Bermuda Post

Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Less than half of Britons expected to tick ‘Christian’ in UK census

Less than half of Britons expected to tick ‘Christian’ in UK census

Snapshot of Britain will see many reject church as immoral or irrelevant, academics predict

The “post-Christian era” in the UK will be cemented by data emerging from Sunday’s census which is expected to show further generational disengagement from organised religion, according to a leading academic.

The once-a-decade snapshot of the country has included a voluntary question about religion since 2001. In 2011, returns across England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland showed 59.3% ticking Christianity, a fall from 71.6% a decade earlier.

Abby Day, professor of race, faith and culture at Goldsmiths, University of London, expects this year’s census to show a further erosion in Christian identity, mainly because postwar generations regard the church as irrelevant and immoral.

Day predicted the proportion of people ticking Christianity “could drop below 50%”. Peter Brierley, an expert on religion statistics, said he predicted 48% or 49% identifying as Christian, but David Voas, head of the social sciences department at University College London, said he would be surprised if the figure fell below 50%.

According to Day, further decline was largely due to baby boomers – people born between 1946 and 1964 – raising their children outside the institutions of religion.

Professor Abby Day: ‘Today’s younger generations have a different sense of soul, meaning and morality.’


“Religion tends to be transmitted within families. But many baby boomers, who were largely brought up by people who went to church, dramatically broke with that,” she told the Observer.

“Baby boomers have since raised a generation of millennials who don’t go to church. And people who weren’t brought up as practising Christians generally don’t become religious later in life. You don’t get many teenagers walking into churches when they haven’t been before.”

Based on recent interviews with about 50 baby boomers who were brought up in Christian families, Day said many had rejected church in favour of values considered to be more relevant, inclusive and humane.

“Post-Christians are motivated by ethics concerning gender and sexual equality, social justice, climate change and compassion. The churches failed to deliver on those moral issues and so lost moral authority.

“Today’s younger generations have a different sense of soul, meaning and morality, and it’s one that rejects the church’s record of abuse, racism, homophobia and sexism,” she said.
Advertisement

Church of England data shows that average Sunday attendance in 2019 was 600,000 adults, or fewer than 1% of the population. A third of those attending church were aged 70 or over.

Figures from the 2018 British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey showed that 52% of the UK public said they did not belong to any religion, 38% identified as Christian, and 9% identified with other faiths.


But in the last census, only 25% of the population said they had no religion. According to Voas, the difference in wording between the census question in England and Wales and the BSA question is “critical”.

“The BSA question is, ‘Do you regard yourself as belonging to a religious group?’ That notion of belonging pushes people to think, ‘Do I really belong, am I a member of a church?’… as opposed to identification with a heritage,” he told a Religion Media Centre event last week.

“The census question, ‘What is your religion?’, implies everyone should have one… You end up with very different results.”

A survey from YouGov on behalf of Humanists UK, published this month, asked people the same question as the census, but then asked those who identified as Christian the reasons for their answer.

Almost six in 10 (59%) said it was because they had been christened, and 49% because they were brought up to think of themselves as Christian. More than a quarter (26%) said it was “because this is a Christian country”. Over half (51%) said they never attended a place of worship or did so less than once a year.

Only a third (34%) said they ticked Christian because they “believe in the teachings of Christianity”.

Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, said: “Most people in the UK say they are non-religious, a distinct minority have religious beliefs, and very few attend places of worship.” Nevertheless, a majority of people ticked a religion box in the last census because of their background or upbringing.

‘A distinct minority have religious beliefs,’ says Andrew Copson of Humanists UK.


Humanists UK is urging people to tick the “no religion” box if they don’t believe in or practice a religion.

Day said there was a “dark side” to “cultural Christianity”. “The populist right has pushed the idea that we are a Christian country to reinforce its anti-immigration stance by fuelling rhetoric about Britain losing its identity.”

The proportion of the population identifying with non-Christian faiths was likely to increase “quite substantially” in the 2021 census as a result of immigration and higher birth rates in some minority communities, said Brierley.

The Office of National Statistics estimates it will take a year to process data from the census.

Northern Ireland was also holding a census on Sunday, but Scotland has postponed its census until 2022 because of the Covid pandemic.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Bermuda Post
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Steve Jobs' Son Launches Venture Capital Firm With $200 Million For Cancer Treatments
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
Google reshuffles Assistant unit, lays off some staffers, to 'supercharge' products with A.I.
End of Viagra? FDA approved a gel against erectile dysfunction
UK sanctions Russians judges over dual British national Kara-Murza's trial
US restricts visa-free travel for Hungarian passport holders because of security concerns
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Political leader from South Africa, Julius Malema, led violent racist chants at a massive rally on Saturday
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Spanish Citizenship Granted to Iranian chess player who removed hijab
US Senate Republican Mitch McConnell freezes up, leaves press conference
Speaker McCarthy says the United States House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach Joe Biden.
San Francisco car crash
This camera man is a genius
3D ad in front of Burj Khalifa
Next level gaming
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
'I just lost it' Lowe’s worker fired after 13 years of employment for confronting thieves trying to steal $2K of merchandise
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
×