Even the non-believers must understand faith

May 31, 2016 by

by Sholto Byrnes, The National:

In the first half of the last century, religion was so ensconced in Britain that the Church of England was often referred to as “the Conservative Party at prayer”. In 1936, King Edward VIII relinquished his throne for insisting on breaking the rules of that church – of which he was supreme governor – to marry a divorcee.

The decline

Today, a survey shows just how far religion has declined in Britain. For the first time, according to a report due to be issued in the House of Commons this week, non-believers outnumber Christians 48.5 per cent to 43.8 per cent in England and Wales, with those of no faith almost doubling their numbers from the 2011 census.

There has been a significant drop in those identifying as Christians in America as well. Last year, Pew Research found the ranks of non-believers have swelled from 16.1 per cent to 22.8 per cent.

Traditionally devout Ireland has seen a collapse in weekly attendance at Catholic mass, from more than 90 per cent in the 1970s to about 30 per cent, with some parishes recording rates of only 2 to 3 per cent.

Christianity is rapidly retreating in its old strongholds – to such a degree that some denominations are in danger of disappearing entirely. In 2005 I interviewed David Deeks, the then general secretary of the Methodist Church. That church once underpinned Britain’s Labour movement, with the late prime minister Harold Wilson famously saying that his party owed far more to Methodism than to the teachings of Karl Marx. The Methodist church once had congregations in the millions.

But when I spoke to him, Mr Deeks’s hopes for his church’s future hung by a thread. “Young people know nothing about the Methodist Church – a whole swath of history has been lost to them,” he said. “I don’t want to exaggerate, but we were something.”

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