Secularisation in the UK 1

One of the major disputes in the sociology of religion concerns

whether religion continues to be an important influence in society in
the modern industrial age. Some sociologists, notably Bryan Wilson
and Steve Bruce, argue that society is experiencing ‘secularisation’,
which they describe as a decline in the social significance of religious
beliefs, practices and institutions. However, other sociologists,
notably Grace Davie have pointed to the methodological problems in
accurately measuring religious beliefs and practices.

Defining and measuring secularisation

Secularisation was defined by Wilson (1966) as:

‘The process whereby religious thinking, practices and institutions

lose social significance’.

The statistical evidence

Researchers who emphasise the decline of religious belief and practice

among individuals have used official religious statistics to support
their case.

(a) Church attendance statistics

Some of the strongest evidence for the secularisation thesis as applied to

the UK comes from church attendance statistics.

 Crockett found that 40% of the adult population in 1851 attended

church. In 1979 Sunday church attendance statistics indicated that
only 12% of the English population went to church weekly. This fell
to 10% in 1989, 7.5% in 1998 and 6.3% in 2005. Jameson
(2002) has estimated that if these trends continue than less
than 1% of the British population will be attending church on
a weekly basis by the year 2016. In a report by The Economist
(2010) taken from 11 European nations, Britain came 3rd as a
country with the least Sunday church attendance.

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  In 2010, only 1.5% of the UK population attended Anglican
churches on a Sunday (a fall of 2% compared with 2009).

 Between 1979 and 2005, attendance at Catholic, Anglican, United

Reform and Orthodox churches declined by nearly 50%. Catholic
attendance would have declined even faster but immigration from
Poland has slowed the process down.

 Wilson argued that these statistics suggest that religion has been
reduced to traditional ‘hatching, matching and dispatching’
rituals.

(b) Church membership

Statistics very clearly indicate that church membership (i.e. this refers
to being born into, baptised, confirmed or married in a particular Christian
religion) has significantly declined over the last thirty years. For
example, membership of the Roman Catholic Church in the UK between
1988 and 1995 fell by 200,000 (15% of membership) whilst Anglican
membership fell by nearly one million members in the same period
(about one third of its membership). Only 2% of the UK population in
2012 were members of the Church of England.

(c) Marriages and baptisms

 Bruce notes that in 1900, 65% of children born alive in England

were baptised but by 2007, fewer than 25% of English babies
were christened.

 According to Bruce, nearly 70% of English couples were married in

the Church of England at the start of the 20th century. By 2006,
only a third of weddings took place in church.

Recent national surveys on religious belief show a significant decline in

both belief in and knowledge of religion.

 The 2011 Census revealed that the number of people who said
they are Christian fell from 72% to 59% whilst the number of
people who said they have no religion increased from 15% to
25%.

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  A survey conducted in 2012 by the Institute of Education
(University of London) found that only 31% said that they
believed in God, either without doubts (13 per cent) or with some
doubts (18 per cent).

Evaluation of the statistical argument

However, the reliability and validity of official statistics on religion

have been questioned by interpretivist sociologists who make the
following critical observations:

(a) Churches do not share any standardised ways of counting

their memberships so when supporters of secularisation use
these statistics, they are not comparing like with like. For
example, some religions only collect attendance statistics at
particular times of the year, e.g. Easter whilst the Church of
England conducts an annual attendance survey on just one day
in November.
(b) The decline in religious beliefs and practices is not
consistent across all regions of the UK. For example,
Christianity is more strongly followed in Northern Ireland and
is still the cause of violent conflict in the region.

(c) David Martin claims that the relatively high attendance in

Victorian Britain may have been influenced by non-religious
factors. In the 19th century, church-going was a sign of
middle class respectability rather than strong religious
beliefs.

(d) People may attend church today for non-religious reasons –

Davie calls this ‘belonging without believing’, e.g.

 The church may offer a sense of community to people such

as the elderly or the vulnerable;

 Parents may attend church to ensure they get their

children into church schools.

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(e) Statistics tell us very little about the social meaning of
religion, i.e. what religious belief or church-going means to
particular individuals.

As Grace Davie argues, many people may ‘believe without

belonging’ – they may feel that their religious beliefs are
private and may not feel the need to make them public by
worshipping alongside others in a church. The true extent of
religious belief may therefore be invisible to sociologists.

(f) There has been a significant increase in ethnic minority

religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism in the UK. For
example, the 2011 census figures revealed that the number of
Muslims in the UK had doubled in the past decade to 4.8% of the
population.

There is some evidence that Islam demands and involves a

greater commitment than that demanded by Christianity, e.g.
in terms of worship, diet, dress etc and that this means
greater religious belief among Muslims. However, Bruce
questions this and argues that their greater participation in
worship and prayer at mosques may simply be a way of
asserting ethnic or community identity in a multicultural
society.

(g) There has been a significant increase in the number of people,

especially young people, involved with ‘new religious
movements’ such as:

 The evangelical Christian movement - For example,

Pentecostal evangelical churches have dramatically
increased their attendance in urban areas such as London
in which 230,000 people attended Pentecostal services in
2012 compared to 198,300 at Catholic Masses. According
the Churches Census, which recorded congregation sizes
on a Sunday in October 2012, Pentecostal churchgoers
now make up 32% of Sunday worshippers in London,
compared to 27% for Catholics and 12% attending
Anglican churches. It is estimated that there are about 1
million Pentecostals regularly attending worship across the
UK.

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  Membership of sects such as Scientology, the Jehovah’s
Witnesses (135,000), Mormons (190,000) etc and cults
such as paganism too have remained healthy.

 There has been an upsurge in interest in ‘new age

spirituality’ such as the healing and energy powers of
crystals or Feng Shui in recent years.

In conclusion, we can see that although the statistical evidence in support

of the secularisation thesis seems convincing on the surface, it runs into
problems in terms of its reliability, validity and representativeness.
Other sociologists, therefore, have argued that we need to look beyond
participation in religious institutions, and examine the role that
religion plays in political and social life.

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