Wow! A lot has happened since I last talked about my Birmingham fellowship project that explores the relationship between people’s perceptions of God and their aspirations towards living well. Jessica and I finished collecting and analysing our first set of data (thank you everyone who shared and/or completed the questionnaire!) and we presented our findings at the Ecclesiology and Ethnography conference in Durham. Just like last year, it was a pleasure to be part of the conference. There was so much to learn and so many good papers from presenters across the world.
In our presentation, we described the pilot study we have completed – what we did and what we discovered – and outlined what our next steps along this research journey will be. In summary, our pilot study, consisting of an online questionnaire completed by adults baptised in NZ Baptist churches in the last five years, found that people do want to be like God… The things they wrote they wanted to be like (for instance, more graceful, less “for myself”, and less independent) matched the attributes of God they most appreciated (the same person said: God is graceful, Jesus is servant-like, Jesus is fatherly, God is friend). Each of the seventeen people who responded to the qualitative questions showed at least one match between their aspirations and the attributes of God they appreciated.
We found matches within twelve different categories: self-giving, active, Christ-like, loving, faithful, mental wellbeing, patient, generous, relational, authenticity, forgiving, and other spiritual. Of these different categories, matches were most prominent in the self-giving (self-control, humble, self-less, obedient) category. Which is something we are very interested in!
Just as interesting was that each of the twelve participants who responded to the question said that “reflecting on what God is like” made them “want to be more like God.” All but one also indicated that “reflecting on what God is like” made them “want to be a better person.” While five respondents noted that reflecting on God made them “realize that they weren’t very good,” three said that reflecting on God made them “realize that they [are] very good.” In fact, one of these respondents indicated that reflecting on God made them realize that they are both not very goodandvery good. Such a nuanced understanding of one’s humanity can certainly be understood theologically!
So where to from here? We didn’t get enough responses to statistically analyse the quantitative data, so (having refined and simplified the questionnaire and our God Attributes Measure) we started gathering more data from anyone aged over 18 who considers themselves to be of Christian faith.
We’d love you to let others know about it:
Research on faith and spirituality
Are you aged over eighteen years and a person of Christian faith? If so, Dr Lynne Taylor and Dr Jessica Bent (from the Theology Programme, University of Otago) invite you to take part in a research study on faith and spirituality. It is part of ongoing research on contemporary faith formation.
If you choose to take part in our research, you will be asked to complete an online questionnaire (it will take approximately 15 minutes) that asks you questions about your perceptions of God and yourself.
The 2023 Census data on religious affiliation, released in October 2024, contains few surprises. The number and proportion of people of no religion has continued to grow, at a slower rate than previously. Overall, there has been a decline in both the number and proportion of Christians. As with other censuses, different denominations and groupings show different rates of decline, and some have grown. The number of people who stated they were “Christian” without further clarifying has continued to grow. There is a lot to explore and consider in the data, and what follows is an initial analysis of some of the numbers.
No religion
The number of people in New Zealand stating that they have no religious affiliation continues to rise, increasing from 1,663,348 in 2013 to 2,576,049 in 2023 (an increase of 58% over the decade). This means that people of no religion now make up 52% of the New Zealand population.
While the increase between 2018 and 2023 is (at 14%) still large, the rate of increase has slowed: between 2013 to 2018 the increase had been 38%: over 2.5 times the 2018-2023 rate. At an average of 2.8% per year, the 2018 to 2023 increase is slightly more than twice the NZ population increase of 1.3% per year (averaged 2018-2023).
A similar pattern is seen for those who object to answering the religion question. This increased by 98% over the ten years, to 342,705, but most of that growth occurred in the 5 years to 2018, when there was an 81% increase. (There was a 10% increase in the 2018-2023 period.)
The number of people who said they were agnostics increased between 2018 to 2023 (by 14%, to 7434). However, the number of atheists declined (by 7%, to 6549). (Incidentally, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster also declined, by 4.5% to 3297!)
Christian – not further defined
Of high proportional increase is the number of people who state that they are Christian, but do not further define their denominational affiliation. This population has increased at a rate considerably higher than population growth, increasing by 69% from 216,177 to 364,644 from 2013 to 2023. However, the rate of increase of this population has also slowed – from 42% in the 2013 to 2018 period to 18% in the 2018 to 2023 period. (The annualised rate of increase is 3.7% in the 2018-2023 period, down from 8.5% between 2013 and 2018.)
This continues a trend of declining importance of denominational affiliation. Now, 22.5% of those who indicate they are Christian do not name any denominational affiliation in the Census, compared with 11.5% in 2013.
Christian – denominations
The number and proportion of people naming an affiliation with most Christian denominations has declined markedly over the past ten years. Generally, this continues an expected decline, including as these populations age. The largest declining denominations are shown here:
Denomination
2013
2023
% change
Anglican
459,771
245,301
-47%
Baptist
53,493
28,548
-47%
Brethren nfd and Open Brethren
12,852
5,097
-60%
Catholic
492,321
449,484
-9%
Methodist nfd
97,320
41,337
-58%
Presbyterian
316,332
179,535
-43%
Also showing an overall decline are the Pentecostal groupings of churches (down 11% overall). However, individual Pentecostal ‘denominations’ show varying patterns of growth and decline. Looking at the larger groupings, some grew between 2013 and 2018 but declined to 2023 (Destiny, Elim, New Life, Vineyard). Only Assemblies of God showed sustained growth in both periods, although most of the growth occurred 2013 to 2018 (8%, cf 9% for the decade; 1% 2018-2023).
Denomination
2013
2023
% change
All Pentecostal
74439
66213
-11%
Other groupings (with over 1000 adherents) to show sustained growth in both intercensal periods are Seventh-day Adventists (up 25% over the decade, to 18,204), Korean Christian (4,110), Reformed Baptist (195% increase to 1,152), Plymouth or Exclusive Brethren (28%, to 7,170), Churches of Christ (together all subcategories increased from 2145 in 2013 to 4203 in 2023; up 96%). Wesleyan Methodists first featured in 2018 and increased by 11% to 5,136 in 2023. Tongan Methodists showed sustained growth: from 4509 in 2013 to 12540 in 2023 (178%), with most of that growth occurring in the 2013 to 2018 period. Some other ethnic churches also showed sustained growth: Cook Island (no denomination stated), 38%; Samoan Congregational, 136%; (Methodists not elsewhere classified also grew by 207% over the ten years to 3753.)
The number of people simply calling themselves Evangelical declined by 32% to 4149, while those saying they are “born again” increased from 7917 to 29,061 over the decade (but had peaked at 33,486 in 2018). “Jesus followers” were first recorded in 2018 and increased to 2073 in 2023.
Christian – overall
Overall, the number and proportions of Christians in Aotearoa has continued to decline, but the rate of decline has been relatively stable over the decade: 1.5% per year between 2013 and 2018 and 1.4% per year between 2018 and 2023.
Altogether, 32% of New Zealanders state that they are of Christian religious affiliation – 1,620,555 people.
Māori religions
The 2023 reporting separates Māori religions, and I have not included any Māori religions or Christian denominations above. Overall, Māori religions, beliefs and philosophies have increased by 16% over the decade. An increase in Rātana is partially offset by a decline in Ringatū.
Other religions
Many other religions are growing. After Christianity, Hinduism is the largest religion, and its adherents increased by 59% in the decade from 89,085 in 2013 to 142,008 in 2023. The number of people of Islamic faith also increased, by nearly 50%, from 45,960 in 2013 to 68,538 in 2023. For context, the number of people affiliated with Hinduism and the Islamic faith (210,546) is now larger than Pentecostal, Methodist, Baptist and Brethren combined (141,195).
The number of people of New Age religions increased by 17% overall between 2013 and 2023 (to 21,540), with a higher rate of increase in the latter 5 years (1.9% per annum between 2018 and 2023, compared with 1.4% growth per annum 2013 to 2018).
Final thoughts
Overall, there is an ongoing decline in the number of people affiliated with Christianity – but much of that decline is due to people no longer naming an affiliation with a particular historically large denomination. Christians are increasingly likely to name themselves as simply that: Christian. Some smaller denominations are growing, and there continues to be growth in some ethnic groupings of churches.
More analysis is needed on all this data. The ethnic differences need to be unpacked further, as do other groupings. When available, cross tabulations with age and ethnicity will enable further analysis and insights. Watch this space!
Card from Jesus Deck – A Census of the Whole World
It is an exciting day for me! My first Monday (aka AngelWings day) since a massive release of 2023 Census data!!
As well as being generally interested in a whole host of data (and I’ll be back to make some comments on that), I’m excited because it means that I can start to prepare the 2023 Community Profiles: I have been providing such profiles to churches for the past 30(!) years…
I came up with the idea of producing Community Demographic profiles when I was doing my honours in human geography in 1992 – I took a course/paper on geographic information systems (they were new and exciting then!) and SuperMap 2 had just been released, containing the 1991 Census data. It was amazing! I could see the potential for churches to understand their communities, and wrote an assignment on it, later pitching the idea of providing community profiles, to (the newly established) Vision New Zealand.
They said yes, to fresh-out-of-uni me! Alan Withy was a key supporter, and Bruce Patrick as well. I remember Keith Hay Homes helped fund the purchase of the software and some generous denominations also pitched in advance payments, which enabled it to go ahead. (The software and hardware was Quite Expensive, as you might imagine.)
I developed the original profile, and have streamlined and amended over the years. I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of them… certainly over 1000.
I’ve provided profiles to churches of all denominations, but especially for Baptist churches, having produced them FREE as part of my role there since 1997. Most Baptist churches ask for them as part of the process of finding a new minister. They were also part of the church review documents (when external consultants did reviews). I also reviewed each BU Tindall Application based on the demographics (which Tindall loved and wanted me to do for more groups, but this idea fizzled with the delay to the 2011/2013 census).
In 2008, I took a roadshow (well, I flew) to Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland where I walked through what the 150 participants might learn from their profiles. When I was asked to speak at Arrow leadership training, I’d provide the profiles (free!) and we’d work through them together.
Having moved to Adelaide, and with the delay to the 2011 Census, I was seriously considering stopping providing profiles before the 2013 data came out. I was doing my PhD by then, and wondered if it was time to stop. BUT! I attended a course taught by John and Olive Drane, at which John randomly handed out cards from the Jesus Deck. The card I was given is pictured and it seemed very much like a God-prompt to continue😊And here I still am.
What’s involved in preparing profiles? A three-stage process…
I take the data from Stats NZ and get it into a format that I can work with. (That small sentence requires Quite A Bit Of Work)
I prepare a profile template into which I can copy and paste data from the spreadsheets
Once all that is done, it is pretty speedy to produce a profile (provided the church provides good information on which areas to include)
Today’s task is to see what will be involved in getting the 2023 data into a usable format. Each time has been different and a new tool has been released this time around. I’m hoping it will be as intuitive as the demo seemed to be and that the path forward will be quickly obvious…
People find the profiles helpful, saying:
“Thanks for this work – very, very interesting.”
“Many thanks for this, it makes interesting reading”
“Your resource looks really good and is something that would be helpful for local congregations to get to know their local context.”
I was excited this week to receive proofs of a book chapter I’d been invited to write, as well as notification that another short article has been published. So that’s nice timing, just before my Research Leave starts! It is a brief response to the Canadian census data, which reflects on our 2018 NZ census data. You’ll find it in the journal Post-Christendom Studies in a special edition on the 2021 census.
My neglected blog is up and running again, in perfect time to update you on research I am doing on contemporary faith formation! Last year, I was accepted as a Fellow on the University of Birmingham “New Perspectives on Social Psychology and Religious Cognition for Theologians” Fellowship. That’s a bit of a mouthful, but essentially the Fellowship is training theologians in psychological research methods and theories in relation to how God is seen and understood by people. Exciting, right?
I’ve been to Birmingham for two residentials with my fellow Fellows(!), where we all received loads of input and insights. I was also awarded funding and my fabulous research assistant (Dr Jessica Bent) and I embarked on an exciting new project…
In our research, we want to better understand the relationship between people’s perceptions of God and their aspirations towards living well. Many of you will already know about my doctoral research on why previously unchurched become Christians today. One of the interesting things that came up in the PhD was the match between what the new Christians I interviewed told me they appreciated about God’s character; and things that they aspired to be more like themselves. They told me that they saw God as loving, patient, accepting and forgiving. They also told me they wanted to be more loving, patient, accepting and forgiving themselves! Fascinating, right? Our current project extends that research (in exciting ways, we think!). In our current project, we ask if God representations of recently baptised adult Christians correlate with the attributes they aspire to live out themselves.
We hope that this research will not only contribute to theological and psychological theory, but also help churches and Christians understand how they can best support people towards flourishing.
At the moment, we are at the exciting stage of recruiting participants from NZ Baptist churches for the project. Through an online questionnaire, participants will share about their faith journey, their experiences of other Christians and of God, and their reflections on a series of virtues/characteristics. (We will also be running focus groups later on this topic.)
If you would like to partner with us in the work we are doing, please pass on the link below to anyone over the age of 18 who has been baptised in the last five years. (We’re keen to hear from both those who are active and regular members of their worshipping communities as well as people who have changed churches or denominations or even stopped attending. The stories and reflections of all our participants are needed!)
This article is a particular joy as it came out of research one of my students, Annabel Hawkes did on dementia care chaplaincy. Annie is a social worker, who volunteers as a chaplain and is passionate about dementia care. I supervised her research dissertation on the work of two Anglican chaplains who work in residential dementia care homes. Once the dissertation was completed, I spent a couple of days turning it into a journal article and we found a home for it in Religions. The article explores the idea of personhood and the work of these chaplains as they offered a ministry of personal and sacramental presence to the residents.
Hawkes, Annabel, and Lynne Taylor (2024). “Presence and Personhood: Investigating Christian Chaplaincy Care in Two Residential Dementia Units.” Religions 15 (2): 704 (12 pages).
And carrying on the catch up: my excellent research assistant, Jessica Bent and I published an article last year on preaching during the early days of covid-19. We had analysed the online worship services of three NZ churches, from March 2020 and brought the data into conversation with Neil Pembroke’s work on therapeutic and theocentric preaching. Each of the churches studied balanced the theocentric and therapeutic in helpful and interesting ways.
As we note, “The theocentric related to God’s character and attributes (particularly God’s love, attentive presence and faithfulness), and activity and power. The therapeutic was expressed by lamenting and acknowledging pain, offering words of comfort, and inviting response, including in care for others. For each church, the goal was towards human flourishing: shalom, or well-being even amid difficult circumstances.”
Taylor, Lynne and Jessica Bent (2023). “Theocentric Therapeutic Preaching: Good News During the Covid-19 Pandemic.” Journal of the Evangelical Homiletics Society 23 (2): 70-97.
I’m doing a bit of a catch up here! Here’s an article I co-wrote, on writing. Back in June 2021, Steve Taylor, Elaine Heath, Nigel Rooms and I each gave a ten-minute presentation on missional writing at the Ecclesial Futures International Missional Research Workshops. Following that, I suggested we co-author an article on writing and we worked on it together over several weeks. The article was peer reviewed and published in the international journal Ecclesial Futures. (It’s a great journal – diamond open access, so free to publish and free to read.)
The article is a practical piece that talks about various stages of the writing and editing process. It draws on Helen Sword’s BASE habits of writing (behavioural, artisanal, social, and emotional), outlines two different approaches to writing, gives some practical insights on how to deal with the dreaded stuck-ness that can occur in writing, and then provides a step-by-step guide to responding to peer review comments.
Taylor, Lynne, Elaine Heath, Nigel Rooms, and Steve Taylor (2021). “Courageous, Purposeful and Reflexive: Writing as a Missional and Emergent Task.” Ecclesial Futures 2 (2): 99-119.
I’ve recently had a new article published in Witness (a USA-based journal). At the moment, it’s only available to members and subscribers, but I am permitted to provide a copy of it here on my blog. I’ve also included the abstract below.
I didn’t expect to go there, but analysing the data from the case study church took me back to my PhD research on contemporary conversion.
ABSTRACT:
The covid-19 global pandemic radically interrupted all areas of life, including forcing churches to adapt their worship, mission, and pastoral care within new constraints of physical distancing. This article explores a case study of how one church communicated the message of faith; connected with, and cared for attenders, the wider community, and others; and experimented with different forms of worship and ministry during covid-19. Drawing on data from a questionnaire, focus groups, interviews, content analysis and participant observation, the article demonstrates the importance of amplifying a message consistent with one’s values, providing opportunities for warm connection, and continuing to make iterative change to ministry practices. Considering this alongside recent research on contemporary conversion, the paper affirms the significance of relational authenticity in engaging in Christian witness, including when the church is forced into unfamiliar and undesired realities. Churches can be encouraged by the potential fruitfulness of multiple voices communicating the significance and meaning of their faith; being honest about life’s challenges; and encouraging and resourcing engagement in spiritual practices as means of Christian witness, including in challenging times.
Taylor, L. M. (2021). “Reaching Out Online: Learning From One Church’s Embrace Of Digital Worship, Ministry And Witness.” Witness: The Journal of the Academy for Evangelism in Theological Education, 35, 1-14.
I don’t know if you experienced and remember the sense of
hope that perhaps the world and the church might be different in the future, because
of the pandemic. Maybe we’ll discover ways to live without trashing the planet.
Maybe we’ll find new ways of being the church in our local communities. Maybe
we’ll live into new ways of caring for one another. Maybe there are things that
we learn and do that might become part of our future, rather than just being
stopgap measures.
One person I interviewed described it like this: “What might
be normal going forward might be different, but we get to build that. We get to
decide what that is.” There was a sense of determined anticipation that the future
could be different, and we could be involved in shaping that.
At the same time, there was some resignation by then (March 2021) that much had returned to an old normal. That many church members simply wanted a return to what was, rather than a turn to what could be. That’s not surprising: a return to familiarity can be comfortable and comforting.
But let’s be honest. The Church is in decline and the things that have been done over past generations are not all that will be required into the future. So dream a little dream! (Or a big dream, even.) Imagine what could be. Look back in your journal on your computer and see what new and fresh things sparked a sense of joy and anticipation. What old or ancient practices were reinstated? What new things grew? As I write this, we’re still in Alert Level 4, here in Aotearoa New Zealand. None of us want to be here. So read this in the light of the previous nine things I also wanted to say.
Look back and draw on past strength; and live into and out
of your values. Those things will help sustain you. Lean into God, in whom our
hope and strength are found. Name the challenge: it’s hard, right? Prioritise connection
and invite participation. Be “good enough”: perfection not required; perfection
not possible. Invite people (online) into your place, even if it’s a bit messy
or muddly. Keep an eye out for God at work. Get people involved, reaching out
to others. And, strengthened and empowered by all that, dream a little dream of
what might be.
