Tina: Your research examined the relationship between religion and the political commitments in Britain and I was really intrigued about what led you to conduct the research.
Nick: We conducted a research project about 18 months ago, which was written by Andy Walton. It asked whether there was a religious right emerging in Britain and, to cut a long story short, that project concluded that the answer was no. But it begged another question, which was if we don’t have a religious right, if we’re not going down the US path, what do we have? Is there such a thing as a religious vote or a religious block vote and, if so, what impact will it have? So we decided we would investigate that particular question in this research.
Tina: In terms of the relationship between members of the Christian denominations and the voting preference, what did the research reveal?
Nick: We went back through about 50 years’ worth of British election studies and charted how people of different religious groups or different Christian denominations voted – or, more precisely, said they had voted – in each of those elections. Broadly speaking, there were some alignments – not strong blocks but alignments: alignments between Anglicans and the Conservative Party, between Roman Catholics and the Labour Party, and much weaker, certainly much weaker today, between other Christians and the third party.
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Cross Rhythms–Voting And Values In Britain: Does religion count? An Intervw w/ Theos' Nick Spencer
Tina: Your research examined the relationship between religion and the political commitments in Britain and I was really intrigued about what led you to conduct the research.
Nick: We conducted a research project about 18 months ago, which was written by Andy Walton. It asked whether there was a religious right emerging in Britain and, to cut a long story short, that project concluded that the answer was no. But it begged another question, which was if we don’t have a religious right, if we’re not going down the US path, what do we have? Is there such a thing as a religious vote or a religious block vote and, if so, what impact will it have? So we decided we would investigate that particular question in this research.
Tina: In terms of the relationship between members of the Christian denominations and the voting preference, what did the research reveal?
Nick: We went back through about 50 years’ worth of British election studies and charted how people of different religious groups or different Christian denominations voted – or, more precisely, said they had voted – in each of those elections. Broadly speaking, there were some alignments – not strong blocks but alignments: alignments between Anglicans and the Conservative Party, between Roman Catholics and the Labour Party, and much weaker, certainly much weaker today, between other Christians and the third party.
Read it all.