The Bible Society not too long ago revealed a document claiming that church attendance in England and Wales greater through greater than part between 2018 and 2024. The revival was once particularly hanging amongst younger males, with reported church attendance leaping from 4% to 21% over this quick length.
As a quantitative social scientist who has studied spiritual exchange in fashionable societies for greater than 25 years, I’m stunned – and sceptical. I don’t doubt that the Bible Society acted in excellent religion, however they haven’t engaged with the mountain of proof, a few of it very contemporary, pointing to non secular decline.
The once a year British Social Attitudes survey – extensively considered the most efficient and maximum dependable supply of information on such issues – presentations that the percentage of adults in England and Wales who mentioned that they have been Christian and went to church no less than per thirty days fell through just about 1 / 4 (from 12.2% to 9.3%) between 2018 and 2023, the remaining 12 months to be had. The Bible Society surveys counsel that churchgoers have been 8% of the grownup inhabitants in 2018 and 12% in 2024.
The principle Christian denominations (Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist) habits and post their very own attendance counts once a year. The ones display that whilst churchgoing continues to rebound from the lows of the COVID lockdown, attendance at worship products and services stays considerably not up to it was once in 2019, sooner than the pandemic. Within the Church of England, reasonable weekly attendance is down about 20% from pre-pandemic ranges, and the tale is identical in different denominations.
The Bible Society document claims that “Catholicism has risen sharply.” In step with their figures, Catholics have been 23% of churchgoers in 2018 and 31% in 2024. As general churchgoing supposedly greater through 56% over that length, from 3.7 million to five.8 million, the implication is that Catholic mass attendance has greater than doubled.
We all know from the Catholic church itself, then again, that the truth is a long way other. The Catholic Bishops’ Convention of England and Wales counted 701,902 other folks attending Sunday mass in 2019. In 2023, there have been 554,913 – a drop of 21%.
The findings also are inconsistent with different knowledge from YouGov, the polling company that accumulated the information for the Bible Society. A decade in the past, the British Election Find out about (BES) commissioned YouGov to create a web-based panel. This panel, which incorporates extra other folks than the Bible Society surveys, was once requested about spiritual association and church attendance in 2015, 2022 and 2024.
In step with YouGov’s knowledge for the BES web panel, the percentage of Christian churchgoers in England and Wales declined from 8.0% to six.6% between 2015 and 2024, while YouGov’s surveys for the Bible Society it appears display an building up from 8% to twelve% between 2018 and 2024.
The truth that the findings have been utterly other within the two circumstances means that this sort of polling isn’t a competent approach of measuring developments in church attendance.
What might be the issue with the information?
Gold usual social surveys are in keeping with random (chance) samples of the inhabitants: everybody has an opportunity to be incorporated. The British Social Attitudes survey is one such instance – and located that churchgoing fell through just about 1 / 4 from 2018-23.
In contrast, other folks choose in to YouGov’s survey panel and are rewarded after finishing a definite collection of surveys. The danger of low-quality and even bogus responses is substantial.
YouGov creates a quota pattern from its massive self-selected panel. The pattern will fit the inhabitants on a variety of key traits, comparable to age and intercourse, however that doesn’t make it consultant in all respects. As quota samples don’t give each and every individual within the inhabitants a identified likelihood of being chosen, statistical inference isn’t conceivable and findings can’t be reliably generalised.
To put in writing (as within the Bible Society document) that as a result of hundreds of other folks participated within the two surveys, they “give a 1% margin of error at a 99% confidence level” is deceptive.
This learn about isn’t the primary time such non-probability sampling has ended in doubtful findings. In past due 2023, the Economist ran the tale that one in 5 younger American citizens believed that the Holocaust was once a delusion, in keeping with some other YouGov ballot. A learn about through the Pew Analysis Middle confirmed that that discovering was once nearly definitely incorrect, and the Economist added a disclaimer acknowledging the issue.
The difficulty with younger adults
The Bible Society claims that the alleged spiritual revival is being pushed through younger other folks flocking to church (and studying their Bibles). There are a large number of causes to be sceptical of survey findings about younger adults. They’re what survey researchers name a hard-to-reach inhabitants. They have a tendency to be in transition between the parental house and schooling or employment; they’re continuously out of the home and tough for interviewers to seek out or for on-line survey corporations to recruit.
Those that do reply to surveys will not be consultant in their age workforce. They’re much more likely to be dwelling with their oldsters, much less prone to be out with buddies, much more likely to be compliant, much less prone to be suspicious of authority, and so forth. Such traits are related to spiritual participation.
The Bible Society document claims 21% of fellows elderly 18-24 are common churchgoers.
Yuri A/Shutterstock
It could be interesting to probe all of those problems additional, however regrettably the Bible Society has now not revealed the dataset. (When contacted about this, the Bible Society pointed to mixture statistics revealed through YouGov and mentioned it plans to post extra abstract tables within the coming months.) Open get admission to to all knowledge is now a fundamental expectation in medical paintings.
That the Bible Society document has generated some enthusiastic protection is no surprise – it sounds as if to problem standard knowledge, and there are many anecdotes to be equipped as supporting “evidence”.
However this doesn’t imply the information must be taken at face price. We want to position extra agree with in surveys in keeping with chance sampling and no more in knowledge accumulated from opt-in on-line panels. That’s in particular the case when individuals are pushing a tale that runs counter to on a regular basis revel in – and years of information.
In accordance with the arguments made on this article, the Bible Society mentioned it was once dedicated to generating rigorous and fine quality analysis that equips the church and provokes dialog in tradition. “We are well aware of the limits of non-probability panels, but also the demonstrated strength of this method in producing valid and actionable insights when paired with quota controls and post-stratification, as widely acknowledged in existing survey methodology literature according to academic standards. [Our data] points to both increased engagement with Christianity and a changing spiritual atmosphere, and we are happy to acknowledge it may be on the upper end of a range that future data sets will nuance.”
A spokesperson for YouGov mentioned: “YouGov’s methodology is robust. We have a proprietary panel of millions of people to take part in our surveys. YouGov draws a sub-sample of the panel that is representative of British adults by range of demographic factors, and invites this sub-sample to complete a survey.”
