Christianity in Britain must innovate to survive

The newly published report into Contemporary Catholicism in England and Wales from  the Benedict XVI Centre at St Mary’s University makes for bracing reading.

Although not primarily about non-religiosity that is how it has been reported.  This was not, as its author Stephen Bullivant suggested at the report’s launch in Parliament which I chaired this morning, really newsworthy. It has, after all, been reported quite a few times already, although the depth and detail of this report does add clarity and colour to the general plotline.

The idea that there are many more non-Christians than there are Christians today strikes many people as, well, striking, but it shouldn’t. The nation conducted its very first Census of Religious Worship over 160 years ago (in 1851 to be precise) and was shocked to discover that half the country didn’t attend church. We’ve continued to be surprised by how little the nation is Christian ever since.

This report is not about church attendance, of course, or indeed belief (the categories are so often confused in debates). It is about what people call, and how they think of, themselves. In that regard, the fact that so many no longer naturally reach for the Christian label may, ironically, be something of a relief, as it means that ‘Christian’ will henceforth have a clearer and more concentrated meaning, rather than being something culturally diffuse.

Either way, there are far bigger issues for the future of British Christianity that this research raises. Two come to mind. First is that retention rates for mainstream denominations is weak (c. 50% for Catholics and Anglicans, under 35% for Baptists and Methodists – though this is complicated by the fact that this is measuring retention rates of affiliated Christians, rather than of practicing Christians which would naturally be higher).

Read here