British Social Attitudes Report
It’s time for the release of the new British Social Attitudes Report which makes interesting reading. Of course it doesn’t really tell me anything that I didn’t already know or at least suspect. I guess this kind of report challenges the church to consider how much influence it actually exerts in modern Britain (in my experience most Clergy have an overinflated view of how much influence they think they have over society).
Whenever I am surprised by something the U.K. public says I remind myself that these are the same people who vote on the “X” factor (Britain’s Got Talent, etc) and then it all makes sense.
However, I’m not one of those who looks at such surveys and then feels sad (or even worse mad) at the way everyone is ignoring the teachings of Jesus. It’s not a vicious plot against the teachings of Jesus and everyone should be berated for ignoring them, instead I believe much of it is down to ignorance and lack of interest.
So the challenge to Christians is how do we get people interested? This is made especially hard when the majority in the U.K. have a pretty comfortable life (notice I didn’t say happy life because other research I’ve read suggests that people in the U.K. are less happy than many other people in underdeveloped countries). A comfortable life now seams to mean that people are less bothered about thinking about what life might be like after death (one of those things that makes people think about God).
Personally, I would love people to explore what they believe more. It is hard to get people to understand the importance of trying to understand who Jesus is but if what Jesus claims is true then Jesus is the single most important person to listen to. If what Jesus claims is true then the best education in the world is insignificant compared to listening to Jesus.
