Churchgoing

Churchgoing.

It's an obvious fact that churchgoing in UK is in decline.  We often meet people who say they believe in God, but don't go to church.  Their reasons vary, but it is sometimes because they have experienced some hurt or neglect, or in some cases abuse, in a church context in the past. By contrast, churchgoing is on the rise in some very unlikely places. In  China, for example, Christians have survived the worst that Communism could throw at them even in the days of Mao Tse-Tung and the Red Guards. Today Christianity and churchgoing both thrive in China despite continuing harassment and persecution.  Likewise in Russia: during the decades when the USSR tried to stamp out religion and closed the churches, Christianity survived and eventually thrived again.

I have been attending church all my life, and I believe that a properly functioning church community has something very special to offer.  I'm very fortunate to be part of an active church which, in addition to regular worship and mutual support, provides practical help to the neighbourhood - e.g. free debt and money advice, free toddlers group, support for the local food bank and so on. 

I've just read an article in the newspaper by the best-selling novelist Robert Harris, who was writing about novels (including his own) which depict  future disasters. He writes: "The most enduring of all dystopian novels, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four, appeared in 1949, and its vision of a surveillance society - telescreens, Big Brother, the Thought Police - in which objective truth has been eradicated ('2+2=5') made it a best seller all over again in 2018, following the election of Donald Trump.  But there was one big thing Orwell got wrong. His friend Evelyn Waugh put his finger on it in a letter to Orwell after receiving an advance copy. 'What makes your vision of the future spurious to me is the disappearance of the Church. Disregard all the supernatural implications if you like, but you must admit its unique character as a social and historical institution. I believe it is inextinguishable.' Waugh's prophecy came true in Poland in the 1980s where it was the Catholic Church that did much to undermine the communist monolith in eastern Europe. There are about 40,000 churches in England and Wales. It is likely that these structures - or their ruins - built mostly of stone and dating from an earlier epoch, will continue to stand long after modern buildings have collapsed. In my new novel - The Second Sleep - it is the churches that provide the local centres where survivors congregate - at first for shelter and security, and gradually for spiritual support and a theological explanation of the tragedy.' "  (Harris's novel is about civilisation collapsing into a dark age when cyber-attacks cause the internet to collapse - and along with it cashpoints, electronic tills, mobile phones, and therefore the ability to communicate and to go shopping collapses).

Churches are places where people of shared faith meet.  They might be a disparate bunch who would have little else to bring them together, but they come together nevertheless - young, old, rich, poor, healthy, sick and disabled -  a bigger social mix than any other organisation offers. By so doing, they are preserving something that society at large neglects at its peril.