The Christian Research group have published the results of their fourth English Church Census. I have integrated these stats into my Statistics of Religion in Britain page, and here is a summary:

• Between 1979 and 2005, half of all Christians stopped going to church on a Sunday (6 in 100 of us now do).
  
  
• Between 1998 and 2005, half a million people stopped going to church on Sunday.[2]
  
  
• Daily Telegraph's religious affairs correspondent, Jonathan Petre, says "While 1,000 new people are joining a church each week, 2,500 are leaving."[2]
  
  
• 29% of churchgoers are 65 or over, compared with 16% of the population [2]
  
  
• Nearly all Church 'growth' is due to immigrants. A massive influx of Polish workers have filled churches.

"The fastest rates of decline were among Roman Catholics and Methodists; whereas the Pentecostal Churches showed significant growth over the period. As a result, Methodism has dropped to fourth place behind Pentecostalism. If these rates continue, the C of E will overtake the RC Church within the next four years." [3]

"London has 11 per cent of all churches in England, and 20 per cent of all churchgoers. It has 53 per cent of all English Pentecostalists, and 27 per cent of all Charismatic Evangelicals. Also, it caters for 57 per cent of all worshippers in their 20s. “I couldn’t believe that figure myself, and had to check it again,” said Peter Brierley, the director of Christian Research."

A full table of data on Sunday church attendance from 1979 to 2005 is now on www.vexen.co.uk/religon/rib.html#Sunday Attendance

Sources: (fuller references are on the page)
1. The Christian Research English Church Census 2005
2. National Secular Society Newsline, 2006 Sep 22
3. Church Times, 2006 Sep 22
4. Jonathan Petre, Daily Telegraph religious correspondent, 2006 Sep 21.

Tags: church of england, religion, roman catholic church, statistics

The Church of England took time out from
pressurising the government to pay for the upkeep
of its churches to announce that it will be
spending an estimated £6 million on restoring a
Bishop’s Palace so that Archbishop John Sentamu
can have sumptuous new apartments. Mr Sentamu is
presently living in a tent to show his solidarity
with those displaced by the Middle East conflict.
He often speaks out about how sorry he is that
most of the world has to live in poverty. The
Church of England has £5 billion in the bank.

(From http://www.secularism.org.uk )

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/

Tags: christianity, church of england, churches, poverty

Notes on article:

The Daily Telegraph, 2004 Mar 13, Sat, p14
"Women Priests still held back after 10 years"
Article by Jonathan Petre.

Women make up 1/5th of Church of England Clergy. 10th anniversary of first female ordinations in Bristol Cathedral (1994 Mar 12, 32 original ordinations) "the first of a wave of about 1,200 over the following month"

"But few are in superior posts and they remain barred from the top rungs of the hierarchy [...]. Moreover, their simmering resentment at the Act of Synod, the compromise which allows "flying bishops" to oversee traditionalist parishes, is boiling over."

"the Act [has] been used to 'undermine women priests, promote the idea that discrimination against women is acceptable and create a "church within a church" for sexist clergy."

Female Leicester Cathedral Dean, the Very Rev Vivienne Faull, tipped to be the first ordained Bishop, wrote about a Queen's Party she attended:

"I was repeatedly asked by other guests when are you going to become a bishop? [...] I had to explain that it is illegal [...] The look of horror on their faces... few women from other walks of life are aware of the constraints on women in the Church"

The Very Rev Vivienne Faull is publishing a report on the theological implications of women bishops.

Notes:

It is common knowledge that Christian Churches, and other Abrahamic religions (including Judiasm and Islam) have poor human rights records even including liberal wings such as the Church of England. But still the depth of the injustice to women, gays (and even blacks, still) shocks the otherwise-educated classes.

Partially in Britain this shock is because British culture accepts female equality, whereas sizablle (and growing) portions of Christian culture does not. The shock also arises because, as pointed out in my main essay on Religion in Britain, all groups in Britain educated or not, working or not, show a comprehensive lack of experience and knowledge of even the basic facts about Christianity and religion in general.

This highlights an eternal question and heated debate; are introlerant people drawn to religion because they can get away with intolerance within it's traditionalist culture, or, does (Abrahamic) religion simply bring out the worst in some people?

Tags: christianity, church of england, equality, religion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1080621,00.html

"Gay people should "reorientate" themselves by seeking psychiatric help, the bishop of Chester said yesterday, reigniting the furious row about attitudes to homosexuality within the Church of England"

"Alan Wardle, a spokesman for the gay rights group Stonewall, reacted angrily to Dr Forster's remarks. "Homosexuality was declassified as a medical condition more than 30 years ago," he said. "I'd prefer the bishop should stick to sorting out the problems in his own church." "

The Church of England's, and the Vatican's, recent ignorance and hatred have all made me want to start doing stuff for Stonewall again.

Tags: christianity, church of england, fundamentalism, homophobia, stonewall, the guardian, vatican

Gay Pride
Brought a tear of happiness to my eye to see the success of this 65,000 people event... it's wonderful and amazing! :-)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=427625
I know a lot of people who are going (many go to support gay equality and pride in general, you'd be wrong to assume everyone who goes is gay!), I hope you all have a great time :-) Shame I'm not there!

Church of England
For those who were semi-following the gay bishop issue, the Church of England blocked the promotion of the gay man on grounds of his sexuality. But events like Pride, supported fully by heavy gay police presence, and events populated and openly supported by government and social departments at every level, make me know that the successes of the homophobic evangelical parts of the Church of England is pale and irrelevent, society has well and truly marched well ahead of the times when religions bigotry influences humane tolerance and progress.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,999655,00.html
"swept aside by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when he summoned Canon John and Bishop Harries to Lambeth Palace and demanded the canon's resignation."

Gay marriage
With the same-sex registrar finally being implemented nation-wide (previously it was only available in London) and the expansion of it's affect to include full legal rights as you'd get from marriage, it seems that the UK has finally caught up with moral Europe! I'm proud of us, and Gay Pride, the UK rocks :-) OK we were a cool ten years behind gay rights in countries such as Sweden, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands... but hey, better late than never!

"Never", however, seems to be the precise stance of the Church of England towards gay toleration and equal rights... it's a sad day when I begin to stop thinking of the C of E as liberal, and start considering it evangelical :-(

But, the future looks good :-)

Tags: church of england, gay pride, homosexuality, religion

Liberals and moderates in the Church of England need to rally against the evangelicals and fundamentalists. But, the liberals are not activists, not hot enough, not forceful enough... or financially secure within the Church of England, so that threats to split by evangelical Church of England groups such as Reform and Church Society, have got the liberals by their (pacifist) balls.

The liberals need more powerful leaders and inspiration, Rowan Williams might be that leader if he can forge the way into this century and force the Anglican communion to accept gay rights and gay tolerance... but he can't run the risk of a split... so the liberals need strong leaders to de-evangelise the Church of England.

Otherwise our otherwise positive and liberal C of E is going to turn into another Bible-based fundamentalist tool for anti-human discrimination, anti-rights, anti-life... which is bad :-(

Tags: church of england, fundamentalism, liberals, religion

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=3&u=/nm/20030603/od_nm/malaysia_dc
Malaysia, with just over 50% Muslim population, where the official religion is Islam, is now fining people for holding hands in public. 'About 30 unmarried couples have been fined $7.90 for holding hands in a drive to keep the city "morally clean," ', the 30 fined people were non-Muslims who do not consider holding hands to be morally wrong.

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/coe_fundamentalism.html
Growing Fundamentalism within the Church of England is causing a potential split and financial bankruptcy of the liberal traditional Church of England, as the Anglican Church continues to struggle with gay tolerance.

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=25145
India passes anti-conversion laws. "These difficulties are exacerbated by the increased activity of a few Hindu fundamentalist groups which are creating suspicion of the church and other religions", the Pope said said, "Unfortunately, in some regions the state authorities have yielded to the pressures of these extremists and have passed unjust conversion laws, prohibiting free exercise of the natural right to religious freedom, or withdrawing state support for those in the scheduled castes who have chosen to christianity"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,969021,00.html
Northern region of Pakistan adopts Sharia law. This is the most extreme, barbarian form of religious fundamentalist rule that there can be, responsible for public stonings, apostasy laws and many other elements that we haven't known, in the UK, since the Dark Ages and Inquisition, but which are common in heavily Muslim countries. (The Muslim world is going through it's own Dark Ages, it has been said).

In other vaguely-remembered news (I can't be bothered to find more links...) a Canadian Anglican bishop/priest done a "gay blessing" ceremony, which is good, but according to Reform/Church Society (groups within C of E), 2/3 of bishops have stated they no longer recognize the Bishop as a Christian. In other good news, a Catholic/Protestant mutual service has occured, which is good although the Pope did say he didn't approve.

London, another city, and several European countries have ran government sanctioned gay relationship registration schemes for some time, to much opposition by Christian and Islam groups in the UK and Europe.

Link:
http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/homosexuality.html

Tags: church of england, homosexuality, india, intolerance, malaysia, news, pakista, religion, sharia, the pope

Growing fundamentalism in the Church of England

Tags: christianity, church of england, fundamentalism