“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 ...
“These congregations will be led by fewer and fewer stipendiary clergy...”
What does ‘stipendiary clergy’ mean? Government-paid clergy?
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.
“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.
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
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.
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.