It has reached Dunkirk. Every single time the story of Dunkirk brings me close to tears. Those little boats....
Today's oddball fact. The senior surviving officer from the Titanic, 2nd Officer Charles Lightoller (the 'ill shoot you all like dogs' guy in the film) sailed his yacht over as one of the small boats
He was the inspiration for the boat owner character in Mendes’s film
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
It's certainly news to me that Jews believe Jesus was God!
In fact, Jews and Muslims clearly have the same God as each other. Trinitarian Christians, not so much.
To clarify, Jews don’t believe Jesus was God. Both Jews and Christians believe in the God of Abraham. Jews, AFAIK, don’t believe that Jesus was the son of God.
Muslims believe Jesus was Messiah, just not God and Muhammed is their main prophet.
Jews don't even believe Jesus was Messiah let alone God and certainly don't have Muhammed as a prophet either
So, remind me again, PB, why do we favour Jews over Muslims?
We don't.
We do favour liberal democracies like Israel over authoritarian dictatorships like Iran.
With the best will in the world, I do not think it is rational to call Israel a "liberal" democracy anymore. The majority have voted for a fascistic, fanatical government intent on genocide.
At what stage does the choice of party(ies) chosen by voters in a liberal democracy overcome the institutional elements which go into it being regarding as such a liberal democracy? I suppose when it starts undermining those institutional elements?
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
In terms of fertility rate it is atheists dying out. Globally and in the UK as well Muslims have the highest fertility rate, then evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews, then Roman Catholics, then mainline Protestants and Eastern Orthodox and Hindus and last Buddhists and atheists.
It is atheists who need to convert to avoid dying out therefore more than the religious, indeed today may be the peak of global atheism especially in the West
Funnily enough, children are born without any religion.
Don't tell many religious people that, it's an article of faith.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
It's certainly news to me that Jews believe Jesus was God!
In fact, Jews and Muslims clearly have the same God as each other. Trinitarian Christians, not so much.
To clarify, Jews don’t believe Jesus was God. Both Jews and Christians believe in the God of Abraham. Jews, AFAIK, don’t believe that Jesus was the son of God.
Muslims believe Jesus was Messiah, just not God and Muhammed is their main prophet.
Jews don't even believe Jesus was Messiah let alone God and certainly don't have Muhammed as a prophet either
So, remind me again, PB, why do we favour Jews over Muslims?
We don't.
We do favour liberal democracies like Israel over authoritarian dictatorships like Iran.
With the best will in the world, I do not think it is rational to call Israel a "liberal" democracy anymore. The majority have voted for a fascistic, fanatical government intent on genocide.
Hmm...seem to have lost the capacity to edit too. I was going to add that Israel shows that democracies put under enough stress do not have a "liberal" default. They can become highly aggressive in defending their interests.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
This is palpable bollocks on multiple levels
Just one example: Muslims
Muslim immigrants into the west have become MORE religious in the last few decades - 2nd and 3rd generation Muslim Europeans and Americans are more devout and more conservative than their first generation antecedents (as everyone else knows, in a rather uncomfortable way)
And that's just, as I say, one example
Not my experience having met a lot of Muslim sixth formers in east London.
That doesn't surprise me. There was some research a few years ago, which agreed that Muslims were more religious, but rather than being "more devour and more conservative", they were also a lot more liberal. That certainly chimes with my experiences.
Exactly. The article that poor Leon doesn’t properly understand refers to the sense of ‘otherness’ and identity, being influenced both by social and political issues, particularly in the Middle East, and - ironically - as a counter-reaction to bigotry such as we regularly get from Leon. It’s not saying much about religiosity or extremism.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
I share your atheism, but not your view that it is obvious that the world will tremd that way.
Personally I think there will be a bit of a religious revivial, in global terms.
It has reached Dunkirk. Every single time the story of Dunkirk brings me close to tears. Those little boats....
The same with Eden's appeal on the wireless for Local Defence Volunteers (the Home Guard). Quarter of a million came forward within 24 hours. 1.5m within 6 weeks. The ministry expected 150k all in.
Germany is the sort of team that would be able to score despite having a red card.
Well, they did
This is a very *physical* match, a challenge for the ref
Good evening
It is, but at least they get on with it unlike men's football which features the most ridiculous injury tactics thumping the ground, rolling around as if they had been shot, and all the time peeking to see if the referee needs more acting to get their opponent sent off !!!!
"Middle-class families could face higher water bills to subsidise poorer households Labour ministers will be urged to introduce scheme that would see low-income families given huge discounts" (£)
It has reached Dunkirk. Every single time the story of Dunkirk brings me close to tears. Those little boats....
Today's oddball fact. The senior surviving officer from the Titanic, 2nd Officer Charles Lightoller (the 'ill shoot you all like dogs' guy in the film) sailed his yacht over as one of the small boats
The little boats helped, but the bulk of the work was done by the destroyers of the Royal Navy and a number of large ships.
The little boats mostly served as ferries between the shore and the larger ships.
True. And the role of the little boats was, cleverly (and wisely) over-emphasised in the subsequent narrative to make it “our” (predecessors’) collective national success rather than a straightforward military exercise. A morale booster at a grim time.
Incidentally, the Norwegians take their wartime history seriously, with lots of well kept museums, monuments and information boards for everything out in the countryside, all well signposted. I pulled off into a layby earlier and one of the Narvik memorials had fresh flowers. Part of the road I drove on yesterday was built originally by a gang of captured Yugoslav partisans, who didn’t count as PoWs and were basically worked to death building it. There was both a memorial and an infoboard explaining it in multiple languages.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
This is palpable bollocks on multiple levels
Just one example: Muslims
Muslim immigrants into the west have become MORE religious in the last few decades - 2nd and 3rd generation Muslim Europeans and Americans are more devout and more conservative than their first generation antecedents (as everyone else knows, in a rather uncomfortable way)
And that's just, as I say, one example
Not my experience having met a lot of Muslim sixth formers in east London.
That doesn't surprise me. There was some research a few years ago, which agreed that Muslims were more religious, but rather than being "more devour and more conservative", they were also a lot more liberal. That certainly chimes with my experiences.
Yes, that is my experience.
I do see families in clinic where the elderly parents are dressed in quite a secular British style, while the daughter who is accompanying them is in Niqab, but translating for a parent not confident in English with a local accent. So outward appearances can be quite misleading. Traditional dress doesn't always indicate archaic values in other spheres of life.
Younger Muslims often see Islam as an important part of their identity, but very often get the quid pro quo in a multicultural city is that other people will live differently. Live and let live.
@JenniferJJacobs News: One of the senior staffers on SecDef's team at the Pentagon, Justin Fulcher, is no longer in his job, sources told @edokeefe
@ellee_watson and me. Fulcher started at the Defense Department as a member of Elon Musk's DOGE team and was later promoted to a job as a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
In terms of fertility rate it is atheists dying out. Globally and in the UK as well Muslims have the highest fertility rate, then evangelical Christians and Orthodox Jews, then Roman Catholics, then mainline Protestants and Eastern Orthodox and Hindus and last Buddhists and atheists.
It is atheists who need to convert to avoid dying out therefore more than the religious, indeed today may be the peak of global atheism especially in the West
Funnily enough, children are born without any religion.
Pelagius* would agree...
*perhaps the first published author born in these islands, and correct about a lot of things.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
This is palpable bollocks on multiple levels
Just one example: Muslims
Muslim immigrants into the west have become MORE religious in the last few decades - 2nd and 3rd generation Muslim Europeans and Americans are more devout and more conservative than their first generation antecedents (as everyone else knows, in a rather uncomfortable way)
And that's just, as I say, one example
Not my experience having met a lot of Muslim sixth formers in east London.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
This is palpable bollocks on multiple levels
Just one example: Muslims
Muslim immigrants into the west have become MORE religious in the last few decades - 2nd and 3rd generation Muslim Europeans and Americans are more devout and more conservative than their first generation antecedents (as everyone else knows, in a rather uncomfortable way)
And that's just, as I say, one example
Not my experience having met a lot of Muslim sixth formers in east London.
Which school Ian?
Over my time pretty much every school in the borough.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
Stuart is telling you that the figures don’t add up. And it’s obvious why.
First question - are you religious?
Second question - for those that answer yes - which flavour of religion are you?
Third question - how often do you practice it?
Quite obvious the third question is going to be self-exaggerated
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
I share your atheism, but not your view that it is obvious that the world will tremd that way.
Tbf I didn’t say globally; we were discussing the UK. I suspect the new immigrant communities will, over time, trend the same was as the Jewish community has here, and in general become less religious.
It's gone the other way. Those who have married 'out' in many cases no longer identify as Jewish or if they do they're usually just one generation from not doing. At the same time Orthodoxy has become a much bigger thing with ten and twelve children families living in particular areas becoming the new normal.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
It's certainly news to me that Jews believe Jesus was God!
In fact, Jews and Muslims clearly have the same God as each other. Trinitarian Christians, not so much.
To clarify, Jews don’t believe Jesus was God. Both Jews and Christians believe in the God of Abraham. Jews, AFAIK, don’t believe that Jesus was the son of God.
Muslims believe Jesus was Messiah, just not God and Muhammed is their main prophet.
Jews don't even believe Jesus was Messiah let alone God and certainly don't have Muhammed as a prophet either
So, remind me again, PB, why do we favour Jews over Muslims?
We don't.
We do favour liberal democracies like Israel over authoritarian dictatorships like Iran.
With the best will in the world, I do not think it is rational to call Israel a "liberal" democracy anymore. The majority have voted for a fascistic, fanatical government intent on genocide.
Hmm...seem to have lost the capacity to edit too. I was going to add that Israel shows that democracies put under enough stress do not have a "liberal" default. They can become highly aggressive in defending their interests.
There is nothing illiberal about aggressively defending your civil liberties from external threats.
We have done the same, with vastly higher death tolls.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
Stuart is telling you that the figures don’t add up. And it’s obvious why.
First question - are you religious?
Second question - for those that answer yes - which flavour of religion are you?
Third question - how often do you practice it?
Quite obvious the third question is going to be self-exaggerated
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
A little sidepoint: in many parts of the world, slavery never went away. And in the form of modern slavery, it can still exist here int he UK. Just because the triangular trade was stopped, does not mean that slavery has been.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
But if Quiet Revival report is to be believed, the CofE is growing overall- from 1.5 million in 2018 to 2.0 million in 2024. It's a smaller share of a bigger pie.
Trouble is, that doesn't match what we see in parishes. And the CofE is good at counting. Since that's a quarter of the claimed growth that hasn't happened, it does cast doubt on the rest of the study. (I think something similar happens when you compare the survey and actual attendance for RCs, but I'm less familiar with their systems.)
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
I share your atheism, but not your view that it is obvious that the world will tremd that way.
Tbf I didn’t say globally; we were discussing the UK. I suspect the new immigrant communities will, over time, trend the same was as the Jewish community has here, and in general become less religious.
Yes, I was talking about the UK - it's not obvious to me that immigrants will lose their religion over generations. I find it interesting that you do. More broadly, perhaps you expect immigrant communities to become more like the host population - to integrate - whereas, at least in the case where those communities have syrong religious belief, I do not. This probably explains much of our differing attitudes to immigration, to which you tend to the optimistic and I tend to the pessimistic.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
Stuart is telling you that the figures don’t add up. And it’s obvious why.
First question - are you religious?
Second question - for those that answer yes - which flavour of religion are you?
Third question - how often do you practice it?
Quite obvious the third question is going to be self-exaggerated
As was explained to you earlier, a big percentage increase in a small part of the pie is not sufficient to balance with the high level numbers you were citing - hence why even religious experts have challenged their accuracy
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
A little sidepoint: in many parts of the world, slavery never went away. And in the form of modern slavery, it can still exist here int he UK. Just because the triangular trade was stopped, does not mean that slavery has been.
Yes, I anticipated that challenge by inserting ‘legal’ into my earlier, but not quick enough….
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
But if Quiet Revival report is to be believed, the CofE is growing overall- from 1.5 million in 2018 to 2.0 million in 2024. It's a smaller share of a bigger pie.
Trouble is, that doesn't match what we see in parishes. And the CofE is good at counting. Since that's a quarter of the claimed growth that hasn't happened, it does cast doubt on the rest of the study. (I think something similar happens when you compare the survey and actual attendance for RCs, but I'm less familiar with their systems.)
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
I share your atheism, but not your view that it is obvious that the world will tremd that way.
Tbf I didn’t say globally; we were discussing the UK. I suspect the new immigrant communities will, over time, trend the same was as the Jewish community has here, and in general become less religious.
Yes, I was talking about the UK - it's not obvious to me that immigrants will lose their religion over generations. I find it interesting that you do. More broadly, perhaps you expect immigrant communities to become more like the host population - to integrate - whereas, at least in the case where those communities have syrong religious belief, I do not. This probably explains much of our differing attitudes to immigration, to which you tend to the optimistic and I tend to the pessimistic.
That’s a fair summary.
Taking a wide and long view, you’d have to explain why recent immigrants won’t trend the same way as all those we’ve taken in over hundreds of years prior? Although integration isn’t quite the right word - as it implies unidirectional influence, whereas the truth is that they influence those here before, as well. Britons, Saxons, Vikings, Normans and all that.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
Yes but only because they count a full democracy as a nation not only with universal suffrage and multi party elections but which usually elects liberals or left liberals
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
Stuart is telling you that the figures don’t add up. And it’s obvious why.
First question - are you religious?
Second question - for those that answer yes - which flavour of religion are you?
Third question - how often do you practice it?
Quite obvious the third question is going to be self-exaggerated
As was explained to you earlier, a big percentage increase in a small part of the pie is not sufficient to balance with the high level numbers you were citing - hence why even religious experts have challenged their accuracy
It is, see also the regular Mass attendance figures I gave
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
But if Quiet Revival report is to be believed, the CofE is growing overall- from 1.5 million in 2018 to 2.0 million in 2024. It's a smaller share of a bigger pie.
Trouble is, that doesn't match what we see in parishes. And the CofE is good at counting. Since that's a quarter of the claimed growth that hasn't happened, it does cast doubt on the rest of the study. (I think something similar happens when you compare the survey and actual attendance for RCs, but I'm less familiar with their systems.)
The same methodology can be applied to the data for the Catholic Church, the next largest denomination. The report said that it has grown from 23% of attendees in 2018 to 31% in 2024, meaning it would have grown from around 850,000 regular attendees in 2018 to 1.8 million in 2024, spectacular growth of almost a million regular worshippers.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales reported regular mass attendance down around 20% from pre-pandemic levels, to 555,000 in 2023 from 702,000 in 2019.
(From the same analysis of the Quiet Revival data in the Church Mouse blog liked above.)
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
For now.
Say by 2100 the UK is 30% Muslim, 25% evangelical Christian and 20% Roman Catholic a UK Parliament could be elected that might scrap same sex marriage
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
For now.
Say by 2100 the UK is 30% Muslim, 25% evangelical Christian and 20% Roman Catholic a UK Parliament could be elected that might scrap same sex marriage
I’d offer you a bet, but the timescale is rather long
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
You’re the fool, for having a go at something I never said.
You're the worst kind of fool, because you DO have some intelligence, just not a great amount, and this modest intelligence gives you a superficial understanding of humanity, which you take to be profound. Thus, you are wildly misguided
There is no point in engaging with you. It's like arguing with GPT2 in about 2022
Have a lovely holiday with your dog, I do envy you those white nights in Norway, they look amazing
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
For now.
Say by 2100 the UK is 30% Muslim, 25% evangelical Christian and 20% Roman Catholic a UK Parliament could be elected that might scrap same sex marriage
I’d offer you a bet, but the timescale is rather long
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
You’re the fool, for having a go at something I never said.
You're the worst kind of fool, because you DO have some intelligence, just not a great amount, and this modest intelligence gives you a superficial understanding of humanity, which you take to be profound. Thus, you are wildly misguided
There is no point in engaging with you. It's like arguing with GPT2 in about 2022
Have a lovely holiday with your dog, I do envy you those white nights in Norway, they look amazing
You should just go and play on Twitter. As usual, your actually engaging in any sort of sensible, analytical discussion is asking too much.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
I bet their children won’t be quite so religious. It’s just a matter of time.
I share your atheism, but not your view that it is obvious that the world will tremd that way.
Tbf I didn’t say globally; we were discussing the UK. I suspect the new immigrant communities will, over time, trend the same was as the Jewish community has here, and in general become less religious.
Yes, I was talking about the UK - it's not obvious to me that immigrants will lose their religion over generations. I find it interesting that you do. More broadly, perhaps you expect immigrant communities to become more like the host population - to integrate - whereas, at least in the case where those communities have syrong religious belief, I do not. This probably explains much of our differing attitudes to immigration, to which you tend to the optimistic and I tend to the pessimistic.
That’s a fair summary.
Taking a wide and long view, you’d have to explain why recent immigrants won’t trend the same way as all those we’ve taken in over hundreds of years prior? Although integration isn’t quite the right word - as it implies unidirectional influence, whereas the truth is that they influence those here before, as well. Britons, Saxons, Vikings, Normans and all that.
Well the example of Vikings, Saxons, Normans etc don't provide a great reason for optimism for the impact of integration on hist populations...
But my pessimism is driven by e.g. the fact we now have five Islamic sectarian MPs, the fact that the Islamists - including the 'men and women should be kept separate' party are now the official opposition on Lamcashire County Council and frankly any visit to Rusholme or Longsight or Cheetham Hill in Manchester or their counterparts in Oldham, Rochdale or Bolton. These communities are not integrating, they are creating separate ghettoes of an entirely separate culture which seems to actively reject the host culture.
There are some reasons for optimism - immigrants from HK or from India (who are an active part of my local cricket club and it seems every otger club locally). But for me, from my point of view in Manchester, many more for pessimism.
Very broadly, they won't behave like other immigrants over the centuries becauae the scale is much, much greater.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
Stuart is telling you that the figures don’t add up. And it’s obvious why.
First question - are you religious?
Second question - for those that answer yes - which flavour of religion are you?
Third question - how often do you practice it?
Quite obvious the third question is going to be self-exaggerated
As was explained to you earlier, a big percentage increase in a small part of the pie is not sufficient to balance with the high level numbers you were citing - hence why even religious experts have challenged their accuracy
It is, see also the regular Mass attendance figures I gave
Has anyone seen the data tables for the Quiet Revival report?
The report itself has a lot of results, but when we're looking at a quite astonishing change in young male attendance at Church going from 3% to 18% in just a few years, it would be interesting to drill down a little more.
I note they say that the sample has changed since 2018 as ethnic minorities were underrepresented, and admit that this would increase the numbers, but say this isn't "problematic". They said they've therefore been cautious when comparing trends amongst ethnic minority groups, but that suggests they haven't made any adjustments for the overall figures being based on different samples. Again, it would be interesting to see the actual tables so we could get a better understanding.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Some of those examples are probably not coming back, I would agree, but I do think some democratic backsliding is occurring with greater frequency, and that probably comes with other accompanying changes retreating from some attitudes. The more progressively inclined than I are arguing that is already the case with some trans rulings.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
But if Quiet Revival report is to be believed, the CofE is growing overall- from 1.5 million in 2018 to 2.0 million in 2024. It's a smaller share of a bigger pie.
Trouble is, that doesn't match what we see in parishes. And the CofE is good at counting. Since that's a quarter of the claimed growth that hasn't happened, it does cast doubt on the rest of the study. (I think something similar happens when you compare the survey and actual attendance for RCs, but I'm less familiar with their systems.)
The same methodology can be applied to the data for the Catholic Church, the next largest denomination. The report said that it has grown from 23% of attendees in 2018 to 31% in 2024, meaning it would have grown from around 850,000 regular attendees in 2018 to 1.8 million in 2024, spectacular growth of almost a million regular worshippers.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales reported regular mass attendance down around 20% from pre-pandemic levels, to 555,000 in 2023 from 702,000 in 2019.
(From the same analysis of the Quiet Revival data in the Church Mouse blog liked above.)
The 1.75 million regular attendance figure I quoted was the Catholic Bishops Conference own figures for England and Wales, your figures were I presume every Sunday without fail 52 weeks a year which you don't need to do to be regular
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
Yes but only because they count a full democracy as a nation not only with universal suffrage and multi party elections but which usually elects liberals or left liberals
There might be legitimate criticism of their methodology but given your own interpretation of democracy is 'anywhere which holds elections, even if blatantly not free or fair' such as Russia I don't think you are the best person to expose it.
Indeed, people taking such a, ahem, liberal view of what counts as a democracy is possibly a sign of the democratic backsliding Leon's post identifies in that we are more accepting of flawed democracies than we were.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
For now.
Say by 2100 the UK is 30% Muslim, 25% evangelical Christian and 20% Roman Catholic a UK Parliament could be elected that might scrap same sex marriage
I’d offer you a bet, but the timescale is rather long
It’s only a few years ago that same sex marriage was illegal. It’s good to see it’s now accepted - and indeed embraced as a core national attribute - by those who until very recently were sharply opposed.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
“Never” would be quite a bold claim. One day, the UK will cease to be a liberal democracy, because all systems of government eventually fail.
I could easily envisage situations in which slavery is practised (even if it is called something else).
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
“Never” would be quite a bold claim. One day, the UK will cease to be a liberal democracy, because all systems of government eventually fail.
No, all systems of government are imperfect, on current trends if liberal democracy failed in the UK its most likely replacement would be Fascist Nationalism. Liberal democracy is imperfect but better still than the alternatives
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
Stuart is telling you that the figures don’t add up. And it’s obvious why.
First question - are you religious?
Second question - for those that answer yes - which flavour of religion are you?
Third question - how often do you practice it?
Quite obvious the third question is going to be self-exaggerated
As was explained to you earlier, a big percentage increase in a small part of the pie is not sufficient to balance with the high level numbers you were citing - hence why even religious experts have challenged their accuracy
It is, see also the regular Mass attendance figures I gave
Has anyone seen the data tables for the Quiet Revival report?
The report itself has a lot of results, but when we're looking at a quite astonishing change in young male attendance at Church going from 3% to 18% in just a few years, it would be interesting to drill down a little more.
I note they say that the sample has changed since 2018 as ethnic minorities were underrepresented, and admit that this would increase the numbers, but say this isn't "problematic". They said they've therefore been cautious when comparing trends amongst ethnic minority groups, but that suggests they haven't made any adjustments for the overall figures being based on different samples. Again, it would be interesting to see the actual tables so we could get a better understanding.
The notion that 1 in 5 men between 18-24 are regulars at Church simply doesn't pass the sniff test, if you simply watch outside churches of any denomination on a Sunday morning, even the pentocostal African or Big Shed Vinyard churches. Even less so outside any CoE or RC Church.
If you don't believe me then go and look yourself.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
“Never” would be quite a bold claim. One day, the UK will cease to be a liberal democracy, because all systems of government eventually fail.
No, all systems of government are imperfect, on current trends if liberal democracy failed in the UK its most likely replacement would be Fascist Nationalism. Liberal democracy is imperfect but better still than the alternatives
We needn’t speculate. We know what will replace it: not fascist nationalism, but populist oligarchy. On the same spectrum, but different. There are enough international examples that we don’t need to guess.
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
But if Quiet Revival report is to be believed, the CofE is growing overall- from 1.5 million in 2018 to 2.0 million in 2024. It's a smaller share of a bigger pie.
Trouble is, that doesn't match what we see in parishes. And the CofE is good at counting. Since that's a quarter of the claimed growth that hasn't happened, it does cast doubt on the rest of the study. (I think something similar happens when you compare the survey and actual attendance for RCs, but I'm less familiar with their systems.)
The same methodology can be applied to the data for the Catholic Church, the next largest denomination. The report said that it has grown from 23% of attendees in 2018 to 31% in 2024, meaning it would have grown from around 850,000 regular attendees in 2018 to 1.8 million in 2024, spectacular growth of almost a million regular worshippers.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales reported regular mass attendance down around 20% from pre-pandemic levels, to 555,000 in 2023 from 702,000 in 2019.
(From the same analysis of the Quiet Revival data in the Church Mouse blog liked above.)
The 1.75 million regular attendance figure I quoted was the Catholic Bishops Conference own figures for England and Wales, your figures were I presume every Sunday without fail 52 weeks a year which you don't need to do to be regular
If you mass mass you have sinned, and need to report this sin in the confessional. Catholicism is a 52 weeks per year gig. Plus holy days of obligation.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
“Never” would be quite a bold claim. One day, the UK will cease to be a liberal democracy, because all systems of government eventually fail.
No, all systems of government are imperfect, on current trends if liberal democracy failed in the UK its most likely replacement would be Fascist Nationalism. Liberal democracy is imperfect but better still than the alternatives
We needn’t speculate. We know what will replace it: not fascist nationalism, but populist oligarchy. On the same spectrum, but different. There are enough international examples that we don’t need to guess.
You don’t need to formally reinstate capital punishment, or outlaw homosexuality, when a populist government does these things extra-judicially.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The US for all its faults remains much less corrupt than many “democracies”. And the UK is objectively one of the least corrupt states on earth. That’s not to say we don’t have any, but it’s generally low level and a bit comically pathetic.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
“Never” would be quite a bold claim. One day, the UK will cease to be a liberal democracy, because all systems of government eventually fail.
No, all systems of government are imperfect, on current trends if liberal democracy failed in the UK its most likely replacement would be Fascist Nationalism. Liberal democracy is imperfect but better still than the alternatives
We needn’t speculate. We know what will replace it: not fascist nationalism, but populist oligarchy. On the same spectrum, but different. There are enough international examples that we don’t need to guess.
Populist oligarchy is basically Putin's Russia and increasingly Trump's US, certainly well on the way to Fascist Nationalism even if not full Nazi. Then again Peron and Mussolini and Franco were not full Nazi either
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Legal slavery - hmmm. Talk to the police arresting people who are buying and selling immigrants. Not to mention the Libyan Ciastguard.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
In the UK, parliament is never going to reverse any of the changes I mentioned, and similarly it is never going to vote to abolish same sex marriage, that was my point. Hence it will remain both the law and the expectation, and sooner or later mainstream religions will have to take it on board. That there will always be small minorities who flout both laws and norms doesn’t negate my point.
For now.
Say by 2100 the UK is 30% Muslim, 25% evangelical Christian and 20% Roman Catholic a UK Parliament could be elected that might scrap same sex marriage
I’d offer you a bet, but the timescale is rather long
It’s only a few years ago that same sex marriage was illegal. It’s good to see it’s now accepted - and indeed embraced as a core national attribute - by those who until very recently were sharply opposed.
I am one who has changed my mind on this. I couldn't see the point myself once civil partnerships existed, but I was wrong. Same sex marriages have brought a lot of happiness to a lot of people, and were an important step towards being visible equality.
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The difference is that in the US, the Supreme Court ruled that corruption is a constitutional right for the rich, which Congress can't limit even if it wishes.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Sadly not, however much I might wish it to be so. From last time we discussed this-
According to their data, 41% of the English and Welsh Church attendance in 2018 was in Anglican settings. Based on a total regular attendance of 3.7m people, we can calculate the Anglican attendance at around 1.5m. By 2024, Anglicans had reduced as a proportion to 34% but of a much larger reported attendance of 5.8m people, so we should be seeing an increase in attendance of around 500,000 to around 2m. In other words, the report claims that the Church of England has grown by a third since 2018.
There may well be big percentage growth in funkier churches, but the CofE is such a large part of British Christendom that the total can't plausibly grow without the CofE growing.
And other, better, measurements just don't show that.
Not true, Christian church attendance is growing in the UK, just not C of E church attendance.
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
But if Quiet Revival report is to be believed, the CofE is growing overall- from 1.5 million in 2018 to 2.0 million in 2024. It's a smaller share of a bigger pie.
Trouble is, that doesn't match what we see in parishes. And the CofE is good at counting. Since that's a quarter of the claimed growth that hasn't happened, it does cast doubt on the rest of the study. (I think something similar happens when you compare the survey and actual attendance for RCs, but I'm less familiar with their systems.)
The same methodology can be applied to the data for the Catholic Church, the next largest denomination. The report said that it has grown from 23% of attendees in 2018 to 31% in 2024, meaning it would have grown from around 850,000 regular attendees in 2018 to 1.8 million in 2024, spectacular growth of almost a million regular worshippers.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales reported regular mass attendance down around 20% from pre-pandemic levels, to 555,000 in 2023 from 702,000 in 2019.
(From the same analysis of the Quiet Revival data in the Church Mouse blog liked above.)
The 1.75 million regular attendance figure I quoted was the Catholic Bishops Conference own figures for England and Wales, your figures were I presume every Sunday without fail 52 weeks a year which you don't need to do to be regular
If you mass mass you have sinned, and need to report this sin in the confessional. Catholicism is a 52 weeks per year gig. Plus holy days of obligation.
It is a broad spectrum, the Vatican counts all those baptised as Catholic as Catholic until death even if they never attend church or become atheist
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
Not that much, Modi was elected, as was Putin as was Trump.
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
It’s sometimes hard to distinguish real religious belief, from using it as a pretext to bash those you dislike. But, I think the latter is common in Russia, and explains Trump-voting “evangelicals” who never attend church.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The US for all its faults remains much less corrupt than many “democracies”. And the UK is objectively one of the least corrupt states on earth. That’s not to say we don’t have any, but it’s generally low level and a bit comically pathetic.
Your idiot complacency is off the fucking dial
Just consider the subjects we are not allowed to mention on here. And think again
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
I don't think that Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990. The rise of Hindutva ideology there suggests very much the opposite.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The US for all its faults remains much less corrupt than many “democracies”. And the UK is objectively one of the least corrupt states on earth. That’s not to say we don’t have any, but it’s generally low level and a bit comically pathetic.
Your idiot complacency is off the fucking dial
Just consider the subjects we are not allowed to mention on here. And think again
You’re conflating curbs on freedom with corruption. 2 different things.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The difference is that in the US, the Supreme Court ruled that corruption is a constitutional right for the rich, which Congress can't limit even if it wishes.
Wishes? Congress is the heart of the process.
Why do you think AOC wants to ban share and option ownership in Congress and the Senate?
“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.” - P. J. O'Rourke
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The US for all its faults remains much less corrupt than many “democracies”. And the UK is objectively one of the least corrupt states on earth. That’s not to say we don’t have any, but it’s generally low level and a bit comically pathetic.
Your idiot complacency is off the fucking dial
Just consider the subjects we are not allowed to mention on here. And think again
You’re conflating curbs on freedom with corruption. 2 different things.
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
I don't think that Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990. The rise of Hindutva ideology there suggests very much the opposite.
It suggests they’re more nationalist. Not more religious.
It’s pretty difficult to believe all that shit, like really deep down, faced with modern science. That doesn’t mean people don’t sometimes use it in order to justify group supremacy.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
Yes but only because they count a full democracy as a nation not only with universal suffrage and multi party elections but which usually elects liberals or left liberals
There might be legitimate criticism of their methodology but given your own interpretation of democracy is 'anywhere which holds elections, even if blatantly not free or fair' such as Russia I don't think you are the best person to expose it.
Indeed, people taking such a, ahem, liberal view of what counts as a democracy is possibly a sign of the democratic backsliding Leon's post identifies in that we are more accepting of flawed democracies than we were.
Yes, but the democracy point was a non sequitur from Leon; there was no reference to systems of government in any of the earlier discussion. Whether or not some sort of democracy is a pre condition for social progress is an interesting, but different question. The decline in the dominance of and adherence to religion, in the ‘west’ at least, has been a long and slow progress, from the days when people were tortured and murdered merely for having small differences in belief, and that progress started in societies that we wouldn’t today describe as democratic.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The US for all its faults remains much less corrupt than many “democracies”. And the UK is objectively one of the least corrupt states on earth. That’s not to say we don’t have any, but it’s generally low level and a bit comically pathetic.
I think @Cyclefree exposes the UK’s prevalent form of corruption. Good chaps and chapesses turn a blind eye to their peers’ less savoury activities. Scandals are automatically covered up, miscreants are moved sideways or pensioned off. Compensation schemes are made very complex. Beyond a certain level, there are no penalties for failure.
None of that involves anything as tasteless as brown envelopes full of used notes.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The US for all its faults remains much less corrupt than many “democracies”. And the UK is objectively one of the least corrupt states on earth. That’s not to say we don’t have any, but it’s generally low level and a bit comically pathetic.
Your idiot complacency is off the fucking dial
Just consider the subjects we are not allowed to mention on here. And think again
The global corruption index for each country is recently out, should you care to go check the view of experts, rather than just ejaculating your prejudices into the forum.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
Yes but only because they count a full democracy as a nation not only with universal suffrage and multi party elections but which usually elects liberals or left liberals
There might be legitimate criticism of their methodology but given your own interpretation of democracy is 'anywhere which holds elections, even if blatantly not free or fair' such as Russia I don't think you are the best person to expose it.
Indeed, people taking such a, ahem, liberal view of what counts as a democracy is possibly a sign of the democratic backsliding Leon's post identifies in that we are more accepting of flawed democracies than we were.
Yes, but the democracy point was a non sequitur from Leon; there was no reference to systems of government in any of the earlier discussion. Whether or not some sort of democracy is a pre condition for social progress is an interesting, but different question. The decline in the dominance of and adherence to religion, in the ‘west’ at least, has been a long and slow progress, from the days when people were tortured and murdered merely for having small differences in belief, and that progress started in societies that we wouldn’t today describe as democratic.
The biggest mass murdering regime in human history was of course Mao's atheist Communist regime in China
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
The US for all its faults remains much less corrupt than many “democracies”. And the UK is objectively one of the least corrupt states on earth. That’s not to say we don’t have any, but it’s generally low level and a bit comically pathetic.
I think @Cyclefree exposes the UK’s prevalent form of corruption. Good chaps and chapesses turn a blind eye to their peers’ less savoury activities. Scandals are automatically covered up, miscreants are moved sideways or pensioned off. Compensation schemes are made very complex. Beyond a certain level, there are no penalties for failure.
None of that involves anything as tasteless as brown envelopes full of used notes.
That stuff happens in every country. Whether it counts as corruption or something else - group exclusivity, nepotism etc - is questionable. But by all measurements, including both recorded corruption and public perception, we’re less corrupt than the majority of other countries. Not as good as Scandinavia, NZ or Canada, but ahead of most of our European neighbours and certainly the US.
Just peruse the scandals coming out of France or Italy, let alone the totally opaque Swiss system or the regular shenanigans in Ireland.
It’s typical British exceptionalism to think we’re either the best in the world or the worst. We’re one of the better ones, that’s all.
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
I don't think that Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990. The rise of Hindutva ideology there suggests very much the opposite.
It suggests they’re more nationalist. Not more religious.
It’s pretty difficult to believe all that shit, like really deep down, faced with modern science. That doesn’t mean people don’t sometimes use it in order to justify group supremacy.
On the other hand there is evidence that Hindu religiosity is on the increase.
400 million Hindus attended the Kumb Mela over the course of a few weeks in January of this year.
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
I don't think that Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990. The rise of Hindutva ideology there suggests very much the opposite.
It suggests they’re more nationalist. Not more religious.
It’s pretty difficult to believe all that shit, like really deep down, faced with modern science. That doesn’t mean people don’t sometimes use it in order to justify group supremacy.
You are making the classic assumption that it must all be con. Because you can’t see how anyone can believe it.
There are endless millions who do, genuinely, believe in the resurgent, militant version of Hinduism.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
Yes but only because they count a full democracy as a nation not only with universal suffrage and multi party elections but which usually elects liberals or left liberals
There might be legitimate criticism of their methodology but given your own interpretation of democracy is 'anywhere which holds elections, even if blatantly not free or fair' such as Russia I don't think you are the best person to expose it.
Indeed, people taking such a, ahem, liberal view of what counts as a democracy is possibly a sign of the democratic backsliding Leon's post identifies in that we are more accepting of flawed democracies than we were.
Yes, but the democracy point was a non sequitur from Leon; there was no reference to systems of government in any of the earlier discussion. Whether or not some sort of democracy is a pre condition for social progress is an interesting, but different question. The decline in the dominance of and adherence to religion, in the ‘west’ at least, has been a long and slow progress, from the days when people were tortured and murdered merely for having small differences in belief, and that progress started in societies that we wouldn’t today describe as democratic.
The biggest mass murdering regime in human history was of course Mao's atheist Communist regime in China
Which when you examine it, right down to its ‘holy’ book, was effectively a religion.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
Yes but only because they count a full democracy as a nation not only with universal suffrage and multi party elections but which usually elects liberals or left liberals
There might be legitimate criticism of their methodology but given your own interpretation of democracy is 'anywhere which holds elections, even if blatantly not free or fair' such as Russia I don't think you are the best person to expose it.
Indeed, people taking such a, ahem, liberal view of what counts as a democracy is possibly a sign of the democratic backsliding Leon's post identifies in that we are more accepting of flawed democracies than we were.
Yes, but the democracy point was a non sequitur from Leon; there was no reference to systems of government in any of the earlier discussion. Whether or not some sort of democracy is a pre condition for social progress is an interesting, but different question. The decline in the dominance of and adherence to religion, in the ‘west’ at least, has been a long and slow progress, from the days when people were tortured and murdered merely for having small differences in belief, and that progress started in societies that we wouldn’t today describe as democratic.
The biggest mass murdering regime in human history was of course Mao's atheist Communist regime in China
Which when you examine it, right down to its ‘holy’ book, was effectively a religion.
“Political Religions” is a term that has been applied to the Nazis, Mao, Stalin and others.
It seems that Israel is on the good side because they’re like us. They have the same God, even if they don’t have the same support for Jesus. Whereas the other countries in the Middle East, don’t have the same God. Jesus was only a prophet of Mohammed.
If we ignored religion, and thought of Israel as just another Middle Eastern country, would we think of them the same as we do now? I suspect not.
Given that the UK is basically not religious why do we think the way we do?
How many PB contributors attend their church, or place of worship, regularly? I suspect that, apart from @HYUFD, not many.
Me. Every day.
It turned out that the PB demographic (older, more thoughtful about big questions) was more church-going than the average, I wouldn't be surprised. Though even then, a minority thing.
And a demographic that is moving on as fast as Tory voters and Telegraph readers, I expect.
'Of adults surveyed, 12 per cent reported that they attended a church of any denomination at least once a month last year, compared with eight per cent in 2018. This does not include weddings, baptisms/christenings, and funerals. “In numerical terms, that’s growth from 3.7m in 2018 to 5.8m in 2024 — an increase of 56%,” the report says.
This “dramatic growth” is owed largely to younger generations, it says. In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.
“This is now the second most likely age group to attend church regularly.”
The result is a “curve” rather than a straightforward association between age and attendance, the report says, with the middle-aged (45-54) the least likely to attend (five per cent). The reversing trend is also true of gender, it says: overall attendance by men (13 per cent) outstrips attendance by women (ten per cent).
The shift to younger generations is also increasing diversity in the Church, the report says. While just 19 per cent of all churchgoers belong to an ethnic minority, this figure rises among 18- to 54-year-olds to almost one third (32 per cent).
Yes, we have discussed this survey before. It’s self certification, of a group of people under moral self-pressure to over report, rather the inverse of the NHS asking us how much we drink each week. It’s also been commented on by people inside the CofE that it doesn’t match up either with their own anecdotal experience or the congregation count data the church itself collates.
If you had actually bothered to read the article rather than add your preconceived atheist prejudice, you would see it was the Roman Catholics and evangelical Pentecostals seeing the main growth in church going amongst the young, not the C of E.
Not that surprising as most Christian immigrants to the UK tend to be Roman Catholic or evangelical Protestant rather than middle of the road Anglican.
The more immigration rises the more the decline in religion in the UK may start to reverse, especially as the religious tend to have more children than atheists and agnostics on average as well
Antidote rather than data, but in my patch of the evangelical world, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in Christianity, particularly from young people, in a pattern very similar to that implied by that survey. Our church (evangelical Anglican, just about still in the CofE, but not for much longer) has literally had teenagers (white, English, locals from birth) wander into church off the street ask what it's all about and become Christians - and talking to friends in similar churches, many have had similar experiences. Compared to 20, or even 10 years ago, this is remarkable - back then you had to lure the youth in with table tennis and pizza, and then barely any of them were even slightly interested in anything deeper.
Of course the CofE is still falling off the cliff, because the bulk of it doesn't actually belive in anything, which is a difficult message to sell with conviction. It's decline is also being accelerated because not only are it's only growing churches the fundimentalist evangelicals, those same churches are leaving the CofE in droves over gay marriage, either lock stock and barrel where that's possible, or more commonly by 85% of the congregation and 95% of the staff walking out and founding a new church outside the CofE just down the road.
I wouldn't say the only growing churches in the C of E are the conservative evangelical ones. High church London churches like St Bartholomew the Great are also growing as are cathedral congregations and rural village churches still tend to have above average attendance as a percentage of the local population and of course gay marriage is still not performed in C of E churches anyway. PLF for same sex services are allowed within services now but only because a majority of Synod voted for them, even if even that was too much for the most hardline of evangelicals. However if they refuse to offer any recognition of same sex couples married in English law now in the established church they are better off not being in the established church if even the opt out from PLF for them is not enough
Same sex marriage is with us to stay. Sooner or later, religion will have to take social progress on board as, eventually, it generally does.
It’s nice that you think social progress is inevitable and in one direction.
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
You’re quite right that there is a lot of pressure in the opposite direction right now, both domestically and around the world. And of course the pendulum has swung between conservative and liberal in both directions through history - c.f Victorian social attitudes compared to those prior.
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
Democracy is in retreat around the world. I wish it wasn't, but it is. You're an absolute fool
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
Yes but only because they count a full democracy as a nation not only with universal suffrage and multi party elections but which usually elects liberals or left liberals
There might be legitimate criticism of their methodology but given your own interpretation of democracy is 'anywhere which holds elections, even if blatantly not free or fair' such as Russia I don't think you are the best person to expose it.
Indeed, people taking such a, ahem, liberal view of what counts as a democracy is possibly a sign of the democratic backsliding Leon's post identifies in that we are more accepting of flawed democracies than we were.
Yes, but the democracy point was a non sequitur from Leon; there was no reference to systems of government in any of the earlier discussion. Whether or not some sort of democracy is a pre condition for social progress is an interesting, but different question. The decline in the dominance of and adherence to religion, in the ‘west’ at least, has been a long and slow progress, from the days when people were tortured and murdered merely for having small differences in belief, and that progress started in societies that we wouldn’t today describe as democratic.
The biggest mass murdering regime in human history was of course Mao's atheist Communist regime in China
Which when you examine it, right down to its ‘holy’ book, was effectively a religion.
No, it was a political philosophy of enforced state control of the economy and property.
Religion normally requires a God or Gods or at least worship of Spirits or interest in life after death
Vanilla is now readable again. Just rejoice at that news.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Certainly not true in Iran compared to the 1970s under the Shah, or India which is more militantly Hindu than it was under Modi, or China where underground evangelical Christianity is growing from near non existence under the rule of atheists like Mao or Russia where the Russian Orthodox church is a close ally of Putin and was repressed under the Soviet Union. Trump is also the most pro evangelical US President there has ever been policy wise
Government is different from public opinion. I don’t have the stats to hand, but I would hazard a guess that:
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979 - Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990 - Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
Why are the Chinese "superstitious?" Are their religions less real?
Comments
Im confident it would happen again.
It is, but at least they get on with it unlike men's football which features the most ridiculous injury tactics thumping the ground, rolling around as if they had been shot, and all the time peeking to see if the referee needs more acting to get their opponent sent off !!!!
Labour ministers will be urged to introduce scheme that would see low-income families given huge discounts" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/19/middle-class-families-higher-water-bills-poorer-households/
Incidentally, the Norwegians take their wartime history seriously, with lots of well kept museums, monuments and information boards for everything out in the countryside, all well signposted. I pulled off into a layby earlier and one of the Narvik memorials had fresh flowers. Part of the road I drove on yesterday was built originally by a gang of captured Yugoslav partisans, who didn’t count as PoWs and were basically worked to death building it. There was both a memorial and an infoboard explaining it in multiple languages.
I do see families in clinic where the elderly parents are dressed in quite a secular British style, while the daughter who is accompanying them is in Niqab, but translating for a parent not confident in English with a local accent. So outward appearances can be quite misleading. Traditional dress doesn't always indicate archaic values in other spheres of life.
Younger Muslims often see Islam as an important part of their identity, but very often get the quid pro quo in a multicultural city is that other people will live differently. Live and let live.
News: One of the senior staffers on SecDef's team at the Pentagon, Justin Fulcher, is no longer in his job, sources told
@edokeefe
@ellee_watson
and me. Fulcher started at the Defense Department as a member of Elon Musk's DOGE team and was later promoted to a job as a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
https://x.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1946664521449209999
*perhaps the first published author born in these islands, and correct about a lot of things.
Saved! Still 1:1
As I posted earlier Roman Catholics now make up 31% of church goers from 24% in 2018 and Pentecostals have more than doubled from 4% to 10%
Womens' football is really boringFirst question - are you religious?
Second question - for those that answer yes - which flavour of religion are you?
Third question - how often do you practice it?
Quite obvious the third question is going to be self-exaggerated
History, so far, doesn’t look like that.
We have done the same, with vastly higher death tolls.
Yet still you spout bullshit about "genocide".
But legal slavery isn’t coming back, neither is property-based limited suffrage, or bear baiting, or corporal punishment in schools. Some progress is permanent.
https://lausanne.org/global-analysis/christianity-in-the-uk
Trouble is, that doesn't match what we see in parishes. And the CofE is good at counting. Since that's a quarter of the claimed growth that hasn't happened, it does cast doubt on the rest of the study. (I think something similar happens when you compare the survey and actual attendance for RCs, but I'm less familiar with their systems.)
https://www.economist.com/interactive/democracy-index-2024
"Just 6.6% of the world's population now lives in a full democracy, down from 12.5% ten years ago."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/13/extraordinary-comeback-catholicism/
Taking a wide and long view, you’d have to explain why recent immigrants won’t trend the same way as all those we’ve taken in over hundreds of years prior? Although integration isn’t quite the right word - as it implies unidirectional influence, whereas the truth is that they influence those here before, as well. Britons, Saxons, Vikings, Normans and all that.
Bear baiting? Well, hare coursing is back, and being run by some very nasty people. Dog fighting is a profitable crime, as well.
Corporal punishment? Well, there’s fun with some faith schools. And there the practise in some communities, of sending kids home to “serious schools” to sort them out. The ones in Ghana sound like an exaggerated version of what someone thinks UK public schools were like in 1890. I’ve seen the results - traumatised children, basically.
The same methodology can be applied to the data for the Catholic Church, the next largest denomination. The report said that it has grown from 23% of attendees in 2018 to 31% in 2024, meaning it would have grown from around 850,000 regular attendees in 2018 to 1.8 million in 2024, spectacular growth of almost a million regular worshippers.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales reported regular mass attendance down around 20% from pre-pandemic levels, to 555,000 in 2023 from 702,000 in 2019.
(From the same analysis of the Quiet Revival data in the Church Mouse blog liked above.)
Say by 2100 the UK is 30% Muslim, 25% evangelical Christian and 20% Roman Catholic a UK Parliament could be elected that might scrap same sex marriage
There is no point in engaging with you. It's like arguing with GPT2 in about 2022
Have a lovely holiday with your dog, I do envy you those white nights in Norway, they look amazing
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1930538705556545616
Plenty of African immigrants are evangelical Christians or Catholic too and Eastern European migrants tended to be Roman Catholic.
The section of the white British population with the highest birthrate is also evangelical Christians
But my pessimism is driven by e.g. the fact we now have five Islamic sectarian MPs, the fact that the Islamists - including the 'men and women should be kept separate' party are now the official opposition on Lamcashire County Council and frankly any visit to Rusholme or Longsight or Cheetham Hill in Manchester or their counterparts in Oldham, Rochdale or Bolton. These communities are not integrating, they are creating separate ghettoes of an entirely separate culture which seems to actively reject the host culture.
There are some reasons for optimism - immigrants from HK or from India (who are an active part of my local cricket club and it seems every otger club locally). But for me, from my point of view in Manchester, many more for pessimism.
Very broadly, they won't behave like other immigrants over the centuries becauae the scale is much, much greater.
The report itself has a lot of results, but when we're looking at a quite astonishing change in young male attendance at Church going from 3% to 18% in just a few years, it would be interesting to drill down a little more.
I note they say that the sample has changed since 2018 as ethnic minorities were underrepresented, and admit that this would increase the numbers, but say this isn't "problematic". They said they've therefore been cautious when comparing trends amongst ethnic minority groups, but that suggests they haven't made any adjustments for the overall figures being based on different samples. Again, it would be interesting to see the actual tables so we could get a better understanding.
As for immigrant religious belief: surely the trends of the last couple of hundred years hold true. 1. That incoming groups will become more like the host population over time, 2. That the host population will take on some traits of the incomers, particularly in popular and youth culture, 3. Most cultures seem to be getting less religious over time.
Indeed, people taking such a, ahem, liberal view of what counts as a democracy is possibly a sign of the democratic backsliding Leon's post identifies in that we are more accepting of flawed democracies than we were.
I could easily envisage situations in which slavery is practised (even if it is called something else).
America has the most corrupt political system in the Western world.
https://x.com/ossoff/status/1946318914880778491
If you don't believe me then go and look yourself.
In the USA corruption is blatant. Here, as befitting an older State, it is more opaque, and insidious.
- Iranians are on average more secular than in 1979
- Indian Hindus are more secular than in 1990
- Chinese are less, what, let’s say superstitious, than in the 1950s
I don’t know about Russians, who the fuck knows, but they’re in the middle of a national mass delusion so let’s hope they’re not indicative of anything other than Russians.
This is my eyrie, whence I shall witness the Endtimes
Net Zero minister Miatta Fahnbulleh was active on key WhatsApp chats used to organise the revolt - posting several messages.
The Sun on Sunday
China was state enforced atheist under Mao
Just consider the subjects we are not allowed to mention on here. And think again
Nice boudoir by the way.
Why do you think AOC wants to ban share and option ownership in Congress and the Senate?
“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.” - P. J. O'Rourke
It’s pretty difficult to believe all that shit, like really deep down, faced with modern science. That doesn’t mean people don’t sometimes use it in order to justify group supremacy.
None of that involves anything as tasteless as brown envelopes full of used notes.
Just peruse the scandals coming out of France or Italy, let alone the totally opaque Swiss system or the regular shenanigans in Ireland.
It’s typical British exceptionalism to think we’re either the best in the world or the worst. We’re one of the better ones, that’s all.
400 million Hindus attended the Kumb Mela over the course of a few weeks in January of this year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg7gzzx3gno
There are endless millions who do, genuinely, believe in the resurgent, militant version of Hinduism.
Concealed plug?
Religion normally requires a God or Gods or at least worship of Spirits or interest in life after death
Are their religions less real?
You are talking about sockets, known in some parts of the World as outlets.
Plugs are the things you push into the sockets