Leslie Francis and David Lankshear, ‘Introducing the Congregational Bonding Social Capital Scale: A Study among Anglican Churchgoers in South London’, Journal of Beliefs & Values, Vol. 36, No. 2, 2015, pp. 224-30. The research data support the internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the scale. No significant differences in congregational bonding social capital were found between the sexes, but levels did increase with age and frequency of church attendance. Previous attempts to develop measures of congregational bonding social capital are also briefly reviewed. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13617672.2015.1041786

Pastoral Research Centre publications

On 2 October 2015 the Pastoral Research Centre Trust, which undertakes socio-religious research into Roman Catholicism in England and Wales with particular reference to statistical sources, posted on its website an up-to-date list of its own reports and those of its predecessor, the Newman Demographic Survey (1953-64), the latter documents only declassified by the Catholic Church in recent years. These publications provide a much sounder basis for the quantification of the Catholic community during the past half-century than the data to be found in successive editions of the Catholic Directory. The list can be found on the Trust’s homepage at:

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

Education and secularization

In our post of 12 June 2015, we highlighted an article by James Lewis in Journal of Contemporary Religion in which, utilizing census data from Anglophone countries, he reasserted the thesis that higher education appears to have a secularizing effect. That article has now elicited a response from David Voas: ‘The Normalization of Non-Religion: A Reply to James Lewis’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 30, No. 3, 2015, pp. 505-8. In it Voas reiterates his own previous argument, that religious ‘nones’ are becoming normalized in their characteristics. He suggests that the approach adopted by Lewis, a cross-sectional snapshot of the whole population undifferentiated by age together with an over-dependence on write-in replies which are the census exception rather than the rule, misses the generational dynamics of religious change. His own analysis of the 2011 census for England and Wales, one of the sources drawn upon by Lewis, demonstrates that, whereas older ‘nones’ are more educated than Christians of the same age, younger ‘nones’ have fewer qualifications than their Christian counterparts. Access options to the Voas article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2015.1081354

Scottish Gaelic and religion

On 30 September 2015 the Scottish Government published a report and data tables relating to the results of the Scottish Gaelic questions in the 2011 Scottish census. Five data tables give breaks by religion for Scottish Gaelic for the population aged 3 and over. They are:

AT 250 2011 – Gaelic language skills by religion (council areas)
AT 251 2011 – Gaelic language skills by religion (civil parish bands)
AT 275 2011 – Use of Gaelic language at home by religion (council areas)
AT 276 2011 – Use of Gaelic language at home by religion (civil parish bands)
AT 277 2011 – Gaelic language skills by religion by age (Scotland)

These tables can be accessed, in Excel format, under the ‘language’ heading of the 2011 Scottish Census Data Warehouse at:

http://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/ods-web/data-warehouse.html#additionaltab

The national-level picture by religion from AT 250 2011 is summarized in the table below. It will be seen that relatively few Scots, just 57,600, now speak Gaelic and that those who do are disproportionately from Protestant denominations other than the Church of Scotland (although they equate to only one in seven Gaelic speakers in Scotland, two-fifths of whom affiliate to the Church of Scotland).

% across	Speaks Gaelic	Does not speak Gaelic
Total	1.13	98.87
Roman Catholic	1.02	98.98
Church of Scotland	1.36	98.64
Other Christian	2.94	97.06
Other religion	0.98	99.02
No religion	0.69	99.31
Religion not stated	1.09	98.91

Jewish grandparents

In anticipation of the Jewish festival of Sukkot and UK Grandparents Day (4 October 2015), World Jewish Relief recently commissioned Survation to conduct a telephone poll of self-identifying Jews in Great Britain about grandparents and grandchildren. Unsurprisingly, Jewish grandparents overwhelmingly said they would like to see more of their grandchildren, 92% ideally at least fortnightly, although in practice fewer (70%) saw them that frequently, while nearly one in five saw them less than a few times each year. One-third of Jewish grandchildren aged 18 and over also reported seeing their grandparents a few times a year or less. The principal information about the survey currently in the public domain is a press release dated 1 October 2015 from World Jewish Relief at:

https://www.worldjewishrelief.org/news/sukkot-offers-grandchildren-chance-to-reunite-with-grandparents/

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religious Census, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged bonding social capital, census of population, Censuswide, Church of England, David Cameron, David Lankshear, David Voas, Demos, Diocese of Southwark, foreign travel, grandchildren, grandparents, Huffington Post UK, Iraq, ISIS, Islamic countries, Islamic State, James Lewis, Jews, Jonathan Birdwell, Jorgen Nielsen, Journal of Beliefs and Values, Journal of Contemporary Religion, labour market, Leslie Francis, Libya, Louis Reynolds, madrassas, Muslims, Newman Demographic Survey, Pastoral Research Centre, Peter Collins, prayer, Religious Affiliation, religious nones, Roman Catholic Church, Scotland, Scottish Gaelic, supplementary religious schools, Survation, Syria, Tania ap Sion, Travelzoo, Tunisia, World Jewish Relief, Yearbook of Muslims in Europe, YouGov, YouGov@Cambridge | Leave a comment

Scottish Religion and Other News

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Scottish religion

The continuing decline of religion in Scotland is documented in two publications from the Scottish Government this month. The first, published on 26 August 2015, is Scotland’s People Annual Report: Results from the 2014 Scottish Household Survey, based on interviews with 9,800 adults in private households in Scotland. The question on religious affiliation revealed that 47% of Scots professed to have no religion in 2014, 7% more than in 2009. There has been a corresponding reduction in affiliation to the Church of Scotland over this five-year period, from 34% to 28%. Other categories in 2014 were: Roman Catholics 14%, other Christians 8%, and non-Christians 3%. The report is available at:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/08/3720/downloads

The other publication, released on 20 August by the National Records of Scotland, was Vital Events Reference Tables, 2014, showing, inter alia, the mode of solemnization of marriage in Scotland. Results are tabulated below, with comparisons for 2004 (the year before ceremonies by humanist celebrants were permitted) and 2009. It will be seen that civil marriages now account for the majority, that the Church of Scotland has lost half its market share in the space of ten years, and that one-quarter of ‘religious’ ceremonies are now conducted by humanist celebrants. Full details are at:

http://nationalrecordsofscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/general-publications/vital-events-reference-tables/2014/section-7-marriages-and-civil-partnerships

Form of marriage ceremony, % down	2004	2009	2014
Civil	49.5	51.7	51.6
Church of Scotland	29.6	22.3	15.5
Roman Catholic	6.1	6.5	5.3
Other religious (excluding humanist)	14.9	13.9	14.1
Humanist	0.0	5.6	13.5

Committed Christians and moral issues

Committed Christians remain more conservative on moral issues than the British public but less than might be expected, according to an analysis of YouGov Profiles data published on 27 August 2015. The sample of committed Christians (1,707 Protestants, apparently Anglicans, and 863 Catholics) comprised members of YouGov’s online panel who both identified as Protestant or Catholic and strongly agreed with the statement that ‘my faith is important to me’. As the table below indicates, so-called ‘religious Catholics’ are more likely to favour same-sex marriage than ‘religious Protestants’, whereas for the legalization of assisted dying the position is reversed, with majorities of both groups wanting to see restrictions on abortion tightened. YouGov’s blog is at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/08/27/profile-catholic-protestant-issue/

% down	Religious Catholics	Religious Protestants	British public
Same-sex marriage
Support	50	45	66
Oppose	40	47	22
Assisted dying
Support	42	59	79
Oppose	48	33	13
Abortion
More restrictions	69	56	29
No more restrictions	17	27	47

Evangelicals and British values

The September-October 2015 issue of Idea: The Magazine of the Evangelical Alliance exclusively reveals the results of the Alliance’s online polling earlier in 2015 of a self-selecting sample of 1,730 self-identifying UK evangelicals on the subject of ‘British values’, a subject of ongoing political debate. Respondents were asked about the attributes which they judged important for being truly British, with ‘to be a Christian’ ranked only seventh on 43%, albeit 19% more than for all Britons as recorded in the British Social Attitudes Survey. Top of the list for evangelicals were ‘to respect Britain’s political institutions and laws’ (96%) and ‘to be able to speak English’ (95%), much the same priorities as for the general public. Although 93% of evangelicals thought that, historically, British values have been strongly shaped by Christianity, only 31% considered they were today, with 79% agreeing that the state’s view of British values is based on secularism rather than Christianity. Notwithstanding, 71% believed the Government right in principle to try to define and promote British values. Just 18% of evangelicals regarded Britain as a Christian country. Seemingly by way of illustration, they identified many negative traits in the population at large, notably consumerism (65%), obsession with celebrity (58%), and sexual licence/promiscuity (51%). The article can be found at:

http://www.eauk.org/idea/british-values.cfm

Jews and Jeremy Corbyn

British Jews tend not to be natural Labour Party supporters (only 14% of them voted for it at this year’s general election), but two-thirds (including three-fifths of Jewish Labour voters) are apparently viewing with some apprehension the prospect that Jeremy Corbyn may be elected the next Labour leader. This is according to a telephone poll of 1,011 self-identifying Jews conducted by Survation on behalf of the Jewish Chronicle on 17-19 August 2015, the headline results of which were published in that newspaper on 21 August. More than four-fifths of Jews were concerned about reports that Corbyn had referred to Hezbollah and Hamas as his friends, and about allegations that he had donated money to an organization run by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen. Seven in ten thought that politicians such as Corbyn who described themselves as anti-Zionist were in reality often or always anti-Jewish. Full data tables, including breaks by gender, age, region, and voting, are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Jewish-Chronicle-Poll-August-19th4.pdf

BBC Radio 4 programmes

Programmes on religion are the least listened to genre of programming on BBC Radio 4, according to a survey of 601 medium to heavy Radio 4 listeners in the UK interviewed online by ICM Unlimited on behalf of the BBC Trust between 23 February and 10 March 2015. Just 15% claimed to listen to religious programmes, the lowest proportion of the eight categories investigated, the list being headed by news programmes (88%) and current affairs programmes (87%). Moreover, programmes on religion received the lowest ratings of the same eight categories, only 63% of their listeners evaluating them as good against 90% for listeners of news programmes. Data are extracted from ICM’s report on the survey and available at:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/speech_radio/research_report.pdf

GCSE O Level results

Provisional results for the June 2015 GCSE O Level examinations in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland were published by the Joint Council for Qualifications on 20 August 2015. Those for Religious Studies (RS) are tabulated below, with comparisons for 2005. It will be seen that the number of students taking either the full or the short course in RS has fallen by 3% over the decade, a modest decrease when set against that of 13% for all subjects (or 8% for full courses alone). Moreover, this net figure disguises a doubling in entries for the full course in RS and a two-thirds reduction in candidates for the short course, which is equivalent to half a GCSE, in line with the progressive disappearance of short courses in general. For both short and full courses there has been a decennial increase of 3% in the proportion of male students taking RS, contrasting with the continuing preponderance of females at A Level RS. Full results can be found at:

http://www.jcq.org.uk/examination-results/gcses

GCSE RS O Level	2015	2005	% change
Full course
All entries	295,730	147,516	+100
% female candidates	54	57	-3
% with A*-C grades	72	69	+3
Short course
All entries	91,476	253,423	-64
% female candidates	48	51	-3
% with A*-C grades	58	54	+4
Full and short course
All entries	387,206	400,939	-3

Anglican clergy career patterns

The career paths of Anglican clergy are affected by their gender, age, and type of theological training. So concludes Kelvin Randall in his ‘Twenty Years On: The Continuing Careers of Anglican Clergy’, Theology, Vol. 118, No. 5, September-October 2015, pp. 347-53. He tracked, by means of Crockford’s Clerical Directory, the subsequent careers of those ordained to the stipendiary ministry of the Church of England or Church in Wales in 1994 (the year in which women were first ordained as priests in the Church of England). The three factors analysed especially affected the proportion still working as stipendiary clergy in 2014. The article appears in a subscription-based journal, and access options are outlined at:

http://tjx.sagepub.com/content/118/5/347.abstract

Church of England cathedral statistics

Church of England cathedral statistics for 2014 were published on 19 August 2015. Including Westminster Abbey (a royal peculiar), the touristic appeal of English cathedrals remains impressive, visitor numbers exceeding 10 million. In terms of worship services, Christmastide continues to be the biggest draw, with 630,600 people attending during Advent and 124,800 on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, including 32,300 communicants. Easter attendees were 53,100, among them 27,100 communicants, with a further 89,300 attendees in Holy Week. Average weekly attendance was 36,600, 22% more than in 2004, the growth being in weekday rather than Sunday congregations (albeit they were down on 2013 levels). The full report is available at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2279215/2014cathedralstatistics.pdf

Living with cancer

Older people living with cancer do not receive much in the way of religious or faith-based support, nor would they find it particularly useful. This is according to a report from Ipsos MORI on 24 August 2015, for which 1,004 people aged 55 and over in Britain who had received a diagnosis of cancer at any stage in their lives were interviewed online on 6-13 May 2015 on behalf of Macmillan Cancer Support. Only 12% of this sample reported that they had received religious or faith-based support for their cancer, the eighth in a list of sources of support headed by information and advice (53%). Over-75s were twice as likely as those aged 55-64 to claim to have received religious or faith-based support, 19% against 10%. Asked which types of assistance they would find most useful, religious or faith-based support dropped even lower, to eleventh place for the 55-64s, being preferred by 9% of that cohort and 13% of over-75s. When the health chips are down, apparently, religion is a consolation for only a small minority. The report can be found at:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Publications/SRI_Health_Macmillan_Older_People_August_2015.pdf

Posted in church attendance, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Rites of Passage, Survey news | Tagged abortion, assisted dying, BBC Radio 4, BBC Trust, British values, cancer, Cathedrals, Church of England, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, faith-based support, ICM Unlimited, Ipsos-MORI, Jeremy Corbyn, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Joint Council for Qualifications, Kelvin Randall, Labour Party, Macmillan Cancer Support, marriage, National Records of Scotland, O Levels, Protestants, Religious Affiliation, religious broadcasting, religious studies, Roman Catholics, same-sex marriage, Scotland, Scottish Government, Scottish Household Survey, stipendiary clergy, Survation, theology, YouGov | Leave a comment

A Baker’s Dozen of Religious Statistics

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Civil and religious marriages

A press release from the University of Oxford on 21 July 2015 highlighted the relentless decline in the number of marriages in England and Wales which are legally solemnized in religious ceremonies. They now account for just 30% of the total, although this figure excludes civil marriages which are followed by a service in a place of worship that carries no legal recognition; this is widely the case with marriages for Muslims and Sikhs. The fall in religious ceremonies, which can be traced back to the 1970s, has been especially pronounced since the passage of the Marriage Act 1994, which permitted marriages in ‘approved premises’ (such as hotels, castles, and stately homes). Until the Act came into effect, the majority of first marriages for both partners were still religious ceremonies. The new research is based on an analysis of official data on the solemnization of marriages, from the beginning of civil registration in the early Victorian era, undertaken by John Haskey, formerly of the Office for National Statistics. It will be published in full next month in Haskey’s chapter entitled ‘Marriage Rites: Trends in Marriages by Manner of Solemnisation and Denomination in England and Wales, 1841-2012’ in Marriage Rites and Rights, edited by Joanna Miles, Perveez Mody, and Rebecca Probert (Hart Publishing, ISBN 9781849469135, paperback, £35). The volume will also contain three other chapters on the religious aspects of marriage. In the meantime, the University of Oxford’s press release can be read at:

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-07-21-just-one-three-weddings-england-and-wales-has-religious-ceremony

Babies in the 2011 census

In the latest post on the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network blog, dated 25 July 2015, Katherine Sissons examines the religion assigned to babies and young children (aged 0-4) in England and Wales in the 2011 census. She notes that males in this age group were 1% less likely than females to be returned as Christian and 1% more likely to be described as having no religion. She speculates about the possible reasons for this and about the potential impact on the balance between religiosity and non-religiosity in the next generation. However, she rather assumes that the assignment of religion to children is some kind of joint decision of parents completing the census schedule. In fact, many if not most questions on the form will have been answered by a single individual on behalf of the whole household, whose members – whether adults or children – may or may not have been consulted in detail about the proposed replies. Other generic issues, not mentioned by the author, are that religion was not stated for 1% more children (under 16 years) than adults (8% against 7%) and that 6% more children (30% versus 24% for adults) were declared as having no religion. It is possible that, in the case of children, some informants may have been using the latter category, not according to its literal meaning, but to denote that their offspring were too young to be religiously classified and that this was a matter about which their children had to make up their minds when they were older. After all, two-thirds of babies are no longer baptised in the UK, so, at least so far as Christianity is concerned, formal links with faith do not commence early in life. The post is at:

http://blog.nsrn.net/2015/07/25/what-religion-is-your-baby-2/

Importance of religion

The latest Eurobarometer (wave 83.3), conducted by TNS for the European Commission in the 28 member states of the European Union (EU) in May 2015, has confirmed that, relatively speaking, religion remains an insignificant personal value. Asked to choose, from a list of 12 values, the three which were most important to them as individuals, only 5% in the UK selected religion, which was also the EU average (with just six countries recording a double-digit figure). Respect for human life was the top personal value in the UK (41%), closely followed by human rights and peace (each on 38%). Religion also scored poorly as a force for creating a feeling of community among EU citizens (7% in the UK, 8% in the EU) and as a value best representing the EU itself (3% in both the UK and EU). Topline results can be found in T123-T128 at:

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb83/eb83_anx_en.pdf

Religious affiliation

Three recent published surveys by ORB International, conducted among a merged sample of 6,107 adults interviewed online on 19-21 June, 10-12 July, and 24-26 July 2015, reveal the current level of religious affiliation in Britain. The question asked was: ‘Which of the following religious groups do you consider yourself to be a member of?’ This is a form of questioning which, through its reference to ‘membership’, is felt likely to discourage some of the most nominal identification with religion. In reply, 52% of Britons professed themselves Christian, 7% non-Christian, and 38% as of no religion, with 2% preferring not to say.

Religious broadcasting

Figures published on 16 July 2015 in the Government’s Green Paper on the renewal of the BBC Charter superficially reveal a reduction in the amount of the Corporation’s religious programming during recent years, from 181 hours on network television in 2006 to 157 in 2014, and from 1,084 hours on radio in 2006 to 592 in 2014. However, some of the difference may be attributable to a change in the BBC’s classification scheme over this period. The Green Paper is at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/bbc-charter-review-public-consultation

Ministerial stress

Stress in the Christian ministry has been in the news recently following the suspected stress-related suicide of Revd Christopher Loveless, an Anglican vicar. His plight is by no means atypical, if the findings of a survey conducted by Oasis UK among a self-selecting sample of 200 ministers and church leaders are anything like representative. Although 86% of respondents described their ministry as very or quite rewarding, 71% found their role very or quite stressful, 65% reported that it had put strain on their marrage or equivalent relationship, while 64% felt incredibly pushed for time and struggled to get everything done. Over two-fifths sensed that their church members had little or no understanding of the pressures they were under. Indeed, they could make the situation worse, 76% of ministers acknowledging that church members regularly behaved rudely or aggressively toward them. A news release about the survey is at:

http://www.oasisuk.org/news/church-leadership-stress-places-%E2%80%98significant-strain%E2%80%99-marriages

Church of England (1): diversity

Further to our reference on 19 July 2015 to the preliminary results of the Church of England’s ‘Everyone Counts’ diversity audit in 2014, the Church has now felt it necessary to issue a public apology for failing to include any question about the sexual orientation of its congregations in the audit. The statement, released on 24 July, is at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2015/07/statement-on-‘everyone-counts’-survey.aspx

Church of England (2): finance

Finance Statistics, 2013 for the Church of England (excluding the Diocese of Europe) were published on 30 July 2015. Following three years of parish deficits in 2007-10, mirroring the national economic recession, the financial situation is now improving in absolute terms. A surplus of £33 million was reported in 2013, with income of £953 million (the highest total ever recorded) surpassing expenditure of £920 million. The latter figure was 1.0% down on 2012, reflecting cost reductions, while income rose by 2.6% overall and by 4.5% from the average individual tax-efficient planned giver. However, income is continuing to fall in real terms, and there was a decrease of 2.8% in the number of regular donors. The report is at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2265027/2013financestatistics.pdf

British Humanist Association membership

Organized irreligion may be suffering from the same ageing membership as is to be found in many traditional Churches, if new research from Gareth Longden is anything to go by: ‘A Profile of the Members of the British Humanist Association’ [BHA], Science, Religion & Culture, Vol. 2, No. 3, June 2015, pp. 86-95. The article derives from a questionnaire completed by 1,097 members of the BHA in March-May 2014, just under one-tenth of the organization’s total membership and slightly more than half those invited to participate. Comparisons are made with an earlier membership survey carried out by Colin Campbell in 1964, shortly after the BHA was formed. In 2014 65% of BHA members were aged 50 and over, against 38% fifty years before. In consequence 37% were already retired in 2014, compared with only 14% in 1964. The BHA remained disproportionately male, albeit less so than in 1964 (65% versus 73%). The BHA also lived up to its reputation for being a ‘middle class intelligentsia’, with 82% of members in 2014 in possession of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree and the overwhelming majority in professional or managerial occupations, especially in education and information technology. Spatially, humanists were concentrated in the South of England, notably in London and the South-East. The article is available on an open access basis at:

http://smithandfranklin.com/journal-details/Science-Religion-and-Culture/9/archive/2015/June

Jewish social care

The Jewish population of the UK may only have numbered 270,000 in 2011, but there are no fewer than 549 social care organizations and 702 social care facilities and services to meet their needs. Even after stripping out small operations to support the economically deprived in the haredi community, there still remain 70 organizations and 205 facilities or services. This is according to preliminary findings from an audit of Jewish social care undertaken by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) on behalf of the Jewish Leadership Council, and released on 23 July 2015. Indeed, in Jewish communities experiencing population decline there was evidence of a possible over-supply of social care provision. On the other hand, in JPR’s estimation, insufficient effort is being devoted to poverty prevention among UK Jews. For more information, see the blog by Jonathan Boyd at:

http://www.thejlc.org/2015/07/mapping-social-care-organisations-and-facilities-in-the-uk-jewish-community/

Anti-Semitic incidents

On 30 July 2015 the Community Security Trust (CST) published a report on Antisemitic Incidents, January-June 2015 in the UK, noting that the number during this period was, at 473, 53% more than during the first six months of 2014. The increase was most pronounced during the first quarter of 2015 and is mainly attributed by the CST to improved notification of incidents, due to raised concerns about anti-Semitism in the Jewish community following the terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen. The report is at:

https://cst.org.uk/public/data/file/0/e/Incidents_Report_-_Jan-June_2015.pdf

Islamic State (1): flag

Just over three-quarters (77%) of the public want to see the display of the Islamic State (IS) flag banned in Britain, according to a YouGov poll conducted online among 1,669 adults on 9-10 July 2015 and published on 19 July. The proportion rises to 84% among residents of Northern England, 87% of Conservatives, and 88% of UKIP voters and over-60s. Just 15% think the IS flag should not be banned, peaking at 25% of 18-24s. Similar results were obtained for a question on the prohibition of the display of the Nazi swastika in Britain, 75% being in favour and 17% against. In the United States, where the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, there is lower but still majority backing for banning the display of the IS flag (63%) and swastika (57%). More details, including links to data tables, can be found in the blog at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/07/19/ban-isis-flag-american-and-british-public/

Islamic State (2): escalating UK military actions

Two recent polls have probed public opinion on the possible escalation of UK military action against IS in the light of an anticipated House of Commons debate on the subject next month. The first, by ORB International and conducted online among a sample of 2,049 Britons on 24-26 July 2015, revealed 67% support for an extension of UK air strikes against IS in Iraq and Syria, including 76% of over-65s. Fewer (41%) endorsed the commitment of UK ground troops and tanks, with 59% opposed, reaching two-thirds among women and the over-55s. Data tables are at:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/julypoll.pdf

The second survey, by ComRes for the Daily Mail, was conducted by telephone interview with 1,001 Britons, also on 24-26 July 2015. Its focus was specifically on possible British military intervention against IS in Syria. There was majority support (56%, with 33% opposed) for air strikes against IS in Syria but reluctance (41% in favour, 49% against) to engage British troops in Syria. Almost two-fifths (38%) agreed, while 49% disagreed, that Britain should not become militarily involved in Syria but should stand back and let the situation there run its course. However, few considered that British military action against IS in Syria would materially improve prospects. Asked whether it would make places safer or more dangerous, just 16% felt the streets of Britain would be safer, 19% tourist beaches in North Africa, 21% the Middle East generally, and 27% the situation on the ground in Syria itself. Two-fifths (39%) thought the streets of Britain would become more dangerous as a result of British military action against IS in Syria. Data tables are at:

http://comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Daily-Mail_Political-Poll_July-2015.pdf

Posted in Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religious Census, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged air strikes, Anti-Semitism, babies, BBC, British Humanist Association, Church of England, Community Security Trust, ComRes, Daily Mail, Eurobarometer, European Union, finance, flag, Gareth Longden, ground troops, humanists, importance of religion, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Iraq, Islamic State, Jewish Leadership Council, Jewish social care, Jews, John Haskey, Jonathan Boyd, Katherine Sissons, marriages, ministerial stress, Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network, Oasis UK, ORB International, Religious Affiliation, religious broadcasting, religious census, Science Religion and Culture, sexual orientation, Syria, TNS, values, YouGov | Leave a comment

Ten Years On

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Clive D. Field

In this post we summarize seven new pieces of research touching on inter-religious relations in Britain ten years on from the London bombings on 7 July 2005 and in the aftermath of the recent Islamist massacre of British tourists in Tunisia.

Tenth anniversary of 7/7 (1)

To mark the tenth anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, the UK edition of the Huffington Post is running a mini-series on ‘Beyond the Bombings’. This was launched on 3 July 2015 with a feature about a poll commissioned from YouGov, for which 1,578 adult Britons were interviewed online on 23-24 June 2015.

Perhaps the most striking finding of the survey was that a majority (56%) now considers that Islam, as distinct from Islamic fundamentalist groups, poses a threat (27% major, 29% some) to Western liberal democracy. This represents an increase on the levels immediately after 9/11 in 2001 (32%) and immediately after 7/7 in 2005 (46%). The groups most antipathetic to Islam in 2015 are UKIP supporters (83%), over-60s (71%), and Conservatives (63%). Just 15% assess that Islam presents no threat at all, the under-25s being most optimistic (33%).

Moreover, as many as 15% (five points more than in 2005) agree that a large proportion of British Muslims feel no sense of loyalty to the country and are prepared to condone or even carry out acts of terrorism, rising to 45% of UKIP voters and 23% of over-60s. An additional 60% think there is a dangerous minority of disaffected Muslims, even if the great majority is peaceful and law-abiding, while merely 20% overall (but 36% of under-25s) accept that practically all British Muslims are peaceful and law-abiding and deplore terror attacks carried out in the name of Islam.

The Huffington Post feature can be found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/07/03/77-bombings-muslims-islam-britain-poll_n_7694452.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

and the full data tables, which also cover attitudes to multiculturalism and the perceived likelihood of further terror attacks on the scale of 7/7, are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/7kjmsq2f6j/HuffingtonPostResults_150624_British_Muslims_W.pdf

Tenth anniversary of 7/7 (2)

Another organization commemorating 7/7 by a new survey was British Future which released the results of its Survation poll on 2 July 2015, for which 3,977 Britons aged 18 and over had been interviewed online between 8 and 15 May 2015, including booster samples of Scottish and BME (black minority ethnic) respondents, which, inter alia, yielded a respectable unweighted number of 457 Muslims. Data tables are at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/British-Future-7-7-Poll-GB-Tables.pdf

The majority (54%) considered that community relations across ethnic and faith groups had deteriorated in the decade since 7/7, 19% saying they had got much worse and 35% slightly worse, with 37% perceiving no change and 9% some improvement. There was much less variation by demographic sub-groups than one might have imagined, albeit as many as 68% of UKIP voters discerned that relations had got worse.

Asked whether they thought the British public did not hold ordinary British Muslims responsible for the Islamist terrorists behind 7/7, 51% agreed, 22% disagreed, and 27% were neutral. The dissentients, i.e. those who implicitly said that the public did hold British Muslims responsible, included 36% of Muslims, just three points less than the 39% who said the public did not see them as responsible.

When the question was put in more personal terms, the majority (56%) accepted that Britain’s Muslims were opposed to the terrorist ideology behind 7/7, but 14% disagreed, with as many as 30% undecided. Those doubting Muslim opposition to terrorism included 28% of UKIP voters, 29% of those with the least positive attitude to immigration, and 27% with the least positive attitude to the European Union. Unsurprisingly, 72% of Muslims contended that their co-religionists were opposed to the ideology behind 7/7, yet even 12% of them claimed otherwise.

Tunisian massacre

The murder of 38 tourists (including 30 Britons) by an Islamist gunman in a beach resort just north of Sousse, Tunisia was the most noticed news story of last week, according to an online poll by Populus of 2,052 adult Britons on 1-2 July 2015. It was mentioned by 66% of respondents. Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Combating Islamic State (1)

Three-quarters of Britons are very or fairly worried that IS may attempt a terrorist attack in Britain, and only 19% are not, according to a YouGov poll for the Sunday Times conducted online among 1,531 adults on 2-3 July 2015. Over-60s (88%) are almost twice as anxious as the under-25s (47%), while UKIP and Conservative voters are also particularly concerned (87% and 84%, respectively). A plurality (45%) does not believe the police and security services have sufficient powers to combat IS in Britain, and a majority supports giving them wider powers, for example to monitor personal communications, to extend the period of detention without charge in the case of terrorist suspects, and to reintroduce control orders.

Three-fifths agree that Britain and other Western countries should be doing more to counter IS in Iraq and Syria, including two-thirds of men, over-60s, Conservative and UKIP voters. Most Britons (57%, peaking at 71% among Conservatives) now favour extending RAF air strikes against IS to Syria, as well as Iraq, with just 21% disapproving. However, opinion is more divided about committing British and American ground troops to combat IS in either Iraq or Syria, with approximately two-fifths for and against in each case. A blog on the survey, with a link to the full data tables, can be found at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/07/05/most-would-approve-raf-air-strikes-syria/

There is a tracker of all YouGov polling on IS at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/dl5mxnrekm/YG-Archives-Pol-Trackers-Iraq-Syria-and-ISIS-030715.pdf

Combating Islamic State (2)

Fewer than half (47%) of Britons feel that it will be possible to beat the threat posed by IS at the present time, with women (39%) being far less confident than men (56%). This is according to a poll by ICM Unlimited conducted for the Daily Mirror among an online sample of 2,001 adults on 1-3 July 2015. Although pluralities backed airstrikes against IS (48%), building up local armies to fight IS (46%), and the assassination of IS leaders (41%), there was more reluctance to commit British or other ground troops (30%). And just 32% had confidence that military action would make the region safer, 29% convinced that it would make it still more dangerous. In a follow-up survey of 2,016 adults on 3-5 July, there was also a minority holding positive views of IS, 3% being very favourable and 6% somewhat favourable toward them (against 80% being very unfavourable). In the absence of data tables in the public domain, the fullest accounts of the survey are currently to be found in two articles on the Mirror’s website at:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/isis-cannot-beaten-fear-more-6009156

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-terror-attacks-inevitable-theres-6016015

Postscript: Data tables for both surveys have now been posted at:

http://www.icmunlimited.com/data/media/pdf/2015_mirror_isis_poll-2.pdf

Anti-Semitism

The Anti-Defamation League has recently (30 June 2015) updated The ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, the first (2014) edition of which was covered by BRIN on 22 May 2014 at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2014/adl-index-of-anti-semitism/

For the update, between 10 March and 3 April 2015, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research conducted interviews, mostly by telephone, with 10,000 adults aged 18 and over in 19 countries, including Great Britain, 500 interviews in each apart from 1,000 in the United States. As in 2014, ADL created index scores by asking whether 11 negative statements about Jews were true or false, assent to at least six of them being taken as evidence of anti-Semitic sentiments. Britain, with 12%, registered the fourth lowest score of all 19 nations, after Denmark, the United States, and The Netherlands, with Turkey, Greece, and Iran being most anti-Semitic (with scores of 71%, 67%, and 60%, respectively).

Responses to the 11 statements in Britain in 2015 were as follows:

% across	True	False	Don’t know
Jews are more loyal to Israel than Britain	41	45	15
Jews still talk too much about what happened in Holocaust	26	65	9
Jews have too much power in international financial markets	22	64	14
Jews have too much power in business world	21	68	11
People hate Jews because of way Jews behave	19	72	9
Jews have too much control over US government	18	64	18
Jews don’t care what happens to anybody but their own	16	77	7
Jews have too much control over global affairs	15	76	8
Jews think they are better than other people	15	77	7
Jews have too much control over global media	12	76	12
Jews are responsible for most of world’s wars	6	88	6

As the following table of attitudes to five religious groups in Britain in 2015 reveals, Muslims are regarded in the most unfavourable light, with Jews viewed almost as positively as Christians, notwithstanding that only 27% interact with Jews very or somewhat often and 15% not at all.

Attitudes to (% across)	Favourable	Unfavourable	Unrated
Christians	87	7	6
Jews	83	7	10
Buddhists	80	5	15
Hindus	79	7	13
Muslims	62	25	13

Besides the national cross-sections, an additional 100 interviews with Muslims were carried out by telephone in areas of high Muslim concentration in each of six Western European countries, including Britain, between 23 March and 8 April 2015. The smallness of the samples should encourage caution in interpreting the results, but it can be noted that Muslims in each country were found to have a very high anti-Semitic index score relative to the national average (54% versus 12% in the case of British Muslims).

To access the press release, executive summary, and (interactively) country-by-country results for the 2015 update, follow the links at the foot of the home page of The ADL Global 100 website at:

http://global100.adl.org/

Holocaust denial

According to the ADL poll, above, Holocaust denial, in the sense of the Holocaust being regarded as a myth which did not happen, is a negligible problem: 0% took this position in Britain, while 90% asserted that, not only did the Holocaust happen, but that the number of Jews who perished as a result has been fairly described by history.

Nevertheless, Holocaust denial, which is not illegal in Britain, remains a sensitive matter for British Jews, 64% of whom believe that it should become a criminal offence, with a majority among all age cohorts, including 56% of under-35s. This is according to a Survation telephone poll for the Jewish Chronicle on 17-23 June 2015, for which 1,023 Jewish adults were interviewed. The result was briefly reported by the newspaper in the edition for 3 July 2015 at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/138711/two-thirds-say-they-want-denial-banned

Posted in Religion and Politics, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged 7/7, Anti-Defamation League, Anti-Semitism, Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, British Future, Buddhists, Christians, community relations, Daily Mirror, Hindus, holocaust, Huffington Post, ICM Unlimited, Iraq, ISIS, Islam, Islamic State, Islamophobia, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Muslims, Populus, Sunday Times, Survation, Syria, terrorism, Tunisia, YouGov | Leave a comment

Mid-Year Round-Up

Posted on June 30, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Immigration and the religious landscape

Were it not for immigration, the speed of secularization in England and Wales might have been even faster. That is one gloss that could be put on a report from the Office for National Statistics on 18 June 2015: 2011 Census Analysis: Ethnicity and Religion of the Non-UK Born Population in England and Wales. For the proportion of UK-born residents professing no religion in 2011 was, at 27%, almost double the figure among the non-UK-born (14%). However, the situation appears to be changing and, for those arriving in the UK between 2007 and 2011, it was 17%. Also, although there were 3,567,000 foreign-born Christians in England and Wales in 2011, they still accounted for a minority of all immigrants, so their numbers alone could not offset the largely intergenerational process of disaffiliation from Christianity which is at work among the native-born. Some media coverage of the report, as in the Daily Telegraph for 19 June 2015, p. 6 (‘migrants are mainstay of Christian faith’), is therefore rather misleading. In relative terms, Sikh immigration has fallen continuously since 1981, and even Muslim immigration has tailed off somewhat since the Millennium, albeit non-UK-born Muslims still outnumber the UK-born. Summary data are tabulated below. Fuller information can be found in 2011 Census Tables DC2207EW (country of birth by religion by sex) and CT02652011 (country of birth by year of arrival by religion) which can be accessed via the links embedded in the report at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_407038.pdf

% down	UK-born	Non-UK-born: total	Non-UK-born: 2007-11 arrivals
No religion	26.9	13.8	16.9
Christian	61.1	47.5	47.5
Buddhist	0.2	2.0	2.8
Hindu	0.6	7.3	7.2
Jewish	0.4	0.7	0.6
Muslim	2.6	19.0	16.3
Sikh	0.5	2.4	1.2
Other religion	0.4	0.6	0.4
Not stated	7.3	6.7	7.1

Predicting the demise of British Christianity

Writing in The Spectator on 13 June 2015, and projecting forward on the basis of evidence from the census of population and sample surveys, Damian Thompson suggested that 2067 will be the year in which the profession of Christianity will finally disappear from the British Isles, with Anglicanism set to vanish in 2033. See:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9555222/2067-the-end-of-british-christianity/

Ramadan (1): knowledge of

We are mid-way through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which, in terms of fasting, began on 18 June 2015. To mark the event, and the launch of the broadcaster’s ‘My Ramadan’ mini-season, BBC Religion and Ethics commissioned an opinion poll from TNS among a sample of 2,036 Britons aged 16 and over. It revealed that, although the majority of the public agrees that cultural diversity is a positive thing, only 52% claim to have a clear understanding of what Ramadan is about, falling to 43% among over-65s. A plurality believes that it is just devout Muslims who do not eat or drink anything during the daylight hours of Ramadan. No data tables for the survey are in the public domain, but the BBC press release of 18 June can be read at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/my-ramadan

Ramadan (2): retail value of

‘Ramadan spurs increase in grocery sales’, Retail Week reported on 23 June 2015. ‘UK’s largest supermarkets have seen a rise in sales because of the holy month of Ramadan, with the Islamic festival becoming the most important retail event after Christmas and Easter. The Big Four [supermarkets] are expecting sales to increase by about £100m over the next month as the UK’s three million Muslims embark on fasting.’

Combating Islamic State

Two-thirds of 999 Britons interviewed by telephone on behalf of the Pew Global Attitudes Project on 8-28 April 2015 approved of the US-led military action being taken against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, with one-fifth opposed and 15% undecided. The level of support was lower than in several other Western countries such as France (81%), US (80%), Australia (77%), Italy (70%), and Spain (67%) and in Middle Eastern nations such as Israel (84%), Lebanon (78%), and Jordan (77%). However, approval of US President Barack Obama’s handling of IS was higher in Britain (43%) than the US (40%), with disapproval at 37% and 54% respectively. For the Pew topline report, released on 23 June 2015, see:

http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2015/06/Balance-of-Power-Report-FINAL-June-23-20151.pdf

Anti-Semitism

The UK’s Jewish population is far more fearful of Islamist extremists (61%) than it is of neo-Nazis (16%), according to a new Survation poll for the Jewish Chronicle, conducted predominantly by telephone among 1,023 members of a pre-recruited adult Jewish panel between 17 and 23 June 2015. The remainder fear neither or are undecided. A majority of Jews (72%) is opposed to anti-Semitic groups being allowed to stage peaceful demonstrations in Jewish areas, with only 22% in favour, while 62% support Jews holding counter-demonstrations to anti-Semitic rallies (with 29% against). Data tables, disaggregated by gender, age, and region, are available at:

http://survation.com/?attachment_id=8032

The context of the survey is an imminent planned protest by far-right activists in Golders Green, London against the alleged ‘Jewification’ of the area. However, the Jewish Chronicle’s headline about the poll (‘Ban Golders Green Rally, Say 72 Per Cent’) is somewhat misleading since respondents were not specifically asked whether that particular event should be banned.

History of Church of England finance

An important new book by Sarah Flew brings the tools of accountancy and financial management to bear on the history of the Established Church in England, not so much in the round as through a case study of the funding of home missionary organizations in the Diocese of London during the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Philanthropy and the Funding of the Church of England, 1856-1914 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2015, xv + 251p., ISBN 9781848935006, hardback, £60, with ebook editions for £24) is based on a wide range of hitherto little-used archival and other primary sources, and includes a good dose of tables. Flew charts the progressive decline in Christian philanthropy and its connection with secularization. More information is available at:

https://www.pickeringchatto.com/titles/1783-9781848935006-philanthropy-and-the-funding-of-the-church-of-england-1856-1914

Britain’s Last Religious Revival?

Apologies for the plug, but prospective purchasers of my new book on the statistics of religious change in Britain between 1945 and 1963 (mentioned in my BRIN post of 8 March 2015) may like to know that, for a limited period (until 29 February 2016), copies can be bought by individuals direct from the publisher at a 30% discount.

Just quote ‘PM15THIRTY’ when ordering the book from the Palgrave Macmillan website at http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/britain-s-last-religious-revival–clive-d–field/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137512529 or via email to orders@palgrave.com.

For full terms and conditions applicable to the discount, see:

http://www.palgrave.com/page/Palgrave-discount-codes-terms-and-conditions/

Posted in Historical studies, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion in the Press, Religious Census, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged Anti-Semitism, BBC, census of population, Christianity, Church of England, Clive Field, Damian Thompson, Diocese of London, finance, home missions, Immigration, Islam, Islamic State, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Office for National Statistics, Pew Global Attitudes Project, Ramadan, Religious Affiliation, Sarah Flew, supermarkets, Survation, The Spectator, TNS | Leave a comment

A Fortnight in Religious Statistics

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Here are ten religious statistical news stories which have come to BRIN’s attention during the past fortnight.

Religious affiliation: population census (1)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just launched a public consultation around its initial view of the content of the 2021 population census for England and Wales. Responses, which can be either from organizations or individuals, need to be submitted by 27 August 2015. They may cover the full range of consultation topics or just the one(s) of particular concern. With regard to religious affiliation, the intention of ONS is to include a question on a voluntary basis, as in 2001 and 2011. In the interests of comparability, it is reluctant to change the actual wording. The consultation document asks respondents how they currently use the census religion data and what the impact on their work would be if such data were no longer collected. It is hoped that BRIN users would wish to support, by responding to ONS, the continued inclusion of a religion question in the census. More details are available by clicking the ‘complete the survey’ link on the consultation website at:

https://consultations.ons.gov.uk/census/2021-census-topics-consultation

Religious affiliation: population census (2)

Higher education has often been assumed to have a secularizing effect, and the hypothesis is reasserted by James Lewis, ‘Education, Irreligion, and Non-Religion: Evidence from Select Anglophone Census Data’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2015, pp. 265-72. Utilizing religious affiliation data from the censuses of Australia in 2006, Canada in 2011, and England and Wales in 2011, he shows that college graduates have an above-average representation among people professing no religion and particularly among atheists, humanists, or agnostics. In England and Wales, for example, 18% of all adults were found to have a bachelor’s or higher degree, but the proportion was 24% for religious ‘nones’, rising to 40% for agnostics, 43% for humanists, and 44% for atheists (the last three categories being write-in replies). For Christians the figure was only 15%. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2015.1025556#.VXnlYOlRHX4

Religious affiliation: British Social Attitudes

As reported by Dr Ben Clements in his BRIN research note of 3 June 2015, NatCen Social Research has recently updated its religious affiliation trend data from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys. Statistics are now available for every year between 1983, when BSA commenced, and 2014, except for 1988 and 1992. NatCen concludes that the Church of England’s market share has declined throughout this period and appears to have accelerated during the past decade, both relatively and absolutely. It now claims the allegiance of only 17% of British adults compared with 40% in 1983. Whereas there were 16.5 million adult Anglicans in 1983, there were just 8.6 million in 2014. Roman Catholic allegiance has been much steadier, at around one in ten of the population (or 4 million adults), while the number of non-Christians has quintupled. Those professing no religion have risen from one-third to one-half as a proportion, and, in figures, from 12.8 million in 1983 to 24.7 million in 2014. NatCen’s press release is at:

http://www.natcen.ac.uk/news-media/press-releases/2015/may/british-social-attitudes-church-of-england-decline-has-accelerated-in-past-decade/

Church growth

Towards a Theology of Church Growth, edited by David Goodhew (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015, ISBN 9781472414007, £19.99, paperback) comprises 12 chapters together with a foreword (by the Archbishop of Canterbury) and a conclusion (by the editor). Although numerical growth of the Church (especially of local congregations) is a constant presence in the book, and continues to be regarded as important, the volume is less concerned with statistics (which are remarkably thin on the ground) than with exploring a theology of church growth from the perspectives of the Bible, Christian doctrine, and church history. The historical section contains five essays, ranging from the early Church to Britain from 1750 to 1970, the author of the last (Dominic Erdozain) conceding the reality of church decline while simultaneously proposing ‘a more optimistic account of the Christian ecology of modern Britain’. Further information can be found at:

https://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&title_id=19791&edition_id=1209349895&calcTitle=1

Religion and physician-assisted suicide

Thanks are due to Dr Ben Clements for drawing BRIN’s attention to some new research into religion and physician-assisted suicide: Andriy Danyliv and Ciaran O’Neill, ‘Attitudes towards Legalising Physician Provided Euthanasia in Britain: The Role of Religion over Time’, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 128, March 2015, pp. 52-6. Utilizing evidence from the British Social Attitudes (BSA) Surveys for six data-points between 1983 and 2012, the authors demonstrate statistically significant increased support for the legalization of physician-assisted suicide (for patients suffering a painful and incurable disease) running parallel with growth in indicators of secularization. Multivariate analysis showed that religious affiliation and, more especially, frequency of attendance at religious services were the principal predictors of attitudes to physician-assisted suicide, with support for legalization being greatest among those with least religious commitment. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953614008387

Attitudes to religious groups

A plurality of Britons (40%) has a negative impression of Muslims, almost double the number regarding them positively (22%), with 37% neutral. This is according to a YouGov/Eurotrack seven-nation survey conducted between 20 and 27 May 2015, for which 1,667 Britons were interviewed online. The number viewing Muslims negatively was higher in Britain than in Germany, Norway, and Sweden, the same as in France, but lower than in Denmark and Finland (45%).

Jews, by contrast, were regarded much more favourably, with 41% in Britain having a positive impression (a figure bettered only in Sweden), 50% being neutral and just 7% negative (the smallest number of any of the nations, Sweden excepted). In fact, Christians in Britain had a greater negative rating (11%) than Jews, albeit their positive score was also higher (45%), with 42% neutral to Christians. Danes (47%) held the most positive attitudes to Christians and Norwegians (38%) the least.

A summary of the British data is tabulated below. Results for all seven nations, also covering opinions of five other groups (gypsies, gay people, black people, young people, and the elderly) can be found at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/g96awulgzv/Eurotrack_Minorities_W.pdf

Attitudes to … (% down)	Muslims	Jews	Christians
Very positive	6	15	17
Fairly positive	16	26	28
Positive	22	41	45
Neither positive nor negative	37	50	42
Fairly negative	24	6	9
Very negative	16	1	2
Negative	40	7	11
Don’t know	2	2	2

Religious diversity

Somewhat contrary to authorial expectations, practising (churchgoing) Christians are more interested in and more tolerant of other religious groups than nominal Christians or the religiously unaffiliated, according to new analysis of data from the ‘Young People’s Attitudes to Religious Diversity’ project at Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit: Leslie Francis, Alice Pyke, and Gemma Penny, ‘Christian Affiliation, Christian Practice, and Attitudes to Religious Diversity: A Quantitative Analysis among 13- to 15-Year-Old Female Students in the UK’, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2015, pp. 249-63. The authors interpret their findings to mean that Church teaching and Christian practice are nurturing the development of the UK as a multi-cultural and multi-faith society. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13537903.2015.1026116#.VXntlulRHX4

Evangelicals and poverty

Good News for the Poor? is the latest report from the Evangelical Alliance’s 21st Century Evangelicals series, which commenced in 2011. It is based upon replies by 1,607 self-identifying evangelical Christians to an online survey in November 2014. They were either members of the Alliance’s self-selecting research panel or recruited via open invitation on the Alliance’s website or social media networks; thus, they may not be representative of all evangelicals in the UK. The overwhelming majority of respondents (93%) was found to be in a financially comfortable position themselves (being either wealthy, having no financial worries, or getting by) and, relative to the general public, they tended to have higher than average expectations about ownership of material possessions (except when it came to television). Through their attitudes and actions (charitable giving and volunteering) they mostly recognized the importance of tackling poverty issues and expressed concern about the fall-out from Government welfare reforms. Nevertheless, 71% agreed that spiritual poverty is a bigger problem than material poverty, with 77% saying that, compared with some overseas countries, the UK is spiritually destitute and 66% that Churches in the UK are not very good at evangelizing and discipling the poorest sections of society. The report can be downloaded from:

http://www.eauk.org/church/resources/snapshot/upload/Good-news-for-the-poor-report-pdf.pdf

Sikhs and the general election

In our post of 25 May 2015, we reported on the results of the Survation/British Future poll of the voting of ethnic minorities at the 2015 general election, including breaks by religious groups. The reliability of this survey has subsequently been questioned in various quarters, not least by the Sikh Federation (UK) which has argued that Sikhs were seriously underrepresented in the sample and that the figures given by Survation for Sikh voting (49% Conservative, 41% Labour) were misleading. In an attempt to convey the ‘correct’ picture, the Federation has published the findings of its own post-election survey of the voting of 1,000 Sikh electors in 190 constituencies. This revealed that 50% voted Labour, 36% Conservative (up from 15% in 2010), and 15% for other parties. The Federation’s two press releases on the subject can be found at:

http://dailysikhupdates.com/british-future-survey-challenged-on-how-sikhs-voted-in-uk-elections/

British National Bibliography religion and theology data

Thanks are due to Dr Peter Webster for alerting BRIN to the recent release, by The British Library, of a subset of metadata from the British National Bibliography (BNB) for religion and theology (Dewey Decimal Classification 200-299). The dataset, covering 119,000 monographs and 4,200 serials published in Britain from 1950 to the present, is available for download and reuse on a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication basis. It will permit analysis of trends in religious publishing since the Second World War and can be downloaded from:

http://www.bl.uk/bibliographic/download.html

Posted in Historical studies, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Alice Pyke, Andriy Danyliv, Anti-Semitism, British Library, British National Bibliography, British Social Attitudes Survey, census of population, Christianophobia, Christians, church growth, Ciaran O'Neill, David Goodhew, Eurotrack, euthanasia, Evangelical Alliance, evangelicals, Gemma Penny, general election, higher education, Irreligion, Islamophobia, James Lewis, Jews, Journal of Contemporary Religion, Leslie Francis, Muslims, NatCen Social Research, Office for National Statistics, physician-assisted suicide, poverty, Religious Affiliation, Religious diversity, Sikh Federation UK, Sikhs, Social Science and Medicine, theology, voting, YouGov | Leave a comment

Religion and the General Election

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Clive D. Field

With the 2015 general election only four days away, on 7 May, a round-up of recent research on religion and politics in Britain seems appropriate. Here we report on several new stories and remind BRIN readers of other pertinent research which we have covered in posts during the past few weeks.

Density of religious groups

Several attempts have been made to assess the potential impact of the ‘religious vote’ by examining the density of religious groups in individual parliamentary constituencies, as recorded in the 2011 population census, and comparing it with constituency-level voting patterns at the 2010 general election, especially in the light of the size of the majority obtained by the successful candidate five years ago.

General

A multi-group analysis is offered in a new 28-page briefing paper published by the Henry Jackson Society on 30 April 2015: Alan Mendoza, Religious Diversity in British Parliamentary Constituencies. In a series of maps and tables it charts the density of nine major religions groups (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, other religion, no religion, and religion not stated) in each of Britain’s 632 parliamentary constituencies (Northern Ireland is not covered), set alongside political data from the 2010 general election. The religious and political composition of 193 marginal seats is particularly investigated. It is concluded that the five principal minority religions are likely to have a greater impact on the electoral outcome of marginal seats than in constituencies overall. For example, in 47% of marginals the number of Muslims is greater than the margin of victory in 2010, the equivalent figures for Hindus being 21% of marginals, for Sikhs 13%, for Buddhists 8%, and for Jews 6%. In all, there are 93 marginals where the number of one or more of the five main minority religions outweighs the margin of victory. However, it is argued that the impact will be lessened by the fact that religious minorities will probably not vote in a uniform way, with religion being only one determinant of their political behaviour, a topic to which the Henry Jackson Society promises to return in future. The report can be downloaded from:

http://henryjacksonsociety.org/2015/04/30/religious-diversity-in-british-parliamentary-constituencies/

Jews

On 29 April 2015, the day before the Henry Jackson Society’s briefing, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research published Where Jewish Votes May Matter Most: The Institute for Jewish Policy Research Guide to the 2015 General Election in the UK by Jonathan Boyd. Although Jews form less than half a per cent of the population of the whole country, they tend to be spatially clustered. In his report Boyd profiles the 20 English and Welsh constituencies with the largest number of Jews, showing that there are just five where Jews comprise more than 10% of the electorate and six in which Jews are the largest religious minority. He argues that it is only mathematically possible in eight to ten constituencies for Jews to be able to overturn the existing majority (assuming no change in non-Jewish voting), and in four of these cases it would require a level of uniformity in Jewish voting patterns that is, statistically, improbable. He concludes that the two constituencies in which Jews are most likely to play a key role at the general election are Hendon (Conservative in 2010) and Hampstead and Kilburn (Labour in 2010) where a combination of the size of the Jewish population and the tiny majorities of the outgoing MPs creates a situation where how Jews decide to vote could be critical. The particularly large Jewish communities in Finchley and Golders Green, Bury South, and Harrow East could also be influential, Boyd suggests, since, in all three instances, Jews exceed the size of the 2010 electoral majority. The 23-page report can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.Where_Jewish_votes_may_matter_most.Guide_to_2015_General_Election.pdf

Muslims

The Muslim News seems to have somewhat updated its analysis of parliamentary seats where Muslims may be influential, which BRIN originally covered in our post of 5 February 2015. The newspaper claims that the Muslim vote could be important in as many as 40 constituencies in England, 39 of them held by Labour or priority Labour targets. Of the 40, 25 are classed as marginal seats, which are profiled in detail, and 15 as safe seats. In all, there are said to be 80 constituencies where Muslims exceed 10% of the residents. For more information, and a link to the methodology employed, see:

http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/blog/seats-where-muslims-are-influential/

Voting of religious groups

There has long been a debate about whether a ‘religious vote’ still exists in Britain. Here we present some recent evidence about the correlation of religion and intended voting. However, it should be remembered that correlation does not equate with causation, and that underlying differential demographics of religious groups doubtless contribute to the results described. Eliza Filby (author of the book God & Mrs Thatcher) has a new essay on the religious vote on the Standpoint magazine blog. She concludes that such a vote continues to matter but asks for how much longer? See:

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/features-may-2015-eliza-filby-is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-religious-vote?

General

The British Election Study (BES) 2015, a consortium of the Universities of Manchester, Oxford, and Nottingham, will ultimately be a vital source of information about the interaction of religion and politics. The BES 2015 internet panel, now in its fourth wave, is likely to be especially revealing. BRIN expects to report on this more fully in the future, but readers might recall the preliminary analysis of wave 1 (February-March 2014) data on religion and voting which Ben Clements published on the BRIN website on 17 October 2014 at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2014/the-british-election-study-2015-religious-affiliation-and-attitudes/

Meanwhile, the most current data on voting intentions by religious groups derive from two online polls conducted by Populus (n = 2,048, 17-19 April 2015) and ORB International (n = 2,051, 22-23 April 2015). Summary figures are tabulated below, for the four main political parties only, also excluding those who said they would not vote, declined to answer, or did not know. It will be seen that Christians are disproportionately Conservative and UKIP supporters, non-Christians disproportionately Labour, with almost two-fifths of no religionists favouring smaller parties or not declaring their hand. Full data tables are available at, respectively:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/FT-Economy-Qs-200415.pdf

http://www.opinion.co.uk/perch/resources/omopinion-poll.pdf

% down	Populus	ORB
Christians
Conservative	32	31
Labour	23	24
LibDem	7	5
UKIP	14	18
Non-Christians
Conservative	16	29
Labour	51	43
LibDem	8	4
UKIP	4	4
No religion
Conservative	16	17
Labour	28	28
LibDem	7	7
UKIP	10	10
All electors
Conservative	25	25
Labour	26	27
LibDem	7	5
UKIP	12	14

Anglicans

An online poll by YouGov of 5,552 self-identifying Anglicans between 1 and 28 March 2015 recorded their current voting intention (excluding don’t knows and would not votes, and taking into account likelihood to vote) as: Conservative 48% (national average 34%), Labour 27% (national average 34%), Liberal Democrats 6% (national average 7%), UKIP 16% (national average 14%), and other parties 3% (national average 11%). Anglicans thus remain disproportionately Conservative. Data table at:

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/7wu1rrot0u/Final_Church_Times_Religious_Voting_Intention_Website.pdf

Roman Catholics

According to the same YouGov poll, which also interviewed 1,574 self-identifying Catholics, they remain disproportionately Labour, the pattern of voting intentions being: Conservative 31%, Labour 42%, Liberal Democrats 4%, UKIP 12%, and other parties 10%.

Jews

A Survation telephone poll of 566 self-identifying British Jews on 2-7 April 2015 revealed that a substantial majority (69%) was Conservative, with 22% Labour, and no more than 9% for all other parties. Their pro-Conservative stance doubtless reflected their relatively affluent status, but it also appears to have been determined by perspectives on Israel and the Middle East, a policy area where the Conservative Party in general and David Cameron in particular have a clear edge over Labour. For a fuller report, see the BRIN post of 12 April 2015 at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2015/religion-and-public-affairs/

Muslims

Conventionally-sized polls include too few Muslims to be statistically reliable. However, occasionally large-scale political surveys are conducted or created by aggregation which include a respectable number of Muslims. Two such examples were the online polls from Populus on 4-27 February 2015 and Lord Ashcroft on 20-27 February 2015 which included, respectively, 331 and 170 Muslim electors. In both studies three-fifths of Muslims favoured Labour (partly a function of class-based voting) and fewer than one in ten the Conservatives, with the Liberal Democrats on 3%. BRIN’s post of 8 March 2015 contains further details and links at:

http://www.brin.ac.uk/news/2015/religious-voting-intentions-and-other-news/

Churches as polling places

Of the UK’s 31,855 polling places 5,967 (or 19%) are located in church buildings, according to research released by the National Churches Trust (NCT) on 29 April 2015. The proportion varies by sub-nation and region, ranging from 25% in Greater London down to 12% in Scotland and Northern Ireland (with 20% in Wales and 19% in England as a whole). Constituency-level variations are even greater; for instance, in Sheffield Hallam (seat of Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats) two-fifths of polling places are in church buildings. Figures are based on information collected from local authorities during the last UK-wide election, for the European Parliament in May 2014. A number of non-Christian places of worship also serve as polling places but the NCT did not analyse these. The NCT’s press release is at:

http://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/news/church-buildings-play-vital-role-2015-general-election

Posted in Religion and Politics, Survey news | Tagged Alan Mendoza, Anglicans, Ben Clements, British Election Study, Christians, Eliza Filby, general election, Henry Jackson Society, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Jews, Jonathan Boyd, Lord Ashcroft, Muslim News, Muslims, National Churches Trust, ORB International, politics, polling places, Populus, Religious Affiliation, Roman Catholics, Standpoint, Survation, voting, YouGov | Leave a comment

Religion and Public Affairs

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Britons on Christianity in the public square

Five times as many people (73% versus 15%) think that Britain has become less of a Christian country over the past five years than dissent from the proposition, according to a ComRes poll for Christian Concern conducted among an online sample of 2,057 Britons aged 18 and over on 31 March and 1 April 2015, and published on 5 April. Notwithstanding, a plurality (47%) still considers that Britain’s Christian heritage continues to bring benefits to the country today compared with 32% who say the opposite, and a majority (55%) welcomes the fact that Easter is marked primarily as a Christian festival against 33% who view it as little more than two Bank Holidays together. There is also majority support for the rights of Christians in the workplace, with 52% believing they should be able to refuse to act against their conscience without being penalized by their employer, 66% wanting legal protection for the wearing of Christian symbols such as the cross in the workplace, and 72% deeming it wrong that health care workers should be threatened with the sack for offering to pray with patients. Unsurprisingly, Christians are much more well-disposed than religious ‘nones’ to an ongoing public profile for Christianity, albeit a minority is not, while many of the ‘nones’ also defend Christian freedoms. In terms of age, the over-65s display the most conservative views about the place of Christianity, with 18-24s adopting a more liberal position. Data tables are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Christian_Concern___Easter_Poll___April_2015.pdf

Britons on assisted dying

The British public is overwhelmingly in favour of legalizing assisted dying within defined parameters, and there is very little difference between the views of Christians overall and the national average. This is according to the results of one of the largest ever surveys on the subject, undertaken online by Populus on behalf of campaign group Dignity in Dying on 11-19 March 2015, and released in full on 7 April. The major findings are summarized below, with detailed data tables available at:

http://www.populus.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Dignity-in-Dying-Poll-March-2015-WEBSITE-DATATABLES.pdf

% across	All	Christians	Non-Christians	Nones
Attitude to assisted dying becoming law
Support	82	80	68	88
Oppose	12	14	26	6
Attitude to own MP backing such a law
More positive to them	53	49	47	61
More negative to them	10	11	23	5
MPs voting on legalizing assisted dying
Should take account of constituents’ views	67	69	60	68
Should vote according to own opinion	21	22	24	20
House of Commons should allocate time after general election for full debate on assisted dying
Agree	79	80	64	81
Disagree	11	12	23	8
Would assist terminally ill loved one to die even if it meant breaking the law
Would assist	44	43	37	49
Would not assist	29	32	39	23

Unfortunately, the attitudes of followers of individual Christian denominations were not recorded, but it seems likely that, as in other studies where they have been, Roman Catholics would have been most opposed to legalizing assisted dying. In this Populus poll non-Christians were more than twice as opposed on several of the key questions asked, albeit the majority even of them endorsed assisted dying. The most supportive religious group of all were the ‘nones’, but not by a big margin. Lord Falconer of Thoroton has signalled his intention to bring back his bill to legalize assisted dying as soon as the new Parliament assembles after the general election; the bill ran out of time in the old Parliament.

Britons on Scientology

The Church of Scientology, founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in the 1950s, has been in the media spotlight again recently, principally as a result of its negative portrayal in Alex Gibney’s controversial new documentary Going Clear. This has prompted YouGov to test the British public’s awareness of and attitudes to the movement in an online poll of 1,906 adults on 3-4 April 2015. Knowledge is minimal, with 75% professing to know nothing or very little, 23% something, and just 2% a lot. This did not prevent 61% dismissing Scientology’s claims to being a real religion, only 8% thinking it is, rising to 14% among 18-24s and those with some knowledge of it; the remaining 31% were unable to express an opinion. Moreover, 45% found the beliefs of Scientology less credible than those of Christianity, peaking at 62% with those who knew something about it. The achievement of spiritual enlightenment is one of Scientology’s core beliefs, which a plurality of 38% considered to be probably attainable, with 30% disagreeing and 32% uncertain, although it is debatable how much this question was actually understood. The majority (54%) did not regard themselves as spiritual while 41% said they were (12% very and 29% slightly), compared with 60% and 35% respectively when YouGov last probed the matter in September 2011. However, too much should not be read into the differences as spirituality is a rather elusive concept, difficult to operationalize, with surveys on the topic yielding fluctuating results. A blog about this latest YouGov study, with a link to the data tables, was published on 8 April at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/04/08/scientology-not-real-religion-public/

Professing Anglicans and the general election

The Church of England has often been seen as a natural ally of the Conservative Party, and an analysis of YouGov’s aggregate polling of 35,000 electors in March 2015, commissioned by the Church Times, certainly confirms that professing Anglicans are disproportionately likely to favour the Conservatives. Whereas, as the table below shows, the Conservatives and Labour were tied nationally, on 34% each, the Conservatives had a commanding 21% lead among Anglicans. Catholics, by contrast, were more disposed to Labour (42%) than Conservatives (31%). For the Church Times report, see:

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/10-april/news/uk/tories-can-count-on-the-c-of-e-voters-tell-polls

% down	All electors	Anglican electors
Conservative	34	48
Labour	34	27
Liberal Democrat	7	6
UKIP	14	16
Other parties	11	3

Practising Christians and the general election

Four-fifths of 1,960 practising (churchgoing) Christians aged 16 and over think Britain is heading in the wrong moral direction, while two-thirds believe that it is harder to be a Christian in Britain today than it was in 2010. This is according to a ComRes survey undertaken online in the UK between 13 and 17 March 2015 and published on 9 April by Premier Christian Radio, which sponsored the study, in a press release at:

http://www.premier.org.uk/News/UK/Election-Deficit-not-a-top-concern-for-Christians

Asked which of the leaders of the four main parties they most associated with six statements about the role of faith in politics, a majority of practising Christians ranging from 55% to 78% replied ‘none of them’, with David Cameron being the only one to shine a little (see table, below). However, even Cameron had blotted his copy-book in the eyes of respondents, with 71% denying that his time as Prime Minister had been good for Christians in Britain (and 52% saying that it had actually been bad), and 78% claiming that he had been wrong to laud the legalization of same-sex marriage as one of his proudest achievements.

Leaders of four main parties associated with … (%)	None of them	David Cameron
Places importance on own faith in political decision-making	78	12
Exhibits Christian values in political beliefs	68	20
Exhibits Christian values in personal life	66	23
Likely to build on Britain’s Christian cultural/political heritage	59	23
Encourages involvement of faith groups in politics	58	24
Committed to protecting religious freedom	55	18

The three most important of 13 named policy areas for determining the personal vote of practising Christians were: managing the NHS (42%), ensuring the benefits of economic growth are felt by all (41%), and making the welfare system fairer (33%). These are not necessarily the highest priorities of the electorate as a whole (for instance, immigration and the European Union came well down this sample’s list of concerns) nor of the main political parties. Even reducing the government budget deficit preoccupied no more than 20% of practising Christians, and promoting UK economic growth just 16%. The latter was the major policy area where practising Christians regarded the Conservatives as having a big advantage over Labour (50% versus 13%), followed by reducing crime and anti-social behaviour. Otherwise, the rating of the parties was either closer or Labour was seen as the more credible option, notably when it came to ensuring economic equality, improving housing affordability, making the welfare system fairer, managing the NHS, and caring for the elderly.

Regrettably, although full data tables for the survey are available, including breaks by age, gender, region, and denomination, they are not up to the usual ComRes standard of presentation and clarity. They can be found at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Premier-_-Election-Priority-Polling.pdf

Jews and the general election

Among electors intending to vote in the forthcoming general election, and after discounting undecideds and refusals, Jews are more than twice as likely to favour the Conservatives and far less likely to support UKIP as the population as a whole. This is according to the latest Survation telephone poll of 566 self-identifying British Jews for the Jewish Chronicle on 2-7 April 2015, compared with the same company’s national poll for the Daily Mirror on 8-9 April. A summary of voting intentions appears below, with full data tables for the Jewish survey available at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/General-Election-Poll-Tables.pdf

% down	Jewish electors	All electors
Conservative	69	30
Labour	22	36
Liberal Democrat	2	8
UKIP	2	15
Other parties	5	11

The pro-Conservative stance of British Jews doubtless reflects their relatively affluent status, but it also appears to be determined by perspectives on Israel and the Middle East. Almost three-quarters (73%) of Jews claimed that the views of British political parties towards Israel would be very or quite important in influencing their own vote. Three-fifths (61%) contended that the Conservatives had the best policies for Israel and the Middle East, and 65% felt that, of the party leaders, David Cameron had the best approach to these issues. A similar proportion (64%) considered that Cameron as Prime Minister would have the best attitude to the Jewish community in the UK, against only 13% for Labour’s Ed Miliband. Indeed, in its coverage of the poll (10 April 2015, pp. 1, 4, 28), the Jewish Chronicle was particularly struck by Miliband’s ‘shocking’ standing, asking how a supposedly Jewish politician could make ‘such a terrible fist of attracting Jewish voters?’

Muslims and current issues

Most British Muslims (71%) see no incompatibility between the values of British society and those of Islam, according to a telephone poll of 1,001 Muslims, conducted by Survation for Sky News from 10 to 16 March 2015, and published on 10 April. Just 16% disagreed. A majority also felt that Muslims were already doing enough to integrate into British society (64%) and that they had personally encountered no more suspicion from non-Muslims than a few years previously (62%). However, there was some ambiguity when it came to matters of terrorism. Two-fifths overall (and 46% of women) did not believe it was the responsibility of Muslims to condemn terrorist acts carried out in the name of Islam, while 28% of all Muslims (including 33% of women and 32% of under-35s) said that they had a lot or some sympathy with young Muslims who had left the UK to join fighters in Syria. A plurality (39%) agreed that the actions of the police and MI5 were contributing to the radicalization of young Muslims. Data tables, with breaks by gender, age, and region, are available at:

http://interactive.news.sky.com/2015/PDFs/Sky-Muslim-Poll.pdf

Survation also undertook an online survey of 1,000 non-Muslims, which has yet to be reported in full. A few results were mentioned in a Sky News press release, two being polar opposites of the Muslim voice, with 58% of non-Muslims considering that Muslims were not doing enough to integrate into British society and 52% that the values of British society and Islam were incompatible. The press release is at:

http://news.sky.com/story/1462023/poll-majority-have-no-sympathy-with-extremists

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion in public debate, Survey news | Tagged Anglicans, assisted dying, Christian Concern, Christian country, Christianity, Christians, Church of England, Church Times, ComRes, Conservative Party, David Cameron, Dignity in Dying, Easter, Ed Miliband, general election, Islam, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Labour Party, Muslims, non-Muslims, party leaders, politics, Populus, Premier Christian Radio, religious freedom, Scientology, Sky News, spiritual enlightenment, Survation, terrorism, voting, workplace, YouGov | 1 Comment

Easter Religion and Other News

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Easter religion

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

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

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

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

Religious liberty in business

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

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

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

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

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

Future of world religions

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

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

News from Brierley Consultancy

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

peter@brierleyres.com

Nonconformist historical statistics

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

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

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

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

Anglo-Jewry database, 1851

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

European Jewish Research Archive

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

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

Islam and British values

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

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

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

Grace Davie on Religion and Other News

Posted on March 15, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Grace Davie on Religion in Britain

Twenty-one years ago, in 1994, Grace Davie published her seminal Religion in Britain since 1945, a sociological account which became a standard textbook for students of the sociology of religion and contemporary British history. It perhaps became best known for its sub-title of ‘believing without belonging’, encapsulating the persistence of the sacred alongside an ongoing decline in traditional forms of religious behaviour. A second edition of the book has just appeared: Religion in Britain: A Persistent Paradox (Wiley Blackwell, xv + 264pp., ISBN 9781405135962, £21.99, paperback). It has been so extensively revised and restructured as, in effect, to constitute an entirely new work. Its masterly survey of a wide and dynamic field, and the clarity and concision of the writing, are certain to ensure it a wide readership.

Although the narrative still nominally starts in 1945, in practice the focus is on more recent decades, and coverage of the secondary historical literature is relatively sparse. Contemporary socio-religious scholarship and primary sources (including websites) are more heavily drawn upon, and this is especially true of research outputs from the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme (2007-13). Even so, given space constraints, the range of topics dealt with is necessarily selective, and some themes which had separate chapters in the first edition (such as age and gender or religious professionals) feature less prominently in the second. At the same time, more attention is devoted to religious issues in the public square. ‘Believing without belonging’ retains its pride of place, albeit in refined and developed form, together with the concept of vicarious religion (religious behaviour by proxy), which only emerged after the first edition of Religion in Britain was published.

The second edition is informed throughout by statistics, but they are presented with a light touch. There are only eight figures and two tables, several of the former not being terribly clear when reproduced in black and white. This compares with one figure and eight tables in the first edition. The statistics derive from today’s standard sources, such as the census of population, sample surveys, and church data collected by Peter Brierley. In addition, good use has been made by Davie of the BRIN website, which ‘provides a huge amount of information about religion in Britain, and includes some helpful professional commentaries’.

Religious freedom

In a further testimony to the declining significance of faith in contemporary Britain, religious freedom is regarded as an important ‘British value’ by just 13% of adults, being most prized by the over-65s (20%), Scots (17%), and Conservative voters (17%). Overall, freedom of speech (46%), respect for the rule of law (33%), a sense of humour (29%), politeness (27%), and tolerance of others (26%) are judged the most significant attributes. Data derive from a ComRes survey for Grassroots Conservatives, for which 2,017 Britons were interviewed online on 11-12 February 2015. Data tables were published on 10 March 2015 at:

http://comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/February2015_Poll_Tables.pdf

Apocalypse

Just under one-quarter (23%) of Britons think it very or somewhat likely that an apocalyptic disaster will strike the world during their lifetime, according to a YouGov poll conducted among an online sample of 1,745 on 8-9 March 2015. This is a smaller proportion than in the United States where 31% consider such a disaster to be very or somewhat likely. Although the publics in both countries identify nuclear war as the most probable single cause of the apocalypse, as many as 16% of Americans attribute it to Judgement Day, compared with just 3% of Britons (albeit 7% of Londoners and 6% of young people aged 18-24). YouGov’s blog on the survey, posted on 10 March and including links to both national results, can be read at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/03/10/apocalypse/

Mums in ministry

On 5-9 March 2015, in the run-up to Mothering Sunday, Christian Research undertook an online survey (presumably via its Resonate panel) of 176 mothers in Britain who were engaged in full-time Christian ministry, 13% of them still with children of primary school age. The vast majority (82%) felt really or pretty satisfied in their ministerial role, although 22% had had cause fundamentally to question their calling. Three-quarters (73%) said that having children of their own had made them a better minister, the positive impact being most keenly felt in relation to pastoral work (72%) and community outreach (51%). However, 48% of mums in ministry reported that finding sufficient time to spend with their children was a major or significant challenge. Even more struggled to find time to pursue a hobby (60%), generally relax (58%), or be with their closest friends (57%). The full report will only be made available to Christian Research’s subscribers, but a press release about the study can be found at:

http://www.christian-research.org/mums/

Chaplaincy

The latest research report from Theos, this time prepared in partnership with the Cardiff Centre for Chaplaincy Studies, was published on 11 March 2015: Ben Ryan, A Very Modern Ministry: Chaplaincy in the UK. It provides an interesting overview of contemporary chaplaincy, from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, perceiving it as an area of religious growth and innovation which is complementary to the notion of the ‘gathered congregation’ and has now broadened out somewhat from its Christian roots. Terminological issues, about what constitutes a chaplain, are aired but not completely resolved. For example, are street pastors – who are now thought to number 11,000 trained volunteers – to be considered as chaplains or not? The quantitative evidence is reviewed in part 1 of the report, with chaplains being found in areas as diverse as higher education (1,000), prisons (1,000 with 7,000 volunteers), police (650), armed forces (500), hospitals (350 full-time and 3,000 part-time), and sport (300). A survey in Luton in October-November 2014 identified 169 chaplains working in eight primary and eight secondary fields, equivalent to one for every 1,200 residents, albeit only 20 of these personnel were salaried. The Luton chaplains were overwhelmingly Christian, even though Christianity was professed by a minority of the town’s population (47%), with 25% Muslim. The report can be read at:

http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/files/files/Modern%20Ministry%20combined.pdf

Church social action

Jubilee+ published the results of the third biennial National Church and Social Action Survey on 7 March 2015: Geoff Knott, Investing More for the Common Good. ‘Several thousand’ places of worship of all denominations and all sizes across the UK were contacted, with replies being received from just 229 – a very small and potentially unrepresentative response. Scaled up nationally, factoring in church size, the report suggests that between 1.1 and 1.4 million volunteers participated in church-based social action in the UK in 2014, the number of volunteer hours having risen by 59% since the first survey in 2010. Direct church spending on social action grew by 37% over the same four years, to reach £393 million, but the total full economic cost to churches of their social initiatives is estimated at £3.5 billion per annum. The top three activities were food distribution (80%); parents and toddlers groups (70%); and school assemblies or religious education work (66%). The majority of churches (58%) planned to increase their social initiatives over the coming year. Volunteering by Christians in the community that is not initiated by a church is excluded from all these calculations. The report is at:

http://www.jubilee-plus.org/Articles/431253/Jubilee_Plus/Research/RESULTS_OF_THE.aspx

British Jews and Israel’s elections

Despite an otherwise generally close identification with Israel, large numbers of Britain’s Jews do not immerse themselves in the complex world of Israeli politics, even on the eve of elections to the Knesset (to be held on 17 March 2015). This is according to the latest in a series of polls conducted by Survation for the Jewish Chronicle, for which 1,000 self-identifying Jewish adults in Britain were interviewed by telephone between 4 and 9 March. Exactly 50% of respondents admitted not to follow Israeli politics much or at all, 46% did not know whom they would vote for in the elections (assuming they had a vote), and 41% could not say whether they preferred as next Israeli prime minister the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu (the incumbent prime minister) or the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog. Among those expressing an opinion, support for Netanyahu was more than double that for Herzog, whereas in Israel itself the latest polling shows the Zionist Union to be narrowly ahead of Likud. However, since only 31% of British Jews stated that they would vote for Netanyahu, the Jewish Chronicle’s claim (on the front page of its edition of 13 March 2015) that there was ‘huge backing’ for him among UK Jews seems inflated. Data tables were published on 11 March at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Israeli-Elections-Poll-Tables.pdf

Religion in the workplace and service delivery

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published a major (226-page) report on religion and belief in the workplace and in service delivery in Britain on 12 March 2015: Martin Mitchell and Kelsey Beninger with Alice Donald and Erica Howard, Religion or Belief in the Workplace and Service Delivery: Findings from a Call for Evidence. Prepared by NatCen Social Research on behalf of the EHRC, it comprises an analysis of replies from 2,483 individuals and organizations to an online survey between 14 August and 31 October 2014. Respondents did not constitute a random sample but had been ‘invited to take part in order to ensure the widest possible range of views and experiences was gathered’. This is described as ‘a purposive and snowball approach to recruitment’. Although the report includes 25 tables and sundry other statistics, NatCen is at repeated pains to point out that ‘the study did not aim to measure the extent of perceived religious discrimination and unfair treatment because of religion or belief’. It is explained that the research was of an entirely qualitative nature and that any figures were tabulated for monitoring purposes only and cannot be generalized to the wider population. Predictably, some of the media coverage has failed to heed these important caveats. To judge by its press release, the principal conclusion drawn by the EHRC from the report concerns widespread public confusion and misunderstanding over the laws protecting freedom of religion or belief. The report can be found at:

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/publication_pdf/RoB%20Call%20for%20Evidence%20Report.pdf

Posted in Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, People news, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged apocalyptic disaster, believing without belonging, Ben Ryan, Benjamin Netanyahu, chaplaincy, Christian Research, church social action, ComRes, elections, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Geoff Knott, Grace Davie, Grassroots Conservatives, Isaac Herzog, Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, jubilee, Judgement Day, Kelsey Beninger, Luton, Martin Mitchell, ministry, mothers, NatCen Social Research, Religious discrimination, religious freedom, service delivery, Social Capital, Survation, Theos, United States, Wiley Blackwell, workplace, YouGov | Leave a comment

Scottish Religion and Other News

Ten Years On

Mid-Year Round-Up

Religion and the General Election

Religion and Public Affairs

Recent News

Recent Sources

Archives

Recent Comments

British Religion in Numbers is funded as a British Academy Research Project