{"id":798951,"date":"2026-10-11T08:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T08:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/798951\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T08:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T08:06:12","slug":"christian-nationalism-in-britain-driven-by-people-who-seldom-go-to-church-says-report-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/798951\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian nationalism in Britain driven by people who seldom go to church, says report | Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian nationalism in Britain is being driven largely by people who rarely attend church and are more concerned with defending the country\u2019s Christian heritage, according to research.<\/p>\n

The report, by the thinktank Theos, identified five different groups within the UK in a survey that looked at their attitudes to Christianity<\/a> and Britishness.<\/p>\n

The group whose views most closely resembled Christian nationalism, termed \u201cidentity integrationists\u201d by the researchers, accounted for 11% of respondents, making it the smallest of the five groups.<\/p>\n

Although 81% of this group identified as Christian, just 13% attended church weekly, only slightly above the 11% average across the population surveyed. Less than a third (31%) prayed weekly, while 47% expressed an interest in the Bible.<\/p>\n

The group was strongly hostile to immigration and Islam<\/a>. Just 19% agreed that Christian values required welcoming and supporting asylum seekers, while 30% supported the equal treatment of religions in public life.<\/p>\n

In contrast, another group in the survey with high levels of Christian affiliation, were considerably more religiously observant and less hostile to immigration and religious diversity. They comprised 13% of respondents.<\/p>\n

Among these \u201cbelief integrationists\u201d, 31% attended church weekly, 46% prayed weekly and 62% expressed an interest in the Bible.<\/p>\n

Almost half (48%) agreed that Christian values required welcoming and supporting asylum seekers, while 63% supported the equal treatment of religions in public life.<\/p>\n

Although they are the group containing the highest proportion of practising Christians, only 18% of belief integrationists think that defending Britain\u2019s Christian culture and heritage is important for being Christian, compared with 90% of the Christian nationalist group.<\/p>\n

At the Unite the Kingdom rally in London in September 2025, some people carried wooden crosses. Photograph: Joao Daniel Pereira\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

At a time when crosses have been carried at Unite the Kingdom rallies <\/a>and crowds have chanted \u201cChrist is King\u201d at protests, the research challenges the idea that the growing prominence of Christian nationalism in Britain reflects a revival of Christianity.<\/p>\n

Instead, the findings suggest that Christianity is increasingly being invoked as a marker of British identity amid wider anxieties about immigration, Islam and cultural change.<\/p>\n

The results are based on a survey of 1,765 adults conducted in April 2026, which identified five distinct groups according to their attitudes towards Christianity and British national identity.<\/p>\n

More than half of Britons surveyed (55%) said they would be unhappy if their local church closed and became a mosque, including 37% who would be very unhappy.<\/p>\n

More than a third (37%) agreed with the conspiracy theory that the white population of Europe was being deliberately replaced by migrants from Muslim countries, sometimes known as the \u2018great replacement\u2019 theory.<\/p>\n

Nick Spencer, a senior fellow at Theos and one of the report\u2019s authors, suggested that the difference between the two most highly affiliated Christian groups\u2019 attitudes towards asylum seekers might partly reflect their religious practice and ethnic composition.<\/p>\n

The more practising Christian group were the most ethnically diverse of the five groups, with 20% identifying as non-white, while identity integrationists were among the least diverse.<\/p>\n

Spencer added that there was also \u201ca difference between Christianity as an idea and Christianity as an embodied practice\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it matters enough for you to haul yourself out of bed on a Sunday morning, to spend time with people who you don\u2019t choose \u2013 you don\u2019t choose who you\u2019re sitting next to in the pew, you don\u2019t choose who\u2019s next to you in the communion rail \u2013 it becomes a bit more human and more humane.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Arun Arora, Church of England bishop of Kirkstall in Leeds, said the distinction between cultural Christianity and practising faith was central to understanding the findings.<\/p>\n

Arun Arora, bishop of Kirkstall in Leeds. Photograph: Arun Arora<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is it to be a disciple? It\u2019s threefold: deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what I think\u2019s interesting about the nationalists is that they want to take up the cross at marches, and display it, but there\u2019s less of an interest in denying themselves and following Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n

He argued that the lessons for church leaders weren\u2019t just to encourage church attendance, but to be out in the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf as the church we\u2019re going to wait for people to come into the ark to be saved, to use Noah\u2019s ark analogy, then we\u2019re going to be waiting a while,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhereas the responsibility for us is to bring that full gospel message of discipleship, of what that requires, the costly nature of discipleship, to be able to expound and articulate that, and the passionate love of God for his people, and his world, and not just those who carry certain passports.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rev Dr Helen Paynter, a theologian who has researched the far right\u2019s use of Christianity, said the findings highlighted the responsibility of churches to welcome people across the political spectrum.<\/p>\n

But, she added: \u201cThe church is and has been since its inception a multi-ethnic, multinational group, and may not rightly be equated with any nationality or ethnicity. In fact, the \u2018average\u2019 Christian in the world today is poor, female and black.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Paynter, one of most important findings is the starkly different attitudes evidenced by those who are practising Christians, compared with those who claim the label.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Christian faith is not just an identity that we can put on like a coat; it involves an encounter with transcendence which must be transformative of all our values.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian nationalism in Britain is being driven largely by people who rarely attend church and are more concerned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-798951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}