Only one per cent of British Christians believe God is a woman, according to the findings of a YouGov poll.
The poll, which comes in the wake of the release of a new Ariana Grande song God is a Woman, found that the largest proportion of British Christians – 41 per cent – don’t think God has a human gender at all while 36 per cent believe God is male.
Three per cent said God had a “different human gender identity” and 19 per cent answered that they didn’t know God’s gender.
Females are more likely to believe that God is male than men – 41 per cent against 30 per cent – and Catholics are more likely to believe that to be the case than Protestants – 47 per cent to 33 per cent.
Interestingly, the percentage of the population which believes God is male drops as ages go up – while 39 per cent of 25 to 49-year-olds believe God is male, the figure drops to 35 per cent among 50 to 64-year-olds and to 33 per cent among those aged 65 and older.
The highest proportion of Protestants – 43 per cent – believe God doesn’t have a human gender while just 30 per cent of Catholics indicated this to be the case.
A YouGov analysis of the survey data pointed out that the Catholic Church’s Cathecism has stated since 1992 that “God is neither man nor woman: he is God” and that while majority of those in the Church of England consider God to be male, in 2015 a movement within the church called for God to be referred to as female.
The survey, conducted in the first half of August, involved more than 3,200 adults in Britain who had self-identfied as Christians.
