Credit where it’s due: the British Humanist Association do a good job of keeping religion in the news. It’s long been recognised that sheer apathy is the biggest enemy of Christianity in modern Britain, so it is encouraging to see the BHA take out poster campaigns that draw people’s attention to the subject (which was why Theos donated to their atheist bus campaign).
On this occasion, however, their campaign – telling people to tick ‘No Religion’ on the 2011 Census – has been a mistake.
First, there was the way that the launch was overshadowed by the fact that a number of posters were banned for being offensive.
Second, there was the generally finger-wagging tone of the adverts and the faint sense of desperation that hung about them. Had the Archbishop of Canterbury launched a campaign pleading for people to tick the Christian box, he would have been ridiculed.
Third, there was the misleading suggestion that the Census religion question was used to direct government spending (“We’re sick of hearing politicians say this is a religious country and giving millions to religious organisations and the Pope’s state visit”). The point may be arguable – just – when it comes to the Muslim community. It is widely believed that the question was first asked in 2001 so that the government could get some idea of the correlation between ethnic, religious and socio-economic groups – essential if resources are to be deployed successfully. But no-one sane thinks the government makes spending decisions, such as on the Pope’s state visit, based on the ‘Christian’ answer to the question.
Fourth, there was the bizarre idea that the question somehow funnelled people into giving a religious answer. Those who voiced this view seem oblivious to the fact that, as in 2001, the religious question is the only optional question on the form, and that ‘No religion’ is the first option available to respondents in the list.
Those familiar with quantitative research know that wherever possible (i.e. on computer-aided surveys) options are rotated, so as not to present respondents with the same list in the same order each time (because otherwise undue respondent attention is given to the options higher up the list). The paper-based Census obviously cannot do that, the result being that, if anything, unwarranted priority is given to the ‘No religion’ answer. If the questionnaire is unfair, as humanists protest, it is likely to be in this way, rather than the way they claim.
As if this were not enough, there is one final point, which is perhaps the most interesting of the lot. The humanist contention is that the Census measures cultural attachment not religious belief. But it was never meant to measure belief (or attendance, or prayer, or alms giving, or sacred text reading, or any of the other elements that comprise full-on religiosity). It measures how people identify themselves, and that is a cultural issue by definition.
A few years ago I conducted some qualitative research looking at the barriers and bridges to religious belief in
On the assumption that being religious means assiduously believing and practicing that religion, there should have been no significant difference between these two groups. They were all non-practicing.
In reality, the difference was enormous. Those who had not ticked the Christian box in the Census were noticeably more hostile to Christianity (and religion) than the others. As far as they were concerned, religion caused wars, Christians were boring, Catholic priests were child abusers, Muslims terrorists, and Jews, Sikhs and Hindus just strange. I exaggerate – but, sadly, only slightly.
Those who had ticked the Christian box could be harshly critical but they were, as a rule, much warmer about the nation’s Christianity. They embraced the UK’s Christian inheritance, liked their local vicar, thought highly of the neighbouring C of E infant school, occasionally slipped into a Christmas service, and were at least prepared to consider marking some of the more seminal moments in their life in church. In other words, they had a genuine, if complex and often critical, cultural attachment to Christianity.
This does not of course mean that such people are Christian, still less that there are no objective measures of what being a Christian entails. Rather it means that such objectivity is not within our gift and accordingly we should be wary of drawing the definitions too confidently, especially when it comes to other people. The church’s history is littered with the corpses of those who didn’t quite make the grade.
All in all, measuring religion is notoriously difficult and however the Census question was phrased, someone would have objected. One undeniable merit of the way it has been phrased is that it will permit comparison with the 2001 data – at which point the argument will shift from how the question was asked to what the results mean.
Nick Spencer is Research Director at Theos.
