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| About a quarter of the young adults who dropped out of church said they disagreed with their church’s stance on political and social issues. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images. Source: The Guardian |
The above image is from a Guardian article Losing their religion: why US churches are on the decline.
Christian Today has summarised a data set from the 2021 Census which reveals that "Christians are the oldest on average among people of faith in England and Wales. The average age of a Christian is now 51. By contrast, those describing themselves as Muslim had the youngest average age of 27 years old, followed by those who reported "no religion" - 32 years old."
People of faith are lumped together as though there is little difference between them. That was the position of the newly elected bishop of Llandaff when she responded to a question put to her by the Secretary General Muslim Council of Wales Abdul-Azim Ahmed on the BBC's 'All Things Considered' on the census results and the 'growth of minority religions across Wales' in particular.
Bishop Stallard said that she had always been helped and encouraged by people of faith of diverse traditions. She had spent a lot of time as a student studying Hinduism and Buddhism and had been encouraged in her faith by a Muslim sister. A great comfort for persecuted Christians living at the sharp end around the world!
Presumably the bishop had so little time for biblical study that she skipped over "I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life" and the the Great Commission: Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
The Bible counts for little in new Anglicanism other than to provide an opportunity to take passages out of context to provide some phoney legitimacy to the latest hot issue such as Living in Love and Faith (LLF) which many bishops are eager to endorse without any theological reasoning, probably because there isn't any.
By contrast a small group of bishops has published a 'short theological summary of the doctrine of marriage as the Church of England has received it'.
Hooray for them but too little too late as the census figures indicate. Without younger people replacing the aged Anglicanism will surely perish.
The demographic time bomb is hardly anything new.
ReplyDeleteI’m afraid AB that I find your article somewhat muddled, especially when one reads it alongside the “Guardian” one you reference. That suggests that many young people have left churches (in the US) because they have moved away and no longer attend with mom and dad; or because they lost the church-going habit during Covid; or because they have been shocked by the hypocrisy and scandals that have been revealed in the last few years. Those factors, albeit with slight differences, also pertain to the British situation.
ReplyDeleteHowever the “Grauniad” article also references the fact that so much of US Christianity seems to have been allied to conservative anti-Communism politics, especially during the Cold War era which, for millennials now ancient history (although who knows, with Mr Putin?). Although the so-called “mainline” denominations have been less likely to embrace this rhetoric than the loud-voiced Evangelicals, “Christian Americanism” has been a strong force in society which seems to be losing its grip.
One thing which seems to be far less significant in the US is immigration and the concominant rise of other faiths. I suppose this is because, in contrast to the UK, the vast majority of incomers are Latinos who are at least nominally Catholic Christians. I don’t have figures but I’d guess that the percentages of Muslim, Hindu and other Asian ethnic groups in the US is far smaller than in Britain.
Finally the newspaper article tells us that young people are disenchanted with their elders’ views – which is hardly news! However I do think (and you won’t agree with this) that “traditional” approaches to gender, sexuality and marriage being lauded by Christians (and, even more, the endless debates about them) are not just off-putting but in fact incomprehensible to most young people both sides of the Pond. I appreciate that these issues are determined by one’s approach to Scripture and that many on this post feel that newer interpretations are undermining “plain truth”. That’s as may be – but I think that all our wrangling only serves to convince young people that the churches are irrelevant and out-of-touch.
I could say more but had better stop!
The churches ARE irrelevant and out-of-touch.
DeleteWith God!
If, as you claim...that traditional views of gender ,sexuality and marriage are off putting to young people....why are religions that teach such things growing......Islam and Mormonism as two examples....massive growth in both yet most are traditional on marriage and gender. Mormonism in 1960 had 1.6 million members.....today there are around 16.8 million.
DeleteLook around many traditional evangelical churches in our cities, and you will find young people.
@ Danny That last sentence is of course true - I think young people like simplicity and certainty. They also tend to like the music at such churches, rather than what they would see as dull Victorian hymns! But I do wonder what happens to these young people ... as a lot of the "new" churches have now been around for decades, you'd expect to see a wide age-range in them, or see older folk transitioning to more traditional churches. That doesn't seem to be happening and one must ask why. Possibly nothing else suits them once they leave a large and vibrant congregation, possibly the demands of career and family take over, possibly they get tired of superficial triviality and can't see themselves in a traditional church setting ... I don't know.
DeleteRegarding the Muslims and, I suspect, the Mormons, more than religion is at play. Holding to your faith is also a way of maintaining your cultural identity over and against wider secular society; these cultures are often very close-knit, thus creating strong expectations of religious (and other) conformity. This is quite possibly true of expatriate (or first-generation British) African Christians; I suspect it has also been true of Caribbean Christians in the UK, but is now lapsing in this sector of society as young people have imbibed notions of individual autonomy. It will be interesting to see where Islam in Britain ends up in 50 years' time!
The Churches are barely discernible from a branch of the social services. The concept of sin and its consequences have been shelved, and the alignment with LGBT and inevitable consequent gay marriage have reduced it to a laughing stock and bred its contempt in the eyes of the public. Why on earth should they go to Church except to enjoy the hymns.
ReplyDeleteLW
You cannot be serious LW?
DeleteEven the words to the hymns have been edited and bastardised into bland woke drivel.
I recall mentioning a few weeks ago that the words to "O come, O come Emmanuel" has been revisited and revised due to some moron alleging that "And ransom captive Israel" was now apparently deemed to be anti-semitic.
Here's the twisted revised version.
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And with your people always dwell
Who mourn in mortal exile here
Until the Lord of Life appear.
[Refrain]
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come again and with us ever dwell.
O come, O God's revealing Word,
Your voice the Hebrew prophets heard;
They saw that one day war will cease,
And all creation be at peace.
[Refrain]
O come, O Wisdom from on high,
Who brings the truth of Adonai,
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in your ways to go.
[Refrain]
O come, Incarnate Word revealed,
Your people you both taught and healed,
You trusted Abba's love would save,
And so were raised up from the grave.
[Refrain]
O come, O Bread of Heav'n sublime,
Who come to us in bread and wine,
Still sacraments will one day cease
In God's eternal reign of peace.
[Refrain]
Not a patch on the traditional words translated from the original Latin.
No Rod of Jesse or Key of David.
No mention of Satan's tyranny or the way that leads on high!
Just more of the "everyone must have prizes" rubbish.
Utterly sickening.
1662. Entirely agree. 'Pioneer and Perfecter' of our faith has replaced 'Author and Finisher' etc, etc..What does this stupidity achieve?
DeleteLW
Empty pews LW, empty pews!
DeleteAnd fewer gullible fools in them.
DeleteWhat complete tw*t of a Priest would allow or encourage such rubbish?
DeleteOne in the Church of England I'm afraid.
DeleteThe morons that promote such gibberish are bad enough but what wet snowflake rewrote the words in the first place?
DeleteHas the lady who prayed outside an abortion clinic in effect been told she is not guilty but had better not do it again? I find the legal decision puzzling.
ReplyDeletehttps://thecritic.co.uk/the-end-of-christendom/
Deletehttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/feb/3/isabel-vaughan-spruce-arrested-standing-silently-n/
DeleteThe charges against Isabelle Vaughan Spruce have been dropped for now but that doesn't mean they can't be reinstated at some future date.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64512612
ReplyDeleteLooks as though Magistrates have become as inept and incompetent as Plod.
Here we go again,LGBT or whatever. Surely, those of a sexual persuasion that is comfortable with a man laying with another man as natural and also a woman laying with another woman as a “man “is also natural such should consider and leave the church as it is taught, and form their own “faith”
ReplyDeleteThat would be far too much like hard work and not very lucrative.
DeleteIf only 1.5% of the general population is gay or lesbian and only a few percent of them have any interest in going to Church then it follows that they will be spread very thin around the country.
Far, far easier to infiltrate then mount a hostile takeover of an existing weak but well established "Church" with all the infrastructure and huge finances in place, ably assisted by the weak willed and weak minded PC and virtue signalling fools at the top of Anglicanism in the UK for the last fifty years or so. Add in the fifth columnists and appeasers like His --Darkness bully boy Morgan, the chocolate teapot Randy Pandy and Justin Welby and Bob's your uncle.
You're certainly not wrong about the weak leadership aspect, especially in the Cult in Wales.
DeletePerhaps the Pope has dementia?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-64532639
Pope Francis and Justin Welby promote homosexuality.