George Carey has been announcing the imminent death of what he calls “The Church” but I suspect may mean the Anglican Movement. Over at the Telegraph is an interesting article which quotes GK Chesterton: ‘Five times in the last 2,000 years the Church has to all appearances gone to the dogs. In each case it was the dogs that died.’
The article is much more hopeful about the kind of church I attend:
“Looking closely at Brierley’s statistics, three patterns emerge. The old institutional denominations – the traditional C of E, the Catholics and Presbyterians – are in decline. So are the heretical Churches on the wacky fringes of the faith, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their strange brethren……..
According to Brierley, the Churches that are growing are the ones which are orthodox but experimental: the Pentecostals and evangelicals, relaxed in style but strict in substance, liberal in all but doctrine and appealing not to liturgy but to grace……… Decorum is bunk…….
……surely there is something in the attendance figures which shows that, as St Paul put it, “having the form of godliness but denying its power” is a recipe for a moribund Church…….
The world is witnessing a race between the religions, with the front-runners being radical Islam and evangelical Christianity. Traditional Christianity is losing ground, while the cultured Briton’s favourite faith, secular humanism, is nowhere.
Time to get orthodox, and get modern.
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