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Religion in the United Kingdom
UK religious data: 2004 to now
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2004 data:
A government report revealed that about 74% of adults in England and
Wales regard themselves as Christians. Another approximately 6% identify
with another religion. But only about 7% of Christians in the UK actually
attend church regularly. Hanne Stinson, director of the British Humanist
Association, said that many adults are "cultural Christians."
They see themselves as being Christian in the same way that they are
British, almost in a tribal way. She said: "People label themselves with
what they were brought up with...If they haven't gone to church for 20
years, they still put themselves down on official forms as 'Church of
England'." 1
More 2004 data:
According to The Telegraph, the results of the 2004-DEC "YouGov"
survey:
"... provides overwhelming evidence that the British are
now a largely irreligious people. Only a minority believe that God exists
and almost everyone acknowledges that Britain is becoming an increasingly
secular society...the national mood appears to be one of benign
indifference."
YouGov polled 1,981 adults across Britain during 2004-DEC-16 to 18. The
margin of error was about ±2.5 percentage points. Some
results:
 | A minority, 44%, believe in God. This is a drop from 77% in 1968 -- an
unusually rapid change for religious matters. |
| Of those who believe in God, 3% believe in more than one God and 10%
believe in "some other kind of Supreme Being." |
| 33% believe in the existence of Heaven |
| 25% believe in Hell. This result has changed little since 1968. |
| Over a third of young adults describe themselves as Agnostic or Atheist.
1 |
2005 data:
After reviewing a report by the University of Manchester
in 2005-AUG,
News.Telegraph reported that "Organized religion is in near-terminal decline
in Britain because parents have only a 50-50 chance of passing on belief to
their offspring." 2 Dr. David Voas, who oversaw the study said that
religion would reach:
"... fairly low levels [before very long] The dip in
religious belief is not temporary or accidental, it is a generational phenomenon
- the decline has continued year on year. The fact that children are only half
as likely to believe as their parents indicates that, as a society, we are at an
advanced stage of secularization." 2
Their report was based on interviews of 10,500 households over 14 years and
used data from the British Household Panel and British Social
Attitudes surveys. They found that between 1991 and 1999:
| The importance of belief in God fell from 37.8% to 32.5% |
| The percentage of people who attended church services fell by 3.5% |
| The percentage of people who regard themselves as affiliated with a
religion dropped by 2.9%. |
There was diverse reaction to the survey results:
| Steve Jenkins, a spokesperson for the Church of England was skeptical.
He said: |
"There is an assumption that people 'catch' religion from their
parents, but many people come to faith through the grandparents, schools,
and their friends. He said that the study had not released "proper
evidence...There is nothing to back up the claims. Our recent statistics
show that congregations are actually increasing, as is the number of
ordinations."
Church of England data shows that in 2004, the ordinations
of 564 people were approved -- the highest figure in six years.
Congregations in 2003 had increased in size by 1 per cent. This compares to
a total population growth which averages about 0.3% a year. 3
| The National Secular Society welcomed the results. Their vice president,
Terry Sanderson, said: |
"We find [belief] embarrassing as a country and it
is time we accepted that...People may say they believe in Christianity but
if you question them even slightly it becomes clear that they cannot accept
the central tenets of its faith -- they don't believe in its supernatural
explanations."
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More 2005 data:
The Mori poll polled 4,270 adults during 2005-May. The margin of error would have been less
than ±2 percentage points. Some results:
According to reporter Ruth Gledhill, the document
Religious Trends published by Christian Research estimates that:
| By 2035, 1.96 million Muslims -- double the number
attending today -- will be attending mosques. They will outnumber Christians
who attend churches. |
| Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast
that the "Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will
become financially unviable." By 2030, the number of Anglican churches
in the UK will drop to 10,000 with an average attendance of 35 persons. |
| By 2050 only about 0.9 million Christians will go
to church. There will be only 3,600 churchgoing Methodists, 87,899 members
of the Church of Enland, 101,700 Roman Catholics, 4,400 Presbyterians,
123,000 Baptists, and 168,000 independent Christians. |
| Calls for disestablishment of the Church of
England, which has been the official church, will likely result. |
Martin Salter, the Labour Member of Parliament for
Reading West and a member of Reading inter-faith group, said:
"I think all faiths could be treated equally under
our constitution. These figures demonstrate the absurdity of favoring one
brand of Christianity over other parts of the Christian faith and the many
other religions that grace our shores."
Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary said:
"We will look at these findings very closely.
Britain is a secular democracy with a strong Christian tradition but many
faiths have a home in Britain."
David Voas, a professor of population studies at the
Institute for Social Change at the University of Manchester, said:
| "The difficulty is in retaining the children who
have churchgoing parents. So long as churchgoing is something that gets you
laughed at, so long as there is a social stigma attached to being a
churchgoing young person, it will be difficult to reverse the trend." |
| For young Muslims, "Being religious is a way that
you show you are different, that you are proud of your heritage. One of the
ways young Muslims assert their identity is by being more observant than
their parents." 6 |
Reporter Sarah Miloudi reports that, according to the
same study, church attendance in Wales could decline to less than a quarter of
its current level by 2050, from 200,000 to fewer than 40,000. In England it is
predicted to fall from three million to 700,000. In Scotland it is expected to
decline from 550,000 to 140,000 in the same period. The study notes that
Methodist and Presbyterian members are mainly over 65 years-of-age, are dying
off, and not being replaced. A church merger is predicted.
The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, noted that the role of the church in
today’s society is changing. Church attendance is no longer a good measure of
its effect on society.
Lynda Barley, head of research for the Church of
England, said that her church felt there was “no reason” to believe attendance
would drop as predicted.
The Rev James Karran of the Ararat Baptist church in
Whitchurch, Cardiff, and the non-denominational pub church, Solace, said:
"I have read about some figures of where we will be
in terms of church going in the next few years. The church is seen as
outdated and irrelevant. I do not think this is the case, and I think the
Christian message of hope still has a lot to say. I think a lot depends on
how this message is put across, as people see the old church buildings and
10 AM starts for services and don’t want that. The church is only just
starting to realize things need to be done differently. It will take a few
years before we know if this has worked."
7
References used:
The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.
- "We believe, but not in church," BBC News, UK Edition, 2004-MAY-16, at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk
- Matt Barnwell and Amy Iggulden, "Religious belief 'falling faster than church
attendance'," News.Telegraph, 2005-AUG-17, at:
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/
- "Population Estimates," National Statistics,
2004-SEP-09. at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
- "Religion and belief - some surveys and statistics,"
British Humanist Association, 2005, at:
http://www.humanism.org.uk/
**
- "Annex II: Polls and surveys on belief," Select
Committee on BBC Charter Review, 2006, at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/
**
- Ruth Gledhill: "Churchgoing on its knees as
Christianity falls out of favour," The Times, 2008-MAY-08, at:
http://wwrn.org/
- Sarah Miloudi, "Church attendance in Wales
‘plummeting’" Western Mail, 2008-MAY-09, at:
http://wwrn.org/
** These web sites contain extensive listings of various polls on religious belief.
Copyright © 2003 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on Religious
Tolerance
Originally written: 2003-FEB-19
Latest update: 2008-MAR-09
Author: B.A. Robinson
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