A new poll on the BBC site shows a 2:1 majority favouring religious values in public life, and the influence of religious values over our laws and culture. Full data here. 50% of those with 'no religion' agreed with the statement that 'our laws should respect and be influenced by religious values' (which is actually two statements rolled together....). So even though most folks aren't overtly religious, they value a role for faith in public life.
There was also a question on how fairly the media report religion, in which, surprisingly, the majority of Christians thought their religion was fairly reported. See my previous post!!
from the site: However, the BBC poll indicates that even at a time when baptisms, church weddings and attendance at Sunday services are declining, people are unwilling for secularism to displace religion altogether.
They may be dubious about specific religious beliefs, and unwilling to accept the teaching of religious organisations about how they should lead their lives, but the survey suggests they are not yet ready to cast God out of public life.
Ht Ekklesia, which has a longer comment piece on this. See also Robert Piggotts interpretation at the BBC.
It'll be interesting to see how the National Secular Society spin doctors rewrite the headline on this one. It must be a major blow to them that, after a fairly high media profile in recent times, most of us still don't buy their argument for banishing religion from public life (E.g. 'Religion should be a matter of private conscience, for the home and place of worship....religious involvement in public life...disadvantages those who have no religion').
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