As if a cardboard cathedral were not a sufficiently apt metaphor for the state of western Anglicanism, we now have the soggy cardboard cathedral; nothing to worry about, though, “it’s just cosmetic”:
Sections of an innovative New Zealand cathedral being made from cardboard have gone soggy in the rain, but the project will still be completed next month, the Anglican Church said Friday.
The structure, which has walls made from cardboard tubes, is a temporary replacement for Christchurch’s Anglican cathedral, which was destroyed in a February 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people in New Zealand’s second largest city.
[…..]
“It’s nothing to be worried about at all. The builders anticipated this would happen. It’s just cosmetic.”
Remember, this is a temporary building. It would be too expensive to rebuild the old one. I climbed to the bell tower of the destroyed one. Very sad loss.
Temporary – meaning end-dated – in precisely the same way that the Anglican Church is now almost certainly a temporary religious institution. In Australia (my area of the world), for instance, the Anglican Church has registered such a catastrophic collapse that it has now sold many of its rural churches in an unstoppable retreat to the larger metropolises. Whereas it once boasted 50% of the national population as Anglicans, it now registers around 1% of the national population.
According to its own data, 74% of the communicants of the Anglican Church in Australia are located in the major capital cities of each state. The average decline in attendance country areas since 2001 is 20% – although it is much higher in some regions – which suggests that as the older farming folk with their provincial religious sense of responsibility are dying out, so too are the churches they have sustained.
The OFFICIAL overall numbers have more than halved from their high point in 1921 – remembering that many people who identify as Anglican are not Anglican in any meaningful sense of the term – and the church itself it honest enough to admit that only 5% of the 3.5 million who identify as Anglicans actually regularly worship.
The Church further admits that only around 239,000 Australian Anglicans “participate regularly in the life of our church”. They define participation as attendance once per month – which is a fairly low turnout rate indeed. On these figures, only 1% of Australians are semi-observant or observant Anglicans in any meaningful sense of the term.
The only diocese in the country that is growing and prospering is the ultra-conservative diocese of Sydney – the “Sydney Anglicans” as they have branded themselves. Virtually a sub-church within the church, let by a highly conservative bishop who features more often on national television than the actual ultra-liberal Primate of Australia. I guess even the secular media recognises something significant there.
The same trends would be mirrored among our New Zealand cousins who pretty much the same cultural demographics and sociological conditions as we do across the Tasman.
So a temporary cardboard cathedral, as David says, is actually the perfect symbol.
Better start building an Ark:
admission two by two, male and female.
v. + Matthew 24
I’ve attended Holy Eucharist services in Sydney, in one of the three parishes that has decided that despite the rule that Eucharist is only offered on “special occasions” means that “special occasions” are every Sunday. They still are forbidden to wear anything but a simple alb and stole. Doesn’t seem very Anglican to me.
OTOH, I’ve received communion in St. Peter’s in Adelaide in a beautiful and classical sung service.
The Diocese of Sydney seems like what would be Southern Baptist in the USA, without all the “amens” and “hallelujahs” during the homily.