Nones outnumber Christians -cause for concern?

Recent research told us of an ...

 acceleration in the numbers of people not only not practising their faith on a regular basis, but not even ticking the box   People of no religion outnumber Christians in England and Wales – study | World news | The Guardian:

This has been a couple or more generations coming but it has hit a significant-felling  point. This represents a continuing decline in the reality of the notion that 'cultural Christian' is a good thing. The article points out that there will need to be some further sociological reflection on what is actually happening. However, I will hazard a guess that basically people who used to tick the "CofE" box (or other poility equivalents) are increasingly likely to take stock of themselves as not going to church, not really believing much of what seems to be associated with church involvement and perhaps not even liking or respecting what they do understand about Christian faith. And then they are being honest and saying "Actually, I'm not. And so what?"


So this doesn't represent, in my view, a decrease in Christian faith so much as an increase in the correspondence between labels and reality on the ground. What is significant is what it probably says about identity markers in the wider population and in turn what that implied for the mission of God and the churches in Britain.

It's a further marked movement away from Christendom and so a further indicator of our need to get our heads out of 'come to us' mode and to recognise that 'fringe attraction' is increasingly a busted flush.


Another area that I am interested to see more information emerge on is whether there are particular reasons for this acceleration. Perhaps, I would hypothesise, it is about the mismatch between mores between the Churches and wider society where the churches are looking less compassionate and, well Christ-like, than many churches. Not only that but we aren't looking very 'spiritual' with the result that  people who develop a 'spiritual' outlook tend to look to Buddhism, Daoism etc. though without identifying with them.

All of which is to say that fairly different means and approaches to outreach are needed. As if we didn't already know this: but perhaps this will help to drive the point home.

Myers-Briggs and Socio-Economic Status

I've found MBTI personally quite useful over the years, particularly in helping myself and others to think about how we pray and whether there are ways of praying that might enable us better to relate to God more regularly and with better senses of ease or 'fit'. I know that there are issues with the scientific robustness of the indicator, though I do feel it captures something helpful, even if at this point we aren't quite sure how best to frame what it does do. Personally, I think that I'd feel it might be better at capturing the dynamics within different gestalts we find ourselves 'in' rather than necessarily being a died-in-the-wool once-and-for-all-time diagnostic. However, I know that's heresy to Jungians from whom this tool originates. Nevertheless, it has served me well in identifying ways to pray and reflecting on how my shadow side might come out of the shadows as I age.

So, what about this infographic? Well, I'm interested to see how some of the characteristics play out when seen on a grander, aggregated, scale in society. I'm assuming this is for the USA (and I wonder if it would be different for other societies, I suspect so).

The four types are a standard grouping of the 16 types which correspond, supposedly, to the classical 4 temperaments phlegmatic-choleric-melancholic-sanguine. You'll see the MBTI groups are _S_P, _S_J, _NF_ and _NT_. These four temperament groups are  used in thinking about temperament and prayer.

I suppose it's interesting then to see how these temperaments seem to correlate to other stuff. Some of them it seems relatively easy to see possible reasons. For example household income: ENTJ's seem to be the biggest earners forlloweb by ESFJ, ESTJ, INTJ, ENFJ and ISTJ. Interesting to note the commen factor is the J and I would suspect that something about organisation and giving energy to it. Though it's not a universal, the only time that a _J combo is outfinanced by a _P is ISFP vs ISFJ and I can think of no particular explanation in general terms for that.

There is a gender difference, which I had heard of before. And it might be expected: men are slightly more likely to favour rationality over emotionality and women are the other way round. And while that's interesting and corresponds to folk 'wisdom'. yet we should note how many people that this doesn't encompass -and the characteristics described certainly don't justify sexism even if they were absolutely isomorphic with gender; it would be hard to justify holding leadership (for example) to one gender or another on the basis of these characteristics. It would be hard to say that a leader should prioritise 'level headedness' over 'emotional intelligence' for example, even if one could conceive of such things being relatively unrelated (surely it is the ability to balance them appropriately that is important).

I note that ENTPs seem to be the lowest educational attainers. I wonder whether this reflects a greater tendency to be 'maverick', creative and perhaps less patient with going through the motions and ticking the boxes. And that is to say something about our education systems as much as about personality types. We ought to be able to devise education in a way so as not to disadvantage any personality type. It's no surprise to me that ENTJ's seem to come out as the biggest educational attainers: the combination of rationality, logical approach, ability to be more fully part of the social scene of the classroom and a greater likelihood of approaching their education in an organised fashion; all of these seem to be slightly advantageous.

It's intriguing to wonder why the types are not more statistically evenly distributed. I find myself wondering whether culture tends to fashion things directly and indirectly so that certain types are more likely to emerge from childhood. That's not something I've looked into, just something I'd be interested to know more about. And of course, considering how it is that certain traits might be preferred or enabled to succeed more frequently by the values and ways we work out our social organisation.

See the full infographic here: I've copied it into this post in case at some point this one's address should be changed.
Myers-Briggs Personality Socio-Economic Status | Visual.ly

Public does not trust government with personal data

A report in Computer Weekly entitled Public does not trust government with personal data | 18 Mar 2008 | ComputerWeekly.com: tells us some interesting stats.

"Only one in 10 adults in the UK trusts the government with their personal data, an online survey reveals. ... The survey found 41% were in favour of introducing ID cards in the UK, 40% were against, and 19% undecided."

Presumably the 31% who were in favour of introducing ID cards but didn't trust the government were in favour of introducing them to other people!

Germans hanker after barrier

Declaration of interest. I was involved in a former [to me] diocese's link scheme with an eastern German KirchenKreis. However, my main interest here is in the way that the research is [mis?]intrepreted. We are told, "Only 3% of people who originated from East Germany said they were very satisfied with the way that German democracy worked." Well to make that work we need to know what the comparable percentage would be from the west; and note we are given only the 'very satisfied'. I would not be at all surprised to discover that under 10%, possibly under 5% in the west and other democracies would say they were "very satisfied" with the way democracy worked. I'm a believer in democracy, in that I think it the least bad form of government. I'm 'somewhat satisfied' with how our democracy works because I think it needs reform, but that's not to say I'm hankering for totalitarianism.

And again, 'ware of interpreting this: "The poll by the Forsa institute showed that 73% of those from the east believed that socialism was a good idea in principle, but had been poorly implemented. Over 90% argued that they enjoyed better social protection during the GDR era." I suspect that you'd get a lot of sympathy the world over with that sentiment. The argument, I think, is over wthether it can be impelemented and/or how effectively. Even died-in-the-wool capitalists will pay lip-service to the idea that it's a good idea in principle: it's the "but" that's significant and that impacts on the social protection issue: an argument that is continuing to this day the world over.

What is a bit more disturbing, but perhaps not totally surprising is this: "less than 5% of relationships in Germany are between east and west Germans, suggesting the a social and cultural divide still exists." But even here let's be wary of alarmist interpretations: think for a moment; probably the same could be said between many Scots and English, Geordies and Londoners, Northern Irish and East Anglians ... French and English (!). Again we'd need comparative figures for relationships between the different Laender to have a better idea of the significance of this figure.

Lies, damned lies and statistics. It's because of this kind of statistical illiteracy that people say and believe that.

Germans hanker after barrier | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited:

Terrorism -a fuller story

Definitely food for thought, how come we hear a lot about Islamist terrorism and so little about the higher threat levels implied by these figures?

figures from Europol, the European police agency, reveal that Islamist terror attacks in Europe constituted 0.2% or all 'terrorism' throughout the continent in 2006.* Unsurprisingly, there has been little in the media about this interesting figure in the month since it was published. In their first report of this nature - European Terrorism Situation and trend Report 2007 - reports that across the EU there were 498 terrorist attacks in 2006. These include: 424 'ethno-nationalist and separatist' (mostly in France and Spain)
55 'left-wing and anarchist' (mainly Greece , Italy, Spain and Germany)
1 failed Islamist terrorist attack (in Germany, plus two more attempts allegedly foiled in Denmark and the UK)
1 right-wing terrorist attack (in Poland)
The figures appear to over report left and anarchist 'terror' by categorising some political demonstrations which result in damage to property as 'terrorism'.

Do note the imbalance, based on semantics of left and right wing groups, but even so ...
Spinwatch - The statistical invisibility of Islamist 'terrorism' in Europe

Technorati Tags: terrorism, Islam, figures

Cathedrals see a steady rise in congregations

While we're on the subject of churchgoing in Britain, here's the surprise.

In 2000, when weekly attendance figures were first collected, the number of regular worshippers at the 43 cathedrals was 14,300, compared with 24,800 last year. Seasonal attendance has also increased: 130,000 people attending services over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in 2006, compared with 94,300 in 2000. Attendance at Easter Eve and Easter Sunday services has risen to 52,400 last year from 47,900 in 2000.

So what's going on here? I confess I don't know but my guesses lead me to ask the following questions, which, if I get the chance I will try to answer. My questions are whether the increased attendances at cathedrals have connections with decreased attendances elsewhere; in other words are we seeing transfer growth here? Particularly with the decline in local churches meaning that the whole traditional robed choir thing is harder to maintain. I'm also wondering how far this may have a relation to a desire to attend without further involvement? The reason possibly shares a driver with the last question: the decline of local church-going may have entered a negative loop which exacerbates the features of decline, that is the disheartening aspects of decline actually further promote decline as people find it harder to be resilient in the face of decline and 'bail' to something that buoys them up and may give them rest from their small church labours.

So we could be witnessing a squeeze of the smaller local church as on one hand the traditionalists bail out to cathedrals and cathedral-like churches, and on the other the radicals bail out into informal 'emerging' set-ups and the 'revivalists' (for want of a better description) bail into large MOR front-led praise-band set-ups.

Of course the knock-on effects are pressure on clergy and active lay people in the declining set-ups which issues in depression and turns the screw of the negative feed-back loop one more twist. It's a 'those who do not have, even what little they have will be taken away' situation.


Church Times - Cathedrals see a steady rise in congregations

Three million worshippers ‘wait to be asked

Worth pondering; the results of a recent survey on churchgoing or not in the UK today. Here's a salient quote.

The survey of 7000 adults questioned those who did and did not currently attend church. The research concluded that an estimated 7.6 million people (one in seven) attended church each month, and 12.6 million attended at least once a year. Although 53 per cent of respondents described themselves as Christian, nearly two-thirds had nothing to do with a church. Most of these — an estimated 29.3 million — were regarded as unreceptive and “closed to attending church”.

My questions are about identifying the minority waiting to be asked since there are clearly many more who will say 'no', and my experience is that your average outgoing church after a few years has pretty much exhausted its fringe contacts. I'm also concerned about what they find if they do go; my experience as a peripatetic service leader over the last few years makes me concerned in some cases. I don't think we realise how remote from contact with everyday life and concerns our churches have become. Even, and in some ways, especially those that are 'lively'. By God's grace, of course, some of this can be overcome. But let's not make God's grace an excuse for not taking the issue seriously: that is tantamount to putting God to the test.


Church Times - Three million worshippers ‘wait to be asked’



Technorati Tags: churchgoing, attendance, UK, statistics