Britain is one of the least religious nations in Europe, according to a major survey by the European Union to be published next month, reports Jeremy Reynalds, correspondent for ASSIST News Service.
Writing for Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Lois Rogers said that according to the study, only 12 per cent of Britons feel they “belong” to a church, compared with 52 per cent in France.
It also found that the UK has one of the highest rates of “fuzzy faith,” or people who have an abstract belief in God and a poorly defined loyalty to Christian traditions.
The Telegraph reported that the study, conducted as part of the influential EU-funded European Social Survey, will be seen as an indicator of a shift in attitudes and values.
Professor David Voas, of Manchester University’s Institute for Social Change, who led the project, said the UK was involved in what he called a “long process of disestablishment,” with Christianity gradually being written out of laws and political institutions.
“Christian faith will soon have no role among our traditional establishments or lawmakers,” the Telegraph reported he said. “It remains to be seen for example, how much longer bishops will be allowed to sit in the House of Lords.”
The Telegraph said he added, “Fuzzy faith is a staging post on the road to non-religion. Adults still have childhood memories of being taken to church, and they maintain a nostalgic affection for Christianity but that is dying out. They still go along with the some kind of religious identity but they’re not passing it on to the next generation, and people who aren’t raised in a religion don’t generally start one as adults.”
However, Professor Linda Woodhead, of Lancaster University, who is leading a long-term £8.5 million government research program on the role of religion in society, disputed Voas’ conclusions.
“Just because you’re not religious, it doesn’t mean you’re not spiritual or moral,” the Telegraph reported she said. “A lot of people simply don’t want to take the whole package of religion on board.”
The Telegraph reported that the study, to be published in the European Sociological Review next month, not only charts the declining interest in religion of successive generations, it also concludes that there is no evidence to support the idea that interest in religion resurfaces as people age.
The Telegraph said that while “new wave” religions like Scientology, Kaballah or the Moonie faith, have received considerable media coverage because of their association with Tom Cruise, Madonna and other celebrities, the number of followers remains tiny.
The survey, which questioned more than 30,000 people in 22 countries, found only five nations – Slovenia, Sweden, Norway, Holland and Belgium – reported lower levels of church membership than Britain.
The Telegraph said some observers have argued that the Anglican church ought to do more to retain the “fuzzy faithful,” and draw the uncommitted back into the pews.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
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I woke this morning to the sad news that Dr. Paisley has died. We knew him as Dr. Paisley, or just “Doc” in familiar conversation, but he was known in later years as Lord Bannside. Ian Paisley was born in April 1926 into the home of a Baptist pastor. He preached his first sermon at the age of sixteen and was ordained in his early twenties. In 1951 he helped form the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. He was first a preacher of the gospel, and it is this that I will remember growing up under his shadow in Northern Ireland. I have listened to him preach with power and conviction, pleading with souls for Christ and motivating young men to the ministry. I have sat under his public prayers which were particularly memorable and, like Apollos, he proved himself to be “mighty in the Scripture.”
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