Steve Hollinghurst works for Church Army in Sheffield, researching the cultures of people who don’t go to Church in the UK. He came to our local Deanery Synod last night with simple facts and figures about post-Christendom England.
It’s an immensely fluid and complex picture out there. Fewer people buy into institutional church and the whole “Christian England” thing. Denominations are a thing of the past ”” a phase we went through, that means nothing to most people now. We are also globalizing massively.
“Denominations are a thing of the past”
I have seen the non-denominal thing and I don’t think that it will ultimately work. I think it is a cultural phase and if we pursue it then, like all other pop cultural pursuits, we would always be behind the eight ball. No, God calls the Church to lead and if Jesus be lifted up then people will be drawn to Him.
Don
Yeah, Don, I’m not sure ++Akinola, ++Kolini, ++Orombi, etc. got that memo. Their “denominations” seem to be doing quite well, to the point that they are beginning to evangelize areas such as ours.
I don’t think that the bishop is talking about the non-denominational ‘tradition’ at all, rather he is point out that in a post-Christian tradition that is rapidly globalizing, the denominational demarcations as we have known them are hardly relevant in the ways they used to be. It is certainly my experience in my last year here that the boundaries between Christian groups are fuzzier than ever they were with Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, and just about everyone else recognizing that if we are to be effective we need to work together as much as is possible. Interestingly, I was hearing the other day of a large evangelical/charismatic non-denominational church that takes seriously the ministry of the local diocesan bishop in the Church of England.
What struck me was the slightly pejorative way in which the alternatives were described, eg retreat into the bunker clinging to what we fondly imagined were certainties’. Puh-lease. Your prejudice is showing. Does this mean that the sense of belonging to a historically continuous tradition stretching from the past and renewing itself into the present is a delusion and has no appeal to people today? My experience as a pastor here in London would give ample evidence against such an interpretation.
Terry Tee, I think he might mean something else.
I think there are large numbers of people who have hidden themselves away from both the world and the worldliness of their own Church. I see a lot of Episcopal services that have a dozen elderly members inside of a beautiful large chuch with hundreds of empty spaces in the pews. I think the bunker analogy is valid and that a visitor walking into one of these services would be hard pressed to feel the joy, excitement and life changing experience that is part of a personal relationship with Christ. At least that is my experience.