Norwich the 'least religious city' in England and Wales

[catsmate]

According to data from the latest UK Census Norwich, despite the two cathedrals, as revealed Norwich had the highest proportion of respondents in England and Wales reporting "no religion" at 42.5% (compared with an England/ Wales average of 25.1%). There were 131 atheists (including local MP Chloe Smith), but 169 Spiritualists and 783 Jedi Knights.

Now I've lived and worked in Norwich, a few years ago, and I didn't notice any special level of non-religion there. Nice city, some odd people who could have played Mummerset stereotypes, but not a bastion of freethinking.

The (CoE) Bishop of Norwich, the Right Reverend Graham James, has said he's sceptical about the census' findings.

Comments? Observations?

BBC story.

 

[svenax]

56,268 people reported having no religion and only 131 atheists? Does not compute.

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

Now I've lived and worked in Norwich, a few years ago, and I didn't notice any special level of non-religion there. Nice city, some odd people who could have played Mummerset stereotypes, but not a bastion of freethinking.

I think you might be looking in the wrong place. The number of non-religious people is still relatively small, so it's not so much about a thriving freethinking community as fewer people who are identifying as "Census Christians".

IIRC, the last census produced the same results - Norwich followed by Brighton as the least religious cities in the country. At the time, I had a hypothesis that a relatively small minority ethnic population might have had something to do with it, but the figures suggested otherwise. It may be that immigrants are less likely to identify as non-religious, but not to the extent that it would explain these results. It's an appealing hypothesis, but it's a distraction.

One feature Norwich and Brighton share is that a substantial proportion of their populations are - how to put it - old crusties. People who go to an organic greengrocer around the corner, send their kids to Steiner schools, usually smoke dope but will occasionally have a spot of rosehip brandy, and so on. Sorry, that's a crude generalisation, but I'm just trying to paint a picture. Once you get to the suburbs, the picture's very different, but they won't be counted in these census figures. I think what we're seeing here isn't so much a hotbed of skeptics as a lot of people who think religion's for squares, IYSWIM.

Norwich may also be influenced by having a fairly big university for the size of the city, which would probably push up numbers of non-religious responses.

 

[Recovering Agnostic]

56,268 people reported having no religion and only 131 atheists? Does not compute.

There was a "no religion" box, which most atheists ticked. Some felt the need to assert their atheism specifically, and wrote it in under "other". Some mischievous or ignorant Christians have been quoting the latter figure to "prove" how few atheists their really are.

 

[svenax]

There was a "no religion" box, which most atheists ticked. Some felt the need to assert their atheism specifically, and wrote it in under "other". Some mischievous or ignorant Christians have been quoting the latter figure to "prove" how few atheists their really are.

OK, that makes more sense.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Now I've lived and worked in Norwich, a few years ago, and I didn't notice any special level of non-religion there.

Well, my experience is that people's religious views rarely if ever come up in conversation, especially if they don't have any. When you were in Norwich did you have that conversation with people often? If not, how would you notice?

 

[brodski]

The irony is that Norwich has one of the highest concentrations of churches in England.

They make great theatres and music venues.

 

[catsmate]

Well, my experience is that people's religious views rarely if ever come up in conversation, especially if they don't have any. When you were in Norwich did you have that conversation with people often? If not, how would you notice?

A few times; I was there on an IT project with one other person from Ireland, a few travelling Brits and the locals. I went home every other weekend so I did a fair amount of random walking and talking, meeting people and seeing the area.
Nice people, the city reminds me of Cork, though that may just be the hills.

 

[geni]

The irony is that Norwich has one of the highest concentrations of churches in England.

They make great theatres and music venues.

Some of them yes. However its far from universal and maintaining listed churches is a problem.

 

[Hillbert]

IIRC, the last census produced the same results - Norwich followed by Brighton as the least religious cities in the country. At the time, I had a hypothesis that a relatively small minority ethnic population might have had something to do with it, but the figures suggested otherwise. It may be that immigrants are less likely to identify as non-religious, but not to the extent that it would explain these results. It's an appealing hypothesis, but it's a distraction.

I've had a bit of a poke around in the statistics and whilst there's a relationship between ethnicity and no religion it breaks down when it hits about 80% white. At that point other factors are probably overriding the data.

I think you may be right in the Brighton-Norwich connection. I wonder how the results would shake out if it was a more general "spiritual" connection?

 

[punshhh]

The irony is that Norwich has one of the highest concentrations of churches in England.

They make great theatres and music venues.

I attended one just the other day, a great resource.