Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has praised Jade Goody for her bravery

A few years ago, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, warned that “Christianity had been all but vanquished in Britain” as the underpinning for the nation’s moral life.

The Church complains that recent legislation - such as the laws guaranteeing equal treatment for gay people that forced Catholic adoption agencies to place children with homosexual couples - seek to control people’s morals as well as their behaviour.

At the same time, ordinary people seem to be voting with their feet.

Baptisms, church weddings and attendance at Sunday services have declined.

Religious Alliance

But today’s poll for the launch of the BBC Faith Diary suggests that people don’t want a secularist wipeout of religion in Britain.

Almost two-thirds of those questioned said the law “should respect and be influenced by UK religious values”, and a similar proportion agreed that “religion has an important role to play in public life”.

A significantly greater proportion of the Muslims and Hindus polled (albeit in relatively small numbers) supported a strong role in public life for the UK’s essentially Christian traditional religious values.

The findings illustrate the growing alliance between people of different faith groups against the rolling back of religion in general in the public arena.

Traditionalist Muslims and Christians have united in a number of debates - resisting any loosening of the restrictions on abortion or euthanasia for example.

(Traditionalists in both religions have also united over issues such as gay-equality laws against liberals in their own religions.)

Snapping at their heels are newly-assertive atheists, carrying their plea to people to release themselves from the yoke of religious organisations with advertisements on bendy buses - “There is probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life”.

(See our filmed debate on this page between atheist Ariane Sherine and conservative Christian David Larlham.)

     

             

The cardinal says that Jade Goody can teach us something in the last months of her life

However, our poll tallies with other research findings - that the proportion of people identifying themselves as atheists has not grown from its low base.

The churches often remind us that 72% told the last census that they were “Christian”, but Professor David Voas of the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research in Manchester questions what that means.

He insists that a full half of the population of Britain qualify only as “fuzzy faithful”.

He says “this group has only a vaguely defined notion of a ‘divine entity’, and says it makes little difference to their lives”.

His research suggests that many continue to pray but have relinquished specific Christian beliefs such as Jesus being the Son of God.

They tend to believe in a “higher power” rather than a personal God, and go to church only for the main festivals or life’s rites of passage.

They are more likely to think of “pancake day” than “Shrove Tuesday” (when Christians traditionally seek to confess their sins and be “shriven” or forgiven for them), and the whole concept of penitence (the purpose of Ash Wednesday marking the beginning of Lent) is deeply unfashionable.

Fuzzy religions

Although the Churches continue to promote traditional doctrine (the Archbishops of Canterbury and York will appear on these pages tomorrow to call for a day of Ash Wednesday fasting and giving to the people of Zimbabwe), increasingly they seek models that appeal to the secular mindset.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor praised Jade Goody for her bravery in facing up to her terminal illness, as well as her decision to baptise her children and marry in church.
The cardinal said: “A lot of people might say ‘well it’s better if she did everything in quiet’.

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