Opinion: it's a secular country

The Huffington Post (UK edition) has commissioned a sociological study of attitudes to religion in the UK.

Bringing the Faith to the Heathen (Mexico)
(c) Adam Jones

It should worry all of us who are committed members of a faith not least because it reinforces other, earlier, surveys.

Amongst the findings::

• "More than half of Britons believe that religion does more harm than good, with less than a quarter believing faith is a force for good, ..."
• "Even 20% of British people who described themselves as being 'very religious' said religion was harmful to society, and a quarter of [them] said atheists were more likely to be moral individuals than religious people."
• "Of the 2,004 people surveyed in the HuffPost/Survation poll, 56% described themselves as Christian, 2.5% were Muslim, 1% were Jewish and the remainder were of another faith or none."

What seems a little more hopeful (at least from my perspective) was the finding that:

• "Young people are actually more likely to have a positive view of religion. Around 30% of 18-24 year old believe religion does more good than harm, compared to just 19% of 55-64 year-olds."

but, of course, this can't tell us which way young people will move as they grow older. It is the age group least likely to be present in church.

All of which leaves religious folk a number of problems, amongst them:

• We are at some point in a long-term trend away from religious sensibility to an increasing secularity. 
• The legacy of Christian buildings, communities, public symbols and stories is clearly more or less irrelevant to the challenge.
• The language of faith is inaudible and/or incomprehensible to a growing majority of people - not just archaic (traditional) language, but any language of faith.

In practice we - Christians - live and hide in our own little encampments. We tend to be much more concerned to defend our own particular and local church than to be expansive in our sharing of faith. We pour energy into internal conflicts (as Christians always have) and sometimes even convince ourselves that our fights matter.   

And none of this should be surprising. We feel beleaguered, discarded, unappreciated, unmourned. Therefore the emotionally-reasonable reaction is to step back into what we know, what we've always done, including our own internal squabbles: it's where we're safe, comfortable and know where we stand. 

It's no use, of course. It's  just hiding under the blanket and pretending that the storm will pass. It won't.

At the very least we have to step out of our shells and risk getting soaked. I think it's time to stop talking (and certainly stop preaching) and to start listening. Just as a beginning.  

Paul Bagshaw