Catholic Light

The Anglican Church in England and its offshoot, the Episcopalian Church, is predicted by many to be the first major Christian denomination to disappear. Between 1979 and 2005 half of all British Christians stopped attending Church. The Church is getting progressively smaller and older. Its bank accounts are dropping dramatically. Trend estimates point to the middle of this century as a time when the Church of England will reach critical mass, a point where its declining membership is unable to support a nationwide Church.

While nearly all Christian churches are in decline, the Anglican Church is moving the quickest to obscurity. The reason for the decline should not be a huge mystery. No Church represents a manmade origin more than the Church of England. There is no dispute that the head of the Church is a human. In many societies modernity has produced a spiritual reaction, especially among the older generations. The Church of England, with its human head has a tough time capitalizing on this reaction.

Since the 1970s the Christian Churches that grew as a reaction to modernity were those on the fundamental side of the spectrum. This was a spiritual reaction to the growing secularization. The Church that has declined the most in shear numbers is the Catholic Church which tried to embrace modernity for the first time while still maintaining its traditional perspectives on Christian life. Furthermore, Catholicism has always relied on reproduction as a primary engine for growth and these numbers decline as modernity advances.

The Anglican Church has none of the benefits of the fundamentalists and all of the liabilities of the Roman Catholics. Its liturgy is Catholicesque which lacks the spiritual appeal of the fundamentalists. Its structure is modern and its titular head is non-spiritual so there is no counterbalance as there is in Catholicism. Ultimately, the Church of England is in decline because most people can no longer come up with a good reason why they should become Anglican and follow its teaching.

In the United States Episcopal Church identification has declined from 3.4 million in 2001 to around 2.4 million in 2008. This represents a 30 percent decline in just eight years. Their members tend to be better educated and more diverse which is a bad combination for a church trying to survive in the 21st century. The Episcopal Church appeals to many shunned by the more traditional religions. These groups; however, tend to be those that find giving up religion the easiest and that is what many are doing.