This sceptic isle

THE final parish meeting of the Holy Trinity Church, in the centre of Bath, took place on a rainy day in February 2011. Anglo-Catholic congregations had worshipped here, under the hammer-beam roof and monuments to heroes of Napoleonic wars, for nigh on two centuries. Now a £40,000 ($52,000) bill for electrical repairs had succeeded where a German bomb had failed: the church was to close and it was time to wind up its affairs. Formalities concluded, parishioners filed in for a final mass. “Forgive us as we confess our negative feelings and fears for the future,” ran a closing message on the website. Today the building is listed for sale on the Church of England website, offers invited.

Last year the church reported a “sharp upturn” in such disposals. That hints at a milestone that Britain reached in January, when figures for weekly church attendance fell below 1m for the first time, as well as one passed in 2009, when the proportion of Britons saying they had no religion (49% in the latest data, for 2015) overtook that saying they were Christian (43% in 2015) in NatCen’s British Social Attitudes survey. Other figures also point to this spiritual sorpasso: since 2004 church baptisms are down by 12%, church marriages are down by 19% and church funerals by 29%. A 65-country study by WIN/Gallup last year found a lower proportion of people are religious in Britain than in all but six other countries.

Each generation is about as observant as it has always been: a fairly consistent 80% of the pre-war cohort has generally described itself as religious; about 40% of Britons born after 1980 tend to do so. And there are exceptions, of course. Some inner-city churches, particularly in areas of high immigration, are dynamic and thriving; clergymen hope that these successes can be spun off (or “planted”) to other parts of the country. Meanwhile other religions, like Islam, are growing—albeit not nearly fast enough to slow the growth of non-religious Britain.

The country is littered with evidence of the change. Everywhere deconsecrated churches are reopening as bars and restaurants. Five hundred churches were turned into luxury homes over five years in London alone. Shrinking congregations and growing repair bills are typically the fatal combination: about a quarter of Sunday services are attended by fewer than 16 parishioners. The Church of England is doing its best to manage this trend. Christmas-only parishes, catering to the once-a-year crowd, are one avenue. A new app enables cashless millennials to chip in to a virtual collection plate.

But if it does not reverse the decline, society at large—all of it—has big questions to ponder. Christianity has been woven into British life over the course of two millennia. In the span of history the current contraction of the observant population is precipitous. In all sorts of ways it leaves a big gap.

There is the physical one. Myriad restrictions govern the sale of landmarks and artworks. Yet the parish church, that icon of Britain’s national character, is becoming a memory. Sometimes such buildings remain public, as cafés, preschools and the like. But often they do not. In 2013 a London church-turned-house, complete with a golden swimming pool in the crypt, sold for £50m. Is it reasonable to let these spaces close to the great unwashed for good? The nation’s cathedrals pose similar quandaries. To maintain their leaky roofs, draughty windows and artistic treasures typically costs more than £1m annually (York Minster, which gets rubbed down with olive oil to protect against acid rain, faces bills of £20,000 a day). Lately the government has doled out discretionary payments to cover repairs, most recently a £20m extension to a fund commemorating the first world war. But is it appropriate for these cornerstones of the nation’s heritage to rely on ministerial whim? Or, for that matter, for taxpayers to subsidise organised religion?

Aisle be back

Then there is the non-liturgical dimension. Churches are spaces for reflection and meditation. In an age when pubs, too, are struggling to stay open, they are a bastion against social atomisation. Before it closed, Holy Trinity in Bath used to host dance classes, band rehearsals, counselling groups and lectures. Should civil society be providing new sources of guidance and communion? In 2008 a group of philosophers founded the School of Life, a sort of secular answer to organised religion (tickets to an upcoming class on “Mastering the Art of Kindness” sell for £10). Are more such initiatives needed? Churches also complement the welfare state. The number of emergency food packages distributed in Britain by the Trussell Trust, a Christian charity, rose from 26,000 in 2008-09 to 1.1m in 2015-16. Such food banks are found in 14% of British churches. Should the country consider measures to substitute this role? Or should it underwrite it?

Finally there is religion’s political vocation. The monarch is the head of the Church of England. Bishops sit in the House of Lords to provide “an independent voice and spiritual insight”. Church figures enjoy media pulpits for their views on ethical matters. Should these conventions be upheld for the sake of tradition and continuity? Or should church voices be complemented, even supplanted, by other philosophical and moral authorities?

These questions are mutually inextricable. They bear not just on government but on civil society, public services, cultural institutions, philanthropists and the ordinary citizen. So it is time, surely, that they benefited from concerted debate. Britain is hardly alone in this. It is a subject with which most Western countries will soon need to grapple. The Pew Research Centre (whose research goes beyond pews) projects that Australia, France and the Netherlands will lose their Christian majorities by 2050. Even in America, the non-religious part of the population rose from 16% to 23% between 2007 and 2014. Britain is just farther down the road to a post-religious society than most. It must lead the way.

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