I was going to write something about the 2011 Census and the campaign by the British Humanist Association against the ‘religion’ question. But, then I got back to my office and read George Pitcher’s take on it – and he is funnier than I could be.
Read his blog post (‘The religion control freaks are telling you what to think for the 2011 Census’) and then the comments below. For contrast, have a look at Richard Littledale’s recent post.
He probably won’t thank me for it, but I’m with Pitcher.
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February 28, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I rather wish I hadn’t read Pitcher’s article, you do yourself a disservice Nick I’m sure you could have written something logically coherent and certainly less insulting. He writes “The New Atheists have been beside themselves with rage since the 2001 Census” really? That’s a long time to be beside ones self with rage. The thrust of Pitcher’s argument is that people who are not in any real sense believing Christians should tick the Christian box because “Christianity is in our national DNA” whatever that means. And then comes the comments below, any idea that the word Christian is a synonym for compassion or thoughtfulness is very quickly exposed as false by the intemperate attacks on gays, Darwinist’s poor old Dawkins, Muslims and Atheists by many a self described Christian. I say the article is not logically coherent is because on one hand Pitcher is saying people should think for themselves but then goes on to tell people what to think himself.
On a more positive note a Facebook friend of mine (a teacher in Thailand) today recommended I should watch a Bruce Cockburn video > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp6czLE8U
February 28, 2011 at 5:50 pm
The census figures tell us what the census figures tell us – no more, no less. In other words they tell us what box people tick when presented with a limited list of religious descriptors and asked “which of these best describes you?” It is a mistake to try to use the figures as a weapon, or to seek to gain political leverage with them. I’ve even seen them invoked as a device to measure the relative hours of content devoted to different faiths by broadcasters. That’s nonsense.
I’m personally grateful to the BHA for their campaign. I think it can only add to to the integrity of the census figures. When Christians have used the last census figures to suggest that the population is broadly sympathetic to faith (and especially to Christian faith) the BHA have argued that people who ticked the faith boxes didn’t really mean it. It will be much more difficult to argue that, when there has been an active campaign for “cultural Christians” to opt for “no religion.”
For what it’s worth I expect the number of people who tick the “Christian” box to fall below 70%, and the number of people who tick “no religion” to rise. That’s merely because over the last ten years it has become more culturally acceptable to describe yourself as non-religious. But that’s a function of demographics and culture, not a measurement of the state of the Kingdom of God!
Faith is not a battle for ratings. Progress is not measured in numbers. The BHA knows that. I guess that’s why (as far as I know) they haven’t campaigned for a “Humanist” category on the census. If there was a humanist box on the census form I guess the number of people who ticked it would be quite small – and it would include many people of faith!
The census question as it stands is useful – but only in a limited way. We should use the results carefully and humbly; not to justify religious privilege, and certainly not as a stick to beat each other with.
February 28, 2011 at 7:09 pm
I don’t understand what the point of censuses is today, when better information can be obtained more cheaply though different sampling methods. Nor do I think the tiny British Humanist Association is much of a challenge to the Church of England, which does a pretty good on its own of assimilating itself to a post-Christian culture – most recently Giles Fraser, ex-of Southwark, now at St Paul’s Cathedral arguing for “gay marriage”. Step by step the regnant liberalism of the Church of England hierarchy is convincing regular churchgoing Christians that they would be better off going to the local free charismatic church. The absence of consistent evangelical leadership in the hierarchy of the Church of England has dismayed many thousands of people.
February 28, 2011 at 10:46 pm
The interesting comparison is with the British Attitude Survey that uses the alternative wording preferred by the BHA. This shows the level of those saying they were Christian is nearer 40% than the 70% found in the 2001 Census. As someone who spends a lot of time designing questionnaires it is a very complex issue that is difficult to get right. Suggesting that the BHA campaign is simply trying to bully people is utterly ridiculous. They are simply calling for the stats gathered by the census are as accurate as possible.
March 1, 2011 at 7:34 am
Such census questions are indeed fairly pointless, not least because there may be little correlation between the answer and any objective meaning of the words “religious” or “Christian”. In Sweden, for example, over 90% of the population are members of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, yet only 2% go to church and probably 50%+ would call themsleves atheists or agnostics.
The ratchet of (indigenous) Britsh society is going in a clear, post-Christian direction, the most recent sign of which is the High Court declaration that a (real) Christian couple are unfit to be foster parents because they are not ‘cool’ with the idea of homosexuality. Utterly incredible. And what does the hierarchy of the C of E have to say?
/crickets
March 1, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Isn’t it interesting how angry the humanists and secularists are getting these days. They really have it in for the Church and stamp and shout at the slightest opportunity. Now its not an infallible line of argument but in my experience when people get angry and start shouting its because they are scared that they are losing the debate and feel threatened. So, come on guys, be encouraged and keep up the debates.
Where better place to start than whether Kantian philosophy that puts the rights of the individual supreme above the good of society, as imposed by the Germans in Europe’s Human Rights legislation, is right for our Christian community, which surely is better served by Aristotle’s middle of teh road approach that many Christian’s espouse. Discuss.
March 1, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Well c2drl when I get my angryometer out I find it registers a lot more anger from the theists than the humanists or secularists side of the ‘debate’. One can scarcely open a newspaper or view a television news programme without seeing placard waving religious types seething with anger about something or other. I too have had the same thoughts as you about the reasons for this anger. I often wonder why religious people get so angry with the non religious. One would have thought their certainty that they will be rewarded by their God with eternal life in a heavenly paradise and those that disagree with them will be languishing in hell suffering perpetual torture would be enough for them. But it seems not, no they want to make their life a misery in this one as well as the next. I am thinking about the standard religious take on homosexuality and sex outside marriage etc.
I am not sure I have grasped the
pertinence of your point about Kant v Aristotle… Surely the judgement to which you allude is one in which the Aristotelian good for the many view was found to be of greater merit than the individuals (Kantian) right to discriminate against homosexuals. Much as I admire Kant I do find his ‘categorical imperative’ argument a little hard to apply as he would wish. In a nutshell this means one should never lie, so that he would tell the SS officer that Anne Frank was upstairs in the attic.. And moreover Kant was a Christian apologist a category in which Aristotle could not be included as he was a pagan in Christian terms.
March 1, 2011 at 6:17 pm
It’s an interesting fact, isn’t it, that the descriptor ‘being Christian’ is generally considered to be linked to church attendance or regular worship? And yet ‘being Jewish’ or ‘being Islamic’ or ‘being Hindu’ is not. No-one [least of all humanists I should imagine] would want to demand of a person of Jewish descent that they deny their heritage just because they weren’t currently attending a synagogue. It would be perfectly acceptable for them to say “My background is Jewish, I was raised in the Jewish faith” and go ahead and tick the ‘Jewish’ option box on the census. The same would be true for non-practicing Muslims or Hindus or Sikhs. In the BBC image included on Richard Littledale’s post this difference is emphasised by the fact that a list of denominations is included, in brackets, after the option to tick ‘Christian’ whereas the options for other religions stand alone. The implication here, as in the BHA campaign, is that churchgoing is necessary to ‘being Christian’.
Perhaps we should applaud this as a recognition of the fact that western liberalism has traditionally been opposed to the forcing of religious conscience. The choice of a faith is, and should remain, precisely that – a choice. English children, as I think Richard Dawkins has often argued, are no more born ‘Christian’ than they are born Socialists or Tories or Whigs. And yet, as I write that, I know the case is not so simple. English children inherit a language and culture that is saturated with Christian allusion and influence, whether they ‘choose’ it or not. Is it any more than peevish to try to deny that immense inheritance by saying “I am not Christian because I don’t go to church?” Is there something inherently demeaning in the descriptor ‘Christian’? Is it a title that can’t be worn with pride? If that is so it is a cause for shame, it seems to me, and a denigration of one of the world’s major inspirations .. to art, music, literature, life and faith.
I do attend a church at the moment and will tick ‘Christian’ on the census form. For a long time I didn’t feel entitled to do so but I was never comfortable with ticking ‘no religion’ – which I generally did on equal opportunities forms for job applications and suchlike. Doing so felt treacherous, like squandering my resistance ….
March 3, 2011 at 1:50 pm
The objective of the BHA campaign is to get people to think (just a bit) about their religion, rather than just automatically ticking the ‘C of E’ box.
Personally, I am torn between Pagan and Jedi. Ticking ‘None’ seems so passive.
K
March 5, 2011 at 6:56 pm
The Census has been run since 1841, it provides in one place social statistics in detail which no other source can provide. When the statistics bit is done with it becomes a real source of inspiration for historical researchers, from the amateur geneologist to the social trend resercher. I have been using the old censuses over the last six months and they are an inspiration. Long live the Census and long may they be conducted in Britain. The choice of anyone who wants to is not to fill in the boxes which they feel uncomfortable with, like the religious bit.