The Commission has been keen to ensure that the scope of the Inquiry was not limited to the narrow issue of the relationship between Church and State. It deliberately considered religious faith in its broadest sense, acknowledging the plural society which now characterises the UK. It recognises that ‘public life’ includes not only the accessories of State and government, but also the courts, the media, education, the arts and non-governmental organisations, all of which help to inform culture and society.
The Inquiry is set against a backdrop in which organised religion in Britain has been declining since the 19th century. In 2005, estimates of those attending church on a Sunday as a percentage of the population were 6.5% for England, 6.8% for Wales, 10.1% for Scotland, and 6.6% for Great Britain as a whole. A bleak recent study by Christian Research produced in September 2005 has forecast that with congregations plummeting by two-thirds over the next three decades, Britain’s churches may face virtual extinction with only 2% of the population attending Sunday services by the year 2040, of which 65% are expected to be over the age of 65. The 1851 census revealed that 40% of the population was attending church. Though in the 2001 Population Census only some 16% of the UK population claimed to have ‘no religion’, and 72% considered themselves to be ‘Christian’[1], in fact only 9.4% of the population were described as actual church members. The rate of membership decline between 2000 and 2020 is anticipated to be in the order of 37% for Methodists, 31% for Anglicans, 28% for the Roman Catholic Church, and 17% for Baptists.
When it comes to the established Church of England, although in 1920 approximately 68% of births were baptised, in 2002 that figure had fallen to 18%. For the Anglican Church in England typical Sunday attendance is 2% of the population, with weekly attendance slightly higher at 2.3% and monthly attendance at 3.3%. Attendance at Roman Catholic mass is typically 2% whilst Free Church attendance comes out at 2.8%. Church attendance in Wales and Scotland in 2000 stood at just over 7% and 13% respectively. The Church of England has experienced a painful recent history with external sociological factors combining with huge internal struggles to produce a serious decline in membership which continued unabated during the last decade of the 20th century, notwithstanding the ‘Decade of Evangelism’ and the supposed strength of the parish system. Similar pictures of decline also apply to other Christian denominations, although the generally negative church growth figures nevertheless mask pockets of vibrant growth in Evangelical Christianity, especially amongst the new churches and Black Christians in established and independent churches. A recent forecast claims that Evangelicals will dominate the Church of England by 2020.
Islam is the largest non-Christian religion in the UK at 3% of the total population, with an increasing influence beyond its numerical representation. Muslims attending prayers at British mosques on Fridays are forecast to reach double the number of Christians at church on a Sunday by 2040. In general, Britain in the 21st century shows comparatively little interest in organised religion, with most people using churches mainly for weddings and funerals, and perhaps the baptism of children. Church weddings have been falling off steeply since the mid-1990s when legal restrictions on the type of venue eligible for a marriage licence were removed, and are expected to drop drastically from 36% of the total in 2000 to 15% by 2020.[2]
Against such a backdrop, where the prevalence of work, leisure and entertainment lifestyles has significantly generated fundamental changes in traditional ways of ‘doing religion’, this Inquiry seeks to examine from a combination of constitutional, sociological, cultural, and theological perspectives the place of faith in our society in the context of societal trends characterised by secularisation, privatisation, and pluralism.
[1] The percentage varied across the UK. In England and Wales it was 72%; in Scotland it was 65%; in Northern Ireland it was 86%. There are arguments for and against the accuracy of the Census figures. For an assessment see UKCH Religious Trends No.5 2005/2006: The Future of the Church, Peter Brierley (ed.) (London: Christian Research, 2005), 2.3.
[2] The above statistics are taken from UK Christian Handbook Religious Trends 3 and 4, edited by Peter Brierley (London: Christian Research, 2001, 2003 and Church Statistics 2002 (General Synod of the Church of England), and UKCH Religious Trends No.5 2005/2006: The Future of the Church, Pete Brierley (ed.) (London: Christian Research, 2005), 2.2-2.24. This was helpfully analysed in The Church of England Newspaper, September 9th, 2005, 2 and 24. It should be noted that many of the statistics quoted are based on one Sunday’s snapshot.
