The U.K., in the Church of England, has had an established church since the Act of Supremacy in 1534. After nearly half a thousand years, there is little to suggest this is likely to change. That said, there appears to be a silent shift in the nations psyche against it. This is the first in a weekly series of posts, that will review the latest trends in attitudes and activities either promoting or denigrating secularism in the U.K.

The Anglican clergy survey

A study conducted by YouGov and the Universities of Lancaster and Westminster, has returned some intriguing responses. A total of 1509 members of the Anglican clergy were asked a number of probing questions on their positions on everything from whether or not their accommodation was paid for by the church, to their level of support for the continued establishment of their church. What follows is a breakdown of the most notable statistics.

On the spectrum of liberal to conservative, where would you place yourself?

A reassuring 43% consider them selves to be on the liberal end of the spectrum, with only 24% considering themselves conservative. The rest see themselves as somewhere in the middle (32%) or didn’t know (1%). Interestingly, the liberal trend appears strongest amongst the older clergy (45+), with the young whipper-snappers (18–44) scoring higher in their conservative leanings. The sole respondent in the 18–24 category leaned conservative too. It is tempting to conclude that the fresh-faced and newly ordained are more zealous in their beliefs, and become more apathetic by it as they age, but it has to be said that the data does not allow such a conclusion to be drawn.

Thinking about the established status of the Church of England, which of the following comes closest to your own view?

This is the big one, as far as I am concerned. Only 54% replied that the church should retain its current established status. this is an incredible turn of events. Nearly half of the Anglican clergy doesn’t think the established establishment is desirable. Admittedly, only 14 % think that the church should be disestablished entirely, but even that is a pretty remarkable number in and of itself. Also, it should be noted that the strongest support for disestablishment came from the Scottish, Irish and Welsh franchises, although the home-grown church reported 13% for disestablishment.

In what ways, if any, do you consider the Church of England a positive/negative force in society?

Given a number of feel-good sentiments to agree with, the number of respondents that felt that “none of the above” were suitable stood at 1%. Conversely, when given a number of negative things said about the church, 9% responded “none of the above”. More interesting is the percentage of responses agreeing that the church is “stuffy and out of touch” (35%) and “it discriminates against women and gay people” (34%). Less surprisingly, 37% stated internal conflict, or “it is too divided and disorganised”. Our sole 18–24 conservative demographic didn't think there was anything negative about the church at all.

Other snippets

44% of the bishops agreed that the church is “too privileged and comfortable”, the highest response amongst all of the demographics. I suppose they should know.

51% agreed that “Christians in Britain today are being discriminated against, for example, by the government and in the operation of equality legislation”. One wonders what the response would have been if the word “persecuted” was used over “discriminated”?

Only 16% agree that “abortions should be banned altogether”. Our conservative youth feels the current legal limit on abortions should be reduced from 24 weeks. He caucuses with the 43% majority view on this.

51% think that same-sex marriage is wrong. 39% think the opposite.

70% think the law should stay the same with regard to allowing “people
with incurable diseases [to] be able to ask close friends or relatives to help them commit suicide, without those friends or relatives risking prosecution”. 22% think the law should be changed to allow assisted suicide.

Only 48% think that God is the thing they “MOST rely on for guidance as [they] live [their lives] and make decisions. 33% use their own discretion.

17% disagree with the statement “there is a personal God”, although there is no option for them to categorically state that there is no God.

In conclusion, then, I don’t think there are too many startling moments here; all surveys return some form of anomaly. But from the perspective of secularism, we can draw some hope from the not inconsiderable apathy towards retaining the church’s establishment status.

The Huffington Post UK “Beyond Belief” survey

Unfortunately, PuffHo haven’t provided a link to the raw data for this article, so I’ll link the article here and tempt you with the headline that states “More than half of Britons believe that religion does more harm than good”.

It would be remiss of me not to highlight certain aspects of it, though. In the context of this weekly seuclar overview, it can be difficult to ignore a statistic that states “more than 60% saying they were not religious at all”, and that “more than 60% said they thought religion caused more problems than it solved.”

I don’t often recommend PuffHo, but this article is certainly worth a read, but if you are short of time, the National Secular Society’s Andrew Copson gets the last word. One I feel should be added here.

“We need an inclusive shared society and an end to the privilege of religious institutions that allows a third of our state schools to be controlled by religious groups, unelected clerics to sit in our Parliament, and discriminatory religious organisations to provide what should be secular public services.”

And on the subject of secular public services…

All faith schools must actively promote British values says education secretary

I feel this article from The Grauniad follows on nicely from Copson’s above quote, although quite what “British values” are, I am sure I do not know.

The story relates to the Government’s handling of the “Trojan Horse” scandal, where 18 faith schools have been criticised for abandoning guidelines, and illegally teaching an Islamic ethos.

Whilst it is reassuring to know that the Government is taking steps to limit the teaching of a particular religion to innocent children, it is the height of hypocrisy not to do the same with any other religion.

Technically, I have to admit that this is a Christian country (our established Church of England is evidence of this), but given that the nation is becoming increasingly split on the matter, it is becoming difficult to defend this as a matter reflecting the reality of the situation.

If the Government were to disestablish the church and establish secularism, problem like these would simply not exist (at least, not legally). It is only through secular means that our students can be guaranteed the public education they need, free from the uneccessary interruption of religious dogma. This does not mean, of course that each religion is being shut out of the public square; they are free to practice and teach their religion to any and all that wish it, free from a meddling Government.

Other headlines from the National Secular Society

Catholic Church in Norway secretly registered thousands as Catholics to illegally secure government funds

Niger removes sex education from schools after condemnation from Islamic clerics

Secularists protest Pope’s planned address to the European Parliament

National Secular Society welcomes call for faith schools to face Ofsted inspections of their religious teaching

NSS calls on Welsh Government to review compulsory collective worship

European Commission dismisses NSS complaint over employment discrimination in faith schools