The 2021 census results are out and so, it seems, is Christianity in Britain.
Cue hand-wringing about moral decline on our fair isle; bring on the right-wing commentators dog-whistling about the erosion of “Judeo-Christian values” in good old Blighty; roll out the social media posts mourning the death of England’s national religion. Prepare to see those guardians of traditionalism, misty-eyed with nostalgia for David Cameron’s reassurances, less than a decade ago, that Britain was still a Christian country.
What’s happened? What’s this assault on England’s green and pleasant land? Where’s our Christianity gone?
Really, there’s always so much annual wailing about schools “banning” nativities, or levels of biblical literacy, complete with horror headlines about children not knowing the difference between which quotations come from the Bible and which from Harry Potter, that it’s hard to believe that the number of those self-identifying as Christians is in decline. It’s almost as if those stories are, I don’t know, maybe a touch, well, exaggerated?
It’s almost as if the narrative around the vitality of Christianity in England is often a proxy for more troubling attitudes to race, immigration, integration and minority religions. But Christianity is now a minority religion in England, you cry! No, it’s not. For a start, census data is good stuff but it doesn’t tell us everything about the context of the results.
Respondents tick a box to a particular question, in this case: ‘‘What is your religion?”, which is somewhat leading. What if you don’t have one? The context of any decline of Christianity in England is a nuanced issue that can’t be fully captured by box-ticking.
I mean, where do you look for the start of the decline of Christianity in England? It depends on who you ask but it could be the disillusionment with religion after the First World War? It could be the fault of the boomer generation, who didn’t raise their children with the same level of attachment to the Church? It could be the many and various abuse scandals that have dogged both the Catholic and Anglican Churches – and the responses of the Churches that have left many appalled?
It could be that the Church of England is comprised of an ageing demographic that seems obsessed with matters of gender and sex and appears woefully out of touch with younger generations? It could be that the seeming decline of Christianity in England matters very little to many Christians given that it’s increasing its membership globally.
But Christianity is so closely tied with issues of nationalism, whiteness and privilege in England that it’s impossible to separate them. For instance, who’s betting that we see some horribly racist responses to the census findings, along the lines of “those coming into our country aren’t Christian” or will point to the suggestions that Leicester and Birmingham are England’s first “minority majority” cities as evidence that the apparent Christian decline is linked to minority groups slowly but surely “taking over” the country.
But these findings don’t herald some seismic shift in religious attitudes, no matter what the hyperbolic posts on social media say. There’s nothing surprising or unexpected about the lower proportion of people identifying as Christian and a higher proportion ticking the “no religion” box on the census – this is a continuing pattern and, unless you’ve had your head stuck in a hymn book, you’ll know that the debate about secularisation and England’s Christian credentials has been rumbling for decades.
The 2021 census suggests that Christianity is no longer the majority religion in England and Wales. “Christian” is down 13 percentage points from 59 per cent in 2011 to 46 per cent. However, the proportion of those identifying as non-religious is up by 12 percentage points from 2011 (25 per cent to 37 per cent). Is this really the death knell for Christian England?
Well, not really. While the Church of England remains so deeply embedded in state activities, Christianity retains a privileged national status. It’s certainly a peculiar set-up that seems increasingly difficult to defend if England’s population are decreasingly identifying as Christian. But England’s population has been decreasingly identifying as Christian for many years.
Mathew Guest, Professor in the Sociology of Religion at Durham University, suggests that the census findings have followed the same demographic trend in the 20 years since a question on religion was first included (before 2001, they didn’t even bother asking about religion).
“The census data tells us little that’s unexpected, given longer term trends in the UK,” Guest argues. “In the 20 years since a question on religion was included in the census in 2001, the proportion of self-identifying Christians has fallen incrementally as those claiming ‘no religion’ has increased. If it was difficult to see how Britain could still be described as a Christian nation in 2001 and 2011, it’s even more difficult now.
“But this is a long-term pattern driven by generational changes in values, the decline in the status accorded to religious – especially Christian – institutions, and the growing confidence that UK citizens have in affirming an identity independent of the traditions of the past.”
And this is the tricky bit for the Church of England: if people are becoming less attached to traditions of the past then how do we justify the presence of the Lords Spiritual in the House of Lords? The Church of England enjoys disproportionate representation in the nation’s political life – the UK Parliament automatically awards 26 seats in the House of Lords to bishops of the Church of England. What should we do now?
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The most obvious answer is to stop the practice and democratically elect representatives who have decision-making powers, something akin to what’s recently been proposed by Labour leader Keir Starmer. It’s a bold idea, which might just work. After all, just because something’s “tradition” doesn’t make it a good idea.
Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology at the University of Kent, agrees that the latest Census results are unsurprising: “The census data reflects what are now becoming very predictable trends of the numbers of people identifying as Christian decreasing and those who see themselves as non-religious increasing, reflecting the demographics of an increasingly ageing Christian population and growing numbers of younger people with little or no attachment to religion.
“These trends have been baked into British society for some time now, and it is entirely expected for the number of people identifying as non-religious over-taking those who identify as Christian in the next 10 years. The Christian Church won’t disappear and will continue to play a role in public and community life in the future. What isn’t sustainable, though, is the idea that we are a majority Christian country and that Christian organisations should have a privileged role in our public institutions.”
Maybe, just maybe, English citizens are no longer self-identifying as Christians because the Church of England is out of step with many of their values? That doesn’t mean a decline in morality but could reflect a more critical approach to “traditional” knowledge that’s previously gone unquestioned. That’s something to celebrate, not to lament.
Katie Edwards was an academic at the University of Sheffield, specialising in the effect and influence of the Bible in contemporary culture
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