The Church of England is presenting its preliminary attendance figures for 2023, introduced on Monday, as a progress story, however failed to say the 160,000 worshipers it has misplaced since 2019.
“Weekly church attendance up 5 p.c for third consecutive 12 months of progress,” reads the official press launch in its headline.
The assertion mentioned: “Complete weekly attendance of all age teams at Church buildings of England rose final 12 months to 685,000 from 654,000 in 2022, a rise of 4.7 per cent. The variety of kids attending weekly elevated from 87,000 in 2022 to 92,000 (a rise of 5.7 p.c).
“The complete Statistics for Mission report is because of be printed within the autumn as common, however these preliminary figures, launched for the primary time, are supposed to offer the large image.”
The typical weekly attendance for all ages at C of 11,000 E church buildings consists of Sunday attendance in addition to folks attending mid-week companies akin to Holy Communion and kids's occasions akin to Messy Church.
The assertion admits that “total attendance remains to be beneath 2019 ranges, the final 12 months earlier than the Covid-19 lockdown”, however claims that “evaluation suggests that private attendance is approaching the pre-pandemic development”.
The cruel actuality is that the C of E has misplaced 160,000 guests in a median week together with Sundays since 2019 when 845,000 folks attended its church buildings. Since 2003, common weekly attendance for all ages has dropped from 1,126,000. Going again additional in time, the image is even worse – in 1984, about 40 p.c of the inhabitants attended.
With England's inhabitants now round 67 million, 685,000 worshipers in 2023 implies that barely 1 p.c of individuals residing within the nation are turning to C of E church buildings.
The C of E is an establishment with big benefits over different Christian denominations and spiritual teams within the UK. It’s a legally established Church of England with 26 of its bishops entitled to sit down within the Home of Lords. Its church commissioners handle an endowment fund price £10.1 billion. It has 16,000 buildings throughout England and 4,630 colleges instructing about 1 million kids.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, commented on the year-on-year improve because the pandemic within the preliminary attendance figures for 2023: “That is very welcome information and I hope it should encourage church buildings throughout the nation.”
“I’m particularly completely happy to listen to that extra kids are coming to the church and I’m grateful to all who’re concerned on this ministry,” he added.
However once more, the cruel actuality is that the variety of younger folks attending C of E church buildings in a median week has greater than halved since 2003. At the moment, 218,000 beneath 16s attended C of E church buildings in a median week. with 92,000 in 2023. In 2019, 120,000 kids attended C of E church buildings on common per week.
The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, additionally commented on the 2023 figures: “That is excellent information. For the primary time in a very long time, we skilled noticeable progress.
“In fact, we don’t but know if this progress is a development, however I take it as an excellent encouragement that we’re specializing in reaching extra folks with the excellent news of Jesus, establishing new Christian communities wherever they’re, revitalizing our parishes, and making an attempt to turn out to be a youthful and extra various church to make everybody really feel welcome is beginning to make a distinction.”
Even perhaps sadder than the numbers themselves is the try by prime C of E officers to spin the narrative of the denomination's collapse as justification for the archbishops' progress technique. Did they significantly assume that journalists wouldn’t discover 160,000 disappearing believers since 2019 and 441,000 since 2003?
The C of E now faces the uphill process of vindicating its 26 bishops within the second chamber of the British legislature. Labor introduced in 2022 that its election platform would come with a dedication to reform the Home of Lords.
The bishops within the Lords could have proved reliably left-leaning, particularly after they opposed the Tory authorities's plan to ferry unlawful migrants to Rwanda, however that doesn’t imply they may escape slaughter within the doubtless occasion that Labor wins the 2024 normal election.
If the Labor authorities's reform of the Home of Lords included allocating a number of the seats within the second chamber to representatives of spiritual teams, with these seats allotted based on the variety of energetic members, the C of E might lose out to the Muslim Council of Nice Britain, the Roman Catholic Church in the UK and the Pentecostal motion Elim.
No quantity of Episcopalian spin can disguise the outstanding progress of Islam within the UK. A statistical query for the Church Home press workplace in Westminster in 2050 that may make the information would absolutely be: what number of former C of E buildings have been transformed into mosques within the final 25 years?
Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist primarily based in Lancashire.
