Nones outnumber Christians -cause for concern?

Recent research told us of an ...

 acceleration in the numbers of people not only not practising their faith on a regular basis, but not even ticking the box   People of no religion outnumber Christians in England and Wales – study | World news | The Guardian:

This has been a couple or more generations coming but it has hit a significant-felling  point. This represents a continuing decline in the reality of the notion that 'cultural Christian' is a good thing. The article points out that there will need to be some further sociological reflection on what is actually happening. However, I will hazard a guess that basically people who used to tick the "CofE" box (or other poility equivalents) are increasingly likely to take stock of themselves as not going to church, not really believing much of what seems to be associated with church involvement and perhaps not even liking or respecting what they do understand about Christian faith. And then they are being honest and saying "Actually, I'm not. And so what?"


So this doesn't represent, in my view, a decrease in Christian faith so much as an increase in the correspondence between labels and reality on the ground. What is significant is what it probably says about identity markers in the wider population and in turn what that implied for the mission of God and the churches in Britain.

It's a further marked movement away from Christendom and so a further indicator of our need to get our heads out of 'come to us' mode and to recognise that 'fringe attraction' is increasingly a busted flush.


Another area that I am interested to see more information emerge on is whether there are particular reasons for this acceleration. Perhaps, I would hypothesise, it is about the mismatch between mores between the Churches and wider society where the churches are looking less compassionate and, well Christ-like, than many churches. Not only that but we aren't looking very 'spiritual' with the result that  people who develop a 'spiritual' outlook tend to look to Buddhism, Daoism etc. though without identifying with them.

All of which is to say that fairly different means and approaches to outreach are needed. As if we didn't already know this: but perhaps this will help to drive the point home.