By Vexen Crabtree 2001 July 21
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Large scale polls of religious affiliation, especially the more general ones rather than opinion polls, generate numbers of adherents that are exaggerated. In particular, in any area numbers will be exaggerated for whichever religion has been most entrenched in society for longest. So, in Christian countries such as the USA and UK and much of Europe, numbers of Christians often appears to be higher than expected, and in Islamic countries the numbers of Muslims is also inflated. Also with Christianity, the range of beliefs included under the term "Christian" are so wide that it as if several religions are all counted under one umbrella term. Also, for different reasons, the numbers of Jews is always a difficult statistic to work with due to the fact that "religious Jews" and "secular Jews" are both called "Jewish" by themselves and by their communities. Minority religions' representation in polls are, for various reasons, likely to be under-represented in stats too.
Default religion
An established religion becomes something that people put by default. Out of habit, and because it is the normal thing to do, entire households and communities will state their religion to be the common religion, no matter what their personal beliefs might be. Children, for example, are taught what religion to write down by their parents, and until the child or even teenager or young adult understands decides to put otherwise, they will continue to put that.
I have known many grown adults who consistently put a particular religion (normally 'Church of England'), despite being completely atheist. When asked, the frequently say that they do consider themselves part of that religion because their parents were, or because they were baptized into it, or because they've 'always put that'. This is the result of a religion that has become established, even when the basic beliefs in the religion have evaporated its numbers become inflated as a result of people's habitual and cultural behavior.
The faster and greater the extent of secularisation of a country, the more prominent this phenomenon will be. It is prominent in Western countries that have become very secularized since 1945. Opinion polls tell us that 55% of the British public do not believe in God, but 72% still call themselves Christian! A poll in France shows similar results, "of the 51 per cent who still call themselves Catholics, only half said they believed in God"3. This second poll specifically asked why and "many said they described themselves as Catholics because it was a family tradition"3.
Many people are brought up, as part of their family, to say that they are Christian despite only having a precursory knowledge of Christ and only a vague belief in God. Frequently only a single parent figure has any interest in the Church, but insists that the household each calls themselves a Christian, and sometimes this continues for generations.
Confusing belief in God with belief in a particular religion
An implicit Christian is one who calls themselves Christian out of ease or habit, not due to belief. From personal experience, most self declared Christians in the United Kingdom confuse believing in God with being a Christian. Many think that if you believe in God, you are therefore a Christian. In a predominantly Christian (Western) context, that assumption suits only demographics, and is not useful for discerning what beliefs people actually have.
I would hazard a guess that in Muslim countries, if a person believes in God then they are very likely to automatically equate this with being a Muslim in the same way that happens in Christian countries. The established religion takes monopoly on divinity, so that those with almost any basic beliefs at all automatically consider themselves a member of that religion. This is because that frequently they do not actually know the particulars of the beliefs or texts of the common religion. If asked more complex questions about their stated religion, they would be shown to have very few other actual beliefs in common with the religion they identify as.
Theism
So, for example, of the 45% of the UK that say they believe in form of god, many of these will as a result call themselves a Christian. Despite them not believing that Jesus Christ was resurrected, etc. This is because as a result of secularisation in modern countries, the very fundamentals of religions are unknown to people, and complex issues such as the difference between a general theist and a Christian are unknown to most people.
I would guess that many of that 45% are just theists who believe in God, but in terms of their actual beliefs should not be said to be a member of any particular religion, even though for cultural reasons if they embrace some ritualistic ceremonies or symbolism it is likely to be that of the state religion (out of lack of known alternatives).
A quote from my "Religion in Britain" page:
"Children who do not come from churchgoing homes - as I did not - now grow up largely ignorant of Christian ideas in a way unimaginable half a century ago. [...] The comments about religion by journalists in the press and on television [...] suggest that even the basic Christian ideas are no longer understood by university-educated people, still less by others. Indeed even churchgoers can reveal an ignorance of the main elements of Christian belief."C of E: The State It's In by Monica Furlong, Introduction p3
Religion in Britain cites many statistics and quotes on religion in Britain, which serves as perhaps one of the most striking examples of a country whose populace have forgotten religion in all but name.
Noting that 71.1% of the population of England and Wales said they were Christian:
"Large-scale studies have shown that many of them don’t accept some - or sometimes any - of the basic tenets of the faith they purport to belong to. The BBC’s survey "Soul of Britain" found a huge proportion of nominal Christians who didn’t believe in the virgin birth, the resurrection or the miracles. They didn’t believe that Jesus was the Son of God and, indeed, a good number of them didn’t even believe in a personal God of any kind"National Secular Society newsletter 2003 Feb 21
Sometimes, the history of a people is so intertwined with their religious beliefs that it is difficult to separate their name as a people from the name of their religion. The most striking example are Jews. A person can be Jewish because of their heritage or as their religion. So, secular Jews and religious Jews are both called "Jews", and there is no way for an outsider to know if any given Jew is religious or not. Judaism as a religion, including its rites and rituals, is completely tied up with being a Jew culturally. The self identify of natural Jews is tied to the religious trappings of Judaism. In the modern world, life is much more compartmentalized, so that modern Western religions are distinct from culture, but with older religions this distinction is not part of their world view, whether they are believers in the actual religion or not.
“It is important to understand that a great many Jews have little connection to Judaism as a religion. While many Jews want to maintain their Jewish identity, the majority are secular Jews with little interest in the beliefs and practices of Judaism. For example, less than a third of American Jews are members of one of the religious movement into which Judaism is divided.”
"Encyclopedia of New Religions" by Prof. Christopher Partridge, p104
Many of these non-religious Jews still identify themselves as Jews on official forms and questionaires.
“There are many Jews who describe themselves as secular but who take part in activities which are, on the face of it, religious. [...] A professor from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem remarked that some people want to take part in secular celebrations of Jewish festivals, while others 'want to get away from religion entirely'”
"Teach Yourself Judaism" by C. M. Pilkington, p3
Pilkington, as part of his introductory chapter on how Judaism is a difficult religion to pigeonhole, shows that the Jewish religious practices are part of a culture of Jewishness that is accepted independently of the beliefs themselves. So, secular Jews still participate in Jewish "religious" festivals for cultural reasons despite not having Jewish beliefs.
Cultural religious affiliation therefore lends itself to exaggeration of the amount of believers a religion has. The ritualistic, ceremonial and dogmatic trappings of religion are accepted independently of belief, so the total numbers of believers is probably always exaggerated whenever a community has an assumed cultural religion. Often members of such a community will not even call themselves "religious", because it is the norm and such a distinction is unnecessary.
One major aspect of Christianity can be said to be the cause of its success: That there is a lot of widespread difference in belief across Christian denominations. As perhaps the most fragmented and violent religion in history, Christianity has become broken into countless different Churches all of which call themselves Christian. Many denominations are intolerant of each others' beliefs. It can be said that as all these denominations cover such a wide range of beliefs that it is obvious that many people can call themselves a Christian. But, merely knowing that they call themselves a Christian gives us very little actual information about their beliefs, as Christianity is such a diverse religion.
"'Christianity' as a single religion is not 2,000 years old. A series of varied different religions, flowing on from one another, have all called themselves "Christian". Rightly so. But the beliefs and form has changed so much from time to time that it is best to consider Christianity a series of religions and the word "Christianity" to be an umbrella term for multiple faiths all of which have the same name but different beliefs. They do obviously, like all Abrahamic religion, have much in common between them but nonetheless, "Christianity" is not a set of beliefs that can be claimed by any particular denomination or historical movement because it is an umbrella term.""History of Christianity" by Vexen 2003 Nov
In this way all major religions that exist for long period of time (thousands of years) come to be more of an umbrella term for a vast array of beliefs and practices.
Even in liberal Western countries some of those who do not belong to certain religions hide their religion. Especially members of non-world religions such as Paganism, Wicca, Satanism, etc, those which have historically been oppressed by Christian organizations. For example, at a London Satanists gathering I polled all the members present about what they had put on the 2001 April National Census, and half of them said they had put "no religion". This is a significant under-representation.
In countries where a religion has been established for a long time, belief in the tenets of that religion become a separate issue to whether people call themselves a member or not. People begin to answer their religion as the cultural norm out of habit and lack of appreciation of alternatives (such as many who put "Christian" when really they're a more general "theist").
As such, established religions' numbers are the maximum number of adherents, whereas minority religions (especially esoteric ones) are normally under-represented therefore stats represented the lowest possible value. The more official the poll, and the greater the scope of it, the more these affects will occur. So, a casual opinion poll is likely to permit people to more accurately describe themselves, but a government-ran census is most likely to produce stats skewed towards established religion, as people do not wish to announce their affiliation to anything that might be recorded along side their name and possibly be seen as negative by official society.
Partridge, Christopher (Ed.)
"Encyclopedia of New Religions" (2004 Hardback). Published by Lion Publishing, Oxford, UK.
Pilkington, C. M.
"Teach Yourself Judaism" (1995). Published by Hodder Headline PLC.
By Vexen Crabtree 2001 July 21