Christian, Apatheists or none? Do we fit the belief 'boxes' anymore?

By Kevin Dixon, on Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Gathering meaningful and up-to-date information on who we are and what we believe is crucial in designing social policy. However, our current tools seem increasingly inadequate for the task.

This is now being recognised by the Office for National Statistics who are responsible for the once-a-decade Census. It now looks as if the 2011 Census – expected to cost £500 million – is likely to be Britain’s last. This follows concerns that the 209-year-old survey is unable to cope with the nation’s rapidly changing population.

Fluctuations in temporary migration from other parts of Europe are one real difficulty for the Census. Another is that the questions asked can mislead and produce distorted information that is used to influence government policy.

For example, the question in the 2001 Census ‘What is your religion?’ gave a far higher figure for ‘Christian’ than all other surveys – the ‘Christian’ box being selected by 71.74 per cent of respondents. However, this closed question, which assumed that respondents would have a religion, probably inflated the number of respondents ticking a religious box and reduced the number of those ticking ‘none’.

Nevertheless, the ‘72 per cent Christian’ claim is still used to legitimise the presence of 26 unelected Bishops in the House of Lords, the continued involvement of faith leaders at local government level, and the uncritical approach of the media to issues connected to religious belief.

(Incidentally, 2001 was the first time a voluntary question was asked about faith. Almost 400,000 people claimed that their religion was ‘Jedi’, along with around 7,000 people who said they were witches.)

Local organisations are equally likely to ask questions that produce unreliable results.

Torbay’s NHS Trust has a monitoring form that asks about an applicant’s faith or belief. Along with a wide range of religions, from Christianity and Islam to Judaism and Hinduism, an applicant could identify themselves as a follower of Jainism. Now Jains are a proud and ancient people, though there are only around 25,000 in Britain, and probably very few in the Bay.

Meanwhile, the only option for non-religious applicants was the choice of ticking the ‘Atheism’ box; a choice that many feel doesn’t really describe what they believe. Indeed, looking at recent research, it looks like the majority of non-religious people in Devon aren’t atheists, but what someone called ‘Apatheists’ – those who just don’t have any active interest or involvement in religion of any kind.

Devon continues to evolve into a community of many faiths, with an increasing number of us having no religious beliefs whatever. This rapid pace of change seems to mean that we don’t fit into boxes anymore – our beliefs can’t be easily defined. What we do know is that morality and being a good neighbour aren’t the preserve of people with a particular religious commitment.

Who is counted as being of a particular faith may seem of only passing interest. However, these collected statistics are used to influence the design of our services and to give faith leaders a platform to lobby our councillors and the government. The deeply held convictions of a minority could then influence the laws we all have to live by, affecting the jobs we can do and how we live our private lives.

That’s why we need and deserve reliable statistics.

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