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Cost of Dying and Other News

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Cost of dying

Insurance company SunLife released the report of its ninth annual survey of the cost of dying on 13 October 2015. It was based on interviews conducted by YouGov, online on 8-20 May 2015 among 1,507 UK adults who have organized a funeral during the past four years, and by telephone between 16 April and 13 May among 100 UK funeral directors. The average cost of a basic funeral was found to have risen by 92% between 2004 and 2015, slightly less for a cremation (90%) and rather more for a burial (94%). A relatively tiny proportion of the absolute cost in 2015 (£3,693) was accounted for by the fee payable to the clergy or officiant at the funeral (£152 in 2015 for either a burial or cremation), a rise of 73% since 2007 which was substantially more than the 19% increase in doctor’s fees over the same period. Although religious funerals are still in a slight majority, this last bastion of religion is probably underpinned as much by tradition as by conviction. Of the sample of bereaved, just 1% admitted to knowing all the deceased’s funeral preferences, with 31% even having no idea whether their loved-one would have wished to be buried or cremated, and 53% uncertain whether to hold a religious or non-religious service. The report can be downloaded via the link at:

https://www.sunlifedirect.co.uk/press-office/cost-of-dying-2015/

Church of England buildings

The first attempt in many years to audit the Church of England’s stewardship of its 15,700 church buildings was published on 12 October 2015: Report of the Church Buildings Review Group, chaired by the Bishop of Worcester and established by the Archbishops’ Council and Church Commissioners. It surveys the statistical and theological context before setting out general principles and specific recommendations for the future management of the Church’s places of worship. Some of the national quantitative information is tabulated below, from which it will be seen that 57% of all churches (and 67% of listed buildings) are to be found in rural districts, where only 17% of the population lives. Although per capita attendance is higher in the countryside than in urban/suburban areas, the average attendance is less than one-third in the former than the latter. Future closure of some churches is envisaged and the downgrading of others to ‘festival church’ status, involving the cessation of regular worship in favour of occasional offices and major seasonal services only. The report, which also includes data disaggregated to diocesan level, is available at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2383717/church_buildings_review_report_2015.pdf

	Urban	Suburban	Rural
Distribution (% across)
Population	25	58	17
All churches	12	31	57
Listed buildings	8	24	67
Church attendance	20	52	28
Other indicators
Population per church building	7,300	6,600	1,000
Attendance per capita (%)	1.4	1.6	2.9
Attendance per building	103	104	30
Average annual capital expenditure per building (£)	17,700	14,200	6,800

Cumbrian churches

One day after the Church of England national buildings report was published, the Churches Trust for Cumbria, an independent charity established in 2008, very belatedly released the results of its own interdenominational church buildings survey, the fieldwork for which was conducted as far back as 2012-13. The research covered two-thirds of the 600 Anglican, Methodist, and United Reformed churches in the county, highlighting the immense challenges which they face. Almost half (48%) expressed serious concerns regarding their financial viability. Only two-fifths (42%) appear to have been used for worship on a weekly basis. More than one-third (37%) were not used for non-worship purposes more than three times a year. Just 7% of congregations were aged 18 or under, with significant numbers more than 70 years of age – 47% in the Church of England, 51% for the Methodist Church, and 64% for the United Reformed Church. The report, which is somewhat lacking in terms of data and confusing in its presentation, can be viewed at:

http://www.carlislediocese.org.uk/uploads/1356/Churches_Trust_for_Cumbria_Report_2015-pdf.html

Baptist Union research

The latest meeting of the Baptist Union Council took place on 7-8 October 2015. Among the reports received was one on ‘Fit for Mission’, for which Stuart Davison presented some preliminary findings from an ongoing piece of research among Baptist churches, to which 684 (35%) have responded so far. One interesting (albeit predictable) result concerned the big difference between the perception and reality of whether churches are growing or declining, the reality being measured in terms of membership numbers. The following table presents the headline data. Are churches in self-denial or is membership no longer an appropriate performance indicator? A report of the Council meeting is at:

http://www.baptist.org.uk/Articles/450911/Baptist_Union_Council.aspx

Churches … (% down)	Perception	Reality
Declining	13	49
Constant	49	25
Growing	36	26

Clergy well-being

Revisiting an 11-year-old dataset of 722 rural clergy, Christine Brewster found only partial linkages between churchmanship and psychological well-being (as measured via the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire). Although theological liberals did experience higher well-being than theological conservatives, controlling for sex, age, and personality, there was no significant difference between evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics nor between charismatics and non-charismatics. Possible explanations for these results are briefly offered. Her article, ‘Churchmanship and Personal Happiness: A Study among Rural Anglican Clergy’, is published in Rural Theology, Vol. 13, No. 2, November 2015, pp. 124-34, and access options are outlined at:

http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1470499415Z.00000000050

Undergraduate religiosity

The higher degree of religiosity among women than men is a persistent feature of the religious landscape. Yet it may not be the function of biological sex per se as of basic psychological differences in levels of psychoticism, which are lower among women. This finding emerges from a study of the frequency of churchgoing and prayer and attitudes toward religion of 1,682 undergraduate students in Wales at an unspecified date. The authors (Gemma Penny, Leslie Francis, and Mandy Robbins) claim to be first in exploring whether sex differences in religiosity persist after individual differences in personality have been controlled for, concluding that once personality is factored in ‘biological sex adds no further impact on religiosity’. The data are reported in ‘Why are Women More Religious than Men? Testing the Explanatory Power of Personality Theory among Undergraduate Students in Wales’, Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Vol. 18, No. 6, 2015, pp. 492-502. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13674676.2015.1079603

Religious hate crimes

On 13 October 2015 the Home Office published Statistical Bulletin 05/15 on Hate Crime, England and Wales, 2014/15 by Hannah Corcoran, Deborah Lader, and Kevin Smith. Of the 52,528 hate crimes recorded by the police in that year, 3,254 (6%) were religion- or belief-related, a rise of 43% on 2013/14. The increase is mainly thought to reflect improved police recording but there was almost certainly some genuine growth in religion hate crimes, linked to trigger events leading to Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism. However, even these figures still represent a significant under-count, due to under-reporting, the Crime Survey for England and Wales suggesting that the true number of incidents of religiously-motivated hate crime each year may be as high as 38,000, fairly evenly split between household and personal crimes. Muslims are most likely to be victims of such crimes. The Statistical Bulletin and associated tables can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2014-to-2015

Strictly Orthodox Jewry

The latest research report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) was published on 15 October 2015: Daniel Staetsky and Jonathan Boyd, Strictly Orthodox Rising: What the Demography of British Jews Tells us about the Future of the Community. It explores the implications of the ‘extraordinary demographic growth of the strictly Orthodox sub-population’ in British Jewry, which is attributed to its high birth rate and low mortality. Making particular use of population pyramids, the authors assess the current and possible future numerical relationships between, and respective characteristics of, the strictly Orthodox and non-strictly Orthodox Jewish communities.

The evidence base mostly comprises estimates derived from the 2011 census of England and Wales, including what is claimed to be the first presentation in the public domain of estimates of British Jewish fertility. The latter show that the strictly Orthodox possess the highest fertility of any religious group in the country and, all other things remaining unchanged, it is set to become the majority of British Jews during the second half of this century. The picture which emerges, through the growth of the strictly Orthodox, is thus one of reversal of the long-standing contraction of British Jewry and of its increasing religiosity. According to the Jewish Chronicle (16 October 2015, p. 14), aspects of the tone and content of the research have come under fire from the Interlink Foundation (an Orthodox charity). This is especially true of JPR’s estimate of the current maximum size of the Orthodox sub-population (43,500) and of the point at which it will account for half of Jewish births (2031). Interlink calculates that there are actually 58,500 Orthodox Jews and that they will provide the majority of births much sooner than 2031. JPR’s report can be downloaded from:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/publication?id=4222#.Vh_ayMtdHX6

Jewish prisoners

The Jewish Chronicle for 9 October 2015 (p. 6) carried a news report about the ‘huge leap in [the] number of Jews behind bars’. This was based upon statistics supplied by the Ministry of Justice, from its National Offender Management Service (NOMS), in response to a Freedom of Information request made by the newspaper. The number of Jews in prison in England and Wales has apparently increased by 82% between 2002 and 2015, nearly four times more than the national prison population. It currently stands at 327, with violence against the person, theft, and drug offences the commonest causes of conviction of Jews. The same source also revealed significant growth in Muslim and Buddhist prisoners since 2002 while there are more than one-third fewer Anglican prisoners. The full NOMS data should be published in due course, but, in the meantime, the Jewish Chronicle report will be found at:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/146678/huge-leap-number-jews-behind-bars

Baha’is

There are brief references to the early Baha’i presence in Great Britain in Peter Smith, ‘The Baha’i Faith: Distribution Statistics, 1925-1949’, Journal of Religious History, Vol. 39, No. 3, September 2015, pp. 352- 69. However, there are no data on British Baha’i membership for this period. Access options to the article are outlined at:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9809.12207/abstract

Dalai Lama’s insights

The British government and royal family have been rolling out the red carpet this past week for the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping. However, according to a YouGov poll for the Free Tibet Campaign, the British public is inclined to side with the assessment of the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader, regarding the government’s motivations for its policy toward China and the protection of human rights in Tibet. ‘Money, money, money. That’s what this is about. Where is morality?’ asked the Dalai Lama. The majority of Britons (69%) agreed with his verdict, while only 8% thought he was wrong with 23% undecided. Online fieldwork was on 14-15 October 2015 among 1,671 adults. The data table is at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/jypdg9dbnd/FreeTibetResults_151015_China_Website.pdf

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religious prejudice, Rites of Passage, Survey news | Tagged Baha'is, Baptist Union, China, Christine Brewster, church attendance, church growth, church membership, Church of England, churches, Churches Trust for Cumbria, churchmanship, clergy fees, Crime Survey for England and Wales, Cumbria, Dalai Lama, Daniel Staetsky, Free Tibet Campaign, funerals, Gemma Penny, Home Office, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Jewish Chronicle, Jews, Jonathan Boyd, Journal of Religious History, Leslie Francis, Mandy Robbins, Mental Health Religion and Culture, Methodist Church, Ministry of Justice, Muslims, orthodox Jews, personality differences, Peter Smith, prisoners, psychological well-being, religious hate crimes, religious prejudice, Rural Theology, SunLife, Tibet, undergraduate students, United Reformed Church, Wales, YouGov | Leave a comment

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

Trustworthiness of Clergy and Other News

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Trustworthiness of clergy

Clergy occupy the middle ground of professionals in terms of their perceived trustworthiness, according to two Opinium Research surveys published on 12 August 2015, for which representative samples of adults were interviewed online in the UK as a whole (12-16 June 2015, n = 2,002) and London (12 June-3 August, n = 1,001). The aim of the investigations was to test the public standing of the police, but 11 other groups (including clergy) were used as comparators. Majorities in both the UK (59%) and London (53%) regarded the clergy as very or quite trustworthy, with 28% and 31% respectively deeming them not very or not at all trustworthy. Nationally, the most adverse views of clergy were held by the 18-24s (37%) and ethnic minorities (40%). Summary data are tabulated below, with full results available via the links at:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/survey-results/brits-untrusting-police

% very/quite trustworthy	UK	London
Nurses	86	83
Doctors	85	84
Teachers	80	79
Armed forces	75	70
Judges	68	65
Police	65	60
Clergy	59	53
Accountants	56	55
Lawyers	52	47
Broadsheet journalists	25	36
Politicians	16	20
Tabloid journalists	13	16

Predicting Anglican extinction

The Church of England’s statistical fortunes may be none too healthy, overall, but it is still likely to see out the present century, just about, according to John Hayward, writing on the blog of the Church Growth Modelling project on 8 July 2015. On present evidence, he predicts, by means of linear regression and extrapolation, that the extinction date for the Church of England will be 2100 in terms of its attendance or 2082 as regards its membership. By contrast, three of its sister Anglican Churches are projected to die out long before that on an index of membership, assuming constant death rates: 2043 in the case of the Church in Wales and Scottish Episcopal Church and 2055 for the Episcopal Church of the USA. Hayward’s data and interpretations are set out at:

http://churchgrowthmodelling.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/anglican-church-decline-in-west-data.html

In a subsequent blog, dated 3 August 2015, Hayward suggests some potential ‘advantages’ of the Church of England which may explain why it faces a slower extinction than the other three Churches. See:

http://churchgrowthmodelling.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/anglican-church-decline-in-west.html

National Survey for Wales

On 7 August 2015 the UK Data Service released as SN 7767 the dataset for National Survey for Wales, 2014-15, the third in the series. Commissioned by the Welsh Government, face-to-face and self-completion interviews were conducted by TNS-BMRB and Beaufort Research between April 2014 and March 2015 with 14,285 adults aged 16 and over resident in private households in Wales. Although the questionnaire contained no specific component on religion or morality, a background question on ‘what is your religion?’ was asked. This naturally enables breakdowns of replies by religion for all the topics which were explored in the survey, focusing especially upon wellbeing and attitudes to public services. The catalogue entry for the dataset, with links to technical and other documentation, is at:

http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/?sn=7767&type=Data%20catalogue

A Level results

The June 2015 GCE A Level provisional results for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland were published by the Joint Council for Qualifications on 13 August 2015. In terms of Religious Studies (RS), there were 25,773 entries, 6% more than in 2014 and 53% more than in 2005. RS remains a relatively gendered examination choice, with 69% of candidates being female, compared with an average of 55% for all subjects. The overall pass rate for A Level RS in 2015 was 99%, one point more than for all subjects combined, 80% obtaining a grade of A*-C. There were also 40,067 entries for an AS Level in RS. Much more detail is available at:

http://www.jcq.org.uk/examination-results/a-levels

Religion of FCO staff

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Diversity and Equality Report, 2014-15, published on 31 July 2015, included details of the religious profession of its UK-based staff. Of the 42% who were willing to make a declaration, 43% identified as Christians, 33% as agnostics or atheists, 7% as non-Christians, with 17% preferring not to say. The overall (relatively low) declaration rate fir religion was the same as for disability and sexual orientation. The report is at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/450587/FFFCO827_Equality_Report_2015_v5.pdf

London mayor

The London Mayoral election may not be until 5 May 2016, but the political parties are in the midst of selecting their preferred candidates to represent them. According to a YouGov poll for LBC Radio published on 13 August 2015, for which 1,153 Londoners were interviewed online on 10-12 August 2015, Muslim candidates could find themselves at a disadvantage (Syed Kamall still being in the chase for the Conservative nomination and Sadiq Khan for the Labour one). Asked whether they would be comfortable in a member of several groups becoming the next Mayor of London, only 55% of the public said they would be comfortable with a Muslim mayor, compared with 90% for a woman, 76% for an ethnic minority person, and 71% for a homosexual. Just under one-third (31%) replied they would be uncomfortable with a Muslim mayor, rising to 39% of Conservatives, 49% of over-60s, and 73% of UKIP voters. Data tables are at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/2vpf4yt9ve/LBCResults_London_trackers_Mayor_tubestrike_150812_W.pdf

Islamic State

More than two-thirds (68%) of adults in the UK think the European Union (EU) has responded badly to the success of Islamic State (IS), more than ten times the number (6%) who believe that it has handled the matter well. These are much the same results as the average for all seven Western European countries in the survey, 67% and 5% respectively, the other nations being France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. Fieldwork was conducted by Opinium Research for Cambre Associates among an online sample of 7.017 adults, including 1,005 in the UK, between 29 June and 10 July 2015. Majorities in both the UK and all seven countries as a whole also judged the EU to have badly handled three other current international issues: refugees arriving from Syria, the Greek debt crisis, and the conflict in Ukraine. Data tables were published on 11 August at:

http://ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/sites/ourinsight.opinium.co.uk/files/op5154_opinium_pr_european_union_-_tables.pdf

Posted in Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, Religion and Politics, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged A Levels, Beaufort Research, Cambre Associates, church growth, Church of England, clergy, diversity, European Union, examinations, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Islamic State, Islamophobia, John Hayward, Joint Council for Qualifications, LBC Radio, London, London mayoral election, Muslims, National Survey for Wales, Opinium Research, professions, Religious Affiliation, religious studies, TNS-BMRB, trustworthiness, 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-Summer Miscellany

Posted on June 20, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Christian voters: post-election

A ComRes poll for Tearfund published on 17 June 2015, and conducted online between 14 and 17 May, revealed details of how 1,507 practising (churchgoing) UK Christians had engaged with the 2015 general election on 7 May. Excluding those who either did not vote or declined to reveal how they had voted, the distribution of party support is tabulated below, alongside data for the electorate as a whole (taken from a YouGov survey of 92,945 voters between 6 and 18 May 2015). It will be seen that practising Christians were less likely than voters overall to back the Conservative, Labour, and UKIP parties, and they were above-average supporters of the Liberal Democrats and Greens. Liberal Democrats were especially popular with members of the historic Free Churches, reflecting a legacy of Nonconformist endorsement of Liberalism. The small number of Catholics interviewed (41 unweighted) is a matter of concern and may have negatively impacted the Labour vote.

% down	Practising Christians	All voters
Conservative	32	38
Labour	27	31
Liberal Democrat	17	8
UKIP	9	13
Green	10	4
Other	5	7

Asked which factors had been most important in helping them decide which party to vote for, 18% of practising Christians mentioned the economy, 13% their affinity for the party, 12% the qualities of the prospective MP, and 11% the promotion of equality/social justice. More generally, the main issues facing Britain today were assessed as inequality/social justice (27%), spiritual/religious decline (18%), immigration/asylum (14%), poverty (12%), NHS (11%), and lack of morality (10%). Issues perceived as facing the world over the next ten years differed somewhat, with environment/climate change topping the list at 28% and the threat posed by Islam/Islamization in fourth place with 15%. Detailed computer tabulations for the poll, including breaks by standard demographics, churchmanship, and denomination, are at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Tearfund_-Post-Election-Polling.pdf

BME voters: pre-election

Not published until well after the general election (on 15 June), but with online fieldwork conducted beforehand (between 16 February and 5 March 2015), was a survey by Survation for Bright Blue among 1,231 black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons. It was specifically designed to capture BME attitudes to immigration and the Conservative Party, including breaks by religious affiliation, but several more general religion-related questions were also posed, which are our focus here. In line with other research, BMEs exhibited relatively high levels of religiosity. Only 14% claimed to have no religion, Christians (38%) and Muslims (30%) being most numerous. Of those professing a faith, just one-fifth said that it was not very or not at all important to them, 42% deeming it extremely and 38% quite important. However, fewer (36% of the whole sample) reported being an active member of a local religious group, with peaks of 43% among the under-35s and 50% for Muslims. On immigration matters, 78% denied that, for being truly British, one had to be a Christian, even a majority of Christians agreeing, while 79% (including the same proportion of Muslims) felt it right that a woman from a strongly Muslim country threatened with execution because of her Christian beliefs should be given asylum in the UK. Full data tables can be found at:

http://survation.com/archive/2015-2/

Social capital (1)

Based on data from the last two waves (1999, 2008) of the European Values Study and the 2010 Ethnic Minority British Election Survey, Ingrid Storm considers ‘Civic Engagement in Britain: The Role of Religion and Inclusive Values’, European Sociological Review, Vol. 31, No. 1, February 2015, pp. 14-29. By means of logistic regression, she tests four hypotheses by identifying the religious and other correlates of membership of and volunteering for a range of organizations, within a theoretical framework of bonding versus bridging social capital (as proposed by Robert Putnam). A principal conclusion is that religion increases volunteering primarily through bonding rather than bridging social networks. However, there are many subtleties to the arguments and findings which it would be impossible to do justice to in the limited space which can be devoted here. Fortunately, the article is available on an open access basis, for anybody to read, at:

http://esr.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/1/14.full.pdf+html

Social capital (2)

Further analysis of the findings of the 2012 and 2014 National Church and Social Action Surveys, undertaken by Jubilee+ and last featured by BRIN in our post of 15 March 2015, has suggested that church-based social action initiatives are perceived to have a positive impact on church growth, in terms of people being added to local congregations, as well as being a social good. However, the extent of the impact is not uniform and varies according to factors such as the type and duration of social action and church size and location. More information is contained in the executive summary of Geoff Knott, Social Action and Church Growth, which can be found at:

http://www.jubilee-plus.org/Publisher/File.aspx?ID=153728

European Values Study

Better late than never, we should report publication of an important collection of 17 essays on the results of Wave 4 (2008) of the European Values Study (EVS, the fieldwork for which was actually conducted in Britain between August 2009 and March 2010): Value Contrasts and Consensus in Present-Day Europe: Painting Europe’s Moral Landscapes, edited by Wil Arts and Loek Halman (Leiden: Brill, 2014, ISBN 9789004254619, hardback). The volume, which is ‘attuned to both the descriptive and the theory-testing traditions of the EVS’, is arranged thematically rather than geographically, and operates mainly at the European level, so there is relatively little country-specific content. Nevertheless, the two chapters on religion contain some interesting insights:

Nienke Moor, ‘Religious Vitality and Church Attendance in Europe’ (pp. 213-30)
David Voas and Stefanie Doebler, ‘Secularization in Europe: An Analysis of Inter-Generational Religious Change’ (pp. 231-50)

Freedom of worship

Asked which of six freedoms or rights they thought most important, freedom to worship whatever god or religion people wanted was ranked fifth by 1,000 children aged 8-14 interviewed online about Magna Carta by OnePoll in May 2015, securing 16% of the vote. The top freedom was that nobody should be enslaved (45%). The information is derived from a graphic published in The Sunday Times, 14 June 2015, main section, p. 14. At the time of writing, no public domain online report of the survey has been traced.

Church of Scotland statistics

Church of Scotland congregational statistical returns to the recent General Assembly, for the year ending 31 December 2014, revealed a continuing sharp decline in the Kirk. A ten-year comparison of key performance indicators, expressed as absolute and relative figures, is tabulated below, with the full returns appended to the report of the Legal Questions Committee, on pp. 6.10-6.14 of the General Assembly ‘blue book’ at:

http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/27119/2015_Vol_I_Blue_Book.pdf

Absolute figures	2004	2014	% change
Congregations	1,541	1,379	-10.5
Elders	41,621	31,146	-25.2
Communicants: all	535,834	380,163	-29.1
Communicants: admissions	9,136	4,643	-49.2
Baptisms	7,745	4,045	-47.8
Relative figures	2003	2013	% change
Communicants as % of adult population	13.7	9.0	-34.0
Admissions as % all communicants	1.7	1.4	-19.6
Baptisms as % of births	15.6	8.2	-47.5

Religiously aggravated offending in Scotland

Neil Davidson’s report on Religiously Aggravated Offending in Scotland in 2014-15 was published by the Scottish Government on 12 June 2015. The number of charges with a religious aggravation under Section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 was 569, 4% less than in 2013-14, 17% less than in 2012-13, and 37% less than in 2011-12 (when there were 897 charges). The decrease is only partly attributable to the use, during the past three years, of separate charges under Section 1 of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012, for this accounted for only 48 additional religious charges in 2014-15, making a total for the year of 617. The report is at:

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00479075.pdf

Meanwhile, the Scottish Government has also released headline findings from a poll of Scottish public opinion about the 2012 Act as it affects offensive behaviour at football matches. The survey was conducted by YouGov in early June 2015 among an online sample of 1,044 Scottish residents. There was overwhelming (80%) support for the legislation, with 82% finding offensive sectarian singing and chanting at football matches and 78% disagreeing that they constituted an important part of football culture. Summary data appear in a set of PowerPoint slides at:

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00478775.pptx

Islamic Relief polling

On 15 June 2015, on the eve of Ramadan, Islamic Relief issued a press release publicizing a YouGov poll it had commissioned among a sample of 6,641 UK adults on 5-9 June. Relatively few data were actually cited, but two conclusions were drawn by Islamic Relief: a) a sharp decline in support for refugees, the number of people saying they should not be welcomed to Britain increasing by almost one-third compared to another YouGov survey a year before; and b) what were described as ‘hugely negative’ views of Muslims. The latter claim seemingly derived from the answers to an open question in which respondents were asked to mention three words or phrases which they associated with the term ‘Muslim’, ‘terrorism’ topping the list with a score of 12% and ‘extremist’ cited by 5%. The press release is at:

http://www.islamic-relief.org.uk/news/poll-on-eve-of-ramadan-shows-hugely-negative-view-of-muslims-and-sharp-decline-in-support-for-refugees/

Intrigued to know more, BRIN asked for a copy of the detailed data tables from this poll, which Islamic Relief generously (and expeditiously) provided. These contain breaks for all questions by most key demographics, including religious affiliation but excluding voting intention. Two additional points are worth highlighting. First, a majority of the population has had personal experience of Muslims living in the UK, principally as work colleagues (32%), as fellow school pupils (either themselves or their children, 29%), or as close relatives or friends (16%). Just 39% denied ever having any close contacts with Muslims during their educational, leisure, or professional lives, peaking at 53% of over-55s, 57% of retired persons, 62% of Presbyterians, and 74% of residents in Northern Ireland. Second, there was an exceptionally high (94%) awareness that Ramadan is a holy month for Muslims, albeit 21% considered that it should not be celebrated openly in the UK, a plurality of 49% disagreeing with that proposition, with 29% neutral or undecided. An abridged version of the data tables, missing some of the breaks by demographics, was posted by YouGov on its website on 18 June at:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/3kri630dkh/Results-for-Islamic-Relief-Islam-in-the-UK-150618.pdf

Islamophobia

On 18 June 2015 the Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist, and Post-Fascist Studies at Teesside University published the third of its annual reports on Islamophobic incidents, based on data recorded by the Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks) initiative: Mark Littler and Matthew Feldman, Tell MAMA Reporting, 2014/2015: Annual Monitoring, Cumulative Extremism, and Policy Implications. During the period in question (1 March 2014-28 February 2015) there were 548 anti-Muslim incidents, a significant reduction on the 734 cases for 2013-14, when there was a pronounced spike following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby on the streets of London at the hands of Islamists. Of these 548 incidents, 73% occurred online, fewer than half of which were notified to the police, and mostly involving anti-Muslim abuse or anti-Muslim literature, rather than actual threats. As might be expected, specific Islamist outrages were responsible for short-term increases in incidents, notably following the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris on 7 January 2015. The report is available at:

http://www.tees.ac.uk/docs/DocRepo/Research/Tell_Mama3.pdf

Posted in church attendance, News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Religious prejudice, Survey news | Tagged BMEs, Bright Blue, church attendance, church growth, Church of Scotland, Civic Engagement, ComRes, David Voas, Ethnic Minority British Election Survey, European Sociological Review, European Values Study, football matches, general election, Geoff Knott, Immigration, Ingrid Storm, Islamic Relief, Islamophobia, Jubilee Plus, Loek Halman, Mark Littler, Matthew Feldman, Muslims, National Church and Social Action Surveys, Neil Davidson, Nienke Moor, OnePoll, practising Christians, Ramadan, religious freedom, religious prejudice, religiously aggravated offending, Scotland, sectarianism, secularization, Social Capital, Stefanie Doebler, Sunday Times, Survation, Tearfund, Teesside University, Tell MAMA, voting, Wil Arts, YouGov | 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

Good Death and Other News

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Good death

Time was when religion was the cardinal attribute of a ‘good death’. But no more, it seems, according to a ComRes survey for the National Council for Palliative Care published on 18 May 2015, for which 2,016 adult Britons were interviewed online on 29-30 April. Asked to rank six factors in terms of importance for ensuring a ‘good death’, only 5% put ‘having your religious/spiritual needs met’ in first position while 60% placed it last, the mean score being 5.27 out of six. The next score was 3.68 for being involved in decisions about end-of-life care, and the lowest of all (and thus the most popular option) was 2.33 for being pain free. Indeed, for 33% the top priority was being pain free, for 17% being with family and friends, and for 13% retaining one’s dignity. There were comparatively few variations by demographics, apart from in London where having religious/spiritual needs met was the most important factor for 11%, although even here 47% rated it least significant. Data tables are available at:

http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/National-Council-for-Palliative-Care_Public-opinion-on-death-and-dying.pdf

Geographical knowledge

They may be among the most iconic landmarks in the country, but a significant minority of Brits are unable to recognize Canterbury Cathedral and St Paul’s Cathedral as being in the UK. This is according to a poll of 2,000 adults conducted on behalf of Mercure Hotels and published on 22 May 2015. Shown pictures of a number of famous locations, and given multiple choice answers, 65% correctly identified St Paul’s Cathedral but 28% confused it with The Vatican and 6% thought it was somewhere else. Canterbury Cathedral was recognized by 82% but 15% claimed it was Notre Dame in Paris, with 2% suggesting other places. A similar lack of knowledge was displayed for more secular landmarks. No data tables are available, and this summary is taken from the report at:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3091436/Great-Stupid-Britain-New-survey-finds-Brits-think-Brighton-Pavilion-Taj-Mahal-Mr-Darcy-s-Pemberley-real-stately-home-St-Paul-s-Vatican.html

Meanwhile …

St Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece, has been voted the nation’s favourite building in a survey for UKTV published on 21 May 2015, for which 2,000 adults aged 18 and over were interviewed online by OnePoll during April. St Paul’s Cathedral attracted a vote of 38%, with Stonehenge and the Houses of Parliament in second and third places (with 30% and 26%, respectively). Other ecclesiastical buildings to make the top 20 were Westminster Abbey (eighth, 14%), Durham Cathedral (eleventh, 8%), and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge (fourteenth, 8%). St Paul’s Cathedral also topped the poll for being the most impressive feat of design in the country, being voted for by 68%, almost double the figure for Westminster Abbey (38%). No data tables have been released, but UKTV’s press release can be found at:

http://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/nations-favourite-buildings-revealed/

Faith-based social action

The latest attempt to quantify faith-based social action was published by the Cinnamon Network on 20 May 2015: Cinnamon Faith Action Audit National Report. It derives from an online survey of 4,440 local churches and other faith groups in 57 locations throughout the UK in February 2015, of which 2,110 responded saying they were actively working to support their local community; 94% of them were Christian. These 2,110 groups were mobilizing 139,600 volunteers and 9,177 paid staff to benefit 3,494,634 individuals in 2014 through 16,068 projects with a total financial value of £235 million (including a calculation of volunteer hours at the living wage level). Scaled up for the 60,761 faith groups in the UK, faith-based social action is estimated by the Cinnamon Network to be worth over £3 billion per annum and to support over 47 million beneficiaries. However, it should be noted that the sample was recruited through the invitation of local champions and may not be statistically representative. The report is available at:

http://www.cinnamonnetwork.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Final-National-Report.pdf

Ethnic minorities and the general election

Black and minority ethnic (BME) Britons have traditionally favoured the Labour Party, but one-third voted for the Conservatives in the 2015 general election (held on 7 May), according to a Survation poll for British Future conducted among an online sample of 2,067 BMEs between 8 and 15 May 2015. Voting by religious groups (for the 79% of the sample who voted) is tabulated below, from which it will be seen that the Conservatives especially appealed to Buddhist, Hindu, and Sikh electors, Labour to Muslims, and the smaller parties to Buddhists and the non-religious. British Future’s press release of 25 May 2015 is available at:

http://www.britishfuture.org/articles/ethnic-minority-votes-up-for-grabs/

Full data tables can be found at:

http://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/BFBME-Tables-25-05-15.pdf

% across	Conservative	Labour	Other parties
All BMEs	33	52	15
Christian	31	56	13
Muslim	25	64	11
Buddhist	54	25	21
Hindu	49	41	10
Sikh	49	41	10
Not religious	26	50	24

Young people and Muslims

There is significant negativity toward Muslims on the part of young people, according to findings from a study of 5,945 10-16-year-olds at 60 English schools in 2012-14 and published by Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC) on 19 May 2015. This is associated with an exaggerated notion of the size of the Muslim presence in England, the average estimate by pupils being 36% of the population, seven times the real figure. Questionnaires had been sent to schools ahead of visits by the SRTRC team, and, although the sample is not claimed as being representative, the ethnic and religious profile is said to broadly match the 2011 census.

Summary data have been published by The Guardian at:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/may/19/most-children-think-immigrants-are-stealing-jobs-schools-study-shows

They reveal that:

42% acknowledge there are poor relations between Muslims and non-Muslims
41% view forced marriages as being common in Islam
31% agree that Muslims are taking over England
29% think Muslim women are oppressed
26% believe Islam encourages terrorism and extremism
19% disagree that Muslims make a positive contribution to English society
14% disagree that Islam is a peaceful religion

Slightly different figures are quoted in the SRTRC press release at:

http://www.srtrc.org/news/news-and-events?news=5776

Islamic State

There has been limited British polling of attitudes to Islamic State (IS) thus far this year, doubtless because of pollsters’ preoccupation with the general election campaign but also perhaps because of a perception that IS has suffered some setbacks (until very recently, that is). However, a YouGov survey published on 22 May 2015, and conducted online among 1,494 Britons on 18-19 May, has found that 50% of all adults (and 63% of over-60s) assess that IS has become more powerful over the past six months and only 5% less, with 32% detecting its position as stable. Although only 33% are aware for certain that the RAF is currently taking part in air strikes against IS, 59% approve of such RAF participation and 55% would like to see it scaled up (men particularly so, 67%). Full data tables, minus breaks by voting intention (which seem to have all but disappeared from pollsters’ websites following their poor performance in the general election, now the subject of independent audit), are available via the link in the blog post at:

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/05/23/public-back-raf-air-strikes-worry-isis-winning/

Anti-Semitism

On 13 May 2015 the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) published an important 32-page policy paper summarizing some (but by no means all) recent research into British anti-Semitism and outlining the principles of a future research strategy in this area: Jonathan Boyd and L. Daniel Staetsky, Could it Happen Here? What Existing Data Tell Us about Contemporary Antisemitism in the UK. The paper covers: a) the attitudes of non-Jews toward Jews, principally on the basis of surveys undertaken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project and the Anti-Defamation League and of anti-Semitic incidents recorded by the Community Security Trust (CST); b) Jewish responses to anti-Semitism, taken from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) studies and the JPR’s 2013 National Jewish Community Survey; and c) an analysis of the perpetrators of anti-Semitism, mainly from CST and FRA data. The report is available for download at:

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/JPR.2015.Policy_Debate_-_Contemporary_Antisemitism.pdf

To quote JPR: ‘The report demonstrates that existing data present a complex and multi-faceted picture of reality, proving some existing hypotheses beyond any reasonable doubt, but challenging others. It further maintains that research data on antisemitism in the UK vary in quality, and many of the outputs seem to generate far more heat than light. It argues that much more work needs to be done in coordinating research efforts, maximising the value of existing datasets, focusing on the areas of greatest concern, and ensuring that any data collected and analysed are strongly concentrated on the most important issues: understanding the threat, assessing whether it is growing, declining or stable, and providing genuine policy insights for international, national and Jewish communal leaders, as well as Jews more generally.’ Significantly, there is no mention here of non-Jewish (including academic) audiences for research data in this field.

Reflections on religious surveys

Abdul-Azim Ahmed reflects on the utility (and pitfalls) of sample surveys on religion and belief in a post on the On Religion blog on 5 May 2015 at:

http://www.onreligion.co.uk/7-out-of-10-people-are-sick-of-surveys/

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Ethnicity, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged Abdul-Azim Ahmed, Anti-Semitism, British Future, Canterbury Cathedral, Cinnamon Network, ComRes, Daniel Staetsky, end-of-life care, ethnic minorities, faith-based social action, general election, good death, Institute for Jewish Policy Research, Islam, Islamic State, Jonathan Boyd, Mercure Hotels, Muslims, National Council for Palliative Care, On Religion, OnePoll, RAF, religious/spiritual needs, Show Racism the Red Card, Social Capital, St Paul's Cathedral, Survation, UKTV, voting, Westminster Abbey, YouGov, young people | 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

Britain Uncovered and Other News

Posted on April 26, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Britain uncovered

The recent ‘Britain Uncovered’ poll commissioned by The Observer from Opinium Research, among an online sample of 1,019 adults, included several questions of religious interest. The proportion associating with any religion was 61%, albeit significantly lower among those self-defining as left-wing (49%) as right-wing (71%), with 17% identifying as agnostics and 21% as atheists. However, only 29% of those associating with a religion said that they actively practised it, for example by attending services, equivalent to 18% of the entire population. Of the whole sample, 61% agreed, and just 15% disagreed, that religion is a negative influence in the world rather than a force for good. Two-thirds (65%) acknowledged that Islamophobia is common in Britain, and 48% definitely and 31% probably believed that, in the light of Islamist extremism, British Muslims should make a special effort to state their allegiance to the country. Full data tables from the survey are not yet online; the following details have been abstracted from the summary at:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/19/britain-uncovered-survey-attitudes-beliefs-britons-2015

Religion of parliamentary candidates

A poll by Whitehouse Consulting of 225 parliamentary candidates for marginal seats in the forthcoming general election has revealed that 42% did not identify as members of any religious faith, with 34% claiming to be atheists (including half of Labour Party and Green Party candidates). Just 16% identified themselves as belonging to the Church of England, albeit this rose to 41% of Conservative and 27% of UKIP candidates. Overall, belief in a deity ran at 37%. A press release about the poll was issued on 17 April 2015 at:

http://www.whitehouseconsulting.co.uk/survey-shows-marginal-seat-candidates-will-be-white-male-and-only-somewhat-religious/

Religiosity and voting

In our post of 12 April 2015, we highlighted findings from an analysis of religious affiliation and voting intention undertaken by YouGov for the Church Times on the basis of online interviews with 36,579 electors between 1 and 28 March 2015. The study confirmed that professing Anglicans are disproportionately likely to favour the Conservative Party and Roman Catholics the Labour Party. Further investigation of the same dataset by self-assessed religiosity has now revealed that, excluding the 13% who did not know how they would vote and the 6% who said they would not vote at all, the Conservatives are more likely than average to attract people who describe themselves as religious and the smaller parties those who regard themselves as non-religious. The results are tabulated below:

% down	All	Religious	Non-religious
Conservative	34	42	29
Labour	34	31	34
Liberal Democrat	7	6	8
UKIP	14	14	15
Other parties	11	7	13

Further statistics are available at:

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

Would you buy a used car from … ?

The public standing, including the perceived trustworthiness, of clergy and priests has taken a bit of a tumble during recent decades. So much so that only one in four of the 300 people questioned by Gorkana Surveys for the vehicle data firm HPI said that they would most trust a vicar to sell them a used car in the private market. The good news, however, is that no other profession fared any better, even motor mechanics getting only a 19% vote of confidence. A blog about the survey was published by HPI on 20 April 2015 at:

https://blog.hpicheck.com/2015/04/20/trusting-sellers/#more-1797

Clergy dyads

Fresh light is shed on the incidence and patterns of ministry of clergy married to clergy in the Church of England in a new article by Susie Collingridge, ‘Patterns of Ministry of Clergy Married to Clergy in the Church of England’, Journal of Anglican Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1, May 2015, pp. 68-91. Using the online edition of Crockford’s Clerical Directory in early 2013 as her source, she identified the number of such clergy as 26% greater than previous estimates, at 1,160, of whom 994 were active in the ministry, equivalent to 5% of all active Anglican clergy. However, she also found that a higher than normal proportion of clergy married to clergy (20%) were in non-parochial roles such as chaplains, and that it was very rare in clergy marriages for wives to hold more senior positions than their husbands. The article can be accessed via institutional subscription or pay-per-view at:

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9652924&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S1740355314000205

Gender equality in the Church in Wales

The meeting of the Governing Body of the Church in Wales in Llandrindod Wells on 15-16 April 2015 considered a Report of the Working Group Appointed by the Standing Committee to Review Representation of Women in the Church in Wales, 2015. Having analysed statistics of gender balance among candidates for the ministry, current clergy, holders of senior clerical posts, clergy presiding at cathedral services, members of diocesan boards of finance, and members of provincial committees, the report concluded that:

There is great difference between dioceses in the representation of women
There are few senior appointments held by women and women are not even occupying the posts which would be expected to act as the first stage in achieving a senior post
Equality of representation on committees has not been achieved and early progress has not been maintained
A number of the Cathedrals do not have women either as part of the ministry team or on their Chapters

The report can be found at:

http://cinw.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/10-RepresentationWomen.pdf

Edward Bailey (1935-2015)

Revd Professor Edward Ian Bailey, who initiated the formal study of implicit religion (the concept of ‘secular faith’) in 1968, died on 22 April 2015. An Anglican clergyman (notably as Rector of Winterbourne in the Diocese of Bristol from 1970 to 2006), he was also convenor of the annual Denton Hall Conferences on Implicit Religion from 1978, founding director of the Centre for the Study of Implicit Religion and Contemporary Spirituality, a member of the executive committee of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality, and visiting professor at three British universities. Although his own research and books were not particularly characterized by quantitative methods, he was encouraging of those who deployed statistical approaches, not least by publishing their articles in the journal Implicit Religion, which he established in 1998 and edited until his death.

1851 religious census of Warwickshire

On 30 March 1851 the Government organized, as part of the decennial census of population, a census of the accommodation and attendance at all places of worship in the British Isles. The experiment was never repeated and only summaries of the returns were ever published at the time. However, the original schedules have survived at The National Archives for most parts of England and Wales, and these have been the subject of many scholarly editions during the past four decades. The returns for Warwickshire are the latest to be published: The 1851 Census of Religious Worship: Church, Chapel, and Meeting Place in Mid Nineteenth-Century Warwickshire, edited by Keith Geary (Publications of the Dugdale Society, Vol. XLVII, Stratford-upon-Avon, the Society, 2014, xii + 350pp., ISBN 9780852200971, £30.00 + £3.00 postage and packing, hardback). The main body of the text (pp. 85- 323) comprises an annotated transcript of the 590 returns for the county, arranged by registration districts and sub-districts. This is preceded by a substantial introduction (pp. 1-74) which briefly sketches the historical and topographical background before providing a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of and commentary on the Warwickshire data. There are indexes by persons, places, and subjects (including denominations), plus maps and a bibliography.

Posted in church attendance, Historical studies, Ministry studies, News from religious organisations, Official data, People news, Religion and Politics, Religious Census, Survey news | Tagged Church in Wales, Church of England, clergy, Dugdale Society, Edward Bailey, gender equality, Gorkana Surveys, HPI, implicit religion, Islamophobia, Journal of Anglican Studies, Keith Geary, Muslims, Opinium Research, parliamentary candidates, Religious Affiliation, religious census, self-assessed religiosity, Susie Collingridge, The Observer, trust, used cars, voting, Warwickshire, Whitehouse Consulting | Leave a comment

Religiosity and Other News

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Clive D. Field

Self-assessed religiosity

In our post of 11 January 2015, we reported on the British results from the WIN/Gallup International End of Year 2014 poll, focusing on a question about trust in religious professionals, but also noting findings on two other religion-related topics, one of them self-assessed religiosity. On 13 April 2015 WIN/Gallup International and ORB International, which undertook the British fieldwork, posted online the full religiosity data and an associated religiosity index for the 64,000 respondents from 65 countries participating in the global poll. These can be downloaded from:

http://www.opinion.co.uk/article.php?s=are-you-a-religious-person-poll-results-from-65-countries

Britain came 59th out of 65 nations in terms of the proportion of the population self-rating as a religious person, with just 30%, under half the global mean (63%) and well behind Thailand at the head of the index (94%). The six countries less religious than Britain were Hong Kong, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden, Japan, and China. Two-thirds of Britons either described themselves as not a religious person (53%) or a convinced atheist (13%), with 4% undecided. The results for selected countries, arranged by region, are shown below.

% across	Religious person	Not religious person	Convinced atheist
Global mean	63	22	11
Europe
Austria	39	44	10
Belgium	44	30	18
Czech Republic	23	45	30
Denmark	42	40	12
Finland	56	32	10
France	40	35	18
Germany	34	42	17
Great Britain	30	53	13
Greece	71	15	6
Ireland	45	41	10
Italy	74	18	6
Netherlands	26	51	15
Poland	86	10	2
Portugal	60	28	9
Russia	70	18	5
Spain	37	35	20
Sweden	19	59	17
Switzerland	38	46	12
North America
Canada	40	41	12
USA	56	33	6
Asia
China	7	29	61
India	76	21	2
Japan	13	31	31
Korea	44	49	6
Pakistan	88	10	1

The number of Britons self-rating as religious seems first to have been measured (by Opinion Research Centre) in January-February 1968, when it stood at 58%. It was 36% when recorded by YouGov earlier this month. The question has been asked many times in between, albeit with variant wording, leading to some volatility in results. However, there has been a clear pattern of decline in religiosity since the 1990s, with, during the first half of the present decade, between 55% and 75% viewing themselves as irreligious. This is a much higher proportion of adults than professed no religion in the 2011 census of Britain (25%) or in the 2012 Integrated Household Survey (30%) or who doubted or denied the existence of God or a higher power in two YouGov polls of 2013 (35%).

Personal well-being

Christians tend to experience the highest levels of personal well-being in the UK and Muslims and religious ‘nones’ the lowest. This is suggested by an analysis of aggregated data for adults aged 16 and over from the Annual Population Survey for April 2011-March 2014 which was published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 27 March 2015 as How Does Personal Well-Being Vary by Sex, Disability, Ethnicity, and Religion? Respondents were asked to assess, on a scale running from 0 to 10, overall ‘how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?’; ‘to what extent do you feel that the things you do in your life are worthwhile?’; ‘how happy did you feel yesterday?’; and ‘how anxious did you feel yesterday?’ Means for each of these four measures are tabulated below, while the report, with links to data tables, can be read at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_400162.pdf

Mean scores out of 10	Life satisfaction	Life worthwhile	Happiness yesterday	Anxiety yesterday
All adults	7.46	7.70	7.33	3.03
No religion	7.34	7.51	7.15	2.98
Christian	7.54	7.81	7.43	3.01
Buddhist	7.31	7.57	7.39	3.23
Hindu	7.48	7.66	7.46	3.26
Jewish	7.44	7.81	7.31	3.29
Muslim	7.27	7.52	7.20	3.28
Sikh	7.39	7.67	7.32	3.23
Other	7.25	7.62	7.25	3.27

ONS does not attempt to explore the root cause of these religious differences in any detail, except to note that variations between and within equality groups generally can be attributed to various factors, including socio-economic characteristics and self-reported state of health. The relatively older age profile of Christians and younger profile of Muslims and ‘nones’ is likely to account for some of the difference, as is the relative deprivation of Muslims.

Muslims and non-Muslims

In our last post, on 12 April 2015, we reported on a telephone survey of Muslim opinion conducted by Survation for Sky News, noting that a parallel online poll of 1,001 non-Muslim Britons aged 18 and over had also been conducted for comparative purposes, the data tables for which were not then available. The tables for the latter study have now been released and can be found, together with the Muslim data, via links in a blog at:

http://survation.com/british-muslims-is-the-divide-increasing/

A comparison of Muslim and non-Muslim views is shown below, revealing a gulf on all issues, and very wide on some. This exemplified that 44% of non-Muslims admitted to being more suspicious of Muslims than they had been a few years back, rising to 49% of men and over-55s.

% down	Muslims	Non-Muslims
Values of Islam
Compatible with British values	71	22
Incompatible with British values	16	52
British Muslims doing enough to integrate
Agree	64	18
Disagree	21	57
Muslims should condemn terrorism carried out in name of Islam
Agree	51	67
Disagree	40	17
Sympathy with UK Muslims fighting in Syria
A lot/some	28	14
None	61	77
Police/MI5 contributing to radicalization of young Muslims
Agree	39	16
Disagree	29	50

Further recent exploration of anti-Muslim sentiment is contained in Ingrid Storm’s post on the Democratic Audit UK blog on 17 April 2015. Using data from the 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey, she shows that Muslims continue to be less accepted than other religious or ethnic minorities in Britain. She suggests that ‘negative media portrayals of Muslims and associations with Islamist terrorism amplify prejudice against this group among all parts of the population.’ See:

http://www.democraticaudit.com/?p=12510

Anglican church growth

Revd Dr Mark Hart, Rector of Plemstall and Guilden Sutton in the Diocese of Chester, has just (13 April 2015) published ‘From Delusion to Reality: An Evaluation of From Anecdote to Evidence’, the Church of England’s influential report (January 2014) on its church growth research programme (2011-13) which is now being used to drive ‘Reform and Renewal’ in the Church. A mathematician and engineer by background, Hart carefully reviews From Anecdote to Evidence in the light of the original research by Professor David Voas and Laura Watts of the University of Essex. Hart concludes that ‘From Anecdote to Evidence systematically misrepresents or misinterprets the underlying report by David Voas and Laura Watts, thereby exaggerating the usefulness of the findings for numerical growth’.

More specifically, Hart highlights eight major weaknesses in From Anecdote to Evidence, the first being its over-dependence upon self-reported assessments of growth, which are inflated and biased, rather than using statistical data from parish returns. On the basis of his critique, he calls into question both the From Evidence to Action initiative designed to encourage parishes to implement the findings presented in From Anecdote to Evidence, as well as the decision to borrow at least £100 million from the future, using Church Commissioners’ funds, in order to advance the ‘Reform and Renewal’ agenda for the Church, doubting that this will give an adequate return on investment either in terms of finance or church growth. Hart’s 18-page paper is extensively covered in the Church Times for 17 April 2015 (main report on p. 5, leader comment on p. 12) and can be downloaded in full from:

http://revmarkhart.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/from-delusion-to-reality.html

Upcoming events

The Church of England’s annual ‘Faith in Research’ conference is to be held at Novotel, Birmingham on 14 May 2015. The theme this year is ‘Everyone Counts’, the title of a congregational survey carried out in a sample of Anglican parishes in 2014, and about whose results Sarah Barter-Godfrey will be talking. Other plenary speakers include Professor Leslie Francis on psychological type and the Church of England, and Tom Sefton and Bethany Eckley on church-based social action. There are also parallel sessions on ministry, mission, occasional offices, and church growth. More details at:

https://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/facts-stats/research-statistics/faith-in-research-conferences.aspx

‘Rethinking Modern British Studies’ is an international conference hosted by the University of Birmingham on 1-3 July 2015. Its extensive programme includes several panel sessions on religious themes, including one on the last day on ‘Public Opinion, Polling and Cultural and Religious Change in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Britain’, with papers by Marcus Collins (on measuring permissiveness), Clive Field (on indicators of religiosity), and Ben Clements (on the religious beliefs and social attitudes of Catholics). More details at:

https://mbsbham.wordpress.com/programme-rethinking-modern-british-studies/

Professor Linda Woodhead is running a residential course on ‘Britain’s Religious Crisis’ at Gladstone’s Library, Hawarden on 3-5 July 2015. Drawing on her own empirical research, she intends to: highlight the growing values gap between religion and society; chart the rapid rise of religious ‘nones’ and the ‘seculigious’; review the battles for the soul of traditional religion and the role of politics and the media; and suggest how to resolve the crisis and move forward. More details at:

https://www.gladstoneslibrary.org/events/events-courses-list/britains-religious-crisis

Posted in News from religious organisations, Religion and Politics, Religion and Social Capital, Survey news | Tagged Annual Population Survey, atheists, British Social Attitudes Survey, church growth, Church of England, Democratic Audit, Faith in Research, Ingrid Storm, Islam, life satisfaction, Linda Woodhead, Mark Hart, Muslims, non-Muslims, Office for National Statistics, ORB International, Religiosity, religious person, Sky News, Survation, well-being, WIN/Gallup International | Leave a comment

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