Religion in the United Kingdom.docx

1、Religion in the United KingdomReligion in the United Kingdom（Diversity, Trends and Decline）http:/www.vexen.co.uk/UK/religion.html学院：外国语学院班级：0803姓名及学号：吴琼 020801089 杜蓓蓓 020801069 高秋婷 020801070 邱雨 020801081Adherents% popChristian142 079 00071.6No religion (inc. Jedis)19 104 00015.5Muslim21 546 6262.7Hi

2、ndu2552 4211.0Jedi Knight1390 0000.7Sikh2329 3580.6Jewish2259 9270.5Buddhist2144 4530.3Spiritualist32 404Pagan30 569Jainism15 132Wicca7 227Rastafarians4 692Bahai4 645Zoroastrians3 738Christadelphian2 368Druidism1 657Pantheism1 603Satanism1 525New Age906Eckankar426Raja Yoga261Native American Church23

3、4Vodun (Vodoo)123Occult99Ancestor Worship98Free Church of Love49Amish24Other1179 0000.3Total religious45 163 00076.8No answer14 289 0007.3With over 170 distinct religions counted in the 2001 Census, the religious make-up of the UK is diverse, complex, multicultural and surprising. Less than half of

4、the British people believe in a God, yet about 72% told the 2001 census that they were Christian, and 66% of the population have no actual connection to any religion or church, despite what they tend to write down on official forms. Between 1979 and 2005, half of all Christians stopped going to chur

5、ch on a Sunday. Religion in Britain has suffered an immense decline since the 1950s, and all indicators show a continued secularisation of British society in line with other European countries such as France.1 Organized Religion in England 2 The Importance of Religion 2.1 The Importance of Religion

6、to the British Public 2.2 Compared to Other Countries3 Christianity is the Established Religion in the UK 4 Belief in God 5 Ignorance of Religion 6 Church Attendance in the UK 7 The 2001 National Census results on Religion 8 Belief in Various Religious and Spiritual Things 9 Minority Religions in Br

7、itain 9.1. Heathens 9.2. Jedi Knights 9.3. Satanists 9.4. Wicca and Paganism10 Faith Schools 11 Church of England 11.1 Did the English Ever Belong in Church? 11.2 The Financial Situation of a Doomed Church12 Sunday Attendance 13 Church Membership 14 Ministers 15 Churches | Congregations 16 Religious

8、 Adherents 1975 to 2001 17 Percentage Rate of Change Per Year 18 Percent of Anglican Baptisms of Newborn 19 Percent of C of E Confirmations Within Population 20 Church of England Colleges and Schools 21 Percent Cremated in the UK1. Organized Religion in EnglandSummary: 66% of the UK population have

9、no connection with any religion or church3. 18% of the British public say they are a practicing member of an organized religion4. The comprehensive professional research in 2006 by Tearfund found that two thirds (66% - 32.2 million people) in the UK have no connection with any religion or church3. I

10、n 2003 August, 18% of the British public said they were a practicing member of an organized religion, 25% they were members of a world religion4. According to these results, one fifth of self-declared members would also not describe themselves as practicing that religion. Presumably the others remai

11、n members for traditional reasons or due to social pressure. “This secular majority presents a major challenge to churches. Most of them - 29.3 million - are unreceptive and closed to attending church; churchgoing is simply not on their agenda.” Tearfund (2007) on 2006 research319641970 1983 1992 20

12、05Belong to a religion and attend services74%71%55%37%31%Does not belong3%5%26%31%38%Source:British Social Attitudes (2006/7)5Those who do not belong have first shed the practical and theoretical underpinnings of their religion, before finally overcoming social pressure to state your religion. There

13、 are many who are not at the later stages of this secularisation process, so they still say they belong, although they are in the process of forgetting & discarding the physical and mental aspects of what they say they belong to. Sociologists know that if they count heads and ask about beliefs, more

14、 people say they belong to a religion, and say they have the beliefs of a particular religion, than actually do. People over-state their own religiosity; thats why statistics from polls will often give higher percentages of believers than will head-counting and deeper investigations. In a large 2006

15、 August poll of year 9 and 10 teenagers in Cornwall, only 19% said that they have a religious faith6. It seems certain that if these teenagers reflect the future (only 22% said they believe in God), religious affiliation is going to continue to drop. A wider mori poll commissioned by the British Lib

16、rary found that nearly half of teenagers in Britain are atheists (2007)7. Organized religion in the UK has severely declined to the point where it is generally overlooked and ignored. The cultural attachment to Christianity in general lives on, but Monica Furlong in her 2002 comprehensive review of

17、the state of English religion summarizes the English in the same way as Grace Davies who wrote Religion in Britain since 1945 by saying the English believe without belonging to our religions. That is, many profess belief but do not take part in organized religion. Subsequent scholars (and we will se

18、e supporting evidence on this page) have doubted whether we believe; one said we dont believe, and dont belong. The Catholic Church has shouldered the main part of this decline, as well as the Church of England as can be seen in the rest of the historical stats on this page. “In the twenty years bet

19、ween 1980 and 2000 the Church of England suffered a 27 per cent decline in church membership. The Roman Catholic Church suffered a similar decline in the same period in mass attendance. Methodists, Baptists and others suffered decline too, though in all the churches, it must be said, there have been

20、 significant successes in certain churches and particular enterprises. The only institutional church which has continued to grow has been the Orthodox Church - Greek and Russian - where demand for churches exceeds supply, mainly because of immigration from Orthodox countries. There is a rather touch

21、ing footnote to all this, which is that people questioned about how much they go to church, give figures which, if true, would add up to twice those given by the churches.” C of E: The State Its In by Monica Furlong (2000)8“Catholics, the largest group, estimated to number about a million by the yea

22、r 2000 are declining the fastest, but what demands notice is that charismatic Evangelicals, still one of the smaller groups in the Church, are growing rapidly - by around 6,000 every five years. Evangelical Christians, according to the nomenclature of Religious Trends, are also growing and moving up

23、 towards the half million mark. These last two groups are undeniably success stories numerically.” C of E: The State Its In by Monica Furlong (2000)8Year 2000 snapshots: In 2000, 60 per cent of the population claimed to belong to a specific religion with 55 per cent being Christian. However, half of

24、 all adults aged 18 and over who belonged to a religion have never attended a religious service.9 48% of people in the UK claim to belong to a religion, compared with 86% of people in the US and 92% of Italians. From BBCs report UK is losing its religion (2000)10. Church attendance in 1999 was 7.5%

25、on an average Sunday, down from 10% in 1989 and 12% in 1979. A strange cultural phenomenon that occurs when a state religion dies is that many families will state that their religion is the common religion, i.e., Christian, despite not believing in the basics of that religion. Institutionalized Reli

26、gions Have Their Numbers Inflated by National Polls by Vexen Crabtree (2009) expands on this phenomenon.2. The Importance of Religion2.1. The Importance of Religion to the British Public 17% of the population responded that religion was one of the most significant factors in their lives. A persons o

27、wn experience, parents, education and friends come first4. (2003) 33% of the British public consider that religion is important11. 33% describe themselves as religious - 63% say they are not12. (2006) Those who do profess religion in the UK are largely inactive. A 2007 poll commissioned by the Briti

28、sh Library found that 50% of them do not practice religion very much, if at all7, with Christians being the most inactive. A running theme of all the statistics we have seen on this page affirm that although many say they are religious they frequently admit they are not practicing. 2.2. Compared to

29、Other CountriesOf 41 countries polled, 16 most developed countries have less than 40% of the populace who think religion is important in their lives. The rest (including the US at a very high 60%, and nearly all developing countries) had at least 57% of their populace who said so. Out of all the cou

30、ntries where the majority of the people do not consider religion important, Northern Ireland is the only country which experiences a conflict closely tied with religion. The USA stands as the only developed country that is generally religious.113. Christianity is the Established Religion in the UKOn

31、e single general trend can be brought out of all the statistics of religious belief in the UK: Our population is mostly irreligious, innocent and ignorant of religion, and despite some defaulting to calling themselves Christian (71%), the country is not Christian despite a vague 50% lingering belief in a God of some sort. Just over 6% of the population go to church on a Sunday6 (for every 6 who do, 94 do not).“Many people are brought up, as part of their family, to say that they are Christian despite only having a precursory knowledge of Chr