Christian Decline

The UK Office of National Statistics has just announced results for religious affiliation from their latest Population Census. For the first time in a census of England and Wales, less than half of the population (46.2%) described themselves as “Christian”, a 13.1 percent decrease from 59.3% in 2011. This is amazing. In a nation that was once perceived as the heartland of Christianity, Christians are now a minority. In parts of London, the percentage of Christians is now less than thirty percent.

A similar change has occurred in New Zealand. According to the 2018 population census, only 37.3 percent of the population describe themselves as “Christian”, whereas nearly half (48.6 percent) claim to have “No Religion”. If the various ethnic churches are excluded (they are probably unlikely to reach the existing population with the gospel), the percentages would be significantly worse than in the UK.

The United States is a decade behind, but secularisation of the culture is proceeding faster there, so the decline will be faster too. Unless something changes significantly, the United States will soon be in a similar state to the UK. Pretending that this decline is not happening, or vainly hoping that revival will come and turn the situation around is foolish.

The decline in Christian faith recorded by these statistics represents a massive cultural change in our society. A reasonable person would expect the church to recognize the problem and begin adapting so that it can be effective in the new culture that is emerging. Unfortunately, there is very little evidence that this is happening.

A military general who lost half of his troops, while his enemy's forces were increasing would be freaking out. He would probably be wondering about surrendering or suing for peace before his army was totally decimated. At the very least, he would be changing the way that he fought. He would stop all major engagements against large concentrations of enemy forces, and would disperse his remaining forces to engage in guerilla-style insurgent tactics, harassing the enemy in hit-and-run attacks.

Despite facing similar losses, the church seems to be content to go on doing what it has always done without any consideration of radical change. The “Come to Church for an Hour on Sunday” is still the norm. The worship songs have become more upbeat, and the music production is more professional. The presentation of the message uses more sophisticated visual aids, but the method is still one man preaching. The song-prayer-sermon-altar-call club-sandwich is as popular as ever.

Given the dramatic secular shift and the religious plurality emerging in our culture, Christian leaders should be thinking seriously about how the church will need to change to turn the tide. But there is very little evidence that anything like that is happening.