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 ...
“The average age of congregations was 61, with many above that, he said.”
Um, I’m guessing that about half are above that and half are below 61.
i’m her 8th old man named Henery, Henery the VIIIth I am
Leftist ideologies mixed with theology leads to heresies. The Anglican church has been wracked by heresies for 40 years or more. The death of this church will be a deserved one as they have largely left Christ behind and picked up the torch of social justice. (The same can be said of several other mainline churches.)
Maybe being the first Christian denomination to cave on contraception back in 1930 wasn’t such a good idea after all ...
If being socially relevant is your goal, you will become socially-irrelevant.
And within a hundred years that denomination disappears
“These congregations will be led by fewer and fewer stipendiary clergy...”
What does ‘stipendiary clergy’ mean? Government-paid clergy?
If you look at the Lutheran ELCA churches people are leaving them like no tomorrow because they are so Leftist.
Well, when the UK and the rest of Europe separated themselves from spiritual belief and decided to embrace secularism, it left the vacuum that nature so abhors.
Not hard to guess who’s stepping up to fill that spiritual vacuum.
Bingo. We couldn’t leave our old ELCA church fast enough. The Music Director (who was gay) thought it was hysterical that the church next to the meeting hall where the ELCA bigwigs decided to allow Gay and Lesbian clergy got hit by lightning within hours of the decision.
That Church has become one big leftist social club.
and Russia is returning in droves back to Christianity.
did you join the LCMS, if I might add? I think it’s a very conservative Lutheran Church, no gay pastors, no pastoresses, no nonsense.
“Another 10 years on, some extrapolations put the Church of England as no longer functionally extant at all.”
Maybe because they use words like “extant” instead of presenting relevant teaching in normal English to a younger population. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for churchy language, but not when you’re trying to make a point to the world at large.
Exactly. By giving away to every PC social issue they have resigned themselves to moral ambiguity.
“Do you own thing, Man. It’s cool. Who am I to judge your behavior as good or evil. In fact, it’s not necessary to go to church or even bring you children up with a religious education”
that’s something I think about too — I think we need to retain the beauty and prayerfulness of the original liturgy, but sermons or discussing like this “extant” are not “churchy” language, rather a lame attempt at obfuscation by utilizing obscure words
Maybe being the first Christian denomination to cave on contraception back in 1930 wasn’t such a good idea after all ...ROTFLMAO! So caving on contraception is the culprit? LOL!
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
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.
The light of Christ has been shining stronger in the East, as it dies in the West.
yes, you are correct. i feel sorry for those guys, they are needlessly clubbed with the Gene-Robinson types.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
“... 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”.
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.
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.
I thought married priests were supposed to solve these sort of problems. (sarc)
When this happens, a small coterie of gays will become about a hundred billion dollars wealthier.
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..."
...”and Russia is returning in droves back to Christianity.”
Can you elaborate Cronos?
I see nothing funny about that.
Contraception is often abortafficient (spelling), and there is absolutely nothing funny about that.
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?
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.
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.
I have heard that. But identifying allowing contraception as the precipitous watershed event in the life of a church is absurd, imho. It ignores the true root causes, which in the case of the vibrancy (or lack thereof) in a church is loss of focus on the good news.
Well, I only gave that from what I’ve read, not experienced. Religion is getting to play an increasing role in Russia. This is also seen in the number of people attending Divine liturgy each week
Acceptance of this means inevitably that it's ok to have sex without thinking, so sex outside marriage is ok, so living in gets to be ok, so homosexual sex is ok, so gay marriage is ok. Someone can be at one end of the scale and not agree with the other, but I'm talking about society as a whole or even take Anglicanism and the UK in particular -- it moved from the point in the 30s when it accepted contraception, right through to now "gay marriage"
I really, really believe the preponderance of television has had a big role to play in that.
Congratulations! Though the LCMS (as well as all other conservative Churches) should make more efforts to get a younger crowd. The 20 somethings (and I’m a fine one to speak, being a 33 year old!) are too easily grabbed by liberal Churchs. Bring them back to conservatism, don’t give up!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.