Two recent polls by YouGov are an interesting snapshot of the way Britains view the upcoming feast of the Nativity. According to one poll, 67% of those asked will not be attending Church during the Christmas season. Only 11% are planning to attend a Christmas Eve service, with 5% planning to go on Christmas day.

The second poll conducted on the 12th & 13th might provides some interesting background to the first set of figures. Here, 61% of respondants cited being with family as the most important part of Christmas, and only 12% saw it as a commemoration of the Nativity.

This raises a number of interesting questions about how people in the UK relate to their spirituality, and what the christian community is failing to convey about the feast of the Nativity, and the Liturgical cycle as a whole.

I would be interested to have seen some figures questioning, for example the beliefs fo the majority in the two polls. Are they believers who simply don’t bother with “the Church”? What do they actually “believe” in relation to that statement? It would have also been interesting to see what all of the respondants thought about the role of “the Church” in modern British society.

19 readers participated in this month’s poll. I was surprised by some of the results. For example, an overwhelming number of participants understand “catholic” as meaning “universal”. I expected that in our OC/IC context more people would have viewed it in terms of a particular church. The, sacramental, Roman, and “orthoxy” options are interesting because unlike the other two these are rooted in popular perception rather than historic theology/definitions. I expected that the number of those choosing Roman would have been higher – but that could merely be a relfection of the make up of those visiting the blog – from what I can gather the majority of “regulars” here are OC/IC folk.

“Universal” vs. “Particular” hmmmm . . . . I’m a “particular” kinda guy myself, I’m not a fan of “universal” because it leads to some pretty whacky theology, and ideologies. Earlier this year I wrote a post on my own thoughts on why I prefer “particular” over “universal” – but I’m interested to know how people see the idea of “universal” working in our very particular OC/IC context. How can we be “universal” when we have a very bad habit of eating our own young?

Thursday I posted a video in which I mentioned that many of the people I’ve interviewed thus far for the Indie Voices Archive highlighted as one of our weakenesses that we are not very well known – and we don’t do a very good job of getting our message out. This is true afterall, but today I came across a YouGov poll conducted here in the UK in February of this year, among the many interesting results (some of which will be the subject of future posts) I read the following about Londoners’ attitudes towards religion:

30 % think that Christianity is good at conveying its “message”, but;
54% Don’t know if Christianity is good at conveying its “message”!

What to make of these figures?

Does the 30% represent people who are comitted Christians – engaged and involved in the vision and mission of their church or denomonation? Hmmm . . . well. . . according to the stats only 30% of respondants might fall into this category – assuming all 30% are Christians, which is unlikely given that the poll was not targetted at a particular denomonation. Moreover, less than 10% are participating members of a faith community, and only 25% pray with any regularity.

What really grabs me is that 54% who don’t know. Does this mean that they never hear, read, or view something that might present the Christian message? Believe it or not this is not entirely out of the realm of possibility here in London. Aside from the many empty churches scattered across the city, you don’t know that there is a “Christian” presence here.

If the larger churches are struggling to get their message across what can we OC/IC folk do that they cannot?

I think part of the problem is simple – people don’t know what the “message” is in the first place, so they don’t know if it is being effectively communicated. So, what is our OC/IC message, and how can we best communicate that?

Are we actively engaged enough right now to be able to confidently say that our whole membership of our respective communities knows what the message is, and is reachign out to others to cmmunicate it? I’ve been in ministry now for nearly 20 years and I can honestly say that it has always been one of the most challenging aspects of building community – to equip and encourage members (all members laity, and clergy) to take the message of our faith beyond the circle – and then to witness it happening on the ground.

It’s true – we are not good at getting our message out, people don’t know who we are, and the ones that do, only know the stories of the kooks, and the grand-high poobahs – and they use those stories to beat us over the head with over and over and over . . . but you know, the truth is, that because our whole body, our whole community at every level is not actively engaged in this task in one way or another – as much as each one of us can muster – we are, each of us, as much to blame, because we are not giving them the other stories, the successes, the personal stories of how our communities, and our quirky tradition, has brought Christianity to life for us, that through our committment to this tradition we have found a real connection with Christ, and through him, with one another.

28 visitors participated in the most recent poll that asked about your Eucharistic theology. Before I play with the results, here is the breakdown:

68% (19 votes) agreed that the elements become the “real presence” of Christ at the consecration.

25% (7 votes) of those participating believe in transubstantiation.

7% (2 votes) said that the Eucharist is merely a potent symbol of our Christian identity.

In this poll I am more aware than previously of the question of how many participants were OC/IC folk vs. readers from other traditions. Assume for the purpose of this reflection that all 28 participants were OC/IC folk the numbers are rather interesting. For example, that there is a small percentage of our community that is self identified as “independent sacramental” but simultaneously rejects a concept most sacramentalists view as central to the idea of the Eucharist; that is the mystery of Christ’s real presence (never mind the mechanics of that for a moment). What is more the number of participants saying that they believe in transubstantiation is actually lower than I thought it would be when I devised the poll.

I posed the question for this poll wanting to find out more about the sacramental theology of our community. Again, assuming that all 28 participants were OC/IC folk the number of those responding in favour of “real presence” was much higher than I had thought it would be. I expected that “real presence” and transubstantiation would be almost equal. The question now is, why? Is it purely a rejection of a very Roman doctrine? Is it based on reflection and concensus? Is it grounded in a rejection of what might be roughly called medieval magic?

The other question raised here is, in the view of those voting for real presence, what is the mechanics of how it works in the liturgical setting? I’ve seen more than one “theory” of real presence, so now I’m curious, is one of these preferred in our context over the others, and why? Or is there an un-explored consensus of a uniquely OC/IC model?

This month’s poll is taking off rather nicely. I’m looking forward to seeing how the final numbers shape up. What strikes me with the current stats however, is a question. The majority of respondents thus far prefer “real presence” . . . . What is it?

I can think of more than one “theory” of real presence and I’m dying of curiosity to know if there is a consensus among OC/IC folk who accept the theory of real presence. Share your understanding of real presence and let’s see if there is a common OC/IC theory or many different ones.

22 of you participated in this last poll asking about inclusive language (Indie communities ought to use “inclusive language” both in worship and in Scriptures); here is the breakdown of how you voted:

Yes – absolutely = 6 (27%)
Yeah – OK = 3 (14%)
No – definitely not = 3 (14%)
I would prefer that we did not = 8 (36%)
I don’t know = 2 (9%)

41% of you responded with an overall positive.
55% of you responded with an overall negative.

First I should point out that in hind sight I think I would have framed the question or the responses a bit better. I had some great conversations with a couple of you on this point. I wanted to offer respondents a “strong” or “weak” position; but I also wanted the question to be broadly shaped so as to elicit your instinctual or “gut” reaction.

I confess I am surprised by the results. I fully expected a resounding result in favour of one or the other – I assumed that it would be in favour of inclusive language – in fact the opposite is true.

It also strikes me as interesting that when you look at the difference between the “strong” and “weak” responses in each answer. Again I think I expected a much stronger response in both; in fact positive “strong” responses were 50% higher than “weak” responses, and negative “weak” responses were 63% higher than “strong” responses. It may suggest that those who are in favour of inclusive language feel more strongly about it than those who are not so keen. It may also be the case that overall it cannot be said that indie folk are as passionate about inclusivity and inclusive language as we sometimes think; and begs the question in what other ways do we express our inclusivity that are perhaps more meaningful, or more important to our local communities?

Just a quick note if you have not already “voted” in this month’s poll (above) the booth closes in a few days on 31 May. Shortly thereafter I’ll have a reflection on the results, and a new question.

The results of this, our first poll, are in. Let me first point out that I’m not a statistician, not only that, I’m so mathematically challenged it is not funny. This by way of a caveat that says the following interpretation, while interesting, may not be the best interpretation.

Here are the numbers:

Poll question: “I consider myself to be an indie-sacramental Christian”
Participants: 38
Yes: 82% (31 responses
No: 8% (3 responses)
Don’t Know: 11% (4 responses)

Approximate number of “hits” to this site since 9 March 07 when this poll started: 975 with an average visit length of about 3 minutes.

Strictly speaking this suggests that 30 people are visiting the site about 32.2 times a month. . . .erm. . . . I would like to suggest fresh air, some good wine, and erm. . . . therapy!

Thankfully, this number is deceptive for while only 34 people responded to the poll, I know that many more indie folk visit the site on a regular (though, thankfully, not an obsessive) basis.

Roughly 60% of regular visitors come from the US (most along the E. coast); and about 27% are from the UK with the remainder being taken up by other countries including Canada, Australia, Poland, Sweden, France, and Malaysia.

Regular readers tend to spend more time here – so the “average” visit length is skewed by this fact that a smaller number than visit is taking time to look around. Quite a few of the daily “visitors” are not here long enough for the clock to start ticking. It may be that they “fall into” the site, quite by accident – realise what its about and run away screaming.

The first thing that emerges from the small sample of this first poll is the fact that this site appears to be reaching its target audience – OC, IC, or ISM whichever you prefer this blog is for you; for us really. You may have noticed that on the whole this corner of cyber-space is narrowly dedicated to things indie; that is no accident. When preparing to undertake this project, I decided I needed to know more about the mysteries of Blog. I knew nothing, and was frankly suspicious. I did some reading and one of my sources suggested that “successful” blogs are those that tend to have a particular focus, and stick to it – they seek to fill a niche, I think is what the article said. While I do enjoy a wide range of theo-blogs, my aim here is to remain focussed on OC/IC (ISM) issues and ideas. I believe we need places like this in our community and hope that I’m contributing to filling that need.

What exactly a “successful” blog is – I’m not entirely sure – but I think if the goals of the blogger are achieved then that must count as “successful blogging”.

The other thing that stands out for me, looking at the numbers from this small sample, is the 11% of respondents who said that they do not know if they are indie sacramental Christians. This number (4 responses) is not big – but it does raise some interesting questions. Are we indie folk effectively developing and communicating our message; our identity? Are we reaching those who might have a natural affinity for our communities, but who have never heard about us – or if they have, are afraid of us because of the outrageous reputation of certain quarters within our movement? Are we being effectively available to those who are curious and seeking, without overwhelming or pressuring them? There is another side to these answers – people who are currently worshipping in indie communities, who may have been doing so for some time now, but who, do not have a clue about what it means to be an OC/IC sacramental believer. This is not beyond the realm of possibilities, indeed given the nature of some of the communities in our movement, I am surprised that this number is not significantly higher.

If you think my interpretation of this (11%) figure is over-reaching (and it may well be) I pose this question: if the poll was on an Anglican site, for example, and asked “I consider myself to be an Anglican” – do you think that this number would have even registered? I don’t.

Finally we come to the 8% (3 responses) who said that they are not indie. First I should like to say: ‘Welcome!” whoever you are, whatever your tradition, I’m glad you visit. I’m also glad for those non-indie folk who over the course of the past 12 months have asked some tough questions, and made interesting contributions to the discussions here.

This little exercise was fun, and I’m looking forward to playing with the results of the next poll – which will be posted shortly.