Is Jedi a real religion?

In England and Wales, seven people in every thousand gave their religion as 'Jedi' in the Census.

The Census form's question on religion - the only question where a response was not compulsory - offered a series of tick-boxes for the major religions in the UK (Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh); a tick-box for 'none'; and a free space to write in 'any other religion'.

A campaign on the Internet claimed - wrongly - that Jedi, the belief system at the heart of the Star Wars films, would receive official government recognition as a religion if enough people quoted it on their Census forms. An email in support of the campaign, quoted by BBC News, invited people to 'do it because you love Star Wars... or just to annoy people.'

Just over 390,000 of the 52,000,000 people in England and Wales wrote in 'Jedi' on their census form.

A Jedi 'church' was also opened in North Wales at the beggining of this year. Plans have also been made to open a Jedi church in Surrey and in the Philippines to follow on from America's first in Florida.

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Released on Monday 11th August 2008

Picture and source - www.dailymail.co.uk