Today the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has published data from the 2011 census which includes results for England and Wales from the ‘What is your religion?’ question. David Pocklington for Law & Religion UK has this handy summary Religion in Great Britain, 2011 with links to the ONS data.
The Guardian publishes this data on its own website:
Census 2011 mapped and charted: England & Wales in religion, immigration and race
Census 2011: how many Jedi Knights are there in England & Wales?
The Church of England has issued a press release: Census 2011 – England remains a faithful nation.
For the Telegraph Damian Thompson writes that Christianity is fading away in Britain as Islam surges and agnosticism spreads whilst Cristina Odone says 2011 census shock revelation: Christianity is still the majority religion, and Britain is still a God-fearing country.
The BBC reports that Census shows rise in foreign-born, but the article also covers the figures for religion.
Robert Booth writes for The Guardian that Christians could be minority by 2018, census analysis reveals.
Why does the church respond in such a silly way? One is reminded of the child with his fingers in his ears saying “la la la I can’t hear you”. Pathetic.
Didn’t John Betjeman once famously once say of Norwich that it had so many churches that you could attend one each Sunday of the year and not visit the same church twice within the year? Now, of course, many of Norwich’s fanes are redundant or put to alternative use and the 2011 census shews it to be the most Godless city in the realm. Such are the fruits of the abandonment of a faith based on Scripture and Tradition.
Neither scipture nor tradition have been abandoned, Father David. Nor, significantly, do you even mention Reason. The root cause of the decline is the abandonment of Reason and the resolute refusal of so many Christians even to accommodate it, sill less to develop it and to integrate into a proper theology.