From The Economist-ON THE third Sunday of Advent the worshippers at St Matthew’s, Brixton, were bracing themselves for the annual Christmas influx of unbelievers. “Help us persuade a few of them”, they prayed, “to keep coming.”
Like many London churches, St Matthew’s is enjoying a slight revival. Over the past decade its weekly congregation has doubled—to 65 on this Advent Sunday. That is chiefly because of an influx of young middle-class families, driven to one of London’s poorer parishes by high house prices and to church in the hope of winning coveted places at the local Church of England primary school. “I recognise their self-interest,” says the church’s vicar, the Rev Stephen Sichel, wearily.
Yet secularism has not spared St Matthew’s. The church is a south London landmark, a vast neo-classical monument with room for 1,800 worshippers, built in 1822 to commemorate the victory at Waterloo. Since the mid-1970s, however, when plunging congregations made it unaffordable, the church has operated from a small portion of the building. Some of the rest was leased out as a nightclub, “Mass”, which became well-known for hosting bondage parties. “The walls aren’t insulated so there was a lot of noise,” recalls one parishioner. Now the nightclub has closed; some of the building is being turned into a pub.
More here-
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21568723-age-old-ties-between-church-and-state-are-gradually-coming-asunder-while-shepherds-watched
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