The perils of organised religion

In March this year the Guardian carried an article 'Christianity as default is gone': the rise of a non-Christian Europe.

It showed that "In the UK, only 7% of young adults identify as Anglican, fewer than the 10% who categorise themselves as Catholic. Young Muslims, at 6%, are on the brink of overtaking those who consider themselves part of the country’s established church."

The figures are published in a report, Europe’s Young Adults and Religion, by Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary’s University in London. They are based on data from the European social survey 2014-16.

"According to Bullivant, many young Europeans 'will have been baptised and then never darken the door of a church again. Cultural religious identities just aren’t being passed on from parents to children. It just washes straight off them'.

"The figures for the UK were partly explained by high immigration, he added. 'One in five Catholics in the UK were not born in the UK'.

"And we know the Muslim birthrate is higher than the general population, and they have much higher [religious] retention rates.

"In Ireland, there has been a significant decline in religiosity over the past 30 years, 'but compared to anywhere else in western Europe, it still looks pretty religious', Bullivant said.

“The new default setting is ‘no religion’, and the few who are religious see themselves as 'swimming against the tide', he said."

The BBC recently highlighted a ComRes survey for the Asian Network. It revealed that "On religion, over half of 18-34 year olds in the general population said it wasn't important to them "at all". Just 8% of young British Asians said the same.

"Overall, 46% of British Asians said it was "very important" to them - compared to 12% of the general population."

Christianity is shrinking while Islam expands.

In Anglicanism the reasons are clear. As physical education activities are reduced in schools, sports replace religion on Sundays. Consequently few families attend church.

Also, the Anglican Church which provided the means of expressing one's faith in a structured way in fellowship with others has has been secularized, again resulting in falling attendances as gender politics have replaced spirituality.

Sadly nobody in the church cares about the disaffected. It is good riddance to worshippers who were valued only for their giving.

In Wales, what felt comfortable and familiar is being replaced by an alien structure reminiscent of nonconformity as the bishops tinker with the structure and employ more 'experts' to keep themselves in employment.

Anglican congregations are increasingly identified as elderly. The absence of families means the absence of children needed to maintain continuity. Without young people the church which nurtured past generations is dying.

So the routine ends.

For those whose lives revolved around the church, taking a step back from organised religion results in a significant change in their social lives as well as their spiritual lives.

After supporting the unsupportable for so long, former worshippers no longer have to accept what is served up week by week, often by manipulative clerics with a vested interest in what they preach. Faults projected onto submissive congregations, making them feel guilty and in need of forgiveness.

The problem with organised religion is that congregations are expected to obey the rules regardless of the examples set by those who seek change. Consequently views such as 'the Vicar knows best' or 'I just keep my head down' prevail implying acceptance.

Over the years much has been accepted in silence. Now stories of abuse abound.

Accounts of cruel treatment handed down by the Christian Brothers were accepted with resignation. The so-called care by nuns of "fallen women" in Magdalene laundries amounted to outright cruel exploitation.

That has changed. The Irish no longer fear the Roman Catholic Church as they did in the past.

Many RCs 'escaped' the authoritarianism by becoming 'middle road' Anglicans (catholic and reformed). They find themselves thrust into another quandary now that the Anglican church has departed from the catholic faith.

One Catholic priest who became an Anglican because he could not cope with a vow of celibacy appears to have accepted the whole 'do as you please' secular package. He has been forced to quit after it was discovered that he was having an affair with his married curate. Reminiscent of a former bishop of St Davids and his chaplain, the temptation of mixing with female colleagues can become too much.

"Lead us not into temptation" has clearly become more difficult for some clerics following the ordination of women, even when married.

Where celibacy is the rule temptation is more widespread. In the US state of Pennsylvania it is reported that more than 1,000 children were abused for decades by hundreds of priests and systemically covered up by church officials.

Stories of abuse are rife. They encourage critics to point the finger but it is not the Church. It is the people in it.

Guilt and the forgiveness of sins play a prominent part in organised religion. So much so that young children make up 'sins' so that they have something to confess. Meanwhile the most appalling abuse has been covered up by bishops fearing that the Church would be seen in a poor light!

Abuse is not confined to the clergy.

It was the 'purging of sins' which resulted in an alleged victim of a deceased former Christian charity leader being beaten by him 3,000 times in the shed of the perpetrator's home and at the camps he ran in Dorset for young evangelical Christians.

A confidential report seen by Channel 4 News in 2017 described what it called the “beatings” of 22 young men:

“The scale and severity of the practice was horrific…8 received about 14 thousand strokes: 2 of them having some 8000 strokes over three years,” the document, written in 1982, noted.

"Despite the findings of the report, the Iwerne Trust did not inform the police. Instead, a senior figure in the Iwerne Trust wrote to John Smyth, telling him to leave the country. He went on to live in Zimbabwe, and then South Africa."

Yet another cover up. The reports mount up.

For many Anglicans, supporting the unsupportable is no longer an option so there is a dilemma. For the architects of the dilemma, those who engineered the ordination of women, the answer is simple, go to Rome.

That suggestion shows a total lack of understanding of faith. Many who suggest it are late entrants who 'came to faith' when they saw a convenient opportunity for expanding the feminist movement. That has had dire consequences for the Anglican Church.

It is not a simple process of crossing one's fingers and saying what is necessary. Consequently people of conscience are stuck.

For them the 'catholic and reformed' Anglican Church is their church of choice. It says much about the bishops and those who are responsible for outlawing faithful worshippers that they couldn't care less about those who, effectively, have been excommunicated.

Christianity is under attack. Unless organised religion adapts to accommodate the few remaining Christians 'swimming against the tide' the outlook is bleak.

Predictions indicate that Western Anglicanism has no future. Secularizing the church has been an abysmal failure, surrendering the church to feminism and all the liberal baggage that comes with it.

True Anglicans have been thrown overboard, in Wales without a lifeboat. The mutineers are heading for the rocks.

While Anglican patrimony has been carried over to the Ordinariate, membership is confined to those who promise to accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. That is a big ask for anyone with a questioning mind as illustrated by the revelations detailed above.

Catholics who found that they could not in conscience continue to accept all the teaching of their church and who have become Anglicans along with Anglicans who can no longer accept the teaching of the Anglican Church are left in limbo.

Meanwhile the decline continues. Something has to give.