CHRISTIANITY ACROSS THE UK

            There are three ways of measuring church people: those who say they are Christian, irrespective of whether they actually ever go to church or belong to one; those who have taken out some form of church membership (the method of which tends to vary from denomination to denomination), and those who attend church with reasonable frequency.

            Until the results of the question on religion in the 2001 Population Census there was no precise way of evaluating the first group.  Not only is that now measured, however, it is also known for each of the four constituent countries of the UK as well as for smaller units such as Local Authorities.

            When the 250+ denominations in the UK were asked for their membership for Religious Trends No 4 they were also asked to break the numbers down by the four countries.  Attendance is not known for Northern Ireland but it is for the other three countries, so, for the first time, we can look at all three measures of counting church people by each country within the UK.

Country comparisons

            These figures are given in Table 1, where Christian is the Census percentage and churchgoer is those who attend in an average week.  The first figure relates to 2001, membership to 2002 and attendance to 2000.

Table 1: Church people across four countries

            It is known that if church attendance is counted across a month, and midweek is included as well as Sunday that the percentage of the population involved increases.  On a monthly/midweek basis the English figure rises to 11%, and the Scottish 15%.  Wales is not known but is likely to be 11% also, making a total for Great Britain of 11%, which (since church membership is also 11%) suggests that most church members try to attend church every so often!

            Even if one estimates that up to 20% of the population attend church once a year, many just once at Christmas, and that perhaps 40 or 50% attend church once a year for a wedding or a funeral, there is clearly still a huge gap between those who call themselves “Christian” and actual church involvement. 

            But the figures are more interesting than that comparison!  While only a tenth of English Christians are church members, almost a third of Scottish ones  are, and two-thirds of the Irish.  Membership clearly means something different north of the border and across the Irish Sea, perhaps a residual commitment to denominational beliefs and values which are still part of community identity.

Churches and clergy

            The denominations were also asked to give the numbers of their churches or congregations and clergy, as well as their membership numbers.  These are given in Table 2 as a percentage of the total.

Table 2: Church data across four countries, 2002

            Wales has twice the percentage of churches as it has of either members or clergy!  One of the problems of Welsh church life is simply the number of buildings, many of which are now redundant or with very small congregations. 

            On average England had 90 members per church in 2002, Wales 60, Scotland 250 and N Ireland 430!  The UK average is 120.  These are huge differences.  The variations in the ratio of churches to clergy are not so great: In England 1.3 churches per minister, Wales 2.6, Scotland 1.2 and N Ireland 1.3, giving a UK average of 1.4.

Trends

            The trend over the last few years has been downward in terms of numbers of members, churches and clergy, but the rate of decline is not uniform across the four countries.  In the 15 years 1990 to 2005 (projecting on the assumption immediate past trends will continue) church membership, across all denominations, is likely to decline across the UK by 16% against only a 3% decline in numbers of churches and clergy.  So with fewer people to look after, clergy will have other challenges!  However, as Table 3 indicates, while Wales has the greatest decline in members and church buildings, Scotland has the greatest drop in clergy.  N Ireland sees a greater proportionate drop in leadership than England.

Table 3: Change across four countries, 1990-2005

January 2001