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May The Force Be With You

According To Census, Star Wars’ Jedi Religion Is Most Popular Alternative Faith In England

by Jill Pantozzi | 12:35 pm, December 17th, 2012


If you’re a devoted Star Wars fan, you might want to consider moving to England. That is, if you don’t already reside there. A census shows the Jedi faith is strong there. 

In England and Wales, “Jedi” sits behind Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Buddhism in the category of religion. That excludes Atheists and those who declined to answer the religion question.

According to Telegraph, Jedi first appeared on the census in 2001 after a campaign to include it. And 390,127 considered themselves part of the Jedi “faith” that year.

“Although the number of Jedis has dropped by more than 50 per cent over the past 10 years, they are still the most selected ‘alternative’ faith on the Census, and constitute 0.31% of all people’s stated religious affiliation in England and Wales,” writes Telegraph.

In case you were wondering, “Heavy Metal” is also a religion some subscribe to in England.

Telegraph writes, “Norwich was revealed as the area with the highest proportion of non-religious people, with 41.5% of residents refusing to identify with a faith. The city also possesses the highest proportion of Heavy Metal followers and the 3rd highest proportion of Jedi Knights.”

(via Telegraph)

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  • Anonymous

    *Wales….

  • RH

    I didn’t know Cetaceans were into Star Wars too. ;)

  • http://www.thenerdybird.com/ Jill Pantozzi

    I must have been thinking of the sea this morning…

  • Megaera

    In 2001, a lot of Pagans listed ‘Jedi Knight’ as their religion in protest because there wasn’t an option to tick ‘Pagan’. So they jumped on the Jedi bandwagon to make a point. ;) The reduction since then is due to the fact that there has been a campaign to get Pagans to list themselves specifically as ‘Pagan’ to make a stronger point. There were still a lot of Pagans who didn’t. Either they didn’t know about the campaign, or they preferred to categorise themselves under their specific path (Druid, Heathen, Wiccan etc.) rather than as generic ‘Pagan’. And yes, there are a *lot* of Pagans and metalheads in Norwich. I expect Glastonbury was high in ‘Jedis’ and/or Pagans too.

  • Jenn Kluska

    In addition many non-religous people list Jedi as a joke.
    For the 2011 Census there was a big push by The Census Campaign (http://census-campaign.org.uk/ ) to stop this trend in order that the non-regloius be represented more accurately.

  • Lilith

    listing Jedi Knight as a prank you dumbasses- Paganism & Wicca are the most popular alternate religions

  • http://twitter.com/diefrankenmaus Kate

    Why do you feel a need to be so nasty? It really doesn’t help support those who follow Pagan, Wiccan, Druidic etc. paths. If you follow an alternative path (or support those who do), it might behoove you to think a little bit about the fact that the way you act reflects upon the larger community, just as the behaviors of some individuals that follow “traditional” religions can reflect upon their larger community.

  • http://twitter.com/hesterkw Hester

    Because really before we saw your comment we all assumed that there genuinely were Jedi in England and Wales. I’m sorry, who was the dumbass who can’t tell jokes from reality?

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