Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

The past few days have seen all kinds of speculation about the future of Christianity in Britain.  One recent poll claimed that the number of people self describing themselves as Christians has fallen to around 50% from 66% a half century ago.  Another television piece claimed that there are now around 100,000 worshipping pagans in Britain and went on to make the claim that there are groups of pagans in every town in Britain and that therefore paganism represents a future challenge to Christianity.

So what do we make of all such speculation?  As always, the reality is complex.  First, the number of people who self identify as Christians varies from 72% to 52% depending on what precise question is asked.  For example if people are asked what religion they are and are offered the choices of Islam, Hinduism, etc. then they tend to choose Christian as a self descriptor in much higher numbers. If people are asked a very open question about religious practise which implies more active involvement then of course the percentages fall.

For me the surprise is that the percentages are as high as they are given that there is little social advantage in being Christian and clearly fewer people automatically think of themselves as C of E (Church of England) even if they never attend or believe.  These high figures indicate potential not despair.

Second, the number of pagans cited is also a surprise.  Interestingly the figures that used to be given in the 1980’s were around 400,000 so on that basis pagans have declined by 75% in the last 20 years.  Strange that the headline was based on the idea of growth when the reality probably indicates decline.

As for paganism rivalling Christianity – I just think of the 5,000 people who gathered in my local community to sing carols in the open air for 45 minutes this Christmas Eve.  One twentieth of the numbers of pagans from the whole of Britain worshipped the Christ child within a one mile walking distance of my home.  Let’s get real, pagans probably have some way to go before they rival Christianity.

All this needs to be set against the growing number of commentators who are detecting a growth of interest in Christianity.  How about this quote from George Pitcher writing in The Times, 17 December 2009:

“All in all, Britain is going through one of those periods of religious refreshment that crop up every few decades.  Whenever this happens – as in 18^th century Europe – there are plenty of people who say that it’s all over, that the Christian story will soon be finished and a brave new secular age has dawned.  Don’t bet your house on it.”

Over the last few weeks there has been a good deal of contention over the headlines that appeared in the press indicating that the number of Christian worshippers would be overtaken by the number of Muslim worshippers within the foreseeable future.  The headlines were drawn from some research undertaken by Peter Brierley just prior to retiring from his role at the Christian Research Association.  Peter has a distinguished record as a statistician and his technical expertise is superb.  However, interpreting figures is another skill and not one that journalists are good at other than in their ability to take figures and create headlines.

Do the original statistics really tell us that there will be more Muslims than Christians in the next few decades?  No.

What then do they tell us?  Primarily they were a set of forecasts specifically related to the number of Anglican worshippers on a Sunday morning.  That’s it, no more and no less.  From such a slender base all kinds of unwarranted forecasts have been made.

Leaving aside the question as to how safe forecasts going across several decades might be and even whether the detailed assumptions built into the forecasts are well founded, how can we make meaningful sense of this furore?

First, it is important that we have good figures because they do give us one piece of insight into what is actually going on amongst us and potentially give us an indication of whether or not we are making the impact we hope for.  In other words, good information keeps us honest.

Second, its hard to know what  figures we actually need at the moment because the church is changing in so many ways.  In the past we have used Sunday morning attendance as the key measure of how we are doing – that may not be relevant as a statistic anymore.  I am not saying we should not collect those figures – in fact I think we should – we just need to set them alongside other information and at the moment we can’t even be certain what that other information might be.

Third, while we figure out what information we actually need and how to collect it, the broader public and in particular the government takes huge notice of the figures we currently collect.  That is a massive problem because we are drastically misleading the government as to our actual significance.

The impact of that single reality is that our government is inclined to take Islam more seriously than Christianity. That is madness but it is what is happening and we are partly responsible for that result.  The consequence of that is that it vastly reduces the potential for partnership with local and national government and so hampers mission.

Somehow we have got to find ways of presenting the reality of the strength of the church as well as some impression of the creative ways in which the church is changing and possibly even growing.  A conversation is needed as to how we go about creating such a presentation…

This week I was given a copy of the excellent book Mission-shaped Questions: Defining issues for today’s Church, published by Church House Publishing and edited by Steven Croft of Fresh Expressions. The book contains a wide range of authors and so to of perspectives and it is all the stronger for that. I was personally drawn to James Dunn’s piece on fresh expressions of the church in the New Testament and I found his five definitions to describe a healthy church that reflects the New Testament convincing and stimulating. Coming from an entirely different discipline, Lynda Barley’s detailed work on statistical evidence of change in the life of the church is incisive and helpful. It reflects what many of us are feeling, namely that there is new interest in spiritual issues, there is some bottoming out of earlier decline with much that is new and interesting beginning to stir but there is still much further to go. Compare all that with Graham Tomlin’s chapter on the challenge to transform culture and you begin to see what a feast awaits you.

In the same week that I was reading the new publication above, I was re-reading a classic – Lesslie Newbigin’s work the Other Side of 1984. I was reminded afresh of what an important book that was in its day and still is. His summary of what has gone wrong in our culture is stunning. Try these few lines:

“It is, no doubt, easy in every age to point to its obvious weaknesses. What is in question here, however, is something more precise. It is the dramatic suddenness with which, in the space of one life-time, our civilization has so completely lost confidence in its own validity. Every culture in every age has its critics. Every culture goes through periods when self-criticism is general. But it is also true that cultures are born and die. The question now is whether our present self-criticism is merely the normal self-questioning of a healthy culture, or whether we are at the point where a culture is approaching death.”

The question as to whether our culture has embarked on its own suicide because it has adopted a macabre death wish or can still be renewed through its re-connection with Christianity remains one of the key missionary questions of our age. Amazingly Amazon are selling this book second-hand for £4.00. I could hardly tell that my copy was second hand. I would suggest you buy a couple of these books, one for your own shelf to replace the one you have lost or overused and one to give away to a hungry mind in your circle of acquaintances.