The Church of England is losing young people

Attendance by children in Church of England churches is plummeting. Might that indicate that the push by revisionist bishops to ditch the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage and sexual morality isn’t persuading young people to affix C of E churches?

Andrew Selous MP, who fields questions on the established Church within the House of Commons as Second Church Estates Commissioner, has revealed that the number of youngsters attending C of E churches on a mean Sunday has halved since 2003. 

In a written answer on April 12 to an issue from fellow Conservative MP Neil O’Brien concerning the average weekly attendance across the C of E in annually since 1994, Selous said the Church “first began collected data centrally within the autumn of 2000; because of this it isn’t possible to publish data for the period 1994-1999”.

But the information he gave O’Brien showed “the longest period of comparable figures available, from 2003-2022”. These figures showed there have been 154,000 children under the age of 16 in C of E churches on a mean Sunday in 2003. By 2022 that had declined to 70,000.

That figure was up from 62,000 in 2021 when Covid restrictions were still impacting church attendance. In 2020 when the federal government imposed the lockdown there have been 24,000 children in C of E churches on a mean Sunday, down from 94,000 in 2019.

In 2003 the common adult Sunday attendance was 802,000; by 2022 that had declined to 477,000. In 2019, there have been 619,000 adults in C of E churches on a usual Sunday. That fell to 272,000 in 2020 and rose to 447,000 in 2021.

As a parish vicar from 2000 to 2019 in a South Yorkshire village, I can testify that the common Sunday attendance figure is the important thing one. In the church I used to be privileged to serve, the individuals who attended the same old Sunday services – as distinct from the individuals who got here only at Christmas or Easter or on Remembrance Sunday – were the core congregation. They were the committed Christian individuals who gave financially and who took on the voluntary roles without which an area church cannot function.

Those amongst them with children brought them to church. Without those Christian parents, the church wouldn’t have had any children on a usual Sunday.

Would the church have attracted more young people if I had not taught the normal Christian sexual ethic? The Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, who was my bishop in Sheffield Diocese from 2008 to 2016, has since suggested it might need.

In December 2022 he became essentially the most senior C of E bishop to call for the Church to permit same-sex marriage services. He set out his stance in a paper, Together in Love and Faith: “In taking note of our prevailing culture, particularly as expressed by the under forties, I’m aware of their sense of this manifest unfairness (within the Church forbidding same-sex weddings), and of anger and alienation amongst a complete generation.

“If the Church believes this clear injustice, the argument goes, then what does this say concerning the remainder of the beliefs of the Church? Is this an organisation that’s to be taken seriously in any respect as a ethical and moral force within the 21^st Century?”

But the contention that the normal teaching on marriage and sexual morality has been laying aside the younger generations in the brand new Millennium raises the query: on condition that the vast majority of clergy are actually in favour of ditching the normal Christian sexual ethic, in line with a survey by The Times newspaper in 2023, why has this not led to an increase in attendance by young people of their churches?

The further query arises: why is it that evangelical churches that uphold the normal teaching are attracting young people?

In a study published in February 2023, Churches with the biggest youth groups teach Biblical sexuality, Christian Concern (CC) checked out the web presence of 33 C of E churches listed in 2019 as having the biggest numbers of under 16s, together with the general public views of their leaders. 

The evaluation found that 61 per cent of the churches “might be clearly identified as supporting the church’s historic view that sex is reserved for one man, one woman marriage”. With the rest of the sample not revealing their public view on the problem, CC noted: “None of the churches listed, nor their leadership, were publicly supportive of a change to the C of E’s doctrine or other views that indicated opposition to conservative beliefs on sexuality and gender.”

CC commented that its evaluation showed that the Bishop of Oxford’s “fears are unfounded – if anything, young persons are drawn to teaching that claims something different to the society around them”.

CC published its evaluation just before the C of E’s parliament, its General Synod, voted for a motion in favour of introducing services of blessing for same-sex couples. The overwhelming majority of bishops were in favour however the motion passed by narrow majorities within the Houses of Clergy and Laity.

With their dioceses deeply divided over the blessings, the bishops have change into less gung-ho for the services than they were in February 2023. Several bishops who voted for the unique motion have since withdrawn their support. 

Might not the incontrovertible fact that the Church is fast losing the younger generation result in much more episcopal disillusion with these divisive services and prompt more bishops to conclude that they’re more trouble than they’re price?

Julian Mann is a former Church of England vicar, now an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.