updated Saturday night
Frederick Schmidt What is a seminary faculty?
These three articles look at the Church of England statistics issued on Monday.
David Keen New CofE stats: we did better than UKIP, but still not well enough
Norman Ivison The clock is ticking
Bev Botting New Stats, New Findings
Giles Fraser The Guardian The Church of England is actually holding up pretty well in an adverse market
Angela Denker Sojourners 3 Ways ‘All Are Welcome’ Is Hurting the Church
Leading article in The Spectator Thank heavens for Justin Welby!
Update
David Keen has also published Latest CofE stats: Attendance by Diocese 2009-13.
Norman Ivison cites the key fact: “29% of the ‘worshipping community’ are 70 or over”. With two of my other hats on, I often get involved in arguments about the role technology has in daily tasks. Whenever there is a claim that something is difficult for “old people” I attempt to unpick whether they are talking about generations or age; it is undeniably the case that usage of computers is lower amongst the over-70s than the under-20s, but unless you believe that people will suddenly return to Basildon Bond and cheques upon turning 65, the point is not that someone… Read more »
I’ve done a breakdown of the adult attendance stats by Diocese as well:
http://davidkeen.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/latest-cofe-stats-attendance-by-diocese.html
“Angela Denker Sojourners: 3 Ways ‘All Are Welcome’ Is Hurting the Church”
You know who’s NOT welcomed by Angela Denker/Sojourners? Those who have made the (perfectionally rational) decision to NOT use (be abused by) Facebook!
While I can agree that congregations ought to “discern a clear and specific mission to where Jesus is calling them to act”, I sincerely doubt that Jesus meant ‘Zuckerbook’ (money-changer of on-line identities).
What a piece of sycophantic clap trap from the Spectator. ‘No one has condemned homophobia more effectively than Justin Welby.’ Really? I wonder which planet the writer lives on.
David Keen writes: “The figures for childrens attendance, which I’ll do if there’s popular demand, are less encouraging, with a big drop in 2012-13, and a faster rate of decline overall.” There is another demographic timebomb that the church faces. The peak year for births in the UK was 1964. After that, a combination of factors (legal abortion, more readily available and effective contraception, different attitudes to work and education amongst women born after the war) meant that the total fertility rate, the number of children the average woman has, dropped from about 2.9 to 1.6 over thirty years. The… Read more »
Observer: I suspect it’s a mix of age and generation. Generation because, yes, people born after about 1970 (on both sides of the pond) are less likely to have ever gone to church. But, even among those, there will be a significant number who wish to have their children have SOME kind of religious upbringing (if only to keep the grandparents happy) and will come to church while their kids are in the elementary grades. Some will stay after that. So as the post-1970 cohort ages, some of them will come back to church and some smaller number will stay.… Read more »