Assess The Reasons For The Decline In Church Attendance
Using material from Item A and elsewhere, asses the view that, while the Church of England is declining, other religions and spiritual movements are flourishing.
One reason for the decline in Church attendance is that religion is just simply “changing” and isn’t actually declining but changing into a more “privatised form”. This means fewer people are going to church to practice their religion and are staying at home to practice or just feel like they have no need to go to church to practice. This explains the predicted number of attendance to fall to “87,800” in 2050.
Another reason for the decline is that of the postmodern view, they argue that we are now becoming a more individualistic society. This suggests that we now have a pick’n’mix society, where we have the choice of what religion we want to take part in and that we aren’t forced into a religion and what to believe in. This means that the numbers in the more conventional religions like Christianity are falling. Whilst the numbers in things like spiritual movements are seeing a rise as more people are feeling free to deluge into these and experience what they have to offer. Finally showing that the Church is declining whereas other religions are increasing. …show more content…
This angers many of the followers as it may not be what they believe, and so they break away from the church to form a schism. Many of these have fundamentalist beliefs; they take what their holy book says literally. This then attracts new people to their new religion. This is evident in war ridden countries, where a group may focus on a section of the holy book and take it very literal. This then gives hope to many of the follows. This therefore means that the Church numbers ae in declining whereas other religious numbers are
One reason for the decline in Church attendance is that religion is just simply “changing” and isn’t actually declining but changing into a more “privatised form”. This means fewer people are going to church to practice their religion and are staying at home to practice or just feel like they have no need to go to church to practice. This explains the predicted number of attendance to fall to “87,800” in 2050.
Another reason for the decline is that of the postmodern view, they argue that we are now becoming a more individualistic society. This suggests that we now have a pick’n’mix society, where we have the choice of what religion we want to take part in and that we aren’t forced into a religion and what to believe in. This means that the numbers in the more conventional religions like Christianity are falling. Whilst the numbers in things like spiritual movements are seeing a rise as more people are feeling free to deluge into these and experience what they have to offer. Finally showing that the Church is declining whereas other religions are increasing. …show more content…
This angers many of the followers as it may not be what they believe, and so they break away from the church to form a schism. Many of these have fundamentalist beliefs; they take what their holy book says literally. This then attracts new people to their new religion. This is evident in war ridden countries, where a group may focus on a section of the holy book and take it very literal. This then gives hope to many of the follows. This therefore means that the Church numbers ae in declining whereas other religious numbers are