Belief in God is up

Latest tracking survey reveals an increase in belief in God in the UK. But it isn't all good news.

Mouse's friend Justin Brierley has written a fascinating book called The Surprising Rebirth in Belief in God. His thesis is that the new atheist revolutionaries, including Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens have rather gone out of fashion and newer generations are beginning to show greater interest in Christianity than previous generations.

If Church attendance in the UK is anything to go by, however, there has not yet been a reversal in the long term trend of decline. While there are growing churches in the UK, Mouse is yet to see any evidence that there is statistically significant levels of growth and many growing churches face accusations that their growth comes at the expense of other churches in their local area.

Similarly, the landmark British Social Attitudes survey has asked about religious affiliation for decades and the trend line has not budged in years - those who report they are a Christian fall year-on-year and those who claim no religion rises.

So this Mouse is always pretty sceptical when he hears preachers claiming that revival is just around the corner.

However, attendance and affiliation tell us little about belief. To that end, YouGov have been tracking a couple of very basic questions about belief in God for the past five years, which gives us a couple of tasty statistical morsels to get our teeth into.

There are a few striking headlines. The first is that there appears to have been a small but notable trend over the five year period of increase in belief in god (from 26% to 30%) and decrease in disbelief in god (41% to 38%). Revival it is not, but the trend appears steady and consistent.

Digging into the data tables it is striking that the increase seems to have been greatest among the 18-24 demographic, jumping from 22% who reported a belief in god to 39% over the five year period. Mouse suggests some caution due to the small sample size, but by Mouse's slightly sketchy understanding of statistics this appears to be statistically significant to a reasonable degree of confidence.

It is also notable that the increase is entirely accounted for by men. The numbers for women have not budged, although in absolute terms men remain far more likely to say they do not believe in god (43% Vs 32%).

So should we rejoice at this positive trend in belief? Unfortunately, the data has a sting in the tail. YouGov also asked about views on religion. When asked that question, only 20% of Brits said that 'Religion on the whole has a positive influence on the world' and a whopping 57% said that it had a negative influence.

To put that poll rating in perspective, religion is less liked than Rishi Sunak.

It is fair to say that the religion question is significantly broader than the belief question, in that respondents are likely to think of the effect of religion globally, which may draw them to conflict zones and issues of extremism. It is certainly not a question directing people to say whether they think the Church of England is a positive influence on the world.

Nevertheless, it is a hard sell to convince people to join a religion when they think religion is a negative force in the world.

Overall, however, Mouse is heartened by this data. Since around 1% if the population currently attend church, there does appear to be an opportunity to have a chat with the other 29% of the population who hold some form of belief in god.