"England, Oh England, How Often Would I have gathered You..."

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue in England
www.virtueonline.org
October 6, 2009

Forty some years ago, The Rev. John Stott, England's then premier Church of England Bible teacher, preached a series of sermons from the pulpit of All Souls Langham Place, London, titled "Hostile to the Church, friendly to Jesus Christ." Today if he were to pick a sermon title for this different cultural time and place it would probably be "Bored with the Church, Apathetic to Jesus Christ."

The truth is people in England today know more about Posh Spice than they do about Jesus Christ. Newspapers and television are full of the culture of celebrity with intimate details of the personal lives of football players, tennis players, actors and actresses, porn stars and politicians.

Christianity in England is irrelevant to more than 98% of the population. Of a total population of 60 million, 27 million claim to belong to or have been baptized in the Church of England, but less than one million attend a parish church each Sunday. (The actual figure is about 830,000).

Evangelical organizations like Anglican Mainstream say it is incorrect to talk about 27 million members of the Church of England, arguing that a figure of 55 million is more accurate, in terms of overall membership in the Anglican Communion, than the much touted 80 million.

Efforts to jump start church membership are only modestly successful and do not touch the vast majority of Brits who find the church less interesting than watching an old rerun of Dr. Who.

Recently the CofE held a Back to Church Sunday - a public relations push to get the lapsed back in the pew. It has been marked by a radio ad campaign to show how hip and happening the Anglican Church is now - "No need to make no innovation. Please accept this as your invitation." Well, that will get all those young folk in, for sure.

Weekly attendance figures have now dropped to below one million. According to the Bishop of Reading, it's quite the wrong sort of million turning up. "How did it come to this," he asked, in what was apparently supposed to be a positive contribution to the attendance debate, "that we have become known as just the Marks and Spencer option?" Jesus, the Bishop feels sure, was more of an Aldi man. But here's the Bishop of Reading wanting to broaden his religious base, and going about it like Gerald Ratner: talking the product down. Have you ever heard a pope say: "The trouble with Catholicism is...", or a mullah put forward the argument: "Here's what's wrong with Islam..."? No. And funnily enough, for them, business is booming.

Wishy-washy pleas will not get us back into church. Trendy sound bites were not the solution, wrote newspaper columnist, Gill Hornby.

A critique of these figures by an independent research organization said that there are more than 1.7 million people worshipping in a Church of England church, or cathedral each month. That figure is "30 per cent higher than the electoral roll figures and has remained stable since 2000," said Lynda Barley, a church researcher. "More are involved in fresh expressions of church and chaplaincies across the country and we have no reason to believe that this will drop significantly in the next decade. Of course, we hope and pray even more people will come along and see what they're missing."

Whichever set of figures you choose they are not compelling.

Britain is spiritually famished. It is starved from hearing the Word of God. Churches that focus on music and Eucharist are not drawing the crowds. People want to hear something that will change their lives. They want to hear about God, who He is, and what He is doing. They do not want sermons on the environment or Labor's policies for senior citizens. The average pulpit is bereft from hearing the Word of God.

Enter ALPHA. If it wasn't for ALPHA, one wonders if the Church of England would have any relevance at all. The other truth is that if the Church of England would do its job properly, there would be no need for ALPHA.

The very fact that ALPHA exists bespeaks the failure of the church to communicate the simple verities of the gospel to ordinary people. And it took an attorney turned priest to do it. The biggest growth in cities like London is precisely because of ALPHA's outreach into the urban jungle. ALPHA has been so successful they have taken over dying churches and filled them with new converts, much to the chagrin of laissez faire vicars who believe their benefice should not be beholden to these "happy clappy evangelicals."

There are isolated pockets of evangelical resistance in towns and villages across the country. A sojourn I recently made to Sevenoaks, Surrey revealed a vibrant parish, a gospel-committed vicar and young people playing a major role in the growth of the church. Sure they made compromises with worship styles, but the church was packed on a Sunday evening competing against televised football.

The truth is England is post Christian. The English don't hate religion, or for that matter the Church of England. They simply don't care. It is simply not part of their everyday thinking. The local pub is a bigger attraction than the local parish.

Vicars who do believe the gospel and try to muster interest in The Faith also have to fight battles over a host of issues ranging from the environment to the legalization of assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. On the latter issue, at least, the beleaguered Archbishop of Canterbury and his colleagues deserve praise for taking a stand for biblical principles in the midst of an onslaught of secular values.

No such clarity can be obtained on pansexuality where the church dithers over unbiblical sexual arrangements as though it were some special category of sexual sin that requires God to change his mind to suit the changing moral values of our times. The church shows weakness and people walk away asking, "So, what makes the church unique, why should I get out of bed on a Sunday morning to get what I can read in The Guardian, The SUN and the London Times?" What DOES the Church of England stand for?

Making nice noises about the environment and living longer doesn't answer the question: Why people are living longer and for what purpose? I see thousands of pensioners on buses, in Little Chefs filling up, emptying out, in restaurants, filling hotels, walking the moors, fields and coasts. One has to ask are these people tip-toeing to Christless eternities, unaware of the spiritual dangers of believing in nothing except their own immediate survival?

The church is powerless against the onslaught of secularism because it has lost its fundamental message of salvation. Clergy are terrified of proclaiming a gospel that defies pluralism, secularism, and scientism. They live in abject fear of offending their Islamic neighbors with a gospel the Apostle Paul called an "offence".

James Gibson of Sanctus writes, "The Church of England doesn't get much right these days. From approving female bishops to a comical policy on same sex clergy couples, the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion has lately been providing more laughs at the expense of English Protestantism than a Monty Python skit."

He has it about right, except for the darker side of unbelief that no one talks about. Sin and salvation, heaven and hell are not to be heard from C of E pulpits. The Mother Church takes a stand for life (euthanasia et al) but not for eternal life.

One Conservative Party British cabinet minister said forced secularism is "not the British way" and recently accused the Government of relying on a failed policy of multiculturalism. In a speech to the Conservative Party conference, she said it was time to "mend the broken ties that should bind us".

Lady Warsai, a Muslim stated, "Under Labour, the state has become increasingly sceptical of an individual's religious belief. We've all seen the stories, how appalling that in Labour's Britain a community nurse can be suspended for offering to pray for a patient's good health. How awful that a school receptionist could face disciplinary action for sending an email to her friends simply asking them to pray for her daughter. At the heart of these cases lies a growing intolerance and illiberal attitude towards those who believe in God."

She added, "It's an agenda driven by the political elite, who have hijacked the pursuit of equality by demanding a dumbing down of faith. It's no wonder that this leads to accusations in the media that our country's Christian culture is being downgraded. For many their faith brings them closer to their neighbour, it's the driver for their voluntary work, the basis of their social action. And for many, faith is the basis for some of the best schools in our country." She also said "State multiculturalism" is "forcing" Britain's diverse communities to still define themselves as different, patronisingly special and tempting them to compete against each other for public funds.

"It's the madness of political correctness which fails to teach our children British history in case it offends, and is the madness of translating documents into a multitude of languages instead of actually teaching people English."

Note that these words were uttered not by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but by a Muslim. The only other person to speak out so publicly and boldly about the spiritual state of affairs in England is Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali. He has stepped down to speak out more publicly about Britain's lost estate, her appeasement with Islam at the expense of Britain's Christian heritage and the dangers of multiculturalism.

If you wonder why Global South Anglicans listen with a jaundiced ear to the ABC, this is why. The CofE has nothing to teach them. Colonialism is dead, so is the Church of England.

England is going nowhere spiritually. The nation has lost its way. Its inhabitants are stirring out their lives with coffee spoons; they are dying for lack of spiritual bread and they are sending themselves to hell. In the end, the church will be held accountable for its failure and lack of nerve, bearing in mind St. Peter's words, "judgment begins first with the household of God".

END