Researchers report big drop in Christian adherence in UK

The Church Times reports that a new study suggests that belief in God in the UK continues to lag a long way behind the United States. In the US, 61 per cent of those surveyed said that they had “no doubt” that God existed; in the UK, the percentage was just 17. In the US, just four per cent said that they were not religious at all: they don’t believe in God, attend religious services, or even identify with a reli­gion; in the UK the percentage was 31.

The figures come in a paper by David Voas and Rodney Ling, to be published in British Social Attitudes: The 26th report, to be released on 27 January. The US figures are based on the American General Social Survey 2008; the UK ones come from the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey, which interviewed 4486 people.

Open University Christianity survey

In the 2001 Census, 71.6% of people in the UK described themselves as Christians, but only about 15% of these said they belonged to, or were active members of, a church.

The Open University has developed an on-line survey which has the objective of improving understanding of what it means to be a Christian without a church. Hopefully, we will soon have a better idea of what people mean nowadays when they describe themselves as Christian.

You can share your views, and learn about other people, in this anonymous survey:
http://www.open2.net/survey/history_of_christianity/embed.html

Group exercise 'boosts happiness'

The BBC website highlights a new study which suggests that exercising together appears to increase the level of the feel-good endorphin hormones naturally released during physical exertion. Exercising alone seems to result in a lower level of endorphines.

"But more generally we know from experience that exercising in groups is good for people at many levels, it's motivational, it's social. Groups sessions really do work."

Anglican website survey

Just after posting about the God.com radio feature, I have discovered that the webmasters from the national Church of England web-site have launched an on-line survey to gather visitors’ views, recognising the need to engage directly with visitors to the site. It is available now at http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/cofe/cofeweb and will be there until the end of March. The survey questions will help the Church discover who is accessing the site (and why), whatpeople think about the Church of England site compared with those of other large organisations, and how the site can be improved.

Also worth noting is that, following the success of the Church of England’s monthly podcast People and Places, the website is now featuring a weekly podcast.