See you in 40.

I'm taking a break from blogging for a bit, and will be back in action, God willing, in late April.

Thanks to Tim Chesterton for inspiration.

I've actually given up blogging for the last two Lents - and the last Advent as well - and found it amazingly beneficial. I not only stopped blogging myself, I also stopped reading other people's blogs. I found a wonderful sense of freedom in being able to do so. I had way more time for conversations with family and friends, and did some good reading as well.

I also found out some things about myself - one of them being that I have the classic blogger's symptom of finding it more and more difficult to read long chapters in books and follow sustained arguments over more than a few pages. As with a kid raised on Sesame Street, blogging and reading blogs is giving me a short attention span. I need periodic periods of abstinence to temper that effect.

If you're feeling with withdrawal symptoms then there are over 950 posts in my archive, and I defy anyone to get through all of those during Lent.

Alternatively, you could try the blog Philosphy and Life, which has lots of interesting pieces on it, for example:
We are becoming caught in a vicious spiral of complaint and counter-complaint in which pretty much everyone feels persecuted. This is dangerous for it leads to a society that feeds on itself in ever deepening feelings of resentment. But take a step back from the antagonism, and ask how this has come about? It's a product of the plural world in which we now live, and it is that pluralism which must be addressed – as opposed to just the complaints.

Or if you have only a 5 second attention span, I recommend Graphjam, which is a bit like Indexed but done with a computer.

I fear that giving up offering unsolicited advice for Lent is going to be harder than giving up blogging....

Have a good one.

Where 1 blogger leads, the Church of England follows

The Church of England is following me. Bet Rowan Williams wishes he could say that.


Hi, david keen (davidmkeen).

Church of England (c_of_e) is now following your updates on Twitter.

Check out Church of England's profile here: http://twitter.com/c_of_e
Best,
Twitter

BBC Poll: Only 1 in 3 catch the agnostibus

A new poll on the BBC site shows a 2:1 majority favouring religious values in public life, and the influence of religious values over our laws and culture. Full data here. 50% of those with 'no religion' agreed with the statement that 'our laws should respect and be influenced by religious values' (which is actually two statements rolled together....). So even though most folks aren't overtly religious, they value a role for faith in public life.

There was also a question on how fairly the media report religion, in which, surprisingly, the majority of Christians thought their religion was fairly reported. See my previous post!!

from the site: However, the BBC poll indicates that even at a time when baptisms, church weddings and attendance at Sunday services are declining, people are unwilling for secularism to displace religion altogether.

They may be dubious about specific religious beliefs, and unwilling to accept the teaching of religious organisations about how they should lead their lives, but the survey suggests they are not yet ready to cast God out of public life.

Ht Ekklesia, which has a longer comment piece on this. See also Robert Piggotts interpretation at the BBC.

It'll be interesting to see how the National Secular Society spin doctors rewrite the headline on this one. It must be a major blow to them that, after a fairly high media profile in recent times, most of us still don't buy their argument for banishing religion from public life (E.g. 'Religion should be a matter of private conscience, for the home and place of worship....religious involvement in public life...disadvantages those who have no religion').

Around the TV in 81 Faiths

Channel 4's 'Christianity, A History' and BBC2's 'Around the World in 80 Faiths' both wrapped up last week. I've caught more of the latter than the former, but both series left me frowning.

Christianity: A Good Kicking was an 'interesting' take on the history of the Christian faith, starting with a polemic against anti-Semitism, and ending with the 'science v faith' debate presented by Colin Blakemore, an Oxford neuroscientist who is convinced that science wins hands down. The final programme gave a semblance of even-handedness, but 2 of the 3 Christians interviewed were a young earth creationist and an atheist priest, so it was a bit like watching Manchester United play Lark Rise.

The life of Jesus was dismissed without any reference to the evidence or historical sources, and the debate between science and faith would have been much better serviced by an interview with a prominent Christian scientist like David Wilkinson or Sir John Houghton.

There were also various tweaks on the facts presented: the founding of the USA was presented as a triumph of science over religion, airbrushing out the fact that the Pilgrim Fathers, and most of the founders, were Christians and theists who just wanted to be free from a controlling church. The separation of church and state is based on a view of a different role for religion in civil life, not its complete absence. At the same time the shameful history of the church in persecuting those who didn't toe the dogmatic line is a historic fact, but opposition between science and faith was presented as pretty much the whole story of the last 500 years, and it isn't.

The programme concluded with the faith statement that science would ultimately explain everything, and religion would die out. I remember Marx saying something similar over 100 years ago.

Around the world in 80 faiths concluded in Europe, juxtaposing Christian persecution of Lapland pagans with Communist persecution of Latvian Catholics. It ended by contrasting the decline of Benedictine monasticism in the Italian Catholic heartland with the rise of a New Age community which treats all religions as equals. Peter Owen Jones thesis seemed to be that any inclusive religion/faith is a good thing, and an exclusive faith community is a bad thing.

The series' greatest strength was also its greatest weakness. Watching Jones throw himself into every religious ritual he came across probably gave us more insight into them than someone who stood on the outside and simply watched and analysed. But at the same time there seemed to be little discernment or critique beyond how it felt, or how inclusive it was. Jones spoke about 'the divine' a lot, but after 8 programmes we knew nothing more about 'the divine' than when we started. Whether there were 80 ways to God or just one, you wouldn't have been any the wiser.

Both programmes are, at time of writing, still available on Catchup/Iplayer respectively.

Blog Ugly - a Lent Challenge

Thanks to Mike from our church for capturing my 40th birthday in all it's glory. That's the last time I'm wearing that shirt.

Here's a challenge for fellow bloggers, just in time for Lent - post the worst picture you have of yourself on your blog. It is the season of humility and self-whatsit after all.

By the way the thing at the back is a giant '40' made out of photos of me at various stages, made with love, care and great secrecy by my Dearly Beloved. The annoying thing is that I'm younger in all of them. And yes, that's me with two bowls of pudding. I'd hidden the other 3.

Church of England 2001-7: Baptisms, Blessings and other stats

For the sake of completeness, here are the figures and changes for some of the other Church of England data released this week.

Figures are totals for 2007, with the percentage change (in brackets) since 2001.

Infant baptisms 88,400 (-17.3%)
Child baptisms* 40,300 (+5.2%)
Adult baptisms 10,200 (+25/9%)

Infant thanksgivings 4,700 (-9.6%)
Child thanksgivings* 1,700 (+6.3%)

Confimations 27,900 (-16.4%)

Marriages 54,600 (-5%)
Blessing of marriage 4,500 (-26.2%)

Funerals in church 96,500 (-7.3%)
Funeral in crematorium 98,700 (-20.3%)

Easter day/eve attendance 1,469,000 (-7.8%)
Christmas day/eve attendance 2,656,800 (+1.8%)

*i.e. ages 1-11.

Comments:
1. The process of change away from 'Christian Britian' continues: from 1900-1950, roughtly 65% of children born in this country were baptised, and 1/3 of those went on to be confirmed. That figure is not less than 20%, with 1/6 going on to be confirmed. Of course, the Church of England is not the only show in town, but it's generally smaller churches (Pentecostal, black-led churches) which have grown in this time, whilst larger ones have shrunk.

2. Marriages and funerals are becoming more secular. Though funerals (thankfully) aren't now a marketplace for venues in the way that marriages are, more are being taken by non-religious celebrants.

3. Marriages, Baptisms and Funerals are becoming a smaller part of the clergy workload, though with a reducing number of clergy, there's probably the same number per head as there was 10 or 20 years ago. This is a double-edged sword: on one level it means fewer pastoral contacts outside the church for church leaders, but on another it means there's more time to do proper preparation and follow-up for the people we do have contact with, or time freed up to be more pro-active.

Blogging Lent

I'll be posting a Lent Challenge on Ash Wednesday (correction: posted already), but I wondered what the season of abstinence, preparation and self-examination might look like for bloggers. In no particular order:
1. Don't blog at all.
2. Repost only articles where you've been proven wrong
3. Let your words be few: keep blogging to a maximum word count. That'll be Twitter then.
4. Blog something completely different at least once a week. So if you're in the habit of critiquing other people, post a 100% appreciation of someone you admire.
5. Don't criticise anyone except yourself.
6. If you have nothing really to say, say so, or even better, don't.
7. Just post pictures.
8. Find a spiritual classic to read during Lent, and blog one simple quote a day from it.
9. Don't do any Google searches, to limit the carbon impact of your internet use.
10. Use your blog to thank one person a day through Lent.
11. Give up doing lists of 10.

this is just off the top of my head, feel free to add your own in the comments.

I remember reading a while ago that, if you're thinking of giving something up for Lent, to try to identify something which has a hold of you, which has become 'compulsive'. Do you feel pulled towards it, or are you free to do without it? I must admit that blogging has become a bit compulsive for me of late, and I'm tempted (perhaps 'tempted' is the wrong word!) to go for no. 1, even though I'll find it very difficult.

Church of England Attendance Change 2001-7, by Diocese

Based on the latest 'provisional' figures from the Church of England for 2007, here are 2 tables on the change in attendance since 2001 in each Diocese.

The first is the average number of adults attending worship each week (so it includes midweek services). Dioceses showing an improvement on the equivalent 2001-6 measure are in blue.

London 12.4%
Southwark 6.1%
Carlisle 3.4%
Lincoln 2.8%
Hereford 2.8%
Manchester 2.3%
Chichester 0.8%
Gloucester 0.5%
Exeter 0.4%

Winchester -0.3%
Leicester -1.4%
Coventry -1.4%
Newcastle -1.6%
Wakefield -1.9%
Durham -2.1%
Canterbury -2.1%
St Albans -2.3%
Birmingham -2.4%
Bath & Wells -2.5%
Southwell -2.5%
Chelmsford -2.8%
Total C of E -3.7%
Ely -3.8%
York -4.5%
Rochester -4.9%

Bradford -6.6%
Oxford -7.1%
Guildford -7.5%
Blackburn -7.9%
Sodor & Man -8.3%
Lichfield -8.5%
Peterborough -8.6%
Salisbury** -9.0%
Chester -9.0%
Derby -9.9%

Norwich -10.0%
Sheffield -10.6%
Portsmouth -10.9%
Ripon & Leeds -11.7%
St Edmundsbury & Ipswich -12.1%
Liverpool -12.6%
Truro -13.1%
Worcester -13.7%
Bristol -14.9%

Mt original 2001-6 list, with some analysis and comment, is here. There are more Dioceses registering growth since the turn of the millenium, but this is still a minority figure, and some of the figures seem to have bounced up and down a bit.

The second list is the change in the average number of children attending each week (i.e Sunday plus midweek services), again for the period 2001-7.

Ely 18.2%
Carlisle 17.9%
Southwark 14.9%
London 9.3%
Birmingham 8.3%
Winchester 7.7%
Coventry 7.1%
Gloucester 5.3%

Newcastle 4.5%
St Albans 3.7%
Southwell 3.4%
Norwich 3.3%
Worcester 3.3%

Bradford 0.0%
Guildford 0.0%

Chichester -2.3%
Bristol -2.8%
Lincoln -4.0%
Bath & Wells -4.2%
Oxford -4.2%
Canterbury -4.3%
Total C of E -4.3%

Hereford -5.3%
York -5.3%
Manchester -5.6%
Truro -5.9%
Sheffield -7.1%
Blackburn -7.4%
Exeter -7.9%
Salisbury** -8.8%
Lichfield -9.5%
Chester -9.6%

Chelmsford -11.2%
Rochester -12.8%
Wakefield -13.5%
St Edmundsbury & Ipswich -14.7%
Derby -15.2%
Sodor & Man -16.7%
Leicester -19.4%
Portsmouth -19.4%
Peterborough -19.6%
Ripon & Leeds -22.2%
Liverpool -22.4%
Durham -22.9%

However (there's always a 'however') these figures are off a smaller base, so any significant change can make a bigger difference to the percentages. The Ely increase equates to an extra 600 children. The same goes for the decreases.

For example, if a parish church has the local church school in for a service at the end of the school week (which happens in Yeovil), and decided to count those 300 children as 'worshippers' for the first time in 2007, then that would shunt the Diocesan total up by 300, meaning a 5-10% rise in the total for an average Diocese. The tempatation to report success might mean that some of these figures are overstated. Or it might not!

As I said last year, both of these tables are encouraging compared to the previous decade, which only saw London Diocese registering any significant growth. But they only count Anglican church attendance, which has its own limitations (do cell groups count? Or fresh expressions?). Whether this is turning the corner, or just a slightly shallower nosedive, remains to be seen.

If there's any interest in this post, then I may try to put together a table for Sunday attendance, which will require a bit more work. However, I'm seriously thinking about giving up blogging (or at least, conventional blogging) for Lent, so it may not appear until late April!!

Finally, don't ask me why Salisbury has a ** - this is in the original figures but not explained, so I'm leaving it in for textual authenticity.