These dashboards provide a 1-page parish summary of national census and deprivation data, mapped onto Church of England parish boundaries (boundaries as of October 2023).
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Fr Dean
3 months ago
Surprising to see that around 50% still identify as Christian when less than 2% attend church. What do we suppose they think being a follower of Jesus Christ entails?
That’s a fair point, although baptism numbers have collapsed, there will be some who were baptised many moons ago who will make that connection. It wouldn’t account for 50% though. I think that Fr David H is probably right in that many people associate being a Christian as being a nice person. We know that that’s not necessarily true of course. There are plenty of scoundrels in the church. What will the 50% think about their status when there are only the cathedrals and large town centre churches left? The CofE is actively closing down its rural offering and the… Read more »
Paul,
I agree totally about the usefulness of these dashboards. I’m now living and worshipping within the Church in Wales where there seems to be no want to publicise this information… perhaps heads are in the sand here!
I looked at a local sample of parishes where I know that Sunday attendance ranges from 1-3. 50% in all these parishes identify as Christian. Some may be other denominations. But overall there’s a failure to understand the central importance of the Mass to Christian faith and corporate worship. Every church in the neighbourhood (about two dozen) has an erratic pattern of worship, which doesn’t help. Holy Communion relegated to once a month in favour of d-i-y hymn (indigestible) sandwiches.
I agree they are “Christian” in that self identifying sense. But are they followers of Jesus Christ (or would they even identify as that), as Fr Dean asks?
Perhaps Fr Dean’s equating of being a Christian and being a follower of Jesus Christ is not something they might all accept or even comprehend. A follower, I gather, is something to do with social media.
A more reasonable question might be what do they think being a Christian entails.
Those who don’t attend Church are “just as good as those who do and don’t do anyone any harm”. And, unlike many clergy, they’re not obsessed with gay sex.
We know that following the pandemic there are a huge number of people still too ill to work – this has been a topic of national debate for some time now. Many of these may also be too ill to attend church, added to the number who (like myself) were mostly housebound before the pandemic. We can add to that the number who have been alienated from the Church by abuse scandals, misogyny, corruption, or disagreements over LGBT issues. Some have been put off by squabbles or bullying in their local church, or by a difficult minister/vicar. I know many… Read more »
Martin
3 months ago
As ever, care needs to be taken here. The Parish that I live in has a University and many Halls of Residence within the boundaries so the stats are very, very skewed.
In the 1970s there were several housing developments in Headingley in Leeds, university built and owned, for students. I recall that the university chaplains, not the local clergy, accepted responsibility for the residents.
Yes, that is usual. Did the church attendance figures include those attending chaplaincy services, I wonder? Or fresh expressions, or Bible studies, for that matter?
Thank you, Janet. I did not all that time ago quite understand the precise position of the Anglican chaplaincy at Leeds. The chaplaincy was based (and still is) at Emmanuel Church, adjacent to the University, a parish church originally, I think, a branch church of St George’s Leeds. I am fairly sure (again, I can only speak of 50 years ago) that the senior chaplain was Priest-in-Charge of Emmanuel, and that the assistant chaplain was also licensed to Emmanuel. I do positively recall that banns of marriage were read at Emmanuel. The form of words would be ‘Bachelor/spinster of this… Read more »
Thank you for sharing this. A colleague and I made those dashboards, and we hope that they will be of use – and the more people who know about them, the greater the chance of that! The datasets behind them are available too, in rather large spreadsheets: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/data-services/resources-publications-and-data You can see some of the same information on the interactive parish map here: http://arcg.is/1RaS4CS There’s a user guide for the map here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/parishmapsarcgis_userguide_april2024.pdf I hope to update all of those things at some point in the next few months, as other work pressures allow – the underlying census & deprivation datasets… Read more »
thankyou Ken and your colleague, these are very helpful – I’ve already forwarded one on to a parish which is working on a parish profile, and it’s also confirmed hunches we had about the age/family makeup profile a couple of newish housing areas.
Surprising to see that around 50% still identify as Christian when less than 2% attend church. What do we suppose they think being a follower of Jesus Christ entails?
Being baptised as an infant?
That’s a fair point, although baptism numbers have collapsed, there will be some who were baptised many moons ago who will make that connection. It wouldn’t account for 50% though. I think that Fr David H is probably right in that many people associate being a Christian as being a nice person. We know that that’s not necessarily true of course. There are plenty of scoundrels in the church. What will the 50% think about their status when there are only the cathedrals and large town centre churches left? The CofE is actively closing down its rural offering and the… Read more »
I think church attendance in the UK is reckoned to be around 5-7%. Around 1% attend a Church of England Church.
Which doesn’t answer your entirely valid question.
I think these census dashboards are very helpful.
Paul,
I agree totally about the usefulness of these dashboards. I’m now living and worshipping within the Church in Wales where there seems to be no want to publicise this information… perhaps heads are in the sand here!
Avoiding the institutional church, maybe (this is a serious comment).
I looked at a local sample of parishes where I know that Sunday attendance ranges from 1-3. 50% in all these parishes identify as Christian. Some may be other denominations. But overall there’s a failure to understand the central importance of the Mass to Christian faith and corporate worship. Every church in the neighbourhood (about two dozen) has an erratic pattern of worship, which doesn’t help. Holy Communion relegated to once a month in favour of d-i-y hymn (indigestible) sandwiches.
If they self-identify as Christian surely they must be. That’s the fundamental basis of self-identification in the UK.
I agree they are “Christian” in that self identifying sense. But are they followers of Jesus Christ (or would they even identify as that), as Fr Dean asks?
Perhaps Fr Dean’s equating of being a Christian and being a follower of Jesus Christ is not something they might all accept or even comprehend. A follower, I gather, is something to do with social media.
A more reasonable question might be what do they think being a Christian entails.
Those who don’t attend Church are “just as good as those who do and don’t do anyone any harm”. And, unlike many clergy, they’re not obsessed with gay sex.
Most secular people think moralistic therapeutic deism is Christianity. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moralistic_therapeutic_deism)
We know that following the pandemic there are a huge number of people still too ill to work – this has been a topic of national debate for some time now. Many of these may also be too ill to attend church, added to the number who (like myself) were mostly housebound before the pandemic. We can add to that the number who have been alienated from the Church by abuse scandals, misogyny, corruption, or disagreements over LGBT issues. Some have been put off by squabbles or bullying in their local church, or by a difficult minister/vicar. I know many… Read more »
As ever, care needs to be taken here. The Parish that I live in has a University and many Halls of Residence within the boundaries so the stats are very, very skewed.
In the 1970s there were several housing developments in Headingley in Leeds, university built and owned, for students. I recall that the university chaplains, not the local clergy, accepted responsibility for the residents.
Yes, that is usual. Did the church attendance figures include those attending chaplaincy services, I wonder? Or fresh expressions, or Bible studies, for that matter?
Thank you, Janet. I did not all that time ago quite understand the precise position of the Anglican chaplaincy at Leeds. The chaplaincy was based (and still is) at Emmanuel Church, adjacent to the University, a parish church originally, I think, a branch church of St George’s Leeds. I am fairly sure (again, I can only speak of 50 years ago) that the senior chaplain was Priest-in-Charge of Emmanuel, and that the assistant chaplain was also licensed to Emmanuel. I do positively recall that banns of marriage were read at Emmanuel. The form of words would be ‘Bachelor/spinster of this… Read more »
Thank you for sharing this. A colleague and I made those dashboards, and we hope that they will be of use – and the more people who know about them, the greater the chance of that! The datasets behind them are available too, in rather large spreadsheets: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/data-services/resources-publications-and-data You can see some of the same information on the interactive parish map here: http://arcg.is/1RaS4CS There’s a user guide for the map here: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/parishmapsarcgis_userguide_april2024.pdf I hope to update all of those things at some point in the next few months, as other work pressures allow – the underlying census & deprivation datasets… Read more »
thankyou Ken and your colleague, these are very helpful – I’ve already forwarded one on to a parish which is working on a parish profile, and it’s also confirmed hunches we had about the age/family makeup profile a couple of newish housing areas.