...I don't expect it to pass, at least not this year. Yet the signs are there that such a disestablishment may pass in both houses of the English Parliament in the not-too-distant future. This is because church of England participation has been falling steadily. Quoting from the end of the article:
"Despite the CofE's entrenched position in British history and government, fewer Brits are filling the pews: in 2013, the average Sunday service attendance across the CofE was a little over 1 million, and by 2019, this number had dropped to 854,000, a decline of over 15%.
A further decline occurred in the wake of the pandemic, with a report by the Diocese of Oxford estimating that attendance in October 2022 was at 81% of 2019 levels.
The issue of declining numbers extends beyond church attendance.
According to CofE data analyzed by The Telegraph, 423 churches closed between 2010 and 2019, with nearly 1,000 churches closed from 1987 to 2019. This decline has brought the number of operational churches down to around 15,496.
Simultaneously, Christians' overall share of the population in England and Wales has dropped. According to the Office for National Statistics, Christians comprised 46.2% of the population in 2021, a decrease from 59.3% in 2011."
One other interesting note about this falloff in U.K. church attendance. I believe it was American Public Radio's program "Marketplace," that looked at the situation in the early 1990s. It noted that while the Church of England was being fully supported with British tax dollars, U.K. citizens were no longer regularly attending church functions and services. The person reporting the story suggested (and I agree) that the various cradle-to-grave protections that the British system gave its citizens fulfilled their physical needs and many no longer felt the need to be part of any religion.
Put another way, the "fulfillment of spiritual needs," as many religionists put it, may really be the unfulfilled physical needs of church participants. And I am quite sure that many American churches, especially those of the evangelical persuasion, look at the British model of fulfilling physical needs and the resulting downsizing of church attendance as something they don't want to see happen in the United States.
blindguy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > One other interesting note about this falloff in > U.K. church attendance. I believe it was American > Public Radio's program "Marketplace," that looked > at the situation in the early 1990s. It noted that > while the Church of England was being fully > supported with British tax dollars, U.K. citizens > were no longer regularly attending church > functions and services.
I think people in England are not very concerned with "tax dollars" as you put it for a pretty obvious reason.
Also the Church of England is not a UK church. Not only does it operate outside the UK - Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, Gibraltar - it does not operate in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland. It has never been the established church in Scotland in any form, since Scotland had a Presbyterian church.
kentish Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hence the name Church of England
Doesn't work for the other places though, does it?
The Isle of Man has never been part of England, although the English seem to think it is. It has its own government, and two chambers - the Keys (elected) and the LegCo (Legislative Council, unelected). The Brits inserted one of their unelected governors into the LegCo along with one of their Church of England bishops. This is controversial since most Manx aren't members of that church, and preferred the Methodists etc in olden days.
This is correct. It is also true that it doesn't hold sway in Wales, although it does have its "Welsh" counterpart (the Church in Wales). Note the strategic use of "in" rather than "of" to avoid the acronym "COW" ;-).
At my last 'open mic sunday' 20 minutes of testimony was taken up by a nice lady teaching the loss of Christianity is going to have the world overrun by Islam.
Stay mormon or Islam will takeover!
Hey, it's probably more effective than the convoluted message they are currently peddling.
kentish Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The practical reality is that it does not have a > state religion and hasn't for many years.
True -- but remember the big bruhaha some years ago when Charles III said that he wanted to be the "protector of faiths" instead of the "protector of the faith?"
What ordinary people do or think doesn't matter in this case.
There are entrenched interests with turf to protect -- not to mention the Protestant zealots in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2023 12:00PM by anybody.
I think most of the brouhaha was in the media... As kentish pointed out higher up in this thread, it has no effect on most people's lives and hardly impinges on their consciousness.
kentish Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The practical reality is that it does not have a > state religion and hasn't for many years.
I saw that the good people of Everton were very, very, very unhappy today about the ten point penalty. IMO they need to take that up with the team's owners and managers.
It was an unhappy result for Tottenham, but the bicycle-kick goal for the following Man U game was exceptional. It looks super cold in England right now. Brrr!
Summer, Everton can't seem to catch a break. Man City have been under investigation for serious infractions for over a year now and nothing handed down. Perhaps more successful clubs get the break. If City is found at fault their penalty could be much bigger and include the taking away of titles. Won't offend me since Liverpool could receive one of them,
Garnacho"s goal for United could be the goal of the year.
I wasn't aware of the Man City issues. I would just like to see someone knock them out of first place. Any team will do. I'd love it to be Tottenham, but with the injuries, I don't think it will be their year.
Liverpool essentially knocked them out of first place this past weekend with a draw at their ground. This opened the way for Arsenal who scraped a win against Brentford. It will be the games the top three or four teams play against each that will determine the chamnpion. Liverpool are the most serious threat to City but much might depend on who teams pick up in the January transfer window.
Iran is the extreme case--and in this context it is indeed extreme.
I have long believed that the best way to undermine a religion is to give it political power because then the hypocrisy, the contradictions, the compromises, and the corruption become clear. I have friends who regularly go back and forth between the West and Iran. They tell me that other than the countryside, where reaction is always strong, Iranians have largely abandoned Islam. People drink more or less openly, they have affairs openly, they criticize the Mullahs ferociously.
Ironically, a lot of Iranians are expressing the hope that Israel will respond to the Hamas terror by attacking and destroying the Iranian government.