Anglican Church: now the church of Woke

The Church of England is giving itself a makeover!

(Correction: not the C of E, rather The Community of Woke!) One aspect to this change is that they are “dropping the word “church” in favour of “relevant and modern-sounding” descriptions such as “community.”

As reported in the Telegraph, a study authored by Rev Dr Will Foulger, vicar of St Nicholas in Durham for the Centre for Church Planting Theology and Research (“church planting” …Really? ) looked at the language used by 11 dioceses to describe new churches. He “found that 6 of the 11 dioceses used the language of “worship” in their main descriptor of new church projects, two used “congregation”, and seven used “community”.”

“New Things”

The full 84-page report titled: “New Things: A theological investigation into the work of starting new churches across 11 dioceses in the Church of England” reported on “900 new things” over the last 10 years. It is available HERE (as a trendy on-line “flip book” with corny page-turning sounds!!) You are welcome to read it at your leisure—I’ve better things to do!

The vicar of St Anne’s in Kew, Dr Giles Fraser, commented that this apparent reluctance to use the word “church” reflects “a misplaced desire to be relevant and modern-sounding”.

A spokesman for the Church of England told The Telegraph that one reason why the word “church” appears less often in description of “new worshipping communities” is that these forms of worship can exist outside of traditional bricks-and-mortar churches.

At St Barnabas in Ealing a “Shh free” mass is on offer to welcome families with young children, while the “silent disco worship” at All Hallows Bow in east London – a new congregation founded within an existing church – attracts young adults.

The Diocese of Worcester, meanwhile, has embraced outdoor worshipping, with members of the churches in the Teme Valley South replacing church services with countryside walks, stopping for Bible reading and prayer along the way.

“These communities often meet in existing church buildings, attracting additional worshippers alongside traditional congregations, but they are as much ‘church’ as any other form of worship,” a Church of England spokesman said.

In February the New York Times reported that the Church of England “is considering whether to use gender-neutral terms to refer to God” saying that “God was neither male nor female and has asked a commission to explore how that is reflected in its services.”

In addition, Spiked Online reported that “the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby and the Bishop of Derby, Libby Lane, had repeatedly misused safeguarding processes to prevent a chaplain from returning to his ministry.

The Reverend Dr Bernard Randall didn’t piss in the font or gamble away the collection-plate money. No, he did something far worse in the church’s eyes – he preached traditional Christian views to students at Trent College, a private school in Derbyshire, where he was the chaplain.”

Apparently Rev. Randall dared to suggest “that, according to the Christian church, marriage is between a man and woman.”

Conclusion

This all smells of desperation.

In 2019, before in-person church services were suspended at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, there were 1.1 million “regular worshipers,” who went to church once a month or more, according to the Church of England.

In 2021, there were about 966,000 “regular worshipers,” roughly 1.7 percent of England’s population.

If the Anglicans don’t want to be a church anymore, we’ll have Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey back please! (…as a start!)

Kevin Hay.

You can follow Kevin on 𝕏 ( Twitter / Twi𝕏 ) @ kevinhay77

ps: Title photo is of the cloisters in Canterbury Cathedral.