The church in 2044

There has been a lot of talk of 'takeovers' in the CofE of late, and so I thought I might make a contribution to thinking about the future of the church.

As a recent thought experiment, I asked the question 'What will the church be like in 2044?' By this I mean not the normal speculation about how many people nationally will be going to church, but what will be on offer at a local church in thirty year's time. Of course, a lot can change in thirty years, as has certainly be shown in the church's experience after the 1960s, but what if current trends were to continue?

There are a number of notable features that I suspect would be at play:

1. The ever reducing level of theological and liturgical literacy within our society will alienate many from our worship, as generations with liturgical knowledge die and are replaced by those who have had little experience of church worship.. This will mean that many of our services would seem even more strange than they do now. Only those raised within the church , a small number of people, would be familiar with any Anglican worship forms at all, and only a few of these would be aware of a more liturgical style. More formal and liturgical styles are only likely to appeal to those educated in the independent sector, where traditional liturgies in chapels are still the norm, and so choral liturgical services are likely to be regarded as the preserve of an elite. This will put pressure on all traditions to have a main service that is an informal act of worship.

2. Common Worship is likely to still be in use. It is interesting to note that, unlike with the ASB, 20 years since CW's introduction is fast approaching and there is no clamour to replace it: everyone seems quite content for CW to continue. Given the length of time that liturgical revision will take, it seems the the church will be using CW until at least 2030.

3. There is something therefore of a clash between these first two observations, and so it is worth noting the likely outcome. In most churches we will probably see 'traditional worship' meaning that in modern language, but a liturgical form, happening as the 8am or 9.30am service, and followed by a much larger non-liturgical act of worship later. CW will in effect have become a sort of modern BCP, and the BCP will probably be an historical document apart from use in cathedrals and large city parishes: unused and largely forgotten.

4. For most churches then, a form of evangelical worship is likely to be the mainstay of parish life, with Fresh Expressions being the dominant form of worship for Sunday mornings. More formal robed services will be confined to 8am or 9am liturgical service. In a lot of town churches this will mean that liturgical services will be those for the few and fairly elderly, whilst the majority attend more informal worship. In villages it means that worship is more likely to be a weekly lay led informal gathering with monthly liturgical worship for those that want it.

5. There is a real possibility that the tradition of sung evensong will die, and even in some cathedrals it will stop being sung daily: the increase in congregation numbers at cathedrals recorded over recent years has been fairly small and is likely to be the product of evensong ceasing to be sung elsewhere.  Evensong will survive only where there is enough demand for it. The Victorian hymnody of the church will be greatly reduced, with only the best and most famous remaining in common use, and will be replaced by contemporary worship songs which are more culturally appropriate to modern pop culture.

None of this is about a 'takeover', but about the church adapting to current needs and context: no group is seeking to win against others in these changes, but instead the church is trying to meet the needs of the community. Change is a normal part of church life: the CofE was a very different place before 1547 and before 1850. We should not assume that the settlement given to us by the late Victorians represents an eternal norm. This is uncomfortable because the changes introduced by the mid-Victorians (hymns, robed choirs and pipe organs) have become the norms we associate with church, but 200 years on it is likely that worship will look more like a modernised version of a 1780s offering than that of the 1880s.

If those with a more liturgical and choral tradition of church worship wish to change these trends, then church outreach into wider society is vital. This means engaging with schools in the state sector regarding hymns and worship. Children attending liturgical churches need educational support from the church so that they can understand and appreciate the tradition. The church needs to become more interested in the musical education of wider society, including young people, so that they value the traditional patterns of church music.

Churches owned by the state

Over the Easter period, an article appeared from Simon Jenkins in the Guardian offering the view that the church buildings of England should be taken over by the state, in particular by local authorities, who would make much better use of them than the Anglican Church, which is presented as a self interested sect. I have to say that I am somewhat unconvinced by a number of factors in the article.

Firstly, a good deal of it is hyperbole, such as claiming that the church turns away 'outsiders' for weddings and funerals. This it simply cannot legally do. All are able to get married in their parish church regardless of matters of faith. The only restriction are those imposed by the laws of the state, which require residence in the parish or other qualifying connection in the case of a marriage. Many churches and clergy wish they were rather less constrained by rules, but it is the state that places burdens upon them.

In my experience rural communities rather like their church's offering of weddings, funerals and baptisms, and there was never a hint of tension. Indeed, many rural communities do not want to see their pretty church become a 'wedding venue' for all, regardless of connection to the village, because of the pressure it puts on parking in narrow roads every weekend during summer. One suspects that what Jenkins has in mind here is not that the offerings of the church are inadequate in themselves, but rather that he would like to see civil celebrants being able to use country churches to cater for some of the Baby Boomer incomers into these communities, who may have little interest in the traditional offerings of the village and church community. This contention therefore may say a lot more about Jenkins's assumptions about life than those of the actual communities.

Secondly, there is a lot of misrepresentation of the historical role of the parish church going on here. Reading Simon Jenkins' article might lead you to believe that the church building in the middle ages was a sort of collectivist commune and social centre! However, the reality of the medieval parish church was that it existed for social control of worship as part of a feudal system. Instead of peasants running off to a far away minster church, the local parish church meant that the religious life of peasants could be controlled. Eventually, during the late middle ages, an independent laity, freed from serfdom, exercised its rights in forming certain guilds and confraternities in parish churches that made an impact on the fabric of the building, but it did so in a world in which the sacred and secular were not divided as they are today, and so the fraternity's primary aim was likely to be religious, with secondary goals of promoting a certain trade.

Jenkins' argument generally ignores the fact that a majority of churches would have been locked for much of the time during the middle ages and were constructed primarily as places of worship. That medieval churches were ornately decorated with pictures, glass and statues, and had lots of candles burning in them, should make us doubt the story of secular space that Jenkins wants to promote. The reality is that medieval churches were primarily places in which one was meant to encounter the worship of heaven, and at Reformation they become preaching centres in which one encountered the word. Either way, the religious role of the building was fairly manifest. Yes, church ales were held in churchyards, but to regard such events as signs that the role of the church was more social then religious is to misread the evidence.

Thirdly, there is the role of the state. Do we really think that nationalised church buildings would particularly be responsive to the needs of the community? Was British Leyland particularly responsive the needs of the community when producing the Morris Marina and Austin Allegro? Henry VIII promised that dissolved monastic properties would become schools and colleges: Furness, Fountains, Castle Acre and Tintern suggest how much hope we might have in such schemes. The likely result of taking the building into the hands of the council is that it would be locked up so that it could be kept in good order for those who wish to hire it. It would cease to be truly public space, offered to all by the church, and become a space available for private hire.

Ultimately, Jenkins fails to understand the matter from the church's perspective. For centuries the church has poured clergy resources into small churches that were often unsustainable at the hight of Christendom, and for around two centuries these parishes have suffered such rural depopulation that they ceased to be viable stand alone units over 150 years ago. The population is now generally urban and highly mobile. In such circumstances many rural congregations do a brilliant job in keeping their church well maintained, clean and open, and provide worship and community throughout the year. I would rather trust them to  speak for their community than those with a political axe to grind.