Northern Ireland can no longer be viewed as consisting of two groups, religiously speaking, namely the Catholic and the Protestants. What must also be added into the mix are the non-religious, who are growing in number.
This is one of the main findings of a major new poll on attitudes to religion in the North. It was commissioned by The Iona Institute (which I run) and carried out by Amarach Research. It is a companion poll to an almost identical one that was conducted in the South and released in May. It featured on the front page of this newspaper.
Both polls asked people a whole range of questions about religion. For example, do they consider themselves to be religious, or spiritual, or both, or neither?
Do they read or watch or listen to religious material?
Do they believe in horoscopes (that is, are they attracted to ‘alternative spiritualities’)?
What do they think of Christianity, of the Catholic Church, of the Protestant Churches?
Do they believe Christian moral teachings are still of value to society?
Do they want a continued Christian presence on the island?
What do they think of priests and nuns?
As you might expect, answers varied by age, sex and the person’s degree of religiosity and whether they are Catholic or Protestant.
In the case of the poll conducted in the North, aside from the big increase in the numbers who say they don’t belong to any religion, there has been a surprising and unexpected increase in the number of young adults (the 18–24-year-olds) who have a positive view of religion.
Statistics
This age group are more likely to have a ‘very positive’ attitude of Christianity (30% vs only 4% with a ‘very negative’ view) than any other age group, even the over-65s. This revival of interest among the 18-24-year-olds is consistent with poll findings in the Republic, in Britain, and in the US. In Britain, the phenomenon is being called the ‘Quiet Revival’.
A summary of some of the results of the poll conducted in the North is as follows:
- 28% of those sampled say they are Catholic, 14% say they are Presbyterian, 11% say they are Church of Ireland, while 36% say they don’t belong to any religion (the ‘nones’). The rest belong to other Christian Churches or other religions.
- 40% of Catholics are regular Mass-goers (double the percentage in the South).
- 56% say they are religious and/or spiritual (a slightly lower percentage than in the South). 39% say they are neither religious nor spiritual, while the rest say they don’t know.
- While the 18-24-year-olds are the most likely to have a ‘very positive’ view of religion, half say they are neither religious nor spiritual, indicating this age group is quite polarised on religion.
- 51% of those surveyed say they pray, 44% said they attend religious services (which does not mean regularly), 33% meditate, while 38% read religious or spiritual books such as the Bible. (Only 18% of those in the Republic do so).
- The 18-24-year-olds are more likely to pray and read or watch religious content than the 25-34-year-olds.
- 49% of respondents view Christianity favourably, versus 23% for the Catholic Church and 30% for the Protestant Churches (probably indicating hostility towards the institutions).
- The scandals are a big driver of unfavourable attitudes towards the Catholic Church, and the public greatly overestimate the prevalence of abusers among the clergy.
- The most unfavourable attitudes towards religion in general are among the non-religious, which is not surprising. They seem to have a ‘plague on both your houses’ attitude.
- We also see in the poll that Catholics are more well disposed towards the Protestant Churches than vice versa.
The findings of the two polls conducted in Ireland mirror similar findings in Britain and the US”
The finding most media who have reported on the poll zeroed in on was the increase in interest in religion among the 18-24 year-olds compared with the age groups immediately above them. Why would the youngest adults have more interest in religion than those in their mid-20s to mid-30s? The expectation we have all had bred into us that is interest in religion will fade over time, until finally all the older people who are religious will be dead, no young people will be religious, and therefore religion will also be dead.
But as mentioned, the findings of the two polls conducted in Ireland mirror similar findings in Britain and the US. Why is it specifically the youngest adults showing this revived interest, and even more specifically, the youngest males?
Revival
I think there are a couple of explanations. One is that the age group immediately above them, the 25-34 year-olds, became young adults during ‘peak Woke’, that is when political agitation about race, sex and sexual orientation was at its peak (think of the #MeToo protests and the Black Lives Matter protests). It became incredibly difficult to say anything that deviated from ‘Woke’ orthodoxy. You could find yourself cancelled, that is deprived of speaking platforms or even sacked.
It was a very fanatical period during which men were constantly accused of being ‘toxic’. Woke ideology has not gone away by any means, but it does seem to have lost some strength.
They also saw the shocking way in which debate was being curbed”
When it was at its peak, a young man who is 20 today would have been in his mid-teens, and all he was hearing was how terrible men are. This invited a rebellion.
They also saw the shocking way in which debate was being curbed. That also invited a rebellion.
But above all, I would say, the main concerns of a segment of the youngest adults are simply shifting. The Church was something their parents might have rebelled against, but why should their children when it is such a faded force now?
What they are facing is not the Church, but a secular emptiness that deliberately provides no answers to life’s big questions about meaning and purpose and so on. That is what some young adults are reacting against. Most of their peers are still being sucked into the secular emptiness, which might be one reason for rising mental health problems. But the more thoughtful young adults seem to be concluding there must be more to life than materialism and relativism and anomie. This prompts them to turn towards religion, and they seem to be finding religious content online (see Bishop Robert Barron, for example) that is pointing them in the right direction.
So, what I predict is that a majority of young people will remain secular and will in fact describe themselves as non-religious. But a significant minority of young people will rebel against this because secularism has so little to offer and these young people will start to falsify the confident prediction that religion will eventually vanish from the face of the earth.
Why some young people are turning to religion
Northern Ireland can no longer be viewed as consisting of two groups, religiously speaking, namely the Catholic and the Protestants. What must also be added into the mix are the non-religious, who are growing in number.
This is one of the main findings of a major new poll on attitudes to religion in the North. It was commissioned by The Iona Institute (which I run) and carried out by Amarach Research. It is a companion poll to an almost identical one that was conducted in the South and released in May. It featured on the front page of this newspaper.
Both polls asked people a whole range of questions about religion. For example, do they consider themselves to be religious, or spiritual, or both, or neither?
Do they read or watch or listen to religious material?
Do they believe in horoscopes (that is, are they attracted to ‘alternative spiritualities’)?
What do they think of Christianity, of the Catholic Church, of the Protestant Churches?
Do they believe Christian moral teachings are still of value to society?
Do they want a continued Christian presence on the island?
What do they think of priests and nuns?
As you might expect, answers varied by age, sex and the person’s degree of religiosity and whether they are Catholic or Protestant.
In the case of the poll conducted in the North, aside from the big increase in the numbers who say they don’t belong to any religion, there has been a surprising and unexpected increase in the number of young adults (the 18–24-year-olds) who have a positive view of religion.
Statistics
This age group are more likely to have a ‘very positive’ attitude of Christianity (30% vs only 4% with a ‘very negative’ view) than any other age group, even the over-65s. This revival of interest among the 18-24-year-olds is consistent with poll findings in the Republic, in Britain, and in the US. In Britain, the phenomenon is being called the ‘Quiet Revival’.
A summary of some of the results of the poll conducted in the North is as follows:
The finding most media who have reported on the poll zeroed in on was the increase in interest in religion among the 18-24 year-olds compared with the age groups immediately above them. Why would the youngest adults have more interest in religion than those in their mid-20s to mid-30s? The expectation we have all had bred into us that is interest in religion will fade over time, until finally all the older people who are religious will be dead, no young people will be religious, and therefore religion will also be dead.
But as mentioned, the findings of the two polls conducted in Ireland mirror similar findings in Britain and the US. Why is it specifically the youngest adults showing this revived interest, and even more specifically, the youngest males?
Revival
I think there are a couple of explanations. One is that the age group immediately above them, the 25-34 year-olds, became young adults during ‘peak Woke’, that is when political agitation about race, sex and sexual orientation was at its peak (think of the #MeToo protests and the Black Lives Matter protests). It became incredibly difficult to say anything that deviated from ‘Woke’ orthodoxy. You could find yourself cancelled, that is deprived of speaking platforms or even sacked.
It was a very fanatical period during which men were constantly accused of being ‘toxic’. Woke ideology has not gone away by any means, but it does seem to have lost some strength.
When it was at its peak, a young man who is 20 today would have been in his mid-teens, and all he was hearing was how terrible men are. This invited a rebellion.
They also saw the shocking way in which debate was being curbed. That also invited a rebellion.
But above all, I would say, the main concerns of a segment of the youngest adults are simply shifting. The Church was something their parents might have rebelled against, but why should their children when it is such a faded force now?
What they are facing is not the Church, but a secular emptiness that deliberately provides no answers to life’s big questions about meaning and purpose and so on. That is what some young adults are reacting against. Most of their peers are still being sucked into the secular emptiness, which might be one reason for rising mental health problems. But the more thoughtful young adults seem to be concluding there must be more to life than materialism and relativism and anomie. This prompts them to turn towards religion, and they seem to be finding religious content online (see Bishop Robert Barron, for example) that is pointing them in the right direction.
So, what I predict is that a majority of young people will remain secular and will in fact describe themselves as non-religious. But a significant minority of young people will rebel against this because secularism has so little to offer and these young people will start to falsify the confident prediction that religion will eventually vanish from the face of the earth.
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