Christians now account for less than half of the population in England and Wales for the first time in census history, according to official figures released by the UK government.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) results show that 46.2 percent of the population (27.5 million people) described themselves as ‘Christian’ in 2021. This marks a 13.1 percentage point decrease from 59.3 percent (33.3 million people) in 2011.

The census data also show that every major religion increased over the ten-year period, except for Christianity.

However, despite the decline, ‘Christian’ remained the highest response to the question about religion. ‘No religion’ was the second highest response, increasing to 37.2 percent (22.2 million) from 25.2 percent (14.1 million) across the ten-year period.

The Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, said it was “not a great surprise” that there is a declining number of Christians in the UK, but it was important to remember that Christianity is “the largest movement on Earth”.

But Humanists UK said the Census “should be a wake-up call which prompts fresh reconsiderations of the role of religion in society”.

The census also shows that in 2021, 81.7 percent (48.7 million) of usual residents in England and Wales identified their ethnic group within the ‘White’ category – a decrease from 86.0 percent (48.2 million) in the 2011 Census.

The next most common ethnic group was ‘Asian, Asian British, or Asian Welsh’, accounting for 9.3 percent (5.5 million) of the overall population. This ethnic group saw the largest increase in 2011, up from 7.5 percent (4.2 million people).

Researchers also found that the most common main languages other than English were: Polish (1.1 percent, 612,000), Romanian (0.8 percent, 472,000), Panjabi (0.5 percent, 291,000), and Urdu (0.5 percent, 270,000).

Calls grow to disestablish Church of England as Christians become minority

Census results revealing that England is no longer a majority-Christian country have sparked calls for an end to the church’s role in parliament and schools, while Leicester and Birmingham became the first UK cities with “minority majorities”.

For the first time in a census, less than half of the population of England and Wales – 27.5 million people – described themselves as “Christian”, 5.5 million fewer than in 2011. It triggered calls for urgent reform of laws requiring Christian teaching and worship in schools and for Church of England bishops to sit in the House of Lords.

The plunging figures for Christianity come after King Charles took on the titles Defender of the Faith and supreme governor of the Church of England upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II. They look likely to pose a challenge to how he frames his monarchy, although he has already said he will serve people “whatever may be your background and beliefs”.

The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, indicated that the Church knows it faces a struggle to arrest the decline, saying it “throws down a challenge to us, not only to trust that God will build his kingdom on Earth, but also to play our part in making Christ known”.

Lynne Cullens, the Bishop of Barking, insisted the church should not feel “defeated”. “We are like the Nike tick,” she said. “We have to go down before we go up. We will evolve into a church more attuned to the worshipping needs of the communities as they are today.”

But secularists and others now want an end to the Church of England’s position as an established church which requires King Charles to make an oath to preserve the Church of England, guarantees Church of England bishops and archbishops 26 seats in the House of Lords, and means state schools can be required to hold Christian worship.

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College London, said the results make the argument for keeping Church of England leaders in the House of Lords “more difficult to justify” and “raises the issue of the disestablishment of the Church of England”.

“Some will argue that there should not be an established church which represents only a minority of the population,” he said. “Others will respond that the archbishops and bishops seek to represent all faiths, bringing a different perspective to the Lords and that the system works​.’”

The National Secular Society’s chief executive, Stephen Evans, said the current status quo was “absurd and unsustainable”, while Prof Linda Woodhead, head of the department of theology and religious studies at King’s College London, said: “The fact that Christianity is no longer the majority religion means the policy is out of step with society.”

Dr. Scot Peterson, a scholar of religion and the state at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, said: “It’s been difficult to defend having an established church since the beginning of the 20th century, but it now becoming a figment of the imagination. The king is the head of the Church of England made sense in 1650, but not in 2022.”

The places with the highest proportion of people saying they had no religion were Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent, and Rhondda Cynon Taf, all in south Wales, and Brighton and Hove and Norwich in England. They were among 11 areas where more than half the population are not religious, including Bristol, Hastings in East Sussex, and Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, most of which had relatively low ethnic-minority populations.

The places with the lowest number of non-believers were Harrow, Redbridge, and Slough, where close to two-thirds of the population are from minority ethnic backgrounds.