The Missing “Christians” on the Pews

A government survey published this week reveals four out of five people in England and Wales say they feel an affiliation with an organised religion, among which 74% described themselves as Christians.

The high level of affiliation with religion discovered in the research is encouraging the Government to build faith issues into policy making. However, when compared with the declining church attendance of only 7% of Christians in the UK attending the church, an interesting but worrying conclusion can be drawn- many British who claim to have Christian faith have very loose bonds with the church or any formal religious organisation. They are the "missing Christians" on the pews on Sundays.

Some scholars question that the definition of “Christian” used on the Census form may convey a different meaning to different people. Thus the attempt to interpret the country's religious face by the recorded numerical data is “not very meaningful”.

To some people, the title they ticked on the Census form is just a brief description about their religious background which may not be equivalent to their current active religious status. This is what Hanne Stinson, director of the British Humanist Association thinks, and she adds that there are many “cultural Christians”.

“If they haven't gone to church for 20 years they still put themselves down on official forms as Church of England. It's a common reaction of someone who's been brought up Christian,” she said.

A typical “cultural Christian”, Shirley Lumsden, a Roman Catholic shared her attitude towards her Christian faith. She said she ticked “Catholic” on forms because it was her background but she could not tell when she was inside the church.

For the “cultural Christian”, many of the religious rituals are not important to them. Lumsden and her husband Chris, a Presbyterian, chose a humanist naming ceremony instead of a christening for their son Archie.

"We felt it would be hypocritical to have a Christening and we didn't like the structure of a traditional service with the words and music the same for everyone. With the humanist service we could choose words that meant more to us."

Professor Roddy Cowie, a psychologist at Queen's University, Belfast, agrees that Europe-wide, culturally our values are rooted in Christianity. However, many Christians are just shaped by outlook; some of them attach themselves to non-Christian beliefs such as astrology.

He also blamed the wordy title used in the Census form as being too narrow to cover the wide-ranging statuses of people's faiths nowadays.

“Some people have a vague belief in some sort of deity and they don't like writing 'none'.”

Despite that, proper Christian faith and practice is a question to those who named themselves “Christian”, and the void between the number of Christians and church attendees may reveal that there is still much for the church to do to find and regain these “missing pews”.

Some say that the structures of the past are not answering everyone's needs and Christianity seems to have difficulty incorporating a contemporary view of the world.

Philip Giddings, Chair of the Church of England's Council for Mission and Public Affairs responded to the statistics, “Given the lower statistics which came out in relation to membership and attendance it is clear we need to develop those connections and there is much work going on across the Church. The land needs a revival.”

He continued, “It confirms what we have instinctively felt, that there is a larger reservoir of implicit faith, unformed, with which the church needs to connect.”

The survey, 'Religion in England and Wales: Findings from the 2001 Citizenship Survey', is the first of its kind and has revealed similar results to the Census. The Citizenship Survey is carried out every two years and samples 10,000 people in each survey.