The ONS has released new statistics using 2021 census data, showing how people in England and Wales now identify religiously. 46.2% of the population of England and Wales now identify as Christian – less than 50% for the first time. Does this mean that the UK is ‘losing its Christian identity’?
Our chief executive, Andrea Williams, spoke to GB News about the new data, calling the Church to action. When asked whether the change really matters, she answered: “It does matter, because our constitutional history, everything that we’re rooted in, that which has given us freedom, a flourishing civic community, is something that has been longed for across the world. Nations have looked to us as a society of toleration, a society of order … that is all anchored in Christian values, Christian precepts.”
She called for the Church in this nation to act more clearly and unitedly: “I think the part of the problem is this. The established church, for many decades now, has been unclear on the message of the gospel. So, what I have when we go into the courtroom at the Christian Legal Centre, is we have judges that cannot say what a Christian believes marriage to be, because the Church of England has not been clear on that. Or the judges might be confused about what the Church of England’s position is on transgenderism because… our established church the established church of England has not been clear now for many decades and I sometimes think that the people are longing for the Bishops simply to be Bishops, to say what they expect them to be, which is that Jesus is the way.”
29 November 2022
GB News