Keeping faith | 7 September 2017

For Church of England vicars who worry less about what they will preach on Sunday than whether there will be any parishioners to listen to them, the latest findings of the British Social Attitudes Survey will make grim reading. For years the number of people professing religious belief in Britain has hovered around the 50 per cent mark. Now it seems to have dived decisively, plunging from 52 per cent to 47 per cent in just a year.

According to a survey we are no longer a Christian country, but then neither — for all the squeals over sharia law — are we becoming much of a Muslim country, or indeed any other religion. Just 6 per cent of us profess a faith other than Christianity, down from 8 per cent last year. Our established national church is declining fastest of all. Just 15 per cent of us now regard ourselves as members of the Church of England, down from 37 per cent 30 years ago.