What is new in The Times\u2018s \u201cstory\u201d, however, is the particularly high level of pessimism among my colleagues. Declining numbers, churches closing, exhaustion at trying to hold things together\u2026 But I greet that \u201cnews\u201d with something of a shrug. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Because, if it is true that there is a God, then none of this really matters at all. Unpopularity doesn\u2019t make the creeds false just as (another huge mistake) popularity doesn\u2019t make them true.<\/p>\n
But a nervous church leadership doesn\u2019t like the ebb to happen on their watch. And so, spooked by these dismal stories of decline, they seek a very secular model of success. Borrowing their thinking from management consultants trying to revive ailing companies like Wilko and Pizza Hut, the leadership focuses on what the customer wants, sets sales targets, closes down underused outlets, and re-energises the sales team for greater, more frenetic activity. But the more we run around like headless chickens, the more desperate, and less attractive we look. Inevitably, the job becomes impossible and the workers in the vineyard become drained of motivation. As The Times reveals, a third of clergy have considered quitting in the past five years. This, then, is what\u2019s new about the Church of England\u2019s current death spiral. \u201cAll of the church\u2019s problems stem from the clergy\u2019s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,\u201d as Pascal almost wrote.<\/p>\n
The latest, and most ridiculous of these corporate reinventions of the Church is the idea that the clergy no longer has to work on Sundays \u2013 because other people are busy on that day. One deanery in Cornwall will have 23 churches, and only two full-time clergy. One of these \u201cwill work primarily in the community, looking for exciting opportunities to grow churches for people who have never been to church,\u201d the area dean bubbled enthusiastically. He went on: \u201cI\u2019ve heard it has come as a bit of a shock that she won\u2019t be working regularly on Sunday mornings.\u201d But this is just another example of the \u201cexciting opportunities\u201d that await us as the Church is dismantled from within by those who are supposed to be protecting it.<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n When will our Church leaders stop behaving like deranged management consultants? | @giles_fraser<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/Ria1E3znw2<\/a><\/p>\n — UnHerd (@unherd) August 31, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n