Thoughts upon reading a church newsletter....

Because I have a day off today, I’ve read the newsletter that dropped through my door from the local branch of the Church of England. Now, as my regular readers will know, this local branch and I have differences – mostly over the knocking down of fine old vicarages so the church can get a new vicarage for free (or rather realise a load of cash from it’s asset). That and the church misled me and its local boss wrote me the rudest letter I have ever received in my capacity as a councillor.

As we speak the new vicarage (described on the big sign outside as “A New Vicarage for the Community” – and there was me thinking it was for the vicar) is under construction. A big, ugly, square modern detached house slap in the middle of the village. Does make me wonder why the vicar (or “resident priest” as I gather he will now be dubbed) can’t live in a semi like most of the rest of the folk round here. There’s plenty for sale.

But back to the newsletter. This is a stark reminder of how rapidly the Church of England is declining. It starts with this:

"Rev’d Bob Evans was licensed on the 15th March as the new priest in charge of Cullingworth, Harden, Wilsden and Denholme. He is based at the Harden Vicarage and has overall responsibility for the four churches in three parishes."

So at present this population of 15,000 or so has just one vicar. This suggests to me that there aren’t very many folk attending the churches on a Sunday. And this is confirmed by two further comments:

“Bob has a real heart for the local church and wants to welcome a more diverse age range by providing a variety of styles of worship.”

…and:

“The resident priest role will also include a new role working with Harden, Wilsden, Denholme, Cullingworth, Haworth, Crossroads and Oxenhope in their development of mission and outreach to the local communities.”

So Bob is going to create a new funky product and the new “resident priest” will go out and drum up the business for it. I wish them well but am even more firmly of the opinion now that, for most people most of the time, the church is a complete irrelevance. It serves no substantive role in the community other than to have a great big, quite attractive building right in the middle of the village.

The picture in my village just reflects the latest polling on religious belief as reported in UK Polling Report:

“As might be expected from a Theos poll, the other questions dealt with the role of religion in public life. 27% said they had no religion, 33% that their religion was cultural and didn’t really affect their lives. 22% said their religion was important and had some impact on their lives, 16% that it was very important and had significant affect upon their lives.”

This says that 60% of the population aren’t bothered about the church and that more people don’t believe than see religion as important.

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