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Anglican Church ‘may cease to exist in 20 years’
Yorkshire Post ^ | 13 July 2011 | Yorkshire Post

Posted on 07/14/2011 6:09:32 AM PDT by Cronos

The Church of England will no longer be “functionally extant” in 20 years time according to some projections, a member of the General Synod has warned.

The Rev Dr Patrick Richmond, from Norwich, told members of the Church’s national assembly that they were facing a “perfect storm” of ageing congregations and falling clergy numbers.

The average age of congregations was 61, with many above that, he said.

“These congregations will be led by fewer and fewer stipendiary clergy ... 2020 apparently is when our congregations start falling through the floor because of just natural wastage, that is people dying.

“Another 10 years on, some extrapolations put the Church of England as no longer functionally extant at all.”

The first Church Estates Commissioner Andreas Whittam Smith said the demographic “time bomb of 2020” for Anglicans was a “crisis”,

“One problem may be that decline is so slow and imperceptible that we don’t really see it coming clearly enough,” he said.

“We know about it in theory but we don’t really know about it in practice.”

He added: “I wish that all of us would have a sense of real crisis about this.”

(Excerpt) Read more at yorkshirepost.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Current Events; General Discusssion; Mainline Protestant
KEYWORDS: anglican; churchofengland; coe; england
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To: Cronos

Funny though that the conservative evangelical Anglican Churches I know are booming. Lefties and homos really don’t want to go to church and believe so changing the church to suit them was the worst ever possible decision - whereas concervative Christians will go just about every week and put their money in the collection plate as well.

Mel


21 posted on 07/14/2011 7:03:36 AM PDT by melsec
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To: Cronos

We did. A couple with whom we are friends practically had us riding into their church on a donkey. We have now become members of this LCMS church. The husband and I joke that we are the youth group at this church (we are both in our fifties). But, everyone there has made us feel more than welcome.


22 posted on 07/14/2011 7:05:30 AM PDT by GeorgeTex (Obama-Four M President (Mendacious Manchurian Muslim Marxist))
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To: Cronos

The light of Christ has been shining stronger in the East, as it dies in the West.


23 posted on 07/14/2011 7:10:42 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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To: melsec

yes, you are correct. i feel sorry for those guys, they are needlessly clubbed with the Gene-Robinson types.


24 posted on 07/14/2011 7:14:17 AM PDT by Cronos ( W Szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie I Szczebrzeszyn z tego slynie.)
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To: GeorgeTex

Wow! I bet bigwigs just shrugged that off to coincidence. I am confident America will survive this time period of insanity we see being implemented from the top down, learn from it, and thrive because America is becoming more and more conservative as time goes by.


25 posted on 07/14/2011 7:18:59 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: Cronos
"Western" Europe.

You are absolutely right... I should've drawn that distinction. Those former Warsaw Pact countries (excluding Russia) also have a low number of muslims as well.

26 posted on 07/14/2011 7:31:08 AM PDT by ScottinVA (As a party that gives Obama what he wants, what again is the GOP`s 2012 selling point?)
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To: ScottinVA

Not hard to guess who’s stepping up to fill that spiritual vacuum.
///
agreed.
and the Muslim birthrate is booming, with “Muhammad” the most common baby name in London.
they have already started taking over unused churches, and turning them into Masjids.

...1200 years after Charles Martel defeated 50,000
Europe is welcoming millions of muslims, and even supporting their birthrate financially.

Mark Steyn said it all in the title. “America Alone”.


27 posted on 07/14/2011 7:33:33 AM PDT by Elendur (the hope and change i need: Sarah / Colonel West in 2012)
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To: Cronos

I think the Anglican church in England is a superb example of the *need* for a *real* “separation between church and state.” That is, a state religion is just out of place in the modern world. Not the nonsense about it that happens in the US.

In the rest of the world, the Anglican communion is very potent, and growing, especially in Africa, and at the expense of Islam.

So the question becomes, what is in store for Anglicanism in England?

Probably the best bet, which the government would likely never take, would be that the great cathedrals and churches be “privatized”, in a way, as part of the Catholic special ordinariate. Doubtless there would be bitter acrimony from Protestant religions to doing this, as well as from others, from Muslim to atheist, who would want to see these buildings either razed or converted into mosques.


28 posted on 07/14/2011 7:34:41 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy
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To: Cronos

“... and Russia is returning in droves back to Christianity. “
///
great post!
...and many Russians never left, except “officially”.
i had the honor to attend some small rural services in Russia, and was very impressed with the quiet devotion.
(no pews or seats either. standing, or kneeling on stone floor only.)

and Moscow denied gays permission to even have a “parade”,
even after the EU threatened them with charges of “human rights violations”.


29 posted on 07/14/2011 7:37:34 AM PDT by Elendur (the hope and change i need: Sarah / Colonel West in 2012)
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To: Tennessean4Bush
I didn't use the word "culprit," but it was either the beginning of the end or a prominent signpost along the way.

Big mountains fall one rock at a time. When you depart from Christian orthodoxy on one point, it's like dominoes falling, but much more slowly. If you want an example that's more recent, look at the various liberal Prot denominations which started ordaining women in the 70's ... and unchaste homosexuals 40 years later.

30 posted on 07/14/2011 7:51:00 AM PDT by Campion ("Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies when they become fashions." -- GKC)
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To: JBR34

Nope. You’re confusing “median” with “average.”

Since it’s quite possible for youthful parishes to proliferate, it’s quite possible for there to be exceptionally young parishes, with average ages significantly below the median. OTOH, with the normal age so high, it’s not likely that there are parishes with average ages significantly above the median. This means that the average is likely to be below the median.

OTOH, most journalists don’t know the difference between median and average, either, so you’re probably right.


31 posted on 07/14/2011 9:27:03 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Cronos

I thought married priests were supposed to solve these sort of problems. (sarc)


32 posted on 07/14/2011 9:28:02 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Cronos

When this happens, a small coterie of gays will become about a hundred billion dollars wealthier.


33 posted on 07/14/2011 9:30:01 AM PDT by dangus
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To: Cronos
It seems the Gates of Hell are prevailing against it. Who would have thought?

Seriously, though, when you separate sex acts from childbearing and when you equate a sodomite relationship to that of marriage, it's inevitable that you will go the way of the Shakers who had similarly unnatural views of life and human sexuality.
34 posted on 07/14/2011 9:35:38 AM PDT by Antoninus (What part of "I won't vote for Romney under any circumstances" don't you understand?)
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To: Jack Hydrazine
"What does ‘stipendiary clergy’ mean? Government-paid clergy?"

Why, yes, yes it does. If you pay taxes in England, some of your money goes to fund doddering old fools who officiate over Gay Clown Masses.

"And I'm proud (and oh so thankful) to be an American..."

35 posted on 07/14/2011 10:31:30 AM PDT by jboot
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To: Cronos

...”and Russia is returning in droves back to Christianity.”

Can you elaborate Cronos?


36 posted on 07/14/2011 1:31:01 PM PDT by diamond6 (Check out: http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/home.php and learn about the faith.)
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To: Tennessean4Bush; Cronos

I see nothing funny about that.

Contraception is often abortafficient (spelling), and there is absolutely nothing funny about that.


37 posted on 07/14/2011 1:34:24 PM PDT by diamond6 (Check out: http://www.biblechristiansociety.com/home.php and learn about the faith.)
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To: diamond6
I see nothing funny about that. Contraception is often abortafficient (spelling), and there is absolutely nothing funny about that.
Was not laughing at abortion, and that was not written in any way in his post. Your suggestion that contraception is equivalent to abortion will be news to many Protestant believers, but knock yourself out getting the word out. Just don't inject something into my post or the post I was commenting on and then suggest in some way that I endorse or think an abhorrent practice (abortion) is funny. I don't appreciate it.

Your post and its underlying belief suggest to me that you are Catholic, is that correct?

38 posted on 07/14/2011 1:44:47 PM PDT by Tennessean4Bush (An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is true.)
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To: Tennessean4Bush

One of the mechanisms that oral contraceptives use is preventing implantation in the uterus. The hormones occasionally fail to prevent an ova from being produced. There is another hormone which prevents the uterine wall from accepting this possible fertilized ova.


39 posted on 07/14/2011 2:07:45 PM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
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To: Campion
Big mountains fall one rock at a time. When you depart from Christian orthodoxy on one point, it's like dominoes falling, but much more slowly. If you want an example that's more recent, look at the various liberal Prot denominations which started ordaining women in the 70's ... and unchaste homosexuals 40 years later.
Nothing institutionalizes an organization like adherence to orthodoxy for its own sake. Trumpeting "orthodoxy" and identifying it as the root cause creates just that mindset, and the organization ceases its primary purpose -- which in this case is to represent the good news of God's love, forgiveness, faith, and hope in the resurrection of Jesus to a lost world. Churches which focus on that simple message of good news and represent it to their communities are vibrant, growing, and relevant in the most important way.

Some churches have accepted people in leadership who demonstrably should not be there, no doubt. Institutions who have lost the ability or will to identify acts that are inconsistent with the good news of our new identity in Christ are organizations in decline, for sure. But the root is the continued lack of focus on the faith, hope, and love that inspire the transformation of the individual, the organization or institution and its members to bear "good fruit." I have (and so have you) sat in churches where adherence to orthodoxy was primary focus and where they would never ever accept any deviation from Scripture -- and they were as dead as a door nail. Just because you dot the i's and cross the t's you will not be justified. Only way is through the transforming love of God, and your faith and hope in the resurrection. Transformation happens one person at a time and infects the institution in a great way. JMHO.

40 posted on 07/14/2011 2:11:02 PM PDT by Tennessean4Bush (An optimist believes we live in the best of all possible worlds. A pessimist fears this is true.)
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