Good Lord! In what, at the Daily Telegraph, they used to call a “marmalade dropper”, fewer than half the population identifies as Christian according to the latest census.
Nobody is quite sure what that means. Shorn of nuanced options, people have been unable to declare themselves quite keen on Midnight Mass at Christmas, a hatch ‘em, match ‘em and despatch ‘em hat wearer, or a right up front when Songs of Praise is filming type of Christian who at other times believes the Almighty needs a lie in on Sunday morning just like the rest of us.
These seem long to have been the default mode for most. A sort of amateur dabbling in which the Church of England, the national and established faith has, it might be suggested, been complicit.
