Page 22 - Finding Jesus with Good News report A5 WEB

Part 2: The journey

towards Jesus

What sparked the journey?

Spiritual background

To start with, we wanted to understand where people’s journeys had begun, so we
asked them to describe their previous beliefs. (Some participants selected more
than one category.)

How would you have previously described your beliefs?

Cultural Christian but not practising 38%
Spiritual but not religious 21%
Disinterested in faith 15%
Agnostic 13%
Atheist 12%
Other religion 7%
Don't know 6%

According to the 2021 census, 46% of people in the UK identify as Christian, so it’s
no surprise that 38% classified themselves as ‘cultural Christians’ (defined as ‘I’d tick
Christian on a survey but wasn’t committed to following Jesus’). This was highest
among older participants (60% of those were 65 or over). Although those under
35 were most likely to be atheist, agnostic or disinterested, 35% still identified as
‘cultural Christian’.
72% of the overall sample had some sort of historic connection with Christianity.
This included family members, friends, Sunday school, church school or youth/
student groups etc. Although those associations weren’t always positive, for a
good number, residual Christianity played a part in their journey. In the interviews,
when participants talked about their historical Christian background, they tended
to describe their past experiences somewhat negatively, for example, being bored

22 Finding Jesus