Decline of the church in the UK
25 Jul 2006
Highlights and some of my thoughts from yesterdays seminar on Decline of the Church
In no particular order:
1. Are secularization theorist correct, that modernity is dismantling and replacing the need for religion?
2. Two key different approaches to assessment, sociological(quantitative data etc, anthropological (ethnographic studies etc)
3. Sociological approaches often offer data (church is in decline etc) but little by way of interpretation, the ‘why?’, ‘how does it feel?’ etc.
4. The increasing place for Empirical Theology in these assessments (i.e Alan James etc)
5. Surveys on church attendance in UK show: 1979 – 12%, 1989 – 10%, 1998 – 7.5%. The trend is downards
6. Anecdotally, the figure is much much lower in urban places, maybe 1%, and sometimes higher in rural areas with low population densities.
7. Reminded me again of how different the UK is the USA. The UK is secular, the US is a religious nation (over 40% attendance/connection to church)
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8. People are occasional attendees, the role of regular attendance is gone from most churches.
9. People have their own liturgical calendar. In the country it can be around harvest, mothering sunday etc. I wonder if in urban areas it is around public holidays that are now vacation times. The church calendar now marks peoples vacation lives. How do we live the church calendar when peoples liturgy is something very different?
10. Apart from France, which is like the UK, weekly attendance at church can be as high as 29%. The higher north you go and more protestant you get the lower church attendance (apart from norther Ireland due to culture demarkations by religion)
11. National Census in 2001, optional question on religion, had 71% of UK self selecting as Christian!
12. Was this people believing and not belonging, where are they getting their christian input from?
13. Or is it people selecting Christian as an ethnic statement, i.e ‘Not Muslim’, and a selection against atheism, i.e most people believe in God, and if they aren’t muslim will still opt for Christian when questioned. In other words they saw this survey as ‘do you believe in god?’
14. Despite downward trend of church, 97% of people opt for a religious funeral! Reminded me again of place for connection to our world in funerals for evangelism.
15. Also 20% of children are baptized, another key place for church to meet people. Weddings down to 40% by church, but still a huge proportion.
16. I know some argue the church should refuse to baptize kids, do funeral and marriages for non christians…yet I am more convinced we need to use these things as rites of passage to connect to our community.
17. 1851 UK and Wales Survey: asked about people at church, it was a shock to Victorian England.
18. In 1851 unless you were a member of the church of england you could not be a member of parliament, civil servant, lecturer etc. And those people in these jobs who ran the country assumed everyone was like them.
19. 39% of population at best were in attendance at church, and 50% of those were not in c.ofe churches
20. So the english have always been occasional attenders, and even in height of churches culture, 50% were in non church of england churches.
21. Church decline slightly, then more so after 1st world war, then it grew after 2nd world war, and was probably still around the 39% mark into the 1950’s.
22. What triggered the decline? Maybe sexual emancipation, thesis of females freed from set roles, to negotiated roles with men, and the found the church as one place that perpetuated the role of women in society. Women opted out, and men stopped as they only went to reinforce their roles with their wives.
23. Decline in religious education in UK. Although compulsory in school, it doesn’t take place, shortage of RE teachers, and most schools ignore the law in this respect.
24. First and Second generation of children growing up who have been taught nothing about christianity, huge implications for our evangelism!
My full notes are
here.
14 comments
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Comment by mark
1.00 pm on 25 Jul 2006
Thanks for the notes, Jason. That is a really helpful outline of the situation in the UK, particularly in contrast to the US, where so much christian material comes from!!
Comment by Jason
3.16 pm on 25 Jul 2006
Mark: thanks mate…let me know what you think of the notes if you get time.
Comment by Paul
7.19 pm on 25 Jul 2006
point 22 – interseting thesis given churches seemed to be more geared to women, or at least it seems to me more women attend – ehich might be cos its more geared to them? Which seems the opposite to most other religions where there seems a strong male/macho/masculine image – judaism/islam etc…
Maybe it was a perpetuating thing – church changed as women were emancipated to cater more for them which in tern made churh more feminine which pushed out men…?
No stats to back it up but would be interested to know if there is something that breaks church attendance down by gender?
Comment by Tim Wright
12.38 am on 26 Jul 2006
A new family joined our church and the number one thing the wife and husband said was they were looking for a church that was masculine and not run by post menopausal flag waving disgruntled women.
Singing for 30 minutes or longer, getting everyone to share their feelings or having such an esoteric message that usually appeals only to women.
The men in our church talk about masturbation, money, sex, pornography. Where they emotionally live. They love it.
We figure if we can talk about this stuff and challenge our behaviours and beliefs about this stuff we can talk about anything.
Most churches dance around this stuff at their peril. If their ministry doesn’t touch men in these areas, it is not touching men.
Tim Wright
Comment by Steffen
2.15 pm on 31 Jul 2006
Hey Paul
David Murrow has written a book, “Why Men Hate Going To Church” with a lot of stats and (possible) explanations of “the gender gap”.
I found that book very interesting even though I don’t agree with him in every detail.
Maybe it could be useful.
Steffen Boeskov
Comment by Helen
4.15 pm on 31 Jul 2006
Steffen: What I like about that book is that it was at least written by a man ;)
Tim: I wonder if what that couple really liked was the honesty in talking about men’s issues.
I wonder what women’s issues churches ‘dance around’? I expect there are some.
Comment by Rev Fluff
8.36 pm on 5 Aug 2006
No, it’s not modernity that is causing the Church to decline. It’s just old fashioned apostasy. Or, to call it by its biblical name – sin.
Though folk deny and disbelieve God, He does not deny them His grace and mercy. Praise be to His holy Name.
Comment by Paul
7.26 am on 6 Aug 2006
Hi Tim/Steffan:
Tim – good point on the honesty front, although a lot of those same issues effect women too so I hope you are not just stereotyping – i read somewhere like a third of the porn downloaded on the net is by women for instance… I think I was referring to the tone rather than necessarily the issues that were covered in church – bit like the wild at heart ethos of an adventure to live, a woman to win and a battle to fight – rather than another song to sing and a chat about our issues :)
Steffan – thanks for the heads up about the book, will check out it!
Comment by Helen
8.05 pm on 6 Aug 2006
Paul wrote:
I think I was referring to the tone rather than necessarily the issues that were covered in church – bit like the wild at heart ethos of an adventure to live, a woman to win and a battle to fight – rather than another song to sing and a chat about our issues :)
I wrote about Wild at Heart in one of my first blog entries:
Warriors and Princesses
“an adventure to live, a woman to win” – yes, that IS what the book says.
C’mon guys – let’s get in the 21st century!
Comment by Helen
8.07 pm on 6 Aug 2006
Rev Fluff wrote:
No, it’s not modernity that is causing the Church to decline. It’s just old fashioned apostasy. Or, to call it by its biblical name – sin.
If sin is the problem, how did the church grow before it declined? Because – unless I’ve been misinformed – sin was already around when the church began.
Comment by Paul
8.28 am on 7 Aug 2006
Hi Helen, I know his language style is a bit dungeons & dragons (aside: how many boys play that tho)… but if you think about the type of film men love what is it – they save the world, have rollicking adventures on the way and they get the gal and what about gals – they love those rom/com find a nice guy will they/won’t they etc…
Oh i know massively stereotyped – i do love a good rom/com with the missus but try getting her to watch die hard with me…
I think church can be a very safe very tame very much a love out with Jesus which is pretty much a woman’s dream date kinda affair…
But i appreciate i could well be wrong, so would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on why it seems in most churches the chicks out number the guys?
Comment by Helen
6.27 pm on 7 Aug 2006
I think church can be a very safe very tame very much a love out with Jesus which is pretty much a woman’s dream date kinda affair…
But i appreciate i could well be wrong, so would be very interested in hearing your thoughts on why it seems in most churches the chicks out number the guys?
Actually I do think the ‘love out with Jesus’ is a problem, yes. Why would men go for that unless they’re gay (sorry, but some of the worship songs are barely distinguishable from secular romantic love songs, imo – I’m just being honest)
Thanks for your comments on Wild at Heart on the blog I host. I didn’t entirely disagree with them – well, go see…I reposted them as their own blog entry, with my response as a comment:
Paul defends Wild at Heart
Comment by Paul
9.08 pm on 7 Aug 2006
Yes I agree with you Helen… thanks for posting me, very kind of you :)
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12.11 am on 14 Aug 2006
[...] Not so much a case of women leaving the church but men never arriving Jase in his post on the seminar he attended on the decline of the church in the UK suggests that the empowerment of women in culture did not happen in church and women opted out taking their husbands with them. One of the commentators suggested a book called why men hate going to church by David Murrow. I have not yet had time to get hold of the book but my father-in-law had passed me a copy of a talk based on this book which I listed to today. Having heard the talk I really want to get hold of the bookd and read more as it seems to suggest that rather than women stepping out of church and taking men with them that the church for centuries has become adapt at reaching women, children and old people for the simple reason that they show up, the are the punters in the pews. Murrow argues that rather than calling men back to the church it is in fact time to call the church back to men. [...]
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