Attendance at cathedrals has increased by 30 per cent since 2001, figures released by Church House last week suggest.
In 2001, 21,100 adults and 5700 children attended Sunday and mid-week services at cathedrals. In 2011, 28,000 adults and 6800 children atÂtenÂded Sunday and mid-week serÂvices. Attendance has grown on average by three per cent each year.
There was also increased attendance at Easter and Christmas services.
I found it helpful to read these alongside Peter Ould’s [url=http://www.peter-ould.net/2012/04/03/deciphering-the-cathedral-stats/]analysis[/url].
Yes, not exactly a recipe for health.
Hmmm…and yet the Episcopal church keeps closing Cathedrals. Interesting.
Several observations:
1. Perhaps the increase (noted by Mr Ould as being below 20 adults/minors across all of the cathedrals in the UK, and being an increase in mid-week attendance) is due to more tourists visiting the cathedrals.
2. Who was it that said “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics”? My stat professor in grad school certainly thought so. In the index to his statistics textbook for undergrads, he cross-referenced “Liars” and “Statisticians.” It is amazing what one can do with a correlation coefficient.
3. Notwithstanding #s 1 and 2, I’d rather be in a denomination that might be growing, however slightly, than one (like TEC) that is definitely shrinking.
#1 — Helpful only if you actually understand math! My eyes glazed over.
Reading the whole article is helpful, though, because it indicates that tourist visits have shrunk substantially, not grown, which makes sense when you consider the decade involved. After Sept. 11, 2001, travel became more difficult and expensive worldwide but especially for Americans, a group that largely visits the UK. I’d think that tourist visits overall dropped significantly during the first half of the decade and that would affect the cathedrals’ statistics.
[blockquote] “After Sept. 11, 2001, travel became more difficult and expensive worldwide but especially for Americans, a group that largely visits the UK.” [/blockquote]
But why speculate? Why not just compare any drop in the number of tourists visiting the UK with the drop in tourists visiting cathedrals, at the same period? I believe if you do that you will find that the drop in cathedral visitors is much more pronounced than any drop in visitors to the UK.
Peter Ould’s point (and it has been made by others) is that the most likely explanation for the increase in cathedral worshippers is that many of these are tourists who use this means to evade the steep admission charges imposed by many cathedrals.
I know that the last time we were in London, our family regretfully concluded that we could not justify the price charged to enter St Paul’s cathedral (it worked out not much less than online tickets to the Tower of London!). However, if a service had been on, we could have entered for free and then wandered around afterwards as we chose.
So Peter Ould has a very good point – it is likely that the apparent increase in “cathedral worshippers” is not an increase at all.