Attendance in England at Church of England (CofE) services has collapsed in this century. Meanwhile, the CofE increasingly adopted new theology, revising the beloved traditional Book of Common Prayer so that its language reflected this new theology. The CofE also ordained women as priests in 1992 and then as bishops in 2008. Anglicans in Africa and Asia found these and other changes distasteful. They exhibit a sincerity and a deep spirituality which earn them a high reputation, and they threatened to split the world-wide Anglican Communion. It might seem that opposition of the same kind at home in England itself also accounts for a decline in daily Anglican church attendance in England, but that places too much emphasis on changes in supply. This essay on the contrary emphasizes changes in demand. The revised theology and the ordination of women did not cause the decline in CofE attendance in England, this essay argues. Instead, changing theology and the ordination of women, on the one hand, and declining church attendance, on the other hand, were both dependent variables, and the independent and causal variable was the change in demand which in turn was caused by changes in English social structure. The decline in fertility, the decline in household size, the fall in the number of children, the rise in the number of elderly persons, the rise in single-person households – all these things changed demand, this essay says, and the liberalization of theology and the decline in Anglican church attendance were both results of diminished demand.
Key words: Bonhoeffer, Church of England attendance, Durkheim, Pareto, theology
DOI: 10.22250/20728662_2024_1_13
About the author
 |
John A. Taylor – PhD, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, St. Petersburg State University; 58-60 Galernaya St., St. Petersburg, 190121, Russia; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |