Rue, Britannia: Most Church of England clergymen say Britain not a Christian nation

Nearly two-thirds of clergymen within the Church of England mentioned Great Britain “can no longer be described as a Christian country,” a landmark survey by The Times of London revealed Tuesday.

About 64.2% of clerics mentioned Britain may solely be referred to as a Christian nation “historically, not currently,” whereas 24.2% mentioned the Christian adjective nonetheless applies.

The clerics’ evaluation dovetails with 2021 census outcomes reported by Britain’s Office for National Statistics, which famous lower than half the inhabitants of England and Wales recognized as Christian, falling from 33.3 million in 2011 to 27.5 million in 2021. Those figuring out as having “no religion” rose from 14.1 million in 2011 to 22.2 million in 2021.

Survey respondents expressed little optimism in regards to the church’s future. Only 43.9% of clergymen indicated it’s “very likely” that they’d nonetheless be holding a service each Sunday in 10 years. And 66.7% anticipate church attendance to proceed to say no within the subsequent decade.

The survey of 5,000 clergymen with British addresses, chosen randomly from a clerical listing, drew 1,436 responses, of which 1,185 clergymen have been nonetheless serving. The Times of London mentioned it was the primary try at a nationwide survey of clerics since 2014.

The newspaper mentioned nearly all of those self same clergymen need the church to cease opposing premarital and homosexual intercourse and to start out conducting same-sex weddings, which presently is blocked in favor of “blessing” ceremonies for homosexual {couples}.

In a major shift, 80.2% of clerics mentioned they’d help appointing a girl because the archbishop of Canterbury, the church’s prime job whose holder historically leads the worldwide Anglican Communion. While girls have been ordained as clergymen for many years, they have been solely deemed eligible to function bishops since 2014.

More than two years will probably move earlier than the Church of England should confront that chance, nevertheless. The Times of London reported that the Most Rev. Justin Welby, the present archbishop, will attain the retirement age of 70 in January 2026.

The newspaper mentioned the 1,185 serving clergymen who have been surveyed reported excessive stress ranges, with one priest saying the “pressure of justifying” church doctrines to a rising variety of skeptical and secular listeners is a frightening job.

The clergymen mentioned they feared that efforts to cease a decline in church attendance wouldn’t work, with the state-sponsored church going through “extinction.”

Such a destiny would mark a major displacement for the 26 million-member denomination, for hundreds of years the bulk faith within the land of Charles Dickens, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who evoked Christian themes of their internationally revered writings.

Britain rejected papal authority in 1534, when Parliament handed an Act of Supremacy, making King Henry VIII the “Supreme Head of the Church of England.” The break gave Parliament and the prime minister a say within the appointment of bishops.

Today, 26 archbishops and bishops sit within the House of Lords as voting members.

King Charles III is the church’s present “Supreme Governor,” because the mantle is now identified. He has held that title since Sept. 8, when his mom, Queen Elizabeth II, died. In May, Charles was confirmed as “Defender of the Faith” throughout his coronation, a ceremony held in Westminster Abbey and led by the Church of England’s most senior cleric, the archbishop of Canterbury.

The Right Rev. Nick Baines, the bishop of Leeds, mentioned the church “has a distinct vocation that does not include seeking popularity.”

That mandate means it has to concurrently be challenged by well-liked tradition and problem that tradition, Bishop Baines mentioned, talking for the Church of England in an announcement launched as The Times of London printed its outcomes.

The church “has to live with the tension of being prophetic (challenging the way the world is) whilst listening to the challenge the world brings to it,” he mentioned.

Issues of intercourse and sexuality have roiled the Church of England and the bigger Anglican Communion, of which Archbishop Welby is “first among equals.”

While many British clerics help same-sex marriage, resistance from Anglican church buildings in Africa and elsewhere has prevented the Church of England from allowing same-sex weddings. Recent enterprise periods of the world’s Anglican leaders have been torn over the problem.

In February, leaders of 10 Anglican provinces within the “global south” mentioned they not acknowledge Archbishop Welby’s primacy as a result of the Church of England agreed to bless same-sex {couples}. The archbishop of Canterbury mentioned he wouldn’t personally bless such {couples} as a part of his job of sustaining unity amongst Anglicans.

Bishop Baines mentioned the denomination would persist in its mission regardless of the survey outcomes.

“Evidently, the Church hasn’t always got it right, but cannot escape the demands of its calling to be faithful to God in loving his world,” he mentioned.

Just how trustworthy the Church of England is to conventional Christian teachings stays unclear. The majority of clergymen surveyed, 62%, mentioned the church ought to drop its opposition to premarital intercourse. In addition, 64.5% mentioned the church ought to drop its educating that “homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture,” and 63.3% help permitting homosexual clergymen to enter into civil partnerships.

After the Times of London survey was printed, British advocacy group Christian Concern mentioned the outcomes point out a disconnect between the surveyed clergy and people sitting within the pews. In February, the group discovered that of the 33 Church of England congregations with the most important attendance of worshippers below the age of 16, 20 church buildings “could be clearly identified as supporting the church’s historic view that sex is reserved for one man, one woman marriage.”

The group’s chief govt, Andrea Williams, mentioned the obvious reputation of conventional doctrine amongst younger British Christians ought to supply a lesson on combating decline.

“Simply aping the current values of the culture around us is the road to extinction for the Church of England,” she mentioned.