Abstract
The Church of England holds to the historic Creeds of Christianity, expressing its distinctive beliefs at the time of its formation through the 39 Articles of Religion found in the Book of Common Prayer. This chapter examines the extent to which Church Times readers affirm some core doctrines and traditional beliefs. The analysis covers beliefs related to the resurrection, virgin birth, heaven and hell, pluralism, evolution, and the Bible. It shows how beliefs vary between different groups in the sample and how they changed between the two surveys in 2001 and 2013. Although beliefs varied between groups and over time in complex ways, the overall picture suggested that core doctrines were widely upheld, but there was increased acceptance of religious pluralism and biological evolution. In general, the Church of England still seems well placed to function as a vicarious holder of Christian beliefs on behalf of the nation.
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Notes
- 1.
These figures are for England and Wales, the average for just England was slightly higher (ONS, 2012).
- 2.
There were such questions in the 2001 survey, and 98% believed that God exists, 85% that God is a personal being and 14% that God is an impersonal power.
- 3.
In the paper, we were looking at rejection of evolution, and the figure reported for ‘not rejecting’ included some who were uncertain, and Anglicans were grouped with Methodists. Figures presented here are recalculated from the data set, using just Church of England participants.
- 4.
The scale is coded so that conservative items score high, so this item is reverse coded when used in the scale since it implies a more liberal belief about the Bible. In the 2013 survey sample, it was correlated at r = .68 with the scale as a whole.
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Village, A. (2018). Basic Beliefs. In: The Church of England in the First Decade of the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04528-9_3
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