With publicity ramping up for the decennial Census of Population which takes place at the end of this month, I found myself idly wondering how, if at all, I might answer the question on religion.
It came as a bit of a shock to realise that I have never described myself as Christian, even in the days when it was common to be asked - on admission to hospital, for example - the answer was always a denomination.
Culturally speaking I am undoubtedly a Christian, brought up on going to church or chapel, reading & hearing bible stories, daily school assemblies (complete with hymn singing), saying prayers at bedtime & weekly RE lessons in which other religions never got a look-in.
The version of religion which we were taught, at school as well as home, was a very gentle one – gentle Jesus, meek & mild, looking upon his little children; we were not made to feel like sinners, or to be consumed by guilt, but should be grateful for what we had, work hard & make the best of ourselves, & love all other people.
I was brought up as a Methodist – the denomination of my maternal grandparents & my mother. I went to church on Sunday with my mother - I don’t think my father was very pleased with God, who let WW I & II happen, though we never discussed the subject directly. When we were of an age to ask, he used to say he was Presbyterian, which was suitably foreign sounding & unavailable; his widowed Irish mother was a regular at her local Anglican church.
Daddy never went to church himself, except for special occasions & Remembrance Sunday, but both my parents thought that it was a good idea to teach children about belief – they would make up their own minds on the subject when they were old enough.
At the age of ten I went home from school one day & asked my mother if I might start going to the Anglican Church instead. Somewhat to my surprise, she said yes.
Ritual &, even more importantly, language, prompted my conversion. Since Year 3 I had been going to a Church of England primary school, & one term the vicar came in to give us Top Formers our weekly RE lesson. He confined himself to explaining what he called the Church Year, starting with the variations in the service of Morning & Evening Prayer, the colour of the vicar’s stole & the names. It was Septuagesima, Sexagesima & Quinquagesima which really did it for me – compared to the plainness of the Methodist service these offered much more fulfilment for pre-adolescent yearnings.
I used to go to Church on my own for Morning Service – not so odd as it sounds now, in a small town where Church attendance was still pretty healthy & there were plenty of people that I knew, including other children. My mother sometimes came with me to Evensong.
I was confirmed at the age of 14 – my father came to the service, along with the rest of the family - & I started going to the monthly Communion at 8am. By this time I was aware that our Church was what in those days was called Low – those who wanted bells & smells & Sung Eucharist went to the High Church on the other side of the valley.
I married a Roman Catholic, which in those days meant taking instruction from the priest – not, as he emphasised, with a view to conversion, but in order to teach me about the importance of the Sacrament. He was a nice man who became a friend, but I was pretty upset when he insisted that the form requesting the Bishop to allow our marriage described me as Methodist – on the grounds that that was the religion into which I had been baptised. Upset, but not enough to call the whole thing off.
It’s a long time now that I lost belief. So what should I – what do I want – to put on the Census form?
I am not agnostic or atheist – just not religious. In many ways I should not object to being called Christian by culture – in the same way that one can be a nonreligious Jew. I see no reason to reject the ethical, moral or social framework which goes with the version I was taught.
But a question on religion, just like the question on ethnicity or, in earlier times, idiocy, really has no place on the Census form.
