After Christianity, what on Earth next?
by Simon Caldwell, TCW:
CHRISTIANS have now entered the season of Advent. It is the time of preparation for Christmas, the feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ and the hour when the ‘light of men’ entered human history. This is the light that, according to St John, ‘shines in darkness and darkness could not overpower it’.
The words of the Evangelist from the prologue to the fourth Gospel may offer consolation to those disheartened by a clear sense of encroaching darkness and of new and destructive ideologies emerging as Christianity diminishes rapidly.
Such decline is not in doubt. It was observed numerically in the census published this week by the Office for National Statistics which found that Christians are in a minority in England and Wales for the first time since records began some 200 years ago.
The census revealed that in 2021 a total of 46.2 per cent of citizens (27.5million) described themselves as Christian compared with 59.3 per cent (33.3million) in 2011. ‘No religion’ was the second most common response and was offered by 37.2 per cent (22.2million).
The decline in the numbers who say they are Christians represents a 13.1 percentage point decrease in the last decade. Those of ‘no religion’, on the other hand, soared by 14.1million, from 25.2 per cent.
Christians remain the largest single group of the religious belief category and their numbers are still significantly higher than those with no religion at all. This means it is a moment for alarm but not for despair although, from a Christian perspective, the signs are troubling not only because of the direction of traffic and the rate of decline but also because of what might be replacing Christianity now and in the future.
The census is useless on this latter point because it offers no insight into the beliefs of those who purport to have ‘no religion’. It would be safe to assert that such people do not believe in nothing, however. They believe in something. They must have an explanation for their existence. They may have a world view, their own systems of morality and often, in the place of religion, subscribe to one ideology or another.
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