Religion
The traditional religion in the United Kingdom is Christianity. In England the established church is the Church of England (Anglican). In Scotland, the Church of Scotland (a Presbyterian Church) is regarded as the 'national church' but there is not an established church.
In Wales there is no established church, with the Church in Wales having been disestablished in 1920. Likewise, in Northern Ireland the Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871. In Northern Ireland and similarly in parts of Scotland, there is a sectarian divide between Roman Catholic and Protestant communities.
The table below shows the most recent census data (2001) regarding religion:
| Religion | Number | % |
|---|---|---|
| Christian | 42,079,000 | 71.6% |
| No religion | 9,104,000 | 15.5% |
| Muslim | 1,591,000 | 2.7% |
| Hindu | 559,000 | 1.0% |
| Sikh | 336,000 | 0.6% |
| Jewish | 267,000 | 0.5% |
| Buddhist | 152,000 | 0.3% |
| Other religion | 179,000 | 0.3% |
| Not stated | 4,289,000 | 7.3% |
| Total religious | 45,163,000 | 76.8% |
Rather than select one of the specified religions offered on the 2001 Census form, many people chose to write in their own religion. Some of these religions were reassigned to one of the main religions offered, predominantly within the Christian group.
In England and Wales, 151,000 people belonged to religious groups which did not fall into any of the main religions. The largest of these were Spiritualists (32,000) and Pagans (31,000), followed by Jain (15,000), Wicca (7,000), Rastafarian (5,000), Bahà'ì (5,000) and Zoroastrian (4,000).
Although the Census 2001 also recorded 390,000 Jedi Knights, making Jedi the fourth-largest "religion" in the UK, this does not confer them any official recognition. In fact, all returns with "Jedi Knight" were classified as "No religion", along with Atheist, Agnostic, Heathen and those who ticked "Other" but did not write in any religion.
An Office for National Statistics survey of 450,000 Britons in 2010 confirmed that 71% are Christian, 4% are Muslim and 21% lack a religious affiliation.
See also: Status of religious freedom in the United Kingdom, Islam in the United Kingdom, Hinduism in the United Kingdom, Buddhism in the United Kingdom, Sikhism in the United Kingdom, History of the Jews in England, and Judaism in the United KingdomRead more about this topic: Demography Of The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment.”
—Michel Guillaume Jean De Crevecoeur (1735–1813)
“We think of religion as the symbolic expression of our highest moral ideals; we think of magic as a crude aggregate of superstitions. Religious belief seems to become mere superstitious credulity if we admit any relationship with magic. On the other hand our anthropological and ethnographical material makes it extremely difficult to separate the two fields.”
—Ernst Cassirer (1874–1945)