Faith Without Works

During the worst days of London's blitz a church hung out a sign: IF YOUR KNEES KNOCK, KNEEL ON THEM.

More definite evidence of how compellingly the war has urged the British to their knees reached the U.S. last week. It is a two-year survey, Religion and the People, gathered by Mass-Observation, "an independent organization engaged in investigating the way ordinary people think and behave" (TIME, April 12). Although the findings are far from encouraging to churchmen, London's Christian News-Letter sent them out because they are "based on fuller data than anything else available. . . ."

Some findings :

> Twenty per cent of those questioned said they held no religious belief. People under 40 reported this twice as frequently as those over that age; men more than twice as often as women. Of the remaining 80%, only about half professed church membership.

> Fifty per cent pray regularly or occasionally; the rest never pray. Those who pray are fewer than those (nearly seven out of ten) who practice such household superstitions as throwing spilled salt over the left shoulder. And many who do pray have merely "taken over a form of words from childhood and are using it still. . . ."

> Regarding churchgoing, a prewar Gallup Poll reported that about 25% said they attended church. Mass-Observation's findings put the number at about 10%.

> In 1941, 16% declared the war had strengthened their faith; 9% said it had weakened it. Last year 26% found their religion stronger; the same percentage found it weaker.

> Only one out of ten thinks religion will be able to play any significant part in shaping Britain's postwar conditions, but three out of ten wish that the church were strong enough to exert such an influence.

Mass-Observation's summation : "The considerable apathy about religion which exists now is a negative one, based mainly on past disappointments and past inactions. There is little positive hostility, but also few positive optimistic expectations, much disinterest. On the other hand, there is a widespread desire for religion to take a bigger part in the life of the community. . . . Action . . . might quickly transform widespread passive good will into some thing dynamic. . . . But the signs are that, in present mood, little else will."

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