From Christian Century-
British media regularly report the latest surveys of religious faith
and activity in that country, and rare is the news that is not deeply
depressing. So rapid has been the process of secularization that it
hardly seems far-fetched to imagine a near future in which Christian
faith in the country would be confined to recent immigrants.
Particularly
hard hit is the Church of England, which in practice attracts only a
tiny proportion of the national population on any kind of regular basis.
Yet even among what seem to be the battered ruins of Anglican loyalty
are surprising signs of life and even vigor. (I will focus here on
England, as conditions in other parts of the British Isles differ in
many ways.)
The Church of England has long been divided between high and low church
factions, between Anglo-Catholic ritualists and evangelicals. During the
1960s, a new force appeared on the scene in the form of a charismatic
revival. Over the following decades, that charismatic impulse rose and
fell in influence, but it received new infusions of support from the
global church repeatedly. At different times, those overseas influences
derived from transatlantic revivals, both in the US and in Latin
America, but also from new immigrant populations from Africa and the
Caribbean. These new influences reshaped many urban parishes, some of
which became what an American would easily recognize as
evangelical-charismatic megachurches.
More here-
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/notes-global-church/decline-and-revival-church-england
Opinion – 23 November 2024
13 hours ago
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