Rebecca Duffett spoke with Dr Don Horrocks of the Evangelical Alliance

Dr Don Horrocks

The next national census will take place in March 2011. An optional question about religion will be asked again, as it was in 2001, only the second time since 1851. Last time nearly 72% of people in England and Wales identified themselves as Christian. The National Secular Society are already mobilising to ensure people are aware of the importance of answering the religion question accurately, so it was with interest that Rebecca Duffett spoke with Dr Don Horrocks from the Evangelical Alliance about a survey that has just been taken showing that nearly 70% of Britons are still calling themselves Christians.

Rebecca: Is 70% really a surprising statistic?

Dr Don Horrocks: Oh, it's not surprising. It depends who you speak to as to whether it is surprising. The last national census figures were taken in 2001, when it was found that over 70% of people called themselves Christians. Those figures have been under attack for a number of years from secular humanist groups as being actually deficient.

This survey has been undertaken by the Office for National Statistics. 450,000 people were asked various questions including what their religion is. The figures come out showing that 71% of the British population describe themselves as Christian. If anything that confirms the last national census.

In our view the figures are confirmatory of earlier figures and show that Christianity is apparently held by a large majority of the population.

Rebecca: When people say they're Christian, how many of these are really practising Christians and how many are people where that's the way they've been brought up?

Dr Don Horrocks: What the survey does not do of course is ask the question, 'What kind of Christianity'. Basically what the survey has done is offer people options and 71% self identify as Christian. The survey does not go further than that. So yes, there is no attempt in this survey to identify what we might consider to be quality of Christian commitment, or to what extent they're practicing. However the fact that 71% of the population still self identify themselves as Christian, is still a telling statistic.

Rebecca: I'm sure that this is an encouraging statistic for Christians. How should we be responding to this?

Dr Don Horrocks: I think there are two responses to this. First of all I think we must not be complacent; that is a definitive warning we must give, because these figures do not indicate anything about the health of Christianity in this country, but simply that nearly three quarters of people in Britain say they are Christians.

Similarly I do think it's an encouragement to Christian believers to be more open in expressing their faith. Over the last few years there has been a fairly, what the Pope calls, an aggressive secular campaign to silence religion and belief, particularly Christianity. There is no doubt that many Christians have felt intimidated about sharing their faith openly in public, particularly in schools or at work, for fear of getting into trouble. I would hope that one of the messages this survey would show is there is no reason to be intimidated or fearful; we should feel free to share our faith reasonably in public, without obviously coercing people or forcing it on people, but to openly dialogue and to be open about our faith. Where Christians are feeling fearful, we think that this should send a clear signal that actually, 'Hey come on over 70% of the people share your views'.

Rebecca: Would you say people are quite interested and open to talking about faith?

Dr Don Horrocks: Oh, that's an interesting question and you can debate that for a long time. I think there's no doubt at all that God is back. That's the title of a recent well known book that's been published, God is Back. Whether people like it or not, God is very much on the agenda.

We've had a speech for example from Baroness Warsi recently, who's the chairman of the Conservative party, specifically saying that it's been a short-sighted policy to try and silence faith and to make life difficult for Christians and others. She actually recognised that previous governments have failed to create policies that have unleashed the positive power of faith in society. She went on to affirm that this new coalition government will defend people of faith.

What she's doing is recognising that Christians and people of faith have a very important role to play in our communities and in society. Therefore these figures should encourage Christians not to be shy and retiring about their faith, but to actually make a difference in their communities where they live.