UK denominations

Division of Church in the UK

In some countries churchgoing is predominantly in a single denomination, but in the UK there is no main denomination. While many non churchgoers may put the Church of England on a census form, amongst churchgoers the Church of England is just one of many popular denominations. From a non Christian point of view this diversity makes it difficult to understand the faith. To them this plurality represents brokenness not a richness of expression. To the churchgoer the diversity represents the ability to choose a style of churchmanship that best suits their liking.

Denominations of the UK

Source:Religious trends 5, Brieley 2005 Table 12.4 & 12.7

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Pattern of decline

With one or two exceptions all the major denominations in the UK are and have been in a state of decline for several decades. The similarity of these rates of decline is strikingly similar. It seems that denomination is not the key to Church decline and points to the problem lying with the UK itself.

Trends in membership by Denomination

Source:Religious trends 5, Brieley 2005 Table 12.4 & 12.7

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Lessons from Europe and the USA

In Europe France is a Catholic nation and at 14.9% has one of the lowest attendance rates in Europe, while Poland which is also Catholic has the highest attendance at 75.5%. Again this shows that the decline in Church attendance is not a matter of denomination.

Churchgoing in the EU

Source: Tearfund report on Churchgoing April 2007 App. Fig 18

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One theory here is that secularisation of the society may be the cause of the decline in churchgoing. While Poland had a Communist government for most of the post World War 2 period, its faith seems to have survived this period relatively in tact. In the same period the countries in Western Europe became secularised, and this has been accompanied by a decline in churchgoing as the secularists predicted. Significantly this is not the case in the USA where going to Church ( about 50% go once a month), belief in God (over 90%) and beleif in Creation (over 70%) are still relatively high. It seems that being an evangelical in the USA, is quite different to being an evanghelical in the UK.

What can we learn from this?

Most Christian leaders in the UK seem blind to the effects of secularisation; at least because they rarely see it as an opposing atheistic belief. The Church leadership needs to recognise it as a spiritual threat and to develop ways of dealing with it both within the Church and the social fabric of the UK. Perhaps there are ways to learn from the evangelical in the USA, who seem much more effective in this regard. It may also be true that the principle of separation of Church and State has helped the Church in the USA to avoid the effects of secularisation and enables the Church to fight it more effectively.

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