Surveying Christian Beliefs and Religious Debates in Post-War Britain

B. Clements

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137506573
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology of Religion
• Index: Social Sciences

Clements provides a detailed study of religious beliefs in British society, using a broad range of opinion poll and social survey data. Examining public opinion on religious-secular issues, this book provides a rich analysis of the belief and attitudes of social groups over time.

1

Introduction

Abstract: This introductory chapter reviews evidence relating to different aspects of religious change and secularisation in British society and sets the wider context for the book’s core themes. It sets out the aims and scope of the book, the broad methodological approach followed and the range of sources used. It introduces the main sources in terms of recurrent social surveys and opinion polls. It outlines the distinctive but interrelated focus of the chapters and the empirical contribution each one makes. It emphasises that the analyses and findings reported in each chapter contribute to wider scholarly debates over the nature and extent of religious change and secularisation ins post-war Britain.

Clements, Ben. Surveying Christian Beliefs and Religious Debates in Post-War Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. DOI: 10.1057/9781137506573.0004.

Religious change and secularisation in Britain

In a classic definition, secularisation refers to the ‘process whereby religious thinking, practice and institutions, lose social significance’ (Wilson 1966: xiv). In Britain religion has undergone a process of privatisation in recent decades, losing some of its social functions as well as authority and influence in the sphere of politics (Bruce 2012: 164). Bruce has argued that ‘every index of religious interest and involvement in Britain shows decline. It is the consistency of the data which is significant’ (2013: 374). Of course, this decline particularly affects Christian traditions: the ‘social reach’ or ‘penumbra’ of Christianity has clearly receded (Bruce 2013: 374). Field has observed that ‘organized Christianity has been in retreat between the 1960s and 2010s, and on any number of fronts’, noting that in ‘critical performance indicators (membership, attendance, rites of passage, and affiliation) net commitment to institutional Christianity has decreased in contemporary Britain’ (2014c: 192, 193). A range of evidence can be adduced to document the nature and extent of religious change – that is, in terms of popular engagement with religion – in areas such as belonging, behaving, believing and public attitudes towards the role and relevance of religious faith, institutions and leaders.

In terms of religious belonging, several key trends are apparent. The growing number of ‘religious nones’ – that is, those who do not identify with any religion – in the population is a key trend in recent years. Indeed, religious affiliation was preponderant until relatively recently (Field 2014b). Based on recent survey readings, the ‘religious nones’ approach or amount to half of the adult population: British Social Attitudes (BSA) 2014: 49 per cent; British Election Study (BES) 2015: 45 per cent (Clements 2014a); European Values Study (EVS) 2008: 45 per cent; European Social Survey (ESS) 2012: 51 per cent. Based on the BSA surveys, running since 1983, the proportion with no religious identification averaged across approximately ten-year periods was 34 per cent between 1983 and 1992, rising to 42 per cent between 1993 and 2002, and increasing further to 46 per cent between 2003 and 2013.

Census data have also confirmed the rise in ‘religious nones’ in recent years. In 2011, 59 per cent of the population of England and Wales identified themselves as belonging to a Christian religion, a fall of around 12 percentage points since 2001. Over the same period, the proportion in the ‘no religion’ category increased from 15 to 25 per cent (Office for National Statistics 2012). In Scotland, the proportion of the population professing no religion increased from 28 per cent in 2001 to 37 per cent a decade later. The proportion identifying as Christian decreased from 65 per cent in 2001 to 54 per cent in 2011 (Scottish Government). While responses to questions on religious identity have always been sensitive to question wording and the set of response options offered (Field 2014b), it is clear that ‘between one-quarter and one-half the population now make sense of their lives without a religious identity’ (2014b: 379). Of course, the social agencies of religious socialisation – such as Sunday schools (Field 2014) – have been weakened over time, including within the family, meaning that the intergenerational transmission of religious identity from parent to child is less likely. ‘Two non-religious parents successfully transmit their lack of religion. Two religious parents in Britain have a roughly 50/50 chance of passing on the faith’ (Voas 2013). Data from the BSA show that the proportion of people saying they were not raised within a religion in their family environment rose from 6 per cent in 1991 to 19 per cent in 2013.

Another key trend in religious belonging is the decline in affiliation as Anglican, or Church of England (Clements 2014c; Voas 2013). The BSA data show that those identifying as Anglican fell considerably, from 40 per cent in 1983 to 16 per cent three decades later. The BES surveys show that from 1963 to 2015, the proportion identifying as Anglican fell from 65 to 31 per cent (Clements 2014a). The proportion affiliated with traditional Nonconformist churches (or other Christian denominations) has also declined (from 14 per cent in 1983 to 5 per cent in 2013, based on BSA surveys). The BSA survey data also show that the proportion identifying as Christian but without any particular denominational affiliation has increased: from 3 per cent in 1983 to 12 per cent in 2013. The evidence generally shows that the proportion identifying as Catholics has remained broadly stable in recent decades: at or just under a tenth of the adult population (Field 2014b).

Identification with non-Christian religions has increased, reflecting wider demographic shifts and patterns of inward migration, rising from less than 1 per cent in 1963 to 8 per cent in 2015, based on BES data, and increasing from 3 per cent in 1983 to 8 per cent in 2013, based on the BSA surveys. The 2001 and 2011 census data (for England and Wales) show that the proportion of Muslims increased from 3 to 5 per cent (Office for National Statistics 2012). Indeed, ethnic minority groups are now one of the main ‘carriers of religion’ in British society (Bruce 2014: 16–17).

The BSA data on religious affiliation have been extrapolated to produce adult population estimates across time for each religious group (noting that the total adult population has risen from 41.3 to 50.5 million). For Anglicans, the number declined from 16.5 million in 1983 to 8.6 million in 2014 (NatCen 2015). For those with no affiliation, the numbers almost doubled: from 12.8 million to 24.7 million over the same period. The number of Roman Catholics has changed little: 4.1 million and 4 million, respectively (NatCen 2015). The number of other Christians (including those from Nonconformist traditions and those not affiliated to any particular denomination) has increased from 7 million in 1983 to 8.6 million in 2014. The non-Christian group saw a substantial increase, growing from 0.8 million in 1983 to 4 million three decades later (NatCen 2015).

In terms of religious behaviour, aggregate data on church attendance within Christian denominations show a process of continued decline: figures show that in 2000 there were 3.5 million churchgoers in Britain, falling to 2.9 million in 2010; this is projected to fall to 2.6 million in 2015 and 2.3 million in 2020 (McKay 2010). Amongst Anglicans, total church attendance in England was 1,370,400 in 1980 and 870,600 in 2005; the respective figures for Catholics in England were 2,064,000 and 893,100 (McAndrew 2011). For Methodists, historically the largest of the Nonconformist traditions, attendance declined from 606,400 to 289,400 (McAndrew 2011). The BSA surveys show that the proportion reporting that they never attend religious services increased from 56 per cent in 1983 to 66 per cent in 2013. The BES survey shows the proportion of non-attenders rising from 23 per cent in 1963 to 58 per cent in 1997. Surveys also show there has been some decline in personal religious practices, such as praying, and in membership of local churches or religious groups (Clements 2015). Specifically in relation to the Church of England, Bruce observes that, ‘In 1924, the Church of England had 3.5 million on its electoral roll. In 2009, it had 1.2 million. That is a fall from 10% to 2% of the population’ (Bruce 2013: 370). British society has also becomes much less ‘biblecentric’ in terms of its religious practices, as well in relation to knowledge of and attitudes and beliefs towards specific biblical content (Field 2014a). The British public has also become less religious across recent decades in the sense of its personal salience for individuals: indeed, ‘Religious saliency (including spirituality) exemplifies more than most religious indicators that Britain remains in the midst of progressive secularisation’ (Field forthcoming b: 11).

Secularisation can also be evidenced in wider changes in public attitudes to religion and religious institutions, in terms of declining religious authority (Chaves 1994) and the declining public reputation of religion (Bruce 2014). In terms of perceptions of the broader role and status of Christianity, there have clear declines in the proportions agreeing that Britain is a Christian country or that it should be a Christian country (Field 2014e) and in those saying it is very or fairly important that you are Christian in order to be truly British (Clements 2014e). Over recent decades, there have also been declining levels of public trust and confidence in church and clergy (Clements 2015; Field 2014d). The British public is also less receptive than it was to the exercise of religious authority and influence in the political process, whether targeted at voters or the government (Clements 2015). More broadly, religious groups in the wider population – Anglicans, Catholics, other Christians – have undergone a period of liberalisation in their views on moral issues, such as gay rights, abortion and euthanasia, where the teachings of particular faith traditions hold less sway and, as a result, the gulf between the leaders, those charged with upholding and articulating teachings on moral conduct, and the led, has grown wider. Even so, religious groups still tend to lag behind the ‘religious nones’, which tend to have the most liberal perspectives on issues of personal morality (Clements 2015, 2014f).

Aims and scope

Given this wider context of religious change and secularisation across recent decades, this book extends temporal research into religious belief and religious-secular attitudes within the British population. Beliefs represent an important focus in recent debates over religious change and secularisation in Britain, not least given the lively scholarly discussion over the ‘believing but not belonging’ perspective (Davie 1994, 2015; Bruce 2013, 2014; Voas and Crockett 2006). This book aims to provide a detailed empirical assessment of the (changing) extent of religious beliefs in British society, in general and across different social (and religious) groups, this latter aspect being particularly worthwhile given that ‘secularization affects some social groups earlier and more severely than others’ (Bruce 2014: 16). The book aims to increase the breadth and depth of scholarly understanding in this area.

Several core questions underpin this research into religious beliefs and religious-secular attitudes in Britain. What have been the main areas of change and continuity in traditional religious beliefs amongst the British public? Which sociodemographic groups and religious groups have been more or less likely to hold traditional beliefs? In relation to religious-secular debates taking place in the context of the religious changes discussed already, have attitudes moved in a more secular direction? How do they vary across social and religious groups? As well as providing a long-term perspective on change and continuity, the book provides up-to-date empirical analysis of the social correlates of religious beliefs and attitudes on religion-secular debates. Therefore the relative impact of sex, age, socio-economic status – established correlates of religiosity (Lee 2012) – and religious affiliation on beliefs and attitudes is examined via selected multivariate analyses using contemporary surveys, which are representative of the adult population in Britain.

The analyses and findings in the book make several contributions to existing scholarly knowledge concerning the nature of popular religion in British. First, the book extends existing research on religious beliefs in Britain (Clements 2014; Voas and Crockett 2006; Glendinning 2006; Field 2001; Gill et al. 1998; Kay 1996; Davie 1994). The focus on religious beliefs in recent decades also complements research looking at beliefs in British society in the early post-war period (Field 2015a; Argyle 1958; Sigelman 1977). Secondly, it offers a wide evidence base on belief and religious-secular issues to help inform debates over the nature and extent of secularisation (Bruce 2014, 2013), including the ‘believing without belonging’ thesis (Davie 1994, 2015). The focus on variation in belief and attitudes across population groups also provides a rich empirical contribution to limited existing findings about the relationship between, on the one hand, sex and age and religiosity (Lee 2012) and, on the other, socio-economic status and religiosity, in particular examining the expectations of ‘deprivation theory’ – that traditional religious beliefs will be more prevalent amongst socially deprived groups – in the British context (Rice 2003). More broadly, given the methodological approach and sources used, it makes a substantive contribution to the ‘repurposing’ of quantitative religious data (Field, forthcoming a).

The scope of the book does not encompass popular beliefs that Gill and colleagues refer to as ‘non-traditional’ religious beliefs, (1998: 508) or that Field terms ‘heterodox’ beliefs (2015a). Therefore, the focus is on those beliefs commonly understood as ‘orthodox’ and coming within the ‘framework of traditional Christianity’ (Field 2015a: 74). In terms of the time period covered here, the data availability regarding religious beliefs and religious-secular attitudes is much richer for more recent decades than for the early post-war decades, particularly given that the two recurrent social survey series with a range of religious content (BSA and EVS) both began in the early 1980s. The book also cannot provide a comprehensive assessment of the full range of issues which have featured in religious-secular debates in Britain. Instead, it looks at three areas which clearly have had historical significance and retain contemporary relevance: religion and science, the role of religion in the public education system and church-state relations.

Methodological approach, sources and chapter outlines

This book’s broad approach follows that used by the author in a recently published monograph looking at religion and public opinion in Britain (Clements 2015), which analysed areas of change and continuity in the sociopolitical attitudes of religious groups and general public opinion towards religious authority. This book focuses on a different set of themes – theistic and other religious beliefs and areas of religious-secular controversy – but similarly examines change and continuity over time, as well as assessing the contemporary social and religious sources of variation in beliefs and attitudes. Users of polls and surveys for the purposes of investigating religion of course need to be mindful of some of their limitations, as has been discussed in more depth elsewhere (Field, forthcoming a; Vo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Theistic Belief
• 3  Other Religious Beliefs
• 4  Religious-Secular Debates
• 5  Conclusion
• Appendices
• Datasets
• Bibliography
• Index