Death Spiral for the Anglican Church

Below is an article from “Prophecy News Watch”. The cold reality of this study demonstrates the need for change in the Church today. The Church as we know it, may well become non-existent as its aging population dies. This phenomenon is already occurring in many New Zealand Churches, and adding the secularisation, of at least three generations, one has to be blind not to see the seriousness of the situation. I realise I’m using a human argument here so I'm not talking about the "body of Christ", those saved, and set apart by Christ. I'm confronting the institution we've come to see as the Church, but this is not the Church. This institution is in danger of spiritual, financial, and numerical bankruptcy within the next decade. The exponential decline in those attending might be outside our ability to change. Those who serve as spiritual leaders and overseers are blind guides and seem unwilling to change or acknowledge the increasing spiritual dearth across religious institutions. The same religious attitude pervades all denominational doctrine, so it’s possible that many fall into the same disrepair as the Anglican Church in the United Kingdom.

“The Church of England's membership is now declining so swiftly and steadily that it can hardly be considered anything less than a death spiral as millions drop out of the ranks of the faithful. Instead of relying solely on the official figures provided by the Church, which still claims to have over 85 million members, many are now taking a closer look at the British Social Attitudes Survey, conducted every year since 1983. In 2016, the survey was given to 2,942 adults between July and October and respondents replied, not with an official church affiliation that may be found on a certificate or registry, instead, they described their actual beliefs, religious identities and behaviour. The results could hardly be worse for the Church of England and Christianity.

Across all age groups, 15% of British claim Anglican Christianity as their religion, down from 30% in 2000. But even more striking is the gap between the age cohorts. Only 3% of the young adult population between 18-24 identifies as Anglican, compared to as many as 40% of those over 75. The implication is that the congregations will soon be dying from advanced age and there will be few from the next generation to replace them in the pews.

Catholicism has remained little changed over the past 30 years with roughly 10% of the population but in the 18-24 age group, a mere 5% identify as Catholic. For both Anglicans and Catholics, the matter of identity is no longer a binary question as great numbers of increasingly liberal Christians find themselves at odds with official Church positions on issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. Thus the 3% of young adults who claim to be Anglicans and 5% of those who claim to be Catholic have far less in common with their more traditional elders than in generations past, often holding views opposed to those of the Church, which calls into question the future stability of the Church of England as an institution.

In the past, people tended to respond to surveys with a religious identity such as the Church of England even if they didn't truly believe or weren't practicing. But now, experts are discovering, that people are expressing their non-religion more clearly. As Paul Bayes, the Bishop of Liverpool said in an interview with Christian Today, "In this modern world, people are more willing to be honest and say they have 'no religion' rather than casually saying they are 'C of E'." It is the "rise of the nones", as some have dubbed it.

The recent survey puts the percentage of those who claim "no religion" at 53% when considering the full age range but a much higher 71% when looking only at the 18-24 age group. Even more astounding is the increase from 62% in the previous year of the study, an increase of 14.5% in a single year. In the 25-34 age range, the number is better at around 66% of the population claiming no religion. In a country where the state supports the church in public schools, it is remarkable that such a small percentage of students graduate with no connection to the church.

The abandonment of the Anglican Church has also given rise to a phenomenon known as secular congregations. These are regular gatherings of people who yearn for a sense of connection and community support without believing in any religion or some form of spirituality. They support each other in times of tragedy, celebration, major life events and day-to-day living. Now taking over abandoned churches in some cases, these secular congregations are an attempt to fill a void being left by the vanishing Anglican Church by a generation that has decided to reject its teachings and values.

One woman, a 26-year-old journalist named Tamsin, was interviewed for a piece on secularism by 5 Live. She meets with her Sunday Assembly, one such secular congregation, in London once every two weeks. She said in the interview, "I'm not religious at all. I like that this is a way for community to come together, without having to be about religion."

In another generation, the Church of England will have virtually faded from the public eye as it hangs on with only a fraction of the population. After that, it will be gone entirely if nothing is done to reverse this death spiral. This is truly how religions are extinguished in the modern age: not by a bloody holy war or continent-burning jihad, but by the quicksand of secular apathy”.