Church leader: Britain no longer Christian country

Monday, 13 December 2004 12:00 AM

The Archbishop of York on Sunday said he would be "hard-pushed" to label Britain a Christian country.

Dr David Hope, the Church of England's second highest-ranking figure, said Britons were increasingly secular in outlook and no longer tied to the church as an institution.

"I think I would be hard-pushed to say we were a Christian country because of the secularist tendencies, the fact that commitment to the Christian church is less than it was," he told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost.

Although he believed many Britons still espoused a belief in God and Christianity, Dr Hope discerned a major sea change in the way people expressed their faith.

"Large numbers of people still describe themselves as believing in God," he said.

"Large numbers of people still say they are Christians.

"How they then express that Christianity has changed enormously."

He is to resign his post to become a parish vicar of St Margaret's in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, in January.

Research by the Wall Street Journal Europe found that seven out of tens Britons said they believed in some kind of god but only a quarter attended church once a week or more.

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