The emergence of faith identity as one of the categories of self-definition has been one of the marked features of the last fifteen years; in particular there has been a transition for many from ethnicity and race as the dominant criteria. The inclusion of a question about religious identity in the 2001 Census was a key step along the way through which we discovered that 71.6% of the population still identified themselves as Christian alongside 2.7% Muslim and 1.0% Hindu, as well as 15.5% who said they had no religion. And there were of course all those Jedis!
In 2011 the same question will be asked again and some time later, but within the life of the next General Synod, the results will emerge. Whatever they are they will present an agenda for the Church, for the way the nation defines itself will have changed – what is harder to predict is by how much?
We do know that the percentage of Muslims will have risen, partly because of new communities that have arrived in this country such as Somalians, but more especially because of the higher birth rate within Muslim families. In contrast the percentage of Hindus, Sikhs and other traditional religions will be fairly similar to 2001. In Leicester this means that the Hindus will no longer be a larger population than the Muslims with all the implications that will have, conscious and unconscious, for self-confidence and identity. It will be a larger shift in relationship than just a modest re-balancing of numbers that will require care and attention to retain Leicester‘s record of strong inter-religious relationships. More generally, and disturbingly, the perception of a take-over by Islam will grow in the minds of some (surveys indicate it is there already) even though the percentage is likely to be still less than 5%.
The particular issue for us and the nation is what happens to the Christian figure, for whether it goes up or down, many different agendas will be played out on the basis of it. The British Humanist Association, for instance, are already complaining about the format of the question and will certainly have things to say if the figure falls. And even if we are sceptical of what the 71.6% figure actually represents it will be hard to escape a sense of either relief or disappointment depending which way the figure goes.
What will the percentage be? I don‘t know. Maybe the influx of eastern Europeans and other Christian migrants, the effect of the Pope‘s visit and a new spirit in government about the place of faith in society will build a stronger sense of Christian identity. Alternatively, will the introduction of a new generation of unchurched young people as voters, the impact of secularism and a post-modern movement away from religious identity produce a less explicitly Christian population? I desire the former but I suspect a drift towards the latter.
Either way the challenge will be there; along with the opportunity for Synod to enable a vibrant and engaged Christian Church which witnesses to a living faith in Christ and is compelling to others; a church of generous love that is equipped to play a critical role in building a harmonious and just society where faith continues, in whatever proportions, to be a crucial but changing marker of identity. We need to be prepared for 2011 – it is more significant than we realise.
Ven. Richard Atkinson
