When will the C of E be extinct?
This month'southward news fromBritish Religion in Numbers carries a link to an interesting mathematical written report on church attendance and membership. John Hayward is a mathematician who applies statistical methods to analysing issues of church growth. As we shall see, he is well aware of the limitations of such methods, but is also convinced that they tin aid us meet reality as it is a fiddling more clearly.
In his recent posts, he analyses church building omnipresence and church membership of four episcopal churches—in England, Wales, Scotland and the US. (Yes, contrary to much popular belief, in that location is a definition of membership for the Church of England. Bank check out your Electoral Curl grade.) As has been widely circulated in the media, and endlessly discussed, all four churches are in decline, which will exist terminal if electric current trends continue. John presents the reality of this in a several very articulate charts, some of which nowadays the data equally it is, but one of which offers a linear extrapolation using standard mathematical analysis:
This is a striking graph for a couple of reasons. Start, information technology make clear how decline in the Episcopal Church in the US is much more rapid than in the C of Eastward—which perhaps offers some sobering background to discussion and disputes within the Anglican Communion. A couple of years agone, I attended a celebration of the ministry of women at Lambeth Palace, where one of the speakers was Mary Gray-Reeves, the Bishop of the diocese of El Camino Existent in California. It was slightly odd trying to acquire lessons about mission and ministry from someone leading a speedily declining diocese whose total omnipresence amongst its 51 churches was less than the Sunday attendance at a single big and growing church I visited in San Diego.
Secondly, and most challenging, the most common graphs you lot see about church attendance are in a downward trajectory, but the slope is gentle, and the line remains a comforting distance away from the x-centrality, which represents 'zero'. And then information technology is easy to remain oblivious to the long-term consequences of decline. Here, John allows usa no such luxury. Nosotros are confronted with the stark fact that, should current trends continue, one 24-hour interval in the non-so-distant futurity there volition be no church. And of course this is a complete contrast to churches in other parts of the world; the secularism of the Due west is the global exception.
The bad news is less bad for the C of Eastward than the others, but it is withal not dandy. John believes that, for the other three, the side by side 10 years is the last opportunity to exercise something radical. He includes another graph which is likewise revealing, looking at long-term data on membership:
On these, he offers two sobering comments.
Thus, by and large speaking, the Church of England commands more than loyalty amongst social club than ECUSA, Scottish Episcopal Church or the Church in Wales. Its decline is slower, and information technology is unlikely to confront extinction this century, unlike the other three, which have 25-35 years remaining. Given the likely acceleration of church closures that will start in the side by side decade, these three Anglican denominations probably take less than x years to address the issue of their impending extinction.
I should too annotation that none of the four denominations has ever commanded widespread public loyalty in terms of membership or attendance. Churches in the West have never been every bit popular as they have perceived themselves to be. The church might detect the hereafter easier to face by keeping in heed its mission, and its Lord, rather than some idealistic picture of a past golden age that never really existed.
I was peculiarly struck past the last comment; there is a strand of reflection on church decline which looks dorsum to a Gilded Historic period, numerically and morally, which only ever existed in the mind of church-goers.
The natural question, from a statistical point of view, is how nosotros explain the significant differences between the C of E and the others—which John attempts to practice in his next mail. He offers six possible reasons, the commencement three of which are related to the different form of Institution of the C of E compared with the other churches. Many years ago, when I was chair of the Association of Ordinands and Candidates for Ministry building, I invited Colin Buchanan to present the example that we should 'cut the connection' and accept disestablishment. 1 of the ordinands responded 'They did that in Wales—and expect what happened to them!' This sounded like a terrible response theologically, but it appears as though it was an accurate reflection of the folklore and the statistics!
But John'southward 2 most interesting points are his quaternary and fifth reasons:
(d)Theology. All four denominations have a diversity of churchmanships, however The C of Eastward, in contrast to the others, has a stronger evangelical fly, making information technology generally more conservative. Due to theological liberalism many conservatives accept left ECUSA, leaving it a predominately liberal denomination. In the Church in Wales evangelicalism was ever thin on the basis, peculiarly in the industrial due south eastward, which tends to be "liberal loftier". In the Scottish Episcopal church there are a small number of evangelical churches, mainly confined to the large cities. Though some have loftier attendance, the bulk of parishes in the SEC are not evangelical [9].
(e)Revival. Of the iv denominations the C of E has been influenced more past Charismatic Renewal than the others, despite the "Renewal" starting with a The states chaplain [x]. Additionally The C of E's expression of charismatic renewal has also been more evangelical, including a revival in expository preaching. Perhaps the C of Eastward has been more open to revival than the others.
In the discussion in comments below, he adds that the being of tradition-loyal residential theological colleges in the C of E has allowed evangelical theology to flourish in a way that is hasn't been able to in the other iii churches.
If John is correct, then the future of the 4 churches could be very different from one another. For the institutions to meet revival, then they volition demand to be flexible enough to 'reinvent' themselves through a procedure of theological renewal—and John is not convinced that the other iii accept the resources or space to exercise this.
The mode forward is not to piece of work out how to salvage the organisation, just let it fade and try saving the lost. Something new volition then emerge. Maybe the Church of England, with its greater diversity, is much farther down the road of that reinvention.
Such reinvention, ane that restores the fundamental beliefs and spiritual vitality of the church, does not come by organisational management or cultural adaptation. These are spiritual issues and the solution comes through spiritual means. Not by putting motions through synods, but by seeking the face of God. If the above assay is true, the Anglican Churches of Wales, Scotland and the USA do not have much time left to seek to "apprehensive themselves, and pray, and ….." 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Hither, John is echoing something I read a few years ago by Martyn Atkins, and so Full general Secretary of the Methodist Convention (a denomination also in sharp, possibly terminal, decline) in hisResourcing Renewal.From reviewing renewal movements and considering the theology of renewal, he concluded that institutions experience renewal when they rediscover their 'founding charisms', which in the case of Methodism was expressed equally an 'engaged evangelicalism.' We were both at Lee Abbey at the fourth dimension, and my question in response to this proposal was: 'Simply what if the institution equally it now is does not want to rediscover or even own this founding charism whatever more than?' He looked thoughtful.
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