I have tried telling you so

Something I am often saying is that we (Western Christians in respect of living Christianly in the Western world) are in a very difficult place because there is a tide of secularization sweeping our world and it makes our gospel work of witnessing to the Good News of Jesus Christ very difficult.

Secularization is the notion that one doesn't need God to live a blessed life, that society can operate more or less effectively without organised religion, and it has an ever increasing grip on the way we Westerners live. 

So we see these days: few people want to hear our message; many people who have heard the message no longer identify as Christians, or if they do still identify as Christians are no longer active in the church; even if there is not outright hostility to the gospel, there is steadfast indifference to it; and generally, in a wonderful world of material plenty, longlife through good health and effective health systems, there seems, for many, no need of God in any sense, let alone the God of Jesus Christ. (Please remember that no matter how long the waiting lists for operations, or how many people need food from foodbanks, across the whole of Western societies we are way better off than our forbears ever were.)

Incidentally, secularization doesn't have much trouble coping with "spirituality" compared to "organised religion"; and it seems, in NZ, to be coping with karakia in public events (whether or not those karakia are thoroughly Trinitarianly Christian or not). What secularization doesn't cope with is that there might be another authority - indeed, the Authority of authorities - than "the state", "public opinion", "me."

Let's be honest: the secularization sweep across societies and cultures has absolutely enjoyed a boost from the many, now well reported failings of churches, especially in respect of sexual and spiritual abuse. failure to lift women into leadership and slowness to keep up with scientific discoveries.

Back to my key point which is this, we underestimate the tide of secularization at our ecclesial peril. We are in a situation where we must pray, be faithful to Jesus, bear testimony to Jesus, and hope hugely that God's power through the pervasive Holy Spirit in our world will find a way out of this current "dark age" into a new age of (true, gospel) enlightenment. Yes, let's do all we can with our courses and programmes, with improving our welcomes at the church door and what happens inside the church worship and teaching spaces: through such things people come to faith, people remain in the faith, and God is honoured. Yes, let's celebrate every church which is growing in numbers, especially because people are becoming Christians.

But let's do all we can with eyes wide open to the scale of what we face as census declarations of Christian identity wane, as church attendance (across all churches) declines (either in sheer numbers or in proportion to a growing population or both), and as we face closures of churches, parish mergers and so forth.

What prompts me to write thus and so this week?

A recent post by John Sandeman at The Other Cheek alerts us to this:

"... Nexus, a conference attended by evangelical ministers mostly of the Sydney Anglican variety. ...

From all accounts, they were examining responses to the attendance drop in Sydney Anglicanism, frankly facing up to their problems. For a overview of the stats a good place to start is the passionate speech by Dominic Steele complete with graphs that slope down, down that he gave at the Sydney Synod (church parliament) – he happens to host the Nexus conference at the Annadale Village church he leads."

(As an aside, the post linked to above is actually about some interesting observations made by a Presbyterian at the conference.)

What did Dominic Steele have to say?

"Steele began with this graph, which shows a steady attendance until 2017, then a decline which is projected through the Covid years of 2020 and 2021 and a bounce back in 2023. Steele noted: “Sydney Anglican adult attendance declined 6.7% between 2013 and 2023, or 14 percent against population.”"

Now, in the Anglican world of the West, Sydney is "the" diocese which stands staunch on certain fundamentals of the "orthodox" Anglican faith, stands true as "conservative" on the spectrum of theological positions held by Anglicans, and stands out in its contribution to leadership of and within GAFCON. When the jibe is made (often by certain pundits of my acquaintance) that the only growing churches in the Anglican Communion are the conservative, orthodox ones, I can only presume that such generalisation includes the Diocese of Sydney ... even as it is meant to exclude, oh, I don't know, my own diocese [smile].

But the evidence is not supportive of this generalisation that the staunchly orthodox grow. Church growth through conversions is hard in our secular world. If any diocese in the Western world should grow on the basis that one particular approach to gospel ministry is destined to succeed, then it should be Sydney. But like all of us, it too is finding it difficult to counter the tide of secularization.

To be very clear: this post is not having a go at Sydney re its particular character. That might or might not be a post for another day. It could be that the statistics of church attendance are such that Sydney is doing, so to speak, "least worst" of all dioceses in the Western world, that is, it is the best of all of us.

The question remains, I suggest, that there are no easy answers to the matter of "what then should we do?" as gospel Anglicans eager to see people come to faith, for the church to grow in numbers as well as in depth.

There are, however, some straightforward things we should do simply because we love the Lord Jesus Christ: pray, bear witness to the love of God in Jesus Christ, through word and deed, give praise to God, and break bread together. The Holy Spirit is in charge!