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| Total population | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom: 25,273,945 – 37.8% (2021) England: 20,715,664 – 36.7% (2021)[1] Scotland: 2,780,900 – 51.1% (2022)[2] Wales: 1,446,398 – 46.5% (2021)[1] Northern Ireland: 330,983 – 17.4% (2021)[note 1][3] | |
| Religions | |
| Irreligion: (includingatheism,agnosticism, etc.) Note
|
Irreligion in the United Kingdom is more prevalent than in some parts of Europe, with about 8% indicating they wereatheistic in 2018,[4] and 52% listing their religion as "none".[5] A third ofAnglicans polled in a 2013 survey doubted the existence of God, while 15% of those with no religion believed in some higher power, and deemed themselves "spiritual" or even "religious".[6]
Organised activism for irreligion in the United Kingdom derived its roots from the legacy of Britishnonconformists. TheSouth Place Religious Society, which would later become associated with theEthical movement, was founded in 1793.
One of earliest open avowals of irreligion in England wasThe Necessity of Atheism, published byPercy Bysshe Shelley, then a youngOxford student in 1811. This followed a pamphlet published nearly 30 years earlier by a physician named Matthew Turner, entitled "Answer to Dr. Priestley’s Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever",[8] thought to be the first of its kind, and followed by other works in which Turner developed his critique of belief in God.
The Oracle of Reason, the first avowedly atheist periodical publication in British history, was published from 1841 to 1843 byCharles Southwell. It suffered from numerous imprisonments of its staff, including Southwell,George Holyoake andThomas Paterson, for missives deemed "blasphemous" by the authorities (Holyoake was the last person in Britain convicted of blasphemy in a public lecture). Holyoake took to publishingThe Movement (1842–1845) following his six-month sentence, which later becameThe Reasoner (1845–1860) and shifted to a larger focus on social issues facing the British working class, increasing the publication's readership. It was during this time that Holyoake developed his idea for the replacement of Christianity with an ethical system based upon science and reason, terming his proposal "secularism".[9]
George Holyoake's coining of the wordsecularism in 1851 offered the English-speaking world the clarification of the nascent movement for separation of religion and state. TheNational Secular Society, founded in 1866 by politicianCharles Bradlaugh, spearheaded the advocacy for freeing citizens from absolute government requirements involving religious observances; theLeicester Secular Society was founded in 1851. Bradlaugh's 1880 election to Parliament brought on a decade-long dispute over the demanded right to affirm declarations of office rather than swear oaths, as he was denied his seat for five years by a ruling that he had no right to affirm and resolutions preventing him from swearing an oath. When Bradlaugh was ultimately admitted in 1886, he took up the issue and saw theOaths Act 1888 passed, which confirmed the right to optionally affirm declarations for inaugurations to office and offering testimony to government bodies.[10]
In 1881,The Freethinker began circulation as Britain's longest-running humanist periodical. In 1896, theUnion of Ethical Societies was formed in the United Kingdom by AmericanStanton Coit as a union of pre-existing BritishEthical movement societies; this group would later become known as the Ethical Union and the British Humanist Association.[11] In 1899, theRational Press Association was formed by a group of free-thinkers includingCharles Albert Watts and George Holyoake.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, the South Place Religious Society became further aligned with organised secularist advocacy during the tenure ofMoncure D. Conway as minister of the congregation; Conway, an American Unitarian minister who served from 1864 to 1885 and 1892–1897, moved the congregation further away from doctrinal Unitarianism, and spent the break in his tenure (during which Stanton Coit served in his stead) writing a biography of American revolutionary ideologueThomas Paine. In 1888, the South Place Religious Society became the South Place Ethical Society, now known as theConway Hall Ethical Society.[citation needed]
The 1960s were a significant time for irreligion, as the Ethical Union rebranded as the British Humanist Association, which went on to co-found theInternational Humanist and Ethical Union and create a symbol forhumanism, theHappy Human.[11] Broadcasters such asMargaret K. Knight sensationalised Britain with open advocacy of non-religious values and secular education.[12] Senior figures in the British humanist movement went out to take on leading roles in institutions such asUNESCO, theWorld Health Organization, and theFood and Agriculture Organization.[13]
John William Gott, a working man ofBradford,West Yorkshire, attacked religion, especiallyChristianity, seeing it as reducing the opportunity for asocialist revolution. His lectures on rationalism and scepticism, and anti-Christian pamphlets, saw him jailed for blasphemy in 1911. Liberal Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith was one of a group of Members of Parliament who proposed an ultimately unsuccessful piece of legislation to abolish blasphemy offences. Gott was jailed again ten years later for a pamphlet showingJesus as aclown, and died in 1922 soon after his nine-month sentence which included hard labour despite his worsening physical condition. There was a public backlash against his sentence.[14]
Gott was the last Briton jailed for blasphemy, but the offence remained a technical crime throughcommon law until being abolished in theCriminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.[citation needed]
Evolutionary biologistRichard Dawkins, who first came to prominence in 1976 following the release ofThe Selfish Gene, increasingly figured in British irreligion with the release of his 1986 workThe Blind Watchmaker, in which he argued in favour of evolutionary natural selection as opposed tointelligent design andcreationism.[citation needed]
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In the 21st century,New Atheism became a popular topic of debate, support and critique in the United Kingdom. Dawkins' 2006 bookThe God Delusion andChristopher Hitchens' 2007 bookGod Is Not Great were considered emblematic works of the era among British authors, and Dawkins advocated for theBrights movement.[16] TheAtheist Bus Campaign was inaugurated during this time, in which advertisements on double-decker buses were purchased by theBritish Humanist Association in order to advocate non-belief in the supernatural; the campaign caused controversy and complaints to authorities, but soon spread to other countries and continents, taking root in the United States as a variety ofatheist billboard campaigns.[17]
Although questions on religion were not present in the UK national census until 2001,[18] irreligion in the United Kingdom has been increasing, with Christianity perceived to be on the decline.[19][20] Mori Polls have shown that British Christians support a secular state,[21][22][23] while Britons are amongst the most sceptical in the world about religion.[24] Aside from affiliation with organised religion, a large majority of Britons do not believe in aGod orgods , anafterlife, orattend religious services.[25][26][27] A 2020YouGov poll found that 27% of Britions believed in a "a god" and 16% believed in another form ofhigher power.[27] Religion has been show to have the least influence on youth.[28] A 2009 survey of 1,000 teenagers aged 13 to 18 reports that two-thirds of British teenagers do not believe in God.[29]
Official statstics published in 2019 put the number of people saying they have "no religion" at 39% of the population, an increase of 46% since 2011, with over 8 million more people declaring that they did not belong to any religious group. The figures also showed a 14% decline (from 59.3% to 51%) in the number of people identifying as Christian.[30][31] The results of the2021 United Kingdom census showed less than half of the population (46.2%, 27.5 million people) declared themselves to be Christians inEngland andWales, a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 2011.[32][33] The number of those identifying as having no religion became the second most common response, increasing by 12.0 percentage points to 37.2% (22.2 million) from 25.2% (14.1 million) in 2011.[34][35] The equivalent census forScotland in 2022 recorded no-religion as a majority (51.1%) of the population.[36]
British institutions and legislative stuctures have been criticised as being increasingly unrepresentative of what is becoming a largely non-religious population.[37] TheAll-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group meets to discuss and share information on matters of interest relating humanism. In 2024, the UK elected its least religious Parliament, with 40% of new MPs choosing to make asecular affirmation rather than swear a religiousoath, up from 24% in 2019. This included 50% of thenew Cabinet and the new Prime Minister. Analysis showed this was because of the greatly increased intake of Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs, who were younger and less religious than the Conservative MPs they replaced. While some religious MPs take the affirmation for religious or other reasons, commentators noticed that this was likely outnumbered by self-declared atheist MPs who took the more traditional oath.[38][39]
| Year | Pop. | ±% |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 9,103,727[α] | — |
| 2011 | 16,221,509 | +78.2% |
| 2021 | 25,273,945 | +55.8% |
| Religious Affiliation was not recorded in the census prior to 2001. Source: Office for National Statistics | ||
| Region /Country | 2021[43] | 2011[48] | 2001[53] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
| England | 20,715,664 | 36.7% | 13,114,232 | 24.7% | 7,171,332 | 14.6% |
| —South East | 3,733,094 | 40.2% | 2,388,286 | 27.7% | 1,319,979 | 16.5% |
| —East | 2,544,509 | 40.2% | 1,631,572 | 27.9% | 902,145 | 16.7% |
| —South West | 2,513,369 | 44.1% | 1,549,201 | 29.3% | 825,461 | 16.7% |
| —North West | 2,419,624 | 32.6% | 1,397,916 | 19.8% | 705,045 | 10.5% |
| —Greater London | 2,380,404 | 27.1% | 1,694,372 | 20.7% | 1,130,616 | 15.8% |
| —Yorkshire and the Humber | 2,161,185 | 39.4% | 1,366,219 | 25.9% | 699,327 | 14.1% |
| —West Midlands | 1,955,003 | 32.9% | 1,230,910 | 22.0% | 647,718 | 12.3% |
| —East Midlands | 1,950,354 | 40.0% | 1,248,056 | 27.5% | 664,845 | 15.9% |
| —North East | 1,058,122 | 40.0% | 607,700 | 23.4% | 276,196 | 11.0% |
| Scotland | 2,780,900[β] | 51.1% | 1,941,116 | 36.7% | 1,394,460 | 27.6% |
| Wales | 1,446,398 | 46.5% | 982,997 | 32.1% | 537,935 | 18.5% |
| Northern Ireland | 330,983 | 17.4% | 183,164 | 10.1% | N/a | N/a |
| United Kingdom | 25,273,945 | 37.8% | 16,221,509 | 25.7% | 9,103,727[α] | 15.9% |
The five local authorities with the largest proportion of those who identified as holding no religious beliefs were all located in Scotland:Shetland Islands (62.75%),Fife (60.55%),Midlothian (60.54%),Aberdeenshire (58.96%) andClackmannanshire (58.33%). In Wales, the highest proportion was inCaerphilly at 56.70%; in England, the highest proportion was inBrighton and Hove at 55.20%; and in Northern Ireland, the highest concentration was inArds and North Down at 30.63%.[54][41]
Post-Christian Britain is characterised by a rejection of doctrinal and morally conservative religion.
No. Aside from the fact that it's difficult to define exactly what a 'Christian' country is, the UK is probably best described as 'post–Christian' in terms of its general attitude towards faith. Few people know the basics of the Christian story and even fewer actually set foot in church.
Although the United Kingdom is a monarchy formally led by a ruler who also governs the official church – the Church of England – belief in 'a god' in the UK is low. Only a quarter of Britons (27%) say they actually believe in 'a god'. A further one in six (16%) believe in the existence of 'a higher spiritual power', but not 'a god'.
