Just Why is it that Church Attendance is Declining?

In a recent on-line piece, Anglican scold David Virtue quotes a traditionalist priest in England who claims to know why church attendance has declined in that country:

Low blasted what he called the feminization of the Church of England. "The CofE has experienced the very opposite of the growth promised by the feminizers. Twelve years has seen one in five worshippers disappear. The overwhelming majority of those have been men."

Low said studies showed that male church-going is the decisive influence in children. "It is not surprising to see children's attendance in free-fall over that period. The 45/55 male/female split of a decade ago is now a 37/63 split of a much smaller number of regulars."

Men, he wrote, will see a decreasing place for themselves in an organization dominated by militant feminism and bloodless males.

"With the growing triumph of the homosexual lobby and key appointments for many of its senior supporters, men will continue to drift away and so will their children. On current trends, in a decade or so the Church of England will be down to half the 1990 figures and staffed mainly by masculine women and feminine men," said the former Vicar of St Peter's, Bushey Heath, Diocese of St Alban's. Low now lives in Cornwall.

Another possibility, however, is that people in first-world countries are becoming less socially engaged across the board, as summarized in this review of the book Bowling Alone:

. . . Church attendance is declining along with other kinds of civic engagement. Declines in church attendance are mainly produced by a generational changing of the guard, as are declines in many other institutional arenas. Religious participation, it seems, is a special case of something much more general.

It appears, then, that declining church attendance is unlikely to be fundamentally caused or cured by developments specific to religion. Churches may be having trouble attracting young people, but so are virtually all other voluntary and membership organizations. Looking for root causes or solutions only within the religious sphere is like the man who, faced with a flooded basement, looks for the leak in his own pipes, not realizing that the water main has broken and every house on the block is flooded.

Moreover, I suspect at least part of the attendance decline comes from another factor: Intellectually, unbelief is much easier than belief, because so much of "orthodox Christian" dogma simply can't easily be reconciled with what we know about the world. As a recent survey report noted:

Barna noted that to unchurched people embracing church life is “both counter-cultural and counter-intuitive.” Reaching out to unchurched people is difficult for born again Christians because the two groups have such different viewpoints and lifestyles. “Born again adults are more excited about a church’s strengths and more forgiving of its weaknesses, more disposed to spiritual growth, and less skeptical of theological and biblical claims. They neither see nor understand the obstacles that impede the unchurched. Addressing the reticence of the unchurched takes more than prayer and hard work: it requires a lot of deep reflection to see the world and the local church from a completely different angle.

(Emphasis added.)

Comments

[Donald]

If you look at the statistics, I think you find that the orthodox evangelical churches are not in decline. It's the ones that bend over backwards to accomodate the culture of the world that are having problems!

[mel]

Hey everyone my name is mel. I am 16 and attend high school. I have to do an assignment on why church attendance has decreased....this website has been very helpful to me but i would like to know more...not only for my assignment but for my personal knowledge because i do attend church regulary and to boost the church numbers would be great!!!.... And even if its just someone who doesnt attend church can give me some good infomation on the reasons why???...Who ever is out there and could help me please do so....email me at
Mel_091287@hotmail.com thankx everyone

[Wayne Abbott]

It does appear that it is the more liberal denominations that are in decline. The reason that evangelical churches are not is that they have a solid and simple message. This is very comforting to many people, especially those who aren't interested in biblical criticism or other such eruditition.

The liberal churches are losing appeal to the masses because their message is full of nuance and uncertainty. Nothing appears to have any definiteness. The Bible is to be understood metaphorically. Definitions of right and wrong seem very fluid. For good or bad, the liberal churches simply have fewer answers for common people. As the recent U.S. elections demonstrate, nuance doesn't sell well in America these days.

1 Corinthians 14:8 - And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle?

[Don]

Why are liberals so condescending? Wanyne's comments seem to say that "common people" hold to traditional religious beliefs because they aren't bright enough to comprehend the multi-faceted belief system of liberals. Is that elitist of what?

If that were true, only the educated would be liberal and only the uneducated conservative. That sounds more like black and white fundamentalism.

Perhaps the answer is that conservatives believe that Jesus is the only way into heaven and have been commanded to make disciples of all men.

When you make that into a metaphor, what is the reason for evangelism?

But that is just my opinion - I could be wrong. You can disagree with me and still not be a troglodyte.

P.S. The word is spelled "erudition"