Dr Lois Lee, Research Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies and Director of the Understanding Unbelief research programme, has contributed to the latest issue of The Church Times, dated 3 November 2017.

The Church Times is an independent Anglican newspaper, produced in London.
Lois’s piece, entitled ‘Take the Beliefs of the Non-religious Seriously’, and argues that non-religious belief should be more seriously understood. Although 51% of the British population identify as non-religious, this hides some differences within that population.
‘The current approach makes a category error when it asks whether people belong to one of several religious traditions, or are not religious at all, and then compares these groups,’ ‘ explains Lois in the article. ‘This pits people who have a specific religious identity (C of E, Roman Catholic, Muslim, etc.) against those who opt for a generic and composite one (the “not religious”).’

‘Were it to take the transcendent beliefs and world-views of non-religious people seriously, the picture would look quite different.’

The full article is available online here.