Losing our religion

Less than half say they belong to a faith – and just 15% are Anglican

THE number of people in Britain who say they belong to a religion has dropped below half for the first time, research has found.

In a landmark for the decline of formal belief, only 47 per cent of the population now align themselves with an organised religion, according to the study.

The assessment suggests a collapse in religious belief since the 1980s, when more than two-thirds said they were members of a major religion.

Most of the decline has come in the Church of England, with the research finding that only 15 per cent of people now say they are followers.

The bleak picture of the state of religious belief – produced by the annual British Social Attitudes survey – is the latest evidence that Christianity is losing its grip on many.

Both the 2011 national census and CofE counts have found falling levels of faith and dwindling congregations.

It provoked a defiant response from the CofE yesterday. The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Right Reverend Stephen Cottrell, declared that the Church had a vision and ‘we will get on with living and sharing that vision with a few dozen people, a few thousand people, or a few million people – whoever it is that responds to the call’.

The British Social Attitudes survey, carried out among nearly 3,000 people, with financial support from several Whitehall departments, found that last year 53 per cent said they did not see themselves as belonging to any particular religion. The figure has never before broken the 50 per cent mark.

In 2015, 48 per cent of those who took part in the survey said they had no religion. The non-belief level was recorded as 40 per cent in 2000, and only 31 per cent when the survey was launched in 1983.

The CofE’s support has fallen from 40 per cent in 1983, but the findings showed support for the Roman Catholic Church has held steady over the same period with a 9 per cent allegiance level last year.

Roman Catholic membership may have been boosted by the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Catholics over the past 15 years.

Non-Christian believers, including faiths such as Islam, Judaism and Hinduism, have climbed from 2 per cent in 1983 to 6 per cent in 2016, it found.

The survey found that more than seven out of ten people aged between 18 and 24 have no religious allegiance, and only among people over 64 is religious belief held by more than half.

Only 3 per cent of people aged between 18 and 24 now say they are members of the CofE.

The story of decline for the CofE shows that the number of its faithful did stop falling and recovered briefly, from 27 per cent to 31 per cent, between 1997 and 2002, a period that coincided with the last five years of Anglican leadership by a socially conservative Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey.

But numbers of CofE supporters fell dramatically after he was replaced by liberal Archbishop Rowan Williams in 2002.

Under Lord Williams, whose stewardship of the Church was dogged by rows including those over gay rights and the status of Islamic sharia law, support dropped by almost half from 31 per cent to 16 per cent.

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), which carried out the survey, linked the decline in religious belief to the refusal of churches to accept gay rights.

Roger Harding, of NatCen, said: ‘We know from the survey that religious people are becoming more socially liberal on issues like same sex relationships and abortion.

‘With falling numbers, some faith leaders might wonder whether they should be doing more to take their congregation’s lead on adapting to how society is changing.’

The CofE was criticised by some of its own clergy. The Reverend Dr Jules Gomes, of the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life, said: ‘The most critical factor is that the Church has completely lost its identity. It does not know who it is or what it stands for.

‘Churches are dominated by Lefty snowflakes in the pulpit and pew, and there are no fixed commandments to direct Christian behaviour. Why on earth would young people be attracted to a religion that believes little and offers no challenge?’

‘The Church has lost its identity’