New figures released today show that regular church attendance in the Diocese of London has risen, in contrast to a fall nationally. According to the latest figures, between 2005-2006 the capital saw church attendance rise by 2%.
The new figures for 2006 show that 80,600 Londoners on average attended services throughout the week at the Diocese’s 479 churches, compared to 79,300 in 2005. Of the 80,600 churchgoers, around a fifth (17,700) were under the age of 16.
We need to get Statmann crunching these figures, not so much for the diocese of London but on the hyperlink to the Church of England website. From the latter, my own ruminations: (1) Christmas continues to grow at the expense of Easter, now being twice as popular (Easter 2006 attendance: 1.485 m; Christmas, 2.99 m). this points to a tendency away from challenging doctrine (resurrection) to a folk religion, in which the incarnation is downplayed and Christmas becomes the feast of the family.
(2) Most worryingly, baptisms continue to decline. In 2006, 91,000 infant baptisms, down from 93,000 the previous year; compare and contrast as recently as 1996, 141,000 infant baptisms.
(3) I though it might be interesting to compare the average weekly attendance figures for the Church of England (I have taken out the figures for the diocese of Europe) and the Catholic Church in England (for the latter I have stripped out the three Welsh dioceses). Figures for Church of England are Usual Sunday Attendance, which is slightly less than Average Weekly Attendance.
2006 Anglican 869,000 Catholic (2005) 905,149
2006 Anglican 860,000 Catholic 895,000
I apologise for the fact that I do not have the Catholic figure for 2006.
Here are the direct infant baptism comparisons:
2004 Church of England: 97,000 RC England 59,998
2006 Church of England: 91,000 Rc England 55,310
In both Church of England and RC, the figures for London show an increase against the national trend although it would be truer to say in the RC case show stability rather than increase.
I conclude from all this: (a) both Anglicans and Catholics have nothing to crow about, and are in trouble; (b) it is no good relying on folk religion. As noted in an earlier posting by Kendall, the task of apologetics is neglected and essential. (c) The Church of England figures show steady investment in training increasing numbers of new vocations. Is this seed corn for the future or, like TEC, out of kilter with pew reality? I would tend to say seed corn. In the RC church there has been a modest uptick in vocations recently, but from a rather low base. Catholics face an aging clergy, which adds to our difficulties. But (d) the question of disestablishing the Church of England seems to me to be something that must be faced, and indeed has surfaced a little recently. Can you be the national church if fewer and fewer people opt for your ministrations?
I have managed to make an absolute mess of the way I have cited the stats for Sunday attendance above. These should have read:
2005 Anglican 869,000 Catholic (2004) 905,149
2006 Anglican 860,000 Catholic 895,000.
Many many apologies.
Terry Tee – I see that baptisms are down, but what are they as a percentage of population/births? I understand that the U.K. birthrate is very low (I could be wrong – I can’t remember where I saw that) so might that affect the number of baptisms?
You can find the baptism figures here:
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/info/statistics/churchstats2006/statisticspg14a.htm
A snapshot:
Year
Hit wrong key. After this I will take a Trappist blog of silence for at least a week.
A snapshot:
Year Infant baptisms 000s Per 1000 live births
1990 184,000 274
1995 148,000 240
2000 114,000 198
2005 93,000 153
2006 91,000 143
By any standards, a dreadful decline. There have been attempts to mask it by starting a separate category of ‘thanksgivings’ for births, people who presumably cannot bring themselves to christen their children but want some kind of ceremony. Bear in mind, too the high birth rate among women born overseas (Muslim, Catholic, Pentecostal) and the long-term picture is not good. The other side of the coin: the Church of England has an excellent record in training and ordaining clergy from minority ethnic backgrounds.
Thanks, Terry.
What makes London different? I have different theories for RC and Anglican.
RC: We had the inspired leadership of Cardinal Hume for 20 years: spiritual, humane, good-humoured, balanced, open to the world but not converted to the world. This helped us keep a whole generation of younger people who drifted away, I am told, in some other parts of the country, and once you lose that generation, renewal is very difficult. More recently we have been aided by the British-born children of immigrants from the Philippines, Colombia, Nigeria etc, who think it’s pretty cool to be a Catholic. Some high-profile conversions among the capital’s intelligentsia have also helped.
Anglican: I am an outsider looking in, but I suspect that the influence of charismatic evangelicals has been profound, especially through Holy Trinity Brompton church plants (a strategy taken, I think, from Fuller in California.) The buzz of charismatic worship has won back a generation that was nearly lost. From a very different perspective, some Anglo-Catholic parishes have retained people through the dignity and spiritual uplift of their liturgy.
Did I swear above a Trappist vow of silence? Didn’t last long, did it?
#8: Someone who’s lived there has explained it this way: London is most UN-like the rest of the UK – a huge proportion of it is foreign-born. Many African and Asian immigrants from Christian backgrounds (as well as Chinese converts) are swelling Anglican congregations, while Poles and other East Europeans have boosted RC numbers. The best of the Anglican and other churches are on the ball in providing lively worship and a welcoming community for the young (All Souls, the HTB family of churches etc) in a big anonymous city.
London’s liberal outposts (like Matyn Dudley’s) follow the Tec paybook by relying on old money, high brow culture vultures, and gays with lots of money.