The Shrinking Church of England

The last couple of months have seen the release of figures from the Church of England giving provisional numbers attending on a given Sunday during 2006, and also the latest edition of ‘Population Trends’ a report from the UK’s National Statistics Office. Now I’m not sure what the definition of a geek is, but someone who reads this kind of stuff, and not only reads it but then plots it on spreadsheets is probably as good as any. In that case call me a geek. Looking at both sets reports I noticed that they both began collecting and publishing their statistics around 1970/1. Thus enabling a comparison between the two.

An hour or so playing around with a spreadsheet reveals some worrying trends. Worrying at least for the future of the Church of England.

Firstly, it has been declining in Sunday attendance at least since 1970.

Each year on the same Sunday every parish counts how many people there are ‘in the pews’. Naturally this is different to membership, regular attendance etc, but it is a good guide to the health of the church and enables comparison of trends across the years. Recently the method of collecting this was changed slightly and now an average is taken across 4 Sundays for greater accuracy, but it doesn’t make much difference to the numbers.

Since 1968 the record of attendance has looked like this (click graph to enlarge):

Whenever the figures these figures are published there is understandably a desire on the part of the leaders of the church to put the best face on some admittedly grim statistics.

One trend that I have noticed is to comment solely on the year on year changes, and whether the rate of decline has slowed or as was recently discussed ‘bottomed out’. Thus in 2004 reference was made to the fact that there was a slight increase in attendance over 2003.

In 2006 the attendance is down just -1.14% on 2005.

The problem with just looking at the figures in this way is that it obscures the cumulative effective of year after year of seemingly small decline. The truth of the matter is that in the 1970’s the church lost about 30,000 members per year, in the 80’s it decelerated to around 10,000 members per year, and in the 90’s was around 10,000 members per year.

In the 35 years from 1971 to 2006 the Church of England has declined by 43.5%.

I.e it has just about halved in terms of it’s Sunday attendance.

Secondly, it has been declining as the population of England has been growing. The latest edition of ‘Population Trends’ has revised figures for the population of England based on more accurate fertility rates and also taking into account the latest figures on immigration. This reveals that whilst the Church of England has been shrinking little by little over the last 35 years the population of England has been growing little by little over that same period. Once again the cumulative impact of this change in population is the one that is easily missed but that really counts in assessing the true position of the Church of England vis-a-vis the nation.

In the 35 years from 1971 to 2006 the Population of England has grown by 9.37%

I.e it has grown by about a 1/10th.

It is possible to compare the rate of growth of the English population with the rate of decline of the Church of England’s attendance year on year.

The graph looks like this (once again click to enlarge):

(there are no figures for 1992 and 200)

The chart reveals that the growth in population has been relatively steady, as has the decline in attendance of the Church of England. Neither of these 2 trends could realistically be dismissed as ‘blips’ or ‘uncharacteristic’. And both should give serious pause for thought to everyone concerned about the life, vitality, and future of the Church of England.

But what of the future?

Once again ‘Population Trends’ has some interesting data (at least to me), and projects population growth for England. It is possible to plot these admittedly projected populations against projected Sunday attendance in the C of E based on current trends. In the graph below I have included the governments estimate of the size of the English population and plotted that against what the attendance in the Church of England would be if there was an average rate of decline of about -2% year on year.

If the predictions are accurate then in the next 15 years the English population will have grown by 12% from now, and the church will have declined by another 230,000 people (26%). To compare with our baseline of 1970/1 by 2031 the population will have grown by 30% and the Church of England declined by 65%.

The ratio of Anglicans to the rest of the population looks like this:

1970 – 1 in 30 of the country were in the Church of England on a Sunday

1986 – 1 in 40 of the country were in the Church of England on a Sunday

2006 – 1 in 60 of the country were in the Church of England on a Sunday

2031 – 1 in 120 of the country will be in the Church of England on a Sunday

Thirdly, it might not be this bad. It could be a lot worse.

For not only are less people attending the Church of England, those who do are becoming increasingly gray. There are no specifically Anglican figures for the age profile of the church. But the Christian Research Organisation have compiled figures across the denominations of the UK, and these reveal that the UK church is disprportionately made up of people in their later years. The 2005 English church census reveals that 29% of the UK church are 65 and over, as opposed to around 17% of the population. CRO predicts that by 2025 50% of the church will be over 65yrs and by 2050 (only 44 years away) just 3% of the church will be under 30 years of age. If what is true of the UK church at large in terms of demographic spread is true for the Church of England specifically (and there is no reason why it may not be) then the rate of decline is likely to accelerate in the coming years as opposed to maintaining a modest decline of 2% per year on which the above predictions are based.

To quote from the Christian Research Organisation:

‘the key strategic priority which emerges from this analysis is the crucial need to engage with children and young people now. That need was already known, but with 33% of church goers under 30 in 2000 reducing to just 11% by 2025 and 3% by 2050 it sounds the death knell of the church… the numbers going to church in 2050 will be decided by what happens between now and 2018. It is the next 10 years which are key.’

A church declining by 45% in the last 35 yrs… expected to lose another 26% in the next 15 years… Death knell… the next 10 years are key… this is an analysis that should keep our bishops and leaders awake at night, but I have never heard it discussed in the church with anything other than an air of resignation. We all know about the shrinking C of E but I suspect few are really aware of the full scale of the decline. The Church of England posts this on the same page of it’s website as that on which the above figures of Sunday attendance are available for download:

There has recently been media coverage of projections that appeared to indicate the inevitable decline of the Church of England, based on projecting past and current attendances.

Grace Davie, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for European Studies at Exeter University, comments:

I have considerable misgivings about projections which examine past and current attendance or membership and use them to predict the future. This kind of forecast depends on the notion that all other things are equal. Never in my professional life have I known a time when this is less likely to be the case.

For example, it is becoming ever more evident that most of the modern world, including the United States, is ‘as furiously religious as ever’ (Peter Berger’s phrase); it is very unlikely that Britain remains immune from these trends.

It is not the case that graphs which point downwards never change. Cinema going and attendance at football matches are now growing after decades of decline. A similar upturn could easily happen in the churches – indeed it already has in some dioceses. Truro, Chichester and London offer good examples of rising attendance.

Thirdly, some joined up thinking would not come amiss. Membership of all voluntary groups that depend on regular commitment are in decline – political parties, trades unions and so on. The Labour Party has seen its membership fall by half in eight years – from more than 400,000 in 1997 to just over 200,000. Might the same pressures be at work in both cases?

What is clear is that the church will change in both nature and attendance: from a situation in which significant numbers attend out of duty or obligation to one in which the great majority are there by choice. Contracting out is replaced by contracting in. Interestingly – within the voluntary sector – rather more people contract into churches than into their secular equivalents.

One thing is certain, the necessary steps will not be taken to address this decline until we acknowledge the full scale of the shrinking Church of England.