In partnership with Christian Aid, Paul Bickley, Madeleine Pennington, and George Lapshynov explore a biblical perspective on investment. 26/02/2026

In our cultural imagination, investment is often seen as “finance–driven capitalism” associated with short–termism where profits are prioritised over people. 

And it’s true, financial investment is part of a larger economic system which often flows in ways which reinforce injustice, entrench inequality, and contribute to environmental damage.

But this is not the whole story.

When understood differently, investment is a tool that can either steer our societies towards abuse and excess, or towards something more fruitful. Investment stewarded well can be a mechanism for human and global flourishing.

In partnership with Christian Aid, Paul Bickley, Madeleine Pennington and George Lapshynov offer a theological framework for thinking about investment before providing practical ways forward. A biblically–informed view of investment is an important means of allocating surpluses fairly, honouring the network of relationships in which we are embedded, and respecting the needs of the natural world.

A more positive account of investment is not only possible, but urgently needed.

You can read the report here.

A Theology of Investment emerged out of an ongoing theological partnership with Christian Aid. You can read other reports in this series here:  

• A Theology of Hope by Nick Spencer and Bob Kikuyu
• A Theology of Power by Madeleine Pennington and Paul Bickley

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In partnership with Christian Aid, Madeleine Pennington and Paul Bickley explore what power means through a biblical lens. 27/01/2025

From personal relationships to politics, what we think about power (and how much of it we have) profoundly shapes our understanding and experience of the world around us. Today, many have an instinctive suspicion of ‘powerful’ elites. Yet from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, to Trump’s own divisive rhetoric on Greenland and military intervention in Venezuela, we also live in an age of strongman leadership on the global stage – and it is precisely the way such leaders talk about, and wield, their own military, financial, and political power that is now challenging historical norms so profoundly.  As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney observed in a viral speech at the World Economic Forum, “It seems that every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry – that the rules–based order is fading, that the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”   

Competing understandings of power have become a defining characteristic of our historical moment, and finding a more hopeful and constructive way to relate to power feels increasingly urgent. 

This report unpacks what the Bible says about power, first considering the over–arching narrative around power across the Old and New Testaments, before exploring some of the stories about power in the Bible and what practical implications they may have today. For the biblical authors, power is fundamentally creative, God–given, and indeed pervasive. Yet humans too often subvert its positive potential to dominate others. Power in the biblical understanding is both vital and dangerous; a gift and a risk. 

This theological approach to power offers a compelling corrective both to those who abuse power for domination, and those who deny its potential for good altogether. 

You can read the report here.

A Theology of Power emerged out of an ongoing theological partnership with Christian Aid. You can read other reports in this series here:  

• A Theology of Hope by Nick Spencer and Bob Kikuyu

To mark 80 years of Christian Aid, Nick Spencer and Bob Kikuyu unpack a Christian theology of hope, and offers it to a world that needs it. 05/12/2025

Feeling hopeful?

Hope feels in short supply right now. We won’t list the reasons. You know them already.

But of course, it is precisely when it is in shortest supply that it is most needed. Such is the law of supply and demand.

Over recent years, Theos has been working partnership with Christian Aid, reflecting theologically on a number of significant contemporary issues, and the fruits of our collaboration will be published over the next few months.

We are starting with an essay on hope.

Why hope? Or rather, why hope – other than the obvious reason outlined above? Well, here are a few others.

We need to think about hope because we often get hope wrong, confusing it with optimism. They are not the same thing.

We need to think about hope because we often base it on weak empirical foundations. Life globally has indeed improved over the last 80 years, as Steven Pinker often reminds us, but as investors are repeatedly told, ‘Past performance is no guarantee of future results’.

We need to think about hope because we sometimes base it on weak theological foundations. ‘Let go and let God’ might be good advice to a friend (though I have my doubts personally) but it is no answer to the climate crisis or civil war.

More positively, there are reasons – deep, theological reasons – for hope. The report unpacks them, picking up on the reliability of God and God’s creation, the reality of human agency, the power of human creativity, and the significance of human trust – or ‘faith’.

Perhaps most poignantly, there is this reason. Christian Aid was founded 80 years ago. In spite of the defeat of the Axis powers that year, it is hard to imagine a less hopeful, less auspicious start than this, amidst the rubble of a war that had murdered tens of millions of people, displaced many more, and revealed a vision of human barbarity that shocked even the most jaded and cynical. And yet, a better, fairer world was constructed. There were reasons, even then, to be hopeful.

Subsequent essays from our partnership will come next year and cover power, prophecy and investment. But for now there is hope. We trust you will find something of value, something to celebrate in this essay, at this time.

You can read the essay in partnership with Christian Aid here.

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Hannah Rich’s report exploring the places and spaces where people of all ages learn about other faiths outside of the classroom. 13/11/2025

This report in 60 seconds

In a time of growing division, where religion is often seen as a problem, religious education cannot, and indeed does not, only take place within the classroom or within formal education. If we are to build compassionate, cohesive societies, we need to understand religious education as something active, lifelong, evolving and to be taken seriously. 

This report explores where informal religious education happens across the UK; where are the places and spaces where people of all ages, in all kinds of communities, learn about and encounter other religions, belief systems and worldviews? Through various sectors, including youth work, arts and culture, public services, media and sport, as well as extracurricular spaces, campuses, anchor institutions and local interfaith networks, we map the opportunities and challenges of informal learning about religions and worldviews. 

We find that informal religious education varies significantly from locality to locality, and context to context; nationally, the picture is somewhat patchy although there are myriad examples of good practice at a local level, which we highlight through case studies here. In some sectors, we identify a ‘squeamishness’ or tentativeness in talking about religion and belief, which we argue needs to be combatted in order to grow the religious literacy of everyone, regardless of background. 

Informal religious education is strongest in areas of greater religious diversity, where there is greater opportunity for organic, unstructured encounters with those of other beliefs, reinforced by stronger interfaith networks. This raises the question of how to develop better religion and belief literacy in the whole population, not only those living in more diverse communities. 

If every sector of society is provided with the tools and confidence for good conversations about religion and belief, then informal religious education can and will happen naturally anywhere. Greater formal literacy will lead to greater informal opportunities for religious education, which will in turn mean a more religiously literate population and a more cohesive community. The fact that this is not currently occurring universally or strategically across the UK is, we argue, a missed opportunity for a better society. 

You can read the full report here.

This report was produced with Culham St Gabriel’s Trust

About the author 

Hannah joined Theos in November 2017. She is a mixed–methods researcher and author of several Theos reports including Growing Good (2020) and Beyond Left and Right (2021) and A Torn Safety Net (2022) and Disunited Kingdom? (2024). Previously, she worked for a social innovation think tank, a learning disability charity and as a care worker. Hannah studied French and Spanish at Durham University, including a year abroad working with faith–based organisations in Paris and Madrid. She also holds an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science from LSE.

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Theos are starting a new two–year project researching the global rise of Christian Nationalism. 16/10/2025

Theos are pleased to announce a new, two–year project researching, analysing, and appraising the rise of Christian nationalism worldwide.  

Building on existing academic work, and developing new quantitative and qualitative research, the project will seek to answer a number of interlinked questions concerning this important and growing phenomenon, including: 

• What is ‘Christian Nationalism’?  

• How does Christian Nationalism differ according to the different national, political, ecclesiological, social, cultural, and historical contexts in which it emerges? 

• What are the demographic, ethnic, socio–economic, and educational characteristics of Christian Nationalism? 

• How far and to what extent do theological ideas form and inform Christian Nationalism? 

• How far and to what extent does Christian Nationalism map onto existing patterns of religious and political commitment? 

• What can be affirmed and what should be critiqued within the different incarnations of Christian Nationalism worldwide? 

• What theological and pastoral resources can be brought to bear on this phenomenon, and, in particular, how should a Christian theology of the nation inform our response? 

These are initial questions, and the project will develop over time. The research will cover the UK and up to seven other countries, integrating primary and secondary studies, including polling, interviews, and evaluation of media, social media, campaigns, rallies and manifestos. 

The project is being led by Nick Spencer, Theos’ Senior Fellow.  

This project has been made possible by a generous grant from The Ideas Workshop which is part of Open Society Foundations. 

Theos is starting a new research project on cathedrals in modern English society that explores their unique place in national life.

The Association of English Cathedrals and Theos are conducting a one–year research project to uncover how the British public perceives the role and significance of English cathedrals. 

In 2012, Theos published Spiritual Capital: the Present and Future of English Cathedrals, a report assessing the breadth, depth, and nature of cathedral activity and appeal. However, there have been major changes in society since then: an ever–increasing proportion of the population identifying as non–religious, Brexit, the pandemic and the cost–of–living crisis, to name but a few. Amidst these challenges, cathedrals have sought new – and sometimes controversial – ways to attract visitors at a time of growing financial pressure, when providing daily worship and sustaining the English Anglican choral tradition is proving challenging. 

The Association of English Cathedrals and Theos therefore believe it is time to conduct new research to understand where cathedrals fit in 2025 England. 

The research will comprise in–depth case studies of six different cathedrals. At each location, interviews will be conducted with cathedral clergy, staff, volunteers, visitors, pilgrims and local stakeholders. These interviews will explore how the cathedral is perceived by those who benefit from it, whether they are members of the local community or national and international visitors (religious or not), or those who run and maintain it. 

This qualitative work will be complemented by local surveys in each of the six case study locations, as well as a nationally representative survey of UK adults exploring perceptions of cathedrals and comparing the spiritual, social and political attitudes of the respondents. 

The findings of this research will benefit policymakers, charities, local businesses and other faith and community organisations that are either already working in partnership with cathedrals, or that would benefit from a clearer understanding of the role of cathedrals to improve and deepen their relationships with them as community, heritage and spiritual assets. 

The project will conclude in May 2026. 

The project team: 

George Lapshynov is a Researcher at Theos. He is author of the report From Strangers to Neighbours: The Church and the Integration of Refugees, and co–author of the Theos socio–political research project Religion Counts 2024 (with Paul Bickley and Dr Yinxuan Huang). He holds an MRes in International Relations and an MA in History & Politics from the University of Glasgow. 

Dr Nathan Mladin is a Senior Researcher at Theos. He is the author of several publications, including the Theos reports AI and the Afterlife: From Digital Mourning to Mind Uploading, Data and Dignity: Why Privacy Matters in the Digital Age, and Religious London: Faith in a Global City (with Paul Bickley). He holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from Queen’s University Belfast. 

New report by George Lapshynov explores the distinct and crucial role of churches in the integration of refugees and asylum seekers. 17/06/2025

About the report

This report explores the significant but often overlooked role that churches across the UK play in supporting the integration of refugees and asylum seekers. Despite migration dominating political discussions, the focus typically remains on reducing the number of migrants rather than on enabling those who have already arrived to settle and flourish.

Drawing on extensive interviews with church leaders, charities, and local authorities, this report uncovers the practical and relational ways churches help refugees find community in the UK. Addressing misconceptions surrounding church activities, including unfounded allegations of proselytism and ‘fake conversions’, it highlights how churches complement the work of voluntary and statutory organisations.

It identifies the strengths of churches that enable them to play a key role in refugee integration, particularly their ethical framework, based on Christian teachings, that rejects the alienation and commodification of immigrants. The report also highlights the challenges that churches face, such as limited resources, volunteer burnout, and tensions between faithbased motivations and public perceptions.

Ultimately, it calls for an improved national strategy for integration, urging policymakers, charities, and churches to collaborate more effectively. By recognising and supporting the distinct contribution churches offer, Britain can better welcome refugees – not merely as strangers living on this island, but as neighbours who belong, thrive, and contribute meaningfully to society. 

You can read the report here.

How can we better achieve refugee integration? (Our recommendations) 

This report proposes practical policy changes that would support churches and facilitate a smoother and comprehensive integration of refugees.

To achieve this, we propose three fundamental principles that focus on integration from day one that could radically improve integration outcomes:

A seat at the table — Despite providing key frontline services and serving as an essential safety net, churches often remain isolated from strategic partnerships. By virtue of the significant work of churches in local communities across the UK, and for the benefit of refugees and their integration in the UK, we believe it is essential that churches have a seat at the table in strategic discussions at local, regional and national levels.

A community access model — Asylum accommodation in general, and contingency accommodation in particular, is one of the greatest shortcomings of the UK asylum system. It lacks community buy–in, fuels local resentment, and contributes to the stigmatisation of asylum seekers. Yet we believe the time asylum seekers spend waiting can be optimised through a community access model that encourages accommodation providers to play a more positive role in integration and work increasingly closely with churches and civil society. 

A right to volunteer —While charities up and down the country do much for asylum seekers and refugees, only initiatives enabling them to give back and have a stake in the wellbeing of their host communities can foster their dignity and sense of purpose. We therefore recommend formally promoting a right to volunteer for all asylum seekers and refugees. Provided the necessary safeguards are in place to avoid exploitation, volunteering will improve integration through language acquisition, social engagement and increased employability. 

About the author

George Lapshynov is a Researcher at Theos. He is co–author of the Theos report Volunteering After the Pandemic: Lessons from the Homelessness Sector (with Hannah Rich) and the Theos socio–political research project Religion Counts 2024 (with Paul Bickley and Yinxuan Huang). He holds an MRes in International Relations and an MA(Hons) in History & Politics from the University of Glasgow. 

With grateful thanks to the Susanna Wesley Foundation

In this essay, Nick Spencer unpacks the role of religion in public debate. Is there really any difference between a religious and non–religious argument? 12/06/2024

About the essay

What role should religion play in public debate? In particular, what role should it play in complex political debates like that over assisted dying?

For some, the answer is as little as possible. Objections to religious contributions to the assisted dying debate claimed that they were either (1) intellectually inadequate, (2) insufficiently willing to compromise, (3) inadmissible in a secular culture, or (4) dishonest about their motivations.

This essay tackles each of these criticisms and argues that while religious arguments can be guilty as charged, they need not be and, in this debate, that they rarely were. In this respect, they are little different from non–religious arguments.

The essay looks at what role religion actually played in the assisted dying debate and in doing so, it answers a question that is more assumed than understood: what even is a “religious reason”?

You can read the essay here.

About the author

Dr Nick Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos and the author, most recently, of The Landscapes of Science and Religion: what are we disagreeing about? (OUP, 2025) He is host of the podcast Reading Our Times. 

Theos is starting a new research project on motherhood that explores the ways in which motherhood plays out in our society.

Theos and Bible Society are conducting a new 18–month research project to uncover the spiritual, social and political impact of becoming a mother. We will explore the different ways in which views and beliefs about motherhood play out in politics, the economy, culture and society – and open up conversations about the place of mothers, and the support they deserve in a changing world.

Thinking about motherhood means asking questions about life and death, the nature of care, gender roles, embodiment, sacrifice, autonomy and love. Research by Bible Society has found that the birth of a child frequently prompts young parents to reflect afresh on their values and spirituality. Parents are deeply concerned about their children’s futures, and want all the help they can get in bringing them up.[i]

Motherhood is both personal and profoundly political, as the arena in which new citizens are formed, while relationships are re–negotiated and transformed. Every society must make choices about the healthcare and social support it provides for new mothers. As countries face up to falling birth rates and the challenges of an ageing population, individual and familial decisions about motherhood and childcare take on global significance.

A political question demands political answers. And yet, the lived experiences of women at the key transition stage of matrescence – the physical, emotional and psychological process of becoming a mother – is often hidden or overlooked.  While women’s economic activity has increased, new motherhood is often the juncture where women leave the public world of work, for the private work of childcare. The industrial separation of ‘home’ and ‘workplace’ has left the work of mothering itself behind closed doors and out of sight.  An online survey of UK mothers from October 2023 found that nearly three quarters of mothers felt “invisible”, while 93% felt unappreciated, unacknowledged or unseen once they’ve had children.[ii]  And while some cultures have customs and ceremonies marking a woman’s transition to motherhood, for many new mothers in Britain, this profoundly transformative experience goes unrecognised.

For many – perhaps all – new mothers, parenthood brings with it dramatic shifts in how they view themselves and the world around them. In the words of writer Lucy Jones, reflecting on the struggles of adjusting to her role as a mother: “When I started to realise many [other mothers] were also in crisis, I saw [motherhood] for what it was: the most socio–political experience of my life.” We are delighted that Lucy will be partnering with us as a consultant on this project.

We want to throw light on new mothers and their place in society, as carers who nurture new citizens, workers whose labour is not always rewarded in financial terms, and political beings who may engage deeply with social, political and cultural issues. And, reflecting on the existential questions which so often arise with matrescence, we will ask what difference it can make for a new mother to be guided by a personal faith or supported by a wider faith community.

A society that understands motherhood better, with its broad political relevance and capacity to bridge some of the most fundamental fault lines of the modern world, could be more humane, generous, and equitable.

The first phase of our research is an in–depth case study of new motherhood in the UK, conducted as a partnership between Theos and Bible Society. We will carry out interviews and focus groups with pregnant women and mothers, and professionals directly involved with maternal care and support. These interviews will explore the existential and political implications of the transition to motherhood, its long–term impacts, and whether the care and support available for mothers is adequate to support such shifts. The qualitative work will then be complemented with a nationally representative survey of UK adults, exploring perceptions of motherhood, and comparing spiritual, social, and political attitudes between these groups more broadly.  

In a second phase of the project, we will set out to conduct smaller comparative studies in a small number of other countries. Whilst indicative rather than representative, such a comparison will offer a rich contextualisation to our first phase of research on how motherhood manifests existentially and politically in a range of contexts and cultures. 

This contextualised research will benefit mothers and their families, policy makers, churches and other faith organisations. By listening to new mothers and those who work with them, we aim to find new and better ways to celebrate and support women going through this crucial life stage.  More broadly, we aim at  deepening and enlivening the mainstream conversation around the experience of new motherhood, and highlighting areas where better understanding might be applied to improve both our common life and the lives of mothers themselves.

The project will conclude in Spring 2026.

Project team: Chine McDonald (Director, Theos), Dr Rhiannon McAleer (Head of Research and Impact, Bible Society), Dr Rob Barward–Symonns (Head of Research, Theos), Dr Marianne Rozario (Senior Researcher and Projects Lead, Theos), Dr Eona Bell (Research Assistant, Theos).

The latest book on science and religion by Dr Nick Spencer and Dr Hannah Waite aims to get to the root of what the terms ‘science’ and ‘religion’ actually mean through interviews from over 100 leading thinkers. 28/02/2025

The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. The scientific capacity to manipulate and change humans and their environment through genetic engineering, life extension, and AI is going to take a huge leap forward in the twenty–first century, provoking endless debates around humans “playing God”.

But what do we mean by this? Asking this question is surprisingly hard work. Attempts to ‘essentialise’ science, let alone religion, quickly run into trouble. Where are the boundaries? Whose definition of science is definitive? Which concept of religious is the authoritative one?

Ultimately, neither “science” nor “religion” can be pinned down to one single meaning or definition. Rather, they encompass a family of definitions that relate to one another in a complex web of shifting ways. Drawing on extensive research with over a hundred leading thinkers in the UK ― including Martin Rees, Brian Cox, Susan Greenfield, A.C. Grayling, Ray Tallis, Linda Woodhead, Steve Bruce, Adam Rutherford, Robin Dunbar, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, and Iain McGilchrist ― The Landscapes of Science and Religion takes the much–needed step of asking what science and religion actually are, before turning to the familiar question of how they relate to one another.

Building on this, by paying particular attention to those who sense some form of conflict here, Spencer and Waite explore where the perceived conflict really lies. What exactly are people disagreeing about when they disagree about science and religion, and what, if anything, can we do to improve that disagreement and bring about a fruitful dialogue between these two important human endeavours.

You can find out more and purchase a copy here.

About the authors

Dr Nick Spencer: Nick is Senior Fellow at Theos. He is the author of a number of books and reports, including Magisteria: the entangled histories of science and religion (Oneworld, 2023), The Political Samaritan: how power hijacked a parable (Bloomsbury, 2017), The Evolution of the West (SPCK, 2016) and Atheists: The Origin of the Species (Bloomsbury, 2014). He is host of the podcast Reading Our Times. Outside of Theos, Nick is Visiting Research Fellow at the Faiths and Civil Society Unit, Goldsmiths, University of London and a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.  

Dr Hannah Waite: Hannah joined Theos in 2019. She has an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Counselling and a PhD in Practical Theology both from the University of Aberdeen. She is particularly interested in mental health, disability and theology and was a founding member and community developer of Friendship House Aberdeen, a movement towards creating an inclusive community for adults with and without disability. She is working on Theos’ Religion and Science project.

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A new report by Theos and the Good Faith Partnership, exploring how churches and faith groups contribute to social prescribing in England. 27/01/2025

The NHS and social care services in England are stretched to breaking point, grappling with record–high demand for GP appointments and secondary care services. Yet, one in five GP appointments are not for medical reasons, but rather requests for help with issues like loneliness, housing, or debt. 

Lord Darzi’s 2024 report paints a stark picture of the NHS’s current state but also offers a vision for its future: a shift towards neighbourhood–level care, preventing ill–health and tackling health inequalities, a vision echoed by Health Secretary Wes Streeting MP’s ambition to turn the NHS into a “neighbourhood health service.” 

Social prescribing – connecting people to community–based activities to benefit their wellbeing – can be part of that preventative solution. Churches and faith groups not only contribute significantly to social prescribing offering networks and resources, but with their focus on community, relationship and holistic wellbeing, they can play a foundational role in preventative healthcare.  

Our research found that faith groups across the country already host a wealth of friendly, welcoming, and “referrable” activities. These groups act as “anchors of the community” with the ability to network and convene, provide resources, buildings and volunteers, and offer pastoral and spiritual care. 

However, there are barriers preventing a more integrated approach between faith and health including communication and administrative challenges. Therefore, this report outlines a model of relationship–building through active networking, engaged collaboration, and forward planning, unlocking the full potential of faith–based support. 

Ultimately, this report highlights the contribution of faith groups in social prescribing and puts forward recommendations for proactive collaboration between faith groups, the NHS and wider healthcare networks at the level of “neighbourhoods”, “places” and “systems”.

Read the full report here. 

“Faith groups are continuing a beautiful, centuries–old tradition of caring for your neighbour. They are delivering front line activities that will play a key role in shifting the focus of our health service from hospital to community, and sickness to prevention in the coming years. I welcome this report from Theos, which asks the right questions about how we can link faith groups into the system to provide partnership and support.” – Wes Streeting MP, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom

About the project

Creating a Neighbourhood Health Service: The role of churches and faith groups in social prescribing is the concluding report of a 21–month project, generously funded by the Sir Halley Stewart Trust, which seeks to understand the impact of churches and faith groups in social prescribing.  

Between October 2023 and July 2024, we conducted a scoping survey completed by over 50 link workers, interviewed 37 individuals including healthcare professionals and faith representatives, held 3 focus groups with relevant stakeholders, and visited numerous activities and services throughout the country speaking with service users and volunteers.

How can we achieve a better integrated approach in social prescribing? (Our recommendations)

This report offers recommendations for relationship–building between churches and faith groups and healthcare professionals to achieve a better integrated approach in social prescribing at a “neighbourhoods”, “places” and “systems” level.  

“Neighbourhood” level: Faith groups should promote activities and services to Social Prescribing Link Workers (SPLWs) and GP surgeries, convene forums connecting faith and health and increase social prescribing literacy and engagement amongst their communities. Social Prescribing Team Leads and SPLWs should actively engage local faith communities, participate in their activities, go with their patients to faith–based services and seek out additional funding for such activities.  

“Places” level: Roundtables should be convened between leaders of faith groups, regional church leaders, leaders of charities and Primary Care Network (PCN) clinical directors/Integrated Care Board (ICB) leads. Faith groups should designate a health and wellbeing lead advocating for social prescribing. Healthcare professionals should draw on the faith communities they have partnered with on other health initiatives such as the Covid vaccine rollout, encourage preventative strategies in the community including placing SPLWs in churches and employ GP chaplains.  

“Systems” level: NHS leaders, DHSC, the National Academy of Social Prescribing (NASP) and leaders within faith communities should collaborate through existing avenues. Preventative initiatives into the community should be encouraged, including integrating Warm Welcome into social prescribing plans. A ‘Faith Lead’ should be created within NASP to convene national work and new funding for faith–based activities should be unlocked.

How to engage in social prescribing

For further practical suggestions for how churches and faith groups and social prescribers can engage and work effectively together, see the ‘How To’ booklets published alongside our report. 

Download ‘How to engage in Social Prescribing: Faith Leaders’. A guide for faith leaders looking to engage more deeply with social prescribing, and especially looking to build connections with social prescribing link workers.  

Download ‘How to engage faith groups in Social Prescribing: Social Prescribing Link Workers’. A guide for Social Prescribing Link Workers looking to work more effectively with churches and faith groups in order to support the wellbeing of individuals.

About the authors

Dr Marianne Rozario is Senior Researcher and Projects Lead at Theos. She is the co–author of Ashes to Ashes: beliefs, trends, and practices in dying, death, and the afterlife. She has a PhD in International Relations exploring the notion of Catholic agency in international society through the University of Notre Dame Australia, and a MA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews. She is a Honorary Researcher for the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society, and a former Lecturer for St Mary’s University.

Hannah Rich’s report on the response of local churches to the riots across the UK in the summer of 2024. 02/12/2024

Report in 60 seconds

In Summer 2024, the most extensive outbreak of riots across England in over a decade took place, driven by anti– immigrant sentiment, civil unrest and online misinformation in the wake of the murder of three girls in Southport.

The local church played an important role in the response to the riots, both immediately and over the longer term in rebuilding communities. This report explores how local churches in places where riots occurred were well–placed to respond by: (a) leveraging their strong community networks in order to work with other faith and activism groups; (b) maintaining a trusted presence in the community even when the riots threatened the buildings; (c) holding institutional relationships with local police and being conduits for information; and (d) using their convening power to draw the community together for vigils and moments of much–needed reflection.

There are lessons to learn from these experiences, about the causes of the riots, the emergency response and what preventative measures might be developed going forward. There is a willingness from local churches to engage in the deep listening required to heal communities fractured by the riots, addressing the sense of disenfranchisement and material challenges, as well as correcting misinformation. We offer recommendations to national and local policymakers as well as to churches in how all might work together to improve cohesion and rebuild communities.

Read the full report here.

Read Hannah’s summary blog here.

About the author

Hannah joined Theos in November 2017. She is a mixed–methods researcher and author of several Theos reports including Growing Good (2020) and Beyond Left and Right (2021) and A Torn Safety Net (2022). Previously, she worked for a social innovation think tank, a learning disability charity and as a care worker. Hannah studied French and Spanish at Durham University, including a year abroad working with faith–based organisations in Paris and Madrid. She also holds an MSc in Inequalities and Social Science from LSE.

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The UK is becoming more religiously diverse than ever, yet provision for religious education is often inadequate. We’ve compiled a short case for why RE matters in a modern world. 06/11/2024

Where can young minds reflect critically on their own assumptions about the world, and better understand the different worldviews of those with whom they live and work? Where can they engage academically with the most pressing ethical issues facing society, while also finding resources to develop their personal spirituality? Where can they gain confidence and familiarity with the key texts, ideas, and rituals that have historically shaped (and continue to infuse) UK culture, while also understanding the influences at the deep roots of other cultures?

Religious education offers all these possibilities and more – and fostering such vital skills has arguably never been more important. Faith and belief are significant elements in many of today’s biggest headlines across the world, while higher levels of immigration to the UK have brought far greater religious diversity at home. At the same time, levels of religious affiliation are declining among the existing population.  It is now much more likely that you will have a profoundly different worldview from the person sat next to you – whether on the bus, in the office, or in the classroom – than it was even ten years ago. It is also increasingly likely that an understanding of what it means to have a religious worldview at all will need to be taught somewhere outside the home.

And yet, religious education is a subject facing serious challenges. While some schools provide excellent RE, others neglect it in the school timetable: provision suffers from the lack of an agreed body of learning for the subject and, as of November 2023, 15% of English secondary schools did not teach any RE at all in Year 11. The most disadvantaged pupils often receive the worst deal. So too, the numbers of students opting to study religious studies or theology beyond school–level are dwindling – which in turn limits the availability of subject specialists to teach the emerging generation.  

The confluence of all these trends risks a disastrous deficit of religious literacy in the UK. Conversely, securing consistent and high–quality RE for the next generation will bear fruit not only in the formation of individuals and communities, but in the building of a more humane, compassionate, and understanding society. This short publication, accompanied by a series of reflections on the importance of RE from a range of key public thinkers, makes the case for a bold and enthusiastic embrace of religious education as a priority area in our educational landscape.

You can read the full case here.

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Andrew Grey revisits his old report unpacking some of the fundamental ideas beneath the assisted dying debate. 01/11/2024

The question of assisted dying is never far away and is now back somewhere near the top of the political agenda. It’s a serious and sensitive debate, about which well–meaning people can disagree profoundly.

Much of that disagreement can be traced to conflicting ideas about the meaning of human ‘dignity’. ‘Dignity’ is used in two subtly different ways – one to do with autonomy and choice, the other with care and relationships – and how we understand the term shapes how we think people should be treated at the end of life.

This essay, by Andrew Grey, a fully revised and extended version of Theos’ 2018 report on Dignity in Dying, explores both meanings of ‘dignity’ and argues that the idea of ‘dignity–through–care’ gives a better account of what it means to be human.

More pressingly, it also argues that if dignity is understood as personal autonomy expressed through choice, society no longer has any deep reason to deny an individual their choice to die, even if they are not in a terminal condition, not in unbearable pain, or indeed not even in physical ill–health.

Links

Read the full report here.

Read our 1–page summary of our views entitled Everyone Has The Right To Die With Dignity here.

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Nick Spencer, Hannah Rich and Nathan Mladin’s report questioning the dominant narrative around productivity. 11/09/2024

About the report

There is a relentless emphasis on improving productivity today – and with good reason. Productivity is, economically speaking, extremely important. But productivity is an unexamined idea, one of those words that ‘think for us’. 

The challenge posed at the heart of this report is: Productivity of what? What are we trying to produce more of, and why?

Productivity at its deepest and most profound level is not a matter of creating more stuff but of forming better ‘persons’. Improving productivity levels can enable that, but it may not. In particular, when it comes to activities in which the human dimension is central, improving productivity can be counterproductive.

As developed economies become ever more service– based, this can become a serious issue. Encouraging people to become productive in such service interactions can undermine the personal, human good inherent in the activity itself. 

And although AI can boost productivity in many sectors, including the service sector, it is not a solution to the problem of productivity outlined in this report and poses risks to essential human goods and values. 

Ultimately, as we seek to solve our ‘productivity problem’, we need to avoid idolising productivity or allowing it to corrode what is most precious to us.

You can read the full report here.

About the authors

Nick Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos. He is the author of a number of books and reports, including Magisteria: the entangled histories of science and religion (Oneworld, 2023), and is the host of the podcast Reading Our Times.

Hannah Rich is a senior researcher at Theos working on theology and economic inequality. She is the author of several reports including, A Torn Safety Net: How the cost of living crisis threatens its own last line of defence (2022).

Nathan Mladin is a senior researcher at Theos. He holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from Queen’s University Belfast and is the author of several publications, including Data and Dignity: Why Privacy Matters in the Digital Age (2023).

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The Religion Counts team looks at at attitudes towards the environment by religious affiliation and practice. 03/07/2024

In a previous briefing paper in the Religion Counts series, we have explored views on some of the most important issues facing the UK at this time. For the past year and a half, the economy, the NHS and immigration – all three of which are discussed in our paper – have ranked highest among all issues. However, another very important question that is competing for fourth place with housing and crime, has been the environment. This briefing paper will be looking at attitudes towards the environment by religious affiliation and practice.

Other previous briefing in this series have looked at turnout, voting intention, civic engagement, social and political values, and national identities and Scottish independence. In all previous papers, we have found that religion – and particularly religious practice – played a role in shaping opinion. We will now look into the importance of religion in defining views on the environment. To do this, we have selected three themes in the British Election Study (BES): burden of environmental protection on the economy, environment budget priorities, and the need for further measures.

The analysis in the article integrates data from waves 23 and 25 of the BES. All the data presented here, unless otherwise specified, are predicted values which were estimated through a series of regressions, in which age, gender, education, religious affiliation, and church attendance were used as independent variables. More information is available in the notes on the data below.

People in the UK are less willing to sacrifice economic growth for environmental protection today than they were five years ago. And only a slim majority of Britons believe that not enough is being done to protect the environment. Of all religious groups, Christians are the least environmentally friendly demographic. However, there is also a clear ‘practice effect’: practising Christians are significantly more environmentally conscious than non–practising Christians. This ‘practice effect’ shows that frequent churchgoers are more likely to engage in eco–friendly behaviour.

The environment versus the economy

The environment and climate change have taken a surprisingly back seat in this General Election campaign. While this is disheartening for the many people who care about the environment, this secondary position is not entirely surprising. Since the ‘climate emergency’ was declared in 2019, the UK government has had to manage Brexit, the Covid–19 pandemic, the impact of the war in Ukraine and the cost of living crisis.

Given the recent economic pressures on the UK public, we decided to look in the first instance into the public’s willingness to change their lifestyle and pay more for the sake of the environment.

The BES uses a ten–point scale to assess to what degree people think the economy or the environment should have priority. This longitudinal analysis comparing five waves of the BES (2015, 2016, 2019, 2022, 2023) uses weighted, descriptive statistics but does not explicitly control for other variables. The scale goes from –5 (‘The economy has priority’) to +5 (‘The environment has priority’). 

Willingness to spend public money on environmental protection is down

Although the magnitude of variation is small, the data shows that Christians have been more protective of the economy than other people in the UK. It also shows that public attitudes on this question have fluctuated considerably over the past nine years, and are now on a downward trend. Whereas in 2015 there was some agreement that economic considerations should give way to environmental – with Muslims and ‘other’ religious Britons in particular tending to be more pro–environment – the following four years see a significant increase in environmental concern, peaking in 2019. Since then, the pro–environmental trend has reversed, and all groups are less willing than they were to pay an economic cost for protecting the environment. Nevertheless, if the population average was slightly more pro–economy in 2015, it is now slightly more pro–environment overall.

The spike in environmental sentiment in 2019 can be explained by several factors, as can the return to something close to a status quo ante since then. 2019 was, according to the UN Foundation, “the year the world began to wake up to climate emergency”. The Word of the Year in 2019, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was “climate emergency”. It was also the year of Greta Thunberg: she was TIME’s Person of the Year, spoke at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (although she ultimately did not win it). In short, climate change was very much on everyone’s mind, as were the devastating images of burning forests and predictions of flooded coastlines. As a result, the public was prepared to make economic sacrifices to mitigate the worst effects of climate change.

But as noted above, the UK has since then faced a number of national crises. Consequently, the priorities of the British public have shifted. And as more immediate concerns have taken over the daily lives of the British people, the environment has fallen down the priority list of issues needing to be addressed, and so has the willingness to spend public money on environmental protection. In short, short–term crisis management politics has prevailed over longer term climate and environment issues.

Christians are the least environmentally friendly

We now take a closer look at the views of the UK population in the latest wave of the BES. In this section, we show predicted values that control for age, gender, and education.

As Christians in the UK are, on average, older than the general population, we immediately notice that some of their pro–economic sentiment is due to age; controlling for demographic variables shows a greater willingness among Christians to trade immediate economic growth for protecting the environment. However, Christian groups are still most protective of the economy and least likely to embrace sacrificing economic growth for environmental protection. Among Christians, Roman Catholics and Anglicans are closely clustered around the mid–point of the scale; ‘Other’ Christians are slightly more environment–friendly. The ‘Other’ religious are the only religious group to be more environment–friendly than the population average.

The non–religious are more environmentally friendly than the population average. More surprisingly, they are overtaken by the ‘Other’ religious by a considerable margin. This group includes a sizeable Hindu population, as well as Buddhists and Sikhs, who by virtue of their respective faith traditions have a particular attachment to the environment. This is not to say that this concern is absent from orthodox Christian teaching. However, some of the religious traditions mentioned above invest the environment with a sacred character, a living spirit, that may be absent from many Christian worldviews.

Practicing Christians are more environmentally friendly than non–practising Christians

Frequent religious practice emerges as an important variable. While all never–practising Christians are close to each other on the pro–economic side of the scale, the opposite is true for frequently–practising Christians. The effect is also proportional: each incremental increase in frequency of practice correlates with a willingness to pay a higher economic price for environmental protection. Weekly–practising Anglicans and ‘Other’ Christians hold a view comparable to the national average. Among Christians, this effect is weakest – though still substantial – for Roman Catholics.

Exactly the same dynamic is observed among the ‘Other’ religions and, to some extent, among Muslims. The observed ‘practice effect’ is especially significant for the former.

The environment budget

Downstream from the question of how policy makers manage the trade–offs between environment and economic growth comes the question of how the government should spend its environment budget.

In this second section, we look at which investments Britons believe the government should prioritise under its environment budget. The BES asked respondents how the government should spend its environmental budget by giving them the option of spending more, the same, or less on a list of environmental policies. We have ranked the policies by the proportion of the population who think the government should spend ‘a bit more’ or ‘much more’ on them.

Slowing down carbon emissions is not a priority for Britons

Apart from Muslims, there is widespread agreement that the UK’s environmental budget should focus on investment in flood defences and solar energy farms. Muslims are not in agreement on what investment priorities should be. For ‘Other’ religions the top three includes protecting Britain’s historic forests and woodlands.

The general goal of ‘slowing carbon emissions’ is not particularly well supported. It ranks between protecting Britain’s historic forests and woodlands and keeping Britain’s countryside clean and tidy. Rather, the public in general are more supportive of concrete measures.

The consensus (across all groups) is that the UK’s top priority should be to invest in flood defences. The data does not tell us why this is, but we can make an educated guess: regular flooding events in the UK have increased pressure on government to invest further in flood defences. Melting polar ice caps and rising sea levels are also commonly cited as the main consequences of rising global temperatures. There is an implicit expectation that governments should invest in resilience measures alongside focusing on the long term potential causes of such flood events.

Measures to protect the environment

We have looked at the extent to which environmental protection should be a burden on the economy, and the investment priorities for the environment budget. We now look at how adequate they believe the government’s action have been regarding environmental protection.

The BES asks respondents whether they thought “that measures to protect the environment have gone too far or not far enough?”. We have counted respondents from five waves of the BES (2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2023) who think that government measures have not gone far enough. The figures presented in this section use weighted, descriptive statistics that do not control for demographic variables. (Note that the years differ from those used in the previous analysis due to data availability.)

Environmental awareness is up overall among all religious groups

Over the past decade, the share of the population believing that measures to protect the environment have not gone far enough has increased by more than a third, from 40% in 2014 to 54% in 2023. But this is down from 60% in 2019, when the belief that more needs to be done to protect the environment peaked in the UK. So, while numbers have been falling over the past 5 years, they are still up from 2014.

Whereas in 2014, the view that not enough was being done for the environment was a minority view among all groups, nine years later, a majority of non–religious (59%) and ‘Other’ religious (52%) now hold this view. Even among Christians and Muslims, for whom this is not the majority view, the share believing that not enough is being done to protect the environment has increased (by a third for Christians, from 36% in 2014 to 49% today, and by two thirds for Muslims, from 23% in 2014 to 39% today).

It is worth reflecting that this is fairly strong support for a more environmental stance. The non–religious peaked at 63%, the ‘Other’ religious at 59%, Christians at 57%, and Muslims at 51% in 2019.

Just as the willingness to sacrifice economic growth for the sake of the environment has fallen since 2019, so too has the belief that more needs to be done for the environment. The fact that we can measure this downward trend on two variables underlines the correctness of our observation.

Nevertheless, the marked overall increase between 2014 and 2023 is notable. The same forces behind Britons’ greater willingness to sacrifice economic growth for the environment discussed above are likely to be responsible for their overall growing belief that more needs to be done to protect the environment. We should also not underestimate the fact that successive Conservative governments over the past decade have made a number of environmental promises to the British public (such as their ‘net zero’ target), but have subsequently failed to deliver on some of them. The public’s growing belief that more needs to be done may therefore also reflect their growing conviction that the incumbent government’s action in this area has been inadequate.

Only slim majority of Christians think more needs to be done to protect the environment

We now take a closer look at the views of the UK’s religious population in the latest wave of the BES. In this section, we show predicted values that control for age, gender, and education.

Compared with the descriptive data above, we see that controlling for demographic variables has a significant effect on some groups, particularly Muslims and ‘Other’ religious believers. In other words, the strikingly lower level of belief among Muslims that more needs to be done to protect the environment appears to be largely due to demographics. That said, they remain below the UK average.

On the other hand, Christians are not particularly affected by the control for demographic variables. This would suggest that their relatively lower – i.e., below average – belief in the need for more action to protect the environment is not due to the higher average age or level of education of the group, but to something else.

Frequency of practice matters significantly for Christians

Of all religious groups, Christians’ views on the adequacy of government action to protect the environment vary most with frequent attendance. Christians who attend church weekly are more likely to think that measures to protect the environment have not gone far enough (55%) than those who never attend church (49%). This is particularly true of Anglicans and ‘Other’ Christians. The ‘practice effect’ is not significant for Roman Catholics.

However, among the British population as a whole, those who never attend religious services of any kind – a category that includes the non–religious – in the UK (59%) are more likely to think that not enough is being done to protect the environment than those of all faiths who attend services regularly (53%).

Conclusion

We know that the environment is an important issue for voters of all kinds, including the religious. However, questions around cost of living and livelihood have clearly reasserted themselves during the 2019–24 Parliament. Nor it is not yet clear that voters are resolved on how to manage trade–offs between environment and economic growth. In spite of the formal positions of Christian churches on the importance of environmental protection, it is clear that Christians in particular are more likely than the rest of the population to back the economy over environment.

That said, we can clearly see the now familiar ‘practice effect’, where regular religious practice pushes respondents in what might be called a ‘progressive’ direction. Regular practising Christians – indeed, those from any faith who are regularly practicing – are more likely to say that we need more action to protect the environment, compared to their non–practising counterparts. Politicians that want to pursue an environmental agenda could attempt to weave religious communities into a broad coalition supporting climate and environmental action.

Notes on the data

Both the 23rd and 25th waves of the BES data were collected by YouGov from a representative internet panel using an online sample. Unless otherwise stated, all the figures in this briefing paper are standardised predictions estimated from a series of regressions using age, gender, education, religious affiliation, and church attendance as independent variables. Figures are weighted and variables are coded so as to be consistent with previous Theos research on religious voting patterns. Descriptive data are available for consultation on request.

This paper explores the British public’s attitudes to the environment through three different dimensions: environment budget priorities, the burden of environmental protection on the economy, and the need for further measures.

The first part of the paper looked at the UK public’s willingness to trade economic growth for environmental protection. For this, it used the BES question: “Some believe that protecting the environment should have priority even if that reduces economic growth. Others believe that economic growth should have priority even if that hinders protecting the environment. What is your opinion?” Respondents could use a value between 0 (The economy has priority) and 10 (The environment has priority). We changed the scale to –5 to +5; it is more intuitive as negative points indicate economy–friendly answers whereas positive points indicate environment–friendly scores.

Data for the linear analysis in this section looking at the evolution of public attitudes between May 2015 and May 2023 uses descriptive data from waves 4, 7, 16, 23, and 25 of the BES internet panel. All figures are weighted respective to their own waves of collection and percentages are rounded to the nearest unit. Our focussed cross–sectional analysis of the latest available data displays standardised predictions that control for demographic variables.

The second part of the paper looking at environment budget priorities used the BES question “The government spends money on many different things to preserve the environment. Do you think the government should spend more, less or about the same share of its environment budget on each of the following?” Respondents were offered five response options (“Spend much less of its budget”, “Spend a bit less of its budget”, “Spend about the same as now”, “Spend a bit more of its budget”, and “Spend much more of its budget”) for seven distinct environmental investment areas. We dichotomized responses for each budget item at ‘More’ (incl. “A bit more” and “Much more”) vs. all other responses (including “Don’t know”). Investment areas were then ranked in a table by share of the population believing each of these areas need more investment.

The third and last part of the paper looks at the British public’s opinions on the adequacy of government measures regarding environmental protection. It looks at the BES question: “Do you think that measures to protect the environment have gone too far or not far enough?” The response options for this question utilise a 5–point Likert scale: “Not gone nearly far enough”, “Not gone far enough”, “About right”, “Gone too far”, and “Gone much too far”. We dichotomised responses at ‘Not gone (nearly) far enough’ (merging two response options) vs. all other answers (including “Don’t know”).

Unlike for the first part of the paper, data for the linear analysis in this section looks at the evolution of public attitudes between May 2014 and May 2023 and uses descriptive data from waves 2, 7, 14, 18, and 25 of the BES internet panel. All figures are weighted respective to their own waves of collection and percentages are rounded to the nearest unit. The focussed cross–sectional analysis of the latest available data displays standardised predictions that control for demographic variables.

On Theos’ ‘Religion Counts’ series

This blog is part of a larger body of work including briefing papers and articles exploring the impact of religion on voting patterns in the UK.

The first briefing paper: Do the religious vote? which examines whether voters from different religions backgrounds are more or less likely to vote.

The second briefing paper: Who do the religious vote for? looks at data on party preference – which parties are people from various religious backgrounds likely to vote for?

The third briefing paper: Do the religious feel like they can make a difference? which explores political efficacy, social trust, and political trust amongst religious participants.

The fourth briefing paper: Economic and Social Values which maps the economic and social attitudes of religious groups in Britain.  

The fifth briefing paper: What do the religious think about key election issues? which breaks down how religious people in Britain feel about the most important issues facing the UK.

The sixth briefing paper: National Identity and Scottish Independenceexplores what religious people think about national identity.

Learn more about our Religion Counts work here.

Could you help uncover the impact faith can make in this election year by giving to our Religion Counts election appeal?

The Religion Counts team explore how religious people in Britain feel about their national identity, with a special section on Scotland casting light on attitudes towards independence. 26/06/2024

In our previous briefing papers in the Religion Counts series, we have explored turnout, voting intention, civic engagement, social and political values, and views on some of the most important issues facing the UK at this time, by religious identity. In all five, we have found that religion – and particularly religious practice – played a role in shaping behaviours. In this briefing paper, we explore how religious people in Britain feel about their national identity, with a special section on Scotland casting light on attitudes towards independence.

The analysis in the article integrates data from waves 23 and 25 of the British Election Study (BES). All the data presented here are predicted values which were estimated through a series of regressions, in which age, gender, education, religious affiliation, and church attendance were used as independent variables. More information is available in the notes on the data below.

What is national identity

National identity embodies the essence of a political community.[i] It encompasses elements such as trust in the nation’s political system, its laws, and its institutions. It permeates cultural and value systems, as well as the stories that individuals share about their origins, holidays, common historical experiences, and the criteria for being considered a member of the community.[ii]

National identities are complex and multifaceted. People disagree about what a nation is – whether, for instance, it is a “seamless, organic cultural unit”[iii], deeply embedded in a person’s identity, or a “rational association of common laws and culture within a defined territory”[iii] which one is free to embrace or reject. Consequently, individuals may vary in how they perceive the nation and the extent to which national identity influences their personal identity.

The UK itself is a complex entity. It is a single state under one central government, yet comprises the historically independent nations of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, each with distinct cultures and identities. These enjoy different degrees of self–governance ranging from substantial (Scotland) to none at all (England). Additionally, Britain’s European identity is also significant: though it may no longer be a member state of the EU, it has participated in all the key historic events that have shaped the European continent – from the Roman Empire to Christendom, from the Hundred Years’ War to the Industrial Revolution.

In the UK, therefore, national identities are particularly layered and fraught with political tensions: a single person may hold several national identities – e.g., British, Scottish and European – not to mention a range of regional and local identities within these.

How then do we measure national identity? 

Considering that the British hold within them complex hierarchies of national identities, we have sought to understand respondents’ position among multiple national identities. We have therefore calculated two different relative national identity scales, namely British vs. English, and British vs. Scottish. Each scale ranges from ‘Primarily identity A’ (–6) to ‘Primarily identity B’ (+6). We have not sought to gauge Welsh identity due to sample size, and Northern Irish identity was not available in the BES.

While such relative scales do not tell us how much someone feels they belong to a particular national identity in absolute terms, they do tell us how much they feel they belong to one compared to the other. So a score of ‘0’ on the British vs. English scale indicates that a person feels as much English as British, but not how much that is. They could either feel both very English and very British, or only somewhat English and somewhat British, in equal measure.

The case of Scotland

In Scotland, only Anglican Scots feel predominantly British

While British national identity in Scotland declined significantly between 1979 and the start of devolution in 1999, overshadowed by a growing Scottish national identity, the 2017 British Social Attitudes survey suggests a gradual resurgence of British national identity is taking place in Scotland. Scottish national identity also presents a unique case study, as Scotland has been particularly effective in fostering a civic national identity.

The spread of the Scots’ positioning among British and Scottish national identities is very varied, going from quite dominantly British to quite dominantly Scottish. It appears that Anglican Scots – i.e. members of the Scottish Episcopal Church – are by far the outliers when it comes to relative British/Scottish national identity. While the population as a whole tends significantly towards a more dominant Scottish identity (1.10), Anglicans in Scotland tend even more towards a predominantly British identity (–2.17).

It is not Presbyterians (1.19) – those belonging to the Church of Scotland and other reformed denominations – but Roman Catholics (1.86) in Scotland who feel their Scottish identity most dominates over their British one, followed by the ‘Other’ religious (1.74) and the non–religious (1.69).

Both the Episcopalians’ relatively greater Britishness and the Scottish Catholics’ relatively greater Scottishness lend themselves to a historical explanation. The Scottish Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion, has a special cultural relationship with England that would naturally tend to foster in its adherents a greater sense of Britishness. The Episcopal Church also has a history of association with the British Crown, as Scottish and British monarchs made repeated efforts over the centuries to resist the spread of Reformed theology and Presbyterianism in Scotland by imposing the episcopate and an oath of allegiance to the king.

In some ways the opposite is true of the Catholic Church in Scotland. Many Scottish Catholics are descended from Irish immigrants and Gaelic–speaking migrants from the Highlands and Islands. Disproportionately from manual working class backgrounds, there is little sympathy among these communities for unionism, which in Scotland is associated with Conservatism. Catholics in Scotland have also been the victims of sectarian violence, particularly from the Orange Order, whose anti–Catholicism is entwined with its unionism.

Weekly practising Presbyterians feel more Scottish than never–practising Presbyterians

As in our previous articles in this series, which have repeatedly stressed the importance and relevance of considering frequency of practice as a variable when discussing religion, attendance also has a meaningful impact on national identity in Scotland – particularly for Presbyterians and ‘Other Christians’.

As such, we find that Presbyterians in Scotland who attend church on a weekly basis identify as significantly more Scottish (relative to their British national identity) than do Presbyterians who never attend church. The effect is even starker for ‘Other Christians’: whereas never or infrequently practising ‘Other Christians’ have a dominant British identity, their frequently practising counterparts have a dominant Scottish identity.

The fact that attendance does not significantly affect the national identity of either Scottish Anglicans or Scottish Roman Catholics is not surprising given the very strong dynamics that underpin both and which have been explored earlier in this article. For both groups, their national identities are a function of centuries of history and the very complicated relationship between Scotland and England throughout much of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and right up to the present day.

Scottish Christians are strongly against independence

Although on average the Scottish have a more dominant Scottish identity than a British one, in the BES data in May 2023 they were on average mainly against independence. The opposition is especially high among Scottish Christians, 3 out of 4 of whom would vote against independence if another referendum were held. Interestingly, the only two groups marginally – though not decisively – more in favour of independence in this data are the ‘Other’ religious (44% for independence) and the non–religious (44% for independence).

It is important to stress that these figures control for, among other things, age and educational attainment. So while Christians tend to be older on average than the general population the overwhelming Christian opposition to Scottish independence is not explained by the older age of this group. In fact, an even larger proportion of Christians believe their nation’s future to be within the Union when age is controlled for.

It is not a surprise to find that Anglicans in Scotland – Episcopalians – are, at 80%, the most opposed to independence. This coheres with their markedly dominant British identity over their Scottish national identity. Very marked support for the union, however, is more surprising coming from members of the Kirk – Scotland’s Presbyterian national church, the Church of Scotland. The Kirk’s national Scottish character aside, such unionism also seems to contradict Presbyterians’ dominant Scottish national identity, as we discussed before.

This may suggest that feeling more strongly Scottish than British is not an automatic endorsement of Scottish independence and that it is possible to have a dominant Scottish identity whilst also believing that Scotland belongs in the United Kingdom. It may also be that support for independence and support for the SNP are now closely conflated. Nevertheless, a strong sense of Scottish identity, and a commitment to a high degree of political autonomy for a devolved Scotland can, it seems, coexist with unionism.

Roman Catholics, of all Christians in Scotland, are the most supportive of Scottish independence, but still lean 5 to 4 in favour of remaining in the Union. This is somewhat at odds with other, older polls in which Scottish Catholics are a staunchly pro–independence group. Indeed, Scottish sociologist Michael Rosie notes in 2012 that Catholics are the religious subgroup most likely to support an independent Scotland.[iv]

Attendance has little impact on Scottish Christian unionism

Among the Scottish population as a whole, those who never attend religious services of any kind are more likely to support independence (40%) than those of any religious persuasion who frequently attend religious services (36%). The trend is reversed among Scottish Christians: we see that support for independence, very weak for the never–practising, rises somewhat with frequent practice.

For Christians overall, support for independence rises by a quarter, from 23% for the never–practising to 29% for weekly practising Christians. Support for independence remains very low among Episcopalians, though there is a slight increase of 2% between never and frequently practising Anglicans. Support is the highest among Roman Catholics, but frequent church attendance is not correlated with an increase in support for independence: weekly attending Scottish Catholics are 1% less likely to vote for independence than never–practising Catholics. Among Presbyterians, support for Scottish independence rises by one fourteenth, from 28% for the never–practising to 30% for those you attend worship weekly.

Ultimately, however, unionism in Scotland is not just the preserve of Scotland’s ‘cultural’ Christians. Church attendance does have some impact but the consensus across all frequencies of communal worship remains clearly in favour of the Union.

The case of England

Anglicans feel the most English

We now look at national identity in England. We immediately notice that, unlike for Scottishness, all data are gathered very close to the mid–point (0), occupying only a small section of the scale. This means that, overall, the population in England is not strongly divided between those who identify predominantly as British and those who identify predominantly as English. We also note that the centre of gravity is leaning towards the British side of things (–0.21) indicating that overall, people in England feel slightly more British than they do English.

Of all Christians, Anglicans feel relatively the most English (0.10) and ‘Other Christians’ feel relatively the most British (–0.47). Muslims feel relatively more British than English (–1.03) than any other group. Nones, though leaning towards a relatively stronger British national identity, are the second most English–leaning (–0.19) of any population group.

The results here are not surprising. First, while Anglicans are most likely to be English–born, Christians from many other denominations are more likely to have foreign origins or roots. Given the ethno–national ‘feel’ of Englishness as an identity it follows that Anglicans should feel more English than other Christians.

Britishness, by comparison, is a more capacious, civic identity designed to encompass several of the UK’s national groups. Given that half of all British Muslims were born outside the UK and only 6% are ethnically white (2021 Census), and given that a British identity is more flexible, it is not surprising that they are more likely to have a British identity than an English one.

Second, to state the obvious, the Church of England has a strong attachment to England in particular. It is the established Church of the English nation, and it has a special relationship with Englishness. In the 21st century, it is an institution that directly links England to its history and culture. It is so much a part of the English cultural heritage that many will continue to claim affiliation with the Church of England as a marker of cultural identity, even if they do not practise or necessarily believe in its teachings. Other Christian denominations are more likely root themselves in distinctive theological commitments, their own history, and possibly in the ethnic group whose spiritual needs they tend to serve. It is not surprising, therefore, that they feel more British than English overall.

A weak attendance effect on British/English relative national identity

While communal practice affected Scottish national identity and views on Scottish independence, we only found a weak ‘practice effect’ for identifying as British compared to identifying as English.

Although the small magnitude of the variations makes them statistically insignificant, we do note that there appears to be a consistent pattern in the data, with religious practice pulling away from Englishness. Never–practising Britons of all religious groups tend to have a greater relative English identity than their practising counterparts. Weekly practicing individuals of all religions, on the other hand, appear to be on average the most likely to have a stronger relative British identity. This is particularly striking for Anglicans: those who never or infrequently practise are on the ‘predominantly English’ side of the scale, while Anglicans who practise frequently (at least monthly) are on the ‘predominantly British’ side.

As Paul Bickley wrote in his recent blog on immigration, for those for whom Christianity is “about tradition, authority, culture, and overlapping identities of nation and perhaps western–ness”, it gives a “strong sense of ‘us’, but that us is not really the church but the nation.” This is in line with our earlier findings on never–practising Anglicans who see their Anglican identity as a cultural marker. Given the organic association between Anglicanism and Englishness discussed earlier in this article, it is not surprising that those who are ‘cultural’, i.e., never–practising, Anglicans also hold their English identity more strongly.

Notes on the data

Both the 23rd and 25th waves of the BES data were collected by YouGov from a representative internet panel using an online sample. Unless otherwise stated, all the figures in this briefing paper are standardised predictions estimated from a series of regressions using age, gender, education, religious affiliation, and church attendance as independent variables. Figures are weighted and variables are coded so as to be consistent with previous Theos research on religious voting patterns. Descriptive data are available for consultation on request.

For the first part of this paper on national identities, we looked at the national identity module in the BES, which began with the question, “Where would you place yourself on these scales?” Respondents could choose a value between 1 (Not at all) and 7 (Strongly) on the Britishness, Englishness, and Scottishness scales.

Instead of using these absolute scales, we calculated three different relative national identity scales, namely British vs. European, English vs. British, and Scottish vs. British. Compared to absolute national identities, these relative measures allow us to better understand respondents’ true positioning among multiple national identities. In practice, this has been achieved by dividing two original absolute scales and creating a new variable ranging from –6 to +6.

The data on Englishness relative to Britishness comes from a smaller English sub–sample, which omits respondents who are not from England. It also omits Presbyterians as a religious group, as they are almost exclusively members of the Church of Scotland and therefore not meaningful to analyse in an English context. Data on Scottishness comes from a smaller Scottish sub–sample, which omits respondents who are not from Scotland. Due to the smaller Scottish sample, ‘Islam’ has been included in the ‘Other religion’ group for the questions on Scotland.

In the second part of this paper, which explores Scottish attitudes to independence, the BES asks: “If there were another referendum on Scottish independence, how do you think you would vote?” Response options include “I would vote ‘Yes’ (leave the UK)”, “I would vote ‘No’ (stay in the UK)”, ‘Don’t know’, and ‘Would not vote’. The variable was recoded as ‘Yes’, ‘No’, and ‘Other’. For the purposes of our analysis, we have not analysed the ‘Other’ group, as it is an ambiguous category with a much smaller sample size.

On Theos’ ‘Religion Counts’ series

This blog is part of a larger body of work including briefing papers and articles exploring the impact of religion on voting patterns in the UK.

The first briefing paper: Do the religious vote? which examines whether voters from different religions backgrounds are more or less likely to vote.

The second briefing paper: Who do the religious vote for? looks at data on party preference – which parties are people from various religious backgrounds likely to vote for?

The third briefing paper: Do the religious feel like they can make a difference? which explores political efficacy, social trust, and political trust amongst religious participants.

The fourth briefing paper: Economic and Social Values which maps the economic and social attitudes of religious groups in Britain.  

Learn more about our Religion Counts work here.

Could you help uncover the impact faith can make in this election year by giving to our Religion Counts election appeal?

The Religion Counts team explore how religious people in Britain feel about the most important issues facing the UK at this time. 12/06/2024

In our previous briefing papers in the Religion Counts series, we have explored turnout, voting intention, civic engagement, and social and political values by religious identity. In all four, we have found that religion – and particularly religious practice – played a role in shaping behaviours. In this briefing paper, we explore how religious people in Britain feel about the most important issues facing the UK at this time.

Since November 2022, according to most polls, the top three of these most important issues have been the economy, the NHS and immigration. The analysis in the article integrates data from waves 23 and 25 of the British Election Study (BES), with all information on public opinion regarding the economy, the NHS, and immigration coming from the latest wave collected in May 2023. All the data presented here are predictions that control for demographic factors like age, gender and education. More information is available in the notes on the data below.

Most religious voters – like the country at large – think that the current government has done a poor job on the cost of living, the NHS and immigration. There is a broad consensus that the income gap between rich and poor is too wide. Attitudes to immigration are however highly dependent on the kind of immigrant, as well as on frequency of religious practice. There is an overall preference for more immigration from the EU and fewer people coming to the UK seeking asylum. Muslims are most supportive of more immigration. Frequent religious practitioners systematically prefer more immigration than their never–practising counterparts.

Top 3 issues

At the time of the May 2023 wave of the BES Internet Panel, the British people were broadly in agreement about the top three issues of concern: the economy/cost of living, the NHS, and immigration. Overwhelmingly, they tend to think that the current government has been handling these issues poorly. This is consistently the case in opinion polling.

In the BES, it is overwhelmingly clear from the data that fewer than 1 in 10 (8%) respondents think the government is doing a good job responding to the cost of living crisis. Only 1 in 20 feel think that they are handling the NHS (6%) and immigration (5%) effectively. We can therefore speak of a broad consensus on these issues.

Nevertheless, we note that Christians are marginally more positive than the non–religious about the incumbent government’s performance on these issues, with 12% (on cost of living), 8% (on the NHS) and 7% (on immigration) thinking they were handing them effectively. Muslims, at 9% were slightly more positive than any other group about the government’s handling of the NHS.

Within the Christian population, Anglicans were most optimistic about how the government had handled the cost of living crisis and the NHS: 13% thought it had handled the cost of living crisis well and 9% thought it had handled the NHS well. Roman Catholics were the most critical of the government on all three issues.

This is not an unexpected result: our previous research on voting intentions has shown that Anglicans consistently lean to the right, preferring the Conservative Party to any alternative. We would therefore expect them to rate the performance of the incumbent Conservative government higher. The same is true of Roman Catholics, whose known ‘anti–Tory sentiment’ contributes to their criticism of the government’s performance.

The economy in focus

The cost of living crisis is likely to continue exacerbating existing economic inequalities in the country. We therefore take a closer look at how the population feels about income inequality. We find few significant differences between groups, suggesting a broad consensus.

Virtually no one thinks that the income gap between rich and poor is ‘too small’. In terms of religious affiliation, Anglicans are by a small margin the least likely to think that income inequality is too high, with only 67% believing this to be the case, closely followed by Muslims at 69%.

Some 13% of the general population and 16% of Christians think that income inequality is ‘about right’. Anglicans in particular appear to be the most likely to hold this view, with one in six (17%) thinking so. Anglicans are also the least likely Christian group to think that income disparity is too high. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, are at 76% the most likely of any religious group to feel that differences in income are too high – more so even that the non–religious, at 74%.

A breakdown by religious practice nuances the picture slightly. While only 67% of never–practising ‘Other Christians’ think that income inequalities are too great, 78% of weekly practising ‘Other Christians’ think so, showing a clear ‘practice effect’ on economic attitudes. The effect is also very strong for Roman Catholics, where 87% of frequent attenders (at least monthly) think this is the case, compared with only 73% of ‘cultural’ Roman Catholics. The effect is absent among Anglicans: 68% of both never and weekly practising Anglicans think the income gap between rich and poor is too wide. This observation defies explanation given the active involvement of so many Anglican churches in poverty alleviation.

The effect is also present to a lesser extent among Muslims, where 75% of weekly attenders think the gap is too wide, compared with 70% of never attenders. However, the relationship in the data is completely reversed for other religions: while 67% of the weekly attenders of other religions think the gap is too wide, 84% of never attenders think so.

The significant difference between the views of Roman Catholics and Anglicans (62% vs 87% of monthly attenders respectively) is likely to be at least partly due to the relatively greater affluence and older age of Anglicans. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, tend to be younger, are more likely to be born outside the UK, and come from more diverse socio–economic backgrounds. However, the data here does control for age, gender and education, so that we can say with some confidence that the gap is not due to these socio–economic and demographic factors alone

Overall, then, the differences between groups on the economic issue are small, and there is a broad consensus that the income gap is too wide. While the consensus is encouraging, it is also a sign of how dire the inequality has become. The fact that even a significant majority of mostly Conservative–voting ‘cultural’ Anglicans agree that income inequality is too high should encourage candidates of all parties standing in this election to consider tackling income inequality as a policy priority.

Immigration in focus

Questions around immigration have featured constantly in the news and take pride of place in the ongoing general election campaign. And where there seems to be a societal consensus on the need to improve the NHS, the question of how to best control and manage immigration appears to be more divisive. We are therefore now taking a closer look at attitudes towards different kinds of immigration. The figures presented below show averages on a 10–point scale, where 0 means ‘many fewer’ and 10 means ‘many more’.

It is immediately clear that not all immigrants are seen in the same light by the British public. Asylum seekers is the group of immigrants that attracts the least amount of sympathy, and the only one in which on average all, with the exception of Muslims, agree that fewer should be allowed to enter the UK. Anglicans (2.80) are particularly unsympathetic to accepting more asylum seekers – much less so than Catholics (3.82). But even Muslims are not clearly in favour of accepting more asylum seekers; rather, they are divided on the issue (5.20). Religious nones also want fewer asylum seekers, but are less hostile than Christians (4.03).

The second most divisive group of migrants appears to be those coming to the UK for family reunification. Here public opinion is ambivalent, rather than leaning towards either more or less migration. Muslims remain the most supportive of increased migration for family reunification (6.44) and Anglicans the least supportive (4.16). The non–religious are only slightly more likely to welcome more family reunification (5.12), as are Roman Catholics (5.01) and other Christians (5.24).

Across the board, Anglicans want fewer migrants from all groups, except for migrants from the EU, of which they would allow slightly more. The non–religious want slightly more migration of all kinds, but not asylum seekers. And Muslims would welcome more people from all backgrounds to the UK.

Christian views on migration

Looking specifically at Christian views on immigration, it seems at first sight that their views are broadly in line with the population at large.

However, it is clear that in all groups there is a strong ‘practice effect’. There is not just one Christian view, but rather a ‘cultural’ Christian and a practising Christian view on the issue across denominations, with the former preferring fewer migrants of all kinds, and the latter welcoming more migrants of all kinds – apart from asylum seekers.

As already noted, Roman Catholic and Other Christians tend, overall, to be more favourable to immigration. Practicing Christians in these categories are consistently more open to immigration than the national average, whereas non–practicing Christians are more closed. Like the UK population as a whole, they are warmest towards EU migrants, and most opposed to seeing more asylum seekers.

Anglicans are somewhat different – although there is a strong practice effect, both practicing and non–practicing Anglicans are systematically below average in their support for all kinds of migration.

We now turn to look at each of the migrant categories in turn.

Asylum seekers

The practice effect exists not only for Christians, but appears in the data for all religious groups. The following section will explore attitudes towards different groups of migrants in the order in which they appear above.

Asylum seekers are, overall, the migrant group that the British are least likely to want to enter the country (3.80). Even Muslims (the group most supportive of accepting asylum seekers overall) are divided on the issue. While practising Muslims favour allowing slightly more asylum seekers to come and live in Britain (5.36), never–practising Muslims favour allowing fewer (4.60). The same is true for followers of other religions, with those who practise frequently being ambivalent (5.03) and those who never practise quite clearly in favour of allowing fewer to come to the UK (4.15).

Although, on average, no Christian group is in favour of allowing more asylum seekers to come and live in Britain, the impact of the attendance effect is largest among them. While frequently practising ‘Other Christians’ only want slightly fewer asylum seekers to be allowed to come and live in Britain (4.28), never attenders want significantly fewer to do so (2.80). The same is true for Roman Catholics, who score similarly to Other Christians, and for Anglicans, who are the least supportive of welcoming asylum seekers overall, but are likely to be considerably less hostile if they practise frequently.

In sum, never–practising Christians tend to be more hostile towards asylum seekers than the average population, whereas all frequently–practising Christians except for Anglicans are generally more welcoming of asylum seekers than the population as a whole.

Family reunification

The second form of immigration is family reunification. Since the Conservative government introduced new rules in March 2024 to restrict the ability of care workers to bring family members to the UK, this particular issue has been in the news regularly. However, as the dataset used predates this change in the law, it is likely that public attitudes towards this particular group may have shifted since the data was collected. As of May 2023, the British public was divided on the issue (4.99).

Again, among religious groups Anglicans are most opposed to allowing more people to come to the UK on a family reunification visa. However, while frequently practising Anglicans as a whole are only undecided on this question (4.99), never practising Anglicans are clearly in favour of allowing fewer family members in (3.77). Roman Catholics and other Christians straddle the middle, with the never–practising wanting slightly less family reunification (4.56 and 4.53 respectively) and the frequenting allowing slightly more (5.49 and 5.76).

Muslims are the most supportive of allowing family reunification, with frequent attenders open to allowing significantly more to come and live in Britain through this route (6.64) and never attenders open to allowing slightly more (5.86) – followed closely by other religious believers in this regard.

Many Muslims and other religious adherents in Britain are likely to have arrived in the UK as family members of someone already resident in the country – it’s not surprising that they are on average likely to be more sympathetic to family reunification. The same reason may also explain why ‘Other Christians’ are slightly more supportive of family reunification than other Christian groups.

International students

Student migration has also featured prominently in the news recently, with the Conservative government announcing a new crackdown on student visas from May 2024 – despite reports finding no evidence of widespread student visa abuse. Again, however, public opinion is cool, supporting only a very slight increase in student migration (5.29).

Anglicans are the most opposed to allowing more students to come to the UK, again with a significant difference in attitudes between never and frequently practising Anglicans: while the former are in favour of fewer international students (4.34), the latter are in favour of a small increase in the number of international students in the UK (5.22). As above, Roman Catholics and other Christians are in the middle, but this time with a clearly more supportive attitude towards international students. We also note that there is an important gap between the views of practising and non–practising Christians in both groups.

Although Muslims and other religious believers are the most supportive of allowing more students to come and live in Britain, the gap between them and Christians is much narrower here, to the point where there is some overlap between the attitudes of the two groups.

Migration from outside the EU

Attitudes towards allowing more migrants from outside the EU to come and live in Britain are at similar levels to those towards students in most respects (5.20) – the main difference being that other religious believers are the most supportive of allowing more of them in, overtaking Muslims by a sizeable margin. We note again the existence of the practice effect across the board, with frequently practising believers of all religious groups being considerably more supportive of allowing more non–EU migrants in versus their never–practising counterparts.

We also still note the persistent greater opposition of Anglicans towards increased immigration than any other group, and the fact that Christians are, overall, less in favour of allowing more people from outside the EU to come and live in Britain. But also that all frequently practising Christians, with the exception of Anglicans, are above average in their support for admitting more non–EU migrants.

Migration from within the EU

Finally, we look at migration from within the EU. While there is a near consensus that fewer asylum seekers should come and live in Britain, there is an absolute consensus that the UK could see more EU migrants (5.96). This surprising fact demonstrates that attitudes towards migration within the EU have shifted since Brexit.

People from the EU are the only group in the data where all non–practising Christian groups agree on allowing slightly more. It is the only group for which Christians (especially often practising Roman Catholics) overtake Muslims on how many more they would allow to come and live in Britain. It is also the only group of which non–practising Muslims would allow less in than the overall population.

Unsurprisingly, however, and despite overall support for accepting more EU migrants, neither practising nor non–practising Anglicans make it over the average line.

Conclusion

In this paper, we set out to explore whether the views of religious groups diverge from the population at large on election priority issues like the economy, NHS, and immigration.

On issues around the NHS and the economy/cost of living, we see marginal differences amongst religious groups. We see slightly more support for the incumbent Conservative government’s performance amongst Christian groups, albeit within the context of high levels of dissatisfaction.

On the hot topic of migration, one of the key issues in the current election campaign, we see quite high levels of resistance to migration amongst Christian groups, in that on average these groups were expressing a preference for fewer migrants. There is more or less resistance, depending on the category of immigration, with ‘asylum seekers’ being the least favoured category, and ‘EU migrants’ being the most favoured.

Finally, we have again shown that there is a strong practice effect amongst religious groups, and particularly amongst Christian groups. Non–practicing and practicing diverge to a considerable degree, with practicing religious respondents being more open to migration of all kinds. Again, we see that there is something in the habits of regular association that shifts political attitudes.

Notes on the data

Both the 23rd and 25th waves of the BES data were collected by YouGov from a representative internet panel using an online sample. Unless otherwise stated, all the values presented here are predicted and standardised with control variables (age, gender, education, and religiosity). Figures are weighted and variables are coded so as to be consistent with previous Theos research on religious voting patterns. Descriptive data are available for consultation on request.

This paper is divided into three main sections: the first on the top three issues of concern to the British public, the second on the state of the economy and the third on attitudes to immigration.

For the first section, we used the BES question “How well do you think the present government has handled the following issues?”, and focused on the three issues that figure at the top of most opinion polling. The response options to this question follow a Likert scale, with 5 points ranging from ‘very bad’ to ‘very good’. These categories have been dichotomised into ‘well’ (including both ‘very well’ and ‘well’) and ‘other’ (including all three other options). The values shown are predicted probabilities based on a logistic regression model controlling for the above variables.

For the second section on the economy, the variable measures whether a person thinks that ‘the difference in income between rich and poor is too high or too low’. For the descriptive analysis by affiliation, we used a 4–category variable: ‘low’, ‘about right’, ‘high’ and ‘don’t know’. This variable was dichotomised as ‘high’ versus other responses for multivariate analysis, following the same methodology as above.

Finally, for the third section on immigration, we used the question ‘Do you think that Britain should allow more or fewer of the following kinds of people to come and live in Britain?’. Response options to this question follow a 10–point Likert scale, ranging from ‘many fewer’ (0) to ‘many more’ (10). ‘Don’t know’ responses were coded as 5. As not all participants provided responses to this question – only a selected number of 4,836 people participated in this module – this section of our analysis uses a smaller sample size of 4,836 people instead of our previous sample size of 19,549. The descriptive analysis shows predicted probabilities based on a logistic regression model controlling for the same variables as above. For our analysis by frequency of communal practice, we combined those who attend communal worship at least monthly with those who attend it at least weekly to create a single ‘frequently practising’ category.

On Theos’ ‘Religion Counts’ series

This blog is part of a larger body of work including briefing papers and articles exploring the impact of religion on voting patterns in the UK.

The first briefing paper: Do the religious vote? which examines whether voters from different religions backgrounds are more or less likely to vote.

The second briefing paper: Who do the religious vote for? looks at data on party preference – which parties are people from various religious backgrounds likely to vote for?

The third briefing paper: Do the religious feel like they can make a difference? which explores political efficacy, social trust, and political trust amongst religious participants.

The fourth briefing paper: Economic and Social Values which maps the economic and social attitudes of religious groups in Britain.  

Learn more about our Religion Counts work here.

Could you help uncover the impact faith can make in this election year by giving to our Religion Counts election appeal?  

The Religion Counts team explore how the religious affiliation and practices of the British people map onto the two scales of economic and social attitudes. 29/05/2024

In our three previous briefing papers in the Religion Counts series, we have explored turnout, voting intention, and civic engagement by religious identity. In all three, religion – and particularly religious practice – played a role in shaping behaviour. In this briefing paper, we explore how the religious affiliation and practices of the British people map onto the two scales of economic and social attitudes.

While we have taken inspiration from the popular and publicly available Political Compass, a model that visually represents the political values and ideologies of groups and individuals along two axes, we have produced the graphs below using data calculated following our own methodology and must warn our readers that both are not quite comparable. Our own economic and social values scales were constructed as indices using 10 variables (5 for each index) from the 25th wave of the BES. More information is available in the notes on the data below.

Religious Britons place more emphasis on authority and traditional values (‘authoritarian’) than the non–religious. They are also on the whole more economically right–wing. Christians are the most authoritarian of all religious groups. Muslims are economically the most–left–leaning. Frequently worshipping Christians tend to be more libertarian than those who don’t practice their faith.

Christians are more socially authoritarian and economically right–wing

It is important to explain what we mean by ‘authoritarian’ and ‘libertarian’ in our particular context. This index measures respondents’ attitudes to personal freedom and respect for authority, and where they stand on the trade–off between the two. A higher degree of ‘authoritarianism’ may therefore imply a greater emphasis on respect for traditional values, obedience to authority, or on harsher penalties for breaking the law. A higher degree of libertarianism shows a preference for greater individual freedom and personal autonomy.

Similarly, the economic axis measures attitudes towards, taxation, free trade and government intervention in the economy. A shift to the ‘right’ can therefore indicate varying degrees of preference for a capitalist market economy, lower taxation, and higher levels of free enterprise. A shift to the ‘left’ indicates a greater preference for public ownership, government intervention and wealth redistribution.

It is also important to note that the political compasses shown below are all highly zoomed in. Both the social and economic indices range from –2 to +2. Consequently, when Anglicans (0.18, 0.30) appear in the upper right–hand corner of the right–authoritarian quadrant, they are not, in fact, far–right extremists. Rather, they tend to be on average slightly more right of centre economically, and slightly more socially conservative.

Compared to Nones, religious respondents as a whole are more socially authoritarian. Except for Muslims, they also tend to lean more to the economic right. Christians in particular gravitate slightly towards the right–authoritarian quadrant of the compass. Roman Catholics are only somewhat more economically right than the overall average; Anglicans and Other Christians are more so.

Where the other population groups follow a general pattern, Muslims are outliers: they are more economically left than any other group, but also more socially authoritarian than all but Anglicans and Other Christians.

The results here are surprising on several accounts. While we expect religiosity to play an important role in determining social preferences – and therefore expect to find religious respondents higher up the authoritarian–libertarian scale – economic preferences could easily be driven by other socio–economic variables. Instead, we find a very strong correlation between social and economic values. This finding is consistent with previous analyses of the European political landscape, which have found a strong positive correlation between the two dimensions.

However, this trend is not a hard and fast rule, as the British Muslim population shows: individuals occupy the entire two–dimensional space of the compass, and sometimes this correlation breaks down. The fact that the average political values of the Muslim population do not correspond to the most widely available left–libertarian/right–authoritarian options may contribute to their relative alienation from British politics, as noted in our previous articles in this series.

Frequently attending Christians are more socially libertarian

For Christians, high frequency of communal practice appears associated with more socially libertarian values. While this might seem counter–intuitive, the data shows that frequently practising Christians (i.e. those who attend church at least once a month) tend to be more libertarian than infrequent practising Christians, who in turn are more libertarian than nominal Christians who never practice. In other words, nominal Christians place a greater emphasis on respect for traditional values, or on harsher penalties for breaking the law than do practising Christians.

We do not observe this trend for Muslim or other religious respondents. Frequently practising Muslims are closer to the economic centre and hold more socially authoritarian views. With each incremental decrease in practice, they appear less socially conservative and more economically left leaning. The picture is different still for other religious respondents: all but the never–practising other religious cluster around the economic and social centre, while the never–practising other religious respondents are very clearly left–libertarian.

Despite what we noted before, the vertical downward movement, showing important changes in social values but little fluctuation in the economic attitudes of Christian respondents as the frequency of communal practice increases, is not surprising. This follows a trend previously observed across Western Europe that the impact of church attendance on social and economic values is significantly greater for social preferences than for economic preferences. [i]

The reason why nominal Christians migrate to the right–authoritarian corner, while nominal Muslims migrate in the opposite direction, can probably be explained primarily by demographics: while non–practising nominal Christians tend to be white, older, wealthier and belong to a higher social class, nominal Muslims are likely to come from poorer urban backgrounds and occupy C2DE occupations.

It is also interesting to note that none of the various never–practising but religiously–affiliated respondents are anywhere near the religiously unaffiliated (i.e. non–religious, or Nones) on the compass, or even close to the sample average: nominal Muslims are further to the left, nominal other religions are more left and socially libertarian, and nominal Christians are significantly more socially authoritarian and right–wing than anyone else. This may be because nominal affiliation is a matter of identity and does not commit the affiliated believer to more than tokenism. Active practice, on the other hand, involves a greater commitment to certain beliefs and to putting those beliefs into practice in everyday life.

Frequency of practice is relevant to the social values of all Christians  

Though religious voters – especially Anglican voters – are more likely to be more authoritarian, frequently practising Anglicans are much more socially libertarian than their infrequent or never–practising counterparts. This much we mentioned previously. However, this trend is not exclusive to Anglicans, although it is perhaps most pronounced among them: at least monthly–practicing Roman Catholics and other Christians, together with weekly–practicing Anglicans, are all more socially libertarian than the average. Additionally, monthly–practicing Roman Catholics lean more towards the economic left than the average. We also find, of course, that there is a great deal of diversity within the Christian population that was not initially apparent. However, as noted above, Christians tend to be particularly clustered in the right–authoritarian quadrant.

Conclusions

Religious identities play a visible role when it comes to political values, as we indeed expected: here, too, religion counts. Some findings are not surprising – that all religious groups place more emphasis on authority than the Nones, as reflected in their higher scores on the authoritarian scale. Other findings are surprising – that more frequently practising Christians are more socially libertarian than their infrequently or never practising counterparts.

As in our previous reports in this series, the data again highlight the importance of religiosity and religious practice, not just affiliation. But frequency of practice affects the political values of religious groups in different ways: while it affects Christians (and especially Anglicans) most in their social values, Muslims fluctuate particularly along the economic axis.

Note about the data

We used two series of five variables from the 25th wave of the BES to calculate an economic Left–Right index and a social Authoritarian–Libertarian index. The indices were generated using Item Response Theory and then standardized. Negative values on both indices indicate left/libertarian views respectively whereas positive values indicate varying degrees of right/authoritarian views.

The response options for the questions used to quantify economic values and social values utilise a 5–point Likert scale, ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ (–2) to ‘strongly agree’ (+2). The average score of BES respondents on the Left–Right index is – 0.05 and on the Authoritarian–Libertarian index is 0.01, very slightly into the left–authoritarian quadrant.

Sampling weight was applied to all analyses in this article. Variables were coded so as to be consistent with previous Theos research on religious voting patterns.

On Theos’ ‘Religion Counts’ series 

This briefing paper is part of a larger body of work including other briefing papers and articles exploring the impact of religion on voting patterns in the UK.

The first briefing paper: Do the religious vote? which examines whether voters from different religions backgrounds are more or less likely to vote.

The second briefing paper: Who do the religious vote for? looks at data on party preference – which parties are people from various religious backgrounds likely to vote for?

Learn more about our Religion Counts work here.

The Religion Counts team explore the question of whether people in different religious groups feel that they can make a difference. 29/05/2024

In our two previous briefing papers in the Religion Counts series, we have explored turnout and party preference by religious identity. In both, religion – and particularly how often people attend their places of worship – played a role in shaping behaviour. In this briefing paper, we’re turning to the question of whether people in different religious groups feel that they can make a difference.

To gauge civic engagement, or civic–mindedness, we have used three sets of variables from the latest 25th wave of the British Election Study (BES): political efficacy, social trust, and political trust.

Christians have a higher feeling of political efficacy than other religious groups – and Muslims have the lowest feeling of political efficacy. And although Muslims have a high level of political trust, they have a low level of social trust. Christians tend to be more trusting than the population as a whole. With the index and measures of social and political trust taken together, the Christian population in particular is strongly civic–minded.

Christians have the highest feeling of political efficacy

Political efficacy refers to the extent to which individuals feel that they can understand politics, make their voices heard and influence the political process. In essence, the political efficacy index shows the extent to which people trust and ‘buy into’ the political process.

We calculated a political efficacy index using the five following variables: “I understand the important political issues facing our country”, “It takes too much time and effort to be active in politics”, “It is difficult to understand what happens in government and politics”, “Politicians don’t care what people like me think”, and “Going to vote is a lot of effort”. More information on how we calculated this index is available in the notes on the data below.

Religious Britons in general, and Christians in particular, have greater feelings of political efficacy than the non–religious (i.e., Nones). Where Nones score –0.18 on our political efficacy index, Christians score over 0.32. Other religious respondents score just below 0.19 – above the mean score of the sample of 0.09. Muslims score well below any other group at less than –0.92. On the whole, religious believers and Christians significantly raise the average perception of political efficacy of the total sample.

While the different Christian groups all record high feelings of political efficacy, Anglicans score the highest, at over 0.32. Roman Catholics and other Christians score very similarly at around 0.25.

The Muslim population’s low political efficacy score is consistent with our earlier finding that Muslims are the least likely to turn out on election day. This score additionally reveals a comparatively low level of confidence in their ability to contribute to British politics.

Religious Britons are more politically trusting than Nones

BES participants were asked “How much trust do you have in Members of Parliament in general?”. We recognise that this question bundles together different aspects of what trust might be – trust in competence, probity, efficacy, shared interests – however we interpret this variable as a measure for political trust in the round. Scored between –3 (“no trust”) and +3 (“a great deal of trust”), the fact that all groups scored well below zero reveals a tendency towards distrust in MPs. The mean score of the whole sample is –1.46.

As with political efficacy, religious Britons score higher on political trust than non–religious respondents. Unlike for political efficacy, however, this includes the Muslim population, whose level of political trust is the second–highest (–1.19) of all faith groups, and exceeds even that of Christians as a whole (–1.22). Nones have the lowest level of political trust (–1.64) of any religious group.

Other Christians (–1.12) have the highest level of political trust of any Christian group, followed by Anglicans (–1.19) and Roman Catholics (–1.39). All Christian denominations scored higher on political trust than the mean score of the whole sample, and well above the Nones.

Christians are the most socially trusting

The third dimension of civic–mindedness is social trust, which is often regarded as the woven fabric of a healthy society. The BES asked “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”. The bar chart gives the percentage of positive responses from all groups that “people can be trusted”. Only 37%, i.e. less than two in five, of all respondents are socially trusting.

Christians are the most socially trusting of all religious and non–religious groups. With 39% of all Christians believing that “people can be trusted”, they are slightly more trusting than Nones (36%), ‘Other religious’ Britons (32%) or Muslims (19%). Muslim respondents are the least socially trusting group, although they are the second most politically trusting group.

Broken down by denomination, Anglicans (41%) are the most socially trusting, followed by ‘other Christians’ (40%) and Roman Catholics (38%) – who bring the overall level of Christian social trust down slightly.

Of all three measures, social trust is particularly affected by controlling for demographic characteristics. The observed relationships within the data all remain the same, but the magnitude of the differences between the different religious groups diminishes somewhat. Christians still appear to be slightly more socially trusting than either the total sample or the nones. The ‘other religious’ are still below average and Muslims still score lower than any other group in terms of social trust.

As in our previous two briefing papers, we will now nuance these results by introducing frequency of communal practice.

More frequently practicing Christians have even higher political efficacy

Christians who practise their faith have a greater feeling of political efficacy. If Christians by affiliation score 0.32 on the political efficacy index, weekly attending Christians score 0.67 (versus 0.07 for never attending Christians). Weekly attending Anglicans have the highest score of 1.03 (vs. 0.11), followed by weekly attending Roman Catholics with 0.80 (vs. –0.10). Other Christians score overall lower than other Christians, with their highest scoring group, at 0.42, practising less than monthly.

Muslims with any frequency of practice have a perception of political efficacy that is well below the average for the sample (0.09) or even below that of Nones (–0.18). Nevertheless, Muslims who practice infrequently (–1.49) or never (–0.91) have much lower feelings of political efficacy than Muslims who practice at least monthly (–0.50) or weekly (–0.38).

While respondents of other religions find themselves overall in between Muslims and Christian, the relationship between attendance and political efficacy is reversed. Those who never practise have a very high feeling of political efficacy (0.86) whereas weekly–practising other religious respondents have a lower feeling of political efficacy (–0.57). However, when controlling for age and education, weekly practising believers have a considerably higher feeling of political efficacy.

More frequently practicing religious Britons are politically even more trusting

Religious Britons who practise their faith more frequently score higher on political trust.

As for religious affiliation alone, all values of political trust are still negative, with a discernible tendency to distrust MPs even among the most religiously observant Britons. However, there is also a clear trend whereby all non–practicing believers of any religion score lower on political trust than their more frequently practicing counterparts.

Overall, Christians are the most politically trusting (–0.90 for both weekly and monthly practicing), followed by Muslims (–0.90 less than monthly, –1.00 weekly and –1.10 monthly practicing) and other religious respondents (–0.88 monthly and –1.13 weekly practicing).

Among Christians, ‘Other Christians’ who practise monthly (–0.70) and weekly (–0.83) are the most politically trusting, followed by Anglicans (–0.84 weekly and –0.90 monthly practising). Roman Catholics have the lowest levels of political trust, with infrequent (–1.26 less than monthly) and frequent (–1.12 weekly and –1.28 monthly) practicing Roman Catholics scoring lower overall on political trust than Muslims.

The level of political trust among Nones (–1.64) is comparable to that of never–practising Roman Catholics (–1.62) and never–practicing other religious respondents (–1.81).

More frequently practicing Christians are more socially trusting

Christians who practise their faith more frequently are more socially trusting. While 41% of never practising Christians felt that most people could be trusted (the same as Nones), 46% of Christians who practised at least monthly felt the same. Muslims and other religious believers are still the least socially trusting – less so than Nones, 36% of whom are socially trusting – and frequency of practice does not seem positively related to social trust.

The positive relationship between social trust and frequency of communal practice, on the other hand, is particularly strong for Anglicans (41% of those who never practise are socially trusting compared with 52% of those who practise weekly) and Roman Catholics (38% compared with 51%). Among other Christians, the trend is slightly weaker, with 40% of those who never practise being socially trusting compared with 47% of those who practise at least monthly.

Christians are the most civic–minded

Taking all three dimensions together, Christians appear to be significantly more civic–minded than Nones. They score significantly higher than Nones on the political efficacy index, on political trust, and, marginally, on social trust. They also feel more inclined to look after societal needs and interests than either ‘Other religious’ or Muslim respondents.

The picture is even more striking for frequently practising Christians (i.e., those who practice at least monthly), for whom levels of political efficiency, political trust, and social trust are systematically and consistently higher. And while ‘cultural’ Christians score similarly to Nones, the gap between Nones and frequently practising Christians is all the wider.

Given the importance of feeling politically efficacious and of social and political trust for a healthy and functioning democratic society, it is significant that Christians raise the sample average on all these measures. They make an important contribution to the overall level of civic–mindedness of British society and their input should not be underestimated.

We do note that Muslims and other religious respondents also occasionally follow the trend observed for the Christian population, but not as consistently. The ‘Other religious’ who practise monthly score high on political efficacy, and are well above the Nones on political trust, but score low on social trust. The Muslim population scores very low on political efficacy and social trust, but surprisingly high on political trust. It is possible that this is at least partly due to the fact that British Muslims tend to be younger on average and more likely to have been born abroad, raising questions about language barriers and social integration. The fact that an entire section of the British population has such low levels of political efficacy should prompt us to ask how our democratic and civic institutions can be more inclusive of Muslim background citizens.

We also find that while the British Muslim population may appear to lack trust in most people in general, or feel politically disempowered, they contribute to British society in different ways: British Muslims give much more to charity than the national average, are more likely to volunteer, and are more involved in community organisations and fundraising events.

Note about the data

At the outset, wave 25 of the BES included a series of questions measuring political efficacy, enabling us to quantify this concept from various aspects (Table 1). The response options for these questions utilized a 5–point Likert scale, ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ (–2) to ‘strongly agree’ (+2). Given their diverse wording, we recoded four of them so that higher points indicate greater political efficacy across all five questions.

It is worth noting that BES respondents did show distinctive patterns when answering the questions. For example, a majority of the public does not believe that ‘going to vote is a lot of effort’, whereas they tend to think that ‘politicians don’t care what people like me think’.

For analytical purposes, we used these five variables to calculate a political efficacy index. The index was then standardized, cantered at 0, and with a standard deviation ranging between –3 and +3. A higher value of this index still indicates greater political efficacy of the respondent. The average score of BES respondents is just above the mid–point, at 0.09.

Response options to the question “How much trust do you have in Members of Parliament in general?” also follow a Likert scale, with 7 points ranging from ‘no trust’ (–3) to ‘a great deal of trust’ (+3).

To the last question “Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”, only 36.9% said ‘people can be trusted’. Over half (53.0%) of the respondents answered “you can’t be too careful”, while 10.8% reported “don’t know”. In the analysis, the social trust variable was dichotomized at ‘people can be trusted’ versus all other answers.

Sampling weight was applied to all analyses in this article. Variables were coded so as to be consistent with previous Theos research on religious voting patterns. Predicted and standardised values with control variables (age, gender, education, and religiosity) are available for consultation upon request.

On Theos’ Religion Counts series

This briefing paper is part of a larger body of work including other briefing papers and articles exploring the impact of religion on voting patterns in the UK.

The first briefing paper: Do the religious vote? which examines whether voters from different religions backgrounds are more or less likely to vote.

The second briefing paper: Who do the religious vote for? looks at data on party preference – which parties are people from various religious backgrounds likely to vote for?

Learn more about our Religion Counts work here.

Could you help uncover the impact faith can make in this election year by giving to our Religion Counts election appeal?

The Religion Counts team looks at how religious background and practice is likely to influence who people vote for. 15/05/2024

It has been over 10 years since Theos published its Voting and Values in Britain: Does religion count? report, examining the relationship between religious and political commitments in Britain. As in 2014 so today, religion remains an understudied variable in British political life, and important questions – especially in this General Election year – on the existence and significance of the religious vote remain unanswered.

In our previous article, which launched our Religion Counts series looking at how different aspects of religion affect voting patterns in the UK. We looked at whether people intended to vote at all; now we ask how they intend to vote. This article first looks at voting intentions by religious affiliation over the past 10 years, and then concludes with a focussed cross–sectional analysis of the state of affairs today.

As in our previous paper, our source of data is the British Election Study (BES), a national representative survey which has been conducted at every General Election since 1964. More information is available in the notes on the data below.

Voting intentions over time 2014–2023

Picking up where our previous 2014 Theos report stopped, we look at voting intentions by religious affiliation between 2014 and 2023.

We find that between 2014 and 2019, there was slightly more support for the Conservatives than for Labour in the population as a whole. This support increased significantly at the time of their landslide victory in the 2019 general election. However, this increase in support reversed dramatically after the first year of the pandemic, with voting intentions for the Conservative Party plummeting ever since.

We also note that in early 2019, half a year before the snap election, we can clearly see a crisis, when traditional party preferences and voting habits broke down, with the Lib Dems, Labour, and Conservatives all sharing around 15% of the vote. In fact, it appears that the Brexit Party (now Reform UK) could have won a general election with a plurality of the vote at the time the BES survey was conducted. This can be explained by the political climate at the time: the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson was unable to persuade Parliament to approve his Brexit withdrawal agreement. The extraordinary show of support for the Brexit party six months before the 2019 General Election, called by Boris Johnson to strengthen the Conservative majority in Parliament and get his deal through, can be interpreted as a proxy vote of support for the Conservative push to ‘get Brexit done’.

Anglicans consistently vote Conservative

While the Anglican vote has fluctuated over the past 10 years, it has consistently leaned to the right, with a clear preference for the Conservative Party. As with the general population, the then newly formed Brexit party attracted a large share of the Anglican vote in 2019 – as much as 30% – mostly stolen from the Conservatives, but also from Labour. Today it has fallen to under 10%, in line with the rest of the British electorate.

Support for the Conservative Party peaked twice over this time period: once immediately after the Brexit referendum, for the 2017 General Election, and once immediately after the 2019 General Election, which was also run on a platform of ‘getting Brexit done’ – both times when national sentiment ran high.

Anglicans also show a clear preference for the two main parties, with overall little support for the Liberal Democrats or any of the smaller parties.

Roman Catholics have become floating voters

Roman Catholic voters have traditionally been seen as a source of Labour votes, but there is little evidence of this in the data over the past decade. While support for the Conservatives among Catholics was 17 points lower than among the wider population in 1979, by 2019 Catholic support for the Tories was two points higher. As the Catholic ‘anti–Tory sentiment’ has eroded, it is possible that their marriage to Labour has finally come to an end. The reasons for this may include the many social changes that have taken place over the last 40 years within the British Catholic community, in particular the weakening of working–class identity. It at also includes the multiple policy standoffs between the Catholic church and Labour governments of the past.

Until the late 20th century, British Catholics were mainly of Irish descent, predominantly working class, so that their ‘natural party’ was Labour.[i] Even before the early 2000s, the British Catholic community’s link to Labour began to weaken as more Catholics became middle class. Over the last 20 years, with the significant influx of Catholic migrants from southern and eastern Europe and elsewhere (e.g. the Philippines and India), it has become even more ethnically pluralistic and further removed from its Irish working–class roots.[ii]

While it is true that Roman Catholics have been intending to vote Labour again since 2022 – ostensibly for the first time since 2016 – this is entirely consistent with the national decline in Conservative support and preference for Labour in the wider population. In fact, Roman Catholic voting intentions have shadowed those of the general population closely since 2016.

We do note that, as for the Anglican vote, usual trends broke down around the time of the 2019 GE, with Roman Catholic voting intentions fairly evenly split between the Conservative, Lib Dem, Labour and Brexit parties. There has also consistently been greater support for the Lib Dems and other smaller parties among Roman Catholic voters in the UK, compared to Anglican voters.

The ‘Other Christian’ group is difficult to analyse because of its denominational diversity. Nevertheless, we can pick up a few things.

There is no clear common party preference among the various Presbyterian, Methodist, Evangelical, Pentecostal and other Christians. The Conservative Party has led voting intentions for most of the last decade, but only by a small margin. And no more than can be interpreted as average, in line with general trends. There is also some evidence that this group is not by definition Conservative–leaning, given the very significant peak in Labour support around the 2015 GE. During the past decade, Christians in this group have also supported smaller third parties more consistently than either Anglicans or Roman Catholics, and support for Lib Dem is higher among ‘Other Christians’ than among any other Christian group.

It is also significant that both around the time of the Brexit referendum and before the 2019 GE, where the main issue was ‘getting Brexit done’, the vote was very divided between a number of parties, similar to the Roman Catholic vote. In the aftermath of the referendum in 2016, ‘Other Christian’ voting intentions have also followed national trends quite closely – though not as closely as Roman Catholic intentions.

Muslims vote Labour

The Muslim population has more consistently preferred a single party – Labour – than any other religious group, even despite divisive events such as the Brexit referendum. It is also the only group not affected by the 2019 crisis when party preferences collapsed for most religious affiliations. It stands out in this respect.

Of course, as this dataset is almost a year old, it does not reflect changes in attitudes towards Labour within the Muslim population since the Gaza–Israel war, but it is unlikely that any other party has won the sympathy of a majority or even a plurality of Muslim voters in the last eight months.

The Muslim population is also the only group where the Brexit party failed to win over a significant proportion of the electorate, probably in part because of the Brexit party’s policy priorities and anti–immigration (and indeed anti–Muslim) rhetoric.

The Religion Counts team looks at the relationship between religious identity and the likelihood of voting. 15/05/2024

It has been over 10 years since Theos published its Voting and Values in Britain: Does religion count? report, examining the relationship between religious and political commitments in Britain. As in 2014 so today, religion remains an understudied variable in British political life, and important questions – especially in this General Election year – on the existence and significance of the religious vote remain unanswered. As we have seen in the 2024 local elections, religious voting patterns still play a real part in British democracy.

Theos is exploring in a series of regular articles how different aspects of religion – affiliation, attendance, religiosity – affect the vote. Our research covers voting intentions, likelihood of turnout, attitudes on welfarism vs individualism, attitudes to migration, British identity, amongst other things.

Our main source of data is the British Election Study (BES), a national representative survey which has been conducted at every General Election since 1964, and in particular its 23rd (May 2022) and 25th (May 2023) waves. The BES is “a non–partisan, objective independent study providing… data and research into British general elections”. It is also the UK’s longest–running social science survey.

This first article of our religious voting patterns research series will look at turnout according to religious affiliation, attendance, and self–reported religiosity.

According to the BES, those with no religious affiliation are now in the majority. However, near half the population retain some religious affiliation, and these religious affiliations may influence how they vote in upcoming elections. The table below breaks down wave 25 of the BES by religious affiliation. The BES is consistent with other surveys in terms of its overall breakdown of non–religious versus religious believers.

In May 2023, 64% of all respondents said that they would be very likely to vote in a general election tomorrow. This would be roughly in line with recent General Elections. (Turnout was 66.2% in 2015 and 67.3% in 2019.)

Religious voters in general, and Christians in particular, are more likely to vote on polling day than non–religious voters: 82% of religious voters say they are “quite likely” or “very likely” to go compared to 73% of non–religious voters. Controlling for age and education closes the gap between the two groups somewhat, but the same trends remain.

Anglicans (84% very or fairly likely) are the most likely to vote, followed by Other Christians (82%). Despite strong theological differences within the Other Christian (Church of Scotland/Presbyterians, Pentecostal and Evangelical denominations as well as Methodists, Baptists, United Reformed Church, Free Presbyterians, Brethren, and Orthodox Christians) group, most have very similar voting preferences – with the exception of Orthodox Christians. Roman Catholics (78%) come out very close to the national average.

Muslims and other religious voters are the least likely to vote

As of May 2023, Muslim (65%) and other religious voters (70%) are significantly less likely than Christians to turn out on polling day, and fall even below the non–religious voters.

Over a fifth of Muslims (21%) were uncertain about voting, answering “hard to say”, and one fifth of other religious voters (20%) – which includes Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, and other religions – were either “very” or “fairly unlike” to vote, the highest of any group.

The Muslim population is disproportionately younger and from a lower socio–economic class. It also has a large proportion of first–generation immigrants. All of these aspects might contribute to this. That said, it is also important to note that the turnout gap between Muslims and other groups of the population does not close significantly even when controlling for age, gender, and level of education received.

Practicing Christians are even more likely to vote

We have broken down affiliation into an objective measure of attendance at religious services or meetings (communal practice) and into a subjective measure of the significance of spiritual beliefs in one’s life (religiosity).

Christians who are likely to vote in the next election practise their faith more frequently than those who are uncertain or unlikely to vote.

While the difference is more modest for some religious groups than for others, the likelihood of voting among Christians appears to be positively correlated with the frequency of communal practice: 86% of practicing Christians were likely to vote on polling day versus 83% of non–practicing Christians.

For Roman Catholic voters especially, but also for Anglicans, there is an important difference in the average frequency of communal practice between those who are likely to vote and those who are unlikely.

The ‘Other Christian’ group is the exception to this rule. This is mostly due to the small Orthodox Christian population, for whom the relationship is reversed. For most other Christians in that group, the difference in frequency of practice between those likely or not to vote is very small, but average frequency of practice for both groups is much higher than for other Christians.

When asked the more subjective question “How much difference would you say spiritual beliefs make to your life”, the same dynamics can be observed. Of the Christians surveyed, 38% felt that their spiritual beliefs made “some” or “a great difference” to their life (v. 22% frequently practising communally), of the Muslim population, 72% (v. 62%), and of the Other religious, 57% (v. 41%).

The ‘Other Christian’ group are again an interesting exception: both the more and less likely to vote are similarly religious in their self–perception. They are, in addition, also the most devoutly religious of all Christian groups.

Frequently worshipping or more religious Muslims and other religious voters are less likely to vote

These trends are reversed for Muslim and other religious voters, for whom those less likely to vote are on average more frequently practising. Muslims and the other religious combined, 60% of those practising their faith were likely to vote on polling day compared to 88% of the non–practicing population.

This observation should be nuanced by the fact that frequency of communal practice varies widely between Christians and Muslims. Indeed, whereas 62% of Muslims practised frequently (i.e., monthly or weekly), only 22% of Christians did so. It should also be nuanced by the fact that in analysis controlling for age and education, the trend broke down for the other religious, with only a marginally small difference in likelihood to turn out between the weekly practising and never practising. However, the multivariate analysis did not affect the observations on the Muslim population – it is still the case that more frequently practising were less likely to say that they would vote.

Looking at self–reported religiosity for both Muslims and other religious voters, those who are likely to vote are on average less religious than those who are uncertain or unlikely to vote. This mirrors the previous graph looking at frequency of religious practice. However, it should also be noted that the difference in average religiosity between Muslims that are likely to vote and those unlikely to vote is small.

Controlling for age and education has the effect of reversing the trend for both Muslims and followers of other religions: the very religious Muslims appear to be much more likely to vote than the less religious. This is the opposite effect to that we observed in the raw data. However, sample sizes are small. We see that, when controlling for age and education, likelihood to vote in the Muslim sample is still lower than that in other groups.

Conclusions

There is no single general ‘religion effect’ here, but rather multiple different effects. Different religious identities will affect turnout in different ways. Yet there is also no doubt that religion counts – even when demographic variables are taken into account – and should be factored into any discussion on the role of religion in the general election.

The data also makes it clear that religiosity and religious practice, not just affiliation, matters. But even for frequency of practice there is no single rule: while for Christians the likelihood of voting increases with practice, for minority religions, particularly the Muslim community, this relationship is reversed. 

Note about the data

Both the 23rd and 25th waves of the BES data were collected by YouGov via a representative internet panel using an online sample of YouGov panel members. Figures are weighted and percentages are rounded to the nearest unit. Further information on our statistics can be given upon request.

For data looking at affiliation alone, only the 25th wave of the BES is used. When looking at communal practice and self–reported religiosity, data from the 23rd and 25th waves has been combined, keeping only participants who were common to both waves.

Variables were coded so as to be consistent with previous Theos research on religious voting patterns. Predicted and standardised values with control variables (age, gender, education, and religiosity) are available for consultation upon request.

Hannah Rich’s report exploring what ‘love’ means in the context of care work and how rediscovering it might lead us to value care work more highly. 15/04/2024

About the report 

There is a crisis facing the adult social care sector in the UK at present, which is not only economic in nature, but also relational. The devaluation of paid care work in economic terms stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what care is, what work is and even what love is.  

Different workspaces, cultures and working conditions have the power to create different kinds of human relationships and forms of human community and in so doing, create different arenas for ‘love’ to flourish. Social care is therefore a key arena for the intersection between ‘love’ and ‘work’.  

The intersection between love, work and care offers a way of reimagining how caring professions are valued. Further, the integration of Christian theological ideas of love and dignity allows a broader, more holistic policy debate than the current economistic one.  

Drawing together sociological and theological literature with the first–hand experiences of those working in the social care sector, this report explores what ‘love’ means in this context and how rediscovering it might lead us to value care work differently and more highly.

You can read the full report here.

Learn more about our Work Shift series

Working Five to Nine is the second report in Theos’ 2024 Work Shift series, exploring how a renewed focus on the relational elements of work could improve the labour market. 

You can read about the Work Shift series here.

You can read the first report in the series, The Ties That Bind by Tim Thorlby, here.

You can read the second report in the series, Working Five to Nine by Paul Bickley, here.

You can read Paul Bickley’s 2021 report on humanising the labour market here. 

Paul Bickley’s report examining how we can achieve greater ‘work–life integration’ by paying attention to the subjective dimension of work. 25/03/2024

About the report

We have fallen out of love with work. Rates of economic activity remain stubbornly high in the UK, while in other countries they have reverted to pre–pandemic downward trends. While this is being driven by ill health, our values around work have also shifted. Recent World Values Survey data show that the UK public are the least likely of 24 countries to say that work is very/rather important in their life (73% in the UK, compared to 96% in Italy, 94% in France, or 80% in the United States). Millennials in particular have shifted in their attitudes: in 2009, 41% felt that work should always come first. By 2022, this had fallen to 14%.

This report argues that, to address this, we need to pay attention to what Catholic Social Teaching calls “the subjective dimension” of work – that whatever else we say about it, we’re always talking about something people do. Work should contribute to human flourishing and development at the individual and corporate levels. We also need to recognise a growing appetite for greater freedom to fulfil what, from a Christian perspective, are also kinds of work, albeit unpaid. These can be as varied as caring responsibilities, civil and political actions, and personal development and education.

This is not a call for less employment, but to think about how we can ease the conflict between the goods of employment and the goods of all the unpaid work we do. In our public conversation, policy, and practice, we prioritise the former – but how can we give more space to the latter? We argue for the expansion and enforcement of basic worker rights, further use of four–day weeks, and maintaining and extending the used of thoughtful hybrid working.

You can read the full report here.

Learn more about our Work Shift series

Working Five to Nine is the second report in Theos’ 2024 Work Shift series, exploring how a renewed focus on the relational elements of work could improve the labour market. 

You can read about the Work Shift series here.

You can read the first report in the series, The Ties That Bind by Tim Thorlby, here.

You can read Paul Bickley’s 2021 report on humanising the labour market here.

Tim Thorlby’s report examining the consequences of insecure and lone working for our relationships and health. 11/03/2024

The Ties That Bind is the first report in Theos’ 2024 Work Shift series, exploring how a renewed focus on the relational elements of work could improve the labour market.  

This report draws together evidence on the health and social impacts of two significant trends transforming the labour market in the UK – the rise of lone working and the rise of insecure work – to argue that a loss of mutuality in the workplace has made millions of us both poor and ill. More than half of the UK workforce now work alone for all or part of the week, while nearly one in five UK workers are now in insecure work – over half of whom are in work that is both insecure and low paid.  

The report draws upon Christian thinking to argue that greater attention to ‘the ties that bind’ is needed to ensure that increasingly flexible working arrangements can also be dignified, fair, well–connected and healthy.

About the author

Tim Thorlby is the director of Beautiful Enterprise, deploying research to help shape and strengthen good ethical businesses, sustainable social enterprises, charities and public services. He was previously part of the founding team and managing director of Clean for Good, an award–winning ethical office cleaning company for London promoting fair pay and dignified work. Before that he worked in public policy consultancy. You can also read Tim Thorlby on the dignity of good work here.  

Read the full report here.

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