Friday, December 15, 2006 | Science : In the News | print version

Grandparents linked with church-going

by Economic & Social Research Council

Reposted from the Economic & Social Research Council:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-12/esr-glw121106.php

As Christmas approaches, people are more likely to attend religious services if their grandparents did, according to a new study at the University of Manchester, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

"Churchgoing is passed down through families from one generation to the next. It was already known that it is about six times more likely among people whose parents attended, as compared with others. However, the new research shows something more - grandparents matter." Says Dr David Voas of the University of Manchester.

The results come from his analysis of 2001 data from an extremely large sample of churchgoers - more than 100,000 adults from almost 2,000 local churches – in the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the United Reformed Church and The Salvation Army.

An unexpected finding from the study was that even for children of churchgoers, grandparents make a difference. Those whose grandparents went to church are more likely to go themselves than those whose grandparents did not.

It found that, overall, grandchildren whose parents and grandparents went to church are 36 per cent more likely to attend than those whose parents sit in the pews on Sunday, but whose grandparents worshipped rarely or never.

Dr Voas concedes that exactly why grandparents make a difference is open to debate. Religious involvement in the early generation is passed on to, and then by, the parents. So even among adults who attend church, those whose parents were frequent attenders will be more religious on average than others.

But he adds: "Examination of the statistics shows that for any given level of religious commitment in the middle generation, it is still the case that church-going grandparents are more likely to produce church-going grandchildren.

"The influence of grandparents is therefore at least partly direct rather than indirect." Grandparents often have a role in bringing up children, which might include taking them to church or teaching them about religion. Conversely, less observant grandparents will transmit their religious indifference.

And for the future" Dr Voas said: "Well, if the grandchildren don't attend, their children probably won't either. Religious virtues and vices may be visited upon later generations, even if parents try to break the pattern."

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1. Comment #13067 by thegashman on December 15, 2006 at 8:55 am

Grandparents are evil.

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2. Comment #13068 by Yorker on December 15, 2006 at 8:56 am

My grandmother played a large part in my upbringing and she was religious. She sometimes would take me to church whist drives and mentioned god fairly often, but it had no effect on me whatever. I liked her very much, she was a terrific cook and arose at 5am daily, a lady of the old school; staunch, utterly dependable and completely virtuous. Her religiosity was of no consequence to me, I liked her for her kindness and matriarchal ways. Even as I grew and rejected god, she made no attempt to scold or correct me, her main concern was that I should grow up "right" as she put it.

So, I can't see the grandparental connection here, maybe it's just simply the result of direct influence.

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3. Comment #13069 by Yorker on December 15, 2006 at 8:58 am

1. Comment #13067 by thegashman

>>Grandparents are evil.<<

That's a bald statement I think many would disagree with, I certainly would!

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4. Comment #13070 by Sailnsouth on December 15, 2006 at 9:00 am

This is not surprising.

I always like to know what data they use to indicate church attendance. When people are questioned about their frequency of going to church(especially by church organizations) they always overestimate how often they actually attend compared with actual church attendance. If everyone who says they go to church actually went to church the churches of the world would be overflowing!

I notice that when I drive by my local church on Sundays the membership seems pretty old definitely older than our community as a whole.

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5. Comment #13071 by PositiveAtheist on December 15, 2006 at 9:07 am

It's probably because the grandparents spend more time raising the children than the parents.

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6. Comment #13072 by Howay the Toon on December 15, 2006 at 9:12 am

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7. Comment #13073 by Jared on December 15, 2006 at 9:17 am

Hmm. My grandparents are still quite deluded about a great many things. When I dropped out of my confirmation program all those years back, they were upset, but I think they sort of pretended to themselves that it didn't happen. At the very least, they acted as if it didn't mean what it so obviously meant.

They bore my no longer attending church, even on holidays, in much the same manner. And they still harbor some belief that I'll end up being a priest some day, even though I protest and say that "I'd make a pretty bad priest."

They still ask for me to pray for them, and thank me for my prayers because they "mean a lot." I don't have the heart to disabuse them of this notion, nor do I think it would stick. It'd likely only make my poor old Italian grandmother worry even more about me than she already does, if that's even possible!!

But that said, neither my sister nor I go to church any longer, at all, despite our grandparents' EXTREME Roman Catholicism. But my personal experience isn't enough to refute a study...it's only anecdotal evidence that it may not always hold true.

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8. Comment #13078 by NoLongerHaveBelief on December 15, 2006 at 9:37 am

Interesting Jared.

My Grandmother believes - and being in her mid-80's of course, her parents were staunch Victorians.

My Grandfather is Agnostic.

I'm Atheist. So we cover all the spectrum here! I respect my Grandparents views, though I don't agree with them at all.

Further, my Grandmother - who has DEVOTED herself to helping the Church, all her life, was upset recently. She wasn't invited to the annual Christmas meal - because the new vicar has decided he doesn't like her. I CAN'T believe believers! They don't even tolerate each other!

Ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous. All that charitable work my Grandmother did for them. All that gardening my Grandfather did for them - for FREE. None of it means ZILCH.

I'm glad I don't believe. Life is too short.

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9. Comment #13085 by Joadist on December 15, 2006 at 9:58 am

Yorker,

I think we have the same Grandmother.

Mine taught me morality, forever removing me from Christianity.

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10. Comment #13087 by JConnell on December 15, 2006 at 10:04 am

Well I never! Religious affiliation and habits of church-going are linked to your family's predilections! Who would have thought....?

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11. Comment #13093 by Louis Perry on December 15, 2006 at 11:20 am

Surely in did not take a study by the University of Manchester to unearth the obvious fact that people are more likely to attend religious services if their grandparents did. Religious tradition is primarily passed down in families.

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12. Comment #13097 by matlot on December 15, 2006 at 11:41 am

JConnell at comment 10 points out the self-evident nature of the findings, but I suppose all data is useful.
The key is surely preventing the doctrination of the young, and keeping this nonsense out of our schools at all costs.

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13. Comment #13098 by Thrall on December 15, 2006 at 11:48 am

I wasn't that close with my grandparents, maybe that's why their staunch religious views didn't have any effect on me.

Someone needs to look at the correlation to the difference in ages between the grandparents and the grandkids, and their closeness to one another to see if that also has some effect (I am the last child of my grandmothers last child, the youngest of the entire herd).

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14. Comment #13103 by Laurence Boyce on December 15, 2006 at 12:27 pm

Drifting off topic slightly to the general question of family relations, I think there might be something quite interesting going on here. Obviously we mostly know that religion largely transmits down the generations like some sort of inherited illness, but I sometimes wonder about the role that strong family loyalties play in this process.

As Richard pointed out in The Root of All Evil?, there is a deep-rooted evolutionary tendency to take on trust the words of one's parents and elders, purely for survival value. But later on, I feel this may persist in the form of a loyalty which maybe refuses to accept certain obvious and perhaps unpalatable truths about one's family. Some striking examples of this phenomenon would be the children of Robert Maxwell or Harold Shipman, say, who seem to be in a very real state of denial concerning the misdeeds of their parents. It's as if to criticise them in any way would cut straight to the heart of their identity.

We may imagine that this tendency plays a strong role when children hang on to their parent's religious beliefs, but I think it may also play a part in those who have succeeded in overturning their religious upbringing – the secular apologists for religion in other words. I was particularly struck, for instance, by the very lame contributions from Jim Woodward and Melvin Konner in session nine of the Beyond Belief videos. While both declared themselves to be atheists, they nevertheless insisted upon making a very strained and somewhat incoherent defence of religion, which succeeded in creating considerable tension between them on the one hand, and Sam Harris and Richard on the other. Both Woodward and Konner had had a religious upbringing, and I detected in what they were saying a simple inability to directly criticise their heritage.

http://beyondbelief2006.org/Watch

Here's another example. Margaret Wertheim attacking Sam Harris at the Huffington Post. Once again, she is a non-believer herself, but she won't have any truck with Sam. Why? Well basically because her Mum was Catholic, and she liked her Mum a lot, and so on Very touching.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/margaret-wertheim/the-end-of-faith_b_16542.html

So I do wonder sometimes whether the unwarranted respect we grant towards religion is not closely tied to an equally unwarranted respect for our parents and grandparents who, by the simple fact of having lived longer, perhaps we can say really ought to have known better? And is this something that we ought to highlight more notwithstanding the sensitive and difficult nature of the topic? After all, it would be a pity to lose the battle against religion just because we couldn't bring ourselves to scrutinise our dear old Ma and Pa, wouldn't it?

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15. Comment #13105 by Mr Blue Sky on December 15, 2006 at 12:46 pm

I would be interested to see how this data changes over time. Perhaps as we rebel against our parents we see grandaparents as wiser and are thus prone to accept some of their thinking? I will be a Grandparent in a matter of months - thank goodness I have seen sense and can influence my grand daughter in a more positive way than I was.

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16. Comment #13107 by Logicel on December 15, 2006 at 1:09 pm

Laurence Boyce, I also challenge the notion that one must be loyal to one's family.

I remember reading that actually it is not our parents that have the greatest emotional/psychological influence on how we develop, but the bigger world outside the family. Therefore, parents only indirectly influence our development, by providing us shelter in a particular physical environment and education in a particular manner.

The family is considered 'natural'. Well, we do not choose our families, and they may be a very poor fit for certain members. And there is a much larger family of humanity outside our tiny, accidental family.

I strongly support youth rights. The subjugation of an individual--just because that individual happens to be a young, inexperienced human--to the family group never appealed to me when I was growing up.

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17. Comment #13108 by LucyFir on December 15, 2006 at 1:25 pm

What education, literacy levels or IQs are involved in this study?

My maternal grandmother was Italian, illiterate and from a poor family and of course she went to mass every day. I never knew what she had to confess to as it seemed even from a child's perspective that she suffered tremendous abuse. Although I adored her for the love and protection she gave to me and my brothers and sisters the religion bug didn't bite any of the six of us. My grandmother wasn't stupid however being that she was oppressed by a patriarchal, misogynist culture endorsed by the Roman Church she didn't have options. Perhaps she dreamed that one day if she prayed hard enough to the bleeding statues help would come. It never did.

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18. Comment #13111 by Laurence Boyce on December 15, 2006 at 2:31 pm

Logicel,

I strongly support youth rights. The subjugation of an individual – just because that individual happens to be a young, inexperienced human – to the family group never appealed to me when I was growing up.

I'm afraid I had no such feelings when I was growing up, though I certainly wish I had done. Well into my life I continued to value age and experience over youth, until it suddenly dawned upon me that if old people are so wise and so knowledgeable, then why is it that the world in such a mess? And why is religion still tolerated well over 200 years since it was comprehensively debunked? And why is the political and social fabric of the nation in such disarray? And why are our institutions so crippled by anachronism? And why are we still sending young boys to war? And why and why . . .

So I'm not quite so respectful towards old folk as old folk would tell me I ought to be. They've been around the longest, and yet they appear to have made so little difference. Then having made so little difference, they then have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo so as to avoid further embarrassment. Oh would that they cared about the generations of the future as passionately as they care about the state of their front lawns. I seriously think we should consider removing the vote from the over sixties.

Oh dear, I seem to have let my prejudices hang out a bit. Well I'm nearly 40, so please feel free to attack me from both ends, as it were!

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19. Comment #13117 by Yorker on December 15, 2006 at 3:55 pm

18. Comment #13111 by Laurence Boyce

>>I seriously think we should consider removing the vote from the over sixties.<<

I have flagged this comment as offensive (there is no 'silly' flag).

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20. Comment #13127 by Aussie on December 15, 2006 at 5:44 pm

Neither my parents nor my (influential) maternal grandparents were religious but for some reason I was sent to Sunday School. My grandfather in fact was such an inveterate blasphemer it would make you blush. Nevertheless when I married a Roman Catholic in Holland he hit the roof exclaiming "Why couldn't he have married a nice Protestant girl".

I am so happy that these "significant others" of mine were so inclined as it has made it that much easier to reject all the nonsense.

My paternal grandparents, with whom I had very little contact, were very religious Exclusive Bretheren and they would rush and switch our radio off whenever they visited as it was considered an instrument of the devil. The devil happened to hide in the Catholic Church down the road and would jump out and capture innocent Protestant children walking past. We used to regard their beliefs as mildly amusing.

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21. Comment #13142 by Aussie on December 15, 2006 at 8:16 pm

Last night while bathing my 6 year old granddaughter I decided to introduce her to the story of Noah's Ark. With the help of a plastic dish and some small plastic animals and people I played out the story from beginning to end taking care to emphasise that it was just a fairy story like Pinocchio.

Because she does not attend "Scripture" classes like her friends, one of them had recently warned her euphemistically that she would go to "Bad Heaven". I thought that the time had now come to commence innoculating her with inactivated mental virus in the form of a modified Noah's Ark story. I think that it is important to expose children to the rich mythology of our culture in a way that educates instead of enslaving them and prepares them to be able to contend with the threats from the faithful.

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22. Comment #13149 by Vardu on December 15, 2006 at 10:32 pm

I'm a grandad to eight grandchildren and, as yet, the subject of religion and God has not come up. In the meantime, I share with them the wonders of the natural world around us and how science has proven our best tool for uncovering the nature of Nature.
If I can convey anything to them of lasting value, I hope it will be that the most important thing is to ask questions and never to settle for half-arsed answers based on faith.

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23. Comment #13157 by Niels Thorsen on December 16, 2006 at 1:24 am

RE: Comment #13142 by Aussie

Well done with the Noah's Ark story modification!

Throughout history, myth has proved an unsurpassed motivator for human kind. Joseph Campbell made this very clear. We ignore his insight at our peril.

Young and old alike benefit when they are educated by the allegory of the myth, and empowered when inoculated against it. The threat is much harder to vanquish if the memes are ignored. Your granddaughter's friend demonstrated this point.

Aussie, I applaud your wisdom, your granddaughter could hope for no better example.

Niels

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24. Comment #13166 by One Eyed Jack on December 16, 2006 at 2:24 am

thegashman,

"Grandparents are evil."

Grandparents have candy. Nobody with candy can be evil, right? Right?

Here you go ... have another butterscotch and everything will be fine.

OEJ

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25. Comment #13232 by Lionel A on December 16, 2006 at 9:58 am

Laurence with respect to post #13111 and in particular your idea of removing the voting rights of the 'over sixties' I must object, although I think this was a tongue-in-cheek' remark by yourself.

My grandfather was a Baptist minister and my mother was, and still is, deeply religious and ensured that I was well indoctrinated during my first 15 years of existence. However I broke free.

I am now myself a grandparent, nine times over, but neither I nor my wife are believers and both appreciate that the earth is about 4.55 billion years old and we both believe in evolution.

These values, with the help of Richard's books and many by other authors, are being passed on down to our children and now grandchildren all of whom are now borrowing from my growing library. A library which includes works by Charles Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, John Gribben, Martin Rees, Roger Penrose, Richard Feynman, all of Dawkins, Paul Davis and Richard Corfield.

Corfield's 'Architects of Eternity' is an excellent explanatory tour of the methods and science behind the dating of events in earth's history and 'Cassell's Atlas of Evolution' is recommended for its wealth of stunning illustrations and comprehensive coverage of the development of this 'pale blue blob' and the life upon it, especially recommended for the younger readers.

Either my wife and I are atypical of grandparents in this country (but knowledge of other relatives and friends suggest we are not) or the Manchester study is flawed in some way.

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26. Comment #13253 by Yorker on December 16, 2006 at 12:23 pm

25. Comment #13232 by Lionel A

Lionel,

A joke should be evident, he could have easily ended with a :) and all would have been clear.

A person using the word 'seriously' must expect to be taken that way. I took it that way.

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27. Comment #13259 by Lionel A on December 16, 2006 at 1:21 pm

Point taken Yorker but seriously [ ;-) ] IME of USENET for example one cannot always take the lack of a smiley as a sign that a remark such as the one in question was not a throw-away line, part in jest.

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28. Comment #13283 by Martha on December 16, 2006 at 6:55 pm

23. Comment #13157 by NIELS THORSEN on December 16, 2006 at 1:24 am:-

""""Throughout history, myth has proved an unsurpassed motivator for human kind. Joseph Campbell made this very clear. We ignore his insight at our peril.""""

I disagree. Nothing surpasses truth than truth itself! You seem to be peddling (reinforcing) the notion - myth - that human kind is inherently evil? It isn't. Sorry to shock you, but human beings are only MADE evil by their exposure to evil environments, we humans are not BORN evil, as your comment seems to suggest.

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29. Comment #13303 by Yorker on December 16, 2006 at 10:08 pm

27. Comment #13259 by Lionel A

Lionel,

You are making a decision without being in full possession of the facts.

In my original post I directly asked Mr. Boyce if he was joking and advised that I found it offensive. I waited for a considerable time but did not receive a reply. I then flagged his post as offensive, and edited my post to remove my question since it was no longer required.

Since the offensive post is still there, I can only assume that my protest is being ignored. Does that mean that I can make similar insults with impunity, and offend people at will? Of course it does, but I won't. Had that silly remark been made against the antagonists who attack us, I would have said nothing. But to behave in such a way against one's team so to speak, is divisive and that's the last thing we need. This was not a debating point of disagreement.

Perhaps the reason religion has held sway for so long, is because they are clearly much better than atheists at concentrating their efforts. Frankly, if I were a religite reading this, I'd be laughing my head off right now.

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