Britain has an incredible Christian heritage, and yet modern residents of the United Kingdom are shirking the faith of their forefathers.
Some are turning to atheism or agnosticism. But a growing subset is pursuing an even darker path.
A growing share of British people leaving the Christian faith are instead exploring Paganism, according to a new report from the Institute for the Impact of Faith and Life.
The single largest religious movement in the country is unsurprisingly “away from organised religion” altogether.
Many of the respondents “left Christianity, usually towards atheism.”
But the changing religious landscape “is far more dynamic than a simple narrative of secularisation suggests.”
Beyond atheism or agnosticism, many are turning to “Paganism, Wicca, and broad spiritualism,” which all show “noticeable growth.”
“Spiritualism produces particularly strong post-transition wellbeing outcomes and appears durable over time, with low rates of exit,” the report said.
Paganism is broadly defined as a polytheistic or pantheistic religion with heavy emphasis on worship or veneration of nature.
Pagan Federation International contends that “Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity,” since most cultures at some point worshipped a pantheon of deities closely associated with the natural world.
European Paganism “is re-emerging into explicit awareness in the modern West as the articulation of urgent contemporary religious priorities,” the organization said.
Wicca is meanwhile a subset of Paganism that is trying to recover the ancient religious practices of Europe before the arrival of the Christian gospel.
Adherents to Wicca often call themselves witches, and they often use the pentagram as a religious symbol.
Most Wiccans are located in the English-speaking Western world.
About 9 percent of respondents in Britain who left Christianity turned to Paganism or Wicca, according to the report from the Institute for the Impact of Faith and Life.
Other British people are turning to Islam and Hinduism, which is likely explained by the drastically expanded presence of the religions in the United Kingdom which has accompanied mass migration.
On the positive side, even though Christianity is enduring the greatest losses, there are also “a striking number of new or returning adherents.”
“Those who move into Christianity tend to do so not through denominational loyalty but through experiential and personalised belief, often motivated by bereavement, emotional crisis, or encounter with the divine,” the report added.
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