"This is the most secular country in the world." So claimed the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee in a public debate in 2005. Was she right or is this just some strange secular fantasy?
According to a poll conducted for the BBC2 programme What the world thinks about God in 2004, the claim appears justified. The BBC headline left no room for doubt: "UK among most secular nations".
Anecdotally, most of us know this to be true. Nobody could seriously claim that was seriously religious, certainly compared to other countries or to its own past. That said, the fact that "the world" in this instance comprised Nigeria,
But what does being one of the world's most secular countries really mean? Does it mean that is actually secular, or just more secular than (hardly difficult)? What, after all, would a secular country look like?
The fact that religious belief is ubiquitous and that most even vaguely secular countries in history have had secularism thrust upon them, often at a terrible human and environmental cost, is, in itself, telling. There is simply no secular country that we might use as a model.
We can, though, at least make some assumptions. In a seriously secular country, the vast majority of people wouldn't believe in God, however vaguely. Few would claim to belong to a religious group. And nobody would pray. What would be the point?
This is a bad start. Virtually every research study over the last ten years tells us that the majority of Britons do believe in God, do claim to belong to a religious group, and do pray, however casually or irregularly.
Where else might we look for evidence of secularity? Well, in any self-respecting secular society, people would not think that Jesus was the Son of God. They would not believe in his resurrection and they would be unlikely to credit the Easter story with much meaning.
A secular society would view Jesus as a good man or wise teacher (and perhaps not even that). It would see the crucifixion as a tragic death that marked the end of his life, in spite of what his followers claimed. And it might, if it were a seriously sceptical secular society, deny that he even existed.
Again, the news is bad. New Theos research exploring these issues, makes uncomfortable reading for those who would claim Britain is, in any meaningful sense, secular. According to the survey, 57% of people believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, with over half of these believing in a bodily resurrection and the rest that his "spirit" rose from the dead. Despite the spectacular success of The Da Vinci Code, only 4% of people subscribe to the idea that Jesus did not die but was resuscitated by his disciples.
Along similar lines, 40% of people think Jesus was the Son of God, compared with 13% who think he never existed. And 43% think the Easter story is about Jesus dying for the sins of the world, as opposed to 26% who think it has no real meaning today.
Nor does the bad news end with Jesus. In a secular society, people would not believe in any form of life after death. When you die, you stay dead. Yet, in the Theos research only 41% believed that death marks the end of human existence, with 44% claiming that they didn't believe in a physical resurrection but did believe that "your spirit lives on after death," a further 9% believing in the physical resurrection and 13% believing in re-incarnation.
If you have worked out that these figures don't add up, you would be right. Some people are very confused, not least atheists.
According to most surveys, 10-15% of Britons do not believe in God. So Theos was very lucky to get a sample 23% of which were self-confessed atheists. This was an unusually robust sample.
Yet, of the 250 or so atheists interviewed, 14% thought Easter was about Jesus dying for the sins of the world, 12% believed he rose again from the dead, and, bizarrely, 7% thought he was son of God. However confused Christian opinion is, atheist opinion beats it hands down.
Whichever way you look at it, the idea that we live in a secular society is surely fantastical.
That recognised, not even the most ostrich-like Christian can claim that is a Christian country, in any defensible sense of that word. Research studies, like Theos', continually present as many challenges to the Christian community as they do to secularists.
Most obviously, there are countless questions to be asked of the allegedly "Christian" beliefs of ’s non-churchgoing Christians. What does it mean to say you believe in God or to call yourself a Christian in today?
Less obviously, there are just as many to be asked of the nation’s four-or-so million churchgoing Christians. For example, although 79% of Christians (who regularly attend church) believe that Jesus bodily rose from the dead, only 42% of the same group believe in a personal bodily resurrection for themselves. Yet Christian theology, from its earliest days, has been clear: the one points directly to the other. What exactly do the ’s churchgoing population believe?
The Christian church clearly has a battle on its hands. Not only does it need to connect with those millions who feel a vague, if non-committal attachment to the Christian faith, but it needs also educate its own congregations.
But to confuse this battle with the idea the idea that Britain is a secular country would be to make a grave mistake.
Nick Spencer is Director of Studies at Theos. The publication of the Theos research coincides with the launch of The Passion, (see above photo) the major new drama for Easter on BBC One which begins tomorrow Sunday 16 March 2008. The series - which unusually deals in detail with Jesus' resurrection - will inevitably raise questions as to whether he really did rise from the dead.
