The average age of churchgoers is 61, according to the latest statistics from the Church of England.
The report, compiled by the research and statistics department of the Archbishops’ Council, also found half of those in the pews are pensioners.
Some rural congregations were older than 65 on average, while the youngest Anglicans were found in London, with the ‘standard’ churchgoer aged 54.
It compares with the population as a whole where the average adult age is 48.
This is the first year in which the Church has analysed the ages of its congregations in detail, so no long-term trends can be determined.
However, weekly church attendance continues to fall according to separate figures published on Friday. Around 1.14m people went to a church service at least once a week in 2008, the latest figures show, but average Sunday attendance was down to 960,000 from 978,000 the previous year.
There were also slightly fewer infant baptisms, confirmations, marriages and funerals.
PS
My son just came home from taking an exam in Religious Studies. It seems like a waste of time to make kids all over the country study religion as hard as they study languages, chemistry, biology and English. Every student has to take a huge exam on religion when they are 16.
9 comments:
This doesn't tell the whole story - it only tells the failure of the 'official' CofE.
Apparently RC congregations are growing, and evangelical Christian churches are seeing a big growth in popularity, while non-Christian religions are seeing a similar variety of reactions.
Although this has certainly been aided by the transposition of immigrant cultures and the schisms among the Anglican communion, it does raise specific questions about the relationship between religion, politics and the laws and lays of the land.
This is more of a problem for the atheist, as although greater secularism does create security from direct exertion of church influence over the state through institutional power, the general rise in religiosity among non-state churches creates a stronger indirect influence through the ballot box.
I think this represents a serious choice for the atheist movement which they have yet to address.
...so crow now while you can - you may be forced to eat it later, because the crow only lives for today.
Yes, OJ, those fundies are enthusiastic and growing! Good point.
The French seem to have a better balance, people are free to believe what they like at home but the state is strictly secular, as is the school system. I don't see why this kind of secularism should not be a reasonable goal for humanists and moderate believers alike, certainly not a "problem" for atheists?
My view is that it's primarily the apologists for religion who protect and shield the fundies, perhaps not always intentionally, but by insisting that religion be granted special privilege and protection from criticism, they provide the shadow and moisture in which the bacillus of extremism can establish itself and grow.
E, I agree, religious studies should be absorbed into History or Sociology or perhaps even "creative writing" ;)
It's not actually true that every student has to take a huge religious exam when we're 16.
It's only compulsory for state school kids - private schools can teach what they like.
And I didn't do an RS GCSE and I went to a state school - as long as they teach it, that's fine, so we just had the odd religious debate every two weeks, and that was fine.
I was forced to retake my RE exam when I got 100% - they said it was impossible without cheating...
I almost got suspended when I said maybe I'd had divine help!
They said I was being sarcastic and I wasn't respecting the subject. I said they weren't respecting my abilities. They said if it was a fair result I would do just as well if I did it again.
The second time round there was one question I couldn't quite remember from the syllabus (maybe I'd been ill that week or something), so I left it blank. It knocked my score down to 93% and my teachers were still suspicious, saying I'd deliberately not tried to answer because to get 100% again would prove I'd been cheating. I couldn't win either way!
After that I became equally sceptical of the certainty of religious and non-religious people alike.
So I partly agree with Steve that fundies shouldn't be shielded, but I also think it is unfair to take the opposing side on the grounds that they are or may be.
Religion is a humanity subject, so it is impossible to be held to the same methods of proof as science subjects such as physics or biology. Note I wrote methods, not standards, because the acceptance that there are different forms of proof shouldn't mean we reduce the burden of proof for any subject.
Fundie scientists have been shown to be just as dangerous as fundie religionists, mainly because it is when they combine they create a toxic reaction with everything around them.
Knowledge of one's own subject regularly leads individuals to emphasise it over others and the consequent failure to appreciate the lessons possible of being learnt leads them in ways which they'd otherwise think twice about.
Hmm, not ranty enough.
Yah!
OP - you complete swot! ;)
I'd be interested to understand what you think we "learn" from religion that isn't already available from our own innate morality, history, ethics, biology, philosophy, psychology etc. other than the history, promises and threats of the religion itself? I'm struggling to think of additions to the corpus of human knowledge that can be directly attributed to the methods of religion exclusively.
Also, can I tempt you to elaborate on what kinds of "proof" you think are available to the religious student that aren't available to the rest of us or that aren't simply a re-definition of the word "proof", along the lines of I think it therefore it is.. etc.
I love the idea of a "fundie scientist", the image of Dr Evil immediately springs to mind :), but in reality the term is an oxymoron since to be a "proper" scientist you have to accept that there are no absolutes and so by definition you cannot be a fundamentalist about anything and call it "science", of course there are no shortage of bad or misguided people who might also be scientists. Science is about finding the most likely causes for things and building models of reality that work, change is the only constant.
Hardly a twitch on my rant-o-meter :)
Steve,
we'll start drifting into a debate about pedagogy if you want to question the difference between the sciences and humanities.
Religion teaches us about people and the way we interact with each other through communication. Projecting onto inanimate objects is an extremely useful device in enabling more effective communication.
However, the scientist confuses the figurative truth this represents and dismisses it's applicability as invalid because it doesn't refer directly or specifically to what is being talked about.
As a communicative field of study the humanities depend on linguistic or formal proofs derived from logical inference, whereas empirical proof is the central tenet of science. Christian religion suffers from the early (politically-motivated) mistranslation of verses in the Bible which describe it as 'literal truth', which quickly became defeasible.
The greater universal truths are often found when the two forms of proof are combined through inductive reasoning, but this has the problem of not complying strictly with either of the former types so is more often associated with the arts subjects.
So really everybody's beliefs are (generally-speaking) a product of the emphasis placed on each area of inquiry during ones' schooling and the form of proof we come to identify with more closely.
From my agnostic standpoint the general, the specific and the conditional truths are all necessarily equally valid means of explanation available to us for describing reality, but this then creates a requirement on us not to confuse which is being indicated at any moment. And that is not so easily done.
As for calling me a swot, don't you believe it!
By the time I gave up on regular church-going I'd devoured the liturgical cycle at least 5 or 6 times and could begin to recite much of the readings by heart. This lead me to start to get into the history of philosophy, so it was no struggle to understand how the differences between religions were mostly culturally-defined.
I think the most work I actually did was to sit through Ben Hur, The Poseidon Adventure and Gandhi - now that's what I call school!
What's a "fundie scientist"?
Sounds like propaganda put around but the religious right in an attempt to "prove" that science is a religion too.
One man's opinion is another's propaganda.
Until certainty is ascertained with reliability it's all the same thing.
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