Perceiving one’s self as Anglican or part of Church of England is growingly irrelevant, said the clergy in response to a recently published report that claimed Anglicans were in steep decline in the United Kingdom.
Reverend Nicholas Henshall, Dean of Chelmsford, wrote in a letter that parish priests are heading increasingly post-denominational communities while pointing towards a decline in confirmations, even within churches that are otherwise growing.
“Confirmation suggests an ownership of a specific denominational identity, which is simply not part of the deal for most people. I would suggest that even most people of my generation, and certainly those of my children's, find denominational identity increasingly irrelevant,” he wrote.
Ali Campbell, consultant for a youth and children’s ministry, reiterated Henshall’s stance.
“Young people in the Church of England are not growing up Anglican,” he said. “They may 'join' at some point when confirmed, and move on to parish rolls; but, in my experience of the last 18 years serving at both local and diocesan level … they would first and foremost identify with Christ and their local church - not because their local church is Anglican, but because it is where they have been accepted, loved, received guidance, and found significance. … Denominational stuff just is not on their radar.”
Campbell also pointed towards the growth in non-denominational gatherings, such as Soul Survivor and Spring Harvest, as well as the cross-fertilization that is now present in Church of England schools.
“We pass on what we value and what we consider to be of most importance,” he said. “It may have been in the past that what we passed on was the key tenets of Anglicanism such as the Thirty-Nine Articles. If, however, we have shifted our focus to put Jesus more at the centre, the gospel we proclaim, the kingdom we are in with Christ as the head, it is hard to make that 'Anglican', because these things we are teaching are about being part of the Universal Church. … We may not see young people joining the Anglican Church, but they are joining in with the mission of God as the local Anglican churches crack on and make a local difference.”
The report of NatCen’s analysis of the British Social Attitudes survey impelled comparison with other polls that have asked respondents the same question.
“Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?”
According to the last census, 59 percent of Great Britain’s population identified as Christian while 31 percent chose Church of England, Anglican or Episcopal. A poll conducted by YouGov for Faith Debates in 2013 claimed that a little less than a third of the region’s population identified as Anglican or part of Church of England. On the other hand, British Social Attitudes clocked the figure at 17 percent.
Reverend Mark Hart, Rector of Plemstall and Guilden Sutton, said that this might explain the lack of clarity of many people’s sense of denominational identity. Similarly, Reverend Simon Reynolds, another parish priest and Rector of St Andrew’s in Farnham, said that at least 20 percent of his congregation constituted of former Methodists or people who were once part of United Reformed Church but have over the last decade drifted towards Anglicism.
Linda Woodhead, professor of sociology at Lancaster University, said that the British Social Attitudes findings “should be treated with some caution. … Where all the polling agrees in finding that Anglican affiliation has declined dramatically since the 1980s, and continues to do so.”
Reverend Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, said that the findings reflect many different things, one of which is post-Christendom – people having grown up without any religion in their lives whatsoever and thus no longer feeling the need to identify as part of Church of England.
“There's post denominational: those who just call themselves Christians and don't like the labels. And there's the move away from orthodox faith to implicit and understated quasi-spirituality. … I'm not worried about whether people call themselves Anglicans. What's important is bringing people into encounter with the living God, enabling them to become disciples of Jesus Christ and aligned with the work of the Spirit in the world. We need to re-evangelize England,” he said.
The analysis by NatCen that managed to cause all the uproar had suggested a steep decline in the proportion of British individuals who identify as Anglican and that proportion having been accelerated over the last 10 years. According to that report, the number of Anglicans has fallen by as many as 4.5 million from 13 million in 2004 to 8.5 million in 2014.
The largest group happens to comprise of those that have no religious preference, with the count coming up to 49 percent from 43 percent. The report also claimed that other Christian denominations had managed to remain stable over the past 30 years with Roman Catholics going down to only eight percent from 10 percent and others maintaining themselves at a consistent 17 percent.
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