Barry: Time to move on with our beliefs

Dec 24 2008 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Time to move on with our beliefs

SOME of you may be making your way to church tonight for the first and last time this year.

For a lot of people Christmas is one of the only times they darken the door of a church, aside from weddings and funerals.

I know the feeling, standing in a pew on some special occasion, singing half-forgotten hymns, reciting vaguely familiar prayers and listening to the minister telling one of those New Testament parables that rings a bell somewhere in the dusty recesses of your mind.

It was only a few decades ago when everyone – or at least everyone who thought themselves respectable – went to church every Sunday.

But not any more. Huddersfield Parish Church, right in the heart of the town, has fewer than 100 regular worshippers. Across the country, fewer than one million people attend the Church of England every Sunday.

And new research out this week predicts that number will fall rapidly in the next few decades. Christian Research estimates that by 2050 there will be only 87,800 people worshipping in the Church of England. In other words, within the lifetime of many people reading this piece, church attendance will drop to a tenth of its current figure.

Of course, the Church of England disputes these figures, saying people don’t always worship in traditional venues. Apparently you can praise the Lord in pubs and at car boot sales these days.

I’m not a big car boot sale fan so I’ll take the church’s word for it on that one. But I have been in the odd pub in my time and I’ve never seen anyone singing hymns. Maybe I don’t go to the right pubs.

But whatever the church wants to say about “non-traditional worship”, the simple fact is that fewer and fewer of us want to praise God in their buildings.

And this must have an impact on the status of the Church of England. It was bad enough that the church got preferential treatment over other religions in the old days, when its churches were actually full.

But with its pews emptying, this kind of special status becomes even more indefensible. How much longer must we go on with the farcical situation where the monarch has to be a member of this dwindling religion? Saying that the head of state must believe in this or that God may be commonplace in the Middle East, but it is scarcely appropriate for a Western European country.

And how much longer must I, as a non-believing taxpayer, go on subsidising Church of England schools?

It’s long since time to move on. England is a wonderfully diverse and complex society. There are many people who belong to other Christian denominations, and millions who believe in things like Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

And then there are the rest of us – perhaps even the majority of people in this country – who believe in no God at all and rarely, if ever, darken the door of any church. When are we going to get equality under the law?

Oh, and before I forget, merry Christmas everyone. Whether you’re celebrating Jesus, Santa or just the traditional pagan mid-winter feast – I hope you have a good one.