Without minority growth, the church would be in a dire condition.
Britain is fast becoming a country dominated by people who don’t affiliate with Christianity, the latest census figures reveal. Fewer than half (46%) of residents of England and Wales ticked the ‘Christian’ box in 2021, compared to 59% in 2011 and 72% in 2001. The raw number of Christians fell from 33.3 million to 27.5 million, a loss of nearly 6 million souls.
While the media has lumped Christian decline in with White British ethnic decline, the two are largely separate. In fact, ethnic minorities constitute a de-secularising force that is counteracting religious, including Christian, decline. Without minority growth, the church would be in an even more dire condition.
Indeed, most parishioners in London, where Christianity is holding up best, are not White Brits. Consider the fact that in Brent — one of the two most ethnically diverse London boroughs, where White Britons form just 15% of the population — the number of Christians increased from 129,080 in 2011 to 131,914 in 2021. In Newham, the most diverse, Christianity also rose marginally, from 123,119 in 2011 to 123,746 in 2021. This rise is because of, not in spite of, ethnic change.
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Eric Kaufmann is professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute.
This piece originally appeared in UnHerd