A report published last year that showed a rise in churchgoing in England and Wales, and was interpreted as a sign of a turnaround in attitudes towards faith in the country, has been pulled after a number of respondents were found to be fake.
After decades of declining church attendance in Britain, the report was published by the Bible Society, a Christian non-profit group, in April 2025 and was widely reported by domestic and international media. It was also referenced in a Reuters story in May last year.
“We recognise that this news may feel discouraging and we share that sense of disappointment,” Bible Society Chief Executive Paul Williams said.
In a separate statement, polling firm YouGov said it had re-analysed its data using new and better tools and techniques following “the ongoing scrutiny this work received”.
The now-withdrawn report, which YouGov said was based on responses from 13,146 adults in November 2024, stated that the share of adults who go to church at least once a month had risen to 12% of the population from 8% in 2018.
The follow-up review found specific demographic groups which featured heavily in the survey contained fraudulent respondents, an issue which YouGov said occurred at a higher rate than typically expected, affecting the headline findings by “a few points”.
YouGov did not elaborate on the nature of the fraudulent respondents, but said: “Online market research has come under increasing attack by fraudsters in the past several years.”
“YouGov takes full responsibility for the outputs of the original 2024 research, and we apologise for what has happened,” YouGov CEO Stephan Shakespeare said in the statement.
“We would like to stress that Bible Society have at all times accurately and responsibly reported the data we supplied to them.”
The latest data from the established Church of England showed the overall number of regular worshippers across its 16,000 churches edged up by 0.6% to 1 million in 2024, marking the fourth consecutive annual increase, but still below pre-pandemic levels.
(Reporting by Muvija M）
