In response to the question ===>>> Do you think that these figures misrepresent the proportion of practising Catholics in Europe? I sincerely hope so. Does anybody have statistics on this? The 9 million Australian Christians Charles suggests seems a bit high. ===>>> Does anybody know what the NCLS puts as the figure for Christians in Australia under the two categories: ===>>> bible believing Christians ===>>> bible doubting (practising Catholics? lapsed Catholics? other lapsed > > Christians?)

Andrew

I got this response from Philip Hughes (CRA):

Dear Rowland,

According to the 2001 Census, 12.8 million Australians identified with a Christian denomination - 68% of the Australian population not including visitors. We estimate that around 2 million actually attend a church on any particular week. This includes around 300,000 children below the age of 15. (This is similar to the 1996 estimate of 1.8 million attenders by the NCLS, but produced in a quite different way from different surveys.) The total number of people who are associated on a regular basis with a Christian church, attending once a month or more often, would be around 3.2 million including children or around 2.6 million Australians 15 years or over.

The World Churches Handbook of Christian Research (UK) gives the number of people identifying as Catholics in Europe for 2000, 252,696,247. The number of Catholic members as 141,145,792. The number of Catholic churches is 137,082. Rates of attendance, and, indeed, social expectations of frequency of attendance vary considerably from one country to another in Europe. I don't have details of attendance.

The NCLS (nor the CRA) distinguish between Bible-believing and Bible-doubting Christians. The NCLS reported from its survey of Protestant and Anglican church attenders in 1991 that 21% took the Bible literally, 48% said that it had to be read in the context of its times, and 29% said it was valuable and parts of it reveal God's Word, and 2% did not know. A national survey in 1998 found that 20% of the whole adult population agrees with the statement 'The Bible is God's Word and all it says is true'. Another 51% say 'The Bible was written by people inspired by God, but it contains some human errors'. 13% say that it is a good book, but God had nothing to do with it. 15% say that it was written by people who lived so long ago that it is worth very little today.

Best wishes,

Philip

Dr Philip Hughes Email:

December 23 2002

~~~

Shalom - and Happy Christmas!

Rowland Croucher