THE TELEGRAPH: Only half of Britons now consider themselves Christian after a “sharp decline” in religious belief over the past quarter of a century, according to a new academic study.
Researchers describe a large proportion of the country as the “fuzzy faithful” who have a vague belief in God but do not necessarily belong to a particular denomination or attend services.
However, most people still say religion helps bring happiness and comfort, and regret its declining influence on modern society.
Professor David Voas, who has analysed the latest data, said: “More and more people are ceasing to identify with a religion at all.
“Indeed, the key distinction in Britain now is between religious involvement and indifference. We are thus concerned about differences in religiosity - the degree of religious commitment - at least as much as diversity of religious identity.”
His analysis, to be published in January by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), looks at the results of 4,486 interviews conducted in the respected 2008 British Social Attitudes survey.
It shows that just 50 per cent of respondents now call themselves Christian, down from 66 per cent in 1983. NatCen said it confirmed “the sharp decline in religious faith in Britain.”
At the same time, the proportion of Britons who say they have “no religion” has increased from 31 per cent to 43 per cent. Non-Christians, including Muslims and Jews, now represent 7 per cent of the population, up from 2 per cent, 25 years ago. >>> Martin Beckford | Wednesday, December 16, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: I went on Vanessa Feltz’s radio programme this morning – no mean feat, I might say, while buying a train ticket and finding a platform – to talk about this story of the “lost Christians”, with only half of we Britons now considering ourselves Christian.
I’m not as disheartened as Ms Feltz suggested I should be. And I don’t mean in that way that clergymen sometimes sound like the Lib Dem candidate who has just taken a massive hit in a local election: “This is actually an encouraging result for us, with our share of the vote having risen against the Zoroastrians.”
I mean two things. First, since my generation is the first to follow the “Christendom generations”, I’m encouraged that so many are still signing up to the faith. By that, I mean that our parents would answer automatically to form-fillers (or any equivalent to the National Centre for Social Research, whence the latest stats emerge) that they were “Church of England”, without any real sense of conviction. It was just what you were. This applied less to other minority denominations, because the CofE was a default position – the established Church was just part of the background, ambient noise. In contrast, these days people are thinking about what and why they believe. And that must be a good thing. And rather good that half of them, voluntarily and thoughfully [sic], sign up to Christianity. >>> George Picher | Wednesday, December 16, 2009
