I am all for freedom of religion and belief – but that does not give adherents of these religions or beliefs the right to interfere with my life.
And, seriously, if I demand my right of freedom from such interference this does not deny the rights of those adherents to their belief. To claim that it does it just childish.
Statistics New Zealand has released preliminary figures for religious affiliation from the 2013 census.
The raw figures show for the major affiliations (Christian and No religion) the following:
Religious affiliation
Number
No religion
1,635,348
Christian
1,879,671
Total Responses
4,343,781
Total People
4,242,048
Double Dipping?*
101,733
It is interesting to compare the last census figures with those for the previous four.
As we can see, the godless trend has continued unabated.
One thing for sure – Christians can no longer claim to make up the majority of the country’s population.
*Double Dipping arises from people putting down more than one answer to the question. Eg – “Born again” and “Assembly of God.” It most probably occurs for the Christian, rather than No religious group. If this is the case we should adjust the Christian total to 1,879,671 – 101,733 = 1,777,938.
This would cut Christians as a proportion of the total population to 41.9%.
The No religion is accordingly 37.7%.
The other major religions have Hindu – 2.1%, Buddhist – 1.4% and Islam – 1.1%.
For more detail see 2013 Census where tables of data can be downloaded.
Loved this little story I picked up on Facebook. There’s a moral in it somewhere. Perhaps something to try on these God-botherers next time they come knocking on your door.
A Christian was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned to her and said,
“Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”
The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger,
“What would you want to talk about?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Christian. “How about why there is a God, Heaven and Hell, a magical life after death, and that evolution is a lie made up by the devil?” as he smiled smugly.
“Okay,” she said. “Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first:
A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?”
The Christian, visibly surprised by the little girl’s intelligence, thinks about it and says,
“Hmmm, I have no idea.”
To which the little girl replies,
“Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, Heaven and Hell, or life after death, when you don’t know shit?”
“Atheism is tipped to continue its rise in this year’s census results, while those identifying as Christian will fall below 50 per cent.
In the 2006 census, just over two million people, or 55.6 per cent of those answering the religious affiliation question, identified with a Christian religion. In the 2001 census, the figure was 60.6 per cent.
Those ticking “no religion” rose from 29 per cent in 2001 to 34.7 per cent.”
Firstly, using data only for “those answering the religious affiliation question” can give the wrong impression if you extrapolate to the whole population. It assumes those who didn’t, or refused, to answer the question have the same distribution of affiliations as those who did. That’s unlikely to be the case.
Safest to express these figures as a percentage of the total population. In my 2008 article, God’s not as popular as we thought, I used that approach and said:
“In the 2006 Census 51% of New Zealanders described themselves as Christian. A total of 3.8% described themselves as Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim (the next three largest religions) and 32% declared no religion.”
“Apparently some Christians are so enthusiastic that belong to several different churches. I can believe that as I have a relative who used to attend two different churches each Sunday because it gave him two different experiences.
In 2006 140,000 New Zealanders claimed to be adherents of more than one Christian religion. This caused an overestimation of the proportion of Christians. When corrected for double dipping the 2006 census showed that:
53.1% of those answering the religious affiliation question were Christian, or
49.5% of the total population described themselves as Christian.”
So, true, “those identifying as Christian will fall below 50 per cent” in this census. But when double dipping was removed those identifying as Christians had already fallen below 50% in 2006.
What do you mean by “Christian?”
The article also quoted research by Victoria University religious studies teaching fellow Will Hoverd who is involved in the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey, which began in 2009. It concludes:
“The research suggests half of those ticking “no religion” are not atheist, and three-quarters of them believe in a god or spiritual life force.
I am keen to see results from this survey and don’t question that observation (although reference to a “spiritual life force” is problematic and can – usually does – give the wrong impression). However, it does give a misleading message as it ignores the beliefs of those who do tick a religion box. Because religious affiliation does not necessarily say anything about beliefs, including belief in gods.
One question was “Which is the one statement that best describes what being a Christian means to you personally?” Nine choices (including “prefer not to say” were provided. The figure below shows the responses.
One cannot quibble with the Dr Hoverd’s main conclusion though:
“What we’re finding is a demographic shift away from organised religion.”
But that indicates the problem with the census religion question. Many people will tick “Christian” (or a denomination) purely because they think it’s what’s expected. Not because they belong to any church or religious community. And not because they have a specific religious belief.
That distorts the results. I think religion still has a lot more influence in our society than it should because of the assumptions made in surveys like the census. After all the census results will be used to argue for Christian privileges (eg. taxation exemption, local body rates exemptions, state ceremonies and lobbying of parliament).
Tick the “no religion” box if applicable
Here’s an idea – what about being honest. If you have no religion, or have stopped belonging to the one you inherited from your family, tick the “no religion” box.
Why does this matter? Well a more accurate census of religious affiliation will encourage policy makers and planners to produce social policies more in line with the population. Maybe if the true figures for religion were available our government might be more willing to remove religious ceremony from parliament and state functions. Or not be so lenient with dishing out public money purely on the basis of religious claims.
In the current public discussion of the religious instruction classes in New Zealand public schools I notice many Christians are also opposing the current system. I had thought “Good on them. They are seeing this the same way I am as a matter of fairness, human rights, and opposing indoctrination of children.” And those letter-to-the-editor writers supporting the current scheme all seem to use rather extreme arguments which are not common with reasonable Christians.
However, I came across this video recently which makes me wonder if another motive for Christian concern about religious instruction in our schools is the way the more extreme religious cults can make use of it for evangelism. It’s one thing to know your child is being tutored by a kindly old Anglican woman – but the thought of a strident Exclusive Brethren having access to your children is a worry.
The video is of a talk by Joel Pittman, a former Pentecostal religious instruction teacher in Australia. They call their classes Scripture Classes or Special Religious Instruction (SRI), but essentially they have the same system as ours with the public school theoretically closed and instruction provided from an outside provider.
Joel describes how evangelicals use SRI for evangelism, how they frighten children into “giving their lives to Christ” and then encourage them to attend youth camps where they can be further indoctrinated.
I am sure many moderate Christian would be concerned if this was happening in New Zealand. And I am not saying it necessarily is. After all, the video describes the Australian situation. But it is obviously possible. Some of the more fundamentalist churches do recognise the possibilities religious instruction offer them in New Zealand. And it’s not as if school boards or the Ministry of Education vets the curriculum used, or the tutors. (After all, the school closes during the religious instruction classes).
The Trust Board of the Churches Education Commission (CEC) (which is one of the main providers in New Zealand) has representatives from many Christian denominations. It also has a rule to “ensure that no more than 40% of the total number of trustees at one time are from any one Member Denomination.” That seems good, but doesn’t necessarily ensure that extremist denominations have no influence. And the fact that some parents report their children being taught creationist stories does suggest they do have some influence.
The current CEC board includes representatives from Methodist, Assembly of God, Anglicans, Open Brethren, Presbyterian and Salvation Army. And their last financial return shows donations from Anglicans, Associating Churches and Ministries of New Zealand (self-described as “fundamental, evangelistic and Holy Spirit honouring”), Baptist, Christian Brethren, Methodist and New Life churches.
Joel Pittman makes the point that the fundamentalist churches in Australia have the cash and can often override the less financial but more moderate churches with provision of SRI tutors and resources. It would be horrible to think this may also be true in New Zealand. I am sure most Christians would be concerned if this were so.
Perhaps its time for a bit more transparency. Who are the teachers supplied for teaching religious education in our schools? What are their denominations, beliefs and agendas? And how do they really run the classes?
Daniel Dennett calls it the “last big fib.*” The claim that religion and human morality are intimately entwined – that you can’t be good without god. That does seem to be a widely held misconception, or should I say widely promoted.
The New Zealand educational curriculum provides for values education. And in public schools by law the education must be secular. But these (the teaching of values and secular education) are threatened by the legal provision which allows religious (Christian) groups to come into public schools and provide religious instruction. The “trick” is that schools are legally “closed” during that time – and parents can “opt-out” their children (if they know what is going on).
I think that is bad enough but some groups, and schools, pull another trick. They tie in values and religion so that the intruding religious group provides the curriculum requirement for values education – or justifies their intrusion this way.
On the one hand children are taught a very biased form of values and in practice these groups are more interest in converts and talking about “Jesus” than they are in values). On the other, those children who are opted out miss even that form of values education.
Very unsatisfactory!
A newly formed New Zealand group, the Secular Education Network, is attempting to publicise and change this situation. If the issue interests you or you wish to participate in this work go and have a look at their website at http://reason.org.nz/.
Here’s an excellent, and short, video highlighting the problem in Auckland.
Here’s a graphic I used in a recent presentation on “Accepting Pluralism in a Secular Society.” (Presented at the Recent Interfaith Forum, Hamilton). It shows data* which sort of demolishes the “public square” myth argued by militant Christians. This is the claim that Christians are somehow being denied their rights to take part in public debate. It comes up when there is an expansion of the human rights of everyone – these militant interpret it as a loss of rights for them. When usually it amounts to a loss of privilege – like their privilege to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality or religion.
Often this sort of whining comes from evangelical Christians – which makes this data all the more ironic – it’s data collected by UK evangelical Christians! And it shows that evangelical Christians are actually more likely to take part in the “public square” than are other members of the general public. They are twice as likely to write letters to a newspaper and five times as likely to lobby or demonstrate.
So why the concern? Why the newspaper articles and academic papers** implying some sort of restriction to Christian participation in the “public square?” Why all that whining we have seen in the UK lately about militant and “aggressive” secularism trying to eliminate religion from public life?
Loss of privilege?
Well – look at the details and you begin to see what motivates this. The Bideford Town Council has been ordered not to include Christian prayers in the official business of its meetings. (See Defeat for imposed prayerandPrivileged whinging?) The Whanganui District Council here voluntarily took the same action (see Whanganui District Council comes to senses). Note that no-ones’ right to religious observance has been denied – just their privilege of imposing it on others. (In both cases the alternative of those so-inclined praying before the meeting was offered).
The truth is there are no unreasonable restrictions limiting Christian access to the public square. Where some restrictions seem to exist (eg. harassment of co-workers on the job, wearing religious symbols where there are uniform rules, etc.) these apply to everyone – all religions and none. The public whining about those issues, and attempts to get religious exemptions, are just another example of demanding special privileges.
Mind you, I can understand that there may well be “perceived’ restrictions. This comment from Linda Woodhead, in her articleRestoring religion to the public square, illustrates this. She describes “Being jeered by a lecture room full of academics” when commenting “after a lecture delivered by a notable and brilliant feminist scholar. “ She doesn’t detail her comment, only that it had something to do with explaining feminism’s global influence as due to religion.
“Restriction” self-imposed and tactical
This reminds me of the reaction of audiences in the old days when a certain dogmatic Maoist used to get up and lecture everyone during question time at political meetings. I can imagine his comrades trying to reign him in. Telling him to use language that was mere acceptable. And not to rely on dogmatic arguments which only his comrades accepted.
I can also imagine Linda’s brothers and sisters in her church telling her to try to use more secular language and to stop promoting arguments about region being responsible for everything, Christian Chauvinism, even though they all agreed that it was so. It’s a matter of communication.
In other words one should be tactical, recognise where the audience is at, when one attempts to communicate a message. But of course the dogmatists, whether they are Maoists or Christians, will see this as cowardice. That they have a moral and ideological responsibility to impose the stories and language they love on the listener – whatever their own beliefs.
It’s an old issue in political and ideological communication. But such a tactical issue is not a “restriction” on Christian participation in the public square. To see it that way is perverse. It is demanding the privilege that everyone else must accept the same stories, same language. Everyone else must think they way the Christian or Maoist prosletyser does.
They don’t – and they won’t. But in a democracy the Christians have the right to present their arguments. If they are able to use a language and stories that do not turn off their audience they will be successful If they insist on dogmatically assuming everyone will accept their own sectarian language and stories, and if they don’t they should, then so be it.
They won’t get their message across and they well be laughed at or even jeered. But participation in the public square is a two-way street. The audience has the right to disagree, to object, to jeer or even ridicule. To demand that they don’t is not only demanding an unreasonable privilege for yourself. It’s restricting the rights of others to take part in the public square.
I am preparing a talk on “Accepting pluralism in a secular society’ for presentation at this weekend’s Interfaith Forum. Hence my current interest in these issues.
Carrying on from my last post, Defeat for imposed prayer, this video shows a discussion on UK TV about the judgement on the Christian prayers in the Bideford Town Council official meetings.
Thanks to Dr Evan Harris (@DrEvanHarris) – who I think is the guy in the jacket who spoke a lot and made the most sense.
It just demonstrates the difficulty of arguing these issues across the theological divide. Obviously they can be dealt with more efficiently in court.
“Fighting for faith”
Now Baroness Warsi, the UK’s first Muslim cabinet Minister who is also chairman of the Conservative Party Tory Party, has chipped in. Attacking “militant secularism” which she describes as”deeply intolerant” and “denying people the right to a religious identity”.
Somehow conservative religionists in the UK have misread the Bideford Town Council legal discussion. it did not rule Christian prayer illegal, just that it should not be part of an official council meeting. Those so inclined could pray as much as they wanted before the meeting opened.
But this has stopped such people claiming martyrdom. Yes, that and words like marginilisation are being bandied around. But in reality what is upsetting these people is not marginilsation – just that they iare in danger of losing some of their priveliges. Andrew Copson from the British humanist Associal=tion respond to Warsi’s article with a series of twitter comments:
Signs Britain being taken over by militant secularisation
No 1: there’re more state-funded religious schools than ever before
No 2: more public services contracted 2 relig groups than ever before
No 3: we remain the only western state with clerics in the legislature
No 4: first PM in recent history to publicly call UK Christian country
No 5: 1st Muslim woman in govt at Vatican at public expense 2 see Pope
‘Census Christians’ don’t support their militant leaders
Mind you – these militant whinging religious leaders are very vocal – but how much support do they have.? Survey results released today suggest not as much as you would think. The Ipsos MORI research, commissioned by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science UK (RDFRS UK), shows (among other things):
73% of ‘census Christians’ strongly agree or tend to agree that religion should not have a special influence on public policy
92% of ‘census Christians’ support the statement that the law should apply to everyone equally, regardless of religion
78% of ‘census Christians’ say Christianity would have no, or not very much, influence on how they vote in General Elections
61% of ‘census Christians’ agree that gay people should have the same legal rights in all aspects of their lives as heterosexual people
62% of ‘census Christians’ support the right of a woman to abortion within the legal time limit
Only 23% of ‘census Christians’ believe that sex is only acceptable within marriage.
As Andrew Copson, commented:
‘There is clearly a vast gulf between the views of what we might call “census Christians” and the politicians, politicised Bishops and Christian lobby groups that claim to speak on their behalf.”
I reckon the “Rapture” may have come in New Zealand on Sunday Night.
However, it proved to be another failure for Harold Camping who had predicted the end of the world by then. He said last September:
“The end is going to come very, very quietly probably within the next month. It will happen, that is, by October 21.”
Since then Camping has kept well clear of the press – although I get the impression that after three failed attempts at prediction there were very few reporters hanging around outside his door.
“Harold Camping, who predicted Oct. 21 to be the day Christians would be caught up to heaven and that God would judge the world, said on Oct. 16 that he is no longer able to lead Family Radio Stations, Inc. or his ministry, and his wife has confirmed that the 90-year-old radio evangelist has retired, a documentarian close to Camping told The Christian Post in an exclusive interview.”
But what about this?
Apparently some preachers were upset that the world didn’t end last weeked. The newspaper reports “they were all disappointed that Christ did not come”
OK – we have become used to the slogan “You can be good without God.” Versions of it have popped up all around the world over the last few years.
Even in little old New Zealand.
It’s really only stating the obvious – being a non-theist doesn’t make you a bad person. In principle most Christians probably agree – or say they do. However it hasn’t stopped many of them from finding such slogans offensive.* Because alongside these campaigns to put up such billboards, there have been campaigns to prevent them – or remove them.
Mind you – perhaps there is poetic justice. An Ohio church happened to own the land on which a Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) billboard was. The advertising firm was unaware of the ownership – they just rented the site. The Christ Cathedral Church in Columbus, Ohio had the billboard removed back in June.
Billboard removed by Christ Cathedral Church from their commercial land - on which they evaded taxation by declaring it a "place of worship"
Problem (for the church) is this bought to public notice the fact they owned the land, that they were earning an income from the land – but they were not paying tax on that income. (One wonders how much this sort of tax evasion goes on in New Zealand where religion can also earn a tax-free and local body rate free charity status – just because they are religious!)
The FFRF looked into this, found the church owned several commercial properties which they evaded taxation on by declaring them as “places of worship!” (see Columbus Church must “render unto Caesar”).
I guess they were worshiping the almighty dollar!
FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor commented:
“Apparently this church doesn’t heed the scriptural advice in Matthew 22:21 ‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,’
“Has this church, that was so offended that a grad student could be ‘good without God,’ been good with God?”
Can you be good with God?
I like that question “can you be good with God?” I guess some people might be asking that these days – there seem to be many cases of priests and religious ministers caught with the hand in the till (or in other places they shouldn’t be). So it’s natural to wonder.
However, I would like to assure Christians and other believers that there is no reason that their beliefs will necessarily stop them from being good. I say that with some confidence because over recent years there has been a lot of progress in the scientific understanding of human morality. And this overwhelmingly indicates that human morality is actually a secular activity. It’s involved with the real world, the non-“sacred” world. Just like accountancy, scientific research, plumbing, etc., it is a secular activity we can all indulge in – whatever our beliefs about a supposed “supernatural” world.
So it doesn’t matter if you believe in a god or not. These beliefs are irrelevant. You can still be an accountant, a scientific researcher, or a plumber. Just as you can sill do morality.
Because morality is a secular activity – its got nothing to do with gods or other supernatural beliefs.
*This hostility is interesting – perhaps at heart many Christians actually don’t think you can be good unless you hold the same supernatural beliefs they do. After all, their holy book says in Psalm 14.1:
The fool says in his heart,
‘There is no God.’
They are corrupt, they do
Abominable deeds,
There is none who does good.”
Perhaps they think that atheists are supposed to be immoral (after all this is the “word of their god”)
– what about being honest. If you have no religion, or have stopped belonging to the one you inherited from your family, tick the “no religion” box.
OK – we have become used to the slogan “You can be good without God.” Versions of it have popped up all around the world over the last few years.
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