ABSTRACT
Times have been hard for the Church of England, as for most major churches in the developed world. The culture has become markedly less Christian over at least the past few decades and arguably much longer. 1 The impact can be seen in the number of churches, clergy, members, attenders, baptisms, confirmations, religious weddings and funerals. The numerical change is described below, followed by an explanation of the decline as the product of generational replacement. 2
Every corner of England belongs to a parish of the Church. Although parish boundaries are comparatively ancient, the set of parishes is not completely fixed. Some churches have been closed, and some parishes have been merged with others. In 1980 there were 16,806 churches in 13,663 parishes; by 2013 the numbers had dropped by about a thousand, to 15,799 and 12,557 respectively. According to Statistics for Mission 2013, the figure for churches ‘includes 128 churches with no buildings’. Deducting these ethereal churches from the total would make the drop in church and parish numbers almost identical.
