Church of England Will Be Dead in 20 Years
October 14, 2012 16 Comments
The Church of England will cease to exist in 20 years as the current generation of elderly worshippers dies, Anglican leaders warned yesterday.
The Telegraph reports:
The average age of its members is now 61 and by 2020 a “crisis” of “natural wastage” will lead to their numbers falling “through the floor”, the Church’s national assembly was told.
The Church was compared to a company “impeccably” managing itself into failure, during exchanges at the General Synod in York.
The warnings follow an internal report calling for an urgent national recruitment drive to attract more members.
In the past 40 years, the number of adult churchgoers has halved, while the number of children attending regular worship has declined by four fifths.
The Rev Dr Patrick Richmond, a Synod member from Norwich, told the meeting that some projections suggested that the Church would no longer be “functionally extant” in 20 years’ time…
There’s more here.
You know what they problem is? They stopped preaching and teaching the unadulterated truth of the Gospel long ago. The Bible has been adapted in the name of being culturally relative and sensitive, and as such they have become no different to any other boring social club. Preach the Word. Preach the truth. Preach Christ and Christ crucified… and that for SIN!
About Fr Stephen Smuts
All churches that have lost their zeal for the gospel of truth and have adopted a relativistic and palatable approach to religion are in decline. Only the churches that continue to preach the way, truth and life are growing, and they certainly re-affirm the old “fire and brimstone” that so many in today’s age consider unnecessary. Quite tragic since the Church of England historically did so much to help spread global Christianity…
Cheers!
Indeed!
Amen, without the Gospel the church is already dead. And in many ways the CoE is now already ecclesastically “dead”!
This really is a sad commentary on a post-Christian Europe. I suspect demographers in Europe could pretty much say the same thing about every established or recently disestablished church in Europe. Just look at Scandanavia. And things are equally bleak in places like “Reformed” Scotland and Wales, Or “Catholic” France, Spain, and Italy. As well as “Orthodox” Greece or Russia. And the once stronger national churches like Ireland and Poland seem to be declining fast. Germany a complete mess. Europeans will have no one to blame but themselves if (when?) Europe is essentially either de-Christianized or Islamicized. And Americans can’t be smug. We just need to see what is happening in places like Canada or California.
One of the most interesting things to note, is that Europe wasn’t secularized because Europeans embraced secular ideas like Atheism or Agnosticism out of the blue. Secularism grew as a result of two things: the Protestant work ethic, and the lack of religious knowledge in the next generation.
Max Weber predicted that Protestantism would destroy itself through capitalism because capitalism relies on “rationality” that precedes the supernatural. As a result, the society slowly forgot about why they were capitalistic, not to make money for self-pleasure, but to prove you were part of God’s Elect and spend the money for the less fortunate or put it all back into business. As a result, these people slowly lost their Christian knowledge and identity and slowly started to drift away.
The more knowledge one has of their religious tradition, the more likely they are too remain, go to church, attend Seminary, read the Bible, etc. Really, it’s an educational problem. Why are Muslims growing, outside of child-bearing reasons of course, look at their education – they reinforce Islam to their students, the opposite is true in the West.
For a very long period, education was run by the religious establishment, and while they promoted science, math, economics and other secular liberal arts, they always reinforced and gave a healthy dose of religious study as well. Yes, it is quite tragic, and let us pray it doesn’t happen in America, but we are already seeing the trend toward Europe…
It was the early “Brethren” (PB’s), and John Nelson Darby, who first stated that the Church age itself, would end in ruin and in some sense of apostasy! Followed of course by Scofield and the men / editors of the Scofield Reference Study Bible, (1909/1917). And whether we like it or not, that Study Bible has sold millions, plus! I am not agreeing with the whole Bible notes themselves, but the reality of the church in ruin and moving greatly in apostasy cannot be doubted!
“Historically, this letter (The Third Epistle Of John) marks the beginning of that clerical and priestly assumption over the churches in which the primitive church order disappeared.” (The Scofield Reference Bible, note in the “Theme” of III John.) In the Theme of Second John (Scofield), “Second John gives the essentials of the personal walk of the believer in a day when “many deceivers are entered into the world’ (v. 7), The key-phrase is ‘the truth,” by which John means the body of revealed truth, the Scriptures. The Bible, as the only authority for doctrine and life, is the believer’s resource in a time of delension and apostasy.”
Certainly an “Amen” from me here! Btw, I have spoken, not too many years ago (as an Anglican presbyter), at an Open Brethren Conference. I loved it! As some know my Irish greatgram was among the so-called “Kelly” Brethren, and later with the Open Brethren. She was even personally baptized by A.T. Pierson, indeed I have heard that story a few times!
Yes, she was a great Christian woman, and oh how she knew her Bible! She was a great affect on me! Can’t wait to see her in the glory and together with Jesus, and all the Redeemed of God!
*declension
What of the Evangelicals in the C. of E.? Don’t they have young members?
Now, I wouldn’t wish to claim that they are like unto the Jensens et al. in the Anglican diocese of Sydney, but from what little I know, here in Australia (and in the UK?) it is the Evangelicals and they alone, not to mention the Sydney variety, that are growing, planting new missions (in other dioceses, no less), etc.
Speaking of the Sydneyites, I recall how flabbergasted I was on seeing on the Anglican cathedral noticeboards, not only in Sydney itself but in Woollongong (directly to the south of Sydney), that all the Sunday services were described, not as “Morning/Evening Prayer”, nor “Mattins/Evensong”, nor “Holy Communion/Eucharist” (let alone as “Mass”!), but as “Public Christian Meetings”.
Here’s what the scripture says… “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” (Acts 2:42) Actually, we might use the article “the” before the first three, from the literal Greek to English! The point, is not what we may call them, but that we do them, with devotion! I too love the older name “Evensong”, but “fellowship” is that beautiful Greek word “Koinonia”, from which we get the word “communion”. It is also always a contribution together! May we as “Church” be after it, together! This is the essence of being “Catholic”!
Also on this subject, Edward Norman’s book on Anglican Difficulties mentioned something that, as an interested outsider, intrigued and saddened me: he said that, while for most of its history the offices of Morning and Evening Prayer were the mainstay of worship for Anglicans, they and the BCP have so fallen away from use in the last few decades that few Anglicans now recognize them; while the office of Holy Communion, which, whatever the churchmanship of those who celebrated it, was always considered a serious and solemn occasion for which to prepare with carefulness and prayer, has become, not merely the normal Sunday service, but has been so reduced in solemnity as to be almost trivialised, compared to the old sense of it, and transformed, by the almost infinite number of permitted liturgical permutations provided by Common Worship and the like, into whatever the local coterie has thought up to celebrate each time, celebrated by a small, inward-looking group in a manner quite the reverse of the old solemnity. I recognize the Catholic parallels, but would say that, if this description be fair, the changes have proceeded far further in Anglican circles (as demonstrated by WO, etc.).
A few years ago, circumstances brought me to visit an Anglican grammar school; I was expecting Gothic choirs singing Evensong, but the chaplain and the liturgies he conducted while I looked on were far from my preconceived notions of what Anglican worship would look like (to be fair, while very Low, they still had a certain dignity). I later discovered that not too many years before, the services had been far more BCP-ish and High, but that tradition has disintegrated since.
I recall once staring into an Anglican church in Melbourne, and being amazed to see not one but three altars all in a line! – the old high altar, firmly against the east wall, very solemnly appointed, and quite catholic; a forward altar or holy table set at the front of the sanctuary nearest the nave (so far, an arrangement common enough in Catholic churches also); and then, a third, rather pathetic looking, perhaps slightly smaller and even simpler table set quite a way down the nave, with a small number of chairs grouped around it. One could easily imagine the pews filling the nave in times past, but now replaced with a yawning gulf, in the midst of which the latest table stood, with none too many seats around it, but evidently enough for those who still came. It gave a sense of “how the mighty have fallen”.
Yes something I recognise. At a family wedding in the Diocese of Chester, the altar candles were not lit, the parson was in a suit and he apologised for having to use the “old Church of England language” as his made up liturgy would of course been unlawful and the young couple (man and woman just to make it clear) would not have been joined together either by the Church or the State. The Church of England is now firmly a protestant body – nothing wrong with that – but they should not go on claiming to be the catholic church in the land ‘cos they aren’t!
So far as England and Wales is concerned, nearly all denominations have experienced a decline in attendances since the 1970′s. So, although the decline in attendances in the CofE is very marked, there has also been a decline in RC attendances – although not as marked – but Catholics can not afford to look at the statistics with eqanimity.
In part the decline in attendances is a consequence of the overall aging of the UK population – those of us who were brought up to be observant are getting fewer in number.
Then, in my youth there was not much else to do on a Sunday morning. Now there are temptations aplenty – not least the weekly trip to the supermarket or to the emporia which (in the words of one ill written sign) enourage one “Do in Yourself – and Make a Good Job of It”.
Another reason for the decline was the mistaken belief of some clergy that one had to make services “trendy” to atrract the younger generation. Both the CofE and the RC made this mistake which all too often meant that the parish priest or vicar sought to ingratiate himself with the parish youth by introducing the music which he had listened to when he was a young man. Almost inevitably it was 20 years or so behind the current taste so it failed to attract the youth and also irritated those whose tastes were formed BRR (before Rock and Roll).
This tendency was more marked in the CofE purely because the Catholic Church is rather more prescriptive about what may and may not from part of our worship. I have yet to experience the use of Playstation 3 as part of a Cathedral service (Exeter Cathedral) or attend a baptism of the kind recently described on Fr Ed Tomlinson;s blog. But some of the Catholic innovations in his regard were bad enough. Fortunately, thanks to the Agatha Christie Indult it was easier to get permission for the EF mass in England than elsewhere so in London at least, one could always find digified worship somewhere not too far away.
Now, of course, while the Catholic Church has, however belatedly, started a reform of the reform, the CofE, in its desire to maintain some relevance to national life seems all too willing to extinguish and marginalise whatever remains of its Catholic heritage. Or even of Holy Scripture.
See this comment from a British MEP after he had appeated on the very popular BBC “Question Time” with Canon Giles Frazer (ex St Paul’s Cathedral).
“Giles Fraser is an odd sort of clergyman. When we appeared together on Any Questions recently, he declared: ‘I hate that line in the Bible where it says the poor will always be with you’. It struck me as a curious thing to say. Hatred is rarely an attractive emotion; and ‘that line in the Bible’ was spoken by Jesus after a woman anointed him with perfume in Bethany. I know the C of E is more more doctrinally flexible than some denominations, but you don’t often hear an ordained minister proclaiming his hatred for the words of the church’s founder.”
H/T: Daily Telegraph:
Quite.
Sorry I mucked up the HTML. and there is an error – Giles Frazer was on Radio 4 (Any Questions) rather than BBC1 TV (Question Time)
The early Church and Christians simply but profoundly (in the majority) “loved” their Lord & Savor Jesus Christ… “the Lord their God.” (Matt. 22:37-38) Though we are about, or almost 2,000 years later, Jesus asks us to do the same! (Rev. 3:15-21… it is sad however, that the last church age, Laodicea… that Jesus stands at or outside this church door, and knocks!
*Savior (but HE is a sweet savor too!)
Btw, I did want to say, that if the CoE will be gone in 20 years? then just what is the Archbishop of Canterbury, and really all the other CoE bishops doing about it? Of course the new ABC is yet to come, but the point is where is the leadership of the whole Communion, especially the English? And always to my point, where and what is the Gospel? And will the Anglicanorum Coetibus really pick up the slack for the Anglican Patrimony? Again that is yet to be seen! But whatever, this Anglican would rather be in a place of the Evangelical Free Church, or even an Independent Anglican Local Church. But of course the latter remains to be seen if it will even exist in several years? Seriously, my wife and I have been thinking about retirement in Sidney. Indeed the Church Catholic is under great siege in modernism and postmodernism (the two are really father & son). And having been Roman Catholic, I just don’t see my religious and theological freedom and conscience there, not to mention the doctrine of salvation. Nor, really in Orthodoxy either. But then as some know here, my views on Eschatology are certainly focused on Modern and National Israel, even more as we see the Gentile Church moving in apostasy! And again who knows where Roman Catholicism will be when Ratzinger/Benedict is gone? Just some things to think about, at least to my mind!