Worse, the report ignores more reliable and more objective data that conflicts directly with its results. The Anglican and Catholic Churches actually count how many people attend directly, and they are recording DIPS in attendance, not growth. Over the same years. This isn’t mentioned. /7 - ThreadSky

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croftspeaks.bsky.social • 71 days ago

Worse, the report ignores more reliable and more objective data that conflicts directly with its results. The Anglican and Catholic Churches actually count how many people attend directly, and they are recording DIPS in attendance, not growth. Over the same years. This isn’t mentioned. /7

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croftspeaks.bsky.social•71 days ago

A report actually interested in discovering the truth about church attendance in the UK would examine all the evidence, including the evidence that contradicts its desired outcome - but this report just ignores that (better) evidence. /8

croftspeaks.bsky.social•71 days ago

But, what if there is indeed an increase in young people self reporting church attendance - why might that be?

One reason that the report mentions but doesn’t dig into is immigration. There has been a LOT of immigration over the last decade, especially from countries more Christian than the UK. /9

croftspeaks.bsky.social•71 days ago

The report seems to imply that because some of the self-reported increase in church attendance comes from white people, it cannot be due to immigration. But of course white people migrate too, and it happens that many many white people have migrated to the UK from much more Christian countries. /10

croftspeaks.bsky.social•71 days ago

This leads to another problem: people dramatically over-report their church attendance, ESPECIALLY if they come from a culture which highly prioritises church-going. So recent immigrants are both more likely to attend church and more likely to falsely report going. This needs to be considered. /11

croftspeaks.bsky.social•71 days ago

In conclusion, this is a biased writeup of an interesting but limited piece of research. It overstates the evidence in favour of its conclusion and understates conflicting evidence. It doesn’t sufficiently consider all the variables and obscures more than it reveals.

Quiet Revival? Not Quite. /fin

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