The Church of England faces being wiped out as a significant national force without an "urgent" campaign to recruit more believers, a report warns. In the last 40 years the number of adult churchgoers has fallen by half while the number of children regularly worshipping in public declined by 80 per cent, the study says.
The Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, the Rt Rev Paul Butler, will present findings to the Church's national assembly, the General Synod, in York on Saturday. Synod members will be urged to vote for a new national drive to recruit more members.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has acknowledged that the Church must devote more energy to increasing the number of regular worshippers over the next five years.
In other news :
"Church of England report calls for affirmative action on race"
"Affirmative action" = the practice formerly known as "racial discrimination".
"The Church of England is to give the go-ahead for the appointment of openly homosexual bishops."
It's one of those strange historical oddities, like Britain being invaded and conquered every thousand years, that the Church of England was born of the adulterous desires of one prince, and on its sick bed condoned the adultery of another.
But the (IMHO terminal) sickness of the Church of England is no cause for rejoicing. It was great once, a noble Church of a kind that we should not dare to raise our voice against. It is fallen, and its cure is beyond us; but I would that it lived, in the hope that it may find one.
UPDATE - the great and good Rev. Peter Mullen :
"Frankly, much of the Church has been mad for decades."
8 comments:
Traditionally an obligation was put on local land owners to maintain the church. (not necessarily wealthy)
I think this is being fazed out for any unknown properties, so all church wardens have been asked to find out all the local properties with the obligation before this ruling comes into effect, so the Church can register them and ensure they paying up if needed.
This is something that is not easy to do, because obviously people who have this 'obligation' tied to their property generally don't want anyone to find out as it could cost them thousands.
My mum is a 'volenteer' warden.
They have been told if they fail to register properties for maintainence the Church will send them the bill instead!
"...openly homosexual bishops..."
The mind boggles.
"They have been told if they fail to register properties for maintainence the Church will send them the bill instead!"
What?!? Under what legal precedent?
"The Church of England is to give the go-ahead for the appointment of openly homosexual bishops."
They have been given that they are doomed, and now they expect the skoptsy to provide the next generation of believers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoptsy
"The Skoptsy were millenarians, and looked for a Messiah who would establish an empire of the saints, i.e. the pure. They believed that the Messiah would not come until the Skoptsy numbered 144,000 (Rev. 14:1,4), and all their efforts were directed to reaching this total. By 1911, there was said to have been a tendency on the part of many Skoptsy to consider their creed fulfilled by chaste, solitary living."
Ha!
So you equate the Church of England with Saruman?
Going a bit far, perhaps.
"The Church of England is to give the go-ahead for the appointment of openly homosexual bishops."
In the space of 60 years the C of E has transformed itself from the Tory party at prayer to the LibDems out cruising- but has handled the transformation in such a cack handed way that it has succeeded in offending nearly everybody.
It's main source of strength was, essentially, that unlike Catholism, Lutheranism or Calvinism, it didn't take doctrine too seriously. Hence it could emcompass bells 'n' smells campery at one end of the spectrum, and muscular low church earnestness at the other. Anglicanism also, for centuries, held the broad allegiance of the elites of both the British Empire Dominions, and the Eastern establishment in the US.
Faced with the new challenge of secular liberalism, however, it has funked it. The Episcopalians in the US embraced secular liberalism, effectively placing a surplice over the business suit garb of the new dispensation. The third worlders, on the other hand, decively rejected any compromise with 'liberal secular' values, especially on the issue of gays. The poor old C of E, given this fissure, just didn't know where to turn. Now it is reaping the reward for it's endless prevarications.
A schism is definitely on the cards. I can't see all those Ugandan and Nigerian Anglicans acquiescing with the issue of gay bishops.
I bet even the Gramscians didn't ever imagine that the "Long march through the institutions", would strike at the heart of the state church.
The drift away from the church is going to pick up speed. Already many parents are angry that the church will no longer prioritise their children for places in C of E schools.
It was jogging on sort of ok till I read this
" But what if you understand that so called Fairtrade does nothing to help the poor, and that what is required is free trade instead?"
Then this
"The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael’s Cornhill in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange"
Can't see him chasing the money changers out of the Temple somehow
Grate rather than great
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