The YouGov poll on same-sex marriage
Jayne Ozanne, former managing director of Accepting Evangelicals, deputed YouGov to undertake a poll of attitudes to aforementioned-sex marriage, and has done a good job of getting the results out in the media yesterday and today. It featured on Radio 4 this morning, and is reported in The Guardian and The Telegraph.
Peter Ould, who is a professional statistician, makes observations about the actual polling, so I offer some reflections nearly the wider process.
Last night the internet was abuzz with a YouGov poll[i], commissioned by the revisionist campaigner Jayne Ozanne, that was purported to bear witness that a majority of Anglicans now supported same-sex marriage. Information technology did no such thing.
The survey questioned 6276 British adults on their faith and attitude to same-sexual practice wedlock. The first question of interest to us was their "religious amalgamation". We don't have the actual question asked given us (very poor practice) and so the best supposition is that the net questionnaire asked "What is your religious amalgamation?" 1652 of the 6276 respondents answered "Church building of England", "Anglican" or "Episcopal" (Episcopal probably refers here to the Episcopal Church of Scotland). Reweighted (the poll adjusts the numbers to reverberate the bodily British population) that is 1786 Anglicans out of 6276.
At this point nosotros get out our calculators and start stroking our beards. 1786 out of 6276 is 28.5%. Out of a Slap-up United kingdom population of around 62 1000000, that equates to almost 18 million people who are "Anglicans" under this definition of the word. Given that in the final fortnight the Church building of England published 2022 attendance figures that told us that the number of people at church service every week was merely nether 1 million[two], this means that a staggering 95% of the "Anglicans" in Jayne Ozanne's survey do not attend church as role of their regular weekly pattern.
But information technology gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective). On the Changing Attitude Facebook page Jayne claims,
The rather unfortunate (fortunate?) thing is that Ian [Paul] didn't take time to look at the YouGov results himself, if he had he'd take seen we asked 2 questions to define Anglicans – i which asked "what amalgamation" then ane that asked "where practise you practice/belong" … both had the aforementioned results, although the second group was obviously smaller.[3]
What's interesting about this question is that not only did it achieve the same results in favour of aforementioned-sex wedlock for Anglicans as the start question did, it also achieved the same results (inside the margin of error) for Roman Catholics, Jews, Baptists etc. Why was this? Well quite merely, because the question doesn't enquire anything meaningfully different than the first ane. Asking most which group or community you lot are involved in or whose gatherings you would attend isn't in any sense a unlike question to religious affiliation.
The one question that is missing in this survey, I suspect deliberately, is a stratification question virtually church attendance. What do I mean by this? Look at some of the opinion polls conducted before the General Election terminal year. As well as asking for party affiliation they will also ask a number of questions that attempt to quantify and stratify (and hence qualify) opinions. So for example, the opinion poll might ask something on the lines of "How likely are you to vote?" or even "Did you vote in the last Ballot?" The respondent then grades their likelihood to vote on a scale of 1 to 10 and the voting intention is weighted appropriately. And of form this makes perfect sense. It doesn't thing if someone says that they are going to vote Tory if they as well tell you lot that they are very unlikely to actually bother going to the polling booth on Election 24-hour interval. You don't want to count them every bit a total Conservative voter do y'all?
In the same way, this YouGov poll needs some grade of proper stratification to qualify the "religious amalgamation". A further question should have been asked along the lines of "How oftentimes exercise you attend a identify of worship continued to your religious affiliation?" or even "When was the concluding time y'all attended a place of worship connected to your religious affiliation?" You then stratify this question with options similar "In the last week", "In the final calendar month", "In the concluding 6 months", "In the terminal year" and "More than than a year ago". For each of these subdivisions you lot then also have the same-sex marriage back up question.
I suspect that yous would encounter some remarkable differences between the group that attended church once a week and the other 95% of "Anglicans" in Jayne Ozanne's panel. I as well suspect that this is the very reason that Jayne Ozanne didn't inquire YouGov to put this question to the panellists.
The bottom line is this – Jayne Ozanne'southward questionnaire tells united states absolutely nada about the stance of the Anglicans who sit in the pews week after week and actually make upward the core membership of the Church of England, who back up it financially and are worshipping and praying in their local parishes as a witnessing customs. A staggering 95% of her "Anglicans" don't actually nourish church regularly, if at all. The stance poll is just a puff piece to support a political calendar and information technology specifically avoids asking the one cardinal question which might tell us something nearly what Church attenders actually call up on the subject of same-sex spousal relationship.
Peter Ould is a Church building of England Priest and works as a Banking Consultant, delivering mathematical modelling projects into Financial Institutions across Europe, the Eye East and Africa.
Peter's analysis is enough to make usa wary of headlines based on polls when it comes to a complex issue like the theology of marriage. The headlines go even more suspect when yous look at the poll questions in detail.
Those who said they believed same-sexual practice matrimony was 'correct' were asked a further series of questions:
How would you answer those questions? I don't think I would have any hesitation in answering the first four questions 'Aye', and I would have to call back hard about the fifth one, since information technology all depends on what yous mean past 'natural' and whether you think 'nature' is as it ought to be. (Information technology is perfectly 'natural' for men to be aggressive, for case.)
But the most hitting question for me was the sixth. It is worth noting that the question doesn't at one level tell us very much; if I had never really read the Bible, then I would probably be happy answering 'yes' to this. (At that place isn't a 'don't know' option). But more than striking is the fact that a full 77% of those who believe that same-sex marriage is 'correct'would not state that 'At that place is cypher in the Bible' to contradict this view. I am conscious that there is a danger in over-interpreting this (the question asked 'which wouldbest describe your position). Just it suggests very strongly that, for those supporting aforementioned-sexual practice wedlock, the Bible is either mistaken in what it says, or is not really very relevant. If Peter's analysis above is right, then this is not very surprising, since well-nigh of the people here don't actually nourish the Church building.
This raises two questions. Get-go, what is the relation betwixt theological reflection and popular opinion when it comes to forming the doctrine of the Church building? Jeff Astley and Ann Christie have done some serious inquiry on what they telephone call 'ordinary theology', looking at what lay people 'in the pews' actually believe. (You can read a helpful summary in their Grove booklet P 110Taking Ordinary Theology Seriously.) What they uncover is that many ordinary Anglicans neither believe in the divinity of Christ, equally expressed in the gospels and the creeds, nor believe that in any objective sense Jesus decease has "saved" united states. (Interestingly, this was more prevalent in "liberal" churches, much less the instance in "evangelical" churches.) What is Astley'south response to this?
Should we not acknowledge this 'multi-dimensional' nature of Christian belief? And therefore the multi-dimensional nature of the person and work of Christ? This perspective would allow many christologies and soteriologies, and this may be a strength rather than a weakness in the church.
Faced by the bear witness of the ordinary theology of other people, the reaction of many of united states (not merely clergy) is to strive to meliorate it. With a footling more humility, and a lot more than patient theological listening, might nosotros not come to feel that—sometimes, at least—another's theology can correct our ain?
In other words, 'orthodox' understandings of who Jesus is and what he does are not shared by many in the pews, and they tin can be a barrier to admitting people into membership of the church. So the obvious matter to practise is to carelessness them—or at the very least be highly flexible. This is where we get to when we exercise 'theology' by opinion poll—and it doesn't look very Anglican to me.
The show of the poll appears to reinforce the notion that those pressing for change do so on the basis of a theology based on something other than the Anglican delivery to the primacy of biblical theology.
Second, I am trying to work out what Jayne is upwards to. She continues to merits the label 'evangelical', but I am non sure what evangelical would prioritise opinion polls over biblical theology. The headline in the Guardian commodity ('Church building of England members back same-sex marriage') is thoroughly misleading, since the people surveyed are non 'members' in any meaningful sense. I was going to lay the blame for this on poor reporting—until I realised that that was the diction Jayne had supplied in the press release.
To date, this web log has simply commented on the question of sexuality in nigh ix% of posts. I would dearly love that to go on; there is a process of conversation underway in the Church, and I want to focus on the other 91% of important issues in theology and ministry. Will we be given any breathing space to do this—or are we now braced for a media onslaught on the aforementioned issue?
[1] https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.cyberspace/cumulus_uploads/document/pwwbcqwbmx/JayneOzanne_Results_SameSexMarriage_160121_GB_Website.pdf
[2] https://www.churchofengland.org/media/2432327/2014statisticsformission.pdf
[three] https://world wide web.facebook.com/groups/12180773894/permalink/10153826894203895/?comment_id=10153827067628895&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R5%22%7D
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