Nowadays more Muslims practice their religion in England than members of the Church of England. This is surprising because it has been the state church in the England since the time King Henry VIII needed a quickie divorce from his first wife. Go to a Church of England service today and you are likely to be almost on your own.
The reason why the Church has declined so much was revealed in a speech by the Rt Revd Philip North, the Bishop of Burnley. Speaking at the Christian conference New Wine, the Bishop said the reason was because Church personnel were too Middle Class and were reluctant to move to areas where they couldn’t find trendy coffee shops and artisanal bakeries.
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| The Bishop of Burnley. |
Yes, when Britain becomes a Muslim country later this century, the reason will literally be because most C of E priests wanted easy access to a nicely made Macchiato and a gluten-free Danish.
“I am astonished at the number of people Jesus is calling to plant new churches as long as they are in Zones 1 and 2 of the London transport system,” the Bishop said, referring to the high-rent areas of central London. “If you feel called to plant, we need you on the outer estates, we need you in our northern towns, we need you in areas where a majority of people come from other world faiths, we need you in those areas where the trendy coffee shops and artisanal bakers are hard to find…Rather than speaking good news to the poor, we are complicit in the abandonment of the poor.”
The bishop cited the case of a vacancy in Hartlepool, near Durham in the North East of England, which took more than two years to fill, while a vacancy in the central London parish of Paddington instantly attracted 122 expressions of interest.
“Clergy didn’t want to live in that kind of area,” the Bishop said of Hartlepool. “They didn’t want their children educated alongside the poor.”
The Church of England typically attracts the ineffectual sons — and now daughters — of the Middle Classes, so this pattern is only to be expected. Also, with many priests now being women, it is actually dangerous to send them to the poor and deprived working class areas where religious ministry is most needed.
That was clearly something they didn’t think about when they broke with centuries of tradition in 1994 to vote for the ordination of women priests, because, y’know, women are just as spiritual — if not more so — than men.”
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| BBC propaganda supporting the ordination of women. |
Let’s be real here. Would Christianity even have spread anywhere if many of its priests and missionaries had been women? In 2014 one in five full-time clergy were females and just under half of part-time clergy. While women can play important supporting roles in the Church, it is clear that the main proselytizing role has to be given to men.
But what about the kind of men being attracted to the Church? It is clear that many of them are the wrong kind of men, wimpy beta males, lacking the strength, courage, and endurance of past Christian heroes, and certainly not the kind of individuals who can win respect on tough working class estates, especially not when they have to push gay rights every sermon they make.
Bishop North is one of the few good ones in the Church, it seems. Earlier this year he was due to step up to a more important bishopric as Bishop of Sheffield, but was forced to decline the promotion following attacks on him over his long-running opposition to women priests.
