In spite of this optimistic prognostication, I remain convinced that the Church of England is already dead: in 20 years, its corpse, having spent the last few decades marinating in ecclesiastical gas, will become a pickled artefact fit only to be put on display for the entertainment of curious historians in generations to come.
From here:
The Church of England will cease to exist in 20 years as the current generation of elderly worshippers dies, Anglican leaders warned yesterday.
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 reason for the decline was not discussed but becomes transparently obvious when we read later on in the article that the Bishop of Southwell is concerned that maths lessons are too “capitalist” and should be reformed to promote Christian values.
The Church of England is full of bishops who are convinced they are concentrating on the real problem while, in actual fact, they are living their vacuous lives in a barmy, utopian Marxist cuckoo land full of anti-capitalist arithmetic conceived by flamboyantly gay clerics.
Why does anyone want the Church of England to survive?
“Why does anyone want the Church of England to survive?”
– Yes indeed; and does it deserve to survive? This is a good article that gets to the heart of the problem. Only a church that exists merely to proclaim the Lordship of Christ, and the necessity of salvation through Him, will survive, can expect to survive, and should survive. Didn’t John Wesley (when asked about the future of his movement) say something like: “I do not fear that the people called Methodists may cease to exist, only that they should cease to know and love Christ” (or something) – says it all.
Depends on how you define the “Church of England”. There are surely a few parishes, if not dioceses, within the provinces of Canterbury and York, which are evangelical in outlook and are actively trying to bring the Gospel message to those who do not yet know it. Given the increase in numbers elsewhere, in those parishes which are of this kind, there should yet be hope for the Church in England.
Pietro,
Yes, I’m sure there are and if the CofE has has future I expect it will lie with them.
It will be interesting to see how these parishes fair as the liberal drift of the national body increases – as I suspect it will. In Canada, some of the Anglican dioceses are so heretical that an increasing number of evangelical parishes are leaving to join the ACNA.