Churches will be full again this week, as they always are at this time of year: three million people will go to an Anglican service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, a third of the population will visit a place of Christian worship by the end of the season, but what then? What is happening to the Church of England and its place in the nation?
Churches will be full again this week, as they always are at this time of year: three million people will go to an Anglican service on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, a third of the population will visit a place of Christian worship by the end of the season, but what then? What is happening to the Church of England and its place in the nation?
We were told that female priests would change everything for the Church. It’s changed, all right, but not as imagined. I see no reason to think that making women bishops will be the magic touch, either.
Anybody remember 2003? We were guaranteed TEC would explode after VGR was elected a bishop. Instead it imploded. I suspect women bishops will not have the effect on the C of E that Robinson had on TEC, but expecting social/political issues to make the church grow has no basis in history or reality.
If there has ever been a case where the introduction of w/o into a denomination was not followed by even more radical departures from (small ‘o’) orthodox Christian doctrine, I am unable to recall it.
Yeah, the Anglican church has pretty much adopted every liberal theological hobby horse since the 70s, and with each one, well, you know the numbers. Huge revivals and thousands of converts.
Or something.
Interesting that the article acknowledges, as a basic premise, that the Church of England needs saving.
[blockquote] “Something remarkable is also happening in the cathedrals. The number of people attending services has risen by a third in the past decade, while the figure for midweek services alone has doubled.” [/blockquote]
Its because over the same period most cathedrals have begun to charge admission to tourists, but they don’t charge at service times. Therefore, tourists who want to see a cathedral go in at service times. And hey presto! attendance at Cathedral services is up, especially mid-week.
[blockquote] “People in Denmark say they made all the difference in the world. … That completely transformed the Church and saved it. People saw it still had a crucial role in society, doing things that were needed.” [/blockquote]
What a load of waffle. The church in Denmark is established, in effect it is part of the civil service. It continues to do a large number of christenings and weddings – just as it did before women were ordained. However church attendance is in the basement, actually somewhat worse than before women were ordained. The current estimate is that 2% of members of the established church attend church on a Sunday. In fairness, women ministers probably haven’t contributed to this decline, rather they have just been part of it.
[blockquote] “There are fewer than 800,000 people at services on a Sunday, which is why the C of E prefers to quote the figure of 1.7m a month.” [/blockquote]
Quite. The ball is in the court of those evangelical Anglicans who do see a need to re-evangelize England – are they prepared to start planting churches and running missions independently of the increasingly irrelevant CofE hierarchy?