More than a third (37 per cent) of people living in England and Wales now consider themselves to have no religion, according to the 2021 Census.
The number of people who identified as being of no religion was nine percentage points behind those who considered themselves Christian (46 per cent) — the lowest level since records began.
Academics from different backgrounds gathered for an online briefing hosted by the Religion Media Centre this week to discuss the significance of this group.
Dr Lois Lee, senior lecturer at the University of Kent department of religious studies and principal investigator on the Understanding Unbelief programme, suggested that the results could indicate the “beginning of an atheist age”, adding: “There’s a reckoning that you need to make for that and not to be frightened of it.”
The increase of those ticking non-religious does not necessarily equate to a demise in religion, she argued, but instead that the time may have come to revise the terminology about our cultural way of life.
What the census has highlighted, she said, was that the language of religion may no longer be fit for purpose, as a growing number of people use the term “worldviews” to describe engaging with existential and ethical questions.
Furthermore, considering yourself part of the non-religion group does not necessarily mean your way of life is devoid of all religious influence.
In an effort to highlight this, Dr Lee gave the example of Christmas, which she said was “becoming a humanist festival in many ways”. Though obviously Christian in origin, the occasion means different things to different people across Britain.
“It’s a time of year when it isn’t about Christianity versus rank consumerism,” she said. “Those are parts of the picture. But there’s a big feature that we don’t always acknowledge: that’s about a human ethical conversation that goes on with people working out how they want to approach this festival.
“Shelters and food banks are oversubscribed at this time of year because people have a very strong ethical connection which is sometimes refracted through their Christianity but sometimes, and increasingly often, is refracted through humanist beliefs.”
Christmas, she said, was no longer necessarily about religion but a time when “people think about the big questions in life in different ways”. She added: “All the debates are about a kind of reflection on what counts as a good life, our connections with family and what matters to us.”
Also on the panel for the briefing was Dr Hannah Waite, researcher at the Theos think tank, and author of The Nones: Who Are They and What Do They Believe?
Her research has found that those who consider themselves as “none” when it comes to religion, fall into three distinct groups, with each displaying varying degrees of belief about religion, knowledge, God and spirituality.
“Campaigning nones” are self-consciously atheistic and hostile to religion; “Tolerant nones” are broadly atheistic but accepting of religion; and “Spiritual nones” are characterised by a range of spiritual beliefs and practices, as much as many people who tick the “religion” box.
“They are a really interesting group of people,” she told the briefing. “The nones are people who identify as non-religious. That’s an identity — that’s not just a tick-box exercise for people.”
Dr Waite was unsurprised by the number of people who tick non-religion, saying: “I actually thought we would have a higher percentage.” Those who consider themselves as such are more likely to be men and also to be millennials, she added.
Dr David Robertson, senior lecturer at the Open University, agreed about the age demographic, saying that he “and almost everybody of my age group” falls into that category.
“Ordinary people nowadays regularly differentiate between spirituality and religion,” he said, adding that religion usually implied institutions and being a member of a community, whereas spirituality is seen more as associated with practice and belief.
“I think a lot of the confusion over those [census] results and the way they are being interpreted has to do with perhaps an over-simplified idea of what religion is.”
The category of non-religion is regarded as a negative thing, according to Dr Lee, but it can cover a whole set of world views and beliefs that are not well described in the census data — instead lumping everyone who ticks that same box together, regardless of their background and standpoint.
It is not as simple as not believing in God or not affiliating with a particular group, she said, adding: “There’s a whole load of cultural diversity that has meaning for all of us.”
There is also a spectrum within faith groups, between those who consider themselves religious or secular.
Dr Keith Kahn-Harris, senior lecturer at Leo Baeck College in north London, said the religion question on the census was problematic when it came to his community as it failed to capture the “multi-faceted aspects of Jewish identity”. “We certainly know that many people who might describe themselves as ‘secular’ Jews in fact do practices that some would call religious, like having a Passover meal,” he said.
The best way of describing the Jewish community might be as “ethno-religious”, which he argued could also apply to others such as the Sikh community and some groups of Christians and Muslims.
The landscape is a complex one, according to Dr Lee, but the growing number of those describing themselves as none means changes must be made. The group is “so large”, she said, “that we really have to sit up and take account of that population”.
