Is Britain no longer a ‘Christian’ country?
by Ian Paul, Psephizo:
There were a lot of headlines this week in response to the latest ONS census of Religion in England and Wales, a voluntary survey conducted every ten years. The major two findings were:
For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2%, 27.5 million people) described themselves as “Christian”, a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 59.3% (33.3 million) in 2011; despite this decrease, “Christian” remained the most common response to the religion question.
“No religion” was the second most common response, increasing by 12.0 percentage points to 37.2% (22.2 million) from 25.2% (14.1 million) in 2011.
This was interpreted as meaning that the Christian faith was now a minority position in England and Wales, and passing this milestone was felt by some to trigger major questions, including why the Church of England should remain established.
Before digging into what is going on, it is worth noting what is driving this change. In a population where the average life expectancy is around 80, and where there is no significant infant mortality, in 10 years the population will have changed by around 12%, that is, 12% will have died, and another 12% will have entered adulthood and so be part of the census for the first time. Given the drop in identification as ‘Christian’ was 13% and the growth in ‘no religion’ was 12%, this suggests that the vast majority of the change was generational; rather than individuals changing their view, what we are seeing is a shift in attitudes from one generation to the next. I will return to the significance of this at the end of this piece.
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