According to recent reports, there are now more who religiously identify as atheists than Christians in the United Kingdom, leading experts to claim the once-Christian nation is entering its “first atheist age.” Researchers in the “Explaining Atheism” project conducted by Queen’s University Belfast polled 25,000 people across Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, UK and USA to determine what is driving trends of atheism around the world.
Reports indicate that, for the first time the nation’s history, the U.K. is a majority atheist nation where those who don’t believe in God outnumber those who do. The 2021 British Social Attitudes Survey indicated that over half of respondents (52%) were atheists. Contrasted with results from 1981, nearly three-quarters of UK residents said they believed in God.
Dr Lois Lee, from the University of Kent’s Department of Religious Studies said, “The UK is entering its first atheist age. Whilst atheism has been prominent in our culture for some time – be it through Karl Marx, George Eliot, or Ricky Gervais – it is only now that atheists have begun to outnumber theists for the first time in our history.”
Research indicated that parental guidance had the strongest impact on religious affiliation. “While anti-religious parents do not substantially impact whether their children believe in God, they do strongly influence whether their children are morally opposed to religion,” they claim. Lead researcher, Professor Jonathan Lanman from Queen’s, noted “Our large cross-cultural surveys reveal that while many factors may influence one’s beliefs in small ways, the key factor is the extent to which one is socialised to be a theist.
The Christian Tribune previously reported on the comments from U.K. Catholic cleric Calvin Robinson, who warned about the trends in England manifesting in the United States. “Please don’t do what we did,” Robinson said “Please don’t just sit back and let the liberals deteriorate the rest of everything that you know and love.” He added, “What we now call the ‘West,’ we used to call Christendom because it was built on Christian foundations.”
“Essentially, they tried to remove Christ from Christendom,” Robinson continued outlining the potential ramifications of the decline in Christendom. “And, of course, when you take out the foundation, the house will eventually crumble. And this is what we’re seeing in the West at the moment.”
“We’re starting to see the bad fruits of that. And so, without our Christian moral compass, without our Christian values, without our Christian ethics, without any of that, we are grasping at straws. And this is why we’re seeing some woke ideologies temporarily take the place of what used to be Christian,” he continued.
He further pointed out that the church has substantially drifted from the core tenets of Christianity. “The Church of England has become very liberal in terms of divorce, sex outside marriage, same-sex relationships, transgenderism. And every time the Church tries to be more inclusive, it actually becomes more exclusive to Christianity and to Christian values, and more inclusive to worldly values and just further plummets that downward trajectory.”
Robinson stressed that the same troubling trends observed in the U.K. are happening in America, calling Christians to take action. “These kinds of trends are happening in the States, too, I think,” he said. “Be careful. American culture is a fantastic culture. Hold on to it, promote it, encourage it. If you want to become multicultural and let other cultures in, that’s something you have to consider. But do not give it up to the detriment of your own.”