The Church of England Just Hit a Milestone in Terms of Low Attendance

[cleanhippie]

The downward trend is the result of old people dying, younger people being less religious, and a culture that doesn’t think much of supposed Christian “morality.”

Speaking at the opening of the Anglican primates’ meeting in Canterbury, the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said: “In some parts of the Communion decline in numbers has been a pattern for many years. In England our numbers have been falling at about 1% every year since world war two … The culture [is] becoming anti-Christian, whether it is on matters of sexual morality, or the care for people at the beginning or the end of life. It is easy to paint a very gloomy picture.”

Why it’s the nation’s established church when the vast majority of citizens don’t even attend tells you how hard it is to shake old traditions. There’s a long way to go before its influence fades, but if attendance is any indication, this is only the beginning of a long, beautiful, downward spiral.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2016/01/13/the-church-of-england-just-hit-a-milestone-in-terms-of-low-attendance/

Not surprising, since this is following the trend of people moving away from organized religion and it's contradictions and absurdities.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Well, if they call themselves primates, at least they're resolved to accepting Darwin. :^) nt

[mr blur]

2. Typical persecuted whining.The culture here isn't "becoming anti-Christian",

We're just getting more and more willing here to refuse to pay lip-service to what most people in the UK consider bullshit.

[cleanhippie]

3. Exactly.

The same is happening here, just at a slower pace.

[mwrguy]

4. small wonder that so many are starting to embrace Islam

The vigorous overtakes the old and unsure.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Anyone who choose a religion on the basis that a lot of other people are, as well

is an idiot. That's not the point of religion. It shouldn't be the point of life, either.

However, the growth in Muslim numbers is not due to adults 'embracing' it - it's from their higher fertility rate (they are concentrated in countries with high fertility rates), and the general forced indoctrination of children in their parents' religion.

As the example of the unaffiliated shows, there will be vivid geographic differences in patterns of religious growth in the coming decades. One of the main determinants of that future growth is where each group is geographically concentrated today. Religions with many adherents in developing countries – where birth rates are high, and infant mortality rates generally have been falling – are likely to grow quickly. Much of the worldwide growth of Islam and Christianity, for example, is expected to take place in sub-Saharan Africa. Today’s religiously unaffiliated population, by contrast, is heavily concentrated in places with low fertility and aging populations, such as Europe, North America, China and Japan.

Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level (2.1), the minimum typically needed to maintain a stable population.6 Christians are second, at 2.7 children per woman. Hindu fertility (2.4) is similar to the global average (2.5). Worldwide, Jewish fertility (2.3 children per woman) also is above replacement level. All the other groups have fertility levels too low to sustain their populations: folk religions (1.8 children per woman), other religions (1.7), the unaffiliated (1.7) and Buddhists (1.6).

http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/

[rug]

5. This is a trend in the West.

You're being ethnocentric again.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. More children now attend C of E schools than people go to weekly services

(when I said "the Church of England these days is more of a school board that is tasked with trying to hold together a disparate collection of world churches, than an established church", I hadn't realised this milestone had just happened)



https://humanism.org.uk/2016/01/14/44689/