Perhaps this belongs in GD because the subject matter is so controversial – but it’s really factual question, so I’m posting it in GQ. Moderators, move it if you think it’s appropriate.
I posted a thread in Cafe Society: “What would Harry Potter’s religion be?” And several posters asserted that he might have none to speak of because he is British, and Britain is an extremely “secular society” where the people pay little attention to religion, apart from going to church on occasions when that is the expected thing. And I have heard people argue that Britain is now a “post-Christian” society. In his famous 1941 essay “The Lion and the Unicorn,” George Orwell declared, “[T]he common people [of England] are without definite religious belief, and have been so for centuries. The Anglican Church never had a real hold on them, it was simply a preserve of the landed gentry, and the Nonconformist sects only influenced minorities. And yet they have retained a deep tinge of Christian feeling, while almost forgetting the name of Christ. The power-worship which is the new religion of Europe, and which has infected the English intelligentsia, has never touched the common people.”
Is this true? If so, why? Why should the Mother Country be so much less religious than her daughter, the United States? In this country, levels of belief in God, belief in the afterlife, and regular church attendance remain extremely high.
And what about the rest of Europe? I’ve heard it said that Europe as a whole is likewise post-Christian – yet for some reason people there still seem to care a great deal about what the Pope says and thinks. There was even some talk about putting the Pope’s picture on the Euro – though so far as I know, the Pope’s earthly kingdom, the Vatican City, is not even a member of the European Union.
And what about Eastern Europe and Russia? Did all those decades under officially atheistic Communist regimes suffice to eliminate, or at least reduce, the general level of genuine religious feeling among the populace?
The below is very much IMHO from a doper born and bred in England.
Your question could be rephraised, “Why is the Daughter Country still so old fashioned?”
UK’s religiousness (or lack there of) is quite an enigma really, since UK unlike USA has a State Religion. Growing up in the UK in the 70s religion was never of major importance, and even in nominally Church of England Schools there were more Hindus, Muslims, and Atheists than active Christians. There is also I feel a certain amount of looking to America, when we see things we like we copy them, but when we see the religious right in USA we disslike it and so dissdain any attempt at fundamentalism in the UK. The Church of England, in its position as State Religion in a multi-cultural country is always very inclusive of other faiths values, and will tend not to oppose or undermine their views. I susspect UK was non-religious from an American point of view since way before 1941, but I think most Brittish people are still theists (believing in a God) just church going is uncommon, and such ideas as Biblical literalism are allmost unheard of.
As for the Pope on bills, etc., this need not be religious at all, all europe admires people who try to improve the world, and this Pope in particular seems to have made great attempts to breach the differences between faiths, and to mend previous Catholic transgressions, so why should he not be honoured as a person, even if not as a religious leader?
Spain also is a secular society which looks with amusement at the fundamentalist religious right in America and does not quite understand it. Religion is a private thing and nobody would try to impose their religious views because they know they would be laughed at. Any politician who expressed any political views based on religion would be ridiculed and would not have a chance. There is absolutely no significant sector of society who propose creationism. While I assume people have different views about abortion it is not a political issue at all. I think all of Europe are much more relaxed about religious matters than the USA.
I doubt if you’d find that America’s large city populations are much more religious than that of London.
I think the America’s general level religiosity, while undoubtedly greater than in other developed countries, tends to be exaggerated. This happens largely because each state gets to send the same number of senators to Washington, and being in the Senate is often a steppingstone to other very high profile government positions, both elective and appointive. So a rural, highly religious, and thinly populated state like Utah gets to send the same number of senators to Washington as urban states like New York and California. The rural-state senators, by virtue of the culture represented by their constituents, if not by actual personal conviction, are likely to speak and behave in a more “religious” manner. All this serves to give foreigners the idea that most of us are intensely religious when that’s not the case.
On the other hand, Bush was elected to the Presidency by the voting population at large, so the makeup of the Senate was of little influence here. But I’d wager that even many Republicans who voted for him are uncomfortable with his religious rhetoric, but simply chose him as the best available to vote for.
The Vatican isn’t a member of the EU, but it has always shared its currency with Italy. Each member of the EU could choose what they put on the back of their Euro coins. Most countries have so far stuck to one design, but Italy has coined a small amount of coins with the picture of the Pope as the head of the Vatican State on them. So these coins don’t reflect on the religion of Europe or even Italy at all. Just as in many other countries, they show the political leader of a country.
This site quotes the International Social Survey Program at the University of Chicago.
According to the figures listed there, 23.8% of the UK believes in God. This compares with 62.8% in the US. This would agree with my personal experience - i have met very few christians, and there aren’t any at all among my social circle.
7.0% of the UK believes in the literal truth of the bible, which is the lowest out of all the countries surveyed.
In the rest of Europe, only Italy and Ireland have a majority of the population believing in God. The rest are 20 - 30%, around the same as the UK. The two former communist countries listed have the lowest beliefs of all - around 10%.
What i personally found very surprising, was that less than 35.4% of the US believes in evolution. This is the lowest out of all the countries listed, and compares with 76.7% in the UK.
Perhaps this striking difference in UK and US levels of religious belief has something to do with the Puritans? They left England under religious persecution to pursue their religious practices in peace in America, thus setting up a very religious society. Although later immigrants may not have been so religious, societal pressure would have compelled them to become more so. The lingering effects of that are still felt today.
My theory, FWIW, is that a low level of church attendance in most European countries paradoxically results in part from the mainstream churches’ strong entrenched role as social institutions.
Here in (West) Germany being a registered church member is practically taken for granted - if you are e.g. from a mainstream Protestant family you get baptized into the Protestant church of your state, have tolerantly protestant religion classes at school (really ecumenical and also teaching about the basic principles of other religions), go to confirmation class at the appropriate age, at work automatically get deducted 8% of church tithes on top of income tax, get married in church and get buried by a pastor, with an explicit statement of belief only needing to occur once, at confirmation. The main protestant churches and the Catholic churches are among the largest landowners and are a mainstay of social services with their kindergartens, hospitals, seniors’ homes etc. This makes for a very broad church, busy in secular good works and not inclined to stridently and controversially raise their voice, especially when this would alienate a large portion of its own membership.
Good points:
churches v. tolerant in the main
Church gets to teach Genesis in school, leaves science alone (indeed one of my teachers taught Genesis to me in religion class and evolution in biology class).
Bad points:
faith underemphatized in the view of the more pious
churches tending to be somewhat bloated with bureaucracy
I guess a Church of England member will recognize a lot of the above characteristics…
mooka Interesting survey.
What people believe in Heaven, but no afterlife? The survey if correct shows at least 8% of Americans believe this.
Also I doubt the form of question about the existence of God
is useful in finding the number of Theists in UK, as UK education and social structure lead people to question their faith, and so many are not without doubt, even if they believe in God’s existence.
In fact it seems alien to me as a Brit that people can believe without doubt, and to me such a belief if not based on strong personal experience and introspection is valueless. People who believe without doubt is a sign of someone who believes without thinking about their belief. Only rarely does someone have absolute faith from a position of spiritual open mindedness.
IIRC, church attendance in the UK is now running at around 1-2 million per Sunday (can’t remember where I heard that - this site gives a projection of 3.8 million for 2000, which is somewhat out of date); that’s out of a population of 60 million. I think this refers Christian worship, and doesn’t include Jews, Muslims, Hindus, etc.
It is a weird anachronism that Church of England bishops are appointed to the House of Lords, and therefore can contribute to governing the country via the de facto veto; this doesn’t seem to have any effect on the decline in faith, though.
Sorry, I don’t have any figures, but it’s quite obvious that France isn’t very religious. Though the wide majority of people are catholics (as in : they were baptized), only a little minority is practising. I would guess that the majority of people believe in “something”, quite often (but not alwayys, by a long shot) their own interpretation of the christian god, but don’t feel very concerned about the catholic church positions, nor they attend church.
Except usually for baptism, marriages and funerals, which (along with tourism) are for most people the only times they enter a church. People actually practising on a regular basis, like in going to church every sunday, are a really tiny minority. A larger number goes to church from time to time, say 4-5 times a year.
Anyway, religion is very rarely discussed, and when it is, it even more rarely goes beyond "by the way, do you believe in God? . To give a personnal example, I know that my mother is a believer, and that two of my brothers are atheists. But I’ve no clue about the religious beliefs of my two other brothers (though I know they don’t attend church), and don’t even know whether my father believed in god or not (all I know is that he was in the category going to church only for marriages, funerals, etc…It never occured to me to ask him when he was alive. It just didn’t seem to be something really important. I guess that’s the case for most people. Religious beliefs of other people are, generally speaking, not deemed really important…as opposed to political leanings, for instance which are open to permanent debate and arguing).
Beside, laicity is strongly stressed here. There’s no way people would accept, for instance that a president would quote the bible or ask french people to pray during an official speech. That would be perceived as a major assault against the separation of church and state. Actually, generally speaking, people don’t know what are the politicians’ religious beliefs. I learnt only on this board that the previous french prime minister was an atheist. I’ve no clue about the current one. I know, though, that the current president is catholic and a believer, since I’ve seen footages of him going to church during his vacations.
As an American agnostic, I envy this situation. Here, even in the relatively progressive and cosmopolitan city of Chicago, I tend to find the prevaing viewpoint of most Americans to be tolerance for most mainstream religious traditions, but little tolerance for lack of belief. I, like many nonbelievers often feel social pressure to remain closeted.
Bippy the Beardless
I hadn’t noticed that anomaly regarding belief in Heaven and the afterlife. Maybe its a typo or something? Searching for the International Social Survey Program brings up a lot of academic links so they seem to be kosher.
Regarding your other point, i guess it all hinges on how you would define religious belief. I personally feel that if you have doubts about the existence of god then you are an agnostic, not a true believer. I’m going out on a limb here, but i would guess most US believers would agree with me. So according to US standards at least, Britain is post Christian.
I notice that the survey cited earlier was taken in 1991/1993. I would have guessed that the figures for Ireland have fallen dramatically in the past decade, and found the followiing more recent survey :- http://www.materdei.ie/logos/Situation_of_Faith_Today.html
which in fact proves my guess wrong. The figures for belief are stronger in the more recent survey,which makes me wonder what questions were being asked. The 1999 survey does show a significant drop in Irish religious practice over the past decade, though, particularly among young people.
**Yeah, but you’re assuming the CoE bishops believe in God… **
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Well, don’t you have to be a priest to get on that track to begin with? And wouldn’t you get called out as a hypocrite for taking the privileges that go with an institution whose basic reason for existence you don’t believe in? It would be like being a Marxist banker!
Well, many colonists and immigrants moved to the US because they were being persecuted for their religion. I would hypothesize that this selected for an early US population that was more strongly devoted to their religion than those back in the “Mother Country.” Then, if they bring up children who are also strongly devoted to their religion, and so on.
Well, don’t you have to be a priest to get on that track to begin with? And wouldn’t you get called out as a hypocrite for taking the privileges that go with an institution whose basic reason for existence you don’t believe in? It would be like being a Marxist banker! **
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Well you have to understand the C.of E. is both a religion and a social institution, so it can be jokingly said that a CofE Bishop could be a non believer in God as the CofE is so liberal in places. The current ArchBishop of Cantebary was made a Druid at the last Eiselfod (sp?) though that was a secular not religious druidic title bestowed upon poets and writers at that Welsh artistic event.
If Prince Charles gets to be King he would be Nominal head of the Church, and who knows what his real religious beliefs are?
As for Marxist Bankers, why not ;), the London School of Economics, was a very left wing University and could have turned out a few Marxists well capable of the job.
