Identifying the U.K. as a Christian Country is Divisive and False

Gravestone
A gravestone in the graveyard of St Michael's church in the village of Catwick, England, March 4, 2014. A recent survey of Christianity in the U.K. found it is in decline and “no religion” is... Phil Noble/Reuters

An analysis of the long-term British Social Attitudes Survey published last month showed what has been clear for some time—Christianity in the U.K. is in decline and "no religion" is on the rise.

But it was the extent of the change revealed that won headlines. For the first time, there are now more Britons who have a non-religious personal identity than a Christian one. This is significant, because identity has for some time been the only thing that proponents of Britain as a "Christian country" had left to argue for their case.

Both Christian practise and Christian belief have become minority pursuits in recent decades with surveys finding that only three in 10 people in Britain believe Jesus was the son of God and that only one in 10 attends church at least weekly. Cultural identity was about the only personal attachment that most Britons had to Christianity. Now, they don't.

How they respond to their decline in number will be the business of the churches who speak for this new minority. To the rest of us, the continuing decline of Christianity, however, is not nearly so interesting as the continuing rise of the non-religious. On current trends, there is no reason to think that the non-religious majority will do anything but grow, at least for the next few decades, in both Britain and wider Europe. But British society and politics—and not least British politicians—have not caught up with this change at all and show a disappointing disinclination to do so.

The most obvious area where this is true is in education. In England, a third of state schools are controlled by religious groups—mostly by the Church of England—and that proportion is growing as a result of government policy. Recorded Church attendance is lower than the proportion of parents who admit to attending church regularly simply in order to get their children into church-controlled schools.

At the same time, as the population they serve becomes more non-religious, the Church has adopted a policy of re-Christianizing the syllabus of their schools. That may make sense for them as an attempt to re-evangelize the nation, but is it the best way for the state to serve its majority non-religious parents and young people? Why is the British government fighting back against the teaching of non-religious philosophies alongside religions in state schools? Or defending the continued legal requirement for all pupils in state schools in England and Wales to take part in a daily act of "broadly Christian worship"?

Outside of education, there is also much that should be reconsidered. The provision of pastoral and existential support in state hospitals, prisons, the armed forces, universities is (with very rare exceptions) almost all Christian, unlike in the Netherlands where changing demographics have been matched by the growth of humanist provision. Although in Scotland, the demographic shift has seen humanist marriages legally recognized and surge to overtake Christian marriages, in the rest of the U.K. these unions are held back by government refusal to give them legal recognition. In these deeply personal areas of our lives where nonetheless the state's power runs, the British state is failing to meet the needs of the new majority.

The reasons for the lack of attention paid to the most significant demographic shift in modern Britain—and, indeed, in Europe generally—are far from clear. Certainly, policy makers and the public have been distracted by the much more visible and voluble growth in minority religions that have been boosted by immigration, most notably Islam. But in Britain even the adherents of all the non-Christian religions put together are still only a tenth of the size of the non-religious. Although a more visible trend, it is a nugatory one in comparison.

Perhaps policy makers are intimidated by the idea of having to deal with such an amorphous category as the "non-religious," which lacks the leaders and hierarchy of the religious? Well, religious groups are also diverse and their self-appointed "leaders" are often unrepresentative. And, in any case, the non-religious are not really that diverse. Values and attitudes surveys suggest that about half are what sociologists might call "humanist" and half agnostic or indifferent—meeting their needs in policy and law is more than possible.

Perhaps the main reason is that the shift required in our constitutions to bring them into line with the new demographic reality would be so fundamental—and certainly not pain-free. It would certainly mean an end to the establishment of churches where they still exist, and in the U.K., in particular, an end to egregious provisions like the automatic places for Church of England bishops in the national parliament. It would also lead to the end of official pronouncements that we are a "Christian country."

Such a national self-identity, perhaps once meant to be inclusive, is now not only dangerously divisive but palpably false. Nonetheless, it is deeply embedded with many in the political establishment and the wrench away from it may be more than their courage can bear.

Andrew Copson is chief executive of the British Humanist Association.

Uncommon Knowledge

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Andrew Copson

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