At this time of year in Australia we are bombarded with images of Christmas church going in the homeland, England that is. Yep in spite of the fact that a significant percentage of Australians have no ancestoral ties with England at all the mainstream media are fixated on England as our model for what traditional Christmas should be.

How relevant is this model anyway. Are we clinging to English traditions that the English themselves have long since discarded. When it comes to church going at Christmas, the answer is yes and no. A quick look at the religious breakdown of London shows that only 58% of Londoners are Christian and that this percentage is falling. This is compared with 72% of British generally being Christian. It is easy to see that Christmas church going is simply irrelevant to a significant percentage of the Londoners.

Outside of London the percentage of Christians increases and there are regional areas where Christmas churchgoing is practiced however they are largely isolated pockets. Hereford tops the list with 10% of the population attending a traditional Anglican Christmas church service. Compare this to Manchester where barely 2% attend a church service.

In spite of the declining numbers at Christmas it is still the number one choice for those attending church only once at year. To the committed Christian Easter may hold more significance but for your casual church goer Christmas is the one with almost twice as many people attending church at Christmas as compared to Easter. Of course you don't have to be a believer to go to church and, in fact, one particularly interesting statistic is that, whilst 76% of Britons say they are religious, only 60% actually believe in God and an even smaller percentage (47%) believe in life after death and other related religious concepts. (See here)

Never mind, in Australia we can settle down in front of the tele and watch the Vicar of Dibley Christmas episode and be assured that all is still well in the motherland.

(This article is a mutilation of the research of Dr David Voas, a University of Manchester specialist in religious change in modern societies Click here to read more.)