Spirituality 2 - David Hay's Spirituality Research

I've just read David Hay's Understanding the Spirituality of People Who Don't Go to Church (you can download a Word version here). It's based on research he did with Kate Hunt in Nottingham. They found 31 people who described themselves as either 'spiritual' or 'religious' but who had no contact with any church. Then, using both focus groups and follow-up conversations, they explored a number of topics:

• Experience of Church or Sunday School as children
• What does it mean to be religious or spiritual?
• Is religion/spirituality a private concern, or does it have social implications?
• What relevance does the notion of 'God' have in society and in their own lives?
• What relevance does prayer have to life today or to them personally?
• Do they ever read the Bible?
• Do they talk to their children about their beliefs?
• Why do they not go to church? Was it a conscious decision?
• Why do they think people still go to church?
• How would they change the Church if they could?
• What is the media's attitude towards the Church?
• When does the Church come across either positively or negatively?
• What image of God/religion does the Church portray?

The results of the research are fascinating, especially in the context of declining church attendance and increasing admission of 'spiritual experience' (figures are from 2000 survey, those in parentheses from a 1987 survey):

• A patterning of events 55% (29%)
• Awareness of the presence of God 38% (27%)
• Awareness of prayer being answered 37% (25%)
• Awareness of a sacred presence in nature 29% (16%)
• Awareness of the presence of the dead 25% (18%)
• Awareness of an evil presence 25% (12%)

The study offers three case studies, offering some depth to the further findings. There seem to be many misconceptions about church and Christianity (at least, I would like to think that they are misconceptions) such as having to believe with certainty, being obsessed with control, living in the past and failing to be concerned with humanity as a whole.

Coupled with the findings from Nick Spencer's Beyond Belief: Barriers and Bridges to Faith Today David Hay's work offers a fascinating glimpse of the mindset and worldview of some of those who are beyond the church (both dechurched and unchurched).

One of the big challenges for the church is to develop a way of engaging with some of these people - hence my own current interest in the new age approach. The new age appears to have developed a more effective apologetic than the church; it has tapped into the growing interest in spirituality. (Actually, there are a few unexamined assumptions here - it may be that the new age has helped to make admissions of spiritual interest and experience more acceptable.)

Think about horoscopes - for years they were an object of fun, only to be found in women's magazines and tabloids. Now the secularist Observer can devote a whole page to its horoscope, together with sections on holistic medicine and other new age phenomena.

Perhaps humour is a route in; perhaps just offering something with no strings attached is a way in - after all, so many people seem to be afraid of the commitment they perceive we will demand from them if they contact us. And this, of course, is not commitment but coercion - whether we mean it to be or not.