From the Revd Hugh Wright
Sir, - I have now been in my present post as incumbent of three
churches in and around a small seaside town for one year, having
spent 20 years in a larger town ten miles away. In the past three
to four years of my previous post, and in this new one, I have
noticed a real acceleration in the process of secularisation, which
has taken me by surprise.
It is shown in many ways, principally in a dramatic drop in
requests for baptisms, weddings, and funerals, but also in a much
greater difficulty in attracting people to faith, although there is
plenty of support for the cultural and philanthropic work that the
church does. People may love our Gothic arches and our Street
Pastoring, but have a stubborn lack of interest in the faith behind
them.
It is also harder to persuade churchgoers to take on particular
responsibilities within the church. This decline is quite steep, a
finding confirmed by the Archdeacon.
Something is happening here, but do we know what it is? Church
decline is not ubiquitous. Many people point to the remarkable
increase in church attendance in London and other urban areas, but
I think this can be principally put down to the presence of large
immigrant communities, bringing their churchgoing habits and
enthusiasm with them to Britain, as well as the presence of a few
Evangelical "megachurches".
These exceptions can, I believe, blind us to the alarming
situation in traditional white areas, especially the countryside,
thought, till not long ago, to be the stronghold of the Church of
England. Although his thesis is not shared by all, for me this is
sad confirmation of Callum Brown's findings in The
Death of Christian Britain (2001), where he argued that
secularisation in Britain was no gradual process, but a sudden one
that started in the early 1960s.
All around me, I see the generation who came to faith in the
1950s, and who, remarkably, have kept many churches going for the
past 50 years, beginning to fail in their powers and not easily
being replaced. In my town, I also see many of my generation -
fifty- and sixty-somethings, who were probably taken to Sunday
school, but have lived their whole adult life without church. This
sudden decline is now coming home to roost, 50 years later. It is
like climate scientists' visiting the Arctic circle and seeing
global warming, spoken of for so long, happening in front of their
eyes.
What can be done about it? It is not just about hard work in
clergy and lay people. The climate has dramatically changed. There
are no easy answers here, but one helpful thing might be a clearer
recognition of this by those in leadership in the Church. There is
no shortage of resources in the Bible to help us with themes of
disappointment, depletion, and exile, as well as new life coming
out of death. Yet what we so often get is a kind of Panglossian
optimism about church growth (which, in my experience, invariably
amounts to transfers from other congregations). For many, it bears
little resemblance to the facts on the ground.
Am I right here? Do others notice this trend, or is it purely an
Isle of Wight phenomenon? I think not.
HUGH WRIGHT
The Vicarage, Maples Drive,
Ventnor, Isle of Wight PO38 1NR