Census shows the Christian faith is struggling in Scotland
ALAN MacDERMID October 12 2004
CHURCH leaders defended Scotland's level of faith yesterday after new census data appeared to show that Christianity has plummeted north of Hadrian's Wall.
A map produced by official statisticians, based on the 2001 census, showed that large areas of England were in the highest band for the level of Christianity, while most of Scotland was in the second band.
The distinction was most marked along the border itself, with almost the entire north of England at the top band, 77.44% to 86.88%. But on the Scottish side this dropped to only 69.81% to 77.43%.
Within Scotland itself the highest bands were to be found in Glasgow and west-central Scotland, South Ayrshire and the Western Isles.
The least godly were Edinburgh and Lothians, Fife, Clackmannan, and Aberdeen, all at 57.68% to 69.80%. All the rest, the mainly rural areas, were in the second band.
But Church leaders pointed out that different questions were used for the census.
The Scottish question was "What is your religion?" followed by a list of options. In England and Wales it was "What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?"
In addition to current religion, respondents in Scotland but not England and Wales were also asked about their religion of upbringing. The answers to that provided figures more in line with the England and Wales answers, and have been combined with them to provide overall figures for Britain.
This has been borne out by a more recent poll, the Labour Force Survey, which asked the same question on religion across Great Britain, when the proportion of people who said they were Christian was very similar in Scotland to the proportion that answered this way in England and Wales.
A spokesman for the Church of Scotland said: "I suspect that the level of Christian belief on both sides of the border is reasonably similar, but that, when faced with slightly different questions, respondents South of the border gave slightly more affirmative answers to their Christian belief.
"So maybe we are not
exactly measuring like with like.' A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland went further, claiming that the numbers who actively attended church in Scotland was higher than south of the border.
"We commissioned a survey two years ago based on church attendance, and that showed that 11.2% in Scotland regularly went to church, compared with 7.5% in England and Wales, so that is almost 50% more here who are actually practising their religion. "The spread was the same it was Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Inverclyde which was the religious heartland of Scotland.
"Scotland is effectively two countries, east and west. It is difficult to explain. It may be that in Aberdeen you have a more transient population, because of the oil industry, who are less likely to put down roots.
"The same might apply to a lesser extent in Edinburgh. But these are minor factors."
Copyright © 2004 Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited
