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God's not dead in SW London

The Times (London); Jan 26, 2010; Ruth Gledhill; p. 7 Full Text: (Copyright (c) Times Newspapers Limited 2010 ) Tomorrow's report will make grim reading on the decline of faith in Britain. The analysis by Professor David Voas, for the National Centre for Social Research of the 4,486 interviews in the 2008 British Social Attitudes survey, points to the steepest fall being among those who attend worship ceremonies in the Church of England. Average Sunday attendance in 2007 fell to 978,000 compared with 1.2 million in 1983. Voas says: "The declining Christian share is largely attributable to a drift away from the Church of England." In church circles the accepted wisdom is that the decline can be linked to a move in liberal congregations away from biblical orthodoxy. Figures from organisations such as Christian Research support the widely accepted thesis that all the growth is at the evangelical end. But closer examination of thriving churches, such as the Los Angeles church profiled here by Lucy Broadbent, show that this need not be the case. Canon Giles Fraser, Chancellor of St Paul's, was until recently vicar of St Mary's, Putney, in which there is hardly enough space in the church to hold the 350 Sunday worshippers, including 100 children. What marks this church and many others in southwest London is that they are far from evangelical, unless that is taken in its original Greek and, ironically, biblical sense of being messengers of good news. Canon Fraser's "gospel" for success was a book by Dr Jeffrey John on how to do church well. Dr John is now Dean of St Albans having been forced to resign as Bishop of Reading because of his sexuality. The Anglican Communion's first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, preached at St Mary's at the start of the 2008 Lambeth Conference in Canterbury. The Inclusive Church movement that campaigns for equality for gays in the church was started there by Canon Fraser. And the motion that eventually saw the General Synod agree in 1992 that women could be ordained to the priesthood began life with a motion from the parochial church council at St Mary's. St Mary's has a cafe on the premises and a heavily oversubscribed church school near by. Just a dozen or so children from the congregation are admitted there each year -- so the school does not explain the overflowing pews, or why so many families stay even when their children don't make it through the admissions process. What St Mary's and its other local thriving churches do prove is that it is possible to be inclusive as a church in England, and not only survive but thrive. Canon Fraser says: "It is just a question of doing the basics and doing them well. It is caring for people, preaching good sermons, making sure to be organised. There is a huge children's programme with Sunday school teachers trained in what is called Godly Play. A lot of churches in that area are not evangelical but they are full." Holy Trinity Brompton, in Knightsbridge, southwest London, is packed with thousands of young Christians each Sunday and is the church where the successful Alpha course began. It is another example of a growing church. From the opposite end of the evangelical spectrum to St Mary's Putney, HTB has a more conventional approach to church growth, which includes "planting" or founding dozens of new congregations in London, many of which also f lourish and to go on to plant yet more churches. Since the 1960s it has been part of the secular creed that "God is dead". But in spite of surveys such as tomorrow's, the evidence is that belief in God is anything but dead. Churches and other religions across the spectrum have continued to defy prophecies of their imminent demise and, against the statistics, the signs are that they will continue to do so.

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Credit: Ruth Gledhill

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