Going down hill with no brakes

The latest statistical news on religion in this country continues a well established and depressing trend: Christianity is going down hill.

From the reliable British Religion in Numbers

Lord Ashcroft’s latest large-scale political poll, conducted online among 8,011 voters between 11 and 22 August 2016, included his customary question about professed ‘membership’ of religious groups.

.... the proportion identifying with no religion has increased steadily in similarly-sized Ashcroft surveys for the second half of each year since 2011, by almost five points over this quinquennium.

There has been a corresponding reduction in self-identifying Christians, who seem destined to lose their overall majority share within a matter of years. Indeed, religious nones are already in the ascendant among under-35s and supporters of green and nationalist political parties.

Henry VIII created the Church of
England by his demand that the clergy
submit to him.

(Lord Ashcroft Polls, BRIN links to pdfs of the survey results - see Table 65)

Hand-wringing and prophecy

I don't think I'm defeatist; I think we should face reality.

That reality is that religion is losing traction across the population. Inevitably this is uneven: some geographic areas, some age groups, some traditions will lose people quicker than others. Here and there affiliation to religion will grow. But the overall trend is decline.

This is not merely that people don't like religion, or see its faults and failings and decide it's not for them, or that they simply see the worst expressions of faith.

It's more fundamental:

• Fewer people think in religious ways
• Metaphor is no longer a legitimate or normal way to express or explore truth
• Conformity is not a positive value
• Always-on social media is not conducive to prayer and meditation
• It is hard to see religious experience as integral to the digital world
• Science has a mind-set which normally regards religion as irrelevant (at best). Furthermore: science delivers knowledge and tangible benefits that religion cannot match
• Religion is associated with (even identified with) fanaticism and violence, and at best social conservatism

But the majority of people simply don't care: religion is not so much meaningless as irrelevant.

Non-church-going: its reasons and remedies,
William Forbes Gray (ed), 1911

This isn't new, just inexorable. All sorts of responses have been tried (see the book pictured). Proposals have included: grow your church with hard work, dedication and faithfulness, seek greater holiness and devotion, return to traditional expressions of faith, adapt the faith to changing times, build big and they will come, don't adapt the faith but create fresh expressions of the church.

Each response has no doubt had some effect and been valuable for those involved - and without them things would probably have been worse - but still the trend is towards the marginalisation of Christianity. 

The Church of England 

The Church of England, in which I have a vested and pecuniary interest, seems to be losing affiliation more rapidly than some other groups (or, maybe, I just notice it more).

In fact all those things in which its identity is invested are just those things which make the CofE unable to adapt to changing circumstances,

The CofE remains hobbled and encumbered by its legal processes, its laws and legalism, its parochialism, its history, its hierarchical structure, its buildings, its entrenched divisions. Its structure militates against novelty.

Even the most ardent supporter could not call it 'nimble'. Long before he became Archbishop of York John Sentamu described the CofE as having 'the engine of a motor mower and the brakes of a juggernaut'.  It is an entirely reasonable for the leaders of the church themselves to create extra-mural ways of communication, mutual support and commitment (Companions of St Aidan, for example) as a way of getting around the constraints they work within.

Realism

I accept: one person's realism is another's defeatism. But I cannot see that tinkering at the edges of the CofE is going to save it. I think that if the Church of England is going to live it is going to have to die first.  We don't need a new reformation but a resurrection: a new body, a new identity.

Paul Bagshaw

What we want in a new bishop

I attended the open meeting for the people considering the appointment of a new bishop for Newcastle  Diocese.

Edward Chaplin

We met with Caroline Boddington (Appointments Secretary of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York) and Edward Chaplin (Prime Minister’s Appointments Secretary) Oxford Mail photo They made copious notes and explained a little of the process. They gave nothing away.

Over 80 people were present and everyone who wanted to was able to have their say.

Most people who spoke were Anglicans but there were also contributions from City Church and from Colin Carr OP, from the Roman Catholic St Dominic's Priory Church.

A representative from Jesmond Parish Church spoke first. She mentioned the size of the church (1,000 regular attenders and over 5,000 at peak) and then said that they were looking for someone who would emphasise evangelism and support the teaching that marriage was between one man and one woman. Someone else from the same church made the same point later, citing scripture.

However I think they were the only people who tried to say: 'the next bishop must fit to what we think'. And as this was a meeting for people who didn't have a direct line into the appointment process I suspect their view will not have much sway.

From the other end of the Anglican spectrum the representative of the Bishop of Beverley asked only that the new bishop (male or female, he didn't mind) would respect the guidelines put in place for parishes which would not accept a woman bishop.

Most people asked for their particular area of concern to be taken into account: sustaining small churches, the particular needs of rural churches and of those in poorer areas, mission and evangelism, ecumenism, the mothers' union, education, interfaith work, lay people and Readers, links with Norway and Winchester, links with the voluntary sector, Christian Aid and poverty.

Others were looking for particular qualities: an enabler, someone who would invest in leaders - especially young leaders, a pastor to the clergy, someone who'd cherish diversity.

A few wanted a spokesperson for the North East, well-connected in London, not least in negotiations over money.

Overall, I thought, the meeting did a good job of allowing anyone who wanted to to have their say. I also thought that very little was suggested that couldn't have been said for almost any diocese,

What did strike me was the occasional tone of being sorry for ourselves: that the diocese was poor, marginal, a long way from London, apparently unattractive to clergy from south of the Tyne. And yet (in a contradictory way) several people introduced themselves as incomers. Some told the meeting how many years they'd been here, perhaps to establish a right to speak while recognising that this right was limited.

Paul Bagshaw

  

Opinion: it's a secular country

The Huffington Post (UK edition) has commissioned a sociological study of attitudes to religion in the UK.

Bringing the Faith to the Heathen (Mexico)
(c) Adam Jones

It should worry all of us who are committed members of a faith not least because it reinforces other, earlier, surveys.

Amongst the findings::

• "More than half of Britons believe that religion does more harm than good, with less than a quarter believing faith is a force for good, ..."
• "Even 20% of British people who described themselves as being 'very religious' said religion was harmful to society, and a quarter of [them] said atheists were more likely to be moral individuals than religious people."
• "Of the 2,004 people surveyed in the HuffPost/Survation poll, 56% described themselves as Christian, 2.5% were Muslim, 1% were Jewish and the remainder were of another faith or none."

What seems a little more hopeful (at least from my perspective) was the finding that:

• "Young people are actually more likely to have a positive view of religion. Around 30% of 18-24 year old believe religion does more good than harm, compared to just 19% of 55-64 year-olds."

but, of course, this can't tell us which way young people will move as they grow older. It is the age group least likely to be present in church.

All of which leaves religious folk a number of problems, amongst them:

• We are at some point in a long-term trend away from religious sensibility to an increasing secularity. 
• The legacy of Christian buildings, communities, public symbols and stories is clearly more or less irrelevant to the challenge.
• The language of faith is inaudible and/or incomprehensible to a growing majority of people - not just archaic (traditional) language, but any language of faith.

In practice we - Christians - live and hide in our own little encampments. We tend to be much more concerned to defend our own particular and local church than to be expansive in our sharing of faith. We pour energy into internal conflicts (as Christians always have) and sometimes even convince ourselves that our fights matter.   

And none of this should be surprising. We feel beleaguered, discarded, unappreciated, unmourned. Therefore the emotionally-reasonable reaction is to step back into what we know, what we've always done, including our own internal squabbles: it's where we're safe, comfortable and know where we stand. 

It's no use, of course. It's  just hiding under the blanket and pretending that the storm will pass. It won't.

At the very least we have to step out of our shells and risk getting soaked. I think it's time to stop talking (and certainly stop preaching) and to start listening. Just as a beginning.  

Paul Bagshaw