Who Do We Talk To?

A YouGov survey published this week found that 71% of us have someone we can talk to about big personal issues - 76% for women, and 65% for men. There's a sizeable chunk of people who have nobody they feel they can turn to, and not far off half the population who only have 1 person they can turn to. That's pretty precarious. 

A lot of services I'm aware of, both Christian and secular, have some form of mentoring, befriending or accompanying scheme, recognising that accountability and ongoing support help people with life change, and perhaps reflecting the scarce social resources out there to many millions of us.  

Social Attitudes: the God Question (s)

The recent 26th British Social Attitudes Survey has a full chapter devoted to 'Religion in Britain and the United States'. It opens "Religion is a cause of perplexity to the British. On the one hand it is associated with Christian virtue, traditional values, the Dalai Lama and all things bright and beautiful. On the other hand it brings to mind violent fanaticism, reactionary morality, Osama bin Laden, abuse and oppression. After a long history of religious turmoil and mistrust we no longer much mind (what religion our leaders are), but strong commitment makes us worried."

It's a fascinating essay, and pulls in data from the UK and USA to compare and contrast. Here are some of the questions, with a few thoughts:

1. "Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?"
(1983 figures in brackets)
No religion 43% (31)
Christian 50% (66)
Non-Christian 7 (2)

Of the 'Christian'
Anglican 23 (40)
Roman Catholic 9 (10)
No denomination 10 (3)
and other mainline denominations mostly showing a drop.

There seem to be two main stories: the falling away in identification with the historic churches, towards 'no religion' (which reflects the changing of the generations) or 'no denomination', and the impact of immigration, which has bolstered RC numbers, and seen a rise in non-Christian faiths.

2. Belief in God

I don't believe in God 18%
I don't know whether there is a God and don't believe there is any way to find out 18%
I don't believe in a personal God but I do believe in a higher power of some kind 14%
I find myself believing in God some of the time, but not at others 13%
While I have doubts, I feel that I do believe in God 18%
I know God really exists and that I have no doubts about it 17%

So about 1/3 have a definite faith, 1/3 have a fuzzier faith - either fuzzy about whether God is there, or what kind of spiritual entity God might be, and just over 1/3 are atheist or agnostic

It's useful to have this level of detail: there are surveys which report a majority as believing in God, but 'believing' and 'God' aren't straightforward categories.

3. How religious are you?
extremely/very 7%
somewhat 30%
neither religious nor non-religious 22%
somewhat non-religious 11%
very/extremely non-religious 26%

Which might in part reflect the British aversion to extremes. It's also a sign that if Christians want to communicate their faith, anything percieved as 'religious' packaging (e.g. the institutional church) is off to a losing start. 'Back to Church' Sunday will cut no mustard with people who describe themselves as non-religious.

4. How often do you attend religious services (apart from special occasions)
Never 62%
less than annually 5%
At least annually 15%
At least monthly 8%
At least weekly 10%

Less than 20% of those brought up as Anglicans, or calling themselves CofE attend monthly or more often.

This also shows that any attempt by churches to connect with non-Christians based on 'religious services' is probably a non-starter too. Weird stuff done by weird people in a weird building. This bears out some of the TEAR Fund research , which found that 26% of adults go to church once a year, and 15% go once a month or more. Jesus didn't start with religion, he started with relationships, perhaps there's something in that.

4. Does it do you any good?
there's a question on the 'personal benefits of religion'
65% agree that religion helps people to find inner peace/happiness
67% agree that it helps people to make friends
79% that it helps people to gain comfort.

Even among the 'unreligious', 49% agree with the first statement, and 58 and 68% respectively with the other two. More curious is the 10%+ of 'religious' people who don't agree with these statements!!!

5. Influence of religion
24% said religion is increasing its influence, 3/4 of these said that was a bad thing. This is the National Secular Society argument - that religion is both in decline, but becoming more politically influential.

57% said religion is decreasing its influence, and about 4 in 5 of these thought that a bad thing.

Overall, about 31% thought that more religious influence was a bad thing, and 50% that it was a good thing.

That's a big challenge: I know this lumps all religion together (it would be interesting to ask the question about particular faiths), but if Christians are seen as bad news by a significant section of our society, then a long hard look in the mirror is in order. It also begs the question of what's seen as 'religion' - is the creche provided by the Mothers Union for prison visitors, or the church-run food bank seen as an expression of religion? Or is it dusty bishops talking about sex and Islamic extremists?

6. Religion and Politics
75% said religious leaders shouldn't try to influence voting behaviour, and 67% think religious leaders should stay out of government decision making. Lords reform here we come... There's also a tendency to think that, if elected officials were more deeply religious, then laws and policy decisions would probably be worse. There's a Bush/Blair legacy to that which the report picks out.

What does this mean for the way the church engages with the General Election? I know of several churches who organise local hustings events, and encourage people to vote and engage with the issues, though it sounds like a more directive engagement (see recent RC interventions) might not go down so well. Perhaps it depends on the issue?

7. Moral Standards
89% say you should follow your conscience rather than what the leaders and teachings of your religion say. That pretty much reflects the number of people who are deeply religious.

60% agreed that there can never be absolutely clear statements of what is good and evil, or an absolute morality. That reflects where we are as a society - and a church identified with laws and rules isn't going to make much headway against that. I remember an Ethics seminar 15 years ago where we watched an hour of Eastenders and noted the dozens of moral issues raised in just a short time - processing morality through story and consensus, rather than principle and absolutes, is the flavour of things. I wonder also if this question is swayed by being part of the 'religion' section - things like racism, violence, etc. do seem to be seen in terms of moral absolutes, and nobody objects at public campaigns which try to enforce them (e.g. Kick Racism out of Football). Don't we still have some absolutes, but no longer on the turf which was colonised by Christendom?

8. Conversion
Only 17% thought it was acceptable for religious people to try to convert others, 81% took the opposite view. That raises lots of questions for mission!

About 3/4 of people think that being very religious means you're often intolerant.

9. Faith Schools
42% - no religious group should have its own schools
13% - some should have them, but not others
43% - any religious group should be able to have its own schools.

So this debate is truly alive and kicking. It's not going to go away any time soon.

There's a whole section on religious diversity and tolerance, which shows that we've still some way to go as a society. It also shows that Muslims have a serious image problem - about 1/3 felt 'cool' towards Muslims, (as opposed to neutral or warm) - far and away the least favourable result, apart from that for 'deeply religious' (29%) - most other religious groups were in the 5-15% range. A majority would be bothered by a large mosque being built locally, but relatively few by a large church. There's unease about the level to which Muslims are integrated into British society. The writers note: Muslims deserves to be the focus of policy on social cohesion, because no other group elicits so much disquiet.

Lots of food for thought here, both about perceptions and practices. Those of us percieved as being 'religious' are possibly trying to run a marathon with both legs tied together. Two responses are to abandon traditional religion, and its forms, for something more acceptable (but every movement becomes an institution in the end) or to try to make the case for religion (not a word I particularly like) being good news. That's not easy when there are plenty of examples of the opposite.

Plenty of chewing over to be done....

50% of UK Christian? That would be nice. Or would it?

A trailer for some research being published in January was released this morning by the National Centre for Social Research. It's a comparison of religious attitudes in the UK and US, and leads with the finding that people defining themselves as Christian has declined from 66% to 50% since 1983. Telegraph report here.

Some of the findings.
· Seven in ten (70%) Americans are religious, in that they identify with a particular religion, believe in God and attend religious services. This compares with just a quarter (26%) of people in Britain.

· Three in ten people (31%) in Britain are not religious: they do not identify with a religion, don’t believe in God and don’t attend religious services. This compares with just four in every hundred (4%) Americans.

· Just over a third (36%) of people in Britain and a quarter (24%) of Americans have practices and beliefs that lie somewhere in between. These people – the ‘fuzzy faithful’ – identify with a religion, believe in God or attend services, but not all three.

There's also some bullet points on church and society:
· In Britain, four in five (79%) people think it provides comfort in times of trouble, as do 95% of Americans.

· The majority of people in both countries are keen to maintain a separation of religion and state. For example two thirds (67% in Britain and 66% in the US) think religious leaders should not try to influence government decision-making.
· Nearly three quarters (73%) of people in Britain and two thirds (66%) of Americans think people with strong religious beliefs are often too intolerant of others.

The paper is based on the 2008 Social Attitudes survey in the UK, but those results don't appear to be online, unless anyone is better on Google than me?

George Pitcher has responded in the Telegraph
Nick Baines, who likes the reporting (shock! horror!) and wonders if the NSS would have said the same thing whatever the figures were. The answer is possibly yes.
Church Times report, with a nice table summing things up. Statistical table, as opposed to a talking piece of furniture.

comments:
1. This sounds about right: the three groups of faithful, fuzzy and agnostic/atheist is quite a good way to characterise it. I think about 15-20% of children are currently baptised in a church, which if you exclude the churches which don't practice infant baptism, looks fairly close to these findings.

2. Identification is lagging behind reality, which continues to pose the question of Christendom institutions (established church, bishops in the Lords, etc.) and their place in a post-Christendom society. At the same time there are quite a few people who want a church that they don't go to.

3. That last bullet point needs heeding, though one suspects that an intolerant religious person makes a better news story than a loving one, just as an actual crime makes a better story than a night when everyone keeps the law. Sadly the bigoted Christian is a staple news story, and this is not all the medias doing, it wouldn't be a story if they didn't actually exist.

4. 26% of people who believe in God, attend religious services and identify with a particular faith is a fairly sizeable chunk of society. That doesn't entitle it to privileges, but I'm struggling to think of another voluntary activity which comes close to that, no doubt commenters will enlighten me.

5. There's a challenge for parents, and churches equipping parents to pass on their faith to their children (who, of course, will make their own decision anyway...)
“Two non-religious parents successfully transmit their lack of religion. Two religious parents have roughly a 50/50 chance of passing on the faith. One religious parent does only half as well as two together.” It also means that any strategy for the future of the church which is simply based on sitting there and waiting for stuff to happen is doomed to failure. The question is not whether to change, but how.

Survival of the frailest: what will my community look like in 2020?

Via Christian Research. Something useful from the government!!!

The government has provided researchers with a very useful online tool for calculating the UK population for any year between 1992 and 2031. The website provides an interactive map that graphically illustrates the extent to which age profile of the UK will change over the next few years. The mapping tool allows the user to select criteria for studying various age groups from UK level down to every local authority. So, if you’d like to see what the age profile of your locality will look like in ten years’ time, this site will help you plan ahead.

To find out more, use this link
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ageingintheuk/agemap.html

It's actually quite striking. If you set the age range to the 0-15's, it's like watching pools of water dry up on a sunny day, as the drought of young people spreads across the country. Or watch the progress of the over-65s (which I join just after the end of the period) as the map gradually darkens. This raises massive questions about who can support an increasingly dependent population, and throws into stark relief Jonathan Sacks comments a couple of weeks ago about the 'selfishness' of a secular Europe which, through choosing to have fewer children, is sowing trouble for the future.

I'd be interested to see whether the data shows that it's secularism, or economic development, which has the strongest influence on the birthrate. If the former, then that's a challenging correlation for a Darwinian atheist to grapple with. If the evidence shows that, the more secular a society, the lower the birthrate, then in terms of 'survival of the fittest', this is rather interesting. To caricature, the only way a secular society can survive is by importing people from more religious countries to do the jobs.

On the other hand, you could say that giving birth to a child in the West is an act of selfishness, as they are likely to have a much bigger carbon footprint than a child anywhere else in the world. For the moment, falling birthrates in the richest countries are good news for the globe, as they apply a certain restraint to global warming. Not enough mind you.

(housekeeping note: I'm at the Mission 21 Conference in Bath for the next couple of days, so if comments take time to appear, it's because I've not sussed out the wifi provision.)

IDS on Social Breakdown

Very sobering article from Ian Duncan Smith in Saturday's Telegraph, reflecting on the Matthews kidnap case, social services, and social breakdown. Here's a snippet.

All the evidence from neuroscientists now shows that the most critical time for the development of a child's brain is in the first three years. To develop properly the child needs strong empathetic care and nurture as well as reading and conversation.

If the child does not experience these things, or worse, witnesses continuous anger and abuse, their brain will not develop at the proper rate and they will spend the rest of their childhood in and out of trouble. To turn this around will require more than one parliament, which is why all parties need to agree to act now.

A glance at the figures should show how we are already paying for this growing social breakdown. Over the past ten years the cost of policing has risen by 40 per cent, prisons and the courts by 46 per cent, youth justice by 45 per cent and working-age benefits by 25 per cent.

Too important to dismiss as Tory moralising, even if that's your instinct.

Families and how to survive them

Research from an 18-year long survey of thousands of households, published earlier this week, points to the relative stability of marriage compared with cohabitation, especially for any children involved. Rather than me try to summarise it, here's a chunk from this report on the research:

John Ermisch, a Professor of Economics at the University of Essex who analysed the data, said: "The rise in births outside marriage is a real cause for concern.
"It is primarily attributable to the increase in people's tendency to cohabit in their first partnership and to have children within these unions. The instability of these unions means, however, than more British children will spend significant parts of their childhood in families with only one parent - and this appears to have long-term negative consequences."

The new report, published by the university's Institute for Social & Economic Research to commemorate 18 years of the British Household Panel Survey, shows that just 9 per cent of births in Britain were outside wedlock in 1975. By 2006, however, this figure had risen to 44 per cent. Three-quarters of these were jointly registered by both parents, suggesting they were living together.

But Prof Ermisch said that many of these cohabiting relationships are doomed to failure, leaving the baby in a single-parent family.
"The time couples spend living together in cohabiting unions before either marrying each other or separating is usually very short, the median duration being about two years.
"The unions that produce children are much less likely to be converted into marriage and more likely to break up than childless ones."

He said only 35 per cent of cohabiting couples stay together until their children turn 16, compared with 70 per cent of married couples. "Having a child in a cohabiting union is often not indicative of a long-term partnership." In addition, single mothers take much longer to find another partner, which leaves their children growing up without a father figure.

Those born into a single-mother household spend 7.8 years of their first 16 years without a second parent, the figures show. Children born to couples living together spend on average 4.7 years with just one parent, but those born to married parents spend on average all but 1.6 years of their childhood with two parents.

Prof Ermisch went on: "Analysis of people born in the 1970s using the BHPS data indicates that a child who experiences a period in a one-parent family, particularly before they start school, ends up with lower grades, worse job prospects and in poorer health than a child from a family that remains intact."

Certain ministers say that family arrangements are a lifestyle choice, and not for the government to promote or encourage. Conservative thinking is slightly more joined up (see p11 of this paper from the Tories 'Childhood Review') An alternative view is here. One challenge of this is to have the debate without the cries that this is stigmatising single parents.

It will take at least 100 years to close your church.

Religion News reports recent study in the US on the mortality rate of organisations. They've compared all sorts of different organisations by how many disband each year. Coming out bottom of the list - i.e. the group least likely to die or split - is the church.

The report notes: Among volunteer-based social service groups, peace movement organisations and other groups studied over the last two decades, at least 5 per cent shut their doors each year. Only child care centres in Toronto came close to the low 1 per cent mortality rate that religious congregations have, the study noted.

It's even more impressive that this is in the USA (they seem to have forgotten that Toronto is in Canada), which holds the world record for denominational splits.

I imagine this is even lower in the UK, where a mere 3% of Anglican churches closed in the period 1989-98, an annual rate of 0.3%. The Methodists are ahead of us here, as they seem to have a rule that once a local chapel goes below a certain size it has to look at closure.

I'm not sure whether this is half-full or half empty. On the one hand it shows the enormous resilience of the church, and the work of God, and if God is present in his church we should expect it to fare differently from other voluntary associations.

On the other hand, we're also very good at clinging to our traditions when the culture around us has long since left the station. The survival of a dying tree can hinder the growth of new plants.

Yet the new plants themselves need something to grow beside: we've just had 3 saplings planted in our back garden, each of them tied to a hefty wooden stake. One day they won't need the stake anymore, but for the moment it's going to keep them alive, healthy, safe and growing.

New 'Touching Base' - is there such a thing as too much choice?

Beggars and Choosers:

In a consumer, choice-driven society, the question of British identity will never be settled. Consumer choice is all about the now, but the present without the past is a place without memory, a social form of dementia as the memories which created and sustained meaning are lost.

I enjoy the freedom to choose, but choice can never fully define who we are, or be the trump card in debates about morality, science, and economics. The Christian vision of identity - people created in love in the image of God - includes free will, balanced by reason, creativity, love, community, and a sense of place within creation. (Interesting that one of the upsides to recession is that we’re told we’ll all get more creative, as we’ll no longer be able to buy a solution to everything.)

In a couple of weeks I’ll be doing my first wedding of the summer. For the happy couples, the most amazing thing is not that they have chosen, but that they have been chosen. It’s in that context that love and identity can grow to their full extent.

more at the Wardman Wire from early this afternoon.

Social Trends - latest research

The latest British Social Trends has just been published, available for £50 or so from the office of national statistics, or free from this website. Among the various findings is that we are richer, but no happier, live longer, have more children outside marriage, and spend 8 times more on leisure and overseas holidays than we did 30 years ago. Press release with a summary of the report here.

The very last section deals with 'Religion'. According to the survey 46% say they have 'no religion', a figure slowly catching up on the 48% who claim to be Christians, of which 22% are CofE. The report states "overall the largest percentage rise was for people who stated that htey were Christian with no denomination, which has doubled to 1/5 of all 'Christians' since 1996.

55% of people never go to church, men are more likely to be in this group than women, though for both the figure is over 50% Religious meetings or services are attended once a week or more by 13% of men and 15% of women.

The UK is relatively low for spiritual beliefs compared to the rest of Europe, though some of this might just be that we're vaguer. 38% belive in God, a further 40% belive in 'some sort of spirit or life force', whilst 20% don't believe in either.

This seems to bear out other pieces of research which suggest a 40% and rising 'unchurched' figure - Social Trends puts this at 55% - and an increasing number of church leavers and 'post-church' Christians, who maintain their faith but not their membership of a Christian fellowship.

The Ostrich Position Demonstrated

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Families and Schools said: "We do not agree that there has been a breakdown in the family - 70% of families are headed by a married couple...
"And a recent BBC poll suggests that three-quarters of people in Britain are optimistic about the future of their families, 24% higher than when the same question was asked in 1964."

That's in response to this story about a family law judge making the, not wholly original, argument that breakdown in family life is at the root of many of our most serious social problems.

So there's an opinion poll that's higher than it was 44 years ago - that must mean everything is alright then. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! How about extracting your heads from whichever orifice they are inserted in and engaging with reality ?

Happiness & Sadness

Someone's lent me Richard Layards book 'Happiness', which is fascinating. He's a statistician and economist, and identifies the major factors in happiness across different countries as:
- divorce rate
- unemployment rate
- level of trust
- membership in non-religious organisations
- quality of government
- fraction believing in God. (p71)

and goes on to say: “the previous table reports one of the most robust findings of happiness research: that people who believe in God are happier. At the individual level one cannot be sure whether belief causes happiness or happiness causes belief. But since the relation also exists at the national level, we can be sure that to some extent belief causes happiness” (p72)

There's a lot in the book about all the other factors, and Layard has also authored this paper on the web, which has various bits of the research in. If you skip to page 27, there's a strongly argued report on the levels of mental illness/depression in the UK, and how we should put many more resources into supporting people who suffer with this. Well worth a look.

Some of the book can be seen in lecture form here.

WordLive: New Online Prayer and Bible resource

Scripture Union have just launched WordLive, the latest in a slew of online Bible and spirituality resources to come out. It looks quite interesting - there is a daily Bible passage, then a pick and mix selection of about 15 ways into the passage - prayers, poems, exercises, background to the Bible passage etc.

Strangely, the way they've tried to grab headlines with the launch of the site is by releasing results of a survey which shows that we've 'lost our moral compass'. Headline-grabbing stats like '3.4 million people are currently having an affair', startling though they are, don't really link in to what the WordLive site does, which is offer an online of daily Bible study notes for Christians. It's not obvious how the Bible study notes will make relationships healthier, or have an impact on the 40% of us who admit to having stolen stuff at one stage or another.

(If you do want something to help strengthen relationships, then try the Marriage Preparation Course by Nicky and Sila Lee - we're running it with a group of couples at the moment, and it is being well recieved and helping them to spend time focusing on the health and depth of their relationships.)

The SU survey is quite interesting in its own right, though, frustratingly, they don't publish the survey questions or breakdown, and some of the press release is quite frustrating: it's not clear whether some percentages are of the full population, or of the fraction of the population who admit to having an affair. Without knowing a bit more about it, I'm reluctant to give much credibility to the findings.