1 Religious Education in the United Kingdom Suzanne Newcombe The Religious Composition of the United Kingdom The United Kingdom is traditionally Christian and most of the population continues to identify as Christian. In the most recent census (2001), 72% of the population of Great Britain stated their religion as Christian. However, the religiosity of the population could be described as being a largely implicit cultural heritage rather than reflecting an active role of the Christian churches. In fact, less than 15% of the population attends church at least once a month 1 and only just over 6% of the population was in church on “Census Sunday” in 2005. 2 On matters of traditional Christian doctrine, the population of Great Britain shows a skeptical disposition with recent surveys suggesting that only about 40% of the population consider Jesus as “God’s Son” 3 and less than 40% of the population believe in the immaculate conception of Jesus. 4 Secularism is influential, with more people actively identifying as “not religious” on the 2001 Census (15%) than the total of those who identify with non-Christian religions. This group of “non-religious” individuals includes humanists and agnostics as well as atheists, and this group does not have any single attitude towards those who are religious. Those identifying with a religion other than Christianity make up less than 10% of the total population. In late 2010, the Muslim population of the United Kingdom was estimated at 2,869,000, which is equivalent to 4.6% of the population. 5 The Muslim population is over half of the total population of religious minorities in the country and contains many families with young children. There are also significant Hindu, Sikh, Jewish, and Buddhist minorities and other religious movements that have only thousands, hundreds, or dozens of adherents. Most of the 1 Voas, David (2010) “Religious affiliation and church attendance in Britain, 1983-2008.” Data taken from the British Social Attitudes Surveys and posted on British Religion in Numbers website (www.brin.ac.uk ) – a site hosted by the Institute for Social Change at the University of Manchester to put religious statistical information on Britain together in a useful and accessible central location: http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/#AffiliationAttendance last accessed December 18, 2010. 2 http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/FindingsfromtheEnglishChurchCensus2005.htm last accessed 18 December 2010. 3 http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/documents/jcdivinity_000.xls last accessed December 18, 2010. 4 http://www.brin.ac.uk/figures/documents/jcvirginbirth.xls last accessed December 18, 2010. 5 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2010) “Muslim Networks and Movements in Western Europe”16 September http://pewforum.org/Muslim/Muslim-Networks-and-Movements-in-Western- Europe.aspx last accessed December 18, 2010.